It was the late in the summer of 19 when I first became acquainted with Steven part3
by Porn Review Blogher.” He took a deep breath. “It seemed an outrage, and yet I couldn’t accuse
Anna of doing anything wrong when all she had meant to do was provide me with a
monument to the beauty I worshipped. I loved her dearly. She shone.”
“And I couldn’t fault Pandolf’s work,” Steven said. “All art aside, it is a
magnificent piece. It truly captures the essence of Anna’s beauty and I felt
grateful in that regard. He accomplished a feat I could never in a thousand
lifetimes have managed. Pandolf drew out the very essence of my love for Anna
and immortalized the feeling on canvas. But then, the demons rose up within me.”
Steven sat down, staring again at the portrait. I went to the small bar and
poured myself a drink.
“One night, months after, I made love to Anna and in the very moment of ecstasy,
a realization struck me. There, in her eyes, as a giddy laugh passed over her
lips, I found the instant of beauty that is there, frozen into that infernal
painting. I left our bed almost as quickly as it is conceivably possible to
abandon a woman in the throes of love, and I rushed down here and gazed into the
eyes of the painting and I knew I was right. In the strokes of his brush,
Pandolf had broken my heart. Anna had shown him the ecstasy of her soul.”
Steven seethed with living rage and I looked again at the painting, almost
embarrassed to be privy to such an intimate view of the beautiful Anna. I knew
he spoke the truth, for while at first glance the piece seemed simply beautiful,
a glimmer of the delight I had, myself, witnessed in the climactic expressions of
lovely young women glowed in the face of the portrait’s subject. I shuddered to
imagine what Steven had felt, an outpouring of furious emotion that still burned
in him.
“I pulled the curtain closed and ran from the study,” Steven said. “Anna had
followed after me, curious to see where I had dashed off to, but I managed to
meet her in the hallway. Grabbing her, I kissed my wife with more passion than I
ever had before in all our years together. In the first moment, when I looked
into the glimmering black pupils of the painting, I had felt the anger and pain
that comes from the first blow of a poisoned dagger. Her lips seemed to mock me,
almost pursed in a hungry kiss. I wanted to tear the painting down from the wall
and destroy the canvas thread by thread. But just there, beneath the smooth skin
of her throat, I could almost feel the eager pulse of her heart. Her breasts, so
soft and warm, pressed against my chest. Her arms . . .” Steven stopped. I
looked away.
“I loved Anna more than I ever had. I couldn’t care if she had betrayed me
because it seemed inconsequential compared to the pain I would feel if I lost
her. I loved her madly, with every fiber of my being, for the rest of her life.”
Steven stood and approached the painting. “And I was right. The pain of losing
her was worst of all.”
I sat dumbfounded as I looked at the painting of Anna by Pandolf, and for the
first time, truly marvelled at the passion that could be contained within a
single square of canvas, covered over by globs of oily pigment. Steven sobbed
softly. I rose and put an arm around him, feeling the magnificent adoration for
this work of art he expressed with each convulsed breath. And with a glance, I
loved her, too.
“It was years before I showed anyone else the painting. He was an old friend and
a great admirer of Pandolf’s. He told me that this piece marked the transition
for the painter. In this painting, he said, Pandolf spoke a universal truth,
taking that final step beyond the personal truths that characterized his earlier
work. That Pandolf often spoke of a great piece he had sold and forever
regretted giving up. That my Anna’s was the one.”
I nodded. I had seen the face of beauty before. The painting held a
recognition.
“Anna told me on that first night that the painter had tried to refuse to give
the painting to her. She told him they had a contract and that her husband was a
lawyer and that if he didn’t give her the painting, there would be hell to pay.
Then she gave him two hundred extra because she felt sorry.”
“Amazing,” I said.
“She loved me,” he said. “You can see it in her eyes.”