It was quiet in the room. I was still facing away from her, though I'd forgotten to make it look like I was "engaged" in examining any other art in the room.
"I'm sorry, Sam," said Hannah, softly.
I was still too rattled to examine her apology. I didn't even know what it was for.
"She wasn't supposed to show it to you," Hannah continued.
I forced myself to say something.
"It's okay."
"I probably shouldn't say this, but in a way I'm glad she did," said Hannah.
That got my attention. I turned around before I could stop myself.
"Why?"
She wasn't looking at me. She was blushing, but her eyes were darting around.
"I shouldn't have said anything. Forget it."
"Forget what?" I was confused.
Finally she brought her eyes to me. To my horror they dropped and fixed on the lump in my pants. I was busted, plain and simple. I couldn't help it. Both hands came to cover my shame again.
"I'm sorry," said Hannah again. Her cheeks flamed even brighter.
This didn't make sense. If anything I was the one who should be sorry. I'd been unable to view her portrait without having inappropriate thoughts. Unwelcome thoughts. I was supposed to be Hannah's friend, not some guy who wanted to mount her silky body and bang the living shit out of her. I had betrayed her trust.
Maybe that was what she was sorry for ... the loss of trust between us.
"I couldn't help it," I rasped. "It just happened. I mean the drawing was so ... lifelike."
She looked surprised.
"I'm not angry, Sam," she said. "I just didn't expect you to respond that way."
"I know. I'm supposed to be your friend," I groaned.
"You are my friend," she said.
"You know what I mean. I shouldn't have ... reacted."
She tilted her head, examining me.
"Sam, for some time, now, I thought you might be in the closet," she said.
I froze for a few seconds, trying to make any kind of sense of that.
"What?" I gasped.
"I'm sorry!" she moaned. "It's just that you almost never ask a woman out. You haven't formed any long-term relationships with women since Desmond died. I guess I thought you'd been trying to look normal when he was still here, and when we lost him you stopped doing that. I shouldn't have made assumptions. I just thought ..."
"I am not gay!" I yipped.
"I can see that now," she said. "I'm sorry for staring. I was just relieved that you reacted ... um ... normally?"
"You stared?" I looked down to see both hands securely covering my groin. I jerked them away reflexively, only to reveal there was still a bulge there. My hands went back but I pulled them up again. I didn't know what to do. I turned sideways and suddenly felt foolish.
"Sorry," she said, shrugging. "I'm a woman. What can I say?"
"I think that's supposed to be my line," I said. I blinked. "I mean I'm a man. Not that I'm trying to excuse my ... uh ... behavior."
"You don't need to excuse your behavior," she said, softly. "I know what that drawing looks like. I don't understand why, but my daughter obviously wanted to make me look like a trollop. I know what most men would think if they saw it."
"Funny story," I said, as relief rushed over me and made me almost giddy. "She signed it."
"What?" Hannah looked confused.
"She signed the portrait," I said.
"Okay." She still didn't get it.
I went to the easel and pulled the sheet off of it. It was instinctive because one needed to see the whole thing before I pointed to the name in the lower right hand corner.
"Hooker," I said.
Her cheeks had lost their glow, but it came right back.
"Oh my," she sighed. "I didn't think of that at all."
"Neither did she," I said. "But that's good. She's still innocent enough not to draw the inference."
Hannah put her hand up and rested it on the edge of the frame on the easel.
"This does not suggest innocence on the part of the artist," said the model, calmly.
"She's a teenager," I said. "Her bloodstream is chock full of hormones. I think she drew you as she wanted to see you."
"I don't want you to think I'm uncomfortable talking about this," said Hannah, taking the sheet from me and re-covering her portrait, "but a lot has happened and I'm not quite ready to confront the fact that my daughter sees me as a woman who wants ... needs ... to get laid. I mean that's what I see when I look at that. Is that what you saw, too?"
That relief I mentioned, when I realized she wasn't angry with me (and no longer assumed I was gay), combined with the relative ease of our conversation in the last few minutes, gave me the confidence to answer her question honestly.
"Actually, it looked more to me like you'd just been laid ... and happily so."
"I should be so lucky," said Hannah, adopting a snarky smile. She held up a hand to keep me from commenting. "Enough of this. Let's go get supper on the table. We can talk about this later." She frowned. "If we need to, I mean. This has all been a bit ... much ... for me, and I suspect you feel that way, too."
"What you said," I quipped.
"I'll try to keep Heidi off your back," said Hannah.
I almost groaned as unwanted images flitted through my mind of me on my back, with one of the Hooker women on top of me, followed by both of the Hooker women on their backs, with me ... well ... you know.
Yes, the djinn was definitely out of the bottle.
And he was swirling all around the Hooker house, making changes in the world.
Just to recap, and set the scene for things to come, here's the assessment of the changes that had taken place in my relationship with my best friend's widow and daughter.
The way things had been was me, hanging around, being helpful after cruel fate took Desmond away from his family. There had already been a friendship, and it simply deepened. My relationship with Hannah had been platonic. To Heidi I was a buddy, confidante , and source of information from a trustworthy male. That had been the status quo for the last five or so years.
Then, suddenly, within a week, I had become a man who lusted after Hannah, who didn't seem to mind that I lusted after her. Not that there was any invitation there for anything more than the deeply satisfying platonic relationship we had been enjoying, but it was suddenly okay that I got an erection for her. Or her portrait, as it were. Not only that, but my innocent angel of a "niece" had the capacity to draw her mother in full triple X mode and wanted to do the same with me! Not that I thought she'd assume I'd have a boner while she was drawing me. I hadn't crossed that line, yet. But I got the feeling that, were I to accede to her request, and become her model, and should an erection ensue, her reaction wouldn't be as innocent as I'd always perceived her to be.
Basically, both women had suddenly become sexual beings in my mind, and it was obvious I was perverted enough to enjoy that fact.
It was a rather big change to what I had become both used to and comfortable with.
Of course I knew Heidi was growing up ... would grow up ... would become a fully sexual being. I just didn't dwell on that, or picture it in my mind. In fact I think I avoided thinking about that. The idea of some boy on top of her made my fists clench, so I blocked that kind of thing out.
Now, however, I couldn't block it out anymore. The way in which she'd rendered her mother's face made it crystal clear that she was fully cognizant of female sexuality. Only the fact she wasn't allowed to date yet gave me any confidence that she wasn't ... experienced ... in the ways of love already.
That leads us back to Hannah, who didn't need to be innocent. I'd often thought, over the years, that she was wasting herself. She had a lot to offer a man. But I also understood the concept of not being interested in seeking a new mate. It wasn't exactly the same for me, but I felt like it was close. I had yet to meet a woman who made me feel that if I didn't snare her I'd be sorry for the rest of my life. I had even tried a couple of internet dating sites, but the results had been ridiculously unsatisfying. Hannah didn't know about that. I'd been too embarrassed to mention it. It wasn't that I'd given up looking, but the whole process seemed like it was doomed to failure from the beginning and it was a lot of work to try when I just didn't expect anything to happen. In a way, it's how I feel about fishing. I don't mind going out and enjoying the day, being in nature, but I don't actually expect to catch any fish. I'm just not good at that like other fishermen are.
The thing I kept thinking about was how relieved Hannah was that I wasn't gay. What did that mean? I knew how she felt about finding a "replacement" for Desmond, but what did that have to do with my dating life? Why did she care whether I was gay or not? The only reason I could think of was that she was interested in me, but that was ludicrous. We'd seen each other regularly for years and she hadn't shown a single indication of interest in me as anything other than a friend. In fact, to find out she wasn't disappointed or offended when I horned out looking at her portrait pretty much astonished me.
Things were a little confused and I didn't want to read things in error. So basically I just closed the book and did something other than reading for a while.
Heidi, of course, wasn't going to give up on trying to get me to pose for her. She needed a male model, for one thing , and I had to admit I was the logical choice. It was the naked-with-an-erection thing that was bothering me. I knew that if I did this, I'd get an erection.
So, to keep the peace between mother and daughter, I decided to negotiate. I did so at supper that night. I probably shouldn't have, because my mind was still whirling. But I did. It went like this:
"So, is there any law that says this male model you need for your other figure study has to be completely nude?"
"Not law," said Heidi. "If the body is covered by clothes, though, it's not really a figure study. The point of a figure study is to exhibit anatomy and display how well the artist renders that."
"What if the model was wearing shorts?" I asked.
"You mean you'll do it if you can wear shorts?"
"Heidi!" warned Hannah.
I was trying to keep the peace so I raised a hand to stop Hannah.
"I guess we could try that," I said.
Harper was happy.
She was so happy, in fact, that it should have made me wonder about that. I mean what was the big deal? I was going to sit there wearing shorts and she was going to draw me or paint me or whatever. It was just a step towards getting her portfolio in order, right?
So why was she practically overjoyed about my offer?
Except I didn't think about that then.
Which is how I ended up on a slippery slope that would change things even more.
Sort of like how Mt. Vesuvius changed the landscape 'a little' back in A.D. 79.