Prompt: The Painter’s Honeymoon

The Painter's Honeymoon, Lord Frederic Leighton, ~1864 

Marcella leaned against Frederic’s arm, drawing in the scent of his warm breath as he rested his temple against hers. She casually curled her fingers against his left hand, while he painted with his right. She closed her eyes, lest she influence his art too much.

It was one thing to lend him a little fae strength, another altogether to put images into his mind, or directly through his hand onto the paper. For one thing, she would be discovered by those she hoped to avoid. For another, it would age him too quickly. She wanted a long and happy life with Frederic, She wanted his life to be long and happy.

She first saw him in Montmartre, in the shadow of the towering white Sacré-Coeur. While she could not enter that sacred space, she loved its noble architecture…and the artists who gathered below it. Marcella was the model for hundreds of artists through the ages, their lover, their muse.  Drawn by his curly dark hair and fair face, she was entranced by the talent evident in his sketches. She convinced him to take her to his studio to model. And to make love once the late afternoon sun had faded.

They were inseparable from that first day. She needed no glamor to hide her youth – it was only as the years passed that she must appear to age at least a little. But she felt the passage of time all the more keenly for having loved and lost so many times before. Frederic never questioned her tears when they walked through the carefully tended Cimetiere de Montmartre. His sensitive soul was touched by the final rest of so many great spirits. He would never know how many of them she had watched grow up, grow old, grow feeble, and die.

He first proposed the second Sunday that they lay in bed, feeding each other croissants, grapes and figs. She laughed and told him to be careful – the next time he proposed, she would believe he meant it. He worked three months to earn enough to buy her a slender band of gold with a small garnet, her favorite jewel. He slid it on her finger after they made love at midnight, hidden in a small cove of the Tuileries. She cried tears that glistened blue in the moonlight and whispered, “Oui, oui, oui” as they made love again.

She whispered it again now, and his fingers tightened around her. She felt his smile against her cheek. “Let me finish, Cherie. The light is almost gone,” he murmured. “Oui, oui, oui,” she said with a smile, and he laughed the deep throaty laugh that made her pulse quicken. He laid down the brush beside his canvas and pulled her tighter against him, lifting her mouth to his. “Oui, oui, oui,” he replied. And then they needed no words, no magic at all.

Music	Spotify trance mix
Time writing	45 minutes, interrupted
February word count	9,846