Portrait, Chapter 1

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Portrait
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by Leslie Moore

Chapter One

I was working in my office when Matt called. I smiled thinking about our morning as I said hello.

He didn’t sound good when he greeted me. He came right to the point. “Hey, babe. Bad news. I’m broke again.” His voice sounded pained.

I frowned. Mathew was a challenge, but he was my challenge. I tried to stay calm. He needed to hear calm. “Tell me.”

“Well. Man, this sucks.” He paused and I could hear him getting control. “I got a call from the bank this morning and went over. I talked to John. You’ve met him. He oversees the family accounts. He told me I’m way overdrawn and that mother refused to balance me up.”

“Uh-huh. Did you talk to your mother?”

“I called and her secretary told me she’d see me today for a late lunch. I have to go. Will you come with me?”

I cursed to myself. Lunch with Matt’s mom meant a whole afternoon lost. But the end, I’d have indigestion and have to work late into the night to get a project ready for my customer. I sighed inwardly. “Sure. I’ll have to come home and change. I don’t want to wear jeans.”

“Great! I’m going to get a shower now. The good news is I’ve been working this morning.”

“Good. I can’t wait to see what you’re working on.”

“It’s just another portrait of you.”

“You are too sweet. Well, I’ll stop in the studio before I come upstairs.”

“Do that. Should I wait to shower with you?”

“No. Go ahead. It’ll take me an hour to clean up and then I want to walk home. It’s too nice a day.”

“Okay. See you in a while. Of course, she's sending the car for us around two.”

It took me about sixty minutes to rough in the layout for the ad. After I worked on it tonight, I’d see that it got out tomorrow. I want to keep my customer happy.

When I was done, I capped all the inks and cleaned the pens. I let the dog out and made sure her water bowl was full. I locked up and walked the six blocks to Matt’s condo. I pressed the elevator button for the third floor so I could stop off at his studio.

In the middle of the big room near a wall of northern exposure windows sat his large easel. He was half done the portrait. Mathew had become obsessed with my face and I didn’t want to deny him that pleasure. After all, it had been a year since he’d paid for my surgery and we both knew that I wouldn’t be half as pretty without the work.

Others liked his work too. This year, he’d sold twelve pieces. Three were portraits he’d painted of me. He painted whatever interested him. The gallery in Manhattan that represented him always wanted anything he did. All his work was selling and for good money, too.

I stood and studied the painting for a few minutes. I remembered when he’d set up the appointments and paid for my operation in advance. He chose the most expensive team to do the work. My old face was hidden deep in that portrait. But, a lot had changed.

My Adam’s apple was gone. My jawline was reduced and completely reshaped. Naturally, the brow lift changed my forehead and eyes. And my nose looked more like my sister’s now. I loved my new cheekbones, too. Between my weight loss, the estrogen, and the surgery no-one would ever guess that I had been born male. Mathew had insisted on perfection and I loved looking perfect for him.

I sighed. Who would have ever thought I would be so lucky in love? We’d met in a bar eighteen months ago. He was so drunk he needed to be carried out before the bouncers called the police. Matt was an angry drunk and that night was a bad one. He was about to get in a fight with the manager. I stepped in-between them. I didn’t know him but I sensed a good person under the alcoholic haze that was controlling his mood.

I persuaded the staff to help me get him into a taxi. I took my rescue home with me that night. I made sure he was still breathing when I left him on my couch and brought the dog in my bedroom. Then I carefully locked my bedroom door. In the morning, he was still out when I got up to make my breakfast and brew my tea.

I heard a sorrowful voice call out to me. “Miss, do you have any coffee?”

“I do. How do you like it?”

“Black with two sugars, thanks.”

He was back to sleep by the time it finished brewing. I left the coffee in the French press with the sugar packets by the side of the cup. I wrote a note saying my workspace was on the ground floor and to stop and say goodbye as he was leaving.

When he knocked on my door jam to get my attention, he looked like the typical drunk trying to clear his head.

“Thank you. The coffee was good. I appreciate you keeping me out of jail last night. The sober part of my brain knew I was behaving poorly, but the drunk part was winning.”

I smiled. I always felt sorry for homeless cats and dogs. He was pretty sorrowful looking. “Do you need a couple bucks for the bus?”

“Oh, yeah. No. I’ve got a ride home. I meant to ask you. Where am I?”

“You’re in Brooklyn. You were in Uncle Sally’s Bar last night.”

“Yeah, Right. I knew where I was. But, why were you there?”

“I’m trans. It’s a safe place to drink with friends.”

He looked me over for a long minute. Then he held out his hand. “I’m Mathew.”

I shook his hand. His grip was surprisingly steady for a drunk. “Caroline.”

“Well, Caroline. Thank you for the rescue and the use of your couch. I will find a way to show my appreciation. Do you have a business card with your address?”

I handed him my card and watched as he studied it.

He smiled and left. He stood outside for a while. When I looked up the next time he was gone.

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Comments

thanks

This is the first story I posted all on my own. Thanks to everyone for all your help in getting this up there.

It's Centered in My Browsers

Image looks great (& centered) in both Firefox on my PC and Opera on my Kindle.

Good start. I'm looking forward to this new story from you.

Centered

If you open up in edit form you'll see what I did. The center command is the C the fourth one into the row of small HTML shortcuts right above the text box. You highlight the image (including the HTML) and hit the capital C and it will place the centering command around the image. I also used the break command - the cap BR between the <> to space it from the top line and from the story. I'll make a title page in similar fashion but include your name as the author below it once you post a second chapter.

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Love the premise

Well Leslie, if that portrait is you, I'd like to say OMG! If not, I'm still impressed with your story. Unique and loving. Will follow this one for sure.

Sincerely,

Santacruzman

If I looked like that...

Hardly, maybe in my dreams... Thank you for the nice note.

an interesting start

look forward to seeing where this goes.

DogSig.png

Liked her back history right

Liked her back history right up to her comments about Mathew, when she said he was an 'angry drunk'.
I certainly hope that she never gets assaulted by him when he is in a drunken state. I dealt with way too many 'angry drunks' and none of them were ever fun to have to deal with. Too many times others would could/would get hurt because of them.
Don't want to read that she needed to go to a hospital because of Mathew's actions upon her.

You Are Right

I agree. This would not be a fun story to write if Mathew displayed that sort of anger and hurt anyone. I did write that he was an angry drunk and was ready to start a fight with the manager. Our Caroline put herself in the middle which I wouldn't recommend to anyone but it makes a nice literary license height of the action. I did have her locking her bedroom door that night.

I can assure you I don't write abusive tales. I believe in love healing all. This is a story about love and respect.

When I wrote Wildcats a while back, it was very difficult to write certain chapters because they dealt with topics I'm not comfortable with. It was important to include some drama and I postponed writing it for a long while. But, all stories need conflict and resolution.

I just read Janice' comment...

...and can't wait to read about very different kinds of hospital visits because of him!

I like the hint of the establishment being a "friendly" place for unique individuals. The morning-after-introduction was just perfect, but makes me wonder about why HE was there.

This looks to be another of Leslie's gems for us.

Hugs,
Stacy

tee hee

Wonder about why HE was there? Obviously! Or is that clever foreshadowing? An accidental opening door to a friendly place? Owns the place? Searching for love in all the wrong places? Who knows?

I guess you'll just have to tune in for Chapter Two

Hard to reconcile

you being new to posting. When you are an accomplished author, in my book, after wildcats.

Hugs, Cheryl

Thank You

You are too kind! GOOD NEWS. Wildcats is in the hands of DopplerPress and should be on Amazon & Kindle soon. I spent the Summer rewriting a better version of the Wildcats that was published here on BigCloset. I've got a new Wildcat self-contained short story ready, to appear here when the new version is heralded.

In the meantime, I've had to learn all sorts of skills here. I was very lucky because Dawn Natell was totally responsible for everything you saw with Wildcats. She did the graphics and uploaded my story. She helped me with Nanites, too.

I hope she feels better soon.

Intriguing Start...

Looking forward to finding out where it goes.

Eric

me, too

This is one of those unplanned, wading in over my head stories. I am hoping that my characters tell me a story or two in my head and I'll write it down. Sometimes it works. But we all know that doesn't always happen.

Always open to suggestions,

Leslie

Now everyone new to posting

Will come to you for help.
I was once told our writing style was like working without a net, we start writing and somehow a chapter appears, no chance for correction of what happened 10 chapters ago. They on the other hand, write a 100,000 word story with plenty of time to make corrections before posting. But don't you love the thrill when 1500 words suddenly appear?

You have left us with all sorts of questions. Wonderful !

Karen