*

"Lovely Angee! Try that turn again. You know, the one where Shiva brings his leg up in traditional form." Angee threw her arms askew, cocked her right leg, arched her back gracefully, then snapped out of the pose. She giggled mischievously, turned around and pointed her posterior toward Mel Thusela in a most provocative way.

Mel's painting showed the Hindu god Shiva as a woman creating and destroying the universe. His forte was holographic painting which he himself had invented in the early years of the twenty first century. A thin film of tiny lenses bedded into a clear poly urethane membrane enabled a true sterioptic effect. Mel Thusela could actually make his painting appear to move by manipulating the paint layers below these lenses so that Shiva would dance throughout all eternity constantly recreating the universe then destroying it with a simple cock of the leg and flick of the wrist.

"Angee, you naughty avocado, why do you tease an old man so?" Mel looked at Angee from beneath his long white eye brows. His ancient head was perfectly smooth on top, but long silky strands of white hair flowed down to his shoulders from around the sides and back of his ancient crown. He was thin and bony, but strong as an ox.

"Because you love it , Mel, I know it and you know it." Angee pulled her robe closed with a crisp movement like the closing of a door. Angee had been modeling for Mel for some years, and a deep friendship existed between artist and model that was like but unlike husband and wife. It consisted of all the good things of fantasy without all the bad things of real life. If bouncing on a cloud and finding it perfectly resilient yet supportive is your idea of a relationship, this one between artist and model was like that.

"But I am an old man no longer capable of any action outside of merely looking and painting these silly paintings of mine."

"They are not silly, Mel, and don't you say they are , they are our life's work."

"Ah, Angee, you know how to steal an old man's heart."

"Let's not start that old man thing again. You know I've warned you about that." Angee turned and bent over to pick up the tie of her robe. Mel could see the shadow of her sex through the shear silk.

"I wish I could do that."

"What is that, Mel?"

"Make eroticism as delicious and innocent as you can."

"You can."

Angee parted her robe and revealed her naked body underneath. Mel's eye danced over her radiant flesh offered to him with out reserve. Her body was athletic. To Mel a dimple a crease even a slight discoloration was unbearably sensuous. He followed the curve of her stomach to the roundness of her breasts to the tiny crease under her armpit that mimicked her sex. But these shapes were not new to Mel. By now, after so many years of her posing, their relationship had gone much deeper than a fold of skin.

He blushed and smiled sweetly at his lovely model. Secretly he was trying to hold back sudden tears. He wished he was young again and as desirous of her attentions as she seemed to be of his, but those days were long ago. Now there was only art. "How many times I have tried and failed." he said with resignation, "Erotic art has always been superficial in my hands."

Angee pulled together her robe like the closing of a holy shrine, "Tu ta loo Mel! I will see you again next thursday, Same time."

"Same time, my love." Mel said with a slight air of resignation, Why did things, portents, suggestions, and might-have-beens, always hang in the air whenever she left, he wondered.

Angee strode, like a queen - tall and proud, out of Mel's painting studio to dress in the outer room. Inside his spacious north-lit studio, He busied himself with his pallet and brushes. Mel Thusela was ninety two years old. He had lived two more years than he had expected. Over the next ten years he would paint Angee over and over again. At one hundred and twelve he was beginning to wonder if he would ever die. Indeed his longevity was unexpected not only to those around him but by himself as well. He was in good health and every bit as vital as his beautiful model. Every time his brush struck canvas, the resulting image was timeless. Angee posed for Mel every thursday of every year, without ever canceling, and she never came late. Her body was strong, resilient. It was like that of a dancer.

On every occasion, after she left the studio, Mel wondered weather he should have asked her to stay for breakfast. He could have offered her a bowl of oatmeal, or maybe just a flower. Perhaps next week, he would ask her to stay for dinner. But then what would he say? What would he do? Was it too early, or too late, to start a deeper relationship?

"She is such a strange being!" he said aloud to himself. After all, she is so much older than I am, some people even call her Methuselanna.