underwear is just like bathing suits...

 

                                                                       

 

            Inside Fallyn’s room Vanessa is posing in her underwear. Her right leg is arched in a right angle. Her nervous smile looks like two pieces of ply-wood slapped over a window during hurricane season in the Western Keys. She is wearing an unblemished very white bra that unfastens from the front and frilly panties spooled out of silk. Fallyn continues to sketch her movements with chalk. Laura, Fallyn’s roommate, juts in and smiles.

 

            “I’m making art.” Fallyn says to Laura, tracing thick outlines of Vanesa’s porcelain frame on sketch drawing paper as if preparing for her to topple over any moment and wait for the police to arrive.

 

            “Oh,” Laura says. She locks the door. Mike, her short corn chipped haired sandy side-burned boyfriend remains outside. “Underwear’s just like bathing suits.” She says.

 

            I continue to look at Vanessa. Her hair drapes the banister caps of her kness, slowly leaking down her back. Her body posture seems a tad uppity, perfectly artsy. She would feel right at home if there were a bowl of still-life plastic fruit adorning the area between her legs.

 

            Laura leaves the door careful to only open it far enough so that very little of the light escapes. Fallyn continues to hold her chalk like a four year old holds a crayon. I lok at Vanessa and wink, and she volley’s a flicker of her eyelash back at me. Together a smile is fastened between us.

 

            “Don’t get too comfortable big boy.” Fallyn says to me. “I’m gonna do you next.”