Transparent

She was already awake, staring at my face. She smiled as my eyes fluttered open. I instinctively glanced at the clock—it was not yet six in the morning.

Was I snoring? I asked, closing my eyes to the sunlight behind her face.

No, you were sleeping, she smiled, touching my face. I moved my face to her hand.

We talked, soon gravitating to the subjects of punctuation and book indexes—topics guaranteed to spark the flames of arousal.

She asked me to bite her, showing me the precise shoulder muscle she wanted to give over to pressure of my teeth.

I complied, biting slowly, firmly, taking care not to tear the skin. My jaws ached, but I would not relent until she had what she needed.

When she had enough, she had two curved welts that would last for days. She joked about having it tattooed in place.

We made love.

We fell asleep, entangled. I left my arm under her head; she kept it as her pillow.

As we slept, Martha Stewart came to me in a dream.

Martha Stewart invited me to bring Lucy and the kids to a small house she had rented in Connecticut. A century before, this area had been an artists’ colony; now it was a community of mansions. Martha Stewart had chosen the authentic over the ostentatious in renting such a ramshackle house in this wealthy enclave.

Martha Stewart made sure that we were settled before a warm fire. We were very content.

“Jefferson,” she asked. “Can you help me deliver a few paintings?” In this dream, Martha Stewart was an amateur painter. We put her canvases into the back seat of a convertible Saab.

I was stationed in the back with the paintings “Hold them down,” she directed over her shoulder as she started the car.

I extended an arm over the canvases. When we arrived, my forearm was smeared with blue paint. The paintings were fresh and still wet.

I was afraid that I had ruined the art, but the paintings were intact. Only my arm was smudged.

Martha Stewart parked at a local arts center. I helped her unload the canvases.

The arts center was bustling with activity. There were dozens of women, each well-coifed and wearing smocks at easels. A few helped sickly children who were engaged in art therapy.

A woman with dark hair and a blue smock came to Martha Stewart and me. “Where did you find him?” she asked Martha Stewart, nodding in my direction. “He’s hunky!” With that, she touched my chest and bicep, holding them firmly.

I felt aroused, and thought, wow, I am hunky.

“Now, none of that,” Martha Stewart scolded the woman. “We have paintings to deliver.”

Martha Stewart set to work, and I wandered deeper into the arts center.

Some artists were painting from nude models. Many of the artists were also in stages of undress. I ran into Madeline.

“Are you painting today?” she asked, kissing me in greeting.

“No, I’m just helping Martha Stewart run some errands. Lucy and the kids are back at her place.”

The woman in the blue smock interrupted us. “I think he should model for us, don’t you?” she leered to Madeline.

“I don’t mind modeling,” I said, “if you are paying.”

The rate was ten dollars an hour, which is what I was paid when I was a nude model in college. I agreed and undressed. As I stepped on to a platform to pose, I saw that Madeline was stripped to her waist. “In solidarity,” she said, sketching.

We mingled with the artists. Some were self-consciously bohemian, playing instruments or talking insistently, as if art were the most important thing in the world. Madeline and I held hands, serene and nude among them.

We were outside. She phoned her kids. I phoned mine.

When we awoke again, I told Madeline about the dream, a little embarrassed that it seemed so transparent.

Martha Stewart, the goddess of domesticity, had led me from a domicile where art was a relic to a vibrant place where art was being created. She led me from a place of the past to a place of the moment. She led me from the warm contentedness of the hearth to the white-hot excitement of art and sex.

Martha Stewart led me from Lucy to Madeline.

And thus did Martha Stewart sanction my relationship with Madeline.

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Martha Stewart