He caught her drawing him yesterday; Jesse’s new neighbor, Memjuan, from the small apartment building. The four apartment house had a community wrap around porch. Jesse liked to sit there and do charcoal sketches in the afternoons. Ever since the dark stranger had moved in, she couldn’t stop watching him. She had to draw him.
She thought he was Spanish. Someone said he was Cuban, she hadn’t asked him. She just noticed his accent on the day she ran into him in the hall moving into the apartment next to hers upstairs. His English had not been the best, and she found herself fishing for things to say in broken Spanish. Mostly she had just smiled at him while he and two other guys moved his furniture up the stairs.
He wasn’t very tall. At 5’7, he was the same height as she. He reminded her of a horse jockey. He had broad shoulders, a lean muscles look, and hips that tapered into strong legs. He had a chiseled face with a sharp nose and a mouth so full that it looked out of place among all of his hard surfaces. Damned sexy though. Dark thick hair cut short, curling slightly on the top. Reminded her of that guy Julia Roberts dated a while, Benjamin….well damned sexy.
With her pale skin and long brown hair, Jesse didn’t figure she was much to look at, let alone tempt the exotic man next door. She wore her hair up at all times, had cat eye glasses that covered up how long her eye lashes were, and kept people from noticing how her eyes were really violet. She wore baggy clothes, that hid her large breasts, and hips that curved too much for her and her ass that was too round and either put men off or got too much attention.
Shy. That was what her few friends would say. Jesse is too shy, and doesn’t take the chances that she should. Jesse liked to think of it as just preferring to watch the world through her art. She drew sketches constantly. While at work, while in the park, at restraunts, and especially on the porch while watching her new neighbor.
That’s how he caught her yesterday. He was talking to a beautiful woman on the front steps. She had the same dark skin, and rich hair as he. They were speaking Spanish, and Jesse only understood bits of what they were saying. She had begun tracing his features with her charcoal. Fingers rapidly turning black from blending. She had imagined how it would feel if she could touch his skin the way she touched the paper with the charcoal. She pictured him nude and before she realized it, she had drawn him so using her imagination to fill in the gaps of what she had not seen.
She became so focused on her daydream of touching her neighbor that she only noticed how erotic her drawing was becoming. Unfortunately, it was also the same time he happened to take a hold of the chain of the swing she sat in and look down at her pad.
She flushed deep red, and he smiled like a cat caught eating the canary. “I’ve often wonder what is you draw so much.”
Jesse quickly reached to rip the page out, but his hands caught hers on top of the papers. “Don’t, is okay, ah I like it.”
Jesse looked up at him slowly. She was horrified that he had caught her daydreaming of him this way. She swallowed hard. He was watching her very closely. Taking in every inch of her in a way she was not used to being seen.
He winked at her, and was gone.
That was yesterday. Today she was hiding in her apartment. Music loud, while she worked on a large canvas. She was painting a piece for a friend. A very large scene of an ancient Roman couple. So engrossed in the details, she was oblivious to much else.
She had taken off her art smock. It was hot in the lofty apartment. She was now painting in her small red undershirt that strained to keep her large breasts covered. They spilled out around the top of the shirt, the nipples trying to bounce free of the so-called made in bra of the shirt. Her breasts took up most of the material, making the shirt ride up mid drift. Her cut off shorts were too big and too cut off for public. But she liked the freedom they gave her. One side was cut so high that a round ass cheek peeked out from the bottom. Her hair was spilling out of the loose clip that held it from her face.
So engrossed in details that she had forgotten to lock her door after getting her mail this morning from downstairs. The music so loud she couldn’t hear the knocking. She stood a few yards back from her picture chewing on the end of a paintbrush. She was adding the final touches to the faces today. She had paint on her everywhere. Red from the tunics on her thighs, where she had unconsciously wiped her hands, yellow on her arm from leaning in too far, white across her left breast, and she suspected her face. This was normal for her when she became involved in a project.
When his hand touched her shoulder, she jumped. Whirling around fast, and skidding white paint from the end of the brush across her neighbor’s face. Her mouth dropped open and she flushed again.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, “I didn’t hear you come in, what…what are you doing here?” She fidgeted with words as she tried to find something to wipe the paint from his chin.
