The Art Of Artifice!

She sits alone, though from her slightly aloof expression, clearly not lonely - at the sidewalk cafe. Kadmo; with its elegant Greek marble steps and young grapevine draped terrace. She's chosen a wicker armchair that overlooks the impossibly glassy lake Ohrid - a natural place to contemplate whatever happens to be on her mind at this current moment in time. Her sunkissed legs are crossed, and her pencil skirt is pressed to aristocratic style perfection. Her choice of color, black, suggests a monotonous, rulebook existence...but her confident feline expression begs to differ. Black - it can be translated in so many different ways. It can be the uniform of a woman insecure with her femininity. A woman who wants a slimming effect always chooses black. The color of safety, of classicism, of maturity, of mourning. Mourning the loss of someone deeply loved... or lusted after... or mourning of the loss of the girlish figure that she's abandoned for the gift of motherhood. It can be the banner of a woman so vibrant, so secure in her femininity, that she has little room left for any additional color. Everything about her is perfectly, almost unnaturally, glossy. Her starched cotton blouse; every button lined up like miniscule cloth-covered soldiers, marching one after the other, fastened protectively over the curves of her figure. You begin to wonder if modesty is her second skin... or maybe, just maybe, her modesty is a deliberate strategy to seduce people like you into thinking. Maybe you're reading too much into her. After all, you've always been horribly analytical. Your own starched white collar is beginning to feel constricting...unnatural....

She lifts the thick ceramic cup, lowering her long, lacquered lashes, to take a sip of her choice of poison. You can only imagine what she has ordered. Does she favor the rich, almost predatory sensation of pure espresso? Or does she prefer the more subtle, foamy cappuccino? Does she spike her coffee with a little bit of liqueur to be a bit more unconventional? Or does she abhor alcoholic beverages altogether? From a glimpse of her whole milk white teeth, she either doesn't smoke, or she hides the evidence very well. She places the cup back down on the table with a graceful bend of her bare wrist. Her simplicity intrigues you. Should your reaction be one of boredom instead? Under other circumstances it would be. But this is different. You are confused. She turns her gaze from her cup to the edge of the lake - the wind hits her face suddenly and she quickly tucks a flyaway strand of bittersweet hued hair behind her ear. Half-up and half-down. Her hair is caught indecisively between governess and seductress. Does she even realize her general effect on you? Or is she genuinely oblivious to her fascinating contradictions? You begin to wonder who she is behind this veil of sophistication, underneath the elegantly cut fabrics, beneath the art of artifice. Her hand, slender yet strong, marked with a lone, jagged pink scar curves slowly around the tiny porcelain cup. Her nails are naked and scrubbed saintly clean as she reaches for the check...

 Comrade Von Pussycat