Paint and Passion

The paint was still wet on the wall when I first saw her.

I'd been working on the mural for three hours, lost in the rhythm of spray and breath, when movement caught my peripheral vision. A woman stood on the sidewalk below, head tilted back, watching me work. Most people passed by without looking up. Some stopped for a photo. She just stood there, still as a statue, her dark hair falling loose around her shoulders.

I pretended not to notice her at first. Focused on the curve of the hummingbird's wing I was bringing to life on the concrete. But I felt her eyes on me, a warm pressure against my skin, and my hand slipped. A thin line of turquoise streaked where it shouldn't have.

"Merda," I muttered, stepping back from the wall.

"Sorry," she called up. "Did I distract you?"

Her voice carried easily in the quiet street. Low, a little husky, like she'd just woken up or maybe hadn't slept at all. I turned to look at her properly and something in my chest did a strange little flip.

She wasn't beautiful in the way the magazines sold it. Her face was too sharp for that, cheekbones that could cut glass, a mouth that seemed permanently on the verge of a smirk. But there was something about her. A pull. Like the gravity around her was just slightly stronger than everywhere else.

"Nah," I said, wiping my hands on my already-ruined jeans. "I was due for a break anyway."

I climbed down the ladder, my messenger bag clanking against my hip. Up close she was taller than I'd expected, almost eye level with me, and she smelled like cigarettes and something sweeter underneath. Vanilla, maybe. Or honey.

"I'm Bia," she said, not offering her hand.

"Laercio."

"I know." She nodded at the wall behind me. "I've seen your work around. The piece on Rua Augusta, the one with the children flying kites made of newspapers. That was yours, right?"

"Yeah." I felt a flicker of pride, quickly tamped down. "You follow street art?"

"I follow things that make me feel something." She said it like a confession, like she was testing how I'd react. "Most art doesn't. Yours does."

The afternoon sun was hot on the back of my neck. I was suddenly aware of the sweat staining my t-shirt, the paint flecks on my arms, the way my hair was escaping its ponytail in messy curls. She looked cool and composed in her black jeans and thin white tank top, not a hair out of place.

"You want to see it finished?" I asked. "The mural, I mean. I've got another hour of work."

"I'd like that."

So she stayed. Sat on the curb with her legs crossed, watching me paint. I tried to ignore her, tried to find that meditative space I usually slipped into, but it was impossible. Every time I glanced down, her eyes were on me. Not on the mural. On me.

My hand wasn't as steady as it should have been.

When I finished, she stood and stretched, her tank top riding up to reveal a sliver of stomach. I looked away too fast, and she noticed. Of course she noticed.

"Buy me a coffee," she said. Not a question.

We walked to a small padaria three blocks away, the kind of place where the old men play dominoes in the back and the espresso comes in tiny cups that burn your fingers. I ordered two, black, no sugar. She didn't argue.

"So," I said, sliding into the booth across from her. "What do you do? Besides stalk street artists."

"I'm a photographer." She wrapped her hands around the cup, letting the heat seep into her palms. "Mostly portraits. Sometimes I do shows. Sometimes I just take pictures of people I find interesting."

"And you found me interesting?"

"I found you beautiful." She said it flatly, no flirtation in her voice. Just a fact. "The way you moved up there. Like you forgot anyone was watching. Like the wall was the only thing that existed."

I didn't know what to say to that. I've been called lots of things. Talented. Passionate. Even handsome, once or twice, usually by my grandmother. But beautiful felt different. It felt like she'd reached inside me and pulled out something I didn't know was there.

"You're direct," I said.

"I don't see the point in being anything else."

We talked for two hours. About art, about São Paulo, about the neighborhoods we'd grown up in and the ones we'd left behind. She told me she'd lived in Berlin for a year, that she'd come back because she missed the chaos. I told her about my mother, who still called me every Sunday to ask if I was eating enough. She laughed at that, a real laugh, not the polite kind.

When we finally left the padaria, the sun was setting and the street was painted gold. We stood on the sidewalk, neither of us wanting to be the first to say goodbye.

"I want to photograph you," she said.

"Right now?"

"Not now." She reached out and touched my forearm, right where the hummingbird tattoo sat. Her fingers were cool against my skin. "When you're ready. When you trust me."

"I just met you."

"I know." She smiled, and it changed her whole face. Made her look younger, softer. "But you will."

She gave me her number, written on the back of a receipt she found in her pocket. Then she walked away, disappearing into the crowd, and I stood there like an idiot, holding that piece of paper like it was something precious.

I didn't call her that night. Or the next.

But I thought about her. In the shower, water streaming down my back, I thought about the way she'd looked at me. Like I was a puzzle she wanted to solve. Like I was something worth studying.

I thought about her in bed, staring at the ceiling, the city humming outside my window. I thought about her mouth, that almost-smirk, the way she'd said my name. Laercio. Like it meant something.

And then I thought about her hands. Those cool fingers on my arm. I imagined them somewhere else. On my chest. On my stomach. Lower.

I told myself it was stupid. I didn't know her. She was probably just some rich girl slumming it with the artists, looking for inspiration or a story to tell at dinner parties. I'd met her type before.

But I couldn't stop thinking about her.

Three nights later, I gave in. I was lying in bed, the fan clicking overhead, my phone glowing in the dark. I typed out a message, deleted it, typed it again. Just a simple question. *When do you want to take that photo?*

She replied in seconds. *Tomorrow. My studio. 7pm.*

I should have said no. I should have made up an excuse. But instead I typed back, *I'll be there.*

And then I turned off my phone and lay in the dark, my heart pounding, my mind racing, my body already betraying me.

I reached down, my hand sliding beneath the waistband of my boxers, and I let myself imagine what tomorrow might bring. Her eyes on me through a camera lens. Her voice telling me what to do. Her hands, finally, doing more than just touching my arm.

It didn't take long. It never does when I'm thinking about her.

Afterward, I lay there, sticky and ashamed and exhilarated, staring at the ceiling and wondering what the hell I was getting myself into.