Savasana

On the night before David’s birthday, as she did every day after work, Alice popped “Kathy Smith’s Lean Mean Workout” into the DVD player, then planked and squatted and crunched until even her diaphragm burned. Afterwards, yoga to cool down: Downward Dog, Cobra, Warrior, Tree. She always finished with Savasana — Corpse Pose. As she lay on the floor, arms slightly spread, palms up, breathing quietly, she looked up at the large black and white portrait on the wall: herself in the identical pose, except nude.

“To me, this captures your essence perfectly,” David said when he gave it to her. “I don’t even want to exhibit it. It feels so private, just for us.”

Dear, sweet, David.

She had met him because of the hiphop aerobics class that she took on her lunch breaks. She liked the class; not only was it good exercise, but it kept her up to date on the music scene. She loathed the way most people her age fossilized on whatever bands they’d listened to in college, with no clue about the current sounds. Not her. The other senior partners all looked askance when she chatted with “the kids” — as they referred to the junior associates — about Lyrics Born’s new album, or the merits of Beyonce versus Shakira. Let them.

The little studio where she took the hiphop aerobics was on Folsom, near her office. There were no more classes after hers on the weekdays until about six pm, so David often rented it out for photoshoots. He often arrived just as their class broke, to set up. With his olive skin and his lean, well-muscled physique, he could have been one of his own models. Alice always admired a man who took care of himself.

One day, as she toweled off after class and watched him prep for his shoot, he asked her if she would mind standing in while his subject, a local flamenco dancer, changed into costume.

“Just so I can set up the shots and do the light metering,” he said. “It won’t take long.”

“Of course,” she said. She stood in front of the camera with her hands on her hips, her left hip jutting out a little to the side. “Unfortunately, I can’t do any action dance poses for you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could, ” he said with a smile. She watched him take in her skin-tight yoga pants and midriff-baring workout top. “Obviously, you’re a dancer, too.”

She laughed and smoothed the cuffed waist of her yoga pants lower down on her hips. “Oh, no. I do like it, though. If I’d started when I was younger, maybe… .”

He raised his eyebrow. “That’s silly. You’re quite young enough.”

She shook her head. “I’m forty-seven, you know.” She always took a perverse pleasure in telling people that. They never believed her.

Sure enough, he looked up from the light meter and stared at her for a full half minute. “Really! I thought you were my age, and I just turned thirty.” He looked her up and down again. “What do you eat? What do you drink? I should do whatever you do.”

The flamenco dancer returned, and David broke off the conversation, but not before handing Alice his card. “I’d like to do a shoot with you some time.”

He rented the studio the next day, and asked her again. They arranged a date, a Saturday afternoon at her Nob Hill apartment.

It took her all of that morning to decide on an outfit. She settled on a clingy white evening gown, floor length, with a halter top and a long slit up the side. David smiled his appreciation when he arrived, then nodded approvingly at the spacious bright living room, with its huge south-facing bay windows and the blonde hardwood floor. “This will be perfect. Great light.”

He started with close-ups, moving on to longer compositions that played with panels of shadow and light across her face and body.

“I can’t believe that you’ve never modeled before,” he told her. “The camera just loves you. You’ve got such an ageless, enigmatic look.”

After an hour, he asked if she’d be willing to pose nude. “It would be stunning,” he said. “Believe me, some of the younger models I work with should have bodies as beautiful as yours.”

She hesitated, but he urged her until she agreed. “If I’ve got it, why waste it?” she said, as she made her decision.

They started with some yoga poses, to put her at ease, then moved on. He set up each shot meticulously, adjusting her pose until it was exactly right. A nudge on her hip to turn her, a hand on her lower back to move her forward, a fingertip to rotate her chin ever so slightly.

Hopefully, he blamed her hardening nipples to a draft in the room.

They shot until the sun moved low in the sky, and the room fell into shadow, but she didn’t want it to end. So she asked him to dinner.

Over wild mushroom pasta and red wine, he told her how he wanted to focus more on art photography.

“Of course I’ll always do *some* commercial work,” he said. “A lot of it is fun. But it would be nice to cut back on the boring stuff. Corporate sales rallies, charity fundraisers. You know.”

“You need a patron,” she said.

“But not just anybody,” he said. “Someone who’s in sync with what I do. Someone who gets it.”

They did more photo sessions, which turned into day-long excursions. Alice sprawled atop surf-swept rocks near Drake’s Bay, feeling the contrast of warm sun and cold seaspray on her bare belly. She hugged rough, sweet-smelling redwood tree trunks in the Muir Woods. Once, they snuck into some rusty abandoned industrial space, where she kneeled among weeds and the decaying remains of office furniture.

“You really bring out the creativity in me,” he said. “It’s some of the best work I’ve ever done.”

She bought him a new computer, much better than the five year old laptop he’d been using. They went shopping for lenses, expensive, high quality zooms, good for use in low light.

“I guess I am your patron,” she said to him as they walked out of Gasser’s camera shop.

“I prefer to think of you as my muse,” he said. He picked up her hand and kissed it with great ceremony. She blushed and squeezed his hand back before he let go of hers.

Their relationship progressed.

On the morning of his birthday she cleared her calendar and headed to Gasser’s. The front room held the lower value merchandise: cheap point-and-shoots, SD cards, memory sticks, photo albums. The professional equipment was further back, in a room around a corner from the entrance. As she entered, she saw David leaning over the display counter in the back room, talking to the man behind the counter.

It seemed like the perfect opportunity to sleuth what he really wanted. She ducked back before he noticed her, and peeked out from behind a display rack.

“That’s really nice, Jim,” David said as he handed the camera he’d been holding. “Way out of my budget, though.”

“It’s expensive,” Jim said. There was a pause. “So. Uh, what about that, um, friend you were in here with a while back?”

“Oh, her.”

Something about his tone of voice made her shrink. She huddled further back behind the display.

“Yeah, I think it’s time to cut loose,” David said. “If I stick around much longer I’m afraid I’ll have to bang her. Gah.”

Alice’s cheeks and forehead burned. She felt that heart-pounding breathlessness that she always did when she rode a rollercoaster, as the car clanked slowly up to the summit before a drop.

“You’re not?” Jim said. “Not that it’s any of my business.”

“No, thank God,” David said. “Though I’m surprised I’ve managed to avoid it this long. She’s a horny old bitch.”

Joe sucked in his breath, coughed, then laughed. The burning flowed down Alice’s neck, across the front of her chest. Her heartbeats seemed to come from right beneath her ears, echoing in her throat.

“It’s sad, really, how obvious her type is, ” David went on. “In total denial that she’s not a hot and sexy young thing anymore. I get embarrassed, sometimes, at the things I catch myself saying to her. But she just eats it up. And I bet I’m not the first guy to pull this on her, either.”

Alice couldn’t listen anymore. She stumbled out of the shop, not even caring whether they saw her or not. She made her way back to the office, gasping for air. Through the foyer, into the elevator. As the doors closed, she leaned against the back wall, palms pressed flat behind her. Breathe, breathe.

Corpse pose.