Lady Victoria

Here is a portion of one of my works in progress. It's about an artist, Richard, and his model, Vickie. This would be towards the end of the story, the reveal if you want to call it that. What do you think, should I proceed with the full story? It is in it's "raw" stage, so it should flow better in the final draft.


Vickie’s emotions poured over her like cold Aunt Jemima's syrup as she stood before her portraits. With just minutes before the Metropolitan opened it’s doors for the exhibit, she wasn’t sure posing was the right thing to do. She was also puzzled about the large one titled “Lady Victoria,” she didn’t remember posing for it.

Richard walks up and places his arm around her, “I think I captured your beauty, your sensuality, your personality. The paintings are almost as exquisite as the model.”

“You are such a smooth talker, aren’t you? I can tell you've spend quite a few years in Paris” She laughed a nervous laugh. “Are you nervous? There are so many butterfly's in my stomach that I feel I could fly away.”

“There are no worries, they will love the paintings. They will love you. This night could very well change our lives.” He really wondered if anyone would even show up.

“By the way, when did you paint the large one in the middle that you named ‘Lady Victoria’. I don’t remember that pose.”

He looked at her with a look of disbelief and asked, “You have never seen her before? I thought you knew about her.”

Now she looked at him with incredulity, “Yeah I’ve seen her before, every time I look in a mirror. I didn’t know you had the time to paint her with all our other portaits.”

“You don’t understand. My Lady Victoria is the painting that made me famous. I painted her ten years ago.”

“But we’ve only known each other for a year, how could you have painted me like that?” They looked deep into each others eyes. She into his hoping to find something that would tell her he wasn’t a madman.

“I painted her,” he explained, “after I painted six other models, those paintings hanging over there.” He grabbed her hand and led her to the other grouping of paintings. “Look at this one, she has your eyes. This one has your cheek bones. This one your breasts. If you look at her butt, you can see it is yours. I took pieces of each one and pieced them together to make the physically perfect woman whom I named Lady Victoria. It is a coincidence that her name and her beauty matches you perfectly.”

“Is that why you acted so funny that day when I rented your apartment?”

“Now you know that I wasn’t just some strange, weird artsy type.” he laughed. “It was quite a shock to see Lady Victoria in the flesh. I spent so much time painting her, making her so perfect that I fell in love with a face on a canvas. Until that day that you walked into my life, I thought that I would never find someone that I could give my love to.”

She was about to speak when the doors burst open as the exhibition began, and Richard was swept away by reporters and patrons. “I didn’t get to tell him, “ she thought, “that I loved him too.”