"the cat's meow"

For the third time this month, Kitty is on the prowl. It is time to take a man up to her apartment on the pretext of painting his picture. "You have lovely eyes," she will say. Or "You have a beautiful body in the classical sense. Like Michael Angelo's David. Have you ever considered posing nude?"

Of course she's never painted a picture in her life. Not since grade school anyway. The canvases that lie scattered about the floor of the apartment belong to her long lost brother who disappeared four years ago on the way to the grocery store. He left to get a sixty watt light bulb and never came back.

Kitty applies Easter Pink lipstick as she walks along Colfax. It's her favorite color. Her lucky color. She can see her breath in the air and she thinks she'd rather smoke a cigarette than watch steam shoot out of her mouth.

Colfax in the early morning is torn at the edges. The brittle light of The Adult Palace XXX Video Emporium's neon sign fights against the rising sun. No, Kitty won't find her man here. She's tired of looking at naked boys from the other side of a t.v. screen.

She skitters over the concrete, her feet tapping like reindeer hooves on a ice-slick roof. The coffee shop is just ahead. There she will find herself a large mocha in a paper cup, and she will sit down in a comfortable chair. Men will walk in. Men will walk out. She will watch them in their cable knit-sweaters and their Northface jackets and wait until she finds the prettiest one.

"You have a poet's eyes," she will say to him. "And the body of a Greek or possibly Roman god. I'm an artist. Will you pose for me?"

Then she will lead him by the hand up to her apartment. He will shyly drop his pants to the floor, and she will sit behind her easel with her legs crossed. Her dry brush to the canvas, she will pretend to paint, all the while looking, just looking, at the beautiful naked man sitting in her living room.