Ciao Bella

She looked like a picture, she was a picture of solemn innocence, but none of these descriptions fully reflect the circumstances at that moment in time for poor dear Bella!

But paradoxically they did!

She looked overdressed and out of place on the small jetty come side street overlooking the harbour. Sitting upon a stool outside a tiny wine bar which had irregular opening hours, with a nonexistent operating license, only ran as an abbreviation for the excessive drinking problem of the proprietor. Certainly not for the custom and patronage of bypassing and infrequent customers. The tiny bar could have been located in any number of countries and regions beside the azure waters, the unique beauty of the Mediterranean. The small fishing village with its random establishments was symptomatic of a lackadaisical style of life beside a historic mass of water, an endless nectar and source of life. The rundown establishment would finally close with the demise of the proprietor and never be missed by anyone except some stray cats and dogs on the lookout for scraps.

She sat outside perched on the stool next to the tall stube tables, her low-cut white dress shone and glistened with elegance, and yet with simplicity. She sat on the high stool with her long-tanned legs crossed epitomizing an impression of stylish, cultured high class. The elegant-looking lady dangled her long shapely legs enticingly as the white dress parted and separated high up on her thigh; exposing shapely knees and enough of her shapely thighs to rekindle hedonic feelings, whatever age; those delicious juvenile pains of agony, tinged with inexperience and nonconfidence in the presence of an angel of desired pure beauty. She was a pleasurable picture caught in time, a moment that would live forever in the memory of those few who were privileged to be a fly on the wall - an eyewitness. Forever framed in time, an oil painting in the mind long to live on in the memory, long after her mysterious presence in the framed painting was finally known.

The lingering question: who is that girl? Everybody would ask, peering at the oil painting.

The girl in the painting would live in the memories of the viewer longer than the unexplained and unanswered questions about the beautiful girl. That was the purpose of the painting; to capture the beauty and the eroticism of the scene; the girl alone, to create conjecture. Why was this beautiful woman surrounded with aura of sadness, sitting alone? There were many clues in the erotic picture, it conjured up even more questions. It tempted and agitated the mind, but these unanswered questions only added to the mystery of her circumstances. Was it intended as an open invitation to the voyeur or an adventurous admirer? Was there something to be imagined, a possible hint of a dangerous liaison. An unhealthy desire always unfulfilled, which might crawl around in the cobwebs of one’s lusty dark secrets suppressed in the mind for many moons to come.

She was a conceptual masterpiece, a creation of circumstances only known by her secret lover, the artist himself, who had etched the painting. Her elegant white dress extenuated her dark olive brown skin. The artist had shared in his work, he permitted the impoverished viewer of his art, a glimpse of her enticing full cleavage and her long slender legs. His passion, his avarice towards his love-making thoughts were portrayed with the skill of his palette knife and tender touches of his soft brushes onto the canvas. So, the viewer of the oil painting could share in the erotic vision, and see for himself at the same time, both the dreamy, and unimaginable, yet the easy to imagine truth. One could easily imagine the woman naked and undressed, vulnerable yet available to the intimate desired view of the voyeur.

Although she was dressed in white, her slender figure was exposed to gain maximum attention. One could easily imagine the beauty of her firm body underneath the dress without underwear, as the elegant dress dreamily slipped away, expressing the raucous aspirations of the onlooker, revealing the secrets underneath her elegant white dress. One could easily imagine her dark olive skin shouting out to be free and unbridled, liberating herself to undressed freedom and nudity.

This was no imagined view; this was no oil painting; the scene was real! The view of the beautiful raven-haired girl was breathtakingly real.

I ask you, dear reader. Should we look for clues, as to why this vision of beauty is sitting pensively alone, without a partner. As they say – dressed to kill!

They say – and it is no clique; every picture tells a story.

Look at the bouquets of flowers; red roses adorn the scene. Both as added decorations to complement the outside wall lighting, as well as the red rose cuttings in the glass vase on the high stube table. The half-finished and finished wine glasses littered the tabletops, together with the now empty plain white plates. A pastry crumb or two are remnants of a celebration, but what type of celebration.

Could the vital clue of the vision of beauty, and her lonely circumstances, be in the elegant white dress as it is made with material and style, one would normally associate with a wedding. The beautiful girl is wearing silver high heels shoes which are adorned with elegant gold ankle bracelets. She is also wearing a matching gold locket, and a gold bracelet which adds to the overall appearance of elegance and matches her expensive looking dress.

Bella was dressed for an occasion, but was it not a celebration, so we continue to wonder?

Why is she alone, and where are the guests, if the event was an important occasion, perhaps a gathering for a wedding?

The pensive look on her elfin face framed with long tresses of her luscious jet-black hair, which cascades over those dark olive-skinned shoulders suggests she is deep in thought and not self-conspicuous with her loneliness.

The truth: she is alone, but there was no wedding celebration. There were no wedding guests; now absent. Leaving empty plates with crumbs at the after-party scene. There was no event to celebrate, and our vision, of the beautiful Bella, as she contemplates her life, the choices she has made in her short life – is the absolute truth. Now we are getting nearer to the nub of the story.

Bella is in shock, and she has dressed elegantly for an occasion that is evident. Anybody could see that.

What then is disguised?

She had dressed to meet her long-time lover and hoped it would lead to the progression of their shared and passionate relationship. Unfortunately, their romantic liaison together was shattered, when he announced the immediate ending of their association, as his wife was getting suspicious, and he could never risk his marriage for anyone or anything.

His parting wish was to take a photograph, so that he could remember her forever. Her stunning beauty captured in a picture and frozen in time.

Until tonight Bella didn’t know her lover was a married man and was unaware, she was involved in ménage à trois. It happens Bella!

Bella Ciao.