“I have always said that a woman should be like a good horror film: the more space is left to the imagination, the better”
Alfred Hitchcock
“I would never have taken up painting if women did not have breasts”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
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It was well into the night, just before we started clearing up to close. We took a moment with Stelios to catch our breath. The moon was full and some sparse clouds attempted to conceal its nudity.
“I like it better this way” said Stelios. “Once partly hidden by the clouds, once before them, once behind them”.
And, sure enough, it was like a woman trying to seduce us wearing a see-through dress flaunting her curves, voluptuous and fertile. Then she would slacken a bit the strap of the white bra, allowing her left nipple to show a bit (there is a valley on the moon which is called Mare Fecunditatis, Sea of Fertility).
Or she would lift her nebulous dress revealing her round knees, her strong, parallel hips and the triangle. Only for a split moment, just to catch a glimpse. Then she would withdraw her charms.
And this very game made her prettier, more desirable.
~~
Erotism is primarily a matter of the brain.
This is especially true for women who are more complex. Yet men, who have been accused of prosaicness, are enticed by what they can’t see, by what remains concealed.
A totally naked woman, even if she possesses a celestial body and her measurements are ideal, is not as erotic as another woman who has something on.
This something could be clothes, underclothes, shoes, a hat (consider Sabina in The Unbearable Lightness of Being) or just a necklace.
Men, sexually speaking, are voyeurs. They like to watch; but also they like to imagine things.
A full-y naked body, especially when it is illuminated by the sun, is not as seductive as a body in the half-light, in the candlelight or in the light of a red lamp bulb.
And, ultimately, it is the garment that conceals what you crave to see, this very piece of clothing you fantasize that you are taking off her.
~~
I was trying to get across my point, though not in so many words, to Stelios.
“So it is”, he said. “Even if she wears but a g-string, it’s better than nothing at all”.
Then he cast a glance right and left to the customers who were still sitting at the tables.
– I talk too loud about g-strings and they can hear us.
– So? You don’t talk about something evil. It’s sex you talk about, not murders.
– And this is something everybody needs, right?
– It’s not just a need and nothing more. It’s also a relish; probably the strongest and the most addictive one.
Stelios was employed in rolling a cigarette, himself prone to addictions as well. We had some time on our hands since most of our customers were summering at Chalkidiki and we were satisfying the needs of those who remained in town in August.
– Sometimes I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t sex on my mind so much, I would have achieved a lot more in my life. I would be more focused on my job, I would do…things.
– And you would live half a life.
An American comedian had said so, too: If you quit drinking, women and the all-nighters you don’t live longer, you merely think that life lasts longer.
~~
The Moon went on playing its games with the clouds; and it’s prettier this way.
Even the sun and the sunsets, too, they look so humdrum when naked. They could do with some clouds, or a bit of dust in the atmosphere to turn the sky orange as if painted by a Fauve.
The most breath-taking sunsets on Naxos took place in October on the embossed sky with touches that would be envied by all Van Gongs and Matisses that walked this earth.
In the summer the sky was crystal clear, like the conscience of an infant. But no art can be done without some clouds, pain, doubt or contrast.
~~
God is an artist, a surrealistic one probably. He created the world because he was feeling lonely.
He was sitting there, in nowhere and never before the Big Bang, pondering. He practiced it for many centuries, but at some point he got tired of his solipsism.
He needed something, someone to give meaning to his existence.
“Let there be light” he said and out of the quantum void came matter and antimatter, the Substance which, unexpectedly and necessarily, took to organize itself since the initial order of evolution was embedded in it.
And galaxies, solar systems, planets and life itself were formed; and also the man who would attempt to figure out the unfathomable.
~~
And two creatures came into being, but very different each other.
They were totally naked and bored stiff.
Until the female cut a fig leaf to decorate her sex.
And then the male said: “I will do anything for you to take off this leaf”.
She gave a laugh and pulled it a bit aside.
And thus the Moon showed itself.
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The photo is Helmut Newton’s with Joaquin Phoenix before the camera lens.
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Translated by Alexandros Mantas:
https://open.spotify.com/track/0ZF6gbwf8EHxhsKSRUVP3l?si=393c233a77d742bd
With some help from Monika Oikonomou
