The Art of Seduction Read Online Free PDF Page B

her adopted city and felt lost and alone, like a stranger. This wasn’t the Paris she’d left behind. This was a Paris where Mason Caldwell was no longer alive.
    She had no idea how to go about accomplishing what suddenly seemed like an overwhelming task. All she knew was that she needed to go to someone—now, at once—who would be happy to see her. She needed to be welcomed back from the dead.
    She needed Lisette.
    Â 
    Mason’s childhood had been isolated and lonely, and she’d never had a close friend before Lisette. They’d met shortly after Mason had arrived in Paris. She’d outfitted herself with art supplies and had set out to La Grande Jatte, an island in the Seine where the bourgeoisie went to enjoy their leisure time. She’d set up her easel, plopped her straw hat on her head, and picked up her brush. Everything at the ready, she’d looked about, wondering what to paint. Women dressed in their Sunday best strolled unhurriedly along the paths or picnicked beneath the trees. Men, in top hats or derbies, lounged in the shade, watching the sailboats glide along the river. Children frolicked on the grass or waded along the banks, their squeals piercing the air. Typical Impressionistic motifs. She was looking for something different, but she didn’t know quite what.
    Then she saw Lisette. She was a child-woman with a tumbled tangle of luxurious gold hair that seemed to glow in the fulsome sunshine of summer. Half a dozen dogs of all sizes and breeds surrounded her, panting in anticipation as she raised a small ball she held in her hand. She was barefoot and was laughing as the two poodles leapt into the lake. Hiking up her skirts, she’d run playfully in after them, picking them up in both arms and smothering them with heartfelt kisses, completely mindless to the fact that they were soaking her pretty yellow dress. She was effortlessly elegant and earthy all at once, delighting in the movements of her own body, completely unconscious of the effect she was creating.
    At this point, Mason hadn’t found the artistic vision that would later so possess her. But one look at the carefree young woman made her realize that she’d found something special. A Greek goddess for the modern age, a new kind of woman full of light and color and sensual grace.
    She found, when she introduced herself in halting French, that Lisette was a trapeze artist and acrobat. When Mason asked if she would model for her, the young woman wrinkled her nose in distaste, then reconsidered and said with a shrug, “ Et bien. Why not?” Mason was so satisfied with the results of the sitting that, several weeks later and after many frustrating afternoons of painting plaster casts and bowls of oranges, she decided to seek out her reluctant model at the Folies-Bergères, where she’d said she was currently appearing. This time Lisette refused. But several days later, she appeared at Mason’s Montmartre flat and said, rather haughtily, “I have nothing to do this afternoon, so you may paint me.”
    As Mason worked in a lightning flash of inspiration, she realized she’d found the subject she’d been looking for—one who somehow fit into the vision she was struggling to formulate. She still couldn’t explain to herself exactly what place Lisette would occupy in this grand scheme, but she’d never felt more at one with the creative force than when painting her.
    For her part, however, Lisette seemed cautious of the young American artist and kept her distance as the French were wont to do, occasionally agreeing to pose, but demanding a fee and offering nothing of herself but her physical presence. Then one day, Mason was shopping for vegetables in the market at Les Halles and was in the process of paying the vendor when she heard a familiar voice behind her. “What are you doing? Do you not know this man is charging you three times what he would charge a French