Domestic Tableau

It was Sunday morning; yesterday already held; Mmm, that's nice.

Early summer light spread through the cabin as Jenny prepared breakfast nude in the kitchen corner. I lay in bed. She had drawn back the heavy curtains to reveal the lake and far hills. I propped up and took a moment to enjoy the calm water.

My attention returned to Jenny. Well, her hot, cute butt as she gathered items in the buff, perky in her brisk cheerful movements. I remember observing Jenny like an artist would his model, except Jenny moved as she prepared toast.

I liked how she turned purposefully to bring butter and a bottle of jam to the small round breakfast table. The table was set with four chairs. We would need two. I watched her stretch from her toes to get plates from a high cupboard above the kitchen bench. First, one plate, then another. Her lithe body and curves were highlighted in profile—especially the shape of her breast and the dark fullness of her pubes.

After Jenny's double stretch came a demure crouch, seeking coffee mugs from a lower cupboard. She did a feminine kneel, like when women have short skirts and keep their legs together. Her knees closed as she eased down.

I want to paint with words, Jenny in the kitchen, nude. It wasn't Bonnard's light, yet it captured a Bonnard moment. I admire this artist who painted his wife naked over and over. Even as she aged and got ill, his brushwork kept her youthful, disrobed glow.

The colours in his paintings melt through each other in complementary harmony. Light diffused as gentle ardour and empathic intimacy. Bonnard possessed the technical skill to immortalise his love as forever young.

I paint on the canvas of my memory, Jenny's flesh embracing my life profoundly. My mind's eye recalls this Sunday morning breakfast. On the surface, there was nothing extraordinary here. Yet the intimacy compels me to reflect on and remember a domestic tableau. The special resided here. Jenny's unclad movements centred my thoughts.

This is the amber-eyed girl, held in both a morning's light and nostalgia.

Jenny had the toast organised, the coffee brewed, and I rose about to go to the table naked. I considered whether I should grab a pair of boxer shorts. A decision to eat breakfast, nude or semi-nude, at a table disappeared. Jenny brought me breakfast in bed.

Her amber eyes sparkled, self-pleased. She got her toast and coffee and joined me.

After breakfast and showers, we tidied the cabin. My thoughtful lass preplanned the remainder of the morning.

She readied to take me to a nearby colonial homestead, happy to indulge my interest in architecture and design. The historic home flaunted stately and grand. The estate grounds were sweeping and manicured.

I appreciated the classic design of the mansion's entry. I hugged Jenny and thanked her for bringing me here. The house was Italianate and imposing whilst the entry columns volutes exhibited a feminine charm; the way they scrolled — left something hidden. I valued the craftsmanship of a bygone era.

We entered the house. Inside the grand hallway, we purchased visitor passes. A volunteer custodian informed us of our tour options. His face blurs, yet his manicured fingers and a silver ring are recalled because his hands reminded me of Coral's dad. We could join a guided tour starting in forty minutes or go self-guided.

We chose the self-directed option using a provided floor plan. Jenny and I had fun wandering the rooms. Brief information highlighted unique items in each room on the back of the floor plan. Plus, every room contained typed information sheets with copious detail.

We stepped back in time and glimpsed the people who once lived here as well as their surrounding grandeur. Different things caught our eyes. I wanted to touch the worked marble surrounding every fireplace. I behaved myself. I saw multiple: Do not touch signs.

Jenny became engrossed in smaller personal items like intricate silver snuff boxes. We appreciated a huge Italian landscape painting. We gave each other the fake 'grave look' after seeing a hung row of stiff, formal, colonial portraits. Neither of us said it; we understood here once dwelt privilege built by withholding it from others. There were no women's or hired help rights.

The portraits in the dining room displayed only the generational male owners. Their mothers and wives left unpainted. We next entered the formal men's smoking room. Its chauvinist gravity left us unmoved. Jenny and I preferred the intimacy of the more petite ladies' room, full of patient, intricate, personalised embroidery. We confronted class and sexual stricture evident in a row of pokey servants' rooms, each containing a basic iron-framed, single bed and a bible.

The master bedroom combined the lavish and the gloomy. Jenny and I indulged an interest in the personal items displayed. The 'his' and 'hers' bedside tables. They laid out their grooming aids of choice. For 'him', a shaving case, complete with a cut-throat razor. For 'her', a vanity box, complete with a tortoiseshell brush.

Here were the habitual daily rituals of two long-deceased individuals. Their personal items were now static. Yet, their hopes for their future stretched in their matching leather-bound bibles on both sides of the enormous bed.

"It doesn't look comfortable," said Jenny.

I made a closer inspection of the four-poster. The pillows appeared overly firm. The bulky quilt, though satin, projected dull.

I teased Jenny, "Given their numerous kids, they made it comfortable enough!"

"No," she emphasised, shaking her head, "No charm, and the poor woman, no birth control!"

I considered her opinions.

I summed up the quilt as graceless to the modern eye. Though, I paused, taking in the room's whole and parts. Overall, musty and sunless. I understood that the lack of direct sunlight was a conservation measure to stop damage to historical fabrics.

I sought to connect to the actual lives lived in the room. Big beds are excellent for a good night's sleep and making out. The room, I realised, contained a sexual history—the coupling in this room, once fertile and natural to those engaged in it.

I partially agreed, "You are right about the missing birth control, but they kept having sex in this bed!"

Her lips formed a half-smile.

"I'm sure they enjoyed each other. But I couldn't sleep here," she said.

The dim room made Jenny's eyes coppery, dark, and tempting. I could have bedded her there and then.

We moved through the house, including the kitchen and scullery, before wandering into the cool cellars.

We roamed parts of the nearby gardens and our final stop, the ornate gazebo. I skim-read the information concerning its history located on a panel.

I summarised it for Jenny light-heartedly, "The sanctioned location for company keeping."

I added, "The couple, under watchful eyes," in an artificial, stern voice.

Jenny encouraged my interpretation of the panel's sexual gaps.

I mocked a strict guardian-like tone, "No hanky-panky."

She urged me on.

I mimicked a wrathful Victorian sermon: "Premarital sex is sin. Marry young and procreate!"

Jenny steepled her fingers, "Not me."

Then she called time on the past, around midday, signalling we should leave the historic house and gardens and continue our journey back to Melbourne.