The Night Gallery

The Night Gallery

Nikki had been waiting impatiently to see the Georgia O’Keefe exhibition and when she saw it was finally there, she made plans to go see it, perhaps go to dinner, and just treat herself. The night of the opening she waited impatiently for the day to draw to a close.

She came home after work and checked her voice mail, turned on her computer and her TV. She undressed and slid into her favorite silk robe and went into the kitchen and got herself a light snack. The news droned in the background as she checked her email and went on the forum to see what is up and looked up at the clock and realized it was time to get ready.

A social person usually, tonight she wanted to be on her own. She wanted to go to the museum and spend real time just studying the erotic and natural lines and the bright shocking colors of the flowers O’Keefe painted. They were always the most luscious and sensuous paintings she had ever looked at. Many people talked about the symmetry and the arrangement of her paintings, but Nikki liked the symbolic nature, the worship of the female design.

Tall and thin, Nikki brushed out her blonde hair and slid into the basic black dress, the little black dress she only wore when she wanted to feel Other, that unique feeling of mystery , hiding in plain sight.

It was as she expected. The museum had managed to create intimate corners with benches in front of O’Keefe’s often mural size canvases. In art books, they always seem so small, when in fact the paintings were actually much larger. She stood before a large painting of an orchid, its petals unfolding. Nikki wanted to step into the painting and feel the flower enfold her in its intimate embrace.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said a voice behind her. Nikki turned around to face a blonde woman. She was sitting on a bench, her long legs crossed feet encased in red pumps, the strong muscles of her calves seemingly sharply carved from the palest marble. She was dressed in red, making her skin almost pink. She was leaned back a bit on her palms, flat against the back edge of the bench. Her lovely pointed face held her delicate features and her blue willow blue eyes had a gaze that seemed to hypnotize her. Finally she found her voice.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Do you know much about O’Keefe?”
“Not really, but after seeing so many paintings featuring male centered symbols, it is relief to simply luxuriate in the more organic forms of female symbols. She paints the orchid as though she is love with it, the smell, the taste,” said the beautiful woman. “Did you know orchids are edible?”
“No… are they?” asked Nikki.
“Oh yes, not all of them, but some,” said the woman.

“Have you ever had an orchid?” asked Nikki, coming to sit down beside the woman. She sat up and put her hands on her knee. She had strong hands, ending in long red nails, carefully painted.
“Not in many years now,” she said. “But one of the things I remembered about it was the feel. Orchids feel like the most delicate skin, like the tender skin on the inside of a lady's arm.”

Nikki tried to pull her gaze away, but somehow couldn’t. Sitting closer to the woman, she could smell her perfume but another smell, a dry, spice like scent, a secret scent. It was as thought the beautiful woman before her was something else entirely.
“What a lovely perfume, what is that scent,” asked the blond woman. Nikki was surprised, it was if the woman were reading her mind.
“Gardenia,” she said. “It’s a bit old fashioned, but there is a part of me that is a little old fashioned.”
“It is lovely. Did you know this museum has a lovely Oriental Garden? It even has a moon gate,” she said.
“No, I didn’t know, but I have always come here for the exhibits,” she said.
“Museums are interesting to me. I enjoy the art, but sometimes, the people are just as intriguing as the exhibits,” said the woman, the mystery woman. “Would you like to see the garden with me?”

Nikki had never done this before, simply been drawn to a woman like this. But she nodded and watched as the woman stood up and she offered her her hand. Nikki slid her hand in hers and they walked out the garden entrance door and exited the museum.
A garden at night is a garden of delight. A night gallery. So garish in the sun with the profusion of flowers and the thousand shades of green, a garden at night was something else all together. Seeing the garden this way made her understand when people talked about the magik of the night. That was it, the tall blond beside her was some sort of magik. The soft wind blew and she could smell again, that secret scent, perhaps the smell of her alchemy.

Roses and other dark flowers were black in the shadows. The birds and butterflies that would have flitted from bud to bud were gone to bed. She could hear the minute scrabbling of lizards after bugs. The woman walking beside her, their hands palm to palm, seemed to hear other sounds. Nikki hoped that she could not hear her heart beating hard against her chest, making her feel a bit dizzy.

They walked along the path carefully, the light from the foot lights a dim amber color. She stumbled a little and the woman’s hand tightened on her own and kept her from falling. Nikki put her other hand and touched the woman’s forearm and she smiled. They continued their walk and passed through the round moon gate, over a small foot bridge where the motley colored koi swam, seen with the help of the underwater lights in their pond. They snapped up hapless bugs that accidentally fell into their pool.

“Here we are, this is what I wanted to show you, the orchids,” said the woman. They walked over to the giant grouping of the beautiful flowers. There was a bit more light shining on them. Georgia O’Keefe’s painting suddenly became a poor copy, a sloppy representation of the real thing. Then the woman reached out, faster than the eye could see and plucked one of the orchids.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” exclaimed Nikki.
“Stealing some little trifle makes it more precious, I think….Forbidden fruit,” she said smiling. Her smile, like herself was different to her, something wild, almost feral. She should turn on her heel and leave this strange beautiful woman but she couldn’t. “Smell it, it is intoxicating, isn’t it?” She extended the orchid and Nikki leaned forward and sniffed it.

The sweet smell of the flower enveloped her. It was the smell of love, and romance and something else, something electric. This was no scentless, hybrid variety but a wild variety, uncomplicated by science, and she felt stoned by it.

“Taste it,” the beautiful woman encouraged. Nikki felt funny about this. She had never actually eaten a flower before, though she read somewhere that the Spanish loved to eat roses. She took the orchid from the woman’s hand and examined it. Where would she bite it? She decided on a top petal and plucked carefully and tentatively put the petal into her mouth and bit down carefully and was surprised at the sweet almondy taste. She offered the woman the orchid.
“Have a taste?” she said.
“Oh yes,” she said, drawing Nikki closer to her, sliding her arm around her waist. Her lips were poised just over hers. “I love forbidden fruit.”

Good night Nikki