I Asked My Daughter to Pose Nude for Me

My name is Mateo, I’m forty-nine years old, and I live in a wooden cabin so close to the sea that some nights the sound of the waves seeps into my dreams. My whole life I was a disaster on legs: backpack on my shoulder since I was eighteen, with no respect for anything or anyone. Until Camila came along. She pulled me out of the hole, dragged me away from parties that lasted for weeks and from the things that were slowly killing me.

But Camila was no saint either. She was as wild as I was. We got drunk on the beach, laughed at everything, made love on the sand until the sun came up behind the dunes. She was my muse, my north star, the reason for every painting I made for twenty years.

When she died, everything went dark. A lightning-fast illness took her in a few weeks, cruel and without warning. And I stopped painting. The easel gathered dust in a corner of the studio. I couldn’t touch a brush without seeing her there, posing nude against the evening light, the smell of salt still clinging to her skin.

We sold the big house in the city and I moved to this tiny cabin, almost on the sand. I lived alone, talking to the seagulls, until my daughter had to come back.

***

Renata was twenty-one and had pride the size of the ocean. She came back because she could no longer afford rent or university in the city, and that left her bitter. She barely spoke to me. She’d go off walking alone along the shore for hours, or lock herself in her room with the music blasting. I respected her silence. I had plenty of my own.

One afternoon of infernal heat I heard the shower running. Then the bathroom door opened and the steam came out with her, wrapped in nothing but a tiny towel. She smelled of coconut soap and warm skin. When she lifted her arms to dry her hair, the towel slipped open for just a second.

I saw more than I should have. I saw a young body with golden tan lines left by a bikini, a narrow waist, and shoulders still damp. I froze with a cup of coffee halfway to my mouth.

Shame. That’s what I felt first. And then something worse: an urge to paint that I hadn’t felt since Camila was gone.

That very night, without thinking too much about it, I opened the oils. But the landscapes from before no longer came out. What came out were bodies. Curves. Golden skin against the light.

***

The next day Renata came into the studio looking for a charger and fell silent in front of the canvas. A woman from behind, wet hair, drops sliding down the spine and disappearing into the curve of the lower back. She recognized herself instantly.

—It’s me… —she said softly, her voice trembling—. Why did you paint me like this, Dad?

I lowered the brush slowly.

—I hadn’t painted anything since your mother died. I couldn’t. Every time I tried, I’d see her standing there, posing, and everything would break inside me.

Renata took a couple of steps closer. Her eyes filled with tears.

—I miss her so much too —she murmured.

—She was my whole world —I answered, and my voice cracked on the last word.

We fell silent. Outside, the sea roared against the rocks. The afternoon light gilded her face and lit up the freckles on her nose.

—Forgive me for making you come back —I said—. For dragging you out of the city, out of university, to bring you to this forgotten town where nothing ever happens.

She shook her head, though a tear still slipped free.

—I always wanted to be like Mom —she confessed—. So free. She walked naked around the house, on the beach, and didn’t care what anyone thought. That part of me… it’ll never come out here.

I laughed, with a nostalgia that hurt.

—When I met your mother, she was exactly like you are now. Rebellious, unafraid of anything. Her parents hated me, did you know that? She came from a good family, money, a last name, all that… and ended up with a starving nobody like me. But we truly loved each other. The kind of love you just don’t see anymore.

Renata smiled faintly, sadly.

—I want to feel like that again. Free.

I put a hand on her shoulder. Her skin was still warm, and she smelled of salt and soap.

—Then stop worrying so much. Live your life. I’ve got no ties left, baby. We do what we want and nobody gives a damn.

We held each other’s gaze a second too long. The air in the studio thickened with something neither of us named.

—Pose for me —I asked, almost in a whisper—. Like your mother used to. Like the models did when we were young. It’s just art… but it’ll make you feel what she felt.

It took her a while to answer. Then she nodded, shyly.

***

The first session was tense as a wire about to snap. She took off her clothes slowly, staring at the floor, covering herself with her crossed arms. She stood in front of me with hunched shoulders and her legs together, as if she wanted to disappear.

I painted in silence, trying to focus on the light and the shadows. On the golden tan broken by the pale lines of the bikini. On the curve of her waist. But my hand kept shaking, and she noticed. She didn’t say anything. She just blushed and looked out the window.

The following sessions changed, little by little, the way the tide changes without you noticing. Renata stopped covering herself. She started standing up straight, touching her hair, letting the sea breeze come in through the window and raise goosebumps on her skin. Sometimes she’d glance at me with a shy little smile that undid me.

***

One afternoon the heat was unbearable. I was shirtless, sweating, with the fan blowing out hot air. Renata came in wearing shorts and a sports top and took them off without being asked, as if it were already the most natural thing in the world.

—I brought something today —she said softly.

She pulled a joint from the pocket of her shorts and showed it to me with a conspiratorial smile.

—Mom and I used to smoke sometimes, on the balcony… remember?

I smiled.

—How could I not remember.

We lit it and shared long pulls, passing it back and forth in silence. The smoke mingled with the smell of salt air, turpentine, and sweat. It relaxed us fast. Our eyes went red and laughter started spilling out on its own, over anything and nothing.

—Pose however you want —I said, my voice rougher than I meant it to be—. No rules. No poses. However you feel like.

She sat on the stool, her legs closed at first. But after another drag she slowly opened them, just enough for me to see everything. She looked at me with an innocent little face that still had a mischievous spark burning in the background. She bit her lower lip.

—Like this? —she asked, tilting her head, her hair falling over one breast.

I nodded. My voice wouldn’t come out. I painted with my hand shaking so badly the line came out broken. Renata ran her fingers down her neck, lowered her hand, lightly brushed one nipple. She squeezed it softly. A low, involuntary moan escaped me.

She laughed, teasing.

—You like it?

—A lot —I answered, no longer pretending.

She opened her legs wider. She leaned back on her hands, arching her back, her breasts pushed forward. The golden tan contrasted with the pale patches of skin. The joint burned down between my fingers, forgotten.

I put the brush down. I went over to her.

—I want to correct your posture —I lied, and we both knew it.

***

I put my hands on her hips. Her skin was burning. My body brushed her thigh and she didn’t move an inch. She only drew a deep breath and lifted her face to look at me with those big, shining eyes.

—Dad… —she whispered.

I kissed her. Gently at first, as if testing whether the ground would hold. Then hungrily. She tasted of smoke, salt, and something sweet I couldn’t name. I cupped her face with both hands and she kissed me back with the same desperation, as if she had been holding it in for months.

I lifted her off the stool and set her on the long table in the studio, between the tubes of oil paint and the jars of turpentine. I kissed her neck, went down along her collarbone, traced her tan with my mouth. She buried her fingers in my hair and threw her head back.

—Don’t stop —she panted—. Please.

I knelt on the wooden floor, spread her legs, and kissed her between the thighs, slowly, unhurried, savoring every reaction. Renata grabbed my hair and moaned softly, biting the back of her other hand so she wouldn’t make a sound, though no one was there to hear us except the sea.

When I straightened up, she was already tugging at my belt with clumsy fingers. I lowered my pants. I looked into her eyes as I drew her to the edge of the table, and entered her slowly, centimeter by centimeter, never breaking eye contact. She was trembling, wet, tight.

She wrapped her legs around my waist and dug her nails into my back. I started slow, deep, feeling how she clenched around me with every thrust. I held the back of her neck with one hand and with the other I gripped her hip to set the rhythm.

—More —she begged against my ear—. Dad, more…

I made her turn over and lean across the table. I kissed her sweat-damp back, gently bit one shoulder. I slid inside her again, this time harder, and ran my hand between her legs to rub her in circles while I fucked her. Renata moaned, gasped, repeated my name and then the word she shouldn’t say, again and again.

She came trembling, clutching me with her whole body, sobbing with pure pleasure against the wood. I held on a few seconds longer and finished shortly after, growling against her nape, while outside the sea kept roaring and the smoke from the joint still hung in the studio’s hot air.

***

We stayed wrapped around each other on the table, sweaty, silent, smelling of salt and smoke. Outside, evening was falling and the golden light came in through the window as if nothing had changed.

But everything had changed. And we both knew it.

Renata turned her head and looked at me with a small smile, the first real one since she’d come back.

—Now I really feel free —she said.

That night I painted until dawn. And for the first time in a long while, it wasn’t Camila’s ghost looking back at me from the canvas.