Free A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates

magically containing the wholly unlike names Esther Spivak and Marcus C. Kidder, Katya would have liked to leave. But how could she say no to Mr. Kidder's hospitality after he'd been so kind to her? She could not.
    She sat on a sofa with chintz-covered pillows. She supposed that Mr. Kidder would offer her something to drink—he'd been drinking wine, she guessed—but instead he sat facing her, somewhat distractedly, in a straight-backed chair; he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He was wearing an expensive-looking linen shirt in a pale lavender shade, and dark purple summer trousers with a sharp crease. Katya did not want to think that the white-haired old gentleman had changed his clothes, combed his hair, and shaved, just for her. (Maybe he'd had other guests at the house earlier? Maybe he'd gone out with friends?) In the warm lamplight Katya could see the crinkled skin beside Mr. Kidder's eyes, from so many years of smiling; she could see stray wirelike white hairs protruding from his eyebrows and from his ears. Katya smiled, thinking, Those hairs would tickle! and Mr. Kidder asked what she was smiling at, and Katya blushed and said she didn't know.
    "Maybe you're happy, Katya? That's reason enough."
    Katya agreed, it was.
    "You are a happy person, I think? You seem to have the gift of joy." Mr. Kidder spoke lightly, as if "gift of joy" had quotation marks around it. "Except for your concern for your mother, which is altogether natural."
    Katya agreed, it was.
    "Or are you just agreeing with me, eccentric old Marcus Kidder, in order to be, like any clever child, agreeable?"
    Katya laughed, blushing. The check was in her straw bag and the straw bag on her knees, and in a fleeting fantasy she saw herself raising both elbows, employing her sharp elbows like weapons if Mr. Kidder moved toward her.
    But this was a shameful thought, and a ridiculous thought: Mr. Kidder was not that sort of man, you could tell.
    "Do you believe in soul mates, Katya? That some individuals are fated for each other? No matter the differences between them. No matter the vagaries of external circumstance."
    Vagaries. The word made Katya uneasy; she wasn't sure of its meaning. But soul mate she guessed she understood.
    From a nearby table Mr. Kidder had taken up an artist's sketchbook, to show her a drawing in pastel chalk, which made Katya laugh in surprise. "Mr. Kidder, is that me? " For the softly muted, feathery drawing was of a girl who resembled Katya enough to be a sister, with the Spivak family cheekbones, the set of Katya's eyes, the slant of her eyebrows and the shape of her nose...
    "This is Katya-in-memory, not you," Mr. Kidder said, with mild disdain for the drawing, though Katya thought it was amazing, wonderful: her, and yet not her, a younger, softer-featured, prettier, and surely nicer Katya Spivak. "Now that you are here, my vision seated before me, I see exactly where I went wrong. May I—?" Mr. Kidder tore the sketch out of the book and to Katya's dismay crumpled it in his fist as if it were of no worth. He took up a stick of chalk and began sketching, peering at Katya as if taking her measure. "If you aren't tired, Katya, and don't mind posing for me. For just a few minutes."
    Katya was uneasy. She had not expected this. Yet telling herself, How can I say no? Mr. Kidder has been so kind.
    And so Katya posed for the first time for Marcus Kidder. Self-conscious, unsure what to do with her hands. She wet her lips nervously. She felt a sudden itch in her right armpit that she couldn't dare scratch. Mr. Kidder asked her to turn her head toward the light, to lift her shoulders and lean forward, to cross her legs at the ankles, uncross her legs, again cross her legs at the knees ... Over her T-shirt and shorts she was wearing a loose-fitting white terrycloth pullover, which Mr. Kidder asked her to remove, which she did. Yet still something wasn't right. "Too much shadow is being cast onto your face. Come here, Katya—this will be