The Bride Was A Picture

Denis buys a picture of a stunning bride not realising that she will come to life

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“Twenty pounds.” The auctioneer looked around the room. “Do I hear twenty-five? Twenty-five.”

He pointed his gavel at a fat man at the back of the room. “This is a fine painting by an unknown artist of a bride on her wedding day. Do I hear thirty?”

The room was quiet except for the shuffling of feet. “Who wants a picture of someone else’s bride on their wall?” someone muttered.

Denis raised his hand.

‘Thirty,’ the auctioneer looked back at him. ‘Do I hear thirty-five?’

Denis felt in his pocket, although he knew there were only forty pounds there and he needed the bus fare home.

He looked over his shoulder. The fat man looked like he was going to raise his hand again but then he coughed and bent double, as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

‘I’m selling at thirty.’ The auctioneer raised his gavel.

The fat man coughed again and shook his head.

‘Sold.’ The gavel dropped with a clack of wood on wood.

Back in his house, Dennis banged a nail into the wall opposite the end of his bed. He unwrapped the picture and hung it reverentially on the hook.

It was a large painting, nearly four feet by three in a wide gilt frame that swept out at the corners and it filled most of the wall. At the bottom, mounted in the centre of the frame was an engraved label that said, Anastasia.

Dennis sat back on his bed and stared at the woman in the painting. She was young and had dark blonde curled hair that flowed down to the level of her chin. The lower half of her body was shrouded in the white of the wedding dress which narrowed to a basque like top that allowed a hint of her creamy skin to show through the filigree. Her bridal veil was lifted as if she had arrived at the altar but she was standing in, what looked like a bedroom.

“Getting ready for your wedding night?” Dennis leered at the painting, his mind already conjuring up images of the woman naked on the bed that was next to her.

She gazed back at him with an unblinking stare. Dennis thought she looked as if she was giving him the slightly contemptuous look so many women did when they caught him looking at them. But this one was different, the corners of her mouth seemed to be just about to turn up into a smile almost as if she knew what he was thinking. And anyway, she could not stop him looking, she was a painting.

“Well Anastasia,” he said, “You’re mine now, I bought you.”