Anders Zorn, Swedish
Jessie Read Somewhere That On a First Date You Should Wear Red and Something Low-Cut. Done and Done. 1914
Oil on canvas
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Info, or links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (archived if necessary), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, here, and here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page (Google translated Swedish Wikipedia page may have more).
/// In her cubicle, street-walker Charlotte
donned Red Stockings a bright shade of scarlet.
Most would find this fact shocking:
She was once a bluestocking,
but it pays better being a harlot.
/// Of great scholarship she’d been a fan.
Then she heard from an erudite man:
“There’s no Heaven above.
You should practice Free Love.”
She said, “Business-wise that’s a bad plan!”
/// Charlotte knows, even in a recession,
people lust for a bit of transgression.
Though girls “give it away,”
men still line up to pay.
That’s why hers is the oldest profession.
/// One odd customer, (far from her worst),
likes to role-play a babe being nursed.
He is blind to her brains,
but she never complains,
just as long as her fee is disbursed.
/// When a client requests “apparatus,”
he pays extra, for nothing is gratis.
Charlotte knows she’s a pro,
because long, long ago
she first charged— losing amateur status.
/// The way lights casting shadows were placed
made it seem like she has a slim waist.
True, she is baby-faced,
and with youthful skin graced,
but it’s thirty years since she was chaste.
/// As she prowls city street through the night,
her red stockings are meant to excite.
But their hue disappears
every time Charlotte nears
and stands under her District’s Red Light.
/// The display of bare flesh makes hearts quicken.
Some men even react as though stricken.
Are they wild for some leg,
or for breasts will they beg?
(Depends. Which is it, women or chicken?)
> or <
/// In her bath is the spa owner’s daughter,
so it wouldn’t have helped to have fought her.
Astrid stripped herself bare
and then joined her in there.
Now it seems that they’re both in hot water.
/// The team in olden days called Red Stockings
had been Boston’s World Champion “Jock Kings.”
This girl wears red hose
with few other clothes
and endures all the Yankee fan mockings.*
/// In her youth the Red Sox were much worse.
They were winning-World-Series-averse.
Then in two thousand four
she let team members score,
thereby ending the Bambino’s Curse.
*(Thanks to P51Strega for supplying the last line.)