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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Some Things Are Universal” Down in the Dirt v208 (6/23)  Order the paperback book: 
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Inès
Toney Dimos
The bells of the blue-domed St. Paul’s church echoed at dawn throughout the village of Panaghia in Santorini. Hermes watched Inès, a 19-year old swimsuit model from France, sleep nude on her stomach. He kept trying to sketch her, as she slumbered, but found capturing her elusive.
The evening before they had quarreled in his shabby cave house over his inability to paint a portrait of her, even though he was in love with her. “You tell me you love me, but you can’t paint me! But, you can paint her instead with no problem?!” said Ines, pointing to an unfinished portrait of Kendall Jenner Hermes had been commissioned to create.
“Don’t be that way, chérie,” said Hermes. “You know it’s not like that.”
“Do you love her?! Dîtes-moi!”
Hermes made no response, whereby Ines recoiled, saying, “You do love her, don’t you?!”
Upon returning from Athens, where he visited an exhibition of George Condo at the Museum of Cycladic Art, Hermes had met Kendall Jenner in the late spring at the café of the Belvedere Hotel on the island where he was working on sketches of a rendering of The Last Supper he was contemplating. She was on the island for a vacation after a recent break-up with a beau, sipping a freshly squeezed orange juice when Hermes took a seat next to her. Though he recognized her instantly, he remained aloof as she watched him draw images of Christ and the Apostles. A sketch of Judas kissing Jesus particularly enraptured her.
Hermes could feel her gaze, noticing the gold serpent arm bracelet from Crete wrapped around her left limb. “That’s a lovely piece of jewelry,” said Hermes, looking-up from his sketch pad to make eye contact with her.
“I want you to paint me,” she said to him.
“And, if I refuse?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said, whispering in a sultry voice in her ear.
Hermes had been cultivating a work, tentatively titled Kendall, drawing on the motifs of Andy Warhol’s Orange Prince and Liz Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus; and Klimt’s Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen Echt. In the background of the picture, he included a scattering of dolphins, an approach he had seen with Demaretion coins from 5th Century Siracusa.
Taking sips of bitter Greek coffee, while listening to a piano sonata by Mozart, Hermes studied both Inès and the portrait of Kendall. To clear his mind, he decided to go for a swim in the azure sea. While resting on the rocks, he read a collection of Hemingway’s short fiction. Transfixed by the sun rising over the horizon in the distance, he gazed at the remnants of the volcanic isles.
Upon making his way up the cliffs to the cave house, an idea came to him for a painting of Inès. He entered the abode, though, only to find the portrait of Kendall covered in thick black and white paint. On the ruined canvas was a handwritten note reading:
