Olympia

As he started to catch his rhythm, his mind started to get lost in different thoughts. Condensation of his body had just started to become visible through his shoulders. Only God knew how many mosquitos would eventually claim those wet shoulders as their graveyards.
He had heard somebody talk about Manet’s Olympia at a bar in Lausanne a couple of days ago, and he remembered the conversation between the two gentlemanly looking douchebags.
One of them had expressed his admiration towards the famous oil painting, while the other just referred to the character of the painting as a whore and he had said that he would never have anything to do with prostitutes in his life. “Even if god came down and gifted me that painting, I would still burn it. I hate prostitutes.” He had said.
Simon wanted to headbutt the douche on the spot. The other guy had already expressed his dislike of prostitutes as well. This was the problem with the west in Simon’s mind. These two definitely deserved and needed a good beating, but he had to let it slip. He didn’t want to stay in a Swiss prison for however long the time might have been.
He tried to give life to the painting by visualising it.
He had seen the painting once before, he remembered the cracks of paint on the upper right thigh and around the right breast. He always thought that the hands and the wrists were a bit too manly for Olympia, whoever she actually might be. The way that she was drawn, made her look like she was trying to tuck her belly in. He had made that assumption based on the small indent above her belly button. This could exist under normal anatomical circumstances, however there was a clear curve above the indent where the upper abdominal muscles are located, which made her look like she was tucking the belly in.
She was pretty in an average way. Nothing more nothing less. But Manet drew her in such a way that you could imagine the potential attractiveness that she possessed while she was dressed. The details of the painting did not matter to him, because he wanted to think about the influence of this painting, or what it meant socially rather than what it looked like. But before he could move on to think about those, he remembered the black cat on the painting. Even though he was a cat lover, that was one ugly drawing of a cat. He wanted to presume that the cats were that ugly back in the day, so that he wouldn’t take away anything from Manet.
He didn’t want to dwell on the black servant either. When the painting was made, slavery had already been abolished for 15 years in France. Many people have had numerous useless conversations about the topic. While Simon thought that white supremacy was still a very real issue in todays world, even if the prostitutes did not have black servants anymore.
He had been always curious about prostitution. He had not slept with many of them, but he had paid for their conversations sometimes. There was so much that you could learn from a prostitute. To purchase somebody’s body, in order to satisfy 30 to 60 minutes of your sad, distraught life. Simon found it pathetic, however, he doubted that this was the way how prostitution had started.
The amount of men that prostitutes talk to makes them an urban library of lies and legends. Everybody lies, especially to a prostitute, thinking that the prostitute is going to tell the next customer how shit he was because the one that she was fucked by before had killed a giraffe with his bare hands. Prostitutes never gave a rat’s ass about any of the customer’s stories, and Simon doubted that they ever would. It was all about the money, and it would always be. While irritated from the sweat dripping on her back, the prostitute will still look at her watch to see if she could possibly make another customer without the fat bald fucker realising that she was doing so. Reality is the worst nightmare of one’s imagination. And it will catch up with your dreams, whether you like it or not. If one is as stupid as the fat fucker Simon was imagining, he would possibly leave the prostitute’s room thinking that she really liked him, while she would already be rushing to see the missed calls on her phone to see what sort of needy motherfucker she would throw in her bed next.
These things were still out of context for Simon.
He was always amused by the black rope or ribbon tied around the neck of Olympia. Not many people knew, but this was the first depiction of a choker like symbol. This was a ribbon worn by prostitutes to identify themselves as one to the public, or more possibly to their potential buyers.
It was almost impossible to see some young girls without chokers nowadays. It was the new trend and there was a good chance that it had all happened because of Manet’s Olympia.
Simon raised his arm towards the air while running and lifted his middle finger towards the sky, presuming that Manet was above the clouds somewhere.
There was, is, and probably always will be something very soulful about prostitution and prostitutes. Simon did not care if that soulful thing was good or bad, as long as there was some soul attached to it. And the one thing that wasn’t soulful at all was the new trend for girls to follow. He hated this sort of thing with deep passion.

While acknowledging that the concept of prostitution had probably dramatically changed since Manet’s Olympia, he accepted that prostitutes were probably better to talk to than most people. Strictly from a conversational standpoint. It was their job to talk, and act like they listened. But if you let them know that you are not willing to throw them into bed, and you still pay just for them to talk, things would always get interesting.

While people called each other whores, sluts, hookers and other synonyms of the word, Simon was appreciative of what a prostitute had to go though just to be able to feel like a part of the society. Obviously prostitution is not forced upon the prostitutes in most cases, but neither is a 9 to 5 job is forced upon you.

Simon knew that prostitutes thought of white collar workers as much bigger whores than themselves. He agreed in certain cases as well.

He just wished that those people had half of the character that the prostitutes had.

“Enough prostitution thoughts for today” he told himself.
“But Olympia’s slippers are also horrific.”