So it's a surprise to meet sunny 79-year-old Genevieve Laporte, with her laugh lines, throaty chuckle, floral-print dress and white orthopedic shoes. She survived Picasso and then some, becoming an award-winning poet and documentary filmmaker.

When Laporte was 24, she began a two-year secret affair with the 70-year-old master. She was a beautiful, tousle-haired former Resistance fighter, and Picasso sketched her over and over - naked in bed, in a fantasy wedding gown, in a prim sailor sweater.

On June 27, Laporte will sell 20 of Picasso's sketches in Paris. Worth an estimated $1.8 million to $2.4 million, they show a soft side of the womanizing genius. The sale, by the Artcurial auction house, will take place at the Hotel Dassault.

''I want to get the message out about who Pablo was,'' Laporte said. ''He was a tender man, respectful, intelligent, timid - not at all the abominable snowman we're used to hearing about.''

Laporte met Picasso when she was 17 and interviewed him for the school newspaper. An unusual friendship was born. It was innocent - at least on her side.

''I was certainly perfectly naive,'' Laporte said. ''He told me [later], 'You can't imagine how much I wanted to touch your hair, but I didn't dare.' . . . He could have been my grandfather! Ooh la la, if he had touched my hair, I would have taken off running.''

Seven years later, Laporte saw Picasso again at his apartment.

She blames her seduction on a late-afternoon storm.

''I said I was going to go home. And at that moment, I swear, it was like in a fairy tale. The room grew dark, and through the skylight I saw a sky like I've never seen before, except in Congo during tropical storms.

''He told me, 'Wait a little while, there's going to be a storm,' '' Laporte said. ''And bada boom: lightning, thunder, hail.''

And then?

''I have no memory of what happened next,'' she said demurely.