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Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain

3
Aftermath

I HAD HELL TO PAY when I got home Sunday afternoon. Jasmine and I both sent text messages to our parents telling them we were spending the night with each other. Then we turned off our phones. That had to be the weirdest feeling ever. It was like cutting off the world. All that was left was in that motel room, and it centered on Jasmine.

We had enough sandwiches and drinks in the cooler that we didn’t need to go out for dinner. We went next door to Denny’s for breakfast in the morning but ran straight back to the room and made love again. Then we made love in the shower.

Jasmine. Wow!

When we finally turned our phones on, there were a million messages. Half of them from our parents. Apparently, they didn’t believe we were spending the night together because half the messages from our friends were asking if we were really spending the night together and if we were ‘doing it’.

“I don’t feel like telling everybody yet,” Jasmine said. “I’m not ashamed or anything, but I just want to enjoy it being the two of us for a while, you know?”

“Yeah. I guess maybe that’s why newlyweds go on a honeymoon. It’s so they can just enjoy being with each other.”

“Jett, I don’t want to… I mean, like you are my best guy friend, but I don’t want to change into boyfriend and girlfriend exactly.” I started to object, but Jasmine put a finger to my lips. “Shh. Wait. I don’t really know what a boyfriend and girlfriend are that we weren’t already. But at the same time, I don’t want to do this with anyone else. Not right now. I don’t even want to Skype with anyone else. Can we just be…”

“How about if we’re just with each other until after graduation in a couple weeks and then see how we feel?” I suggested. “Jasmine, I don’t even want to think of anyone else.”

“You got nude pictures this morning from Kelly, Lisa, and Charmaine that all had ‘Me next’ written on them,” she laughed. “Are you sure you don’t want to do them all?”

“If… If you’re willing, I’d really rather just enjoy you and our friendship for a while. I don’t know if we’re in love. Like you not understanding what a girlfriend and boyfriend are, I don’t know if I understand what love is. I know I want to be around you a lot and I want to do a lot more of what we did this weekend together. Just with you, Jasmine.”

“Then kiss me again. I have to go in and explain things to my mother.”

I HAD TO EXPLAIN things to Mom and Dad, too. And Granddad. And Grandma and Grandpa Blackburn. Dad’s father was pouring Grandma another bloody Mary. God knows how many she’d already had. It was already two in the afternoon. I managed to carry my painting to my room before I was attacked.

“Young man, take a shower and make yourself presentable to the family,” Mom barked at me. “Don’t come down here until you are clean.”

I briefly considered just not going back downstairs, but I knew that would end up with everyone in my room. I’d just showered with Jasmine in the motel before we left. I shook my head and rinsed in the shower. Knowing Mom, she’d check to see if my towel was wet. It gave me a minute to pull myself together, though. You know what? I’d just spent the past night making love to my beautiful friend. I wasn’t going to let this spoil my mood. I dressed in clean clothes and bounced down the stairs as if I didn’t have a care in the world.

“Hi, Mom, Dad. Hi, Granddad. Grandpa. Do you need a refresher on your drink, Grandma?” I went to the bar and mixed a bloody Mary and took it to my mother. “Here, Mom. You look like you need a drink. Did you all have Sunday dinner together?”

“Would you care to explain yourself?” Mom demanded. “Where were you last night?”

“Didn’t you get my text message? I spent the night with Jasmine. It was great, thank you.”

“I called Jasmine’s mother. She thought the two of you were here.”

“No. We rented a room. Wait till you see the painting I did of her. She’s so beautiful.”

“Painting?” Granddad chuckled. “Is that what you were doing?”

“Well, not all night. I finished the painting before we did anything else, though. It was really great.”

“Is that all you have to say for yourself after spending the night with some girl in a filthy motel room?” Mom exclaimed.

“First, yes, that’s all I have to say. Second, it wasn’t some girl; it was Jasmine. Third, the room was really quite clean and I cleaned up all my painting mess before we left this morning,” I said. I saw that there was a big bowl of Chex Mix in front of Grandma and helped myself as I went into the kitchen to get a DP. I went back in to sit beside Grandma and have more of the mix. “What have you all been doing today?”

“We’ve been talking about you,” Dad said. “You had us very worried. You turned off your phone.”

“I really didn’t want to be disturbed, Dad. I let you know I was fine and who I was with.”

“You know you aren’t allowed to stay out all night,” Mom almost shrieked.

“Mom, you and Dad have been telling me for three months how things have changed now that I’m eighteen and I need to be taking care of myself. So, I’m eighteen and I took care of myself.”

“You still live under this roof and you need to abide by our rules.”

“You’ve told me that you’ll be charging rent for me to stay in that little room after I graduate. I’ll be moving out by mid-summer. Earlier if you really want me to. I have finals next week, but then we have a week clear before graduation. I can use that time to look for housing,” I said calmly.

“How much rent?” Grandma asked leaning in toward me.

“A thousand a month,” I whispered back to her.

“For a thousand a month you can have the whole lower level of our house,” she giggled. That was an intriguing possibility but I was hoping to find something for around a hundred.

“It’s not necessary for you to be looking for another place to live, son,” Dad said. Mom started to interrupt, but Dad held up his hand to her. “Charging you rent was to give you a taste for the realities of life, not to punish you or to make you think you weren’t welcome. We set the rent high so you’d realize that even though you were an adult, you were still a dependent.”

“Thank you for finally explaining that, Dad, but my $50 weekly allowance won’t even cover my lunches. I still need to go out and find a job and find a place I can afford to live.”

“You can work off your rent here,” Dad said.

“How?”

“You can cook, clean, do laundry, and yard maintenance,” Mom said.

“Sounds like slave labor,” Grandma giggled.

“He needs to learn responsibility,” Mom declared.

“At what point did you learn that, Isobel?” Granddad asked. “My recollection is that you got your first job at twenty-five and were in it just long enough for Jack to marry you. And at that time, you were still living at home.”

“Times have changed, Dad. Our generation doesn’t have the benefits yours did. Everything is more expensive,” Mom said. She cut off the conversation by turning it back to me. “This still doesn’t resolve the problem of Jett running away from home for the weekend to have a sordid affair.”

“That’s not why we went away. We went where I could paint her picture without being interrupted. The rest just evolved.”

“I’d like to see that picture,” Mom declared. “I don’t think you were painting at all.”

That pissed me off and I left the room. I grabbed a display stand I used for letting my paintings dry and brought it downstairs to set up first. Then I went back to get the painting. As I looked at my room, assuming I’d be leaving it within a week or two, I decided to grab the three other paintings I was using for my portfolio review at the university. They were dry and I’d have to go back again for the wet painting of Jasmine. I’d do a full presentation since no one seemed to believe I was an artist.

I set the abstract painting I’d done on the easel. My mother rolled her eyes.

“Portfolio review for the university art program is to assess the range of the student’s experience and ability. This is not the painting of Jasmine. This is my abstraction of a biology class. You wouldn’t have liked the class any more than you like the painting, Mother. It was dirty and messy. Even though I wore latex gloves during the class, I still washed my hands several times after class that day. While painting this abstraction, I also wore latex gloves because I didn’t want to get my hands in it.”

Dad’s dad got up and walked around it. Grandma kept bouncing in her seat trying to get up off the sofa and finally gave up and took another drink.

“I can see what you’re getting at here,” he said. “It reminds me of the butcher shop in the store. It’s a little discomforting. Very good.” Mom rolled her eyes again, but Grandpa was nodding.

“The second request was for a landscape or street scene. I focused on trying to capture details in the painting from memory. I confess that I’ve gone back to this painting half a dozen times to add something else I remembered.”

“Like your Grandmother looking out the window,” Granddad said as he got up and looked at the picture. “The tire swing. Her favorite flowers. A glass of tea on the porch. Thank you.” He turned and gave me a hug. I switched paintings and my mother practically jumped out of her seat. She just stood in front of the portrait I’d painted of her. No one said anything, but even Grandpa helped Grandma up from her seat so she could get close enough to see.

“Portrait,” I said simply.

Granddad had cautioned me about letting my mother see the portrait I’d painted of her but standing over her left shoulder, he nodded at me. Maybe it was a little mean of me but I had to show her. Dad put his arm around Mom. Tears were running down her cheeks as she stood in front of the painting. I’d never seen someone transfixed before.

While everyone was looking at the portrait, I retrieved the painting of Jasmine. When I returned, they were all still gathered around the easel. I removed the painting of Mom. Her eyes tracked it as I leaned it against an end table. I placed Jasmine’s picture on the easel.

“Figure study,” I said.

Grandma gasped and turned her head to bury her face against Grandpa’s chest. He put his arms protectively around her. Mom did the same with Dad. Granddad sighed and I saw a tear in his eye.

“I hope that with this portfolio of paintings and a few of my drawings, I will be able to get enough scholarship funding that I won’t end up a million dollars in debt by the time I finish school. Or even $100,000, which is pretty much the same thing.” I picked up the dry paintings and returned them to my room. When I got back downstairs, everyone had returned to their places and drinks, lounging around the room. Mom looked up at me.

“You still love me?” she said. “Even after…”

“Of course I love you, Mom. You’ve always wanted what was best for me.”

“Jett, when you’ve finished your portfolio review, I’ll pay you $10,000 for the painting of my house,” Granddad said. “That should pay for your first year’s tuition.”

“Really, Granddad? You like it that much?”

“It made me feel closer to Marta. Yes. I like it that much.”

“I’ll match that bid for the abstract,” Grandpa said. “I want to hang it in the office. It just captures something.” I was amazed. With $20,000 I’d only have to come up with another $5,000 to pay for my first year at the university. Trust my grandparents to come through for me.

“Same offer,” Dad said startling me. “For the portrait.” My mouth fell open. My parents were offering me $10,000 for school? That’s all it could be. There was no way any of these paintings were worth what my parents and grandparents were offering me. I glanced nervously at the painting of Jasmine, still on the easel.

“I think you’ve already been paid for that one,” Grandma tittered. Everyone started laughing. I guessed our family meeting was over.

“WHAT DID YOUR MOTHER SAY?” I asked Jasmine at school the next day. Jasmine laughed.

“She thought we’d been having sex for two years! I told her I wished it was so,” Jasmine said. “But seriously, Jett, it’s going to be so hard to go back to virtual reality.”

“We don’t have to,” I said. “Um… would you like to come home with me this afternoon?”

“Jett! You’re kidding, right? Your mom would never put up with that.”

“I think she’s okay with it,” I said. “She put two sets of towels in my bathroom last night.” Jasmine smashed her lips against mine and I welcomed the kiss with passion.

“Hey, no fair,” Kelly claimed as the rest of our crew arrived. “I’d have done it with you, Jett. Shit, I’d still do it with you.”

“Not now, Kelly,” I said. I returned to kissing Jas.

“You mean like maybe later?” I just waved my hand at her. Jas dug in the back pocket of my jeans, a pleasant sensation, and pulled out the painted jockeys I wore on Saturday. She tossed them in Kelly’s direction without breaking our kiss.

“Hey, how about me, Kelly?” Derek tormented her. “I thought you wanted this handsome bod.”

“You’d just be a consolation prize,” Kelly sighed, looping an arm through his.

“Yeah, well, with Jasmine occupied it moves you up a notch, too,” he said. Kelly swatted him with my underwear. “Uh, Kelly? Speaking as an expert on the subject, that’s not all paint.”

“Ewww!”

JAS AND I weren’t going to spend the whole week just fucking, no matter what our friends thought. We had finals and neither of us wanted to let our grades slip and endanger our scholarship chances. Having an extra thirty grand in my bank relieved some of the pressure, but I really wanted to attend more than one year of college.

I’m not sure what our parents expected. Maybe more than we were ready for. When we got to my house after school, the dining room table was already set for four. Mom was happily humming in the kitchen and the house smelled better than I could ever remember.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, poking my head into the kitchen. It was, of course, spotless. “Jas and I are going to go up and study for our Calculus final.”

“Certainly, dear,” Mom said happily. “You go ‘study.’ Dinner will be ready at six. Please shower first.”

O-kay. Jas and I had serious studying to do and were sprawled out on my bed with our laptops open and four others joining us by Skype to review for the final.

“Where’s Kelly and Derek?” I asked as we got started. There were a couple of giggles and Charmaine exploded in laughter.

“If I had to guess, I’d say Motel 6. I recommended the Holiday Inn, but they cut the last half of today’s classes.”

“Really?” Jas asked. “They’re going to do it?”

“You broke the ice,” Rick said. “You’re an inspiration to all of us.”

“Speaking of which…” Charmaine started. Rick cut her off.

“Not until after finals.”

Geez! All of our friends were pairing off and… Were they really all planning to fuck now that Jas and I had?

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