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Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain

9
Interviews

WEDNESDAY was a big day for me. I’d futzed around all day Monday and Tuesday selecting paintings to take to my interview in the Art Department at the University. The biggest problem was that the canvases weren’t all dry. Notably, the paintings of Lonnie and Kelly. I definitely wanted to take both of them.

I understand that old fashioned artists used to stretch canvas on a frame, size it, gesso, wait for it to dry thoroughly, and paint. It takes a lot of skill and precision to build a frame to stretch the canvas on. It needs to be perfectly square at the corners. Some classic artists would use the same frame over and over by waiting for their painting to cure and then removing it from the frame, rolling it up, and stretching a new canvas.

Of course, now you can just go to Blick’s and get a pre-stretched canvas that’s already been triple gesso’d and is ready to paint on. But for a young artist—especially one who has to buy his own supplies—pre-stretched canvas is expensive, even if you only get medium quality. A sixteen by twenty will cost around twenty bucks. On the other hand, you can get a heavy-weight stretched canvas laminated to an eighth-inch board for about three-and-a-half dollars. So, guess what I paint on.

The problem is that a wet board is really hard to handle. There’s nothing to grip it by. No frame. No handles.

I talked to Granddad and he helped me create a corrugated box for them and we used duct tape on the back of the board to hold it in place so it wouldn’t slide around and damage the paint. Those two pieces, I’d carry on the front seat of the Mini with the others carefully boxed in the back.

I WOKE UP slowly on Wednesday morning. We were still sleeping on air mattresses in the basement of Granddad’s house. Things had shifted during the week. Several people stopped in and we met others when we were out. Rick and Ford had returned to their homes. Derek and Dee didn’t return after they went to Dee’s house, but we Skyped every day. It had boiled down to the five homeless girls and me. Well, Jas and I could have gone home any time, but why would I want to stop sleeping with five sexy and often naked girls? And why would Jas leave me to them?

It’s funny, though. Even though we were all pretty touchy-feely, Jas had been the only one I had sex with before this week. And not all that often. Starting Sunday night, the girls started rotating who was sleeping next to me. One night it would be Jas and Ariel. Another night Kelly and Charmaine. Tuesday night it had been Jas and Sarah Lynn. There had been quite a few shared orgasms as we settled down at night, but the only one who did a show online was Kelly. And every morning, my phone would chime with another picture of her. Or a body part of her.

I sleepily raised my phone to my face and looked at the morning’s offering. It was definitely Kelly’s pussy with the tuft of bright red hair above her slit, but the finger rubbing her clit was dark brown. “Guess who’s getting me off!” I grinned. Jasmine’s butt was up against my left side and Kelly was sprawled next to her. On the other hand, when I lifted my head slightly, I saw Charmaine beyond Kelly. Hmm.

But that meant the hand on my morning erection was not my girlfriend’s. I turned my head to the right and saw Sarah Lynn looking at me. She smiled. Then, in a very uncharacteristic move, she wiggled her way higher under my arm and kissed me. We’d had sex the morning after commencement but I’d heard her say it wasn’t me she was thinking of. And we hadn’t kissed. In fact, there had been a few little pecks and an occasional tongue twister among us, but mostly none of us had done much kissing except Jas and me.

Sarah Lynn’s kiss was unexpected and intense. I pulled my left arm out from under Jas and wrapped it around Sarah Lynn as she continued to move over me. My right hand was on her butt and it looked like we were headed for a rematch. She made that clear when she pulled her lips away from mine for a second.

“Can we make love?” she whispered. “I want to do it looking into your eyes so I know for sure that it’s you and not a fantasy. I want to feel you come inside me and know that you are the one filling me up and focused on just me. Can we make love, Jett?” I answered her with another kiss and a little pressure from my hand on her butt to move her over me.

She still had a grip on my cock, so when she lifted up, it was easy for her to rub it up and down her slit, mixing our lubrication. The whole time, though, she was looking at me. I moved my left hand up to touch her cheek and let my fingers trace her lips. She opened her mouth slightly and sucked my fingers in. They probably still tasted like Jas from the night before but Sarah Lynn didn’t seem to mind as she laved them with her tongue. She held them in her mouth as she directed my cock to her opening and slowly sank down on it.

I could feel her moan on my fingers. She let them loose from her mouth when she was fully on my cock and lowered her face to kiss me again. We continued to hold still while joined together for a while. I don’t know if she was controlling the pulses in her vagina or if it was just something that naturally occurred in her. Nonetheless, I knew that if we did nothing more than kiss and stay connected, I would come in her. I wouldn’t be able to resist.

She lifted up again and looked into my eyes. My hands came around to the front and I cupped her breasts, playing a little with her nipples. That started little pelvic thrusts. It wasn’t like sawing in and out. I don’t think I came out more than an inch each time she pulled her hips forward and then slid back. She wasn’t bouncing on me, just that little thrust that I fell into rhythm with.

“Sarah Lynn, I don’t know how or why we got together, but I hope it continues. You are like an anchor that I didn’t know I needed. I love making love to you.”

“Jett, I just fell on you the first time, letting all my sorrow drive our coupling. I want you to know that I’ve found something special with you—with you and Jas and Kelly. And I think with Ariel and Charmaine. I think we can all anchor each other,” she said. “But right now, I just want to feel you in me. I just want to feel it building. And when it builds enough, I want to feel it take over my whole body and soul. I want you, Jett.”

It got pretty hard to talk after that. I could feel every muscle in my body vibrating. And every one of Sarah Lynn’s muscles creating harmonics with mine. Her whole face was quivering when she finally let go and the ripples in her vagina turned into spasms. I felt moisture on my cheeks before the first tears from her eyes dropped. I pushed myself firmly inside her and just let my prostate do the work from that point, pumping and pumping until I thought I’d pass out.

She lowered herself to my lips again and we kissed softly, caressing each other with our mouths and tongues. She kept her pelvis wedged tightly down against me, preventing me from fully softening and sliding out. Her lips eventually parted from mine and she hugged me tightly as my arms encircled her. Her lips didn’t quite reach my ears, but I heard her whisper.

“I might be falling in love with you, Jett. I hope your heart is big enough for all of us.”

I NEEDED to get ready. It was early, I know, but I was antsy to get to my ten-thirty meeting at the U. I hopped in the shower and as the water beat down rinsing shampoo from my hair, the shower door opened and a slick body pressed herself up against me.

“What shall we name the baby?” Sarah Lynn asked. I slipped on the shower floor as I turned and would have fallen on my ass if she didn’t have a grip on me.

“What?”

“The baby. You know. You just shot four hundred thirty-two million a hundred eighty-seven thousand two hundred seventy-one sperm against my ripe cervix. I counted. I think I felt every one of them hit.”

“Sarah Lynn! I thought… Aren’t you protected?”

She stared into my shocked eyes and smiled. “Yes. But you didn’t know that. You need to think about these things, even if the girl is willing or aggressive. Like me. There are four more girls out there who want this beautiful penis in their warm wet vaginas. I know you had this discussion with Jas. Kelly is probably protected. My guess is that Ariel and Charmaine have never even thought about it. An unplanned pregnancy could put any one of us on welfare, in an abortion clinic, or—God forbid!—on the street.”

“Christ, Sarah Lynn! You scared the shit out of me.”

“I don’t see any on the floor, but maybe I should soap up the area, just in case.”

“Why’d you do that?” I scrunched my eyes together as she soaped my ass and used the detachable showerhead to make sure I was thoroughly rinsed. My cock was not quite rigid, but close enough that she felt it was necessary to soap it up, too. She kept stroking as she talked.

“We’ve been unfair to you, Jett. We’ve taken advantage of your good heart and friendship. We run around naked and tease you—not intentionally teasing most of the time, but we can tell the results pretty obviously. And you let us have our fun. But what you don’t realize is how much we’ve come to depend on you. Not just since my disaster of a commencement speech, but it’s been growing for a few years.” I was panting as I got closer. She hadn’t stopped stroking my cock and I was getting close. “Rinse this off,” she said, turning me around.

She got the soap off my cock and her hands then turned me back. She sank to her knees and took my cock in her mouth. It was way too much and for the second time this morning I came inside her. A lot. It dribbled out the corners of her mouth and she spit the remainder out as she popped off of me. She grabbed the spray head and rinsed me off then pointed it into her mouth to rinse and spit some more. I just sagged against the wall of the shower and looked at my second lover.

“I’m not crazy about the taste. I appreciate that Jas and Kelly like it, but I’d rather have you come in my pussy.”

“I won’t object to that. Um…”

“Oh, yeah. About what I was saying. You called me an anchor while we were making love. That’s sweet. So you should understand how we feel about you. Of all of us, you are the closest to normal. Whatever that means. I know I wasn’t as close to your inner circle in high school. I guess Lonnie and I invested most of our time in each other. But even Lonnie was drawn to you. Maybe we won’t all stick around forever, but we all want to be with you… if you’ll have us. I don’t just mean sexually with you. Rick isn’t interested in you that way. I don’t think Derek knows what he’s interested in. Dee either, for that matter. But we all still want to be near you. You balance us.”

“Wow!”

“Yeah, a lot to take in, huh? Dry my back?” I took her towel and carefully dried her back and legs. “If you’ll have me, Jett, you’ll see a lot of this body in the next few years. Um… I didn’t ask earlier, but can I catch a ride to the University with you? I need to go to the financial aid office and see if I can get some more funding now that my parents have said they’re disowning me.”

SARAH LYNN CARRIED the boxes with the two wet paintings in them, which was no small task in the little Mini. I dropped her at the administration building and hunted for a parking space near the Art building. With the two new paintings, the four that were cured, and a portfolio of my drawings and sketches, I gingerly made my way from visitor parking to the entrance. I was trying to figure out how to get the door open when a pretty blonde opened it from the inside.

“Excuse me, could you hold the door for me, please?” She looked at me like I was crazy and then saw the boxes and portfolio I was carrying. Her look softened.

“Portfolio review for admission?” she asked as she held the door.

“Yeah. Thank you.”

She followed me back into the building. “Are you any good?”

“I guess so. There are some things I’d like to learn, though.”

“I’m not a professor. You don’t have to play meek and humble. I’m in the art program. I’ll come along to your review.”

“You can just do that?” I asked. I figured my review would be with a professor or adviser or something.

“Portfolio reviews are open to students. We’re supposed to learn something from the professors’ comments and suggestions. Frankly, those of us who focus on watercolor are kind of second class artists. You do oils?”

“Yeah. Some acrylic, but mostly oil. My mother hates the fact that it doesn’t wash out.”

“Does she have rotor blades?”

I laughed. “Are you a pilot?”

“Yeah. Actually, I am.”

“That’s a good description. Mostly, she wants to make sure that my environment is sterile. She sneaks into my room and wipes down my easel and brushes with disinfectant wipes. I’m Jett, by the way.”

“Eva. My mother was upset that I traveled across the country to go to college. Mostly, I think she was afraid that without all my ribbons and awards that I’d lose my self-esteem.”

“Awards for your art?”

“Awards for everything. Out East, you only have to show up for something to get a ribbon or a trophy.”

“I understand. I think those things reassure our parents that they are raising a child as precious as they think. It just taught me that awards were meaningless.”

“Cool. Here’s the presentation room. How many easels do you need for the paintings?”

“I brought six paintings. Two of them aren’t cured yet, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to display them on an easel.”

“Well, let’s see. You can lay out drawings and sketches on the table over there while I get display easels for you.”

“Thanks. You’re really being a big help.”

EVA WAS A LITTLE MIFFED that I was there half an hour early for my interview. She glanced quickly at my drawings and told me she’d come back when the show was ready to start. I carefully opened my boxes and set the dry paintings on the easels then debated how to show the wet ones. I had tape in the car, so I used my pocket knife to cut the flaps away from the cardboard boxes. They were only an inch deep, so I was able to set them on the ledge of the easel and fasten them down. It was like a shadowbox. Really cheap framing.

About two minutes until time for my interview, a guy came into the room with a clipboard and zeroed in on me.

“Jett Blackburn?” he said after glancing at his notes.

“Yessir.”

“You found easels. Good. I’m running a few minutes late. Welcome to the Fergusson Art Center. I’m Dr. Lawrence. We were impressed with your photos but wanted to see some originals so we could look at your technique and help figure out your program. First of all, let me tell you that this does not affect your admission to the university or to the art school. You are admitted as a candidate for a BS in Studio Art.”

“I was planning to go for a BFA,” I said.

“We don’t do BFA admissions until after the second year. Everyone is admitted as a BS candidate. Ah, here’s Dr. Anders.”

I got introduced to the second professor and a woman introduced as Professor Wells. A few other people came into the room and I saw Eva but they weren’t introduced. As soon as the three professors were gathered, the interview started with a review of my drawing technique and skill. Then they started on the paintings.

“Tell us about the abstract first,” Professor Wells said. And with that I was off with the same basic presentation I’d given my parents and grandparents a few weeks ago. I didn’t expect the same emotional response that I got from my family and friends. These were art teachers. They would look at fine details and techniques.

“I apologize for the display of these last two pieces. The paint is not yet cured and it is difficult to handle them. You may have heard about the reported suicide of a local teen two weeks ago. I saw the video of what really happened. After the first shot was fired by the police, killing my friend, I closed my eyes. But I saw in that moment—that instant—his spirit leave his body. I had to capture that instant. For his sake. And for the sake of his friends.”

“Jett, if you would give us a minute, please,” Dr. Lawrence said as I was moving to the last painting. I stood back and the professors approached the paintings. I was thrown a little because I had a very nice narrative, I thought, to go with the last painting of Kelly. The professors examined the paintings closely, each moving at his or her own pace and not all looking at the same one at the same time. Dr. Anders went so far as to pull out a magnifying glass like some super sleuth to examine the brush strokes on the painting of Jasmine. They returned to their seats and whispered together. I approached the painting of Kelly to resume my presentation.

“You won’t need to present that one,” Dr. Anders said. “One of the things we hope to teach you in the next four years is effectively presenting your work. There is a story to each of your paintings and we want to help you capture it, even if you do not do a live presentation. One of the things you will learn is when to end the presentation, which means how to order the pieces as part of the overall story. Like in Greek tragedy, if I may be blunt, when you have reached the catharsis, you need to sit down and shut up.”

I guess I glared at him a little until I saw Professor Wells dabbing at her eyes.

“Jett,” she said, “correct me if I’m wrong. I believe you painted four of the works from memory or inspiration and the two of the young women from live models. Correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m further guessing that you did each of them in one sitting.”

“Um… Mostly, yes, ma’am.”

“You did a great job of capturing intense emotional content in a short period of time. One of the things we’d like to help you with is to slow down. Not every time. The death scene, for example, I’m sure had to be captured immediately. The passion had to be lived in the moment. It’s a remarkable painting, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“Look at the portrait of the older woman—your mother, I believe you said.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You captured essentials that told the story, especially in the set of her mouth and the hardness of her eyes. But this is a painting you should have come back to. Perhaps you will do another of her. The care you took with the eyes and lips is missing with other features, like the hair, nose, and ear. It makes the picture look somehow unfinished.”

“I did come back to the painting of my granddad’s house several times,” I said. “It took about a week.”

“An excellent touchstone,” she continued. “It’s the little things in that painting that made it come to life. The face in the window. The glass of tea. They show that you thought about the details of the painting as well as the scene. I’m sure, for example, that as you look at the paintings of the two young women, you will begin to remember details that you wish you had included. A reflection in her eye? The bottle of polish she was using? Even the floor or ceiling. You have a raw talent here that is filled with emotion and passion. We don’t ever want you to lose that. We want you to expand it to every detail that you paint. If you can do that, you will not only be a fine talented artist, you will become a master.”

“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

“Jett, we don’t want to change you or your painting and style,” Dr. Lawrence took over. “Too often, we encounter talented artists who do not want to move forward. They are happy where they are and won’t grow. We want to give you additional tools, sharpen your eye, and hone your skills. The art. The talent is what you bring to the table. Will you let us help you perfect it?”

“Um… Thank you for your comments and criticisms, professors. I am torn about college in a way. I might not be able to afford four years. It’s expensive, even at a state university. I don’t want to waste my time with unnecessary courses because the curriculum says that’s what I should take. But I wouldn’t come here at all if I didn’t think I could learn to be a better artist. To that end, I’ll devote myself completely.”

“If you will accept me, I will be your freshman adviser,” Professor Wells said. “You can always change later if we don’t work well together. I can see from your high school transcript that your AP classes may allow you to skip some general curriculum courses that would normally be required of first year students. You may have to interview with the concerned professors before they let you out of the requirement. I’ll do my best to work with you on that. At the same time, the University is a business that produces degrees. There will be some pressure to have you on a degree program and not to merely give you classes focused entirely on your art. Just know that I’ll be your advocate.”

“Thank you. I accept.”

“GREAT PRESENTATION, Jett,” Eva said. “Can I help you pack up?”

“Sure, thanks. Um… I need to get tape from my car. Can you watch things for a few minutes?”

“There’s people who want to look at the art and probably talk to you. Is it safe for me to get the tape from your car while you talk to your new fans?”

“Sure. It’s on the floor of the passenger seat. I have a red Mini in the visitor lot.” I handed her my keys and she took off. Shit! I just gave a strange girl the keys to my car!

It turned out okay. There weren’t really that many people who wanted to talk, though everyone wanted to look closer at the paintings. It was neat to hear other artists try to pick out the things the professors mentioned.

“I’d love to meet your models,” one guy said as he stared at the painting of Jasmine. I got a little jealous and protective but managed to just smile and say maybe. In a couple minutes, Eva was back with my tape and I started packing things up. She carried my portfolio—and my keys—as we took things back to the car.

“Uh… Jett, I know we just met and you probably have a ton of models falling over each other to pose for you, but… uh… if you’d like… I mean… I’d like… Would you paint me sometime?”

I grinned at her. “Eva, something I didn’t know about myself until a few weeks ago is that I almost never turn down a girl who wants to undress for me.”

“God! I can’t believe I volunteered to get naked in front of a boy I just met. Um… Here’s my phone number. Call. Um… Anytime.”

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