Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain ©2018 Elder Road Books, Serialized edition ISBN 978-1-939275-83-7
Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain
27
Euripides
EVERYONE WAS PRETTY MELLOW in the morning. I woke up with Mary’s bare breasts still pressed against my chest, her lips near mine. Most of the time when I go to sleep with a girlfriend—even if we drift off holding each other—we end up in our own favorite sleeping positions, giving each other room in the bed. Mary seemed to relish being held in my embrace overnight.
And I loved it.
My left arm pillowed her head and my right hand explored her back and her butt. I slipped my hand inside her tights so I could touch the skin on her ass and she hunched her pelvis forward as I caressed her. Her left arm was wrapped tightly around me and I wasn’t sure how her right arm was pinned under her until her fingers twitched and I felt them wrap around my cock.
“I need to get up and use the bathroom, Jett,” she mumbled. “I just don’t want to move from your arms.”
“It is a weekday and we have classes,” I sighed. “I just wish we could lie in bed all day making love.”
“You’re a dreamy lover but school beckons,” she said, finally loosening her grip and rolling away from me. Those gorgeous breasts and their pierced nipples. I bent to lightly kiss each of them. “We’ll get to the rest soon. It’s something… I haven’t felt rushed with you. I’m enjoying the anticipation, knowing that one day soon I’ll be here with my legs wrapped around your waist as your cock slides in and out of my pussy. Are you anticipating that, too, Jett?”
“I can almost feel it. I’m loving the pace you’ve set.”
“Okay. Now I really have to run down to the bathroom,” she laughed. She popped out of bed and pulled my T-shirt on, catching her leotard up in her hand. She headed for the stairs.
“I need to go downstairs and get some breakfast ready for my lovers. They’ll have a bit of THC hangover this morning.”
And so it began. After I’d used the bathroom, I got out the blender and the fruit I bought yesterday. I scooped some protein powder into the almond milk and added strawberries, blueberries, and bananas. I had to make three blenders full, but by the time sleepy Eva got to the kitchen, everyone had a glass of the protein-rich smoothie.
By some miracle, I made it to my ten o’clock 2D Design class having gotten seven happy ladies off to their day of classes. Perhaps I’d jumped the shark last night, but I knew he was still swimming in the waters around my home for the rest of the week. It was hard to understand how women were at the mercy of a physical process that wrecked them each month. It wasn’t always as bad as it had been this week but to some extent or another they all went through the discomfort each month.
My professor for 2D Design was Lila Jones. The twenty of us in the class came from different disciplines in the arts as it was a core requirement but about a third of the students were graphic arts majors. Oddly, the fine arts students in the class were getting along better than the graphic arts students. Lila—she insisted that she went only by her first name and not by Professor—was a pre-computer graphic artist. She insisted that her students learn the principles of 2D Design without resorting to their computers. It involved a lot of sketching and some drafting. No computing.
The first few weeks of the class had been a survey of design over the centuries. In that way, it resembled my Literature and the Arts class. We started with design and motifs of Egypt, China, and India. Then we jumped into pre-Hellenic Greece and worked our way toward the present. There was a lot about the effect of the printing press on graphic arts as we made our way through the ages to the ‘contemporary’ arts. These were defined by styles and sometimes by influential artists. Names like Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Celtic, Chippendale, Queen Anne, and most importantly, William Morris. We quickly progressed to wallpaper and textile design.
“As we have seen as far back as the second millennium BC, the underlying principle of two-dimensional design is motif. The motif recurs throughout the decorative surface. In order for this to happen, it must be repeated, and that is the second principle. Finally, in the case of room-size design, we have match. Match is the second dimension of repeat. Motif, repeat, and match. That is your first lab assignment. As the practical portion of your midterm, you will present a repeating motif in both vertical and horizontal dimensions. This assignment is to be black and white, ink on Bristol, drafted and measurable. It should incorporate a style element that is reminiscent of one of the periods we have studied. All projects must be received by October twenty-fourth. You have two weeks. Use them well. Next week, we will begin the discussion of textile design and the effect of the industrial revolution.”
Fuck! I’d completely forgotten that there was a practical portion of this class. All we’d had to do so far was sketch examples of each of the periods and styles we’d studied. Now I had to come up with some kind of motif and actually create what was essentially a black and white wallpaper pattern. This was going to be horrendous.
My day continued to go to hell in a handbasket as Mammam used to say. I thought of her every time I got in my car—the little Mini that she loved so much. Well, this time Merck was on a roll. I think he must have switched from pot to speed. If studying Homer was a long lyrical process, Euripides was a rock opera. I swear, he even sang parts of The Bacchae.
He stopped me after class and told me how much he liked my Athena project, hinting broadly that he’d like to watch me paint one of my models. Frankly, I think he just wanted to be in a room with a naked teenager and think it was legit. I told him I’d consider it and talk to the model when the time came. As if.
He hit me with a suggestion for our Euripides section. That was a first. He was really getting into my body paintings. Anyway, he asked specifically if I could take something from Medea and develop it into a statement about the strength and power of women. That was something Euripides was really into. He’d written Medea, The Bacchae, The Trojan Women, and several other plays about the strength of women and in support of women’s rights.
“Of course, I’m not your inspiration,” he said, still talking as fast as he had all through class. “You’re the artist. I just saw a vision with no means of realizing it. Follow your own creative energy. But Medea. Yes. There was a woman for all ages.”
The third project was also due for midterms in two weeks. Great.
And the hits just keep on coming. Blankenship was living up to his nickname, Blankety-blank. I was ready to fill in the blanks with a few choice obscenities. The bright spot was seeing Mary walk in and sit next to me. The smile on her face lit my own as we reached out and touched hands.
“Weaknesses,” Blankety started as he walked into the room at exactly three o’clock. “You have weaknesses in your drawing.” I glanced around. There had been over twenty of us in this class at the beginning of the term. Now there were fourteen. The bastard was living up to his reputation of weeding out students who couldn’t take it. I might have been one of them if I hadn’t bonded with Mary and entered into a mutual support pact. “Just in case you have forgotten your weaknesses, let me review them. You…” he pointed at a girl four seats over from me, “…smudge everything. There is nothing that would help your drawings more than an eraser. You…” pointing at the only other guy left in the class, “…seem to think this is a drafting class. Your pencils are too hard and ground to too fine a point.”
And so it went on. He hit every single one of us with our ‘isms’ as he called them. He’d pointed them out often enough. Everyone cringed as we waited for him to turn his pointy finger at us. But even I didn’t expect the criticism he directed at Mary. He’d always seemed to avoid directing too much of his wrath at her. This time, though, he went directly to the point. “You can’t draw a straight line with a ruler.” I saw tears spring to her eyes and was reaching for Mary’s shaking hand when the son of a bitch swung and pointed directly at me. “And you can’t seem to draw what’s in front of you. You are wrapped up in reflections and shadows and never get around to actually drawing the fucking object.”
My hand was still partly raised to touch Mary’s even though my eyes were locked with Blankenship’s. He was in rare form and I was giving him back every ounce of hatred I could muster. We were trying to bore holes in each other with our eyes.
And then I felt Mary’s grip on my hand. She was still shaking but so, I realized, was I. I tore my eyes away from Blankety and over to Mary. I saw a determination there that filled me with my own defiance. Both of our hands settled as Blankety raved at another student. He appeared to be taking us randomly, but it was evident that he wasn’t leaving anyone untouched. We would survive.
“Don’t you leave this classroom, young woman!” he screamed at a girl who had burst out in tears when he called her a cartoonist rather than an artist. She’d stood to leave and he froze her with his words. “I don’t lose people after six weeks,” he growled, pacing the floor and pointing the girl back to her seat. She sank down in it. “Despite all your weaknesses, you have lasted this long; you can last the rest of the way. You stubbornly keep drawing no matter how I try to discourage you. You sit down in this class twice a week with a sketch book in front of you and a pencil in your hand, knowing full well that I’m going to blister your ass with my words. Why do you do that? Why do you take this abuse? Because you are artists. Don’t you dare believe that means I’m suddenly going to become nice and compliment you on every scribble you make. You have a long way to go before you draw something that is praiseworthy.”
I glanced around the room and noticed others were looking at their classmates as well. Perhaps we had some kind of perverse pride in having survived six weeks of his abuse.
“Most, if not all, of you will fail your midterm project. Those who pass will do so accidentally. Why? Because you have not yet learned to exploit your weaknesses. You can’t exploit them without knowing them and over the past six weeks I have done my best to point them out to you. Your midterm project will be to draw a still life in black and white. The substrate and medium are your choice. The subject is your choice but it must be a still life. No life drawings, figures, or portraits. No landscapes or nature scenes. You will create your own composition and draw it, exploiting your weakness. There will be no further classes until the project is due. After you have failed the midterm, we will spend the next six weeks working on exploiting your weaknesses so that you become more than draftsmen and stand the chance of becoming artists.”
We seemed to come to life about then. I could hear people shifting in their seats as the fact that there was meaning to the abuse we’d taken for the past six weeks sank in.
“Now,” he concluded facing the ‘cartoonist’ who had nearly fled the class, “today is the last day to withdraw from class. If you can’t take the likelihood of failing your midterm, go get it done. I’ll see the rest of you on the 25th.” Blankenship turned and left the classroom without another word and without waiting for questions from the three people who had raised their hands.
We were on our own.
APPARENTLY, everyone had received much the same messages in their classes because everyone was focused on studying for midterms. There were still heating pads clutched to stomachs but the mood in the house was more subdued than the angry pain of the previous night.
Kelly kept to her Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night camming schedule, even though her show was a little shorter and fully clothed. It was amazing to me how many guys seemed to really care about the fact that she had her period discomfort and did their best to cheer her up with tips. When she’d reached a thousand tokens, she took off her top and talked about how tender her nipples were during her period.
“The good news is that I’m not pregnant!” she laughed in response to one guy’s commiseration over her condition. After an hour and a half online, she thanked her supporters and took her heating pad to bed.
Sarah Lynn had a stack of books on the dining room table where she was carefully planning out exactly what still had to be read and what had to be reviewed in the next ten days before midterms. I didn’t envy her, but I wasn’t stupid enough—or smart enough—to take twenty hours my first semester in college.
I would have one midterm exam in Foundations of Contemporary Art that would be filled with names and dates and movements. It was important stuff to know, but it was really nothing compared to the three projects I had upcoming. They were so different. Black and white wallpaper with a step-and-repeat pattern and a horizontal match. A bodypainting that represented the strength of woman as shown in Euripides’ Medea. And a still life drawing that exploited my weaknesses.
I was in a world of shit. I sat down to start reading Medea.
ALL OUR OBSERVATIONS in the slaughterhouse had been in the feedlot for sorting, shipping, and grading, and in the hanger locker where testing and grading took place. The grading process was one of the most important in processing carcasses. And it is different for beef than for pork or lamb, so we had to observe and were tested on all three. We weren’t qualified to grade anything—that was another entire USDA training course—but we were tested on what the grades meant and how they were determined.
My next Friday class was the killing room. I think they planned the order of the observations to make us accustomed to seeing live cattle on one end and hanging carcasses on the other so we wouldn’t be squeamish about seeing the transition. There’s a mindset that is required. Outside there is food moving into the chute for processing. Sometimes it makes noise. It moves on its own. But it’s food. Inside, the food no longer moves on its own. It hangs on hooks while other useful products like the hide are stripped from it for processing.
I watched a hundred cattle enter the stanchion one at a time, saw the bolt positioned precisely at their foreheads and watched the steer go slack as the bolt was triggered. It didn’t really even make a noise. The carcass was already on a moving conveyer when it was stunned. As soon as it was out of the killing room, the hind legs were hooked and the carcass elevated enough that one of the butchers could slit the throat so the blood drained out as it crossed the collection trench. This is where the bloodiest part of the process takes place and where some of the most skilled butchers work. In a matter of fifteen minutes, the hide is stripped, the organs removed, the head and hooves removed, and the carcass split for grading and cutting.
Sharp knives and precision cutting.
Did I mention the blood?
MEDEA WAS BLOODY, too. Okay, so it was written twenty-five hundred years ago. Were things really so bloody back then that this was okay? Granted, the woman was mistreated. I had to read half a book before I read the play in order to get the context. Everyone has heard of the heroic Jason and the Golden Fleece. His ship, the Argo, gave its name to the crew of Argonauts. Well, I’d only heard part of the story. It was Medea who saved Jason’s life, killed the poison snake that guarded the Golden Fleece, betrayed her father, and then killed her own brother so they could escape. She was the daughter of a barbarian king and Jason married her. She had two sons.
But they had trouble finding a place to live after she killed Jason’s usurper uncle. So, they arrived at Corinth where the Tyrant king Creon ruled. Creon had a daughter but no sons, so he decided that the heroic Jason, also a prince, would make a perfect heir to the throne if married to his daughter. Instant divorce by decree for Medea. She ranted and raved and Creon banished her and her sons from Corinth. That’s really where the play begins.
I get it. This woman was wronged. Severely wronged. Her husband agrees to the divorce and new marriage to the king’s daughter because then he’ll become king one day. Medea, who saved his life, killed for him, and bore his sons, is summarily divorced and sent into exile penniless with their sons. Hey, this is a cheating husband vengeance story in the making. Medea convinces Jason she is contrite and asks him to plead for his sons to remain in Corinth. She sends them with gifts of a golden robe and crown for the princess to make nice. Only the robe and crown are enchanted and not only poison her but cause her to burst into flame. King Creon rushes to his daughter and embraces her, getting the nasty stuff on himself, and joins her in a painful death.
Shit! Well, that stuff will get you hunted down, for sure. But Medea hasn’t adequately wreaked vengeance on Jason. Besides, the children would be hunted down in Corinth for taking the gifts to the princess, so she kills her two boys and displays their bloody bodies to Jason, refusing to even give them to him for burial.
Then there is the great deus ex machina. Medea is saved by the gods and taken away in a serpent drawn chariot with the bodies of her children so she is beyond the reach of Jason, the Corinthians, and vengeance.
She murders the princess, the king, and her children, and she is the one the gods save? Jason is the villain?
I went to my sketchbook and started doodling out designs for my 2D project. I needed to get my head out of death and destruction. Somehow, even my straight black lines started looking like dripping blood.
I WON’T PRETEND there was no sex going on, even though we were all a little stressed out by our upcoming midterms. Saturday night, I’d taken Kelly out to dinner. I realized that the only one of my girlfriends that I was actually dating was Mary. I wanted to keep doing that, but I really needed to show the five I was committed to that I cared for them. And Kelly was a beautiful treat to go on a date with.
And surprised.
“You want to actually go out and be seen with me?” she said when I asked her out. “Like without a camera? I’m a slut. Why would you ever want to be seen with me?”
“Kelly, we’ve had this conversation before. You’re a sex worker—that’s not the same as a slut. You are a performer. You aren’t out sleeping around with anyone who looks at you lustfully. You aren’t a drunk or drug addicted gutter whore. You are my girlfriend and I’m proud to be seen with you.”
We almost didn’t make it out of the house but the whole point was to go out someplace nice for a date. Kelly looked absolutely beautiful. She wore a green dress that accented her red hair and green eyes. Her high heels brought her forehead just up to kissing height. And made the absolute most of her legs. I couldn’t wait to have my hands on those silky-smooth thighs.
“I’m getting a lot of offers,” she said.
“You want to date someone?”
“Not that kind of offer. In this business ‘date’ simply means ‘fuck’. No thanks. There are producers contacting me to make movies. Would I like to audition for them? Would I consider a solo movie? How about a girl-girl movie?”
“Legit offers?” I asked. I could just imagine the guys next door deciding they wanted to make a porn flick and putting a video camera in their bedroom to tape every girl they could lure in.
“Some probably are. But what are they offering, really? You know, it’s just like writers who self-publish. The only thing a big publishing company can offer them is better distribution. It’s the same thing with getting a major porn producer to make a movie with you. They have better distribution. But I’m making some pretty good solo films by myself. I’ve even got one with Jas. I don’t have the platform that will support more than I’m doing at the moment, but I’ve got some loyal followers. I need to build my cinematography skills and get better at digital editing before I really focus on expanding my market.”
“What I really want to do is direct, right?” I laughed.
“Well, yeah! What do you think I’m in school for?”
“That’s the thing, isn’t it? You’re a student. You’re doing a good job of managing your work hours the same way that I manage going to the grocery store or Jas manages working at Applebee’s. It’s a part time job you’re using to get your career established.”
“I’m so glad you understand, Jett. I don’t want a career as a porn star. I admit that I’m a show-off but I don’t really want to spread my legs for a living long-term.”
However, spreading her legs for me later in the evening was definitely on her mind. We touched and flirted all through dinner, then took a walk down by the shore where we held hands and stopped for long sensuous kisses. Back home, she eschewed the Kat House where Ariel and Sarah Lynn were having a playdate and came to my bed. I took a long time getting reacquainted with Kelly’s trim body. I kissed and licked her little nipples and discovered anew how much she loved having her tummy kissed.
When we finally got to the part where my cock slipped effortlessly into her pussy, it wasn’t at all like a porn flick. We were just two lovers completely lost in loving each other. In her online performances, she often used a vibrator or a dildo but it had done nothing to stretch her out. The tight, velvety sheath that encased my cock milked me for all the sperm I could give her as she cried out her pleasure.
I slept on my back with Kelly lying mostly on top of me. In the morning, before I went to work, she managed to get fully on top of me and slide us together again.
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