Triptych Interviews
Melody
Saturday,September 3 (After Chapter 20 of Triptych)
MELODY: Melody Renee Anderson, age 19, born 23 January, sophomore, Student ID Number 9113507.
aroslav: You’re not a prisoner of war, Melody. I’m not going to interrogate you.
MELODY: No sense of humor. Oh well. Whatcha wanna know?
aroslav: Thanks. Are there any teens present who can hold a conversation without making me feel like an antiquated ass?
MELODY: Aww. I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re an ass.
aroslav: Oh?
MELODY: Just antiquated.
aroslav: [sigh] Since we already have the vital statistics out of the way, why don’t you tell me about school to start with? What’s your major?
MELODY: Textiles.
aroslav: What does that include?
MELODY: Weaving, knitting, braiding, knotting, crocheting, needlepoint, dying, and pretty much anything that has to do with cloth or putting things on cloth, including screen printing, dye sublimation transfers, and dye discharge.
aroslav: That sounds very craftsy.
MELODY: Ugh! You too? You sound like my dad.
aroslav: Oh dear, I hope not. Is he terrible to you?
MELODY: No. He’s great. Well most of the time. But he really wanted me to be an artist. When I tried to explain that art and design were compatible and that my chosen medium was fabric, he said that was a trade and if I was determined that was what I wanted to do, he at least wanted me to have a rounded art education so I would have something to fall back on.
aroslav: That sounds backwards. Don’t parents usually want their artistic kids to have a trade to fall back on?
MELODY: Dad wanted to be an artist and ended up an advertising executive. He blames it on not having had a good art education.
aroslav: So he wants you to be what he isn’t.
MELODY: [sighs] Yeah, I guess so. That’s the reason I’m at PCAD. It’s the school he wanted to go to twenty-some years ago. But that’s okay. I love it here. It’s got a great textile program. I do enjoy the other art classes, even if I can’t paint like Tony and Kate. And face it; this is where I met the love of my life...er...one or two of them.
aroslav: How did that happen, by the way? From what I gather, Tony never asked you out because he thought you had...let me see...“a big scary boyfriend.”
MELODY: Never did. Simon, over in the theatre production department is a big dude, covered with tattoos and piercings. There’s some overlap between costuming and textiles/fashion, so we were in the costume shop a lot first semester. He’s a very protective big teddy bear and absolutely refused to let any girl in the department walk to the dorms after dark without an escort. But we were never an item. He is so completely gay!
aroslav: That’s an interesting story. When’d you get interested in Tony?
MELODY: Oh. Orientation weekend. He probably doesn’t even remember it. There was a group tour of the SAM [Seattle Art Museum] as kind of an introductory event. Everyplace we went, we seemed to be standing next to each other. So I checked him out pretty thoroughly.
aroslav: Have a good conversation or something?
MELODY: Nope. Never said a word. Just stood back and drooled. I don’t think he noticed me at all. So from that day on, I started putting myself where he could see me. I even found out that he was in the Figure Drawing class, which is usually a sophomore class, but had a few freshmen in it who were approved and it had one slot open. I enrolled on a non-credit basis the first week of school.
aroslav: Stalker-chick?
MELODY: Maybe a little.
aroslav: Why wait till second semester to make your move?
MELODY: I kept thinking he would eventually see me and ask me out. Then there were Sandra and Amy. The first time I thought I’d just sit with him at lunch after class, they both just plopped down with us and all of a sudden we were four friends who had lunch together every Friday. And Sandra made it no secret when he wasn’t around that she was into him. I didn’t want to...you know...interfere? And Amy was making it obvious that she was interested in both Sandra and me. I know I’m bi, but Amy just doesn’t fire my jets—though god knows she tries. I don’t think Sandra even had a clue that Amy was interested.
aroslav: Wow! So much social intrigue. What finally made you make your move?
MELODY: When Tony posed. Oh my god! I never thought he’d do it. I just thought it would be a way to flirt with him in class to suggest that he pose. When he came out and there he was in...Let’s just say I had trouble concentrating. I came back from holidays absolutely determined that I was going to get something going with him.
aroslav: So you wanted to be with him from the beginning?
MELODY: Ummm. Okay. God’s truth? I never thought it would go anywhere long term. He’s so terminally shy and I’m so...not. But one of the things I wanted when I came to college was to experience everything. And, I’d never experienced a guy.
aroslav: Wait. You’d experienced a girl?
MELODY: Um...yeah. Just a little play-time in high school. My girlfriend—that’s girlfriend as in BFF, not soulmate—was as curious as I was. I spent a weekend at her house when her parents were out of town and we woke up in the morning with our faces looking like glazed donuts. It was a fun weekend and we tried it a few more times, but we both knew that we were just best friends and not really lovers.
aroslav: Okay. Back to getting together with Tony.
MELODY: After that first weekend that I met him, Tony just seemed like the right guy to do the job. I thought we might be like my girlfriend and me—just willing to explore and experiment. If he turned out to be gay or something afterward, I’d still have the experience. I feel so bad about thinking I was just going to use him.
aroslav: That sounds like Beth’s rationale.
MELODY: Maybe that’s why I like her so much. We really are a lot alike. But I’m glad it turned out the way it did. Let’s face it. If Tony wasn’t my boyfriend, I wouldn’t have a girlfriend either.
aroslav: Ah yes. Lissa. How did that come about?
MELODY: Man, you are a voyeur, aren’t you? Well, in the same way that Amy doesn’t fire my jets, Lissa does. That first day I met her...oh wow. I went to the club to watch Tony play racquetball because I figured that was how I’d manage to seduce him. And then she showed up to play. I sat outside that court fantasizing about Tony and me together for the first time, but every scenario kept having Lissa in it, too. So I said, oh hell. It’s all fantasy anyway, I’ll just fantasize about her, and then Tony was always there. When she invited me in for a shower and hot tub at the club...I was a goner. There I’d been watching them for an hour while they got sweaty on the court and my chair had a wet spot on it. Then I get to go sit around naked with Lissa for half an hour talking girl-stuff. Believe me; her interview about Tony was much more detailed than yours! There just wasn’t much to tell her yet. She gave me a ton of pointers on how to seduce him.
aroslav: She wasn’t interested herself?
MELODY: You’d have to ask her, but um...well...that wasn’t the only time we talked.
aroslav: You met again before you went out with Tony?
MELODY: Yeah. A couple—well, a few—times. Really nice times. I mean, really nice. She’s the one who shaved me before I posed for Tony.
aroslav: Are you saying you’d already been lovers with Lissa before you and Tony got together?
MELODY: Y...yeah. That’s how I knew all about Lissa’s house and we set up the arrangements for our weekend posing session. Lissa helped me put the right food in the fridge and showed me where to set up our studios, and everything. We’d...um...already agreed that we’d...like to get us all together...if it worked out with Tony. Lissa’d had her eye on him for a while, too.
aroslav: You and Lissa seem uncommonly open to additional liaisons with people outside your ménage. Can you explain that?
MELODY: No. I mean, sure I can, but I don’t know if it makes any sense. We just found that it was so easy to accept each other as a trio that it didn’t seem to be a stretch to think of us as more than three. I mean, I don’t know if we’ll ever be a foursome or moresome. That takes a lot of work. But at the same time, we’re so in synch that when one of us gets excited, another gets wet. We aren’t really wandering around looking for others, but Allison was just too much fun to resist. And Kate is...so dreamy. I don’t know what it is about her, but we all just want to smother her with kisses and protect her from the boogeyman.
God I love Kate! She’s just so...adorable. [sighs] I could just sit and hold her hand forever. She makes me want to play dress-up like I was twelve and she was my dolly. [more sighs]
[shakes head] Okay. Beth is sweet. She’s known Tony forever and Lissa and I were probably the extension of him that she needed to really let herself express her fondness of him. You know, Allison loves us all but thinks sex with a girl is too squicky, and Beth loves Tony, but only wants sex with girls. It’s too bizarre.
aroslav: What about Bree?
MELODY: Bitch! Don’t get me started. I know that she’s cute and we look a lot alike in some ways. But she pushes every one of my buttons—no...all but one. We’d have serious problems if Tony decided he wanted to do something with her. I mean, I know that they’re going to see each other with school and racquetball, and she can be really fun as part of a group, but intimacy is just plain out. She makes another pass at him and I’m going to have a pair of pretty green eyeballs to decorate my mantle, ’cause I’ll have scratched her eyes out. I think I feel about Bree the same way Lissa feels about Clarice. It’s not a rational thing.
aroslav: Okay. Anybody else on your radar?
MELODY: The other cheerleader—Sonia? A perfect goddess and sweet as well. But you’d have to take the boyfriend with her and no matter how good looking he is, I just can’t see myself with another boy. It’s kind of bizarre, I know, but I can imagine several different girls’ tongues that I’d like to feel lapping my juices, but no other boy’s penis I’d like to feel inside me. I really can’t imagine how Amy thinks she’s going to handle that.
Are you okay? You look a little uncomfortable?
aroslav: Fine. Just needed to shift my...weight. Go on.
MELODY: Oh. Wendy. What a spitfire. She’s got more attitude and energy than any girl I know. And she’s always there to help. I worry about her a little bit. I don’t know what’s been going on this summer, but she’s gotten awfully thin. I’d like to know her better. We’re going to have another party this fall. Who knows what might happen?
aroslav: I know this might be another sensitive subject, but how do you feel about your parents’ divorce?
MELODY: Sad. Confused. Worried. My parents have always been there for me. I know that Daddy reacted badly to my love-life, but he’s just being a dad. I bet if you asked a hundred dads how they’d respond if their daughter was in a similar situation, sixty-five of them would say the same thing as my dad and of the other thirty-five, thirty would be lying. You know, Tony’s folks are amazing and wonderful and I love them. But I bet if Tony was the girl in this situation, they wouldn’t have responded as positively.
I overheard my dad talking to one of his buddies a couple of years ago. The other guy had two sons. What he said pretty well sums it up. “If you have a son, you only have to worry about one dick. If you have a daughter, you have to worry about all of them.”
But as controlling as he sometimes is, he’s always taken care of Mom and me. He worked hard and put his dreams aside. I don’t think he really likes his job. But he does it to provide for us. I guess he’s in his mid-life crisis. Men are so hard to understand. I just know he still loves Mommy, but it’s like his brain has disconnected from his heart.
My mom’s putting up a good front. She wants to show how independent she can be even though Daddy has made most of the big decisions in life up till now. She’s never taken that much responsibility on before. I know she gets depressed and I wish I could just bring her out here so I could take care of her. She has to get some kind of closure out in Boston first, though.
aroslav: Parents can be difficult.
MELODY: Yeah, I’ll bet you think you’d be one of the remaining five, don’t you?
aroslav: No comment. Melody, how are you ever going to handle all the work with the new business and school?
MELODY: Hey! Those guys at Facebook did it, didn’t they? You think you have to program computers to become a millionaire right out of college? Doing this fabric and clothing is such a rush, I don’t care if I flunk out of college. I don’t think I will, mind you. I just wouldn’t care if I did.
aroslav: You and Tony have art and school in common. You and Lissa have fashion in common. Tony and Lissa have racquetball in common. Is that the way it works?
MELODY: You always want to make it simple, don’t you? We’re not together just because of what we have in common. Sure, it’s wonderful to share conversation and ideas about a common interest. But Tony and I have Lissa in common. Wouldn’t that work? Sometimes it’s what’s different about us that holds us together. Lissa’s a mother. I mean, how different can that be from either Tony or me? But you just watch her with those boys for an hour and try not to fall in love with her. I know she shares custody and it might sound like she’s always off selling or competing, but her time with Damon and Drew is precious.
And Tony...well aside from the obvious difference...he’s so physical. I don’t mean big or rough. I don’t think Tony even has a clue about how in tune he is with his body—or how incredibly sexy that is. And caring. Compassionate. Oh, I know he gets depressed easily. And he’s chaotically disorganized. And he becomes so hyper-focused that you can’t get through to him. And did I mention loving? The reason I can’t imagine having another penis in me is because of what’s attached to the one I’ve got.
I love them. I love Tony. I love Lissa. I’d share them with another girl—with some caveats. Like that I get to play, too. But I’d never, ever let them go.
aroslav: Thank you for talking to me today.
MELODY: That was easy. What comes next?
aroslav: Well, I see if I can make your career dreams and your fantasies come true.
MELODY: YES!
aroslav: Let the record show that she is bouncing up and down and dancing in place.
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