Mural
Fifteen
I WOKE UP before dawn. I mean, I really woke up. I felt like I wouldn’t need sleep again for a year. I was so jazzed I grabbed my stuff and was out the door within five minutes of waking up. Just before I left, I stopped and grabbed the sketchbook with my original sketches in it. I stopped at the all-night Starbuck’s a block from campus and the only person in it was a sleepy-looking barista who did her best to smile at me when I came in. I got a shot in the dark—a dark roast coffee with a shot of espresso—and a bagel sandwich and headed back out the door. I noticed the barista had pulled two shots and dumped them both in. I’d leave a bigger tip next time I was in.
There’s a big church a few blocks away from campus and in the half-light of dawn I made my way there. I don’t know what kind of church it is, but it’s big and has lots of stained glass windows. Maybe it’s Catholic or Lutheran. The Baptist churches back home didn’t have stained glass. The doors were unlocked, but I didn’t see anybody around when I went in. I found a seat in the middle of the sanctuary and looked up at a wall of stained glass behind the pulpit. It was about three stories high and had a religious scene portrayed in it. The transfiguration, I think, but it didn’t really make a difference.
What I cared about was that it was a clear day out and it was nearly sunrise. I could already see color beginning to spread through the nave. I put my headset on and started my music playing. The subtly muted strains of Orff’s Carmina Burana started, hauntingly distant, but growing closer. By the first timpani, the sun had broken the horizon and the entire nave was a riot of color. Energy from the music was being pumped into me. The espresso wasn’t hurting either. I swallowed the last of my bagel and drank off the remaining coffee. I stood in the center aisle and waited. In just a few moments the light from that big stained glass window touched me.
Hac in hora sine mora
corde pulsum tangite;
quod per sortem sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!
I turned and ran out the doors of the church with my bag and tossed the garbage into a receptacle near the sidewalk. By the time I reached the hall and my painting, my heart was pumping a mile a minute. I didn’t even stop to greet Doc. I just started pulling together the paints that I was going to need. Half a dozen buckets of acrylic paint were open on the scaffolding and a dozen small jars of pigment were nearby when I started mixing the colors I wanted on my palette.
Her forehead is impossibly high and so smooth it looks like polished stone. It’s covered by locks of fine golden hair that sweep across from a boyish part in a hairstyle that reminds me of Peter Pan. I remember the first time I kissed her right at the place where that part begins and found the skin that looked so opalescent was soft and warm. It was incredible. I stayed there with my lips gently touching that spot for what seemed like hours while I held her to me. Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun was playing as I mimicked the texture of her skin with the softness of my brush strokes.
I couldn’t see her left ear in this position, hidden behind her aristocratic cheekbone. The right ear was slightly different than the left. There was an extra fold of skin leading to her inner ear. I’d played with that fold with my tongue teasing her until she scrunched her shoulder up, almost touching the ear, and I couldn’t get to it any longer. Then I lay my head on her shoulder and lightly blew up into her ear. The ferocity of the kiss she turned and planted on me made me forget everything else in the world. There was nothing but her lips touching mine.
Those lips might seem a little pale compared to the garish colors girls around school wear for lipstick. I’m sure she was wearing a little makeup when she posed for the class, but when Melody and I did our sketches in her basement she put no makeup on at all. You could almost see the nerve endings lying so close to the surface that a single touch of the lips caused her to tremble. Her lips were parted, not in a toothy grin, but sensuously soft as if to welcome a lover’s kiss. I remember placing my lips there and tilting my head slightly to the left as our noses grazed against each other. I lived that kiss again and again.
Her nose couldn’t be straighter or more perfect if a Greek sculptor had cut it out of stone. When she was aroused, you could see her nostrils flare slightly. I closed my eyes once and traced the length of her nose up to the slight impress between her eyes, then let my fingers trail across her almost nonexistent eyebrows. It was her eyebrows that convinced me she was naturally blonde. The pale gold wisps were only visible if soft light caught them and cast a shadow against her brow. Nose and brows together brought all the focus on her face to her incredible eyes.
Her eyes. I saw immediately what I’d unconsciously been trying to do with the drapes. I was picking up her eye color in the velvet drapery. But I’d been missing my light source. I could always get lost in Lissa’s eyes. She has incredible intensity. The black streaks in her pupils deepen what would otherwise be a pale blue. When I look into her eyes, I see into myself. She shows me what I could be. Sibelius’s The Swan of Tuonela was playing as I lost myself in those eyes again. The tiny black streaks pointing toward her pupil. The fleck of golden candle light reflected in her eye as she looked at me—loved me.
Lissa’s shoulders were elegant and powerful at the same time. I’d watched her in matches with other players at the club and you can’t put that much English on a ball unless you have both power and control. To see her muscles move in her shoulders and upper arms is like watching a dance with an entire ensemble supporting the prima ballerina. But to see those muscles up close…
While we made love I lay on my back and she supported herself on her arms. The drive of her hot, wet pussy was not a hip thrust movement. Her entire body undulated and I saw from only inches away how her shoulders, biceps and pecs worked together as she used her arms to force her way back onto my cock. When she drew forward until only the glans was in her, her breasts raked across my chest like hot coals. Those muscles shifted beneath her skin, drawing it taut across her collar bone and pulling the concave between her neck and shoulder even deeper. I caressed the joint with my lips and felt her push back against me again.
Beethoven’s Symphony #3, Eroica found my face between the lush, perfect mounds of her breasts. I haven’t been up close to that many breasts. I have looked at a lot of pictures—for research. One thing that I’ve noticed is that a woman’s breasts are almost never identical. A nipple or areola is a slightly different size, or just off center. One breast is firmer than the other and doesn’t flatten as much when she lies down. But that is not how it is with Lissa. You could hold a mirror perpendicular to her sternum and not have a more perfect match in the reflection than in her other breast. When, in my naiveté, I asked her if she’d had implants she started laughing.
“You have no boundaries, do you?” she howled. Then she explained that when she was modeling she was almost completely flat-chested, but that during pregnancy her breasts had filled out and never shrank. Gravity had simply had much less time to work on her than on other women her age who matured earlier. But when I touched them with my fingers, or the tip of my tongue, I thought of them as being holy. They were too perfect for anyone but a goddess.
All I could think about was how Melody and I had advanced on Lissa standing in front of the sleigh bed that was my setting where we first made love. Together we worshipped all of Lissa. We kissed together; we petted Lissa’s arms and back; we suckled at her breasts. Melody guided my cock when I entered her as she lay back on the bed. Melody peppered Lissa’s stomach and mine with little kisses, working her way up first to my lips and then to Lissa’s. We made love to her as one person, always seeming to know what the other’s hand or mouth was about to do, as if it were simply an extension of our own.
I erased the rest of the sketch and didn’t bother to redraw. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #6, Pathétique washed over me.
Melody had been the first ray of hope to enter my depression. What I thought was a hopeless fantasy turned into a mystic reality when she asked me to model for her. Melody had brought us to Lissa’s house that first weekend and not only did we paint, we gave each other our virginity. Each time I looked into her lavender eyes I was struck with the impossibility of us being together. Yet, even when I’d done something stupid and been wrapped up in my own misery, Melody was there. I embraced her softness and felt her respond to my touch.
Her skin was slightly darker than Lissa’s almost translucent beauty. There was a fine spray of freckles across her shoulders. Her auburn hair spread out in a fan across her neck and Lissa’s abdomen where she lay in sated exhaustion. We had not only pleasured Lissa, we had reached a new peak with each other and our orgasms were as intense as Lissa’s. Lissa’s left hand hung down off the cushion behind her, just touching Melody’s hair. One finger was raised slightly toward me. Melody’s arm lay across Lissa just above her Delta of Venus, casting those delicate curves into deep shadow. Melody’s thighs and the lower part of her beautiful butt were also cast in deep shadows, being below the level of my light source. I’d stroked those beautiful cheeks with my hand and my face until Melody had drifted to sleep pillowed on Lissa’s stomach. You could see the fingers of her left hand entwined with the fingers of the other woman’s right hand, held tightly at the edge of the bed.
Away from the light source, the figures quickly fell into darkness. The flame on the single candle drifted slightly to the right as though a passing ghost had pulled the fire with it. It seemed to take only a few strokes to correct the shadow and depth of the drapes I’d painted yesterday. I could hear the strains of Enigma’s Cross of Changes playing in my ears as I made last loving adjustments to a shadows and highlights.
I stood in front of what I had painted. Two of the most incredible women I’d ever known. My friends and my lovers, clasped together as I knew they had been all weekend. It filled me with such overwhelming joy that I stood there with tears running down my cheeks as I listened to the last refrain.
You’ll see the face who’ll say,
I love you,
I’ll kill you.
But I’ll love you forever.
As it faded, I emerged from my zone. I felt a little dizzy and my mouth was dry. I pulled the headset out of my ears as I dropped my brush on the scaffold. I heard a whispered, “Holy fucking Christ!”
When I turned toward the voice, I saw a crowd of people. My entire figure painting class was there with Professor McIntyre. Doc Henredon was standing watching as was Dean Peterson and most of the students from Fundamentals and Figure Painting. Melody and Lissa were in front and they both had tears running down their cheeks. I had no idea when they’d arrived or how long I’d been painting. I know I took a break a little after noon to use the restroom and get a drink, but I hadn’t taken my headset off and I went right back to the scaffold without even looking at anyone else.
Doc Henredon started it. Then everyone was clapping. I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights and I knew I was still crying, but right in the front of the crowd were Lissa and Melody and they were crying, too. Then someone shouted, “Sign it!” and soon everyone was chanting “Sign. Sign. Sign.” I looked at Doc and he nodded to me. I looked at my brushes and palette lying on the scaffold and selected a half-inch round sable brush with a twelve-inch handle. I dipped the brush into the deepest blue I’d applied to my drapes and in the space just before the painting faded into complete shadow, I signed my name. When it was dry, it would scarcely be noticeable. I didn’t want my signature to detract from the painting.
When I finished, there was another cheer and I got down off the scaffold. Melody and Lissa rushed me and I was squashed in a hug. We each kissed the others, completely oblivious to what was going on around me. I was so exhausted and thirsty, though, that I finally croaked out, “Water. Restroom.” The crowd parted as I rushed into the men’s room and pissed like there was no tomorrow. Geez! What time is it, anyway? When I came out, Lissa handed me a bottle of water and I gulped it greedily.
Doc Henredon, Professor McIntyre, and Dean Peterson were all standing about six feet in front of the painting with students all around them.
“It’s the light,” Doc was saying. “A single candle flame. Look how the figures float in the darkness that surrounds them, lost in their own world. But her eyes show an awareness of what is passing beyond. She is a tigress that has just feasted, but can’t help noticing the gazelle that is grazing nearby. Look at these muscles—relaxed, but ready to leap in an instant. The finger beckons to her prey. And my god! The second figure. It wasn’t even part of the rendering. Kate, tell them what you saw.” Kate was standing nearby and was surprised at Doc’s request. She picked up the narrative, though.
“Um… He was working down the figure and as he blended the colors, she seemed to fade out, like he couldn’t move the brush farther down. Then he grabbed an artgum eraser and erased the rest of the sketch. He started putting the second figure in without even sketching her. It was like he’d memorized it and just kept painting. And look at how beautiful she is!” Kate was shaking her head. Doc picked up the narrative.
“Even though you can’t see her face, her position is so peaceful and at rest that you can see the love between the two women. She doesn’t grip her frantically. She is not a supplicant. She lies peacefully, content as the smile on her lover’s lips.”
“Who is it?” someone asked. Everyone turned to look for me. Lissa and Melody had shifted away so they weren’t near to me. I looked at Professor McIntyre and she smiled.
“Um… a friend. A very good friend,” I said.
“He worked nonstop for like eight hours this afternoon,” Robert spoke up.
“And nearly five hours before that,” Doc said. “Tony, I was afraid to interrupt you and tell you to take a break. You were so deep it was as if you were in a trance. I’d like to listen to your soundtrack sometime.” I smiled and nodded. All I wanted to do was collapse.
“People, it’s after nine. You should all get home and get some rest before classes tomorrow.”
I had to clean up my brushes and palette after everybody filed by congratulating me. They all had to stop and put their shoes on before they left. There was a big sign inside the door that said, “Shoes off! Absolute silence!” It was closer to 10:00 by the time I was ready to go. Kate surprised me by staying behind to help with cleanup. She kept looking at me and then over at Melody and Lissa as they waited. I was so hungry my gut was trying to digest itself. I’d long since finished the liter of water that Lissa gave me and was hoping we’d find ourselves at Red’s Burgers before long. We all walked out of the building together with Doc Henredon.
“Good work, Tony,” Doc said. “I’m proud to have that piece in the mural.”
“Thank you, Doctor Henredon.”
“Uh, Tony?” I glanced over at Kate. She was still looking nervously at Lissa and Melody. Finally, she plowed ahead. “I changed my mind. Anytime you want.” Then before I could respond or even figure out what the hell she was talking about, she turned and ran off toward the dorms.
I turned to my lovers, my eyes pleading.
“Take me home?”
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