Diva
Nine
ALLIE LEFT THE SHOWER before I did and used the hair dryer. I kissed the back of her neck as I slipped past her out of the bathroom. I dressed for a day with the ’rents and held a whispered conversation with Lissa and Melody before Melody had to go to class. The two-hour time difference meant that I caught them just after they’d stepped out of the shower.
“Well, lover-boy, how did it go last night?” Melody asked.
“Not like you expected,” I said.
“You mean you didn’t…?”
“Not exactly.”
“This sounds like a good story. Is everything okay, Tony?” Lissa asked.
“Yes, darling. Everything is fine, just not what you were expecting… or at least not what I thought you were expecting.”
“I know,” Melody said. “Let’s wait until I get there tonight and then we can… call Lissa and you can tell us all about it.”
“Actually, I’d like that,” I said. “I wish you were both here in my arms.”
“You cannot imagine how much we wish the same thing,” Lissa said. “But if you are okay and Allison is okay, then I guess we can wait for the details.”
“I promise, I’ll tell you everything,” I answered. “I love you.”
I’d just disconnected when I looked up and saw Allison standing in the bathroom doorway. She had a towel wrapped around her that barely covered the distance between her nipples and her clit. A sudden move in any direction would make the towel superfluous. What struck me most, though, was that she had dried her hair and it positively glowed as it hung straight below her shoulders.
And the makeup.
Pretty much all the girls I know—or know well enough—look stunning with no makeup at all, in my opinion. That doesn’t mean I’m blind, though. When the girls were all made up to go to the gala last Friday in their formal gowns, they were truly amazing. I’m just shallow enough to appreciate the glamour aspect of a little makeup tastefully applied.
Other than at the parties, I hadn’t seen Allison wear more than a little eye-liner and lipstick. What I saw now was a strikingly beautiful woman who looked like she could walk down Michigan Avenue and own it. The look was soft but very sophisticated. Before I could say more than “Wow!” though, she was questioning me.
“You really will tell them everything, won’t you?” Allison said.
“Yeah. We don’t hide anything.”
“You’ll tell them how I tried to force myself on you?”
“We all have our viewpoints. I’ll tell them how I forced myself to stop and how we reached an understanding.”
“How you tickled my clit while I stroked your cock?”
“They’ll be disappointed. They expected me to tickle your clit with my cock. A play-by-play of passionate lovemaking.”
“It was.” Allison flicked her wrist and the towel fell to the floor. Have I mentioned her tits before? Yeah, I suppose I have. Still, when an athletic girl as beautiful as Allison stands there naked in front of you, it’s hard not to mention them again. And the flat, firm stomach. And the smooth lips of her labia. And…
“Um… Allie? Are you having another emergency?”
“Sort of, but different,” she answered. She was serious. “Am I pretty enough, Tony?”
“God, yes! How could you ever doubt that?” I asked. I started to get up to go to her, but she held up her hand to keep me away.
“Would you draw me, Tony?” she asked softly. “Really draw me? Not just a little sketch? Not a group? Just me?”
This was more than a request for a picture. I recognized it. Thank god, I recognized it. Allie understood what happens when I draw. She’d seen the quick sketches I did in Tempe and that was enough to make her want to model the first time. But since then, she’d seen what I could really do. She’d seen the mural with Lissa and Melody. And she’d seen the drawing of Kate. She wasn’t asking for a drawing. She was asking me to show her how I see her. She was asking for the connection.
And I was feeling it.
I held out my hand and she took it so I could lead her to the one fully made-up bed. The one we’d slept in last night was a shambles. I pulled the covers back neatly and arranged the pillows. She followed my guidance as she propped herself in the bed and I positioned the pillows from the other bed behind her to provide a little more support. She leaned against the pillows with her left arm over them so that her head was held high. This gave her some support under her upper torso so she wouldn’t have to do stomach crunches the entire time she was posing. This drawing was going to take a while.
I covered her with the sheet and blanket, amused at the scowl she gave me. She must have thought I didn’t want to look at her body. Then she smiled as I placed her hand on a corner of the sheet and flicked it to her hip where she could hold it comfortably as if inviting me under the covers with her. She naturally repositioned her right leg with the knee slightly bent and drawn up. Her face was already taking on a look of inviting seduction. The final touch was to position her left hand so it was held out to me.
When I stood back, I wanted nothing more than to undress and join her.
“I need some music,” I said, reaching for my headset.
“Can I listen, too?” she asked.
“Without a headset, the quality of sound is pretty crappy,” I said. I contemplated the problem a minute and then had an idea. “Why don’t you sing to me?” I asked.
“Sing what?”
“You choose. Create the soundtrack. Sing me love songs.”
“Really, Tony?”
“Mmmhmm.” I was already ripping through a warmup sketch with just the key lines that I would base the drawing from—the curve of her hips, the position of her head, the peaks of her breasts, the extension of her hand. She smiled and then began to sing, softly and playfully.
“Oklahoma, 1955, with Gloria Grahame as Ado Annie,” she said.
I’m just a girl who cain’t say no,
I’m in a terrible fix
It was light and whimsical. I sketched rapidly through another warmup, then looked at a fresh, blank sheet of paper.
“Are you sure you want me to sing love songs?” she asked. I looked up to her eyes. There was a pleading look there.
“I want you to sing songs you love,” I said. “Sing from your heart.” She announced each song before she sang it, as if she was in a recital. I let my eye take in the negative space. Artists all work differently. Sandra starts from a dark background and draws out the highlights. I work from bright white illumination and draw the shadows. Two such different styles. The space between Allie’s arm and her body. The space between her breasts. The shadow beneath her chin. The cleft between her legs.
“The King and I, 1956, with Rita Moreno and Carlos Riva,” she said.
We kiss in a shadow,
We hide from the moon,
Our meetings are few,
And over too soon.
I took time to let my eyes focus on her magnificent breasts. Well, my eyes were being drawn there regardless, so I shaped them in my sketch, used my thumb to caress the curve, blending up out of the shadow, pinching off the definition of her nipple exactly where light met dark. Following the hollow down to her tight abdomen, gently expanding and contracting as she sang.
“The Music Man, 1962, with Shirley Jones and Robert Preston”
There were bells on the hill
But I never heard them ringing,
No, I never heard them at all
Till there was you.
I was ready to look at her face. Her makeup highlighted her cheekbones, not in an artificial way, but almost the way I would use a tortillon to blend the hollow of her cheek into the crested highlight. I looked at her lips as they moved in song and froze them in my mind as I quickly bent to capture what I had seen in that fleeting moment. Damn, she has a nice voice!
“South Pacific, 1958, with Rossano Brazzi.”
I’ll keep rememberin’ kisses
From lips I’ve never owned
Her outstretched hand was inviting me to her. She is strong. Forearms ripple with the muscles she flexes when she grips the racquet. But here, stretched out on this bed, the same power is translated to a beckoning gesture, too powerful to be ignored. I reach toward her on paper with graphite in my hand, touching those fingertips and sliding our hands together.
“The King and I, 1956, with Rita Moreno and Carlos Riva,” she said. Hmmm. I thought we’d done that one, but…
“I thought that was the bald guy… Yul Brenner and… I don’t remember the girl. Dad has the album.”
“Deborah Kerr. They were the King and Anna. Rita and Carlos played the star-crossed lovers Tuptim and Lun Tha.”
“Oh.”
“Just listen.”
I have dreamed that arms are lovely,
I have dreamed what a joy you’ll be.
I moved to the folds and casual draping of the bedclothes, framing her in a background that rippled around her, defining her shape by what surrounds her. That background, the hotel bed, defined where we had not gone. The pillows that supported her were a cushion to her feelings…and mine.
“Carousel, 1956, with Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae.”
If I loved you,
Time and again I would try to say
All I’d want you to know.
I’d avoided looking at her mound, where I’d originally drawn three strong lines that defined her shape. Now I let my eyes explore the subtle shapes and contours exposed there. I measured with my pencil on paper the depth of that cleft, the soft bristle of her hair. I walked, in graphite, a path my fingers had found and loved.
“Tony, you’re staring at my pussy again.” There was a hint of teasing in her voice, but only a hint.
“It’s different this time, Allie. I’m drawing.”
“What makes it different?”
“I’m memorizing it.” She caught her breath and I heard a deep and mournful sigh.
“Phantom of the Opera, 2004, with Emmy Rossum and Patrick Wilson.”
Say you’ll share with me one love, one lifetime…
say the word and I will follow you…
Many artists start with the eyes. They are the window to the soul, as Da Vinci said. Or maybe it was someone else. I guess nobody knows for sure. What I know is that they are where the connection occurs. I’d drawn an entire scene of nine women and had scarcely taken my eyes off Kate’s. But for some obscure reason, I’d avoided Allison’s eyes as I sat drawing her. Maybe I was afraid of what I’d see there. Afraid of the connection I could feel. But as I sat looking at the unfinished sketch, it was obvious that the time had come. I lifted my eyes and met hers.
I had to memorize a Shakespeare speech in high school as part of my English Literature class. The teacher ruled certain speeches off limits. He wanted no one to ruin his memory of Sir Laurence Olivier saying, “To be or not to be,” for example. But he also directed us to other speeches that were less known, but offered a challenge. The Friar’s speech about flowers in Romeo and Juliet, for example. He’d specifically pointed me to the speech of the Player King in Hamlet.
But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region…
Seeing Allie’s eyes brought me to that moment. I didn’t know what to expect, but the suspense of that look took my breath away. There was a deep silence and I simply knew that something awe-inspiring was about to happen.
“La Boheme, Puccini.”
I had no doubts that Allie had the chops to tackle an opera, but she’d been quoting the movie production and date of every musical she’d sung from so far and I couldn’t think of a movie version of La Boheme that had ever made it to the big screen.
“Heavenly Creatures, 1994, as sung by Kate Winslet,” she supplied.
I saw her diaphragm contract and expand three times before the first sound issued from her throat.
Sono andati? Fingevo di dormire
perché volli con te sola restare.
Ho tante cose che ti voglio dire,
o una sola, ma grande come il mare,
come il mare profonda ed infinita...
Sei il mio amore e tutta la mia vita!
I had no idea what it meant, but the beautiful, plaintive tones filled the tiny hotel room and every corner of my heart. I almost forgot to draw as I was sucked into the depths of her eyes—my fingers taking over from my mind and capturing the mist that gathered there, the single tear that streaked from the corner of her eye down her cheek.
It was silent for a moment. We looked at each other, not wanting to move. Then, from outside our door we heard clapping and a man calling “Brava! Brava, Diva!”
The moment was lost and we both snorted.
“Tony, I don’t think I can hold this pose any longer.”
“Oh, Allie, I’m sorry!” I said. God! We’d been like this for over an hour. Her muscles must be killing her. I reached out my hand and lifted her up to a sitting position. As soon as she’d regained her equilibrium she stood facing me, still holding my hand, and still very, very naked.
“Tony, promise me something,” she said softly.
“If I can, you know I will,” I said. She pulled my hand to her pussy and pressed it there, not asking for anything but the external contact as she held her hand on mine. She pulled my other hand to her breast. It was almost like some formal oath-swearing and not—for all the locations I found my hands—not overtly sexual.
“Promise that when it’s right, you’ll make passionate love to me, Tony. Promise that on that day or night, whenever it is, that you won’t hold anything back.”
“I promise you, Allie. When it’s right, there will be no reservations,” I said. I kissed her lightly on the lips. She pulled back and looked at me with an evil gleam in her eye.
“Swear on the pussy,” she said in a low voice that could have come from a 1920s melodrama.
“I so swear,” I said, mimicking her tone and giving her mons a little squeeze. She laughed and dropped my hands.
“Look at the time, Tony!” she exclaimed. “If we don’t get out of here, your parents will think I kidnapped you!”
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