Odalisque
Two
THE OVERVIEW OF THE HUMAN BODY is complete,” Dr. Dennis lectured. “We’ve covered the basic systems: skeletal, skin and fascia, muscular, cardiovascular, lymphatic, and nervous. Next, we delve deeply into regional anatomy to see how these systems work together. You will have the opportunity to share your knowledge with your classmates on projects that will be team based. Choose your team carefully. Grading will reflect the poorest member’s effort.”
Bree grabbed my arm and pulled me over to where Justin and Amanda were huddled together on the side of the room. Everyone in the class had their eyes on the two, but Bree was not about to be beaten to them. Justin Chen and Amanda Fortier were pre-med students and were considered the most brilliant members of the class. They’d gravitated toward each other the first week of class and created their own unapproachable clique, considering themselves above everyone else. SCU didn’t turn out that many pre-meds, but they were considered the highest quality. I didn’t like the two all that much.
“We want you to be our teammates,” Bree said as we approached. I swear Amanda’s lip curled in a sneer.
“So does everyone else,” she said. “Why should we pick you?” Yeah. I didn’t like her at all. Justin just stood there looking at us.
“We did the picking,” Bree said. “You are the two people in this class least likely to drag our grades down.”
“Your grades?” Amanda began. “I just got a 98 on the systems exam and you think I could bring your grade down?”
“Same grade I got,” Bree shot back. “Tony aced it.” That shut Amanda up. You could almost hear her teeth clack together.
“Maybe you should find someone better than me for your fourth,” Justin said quietly. “I only scored a 96.”
“We’ll carry you,” Bree said. “After all, we all owe it to each other to help the weak.”
I lost it. Sometimes Bree’s natural cattiness just comes out at the right time. When I started laughing, Justin did, too, and finally Amanda cracked a smile.
“Don’t you ever say anything?” she asked me.
“I live with three women and have this one as a lab partner,” I answered. Well, that was stretching it a little as Kate didn’t really live with us, but as far as I was concerned, she was part of my family.
“Okay. Bree and I will do the talking. You guys do the lifting.”
“Are you pre-med?” Justin asked me as we left the classroom. “I thought I knew all of us.”
“No. I’m an artist,” I said.
“And why do you know so much about anatomy?” Amanda asked.
“I paint figures. I had to study anatomy.”
“Figures?”
“He paints nudes,” Bree supplied. I swear Amanda blushed. “How about you?”
“I don’t paint nudes,” Amanda sighed. “When my pediatrician died, I swore I’d find a cure for breast cancer.”
“How about you, Justin?” I asked.
“Nothing so dramatic,” he said. “I just want to be a surgeon. Probably specialize in the nervous system.” I looked at him.
“You mean you’re going to be a brain surgeon?” I asked.
“Hey, it’s not rocket science,” he quipped. We laughed and I had to wonder how often he’d used that line.
“Focal points,” Doc Henredon said as we looked at the complex arrangement of objects and people on our podium. He hadn’t allowed us to draw anything yet. “You aren’t going to draw this composition,” he continued. “What I want you to do is study it. Think about it. What path does your eye take as you contemplate this scene? Close your eyes and re-open them. Where are they drawn? From your initial point of entry into the composition, where do your eyes move most naturally? Up? Down? Left? Right? What is the next point on which they focus?”
I let my eyes wander around the composition randomly for a minute and then closed them again. I’ve always been attracted to the human form and love to paint figures and there were three nudes in this composition. But when I opened my eyes they were riveted on the blank space. I hadn’t even noticed it the first time I looked at the scene, but I suddenly realized that everything in the scene was held in relationship to that negative space. It was like the scuff on the front wall of court two at the club—an anchor for my mental image of the court. With my new awareness of the starting point, I let my eyes follow the path from focal point to focal point.
Fuck! Doc is a fuckin’ genius. This was no random assortment of objects and people. It was a planned composition in which the eye was led in a way that brought order out of chaos.
“Now draw the path,” Doc said. “Don’t draw the scene. Draw the focal path. Great art is not simply painting accurately. It is about the artist’s control of the viewer. How well can he or she communicate with a viewer that is years—maybe centuries—removed from the artist?”
“That was intense,” I said, wrapping my arm around Kate’s waist as we went to meet Melody after class.
“I couldn’t believe the path you drew,” Kate responded. “It looked exactly like Doc’s. I got the starting point, but I didn’t move more than a few inches from it.”
“That’s the way you look at things, though,” I said. “Doc followed your path like he was seeing the whole composition for the first time.”
“Hi darlings,” Melody called out. “You look beat!”
“It was an intense 2D class,” I said. “Eye-opening. I’m exhausted.”
“Me, too,” Kate said.
“I hope you’re not too tired, sweetie,” Melody said, looking at Kate.
“Are you going to do that again?” Kate asked.
“Do what?” I chimed in.
“They were mean to me yesterday,” Kate pouted. “I made them both come and they just teased me.”
“I promise more than teasing tonight,” Melody said. She hugged Kate and pulled her into a kiss. “I have something new to show you that I learned in Minneapolis. I promise you’ll like it,” she whispered.
“Now?”
“No. Now we have to go over to the studio and pack outfits for shipment. Amy says we’ve got twenty more orders to fulfill.”
“Do we have that many?”
“Just. Fortunately, the second half of our order from Singapore is due this week. Amy changed our site to ‘ships this week’ instead of ‘ships in 24 hours.’ We should have stock again by Saturday. Then we’ve got to decide a time to treat more fabric and figure out if we’re switching to US manufacturing.”
“Amy, Sandra, Wendy, and I spent most of Saturday ironing. At least all we have to do is pack them for that cute UPS guy,” Kate said.
“Whoa! Who is this that has caught your eye?” I exclaimed. First Wendy and now a UPS guy? What was up with Kate?
“Relax, lover,” Kate giggled. I noticed Melody’s eyes were popped wide open, too. “Just because I let a tiger pet my pussy doesn’t mean I’m interested in a gorilla.” She kissed me. I mean—kissed me.
“You’ve really got a thing for zoos, don’t you,” Melody laughed. Kate got a faraway look in her eye. “Kate?”
“That gives me an idea,” she said.
I met Lissa and the team at the club after I’d had a light dinner with Rio to go over the week’s Critical Reading assignments. I noticed Rio sat very close to me as we ate dinner and went over the notes and seemed to take every opportunity to lean across me to point something out or to brush against me. I can recognize flirting. I just didn’t know what to do with it, so I pretended it wasn’t happening. Man, what a coward!
I left the cafeteria to go to the club and Whitney intercepted me.
“Hi. Can I walk with you?” she asked.
“Sure! haven’t seen you since I got back. How’s it been?”
“Frustrating.”
“Oh yeah.”
“I worked out at the club every day. That nice trainer, John, got me court time. I think that Friday he was afraid I’d jump his bones. You guys were awesome, but we all got really horny,” she said.
“Nobody here had to participate in that. It was something we were doing to help us pump up our game,” I said. “Really, you’re free to… um… well, you know,” I said.
“Masturbate?” Whitney declared. Hearing that word spoken by a woman with a deep Louisiana accent gave me an instant boner. Whitney knew exactly what she was doing, too. She threw her gym bag over one shoulder and grabbed my arm with her other hand, dragging me close to her as we walked. Yep, more flirting.
“Do you think I could be a real racquetball player? Like Lissa?” she asked.
“Well, maybe,” I said. “The real test will be how you respond to breaking a fingernail.” We laughed and she held out her immaculately manicured nails.
“I watched you at dinner this evening. Rio wasn’t very subtle, but you didn’t respond,” Whitney said. “I don’t intend to not be noticed. So, I’m just telling you right now, I’m going to flirt with your girlfriend.”
What? With Whitney hanging onto my arm and walking in step with me, I’d already gotten the message that she was flirting. But with… Lissa?
“Um… which one,” I asked lamely.
“Cute. Listen, Tony,” she said and turned me toward her, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “I hear how people talk. Don’t panic. I don’t mean about you. I mean I listen to how people talk. It’s why I want to be a linguist. I know when there are sexual messages in what people say and when there are big red letters that say stay away. I’m studying two different languages this term and I’ve already mastered two others. Plus English. The way you and Lissa respond to people—I can hear the challenge. And I like it. But Bree and Rio are going about it all wrong. You go along with your girlfriends. You don’t manage the show. I think it would be fun to have a roll with you. I haven’t found any other northern boys that do it for me. But the real prize isn’t your cock; it’s the three pussies that pound it on a regular basis.”
I just stared at her and she smiled an almost predatory expression. She pulled my arm around her waist and started walking toward the gym again.
“I wouldn’t reject a pass from you, if you are so inspired,” she laughed. “But you are about to watch the world’s champion tease turn at least one of your girlfriends into a puddle.”
This time I laughed. Oh, she thinks she’s the world’s champion tease. We’ll see about that.
I felt a lot more comfortable now.
“Do you know how hot she is?” Lissa asked as we ate our late dinner after practice. “Of course you do. You’ve got, like, radar tuned to find the hottest girls on campus, don’t you?”
“I have the hottest girl sitting next to me,” I laughed. “Besides, she’s kind of skinny, don’t you think?”
I hadn’t decided yet how to handle this. Whitney had no idea that we had been teased by Kate until we nearly exploded. And though it was common knowledge that we’d been abstinent, only Kate knew that we’d incorporated teasing into our training routine for setting ourselves on edge before a match. She just thought that she could entice us with her brand of teasing and have some fun. I had no objections to fun. I just wasn’t sure if I should warn Lissa, Melody, and Kate in advance.
“Oh, if I’d had her when she was five years younger—even three—I could have turned her into the hottest young model on the runway. She’s too old now,” Lissa said. “But still, I could improve her game.”
“Speaking of which, how was her game?” I asked.
“What? Oh! Racquetball.”
“Yes, that is what you were supposed to be practicing,” I laughed. Lissa threw a pillow at me.
“We worked very hard. She’s really fit. She has potential.”
“For what?”
“I’m her coach, Tony. A coach can’t become involved with a student.” She held my eyes for almost a second before we laughed.
“You know she’s flirting with you, don’t you?” I asked.
“Well, yes… I didn’t realize it at first, until we headed for the locker room.”
“Oh, do tell me what happened.”
“She waited for me. I mean… she didn’t undress or shower until she knew I was where I could see. I wasn’t paying attention at first, which I’m sure irritated her a little. Just when I looked up, she peeled off her sports bra. She didn’t wait. As soon as she knew she had my attention she went right into wiggling out of her shorts and panties.”
“Is she… uh…?”
“… shaved? No. Tightly trimmed. Waxed low and shaped above.”
“Ah. So you noticed.”
“She made it difficult not to. As soon as she was naked, she walked across the locker room dragging her towel in one hand and then she left the shower curtain open.”
“And you?”
“I didn’t. Leave my curtain open. I needed a little privacy.”
“I bet she knew, though.”
“Wait a minute,” Lissa said as she looked at me intently. “You knew, too. What’s she up to?”
“Mmm. She thinks she’s the world’s champion tease,” I said.
“Oh, does she?” Lissa barked. “Maybe we shouldn’t let that challenge be known to certain other members of the family.” We laughed. “Speaking of which… Is our Little One not coming home tonight?”
“She said something to Kate about having learned something in Minneapolis that she wanted to show her. I don’t know what.”
“Ohh,” Lissa moaned. “Yes, you do know.”
“I do?”
“Picture two very horny girls with their legs locked together and their little clits rubbing against each other.” I groaned. That image of Melody and Allison locked together was seared into my visual cortex.
“I might need to fuck you tonight,” I whispered.
“Finish your homework so we can play.”
“I’ve only got one more thing to do. Undress, please.”
“What?”
“It’s an art exercise. I want to find out if I can really see it.”
“I’m sure you’ll explain eventually,” Lissa sighed. She let her sweats fall to the ground and lay on the sofa with her book. “Anything special?”
I shifted her position slightly so she was lying partially on her left side, propped up with pillows so she could comfortably read. I moved the lamp slightly so she could see the page. I pulled her left knee out slightly and her right foot straight down so her left ankle was under her right knee. I pulled the coffee table closer to her and ran to the kitchen to get a wine glass. What the heck? I poured her a glass from the bottle in the fridge. I put a Cleo Laine CD on and set the glass near her hand.
“Mmm. Bonbons?” Lissa asked.
“Behave. They’re just props,” I said.
I went to my big chair and propped my sketchbook in front of me as I looked at Lissa. This might be harder than I thought. I found it more and more difficult these days to detach myself when Lissa posed for me. I saw her, my lover, instead of the planes of light and shadow that I wanted to capture in the sketch. She’s so incredibly beautiful. I can’t find a single flaw and my sketches are less perfect than she is.
I closed my eyes and listened to the music wash over me.
“I believe the lies of handsome men…”
I opened my eyes and there it was. The focal point was nowhere near where I expected. I’m always drawn to Lissa’s breasts, eyes, pussy. But it was obvious. She’d let her left hand drop toward the glass—not quite reaching for it. The hollow space between her thumb and forefinger caught my eye. From the tip of her thumb, the line plunged toward her and in an ellipsis swept back out toward the glass. Reflected in the crystal was the lamp, pulling my eye upward, flinching back from the light and bouncing down to the shadow the book in her hand cast across her right hip. It was amazing. I sketched the path of the movement and as I reached her hip, I was pulled to the center by her breathing. It wasn’t the rise and fall of her breasts that drew my attention, but rather the swell and contraction of her abdomen and the way the cleft of her navel pulled me back down the center line of her body.
The lack of hair on her mons meant there was no artificial shadow to stop the eye. While the line was supported by the cleft of her pussy, it didn’t pause there, but shot down the underside of her right leg. And there, under the perfectly painted toes of my lover was the endpoint—a stack of unopened mail that we’d carelessly tossed on the end of the sofa thinking we’d deal with it later.
My first sketch wasn’t of Lissa. It was only the focal path as Doc had shown us earlier in the day. The second sketch was only the stopping points along the path. I’d done this before, but never understood what was happening as I sketched or painted. I was so excited that I had to move straight to the third sketch.
“If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can’t I paint you?”
This time it was the little side journeys that the eye takes when it repeats the path. The position of Lissa’s eyes as she read followed the path of the lamplight. The line from the navel went both down and upward, spreading to encompass the lower curve or her breasts. From my angle, her legs were foreshortened, putting the stack of mail in the extreme foreground, but almost out of focus—a denial of the real world in favor of the fantasy of her novel.
“All my sadness, all my joy, came from loving a thieving boy.”
I realized I was seeing my world in a new way. And now that I’d put it on paper, I faded back into the reality of seeing my beloved, lying on the sofa, sexy as hell.
And her eyes were no longer on the book, but on me.
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