Odalisque
Seven
“YES, I’VE GOT THE DETAILS, DADDY,” Melody was saying on the phone when I found her at home. Lissa and I had no more than walked in the door after practice when Kate grabbed Lissa’s hand and dragged her off to the bedroom. What’s that all about?
“Okay,” Melody continued. “You can’t invest in the partnership. That’s our domestic relationship and it just wouldn’t work. But Ice Queen Sportswear is a corporation.— No, not an S Corporation. We were advised against that.— Yeah, I think he’s a very good lawyer and he works well with our accountant.— So here’s what he says. The corporation will acquire 100 shares of common stock from the partnership. That’s one percent of what is outstanding. At that point, you can buy the hundred shares at the ask price of $3,000 per share. That’s what you wanted to invest, right? $300,000?” There was a long pause as Melody listened to her father. I took the opportunity to kiss her cheek and she held my hand. “Daddy, Tony is here. Let me put you on speaker.”
“Hi, Tony,” he said once Melody had touched the button.
“Hello, Mr. Anderson,” I answered automatically.
“Really, Tony. I’m over that. Please call me Harold.”
“Sure, Harold. Sorry I forgot.”
“Couldn’t common stock in the corporation be negotiated or sold?”
“Not technically. In any case in which a corporation is privately held, there are inherent restrictions or the corporation becomes public and is saddled with all kinds of SEC restrictions. That’s why we can’t just sell you stock of our own. The corporation has to issue it.”
“I see,” he paused. “I hate to bring this up, but what about the disposition of the stock when I… when I’m gone?”
“Don’t talk like that, Dad,” Melody jumped in. “The treatment is going to work and you’ll be around for a long time. Maybe even see grandchildren someday.”
“I’d love that, sweetheart, but I need to be practical and keep my will updated. Can I just leave the stock to you?”
“Part of the reason you wanted to invest was so Melody would receive a share of your estate up front without the hassles of inheritance taxes and such. If you willed the stock back, it would likely look like you were giving her a gift instead of investing,” I said. “We should make the shares out to you and Lexi as joint tenants with right of survival. If she wanted to sell the stock back to the corporation, she’d take a capital loss that would offset estate taxes. If the stock is jointly owned with right of survival, there isn’t even a need to have it in the will.”
“You’re a smart man, Tony,” Harold said. “I’m afraid my mind just isn’t functioning as fast as it used to. This treatment takes it out of me.”
“Can you come out for Thanksgiving?” Melody asked.
“I don’t think so, sweetie. Your mom is coming and even though we’re talking and have stopped the divorce proceeding, she’s still pretty mad at me. I don’t blame her,” Harold sighed. “Just fax the papers to my attorney. I gave you the number. We’ll have the money deposited in your accounts by the end of the week.”
After Melody hung up, she sat there quietly and I could see a tear beginning to form in her eye. I reached down and picked her up in my arms and settled into the big chair. She cuddled up to me and cried quietly for a couple minutes.
“He just doesn’t sound good,” she whispered. “Do you think I should go out to see him again?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“If I thought my dad was dying, I wouldn’t hesitate to take another opportunity to be with him. Sweetheart, you don’t need permission to go, but if you want it, you’ve got it. Can you work out your schedule?” I asked. It seemed there was a long weekend coming up when PCAD classes would be out for a faculty conference.
“Midterms are Monday and Tuesday. I could take the rest of the week,” she said thoughtfully. “But wait! I’ll miss our Halloween party.”
“Think, lover,” I said. “What’s more important, a Halloween party or seeing your dad while you can?”
“You’re right. Thank you, darling; thank you.”
“He’s your father, Melody. Nothing is more important than family,” I said. “Speaking of which, where is the rest of our family?”
“Oh god! Molly will be home with the boys soon and Kate’s got Lissa in the bedroom. What did you do to Kate this morning?”
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
“She grabbed me twice today and… well… we played with each other between classes. She actually dragged me into a janitor’s closet and fingered me until I screamed. Then when you got here, she dragged Lissa off to the bedroom. She’s acting wild.”
“Oh.”
“Come on. That’s not something you say ‘oh’ about and leave it. What did you do?”
“Well, it got started when she gave me a hand job last night and then we went to sleep. I woke up this morning with her riding me. I came but she didn’t. She said she wanted to stay on edge today. Did she come when you fingered her?”
“Well, if she did, it was a really small one. How did this get started?”
“You wouldn’t believe what she did to me last night,” I started.
I told her about the delayed response and how I came so hard after she’d stopped touching me. I left out the part about her roommate watching. At least Amber was gone when we made love this morning.
“So, she said she wanted to see how long she could stay on edge before she came today. I take it she’s rocking all her lovers on her way to a big one tonight. Who are you calling?”
“Molly. I think we’d better go meet her at Red Robin instead of bringing the boys right home. We’ll bring back food for Kate and Lissa if they ever come up for air,” Melody laughed. In two minutes, we were out the door.
Kate was moaning in the middle of the bed. Lissa had gone to sleep and Melody hid behind her, too exhausted to enjoy any more sex. I lay down on the opposite side of Kate. I wondered where her mind was just now. She stared glassy eyed at the ceiling and her body was wracked by little convulsions. As soon as I lay down beside her, she turned to look at me and reached for my cock.
I finally got it.
Damn! I can be so dense sometimes. I pulled her hand away and placed it firmly at her side. Her eyes never left mine as I moved above so I could look down at her. I lightly drew a figure eight around her breasts and repeated it several times until I was only circling her nipples. I planted my hands on the mattress on either side of her to lift myself up. Kate’s mouth was open slightly and her eyes never wavered from mine as I bent to kiss her softly. I pulled back and kept eye contact.
“It’s okay, love,” I said. “You’ve had a fun day. It’s time now. Come for me, darling.”
It took about thirty seconds. Her breathing got ragged and her eyes began to flutter. I used our old gesture and pointed two fingers to my eyes. She locked on them like they were her salvation and without moving her hands from the bed her back arched and she screamed.
This was no ordinary high-pitched whine nor the sudden holding of breath that sometimes caused Kate to black out in orgasm. Nor was it a short screech as she peaked. The scream emptied every corner of her lungs as her entire body vibrated. At one point only her head and heels were touching the mattress, and I wasn’t sure about those. But in the whole time her eyes never left mine. It was so intense that I felt a surprising spurt from my cock in response.
Kate wrapped her arms around my neck and dragged me to her lips for a long and hungry kiss. She turned to Lissa and Melody who were both staring in disbelief and possibly shaking from their own aftershocks. Kate kissed them each and then settled back down into my arms to sleep.
“Thank you, lovers. Oh, thank you. I don’t think I’ll do that often. That was… oh wow. I hope you can go to sleep now. Oh wow. ’Night.” Kate drifted off to sleep in my arms and I glanced up into the bemused faces of my other lovers. They shook their heads and snuggled under the covers next to us. I don’t remember what came next.
“I got the key. Let’s go,” Eric said as we entered the athletic pavilion.
I’d just come from my Pilate’s workout on Saturday morning. There was still a pretty heavy cloud cover and threat of more rain, but for the moment it was dry. I was carrying a portable easel and two good-sized sketchpads as well as assorted drawing media. Eric had convinced me that I needed to sketch Tent City from the roof. He dragged a stool from the sports therapy room as we headed to the back of the building and the roof access stairs. His key worked fine and we were soon on the roof. It was a little breezier up here and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep the paper on the easel while I drew. I had a couple big binder clips with me that I hoped would keep it stable if the whole easel didn’t blow over.
There was a two-foot-high wall around the roof. I set the easel against it and the stool slightly to one side so I could see over the edge while I worked, propping my feet up on the wall. Eric kindly stabilized the easel in the breeze. At last I took a look down at the camp. There is a running track around the sports field that is just eight feet away from the building. The monitor’s tent was set up against the building spanning the paved lip between the building and the track. We weren’t set up for sleeping nor was there a platform to keep us off the cold, wet concrete. But beyond the track was the encampment. Looking at it from this angle, it reminded me of Kate’s family back in Oregon—a sort of haphazard arrangement of living spaces. The tents weren’t laid out in neat even rows or avenues. In the first place, there were several different sizes of tents. Some were even smaller than the tent Melody, Lissa, and I had used when we traveled cross country last summer. I tried to imagine what it would be like for the three of us to actually live in that one room and shuddered.
I sketched out the randomness then identified the pattern. The tents were in blocks of four, each facing a different direction. Because they were different sizes, the blocks were irregular. Since they all faced different directions, no one had a next-door neighbor with an entrance beside them or directly across from them. With the varied colors of the tents—mostly greens and yellows—there was a gently chaotic look to the camp, especially since many of the tents were also draped with blue tarps. At two stations, the gas heat lamps warmed a space of a few feet around them where people huddled. Of course, no space heaters were allowed inside any of the tents because of the threat of fire or asphyxiation. At the end of the encampment, separated from the last row of tents by a good ten feet, was a row of Honey Buckets.
I sketched like mad, tearing through a couple of quick layout sketches and then trying to focus on specific aspects. What were the focal points in this setting? Three guys in army surplus coats, huddled under the heat lamp. The row of portable toilets. A loose corner of a tarp that was flapping in the breeze. Two people embracing in the corner of the camp. A line of a dozen people waiting to get into the kitchen tent. The wisp of smoke from a guy’s cigarette.
I worked for an hour and a half with Eric keeping my stuff from flying away as I drew. I used colored pencils to rough in the chaos and a heavy 8B graphite to deepen the shadows. Working from this angle, I couldn’t put detail into people. I couldn’t see into any tents. I kept trying to see what it would look like without the canvas wall that surrounded it—what it would look like if I could get something between the flat, on-the-ground view that I could see from the monitor’s tent and the bird’s eye view from the rooftop. If the building had a window half-way down the wall, it would be perfect, but alas, there was none.
I was exhausted and Eric was nearly frozen when we packed everything up and went inside.
“Man! I don’t remember October being this cold last year,” I said.
“No. It didn’t get really cold until December last year,” Eric said, “but at least we weren’t snowed in like two years ago.”
“Snow? Here?” I’d only lived in Seattle a year and hadn’t seen any snow in that time.
“Severe. Knocked out the power to half the county. Suburbs were hit worst, but winter quarter started a week late here at SCU.”
“Sounds more like Nebraska.”
“Probably worse. Nobody here knows how to drive on snow and the city only has like one snowplow and a Zamboni. There were busses jackknifed at the foot of every hill, even on snow routes,” Eric laughed. “A week later it was sixty and everything was flooded.”
“What do they do in weather like that?” I asked.
“If it’s below freezing, we open up the building and those who want to can come in for the night. Most won’t, though. As long as they are outside, they feel like they are meeting their own needs in the best way they can. Once they come inside, they’re taking charity,” Eric sighed. “We’ve just got to find a more permanent solution to the problem.”
“Oh man, I’ve got to get going!” I said, glancing at my phone. “I was hoping to get a nap before my shift tonight, but there’s a damn football game this afternoon and we all promised Sandra that we’d come and cheer for her boyfriend.”
“Oh yeah. That’s your friend who’s dating Walt Rosenberg, isn’t it? Well, go get your crimson and gold on and cheer for the team. And thanks for letting me be a part of your arting today. It was cool.”
“Damn cold, in fact,” I joked. “But I really appreciate you helping and getting me up here. I’m excited to create a painting.”
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