Odalisque
Twenty-two
FRIDAY NIGHT, I snuggled up to Kate with just the two of us. She had her hand wrapped around my cock as I petted her breasts and put kisses all over her face and torso.
“You really love them, don’t you,” she asked.
“Who?”
“Damon and Drew,” she said. “You want children of your own.”
“Yeah. I love them. I’d love to have more of them. How about you?”
“Oh, I love the boys. But I’m not sure I want to have children of my own. It’s not that I don’t want them, but I’m so selfish. I don’t want to share with them.” We laughed and continued to make out.
“Well, you should go to sleep now,” she said. She abruptly let go of my cock and rolled away from me.
“Like this?” I said mournfully. “I thought we’d make love.”
“You have a tournament tomorrow, remember?” Kate said. “I was just filling in in the absence of your coach.”
“Oh shit,” I groaned.
“I love you, too.”
Fortunately, Bree took care of Brent and Franklin on Saturday, seeing that they got to their matches and guiding them flawlessly through a first place showing and a judgment that ruled them to officially be Division B players. Whitney played well, but lost in her third round and left immediately afterward, wishing us all good luck and Merry Christmas.
The elite men’s tournament featured just six men. That was the top limit for a round robin instead of single elimination. We started playing at eight a.m. and didn’t finish until eight p.m. There weren’t enough courts for us all to play at once and we had to be fit in between the other divisions as well. I had a couple of tight matches, including the dude that beat me up at Bellingham, but this time I turned the tables on him. At the end of the match, I was an exhausted victor.
The night shift at Tent City was brutal. I was so tired, I almost slept through time to get there. Kate had to practically drag me out of bed.
I checked in and flopped down in the chair and was asleep before Bree crawled into my lap. I almost didn’t notice when she got up, but when Sandra sat down on me, I was a bit surprised.
“Hey,” I said. “Long time, no see. Where’s your boyfriend?”
“He abandoned me. School’s out and he had a ride to Ellensburg.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. When are you heading back to… uh…?”
“Yakima,” she supplied. I really need to learn my Washington cities. “I’m going after our last final on the 16th. Wouldn’t you know I’ve got the last final. But I’m only going as far as Ellensburg that night. I’ve got to meet his family and then go home for Christmas. But you know what? We’ve got a Sunday to Sunday condo reservation in Idaho. Walt’s picking me up on Christmas morning and we’re going on a vacation. Just the two of us!” Sandra was excited and was wiggling on my lap.
“Wow! That’s great.”
“Yeah, but… um… Tony. Last chance.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m definitely not going to be a virgin when I come home from Idaho. If you want me, you gotta take me now.” Well, that stunned me.
“Um… I… um… didn’t know you were a virgin,” I stumbled. She kissed me. Not the old, Sandra-with-a-wide-open-mouth kiss, but a very sweet, lip to lip with just a touch of tongue kiss.
“Yeah. And I’m not really offering myself to you, much as I love you. Walt has been so nice and willing to take it slow and easy. And I can’t wait to give him everything,” Sandra said. “But I’ve been kind of afraid.”
“If there’s pain it only lasts for a couple of minutes. Then it’s fun, I promise,” I said.
“That’s not what I’m afraid of. You know, you sort of… fixed my kissing. I was so backward and inexperienced that I thought I had it all figured out,” she said. “Walt still says ‘thank you, Tony,’ every time we have an especially good kiss.” We laughed. I’m glad the guy takes it in such good humor. “But what if I’m just as misguided in making love? What if I have the cunt equivalent of eating your face? Should you be teaching me something?”
“Oh, Sandra. This is your special time with Walt. Tell him. Ask him what he likes and wants, and tell him what you like and want,” I said. “The two of you are so good together; all you need to do is communicate. Exploring is at least half the fun.”
“What’s the other half?”
“Orgasms.” She hit me in the chest, but left her hand there as she cuddled with me.
“You’re really a great friend,” she whispered. “I love you for that.”
“It wouldn’t be the same without our friends,” I answered.
“Ames? This is like old home week!”
“Hey, Ames. Got room for a skinny dyke on your lap?”
“There’s always room for you,” I laughed. “Why aren’t you with Sonia and Thor?”
“They left without me. Said come down to LA as soon as I can.”
“Hey, you only have another week of school. You’ll be down there next weekend,” I encouraged her.
“I’m not going.”
“What? Why not Ames?”
“Practice. The teams are gearing up for the first bout in January and if I want to make the team, I need to be here to practice. It’s not a college sport. They could have waited a week,” she said.
“It will be okay, Amy. Really, it will.” I held my friend and comforted her. “You’ll see.”
“Forever the optimist, aren’t you Tony? I sure hope you’re right. When Sonia’s gone, I feel like a chunk has been taken right out of my heart.” She buried her face in my neck and I could feel the heat of tears.
“I feel the same way without Lissa and Melody here. I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t looking forward to being with them next Sunday.”
“You’d fuck Kate again,” Amy growled.
“Yes, I would,” I said. “And I’d still feel the hole where Lissa and Melody are missing. It’s just that way. I suppose if they really left us, Kate and I might still hold onto each other, but even together we only feel like we’re half there.”
“Grr rawr rawr,” said the Tiger as she climbed into my lap at four in the morning.
“How did you manage to get out of your cage?” I giggled to Wendy.
“I went back to the Honey Buckets and slipped under the canvas,” she answered, cuddling up with me in the chair. “You’re warm.”
“I’m always here for you,” I said.
“As long as I wait my turn,” she laughed quietly. “It will be over soon.”
“Wendy, I’d send them all away if you needed my warmth at night. You’d be the only one I cuddled with when I’m here,” I said.
“Thank you, Tony. Could I spend a couple of days at your place? I have to move out of my tent on New Year’s Eve, but I can’t move into a dorm until the third.”
“Of course you can. You know we’d like to rent you a room anyway.”
“I know, Tony. Thank you. Really. But look at me. I’ve done it. I stayed independent and I’m going to get a place of my own to move into. I really did it.”
“I’m so proud of you, Wendy,” I said. “All any of us want is for you to succeed. And for you to be our friend. And don’t forget there’s still a place for you with us.”
“Do friends get to cuddle?”
“Whenever they want.”
Kate and I were counting down the days. Kate’s last final was on Thursday morning and on Sunday, we’d catch our flight to join Melody and Lissa in Boston for a week before all six of us, the boys included, would fly to Nebraska to be with my family. We’d all get home in time to spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with Kate’s family.
I asked Jack if he’d like me to take the boys for a couple of days, but since I’m taking them away for two weeks over the holiday, he declined the offer. He’d taken them to the aquarium on Sunday and they were looking forward to a return to the carousel on Saturday before we left.
Since I only had Doc’s Tuesday 2D final left, I spent a lot of time in the studio. The photographer would be in on Thursday to do the catalog pictures for our exhibition in February. Man, it was getting close. I was putting finishing touches on pieces when I realized that Rhapsody Suite was probably the least developed of all my works. Yet that was what inspired a showing. So much had changed in the past year.
I’d crated the picture of Ralph and the picture of Lissa as an old woman. It was a relief. Somehow, I was just a little afraid that someone would come in and see one of those pieces. I wasn’t ashamed of them, but I was a little uncomfortable having them about. I wondered if Picasso or Dali ever felt that way? Maybe there’s a hidden cache of Matisse paintings of dissections or lovers that he never showed anyone. The picture was of Ralph, dissected, laid bare. But when someone looked at the painting, it was me that was cut open—my heart exposed.
Anyway, I was feeling like a real artist, spending eight or ten hours a day in the studio and just getting lost in the painting. I did half a dozen variations on the Tent City painting, and two of them I developed into oils. One of them was a pretty big piece, just over a yard wide, and looked at the village as though the tent walls were translucent. You could see the people inside. I hoped people wouldn’t see it as invasive. The people I’d come to know in the city were in the picture, warts and all. There was one special spot where I’d painted Wendy.
It’s not like I’d actually been inside or looked inside the tents. I just imagined how I’d want it if I lived in one of those canvas homes when it was cold. It’s a sobering thought. Every tent, I discovered, had a different story, the characters living their real lives within its bounds.
I like to work on big canvases. Kate likes to work on a slightly smaller scale. Most of her pieces were little more than a foot wide and a foot and a half tall. But they were all close-ups. I don’t know where she spotted these things, but my favorite was a stack of poker chips on a table. There were eight red and one white sticking out in the middle. They were reflected in the table-top. She is such a stickler for details. You can see the grooves in the edge of each chip. I think she must have magnifying vision, or something. I could never see that kind of detail just by looking at a subject from a few feet away. It’s so cool.
We had just started setting the pieces against a wall Thursday morning when we heard the bell.
“I’m Jade,” the woman said when I opened the studio door. She was a few inches shorter than Kate, very thin, and I’d guess about forty. I’d call her wiry. Her hair was pretty short and was graying. She’d backed a van up to the studio garage door.
“I’m Tony and this is Kate,” I answered, offering my hand. “Come on in and we’ll show you what we’ve got.”
She came into the studio and looked around, held up a light meter and looked at it critically. She walked around the studio getting a feel for what was there and didn’t bother to look at the artwork. She bent over and rubbed her fingers on the floor, then rubbed them together and looked at them. I was glad we’d finished sweeping and mopping. The place was spotless. Finally, she turned to us and heaved a big sigh.
“Okay. It will take me an hour to set up. I need to hang drapes and haul lights,” she said. “I’ll set up over here, so please move all this stuff over to the other side of the room.” The stuff she pointed at was our neat line of paintings leaning against one wall. What the fuck?
“Will do,” Kate answered before I could spout off. “Do you need help bringing things in?”
“Help? You mean like lifting and carrying?” She looked skeptical.
“Sure!”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” She acted like no one had ever volunteered to help her carry anything in her life.
I transferred the paintings to the other wall and Kate opened the garage door so they could begin taking stuff out of the van. It was packed with trunks, lights, stands, and shelves of rolled up fabric. As soon as I had the paintings moved, I helped unload. Some of the trunks were really heavy. I could see the muscles in Jade’s arms bulge out as she lifted her end. I don’t think she had an ounce of body fat. Her breasts were no more obvious than mine. She’d stripped off her sweatshirt as soon as we started moving things and was working in a sleeveless T-shirt and jeans. As soon as we had the van empty, I lowered the door so no more heat would escape.
“I have to go to my last final,” Kate said. “I’ll be back about two.”
“Would you mind bringing sandwiches when you come back?” Jade asked. “I don’t eat meat.”
Without Kate in the room with me, I was afraid I might come to blows with Jade. She was acerbic and aloof. But I had to admit, she was efficient. She said very little to me while she set up, but handed things for me to hold in place while she clamped them. Within an hour, she had a working photo studio set up, including a unique vertical easel, about a dozen lights, tripod, and light gray backdrops. I thought about what Doc had said regarding painting the studio gray.
“You’re new at this, aren’t you?” Jade asked me.
“Yeah. Pretty much. It’s my first show. Why?”
“You helped. Of course, your assistant started it, so you don’t have to keep helping if you have other things to do,” she said.
“My assistant? You mean Kate?” She nodded. “Kate’s the other artist. We don’t have assistants.”
“Shit. I probably shouldn’t have asked her to bring sandwiches.”
“She’ll bring them. We all have to eat sometime.”
“Yeah. I forget after I start working. I thought if she came back with something, it would remind me.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “When I get into a zone, I forget to eat, drink, or sleep.”
“Well, what’s first?”
We decided to start with the big pieces and work down to the smaller ones. Jade’s camera setup was connected to a computer so she could download and display the photos as she took them. It was pretty impressive. Once all the lights were on, it was easy to see why she worked in a sleeveless T-shirt. They heated the room.
Jade was meticulous in her work. I saw her slip into her own zone as she set paintings on the easel, adjusted lights, changed the position of the camera on its tripod, previewed the photos on her computer and repositioned lights. I’ve never had that much appreciation for photography, but this was amazing to watch. She’d carefully move her light meter back and forth across the painting, looking for hot spots, then take photos at different f-stops and shutter speeds.
She was working on my last piece at two o’clock when Kate came in with a bag of sandwiches. I held up my finger to my lips as I rushed to her, but I heard Jade swear.
“Light!” she yelled. “I have to do this one over.”
“Sorry,” Kate whispered. We sat back against the door quietly for the half-hour that it took Jade to retest her lighting and take the picture. When she was finally finished, she turned toward us.
“Do you have the next batch of paintings?” she asked.
“Yes,” Kate responded. “And sandwiches. You look exhausted. Come and eat something.”
“Yeah. Thanks. Is it two already?”
“Two-thirty now,” I said. “You’ve been going at this for four hours without a break. Kate, it is amazing to watch her work.”
“Do you do artwork all the time?” Kate asked.
“Mmm. Good sandwich. Where’d this come from?” Jade asked.
“Um… Muffaletta.”
“No. I don’t do artwork all the time. I do product shots. Art is just a product,” she answered Kate’s original question.
“You mean like bottles of shampoo and new cars?” I asked. They were about as different as I could think in terms of kinds of product.
“Yeah. Like that. And food. Artwork isn’t as difficult as food. I prefer to work in my own studio most of the time, but Clarice wants pictures of the two of you at work. This is where, right?” she asked.
“Yeah. Most of the time.”
“Well, bring the next batch in and let’s get started. I’d like to finish before midnight,” she said slugging down some water to wash back the sandwich. She was back to work at once.
Kate and I brought in the rest of her paintings from my car. I hadn’t seen these yet. Kate’s final review for her practicum was today and she brought them straight from the college. I had to laugh. There was one that I puzzled over for a minute before I turned it ninety degrees and backed off. It was a picture of a man’s face—sort of. It was just the left side of his face and only included a part of the nose, mustache, and lips. I swear you could count every whisker in the guy’s ’stache.
We watched and moved paintings as Jade worked away for the afternoon. Kate was just as impressed as I was with the way Jade worked. When she’d finished Kate’s paintings, she took down the drapes and backdrop she’d used. We helped her stow them in her van. Then she got us to show her our favorite working positions. We each had unfinished paintings that we put on our easels and reference sketches we used that she managed to capture.
Then she did individual portraits and asked how we’d gotten to know each other. Somehow, the whole story of the mural and then Kate posing at the party came out. That painting was at home. There were certain things that you just didn’t take to exhibitions and the sketch and painting of Kate, the one of Melody and Lissa that the mural was based on, and a couple of paintings I’d done of the boys were on display in our home with Kate’s triptych.
“That would be interesting,” Jade said. It was pushing nine o’clock and we’d been in the studio for over twelve hours. “What do you have for posing here?” she asked.
“Well, we’ve got a few props and furniture. We moved most of the things we used in Rhapsody over here once we got the studio finished. We haven’t done a lot of poses here yet, though,” I said.
“Okay. Get that daybed you were talking about and some drapes. I want a picture of you sketching her.”
“Um… you mean like we did last spring?” I asked. Kate had been wearing a pajama shirt that she unbuttoned and let hang open while I sketched. “I don’t think we want a nude photo.”
“Don’t worry, no one will see anything vital. But once they see you drawing her in the pose from Rhapsody, the value of that piece will go up. It makes no difference that it was painted in a different location.”
We set everything up and Jade positioned us. She positioned the camera over my left shoulder and moved me a lot closer to Kate than I was when I was drawing last spring. Jade captured one or two photos as a test and then told Kate to take her shirt off. Kate looked at me a little doubtfully, but complied. Jade told me I’d better get to sketching as there needed to be something on the pad so it looked good. Well, once I started sketching Kate, everything else sort of fell away and Kate kept her eyes focused right on mine. The camera went off a couple dozen times, sometimes with that machine gun clicking that indicates several pictures are taken in sequence. Half an hour later, Jade said enough and we looked at what she had shot.
Wow! She’d positioned us just so that the sketchpad blocked the view of Kate’s nipples, but you could definitely see the upward slope of her breast. The pictures showed the sketch taking shape as we worked. You could see the side of my face and my hands. Kate’s face was beautifully in focus.
We finally packed the remaining camera gear in the van at a little before eleven and waved goodbye to Jade. We were starving!
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