Odalisque
Forty-two
PHYSIOLOGY. Team meeting. Parkour. I led and let Coach chase me. It felt good to run flat out until I was so exhausted, I couldn’t move. I barely had time for a quick shower before Literary Criticism.
This was it. I entered the room, spotted Rio, and sat beside her. She looked up at me, a little surprised.
“You okay?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah. You?”
“I’ll live. Talk to you later.”
We sat in a booth in the cafeteria after class. She was surprised when I sat on the same side. She was wearing a turtleneck, but I could see a bulge under it. She rolled the neckline down exposing the collar and dug in her bag to pull out the leash.
I sighed. But Wendy really helped get my head on straight this morning. I reached over and clipped the leash to her collar. Rio inhaled haltingly. I unbuckled the collar and dangled it at the end of the leash.
“You aren’t a submissive; you aren’t a slave; and you aren’t a pet,” I said. “You don’t need a collar and a leash.”
“Do you hate me?” she asked.
“No. Actually I’m rather fond of you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But I’m not going to have another sadomasochistic orgy with you and/or anyone else.”
“That’s mean,” she laughed.
“What do you really want, Rio?” I asked.
“What does everybody want? Love. Fulfillment. A little pain.”
“Why the pain?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“I would never do that,” I said.
“I’m not pretty, Tony. No matter how you paint me, I’m not going to lose fifty pounds. I’m not going to have a pretty complexion or silky hair. When I learned about sexual pleasure, I could only get so close. It was frustrating. One day I grabbed my own nipples and twisted them as hard as I could. God, it hurt! It was my first orgasm,” she said. She looked me in the eye. “I realized what I wanted then. I just wanted to come. And a little pain—not a lot—was the ticket to getting me there. And boys… boys always want to spank the fat girl.”
“I don’t.”
“You got hard.”
“You were lying on my cock rubbing it.”
“You won’t do it again?”
“No.” She dropped her head. “But I’ll make love to you one day.”
Her head snapped up and she turned to face me, looking in my eyes for the truth.
“When?” she whispered.
“One day, when we’re ready.”
Wednesday arrived with an overshadowing aura of doom.
At six, I was to stand before the Board of Regents at SCU and present the design for the mural. I cut all my classes and installed handles on the back of the canvas. I resisted the urge to keep adding paint. It was barely dry enough to transport as it was. And it wouldn’t fit in either of our cars. Doc came over at five o’clock and we loaded the covered painting into his van. He transported stuff like this all the time and the rest of the van was filled with his painting supplies. I rode with him, even though the rest of my family was driving over as well. I didn’t say much and Doc didn’t press me.
There was a huge crowd outside the Board Room where the meeting was to take place. In fact, there were so many people that we couldn’t even get to the room. Eventually a message was passed back that the Board of Regents would reconvene in the auditorium to discuss the Tent City Memorial and we should all move there.
“Better yet,” Doc said. “The auditorium has projection equipment. Grab someone to help you get this on stage and I’ll go set up.”
I’d prepared a slide presentation, even though I don’t really like doing it. Melody helped me. Lissa dressed me in plain black slacks and a black shirt. Wendy was clinging to Kate when I saw the four of them come into the auditorium. Bree and other friends joined them. My own private fan club. Unfortunately, there were a ton of people around me and I couldn’t get to them. The Student Social Concerns Committee had made Eric their project representative.
“Who are all these people?” I asked Eric.
“Interested parties,” he responded. “That’s Mayor Richardson with most of the City Council. I don’t know who those folks are.”
“I know them,” I said. “It’s my degree advisor and several professors from PCAD, including Dean Peterson and President Watts.”
“I understand we kind of put you on the spot when we stole your painting. That wasn’t what we intended,” Eric said.
“It’s okay, Eric. I feel like I’m in way over my head, but I’ve got good friends to help me. I think you’re going to owe me a pose for a painting I’m doing when this is over, though.”
“Sure. Now you want me to get naked,” he laughed. “The whole thing just went viral. You were a hero and I had a snapshot of the sketch you did from the roof when we were up there,” he said. “I uploaded it because it seemed it was the only picture there was that really showed what the place looked like before. When Bree said there was a copy of the finished painting on your computer, I begged her for it. All of a sudden there was talk of a memorial and fundraising. Everywhere there was a message, there was your picture. I couldn’t stop it.”
“I hope everyone likes the actual painting for the building,” I said, motioning to the covered board. “The whole thing scares the hell out of me.”
“Well, you’ve got a lot of people supporting you. You’ll see. Here’s the Board.”
We took seats in the front row of the auditorium and the Board of Regents sat behind a table on stage. I noticed some flashes going off. The press was here.
“We are here to consider a proposal to have a memorial mural painted on the athletic pavilion. Staff is currently distributing a printed summary of the project, so we hope not to have to go over everything in detail. We are here to discuss the plan, funding, impact on the school, goals, and feasibility of the project before approving or disallowing it,” the President of the School said. “We will hear first from the Student Social Concerns Committee which has prepared an agenda. The committee has done excellent work so far and consulted with me on the agenda, so it should address all our concerns.”
That was Eric’s cue and he hopped on stage. A slide flashed on the big screen behind the regents and Eric was off. He talked about the culture at the school and its background as a community of concerned people who were always willing to help. He told about the attack and named the dead and injured. I flinched when he named Wendy and Paulie. That image of her running toward me was seared into my mind. He said the students wanted to help Tent City rebuild and felt that emblazoning the image of Tent City on our wall would not only memorialize those who had what little they possessed taken from them, but that it would keep our attention on the continuing problem of homelessness and be a focal point for fundraising efforts. It was beautiful. He got applause and the president thanked him.
Eric was followed by half a dozen different speakers who talked about the impact of a project of this scope. It covered everything from materials to insurance and security issues. I didn’t realize they were on the agenda, but Doc and Clarice shared the podium for five minutes to address the artistic resources, faculty advisorship, and professional management. There was a motion to revise the banking of the funds raised so that the money could be used to help the homeless in other ways should the city or circumstances prevent the acquisition of a permanent site for the encampment.
“Tony Ames, artist. We’ve reached the part of our meeting where we’d actually like to see what this wall will look like. Can you show us?” President Haywood asked.
“Yes sir,” I said going to the stage.
I went to the podium and my first slide hit the screen. I couldn’t believe there were almost a hundred people in the auditorium. I took a deep breath and looked at Wendy. She smiled and Kate hugged her.
“President Haywood, Regents, Mr. Mayor, fellow students, and guests.” I almost couldn’t go on. I was scared to death. All I could think was What if they don’t like it? “I’m honored to have been asked by my fellow students to create a very large painting that will fulfill their goals. Honored and really scared.” That’s not what I intended to say. There were a few chuckles. “They’ve asked me to prepare a memorial for something that I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember finding a guy who’d told me a joke at ten o’clock lying dead in front of me at four a.m. I don’t want to remember seeing a fireball arcing in the sky while I was frantically trying to turn off gas valves. I don’t want to remember seeing a dear, dear friend running toward me in flames. I don’t want to remember being so frightened and panicked and so terrified.” I heard a few sniffles and held my eyes on Kate and Wendy.
“But there are things I do want to remember. I want to remember my first day coming to this campus and stumbling into a student rally and a guy in a bright blue T-shirt that said ‘Pitch-a-Tent’ on it becoming the first friend that I made at SCU. Thanks, Eric. I want to remember students at PCAD getting involved by putting together backpacks for med supplies and toiletries so they could be a part of this project, and the fact that after the fire they did it all over again even though they were all on winter break. Thank you, Kate, for coordinating that. I want to remember a huge recliner that Derrick loaned us for the security tent because that overnight shift was really cold out there. I want to remember the fact that when I came to SCU I promised myself that I would become involved and be more aware of what was going on around me. Not just aware of ball games, though I’ve enjoyed a couple of those, or the sport that I was recruited to play, or the unbelievable friends I made at orientation and in my classes. I wanted to be aware of my community. That is what I want to remember.”
There was some applause and I looked at my friends and my lovers. It surprised me.
“Um… thanks… I guess. Members of our collegiate community, when I look at the wall of the athletic pavilion, what I want to remember most may not have happened yet, but will. I want to remember that we made a difference. That in some way, we left the world a better place than we found it. That is what I’ve tried to capture in this painting that I offer as a scene for the wall of the athletic pavilion.”
I went over to the painting, took another deep breath, and flipped the cover off of the painting. At the same time, Doc projected a slide of the painting on the screen behind the regents. It wasn’t quite as big as the wall we’d paint, but it was damned big. There was applause as the Regents came over to the big painting and looked at it. I showed them where to stand to get the best idea of what it would look like. They gathered together in front of the painting and the audience started to whisper and shift. The board members filed back to their seats. The president leaned over his microphone.
“Project approved,” he said and hammered his gavel once.
Pandemonium broke out.
Over the weekend, scaffolding sprouted up around the athletic pavilion. Re-facing the building would be the first step in the mural project. Somehow, the school had come up with capital funds to do all three of the exposed faces of the building in a matching smooth finish that would be easy to paint. The original surface was textured cement that would have been almost impossible to draw on. Just the mural wall would cost close to twenty-five thousand dollars to surface. The school had discovered, however, that the new surfacing material would give energy savings of nearly 20%. On a building that size, the job would pay for itself in less than five years.
I was at the site when they started putting up the scaffold, just to watch and begin to accustom myself to an eighty-foot wide canvas. Melody and Bree went with me and each was holding one of my arms as I threatened to hyperventilate. God! What have I gotten myself into? I’m just a kid!
I’d started to go up to help put up the scaffold, but the guys had flagged me back and said I couldn’t come past a yellow caution tape they were stringing up around the building. That was going to make it tough for me to paint. Eric found us as we were watching. He brought John Stratton, the chair of the Student Social Services Committee, and the two carried a big box between them. I introduced John to Melody and Bree but he already knew Bree because she was on the committee.
“Don’t tell me you tried to cross the yellow tape already,” Eric laughed. “That’s a construction zone now and is officially under City building code and OSHA rules. That means you have to have a hardhat in order to cross the tape.” With that, he and John opened the box and showed me about twenty hardhats. I laughed.
“You mean just wearing one of these will get me across the line?” I said. “Anybody could do that.”
“No, you have to have this one,” Eric said, pulling out a red hardhat. My name was stenciled on the front. “This is the site foreman’s hat. That’s you. What you say goes. Of course, no one is really expecting you to say anything to the crew that’s doing the surfacing unless you don’t like the quality. But it’s going to get you in to inspect the work.” He handed white hats to Melody and John and crammed one on his own head. “These are volunteer and worker hats. If you look over at the site, you’ll see that pretty much everyone over there is in a white hardhat.” Then he handed a yellow hat to Bree. “This is the crew coordinator’s hat,” he said with a smile. I looked at Bree. I had no idea she was taking that big a role on the project.
“That’s cool, Bree,” I said. “How are you handling all this?”
“Well, my new schedule is a lot easier. My program is consolidated this quarter, so I’m clear at noon each day. Since so much of my work is going to be in-class, I’ve got a lot more free time now.”
“See the guy over there?” Eric asked. I saw another guy with a yellow hat. “He’s the crew-chief for the scaffolding crew. There will be a different guy on Monday to manage the surface crew. You can always tell the crew chiefs by the yellow hardhats.”
A guy with a forklift moved scaffold framing from a flatbed trailer to various stations along the front of the building. Other crew members assembled the first tier of scaffold on the left side of the doors. As soon as it was done, they built the second tier. It was pretty amazing.
The crew chief let us through so I could see how far away from the building the scaffold was. It was back about eighteen inches because the guys would need room to spray the wall and then work the compound into a smooth surface. That looked like a reasonable distance for us to work from, too. I was satisfied and we left the jobsite.
“You two should keep your hardhats and have them with you whenever you’re over here. The white hats will be stored inside the pavilion for now. When you’re ready to start working, there will be a temporary shed at the corner to store paints, brushes, cleaner, and hardhats,” John said. “That will also be where our security sits. As an official school construction site, professional security dudes will make sure no one comes around the zone who isn’t authorized.”
“I guess that’s comforting,” I said. “It’s a little different than what we had with Tent City.”
“It’s a lot different,” Eric said. “We’re a high-profile project now, so most of the security team will be off-duty policemen. They can work the site in uniform. Daytime will be rent-a-cops. Nighttime will be pros.”
“It seems like a lot of commitment from people. This must cost a bundle,” I said.
“The school is getting a ton of publicity and has even designed a new campaign for prospective students emphasizing our social activism. You might think this is all a benefit to the homeless, but stark reality is that a university is a big corporation and if they didn’t think you’d have this project finished for a Memorial Day dedication and to hold graduation in front of, the project would never have gotten off the ground,” John said.
“Memorial Day?” I asked. Shit! “That’s like less than four months! Do they have any idea what that means? I’m a student! They don’t just give me time off to paint.”
Shit! What have I got myself into?
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