Lost Wax

Page 4

I’M JEROME. No last name. I don’t use it. I can’t even pronounce it; I can’t expect anyone else to. I’m an ethnic ‘Heinz 57 Varieties.’ Why the patrilineal line had to come from the only place in the world where you could have no vowels in a word is sheer bad luck. Imagine a name like Zgrdznk. No, that’s not my name. But if you saw it and asked how it was pronounced, I’d just say “Smith. The ‘Z’ is silent.” I got sick of it. When I turned eighteen, I found a judge who could sympathize but he insisted that I at least use the last initial. “Jerome Z,” he said. “But you can still tell everyone that the Z is silent,” he repeated my joke and smiled. I accepted that.

I started here at PCAD—that’s the Pacific College of the Arts and Design—three years ago. Of course, now we’re a part of Seattle Cascades University and I’ve just had my cast aluminum crucifix installed in the new Church of St. Jerome. I really don’t care what school my degree comes from as long as I have opportunities like that. I came here for one reason only. I promised my mother that I’d get three new letters after my name. Next year I’ll be Jerome Z, BFA. I chose PCAD because they only have twelve credit hours of general education credits required. Everything else is in my field.

Oh yes, my field is 3-D Visual Art. My medium is anything I can afford, but I pretty much prefer bronze or other cast metals. Anything durable enough to last a few centuries also happens to be weighed by the ton. I like marble, but talk about hard to move! I don’t care for wood-carving. I don’t feel like fired clay is permanent. I sculpt for eternity. I don’t want to think of someone dropping a plaster bust and saying, “Oops.” My sculpture will crack the floor if you drop it. If you can pick it up.

My story really starts a couple of years ago. I’d come to PCAD because they offered me a special grant to pay for materials. Marble block costs anywhere from $500 to $2,000 a cubic meter. Bronze only costs $10-$20 per pound, but you have to pay a foundry to cast it after you provide the wax mold. At PCAD, we can cast small items, hardly more than jewelry. There’s an industrial foundry in SODO that will cast for a pretty reasonable rate. If you really want art quality casting, though, you have to go up to Bellingham where there’s an art foundry. I guess the sum total is that whatever the medium, it’s time-consuming and costly. And durable. That’s why I’m a sculptor.

“What good would a bunch of letters after my name be? Do you intend to get a PhD in sculpture?” Ms. Brock asked me pointedly. Bitch.

“I don’t need letters. I’m an artist.”

“Oh? And why do you think I need those letters?”

“You’re a teacher.”

“Ah. I see. Artists don’t teach.”

“Why would they?”

“Some of the most famous artists in the world also taught. In many instances, they referred to it as taking an apprentice. Sadly, they don’t offer letters for apprentices, so you wouldn’t get your BFA. And your master wouldn’t release you for at least ten years. You plan to be out of here in four.”

“That’s what college is for.”

“Exactly. College is for getting letters after your name. It has nothing to do with whether you are an artist. You’ll come out of here knowing less than any apprentice who managed to get journeyman status and thinking you know it all.”

“I promised my mother I’d get the degree. I don’t need it to be an artist.”

“And you expect to learn your craft—no, I’m not talking about the art—to learn the craft, the tools, the materials, and the techniques from books? From someone with letters after their name? In my class, you are the apprentice. Even if eventually you prove to have more artistic talent than me, you will learn the craft from me. Until you show yourself to be enough superior to me to teach this class, you will continue to be my apprentice—even after you graduate. Letters after your name be damned. This is the assignment for this class.”

“But I want to cast something larger. I have a wax model almost finished.”

“Do it on your own time and pay for it yourself. You have not shown me that you deserve to be trusted with more than half a pound of bronze. Our maximum capacity in the studio is one pound. For more you would have to take your work to Bellingham. The piece you propose is too big. Fulfill the assignment or fail the course.” Ms. Brock pointed empirically at the door and I left.

Well, that went well. How was I going to cast anything out of bronze that weighed half a pound? This was stupid. Last term they gave me a six-inch block of marble to carve. How can you do anything remotely human in 216 cubic inches? Now if they’d given me a slab fifteen inches square and an inch deep, I could have done a relief. Most people did an abstract to show that they could polish a stone in a fairly consistent shape. I chipped away more stone than the others and by positioning the block on an axis that was diagonal through two corners, I managed a respectable if somewhat stylized human figure. Marble wasn’t made to do miniatures—at least not with a chisel. I could have used a Dremel with a grinding wheel and put the detail in that I wanted. I’ll probably do that later, just to finish the damned piece.

One-and-two-thirds cubic inches of alloy to melt and cast. If I hammered that, I could make a relief that was a good six inches square—maybe more. But it has to be cast and I knew that part of the test would be on being sure our mold wasn’t too big for the amount of metal being cast. Damn, this was a bitch.

“Yeah?” It was the best I could do to answer the pounding on the door. I wasn’t interested in getting up. I’d managed to have a private room in the dorm by getting a doctor’s referral that my sleep apnea would be aggravated by having a roommate and that said roommate would undoubtedly also suffer. It was fifty bucks a month extra, which was a laugh because the room was too small to be used as a double, even if you went back to the old-style bunk beds. Whoever it was didn’t get the message and pounded on the door again.

I dragged myself out of bed and threw the door open snarling, “What?”

“Jerome, we’re getting a group together to go to the sculpture gardens and thought you might like to go,” said a small mop-topped brunette. “Oh, my God! You’re naked.”

“Yeah. So what. You got me out of bed.”

“Wait! I want to see!” yelled a voice a few feet behind the brunette. Joyce. I finally managed to get a name to her.

“Whatever,” I said standing there. “Girls are such sluts.”

“I’m not a slut!” Joyce declared.

“I am,” the blonde behind her said. Gloria. They were room-mates two doors down from me.

“Well, if you’re satisfied, I’m going to get dressed and go to the studio. I’ve been to the sculpture garden. Several times. I need to work on my wax casting.”

“Don’t you want payback? You showed us yours. I’ll show you mine,” Gloria said, elbowing Joyce aside.

“Whatever,” I said. She peeled off her shirt and stood there topless. I kept staring her in the eye, even though I was taking in her big tits.

“What?”

“I’m naked.”

“Shit.” She hesitated for a minute then started to unfasten her pants.

“Hey! We having a naked party in the hall?” A guy yelled from down the hall.

“Double-shit,” Gloria swore. She grabbed her shirt in front of her and rushed back to her own room. I closed my door and went to the bathroom. With the water running, I thought about what I’d seen. I really don’t want anything to do with girls, but I like to look. they are the substance of classic sculpture. I’m not gay, I’m just disgusted with the sluts. I wondered if Gloria had a boyfriend who would consider her exhibition cheating. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what my one-time girlfriend would have said.

When I was dry after my shower, I popped open the big jar of modeling clay I kept on my desk. It took a few minutes to get it warmed enough to work, but it wasn’t long before I was sinking my fingers into the soft, cool mass.

This was what got me started on sculpture. Play-Doh in kindergarten. It was the feel of the clay that made me start sculpting. I let my fingers explore the curves my eyes had seen when Gloria stripped off her shirt. She was saggy. Her boobs weren’t so big that she should have them hanging so flat. I bet she used to be a chub. She lost a lot of weight and the skin was sagging. There wasn’t enough fat there to support it anymore.

Let’s see. A good surgeon could probably lift them and tighten them. Of course, if she gained a lot of weight again, the scars would stretch. Too bad. My fingers kept molding and reshaping the clay boobs in my hands. Her nipples weren’t bad. If the boob was just shaped a little more like this… I looked at what I’d been working on. Man! I’d used the same amount of clay but just reshaped it a little. That was a nice-looking tit. It just wasn’t hers. I put it carefully into my sealed bowl to look at later. I might want to cast it.

I spent Saturday working with clay in the studio on campus while my classmates scattered to wherever college kids go on the weekend. One and two-thirds cubic inches of bronze. The spruing would take up about half a cubic inch of the bronze we were allotted. What remained would be the shape we cast. The expectation, of course, was that we would cast a simple shape, showing our understanding of the concepts and mastery of the skills for creating a mold and preparing it for pouring. We weren’t expected to create any great art.

That’s what pissed me off. It seemed like such a waste of time to create a mold and pour a bronze that wasn’t worth anything but being melted down for the next class. I don’t create things to be melted down and recycled. I create art. It’s meant to last a thousand years. This seemed so senseless.

I went back to my dorm with nothing to show for my day’s work in the studio. It was Saturday night and the dorm was dead. I flopped back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. As so often happened when I was alone, I started thinking of Beverly—the girl I left behind. Maybe I should say the girl who left me behind.

Damn it! We had so much going for us. I thought we had everything going for us. I was ready to can the whole idea of going to college and just get married. I even had a job offer at the foundry. We could have made it. Then she went and fucked it all up.

“Jerome, I’m in love with Phillip. I’m in love with you, too. But I want both of you.”

“You want what?”

“I want you and Phillip to share me. I’ll give you my virginity because we’ve been together so long, but I don’t want to lose Phillip. You can deal with that, can’t you?”

No. Hell no! Deal with the love of my life wanting me to share her with a guy I didn’t even like? The fucking slut.

Needless to say, I didn’t get her virginity. I didn’t get anything. Women. Fucking sluts.

I tore the plastic wrap off a fresh block of clay and started kneading it, punching it like it was bread dough. Making it softer and softer. I loved the feel of the clay in my hands and could feel her taking shape. As soon as I saw Beverly’s face in front of me, I punched it flat and started working the clay again. If I was going to make a woman, she’d be perfect. Everything about her would be perfect. She’d have a beautiful face, beautiful hair, beautiful breasts, beautiful ass. She’d be perfect and loyal and loving and true and smart and faithful.

The knocking on my door started. Shit, I hate living in a dormitory.

I opened the door and Gloria was standing there.

“You’re dressed,” she said, smiling.

“Uh… I wasn’t in bed yet.”

“I came by to… uh… can we talk? I brought a bottle of wine.”

“Sure. Come on in. How was the sculpture garden yesterday?”

“Okay. I’d love to have your opinion on a couple of the pieces, though. I’m not a critic. I just want to make something beautiful. I’d like to know what I’m missing in a couple of them. I think ceramic is going to be my medium. I don’t have aspirations to have things in gardens and parks. I just want to make cool things, you know? I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

“Yeah.” Stupid girl. “Um… why are you here? I mean, don’t you usually go out on the weekends?”

“I called in sick.”

“Called in to who?”

“My job. I don’t go out on the weekends. I go to work. It’s embarrassing.”

“Hey, it’s okay to work. I’m a little envious. I had a trust set up when my dad died and got a grant to pay for materials. But when it comes down to it I don’t really have any money. What do you do?”

“Can we talk about something else?”

What the fuck? I thought I was being polite. “Sure. What’s on your mind?”

“Something happened… between us.”

“Yeah. You flashed your boobs at me. I remember.”

“You were standing there naked when I did.”

“Joyce got me out of bed.”

“I got you up.”

“I guess.” Even though that wasn’t true. I never get up. It was a good pun, though.

She poured us each a glass of wine after she looked all over my room for glasses. I got them out of the bathroom. I don’t need two glasses in the bathroom, but there isn’t any place else to put them, so I keep them both there. I’m not even sure why I have two glasses except that Mom equipped my dorm room. That’s why there’s a popcorn popper under my bed still in the box.

“Cheers. Look, Jerome, this is weird. All day yesterday and today something weird has been happening. I mean really, really weird.”

“What?”

“My breasts got all tingly.”

“Um… I don’t know what to say about that.”

“This is so weird. Did you do something to me?”

“Aside from looking at them when you flashed me. I don’t remember making them tingle and I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.”

“I just… I can’t explain. It’s…”

“Yeah, I know. Weird. Okay. I worked voodoo on you. How’s that sound? I made a clay model and stuck pins in your breasts. Does that make it less weird?”

“No. You’re really a bastard, you know?”

“Yeah. I figure that’s the way I am.” It was strained. I figured she’d just get up and walk out, but instead she changed the subject.

“Did you figure out what you are going to do for the bronze casting class?”

“No. One-half pound of bronze. Can you believe that? It’s a thimbleful.”

“Could you show me how you do your wax model?” she asked. Well, there’s nothing I like more than talking about what I do when I’m sculpting.

“Actually, I don’t start with wax. I use clay.” I grabbed the lump of modeling clay I’d been softening and started kneading it as I spoke. “I do the model in clay and build the mold from that. I had a cool project outlined for a bust, but Brock said it was too big and I had to use the prescribed amount of bronze and work from there. It’s so bogus.”

“You’re so sure of yourself. I’d be scared to death to start with more than the half-pound. I probably will never do anything bigger than this. But I’m really trying to get a technique down that will work. I thought we had to do the model in wax. I didn’t realize we could use clay.”

“Well, wax is okay if you like it, but it only gets so pliable and it only gets so firm. With clay, you can work it until it’s as soft as you want and even add a little water to it if you need it looser. If you let it dry out, it gets hard. You can even fire it if you want a permanent model. Until you let it dry, it’s pliable.”

“What if you make a mistake?”

“You can keep reshaping it until you get it right. Like yesterday. After you guys woke me up and I took a shower, I sat down and started just working the clay. First thing you know, I’ve got a breast that looks like yours and then I started reshaping it and making it perfect.”

“My breasts weren’t good enough for you.”

“They’re good enough for you. They just wouldn’t work on a sculpture. They didn’t have the right shape.” I looked up, realizing that I’d probably just insulted her. But hell. She had to know her tits were floppy. What I saw surprised me. Gloria was taking off her t-shirt. There was nothing on under it.

“Are these the breasts you modeled in clay?” she asked. I hoped she didn’t think I was going to fuck her, just because she brought wine and took off her shirt. I didn’t even like her that much.

“Yeah,” I said automatically. Then I glanced at her tits. Something was wrong. Or right. I’m sure I remembered her tits being a little saggy. The tits I saw on her chest were firm and round. Almost perfect.

“My breasts tingled all day yesterday and today,” she said. “Not just my nipples where all the nerve endings are, but the whole breast. And then my underwear started getting uncomfortable. It didn’t fit right. I put on my favorite bra this morning and it didn’t fit. What did you do to me?”

Truth was, I didn’t have the foggiest notion. I modeled that tit after what I saw on Gloria’s chest and then just made some adjustments so it would be perfect. What I was looking at now was pretty much the perfect tit I sculpted.

And for the first time in over a year, I started to get a hard-on. Not since Beverly decided I wasn’t man enough for her. I was still pissed about it—angry and bitter. I wasn’t willing to let any woman get close to me. Every time I looked at a woman I got mad instead of aroused. I thought of going to a counselor, but I didn’t want to talk to a man about sex and was repulsed by women. Rock and a hard place. It didn’t make a difference. Sure, I guess I missed masturbating a little, but I just wasn’t going to be “that” guy.

Still, looking at Gloria’s tits, they were pretty much perfect. She didn’t need to strap them up in a bra anymore, that was for sure.

“I don’t know what to say, except that they’re perfect,” I said after a while. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

“What do you mean, I’m welcome? You changed my body! Without my permission. Who do you think you are? Who are you to decide what is perfect and what isn’t? Everybody’s going to know. They’ll think I had surgery.”

“How is everybody going to know? Do you go around showing your boobs to everybody?”

“Yes.”

“Huh?”

“It’s my job, you fuck. I’m a stripper.”

“Yuck! Do you know how disgusting that is? You just take your clothes off for money? Women! Shit.”

“Yeah. But I notice you’ve been sitting there with a boner ever since I took my shirt off and never once suggested I put it back on. Little double standard, isn’t it? I suppose you’re a boy and that’s the way you are supposed to act. Get a hard-on for everything with legs and boobs. Just like any other male.”

“I don’t either. I never do. I guess until now.”

“So, you want me to put my shirt on so you can preach to me some more?” I just shook my head. I never wanted to see her cover those. They were just so… perfect. “What do you mean you never do?”

“I never get a hard-on. Until now.”

“Never? Come on. Are you gay? No. Androgynous? Asexual?”

“I… I don’t think I want to talk about this.”

“No way. You’re sitting there looking at my tits with a hard-on. What did you do?” I really didn’t believe this. I popped the lid of my sealed plastic container open and lifted the modeled breast in my hands.

“You’ve molded that lump of clay to look like my tits. You are working Voodoo. I can feel you touching me. What are you doing?” She ran down. I sat there looking at the clay breast I was holding in my hand. It really couldn’t be. I had to find out. I pinched the nipple lightly then smoothed it back into shape. Gloria gasped.

“Right or left?” I asked.

“Right.” We stared at each other. Then she jumped up and grabbed the clay out of my hand. She looked at it and down at herself then smashed the clay back into a shapeless lump. “You don’t touch any part of my body without my permission. Do you understand? That includes in clay.” I nodded. “Say it! Say you won’t touch me, even in clay, without my permission.”

“I won’t touch you and I won’t model you in clay without your permission.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“No. I mean thank you for these. They were a shock, but I love them.” I smiled a little. “Before you make any more adjustments to me, though, I’d like to get to know you better.” She shoved the clay into its can and sealed it then took me to the bathroom and started scrubbing my hands. That’s one thing about working with clay; your hands get covered with a fine film of it. It takes a bit of scrubbing to get it off, but I’d never had anyone else wash my hands for me. And she’d never put her shirt back on. Nor had my erection gone down.

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