Art Something
10
First Intervention
I DIDN’T GET UP to paint. How could I even consider leaving Annette alone in my bed? I was vaguely aware of Dad peeking in and quietly closing the door in the morning. I’d made sure we had a sheet and blanket over us. I just stared at the treasure in my arms.
“Was my bare butt sticking out when your dad looked in?” Annette whispered.
“No, my Lady. I made sure it was covered.”
“You could uncover it now, if you want.” We pushed the blanket down and lay naked in each other’s arms. I was hard against her stomach and her hand grasped me as we kissed good morning. “I can hardly believe this was in me… you were inside me, Pen. Do you love me?”
“Oh, Annette, I love you so much it hurts. I think my heart will burst.”
“That was a very poetic thing to say. Where did those words come from?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want to leave you in bed while I painted this morning. But the feelings are just overwhelming.”
“I’d like to feel you in me again. Cover me, Pen. Make love to me again.”
I rolled on top of Annette and she guided my erection into her vagina. She was already wet and slippery. We moved together, marveling at the sensations of being so intimately connected to each other. This was beyond any dream that I’d had. We looked into each other’s eyes and I became lost in her soul as I was lost in her body. Yes, I needed to paint this, but first, I needed to experience it. Fully.
After we’d made love again, we showered together and groomed each other. I loved brushing her hair. Her touch was electric as she shaved the light growth of whiskers on my face. We dressed and held hands as we went downstairs to the kitchen. Mom and Dad were sitting at the table with coffee. Mom slammed her sunglasses down over her eyes as we entered the room.
“Good morning,” she said. “Would you like breakfast, sleepyheads?”
“I can make it, Mrs…” Annette began. Mom put a finger to her lips and then pulled Annette into a hug.
“You need to start calling me Mom, like my other children do.”
“Mom,” Annette whispered. “Mom.”
“Now get yourselves some juice. The oatmeal is perfect for frying. Would you like an egg with it?”
“Thank you, Mom,” Annette and I said from the refrigerator. I turned to her and kissed her. She sighed and got glasses from the cupboard. I filled them with orange juice. We sat at the table and reached for a slice of bacon. Mom set our plates in front of us and we began eating.
“What did you paint this morning?” Dad asked as he turned the page in the Saturday newspaper and folded it back. It was a normal kind of question for our family, except that I hadn’t…
“Um…”
“My tonsils,” Annette said leaning against me and rubbing her cheek on my shoulder. She said it so calmly and sweetly that it didn’t seem out of place at the breakfast table.
“That should make an interesting canvas,” Mom said. I was blushing. “Your mother would like to hear from you this morning, Annette. You need to let her know when you’ll be staying here. And the same goes for you, Arthur. If you plan to spend the night with Annette, please let us know so we don’t worry.”
“Um… I don’t know if…” I thought of my art supplies and my morning ritual of painting. Then I thought of the fact that I hadn’t painted this morning. It was confusing.
“When you stay with me, you can bring a drawing pad and colored pencils,” Annette said, immediately identifying the source of my hesitance.
“What a good idea, Annette,” Dad said. “You know, looking at morning art is as much a ritual for me as painting it is for Arthur.”
“I know there is a sense of newness and awe in your relationship right now,” Mom said. “I can see it surrounding you. You are almost blindingly bright and your auras are intermingled. You should not totally lose yourself in it, though. Neither your parents, Annette, nor us, Arthur, have any problem with you sleeping together, but in the interest of a healthy relationship, you should spend time on your own, as well. I’d suggest that you continue the way you have been this fall, and not attempt to move in together right away. If your weekend dates extend to overnight, that is different. Do you find that acceptable?”
“Yes, Mom,” we both said and giggled.
“I’m going to run home for a while and talk to my mother,” Annette said. “I promised. And I didn’t really bring anything with me for an overnight. I’m wearing the same clothes I wore to school yesterday.” She leaned close to me and whispered in my ear. “Pen, you need to paint.” I nodded.
I wondered about my parents’ casual acceptance of the fact that Annette and I were sleeping together… having sex… in my room. It didn’t seem that strange, since Fay and I had slept together on and off for years. Would Fay be as accepting? When I thought of her, I didn’t find any change in the way I felt. I loved her. I loved her as absolutely and completely as I loved Annette. And I knew that there would be three of us in my little bed. It gave me a warm feeling as I began sketching.
The first thing I thought about Annette was not sex. I guess that was lurking in the back of my mind—I’m seventeen—but what I thought about was the morning she came into my room and examined my painting for the first time. She hadn’t looked at it and nodded before going on to something else. She’d studied it. She’d walked around it and peered at it from every angle as if it was three-dimensional. She silently pointed at different parts of it, smiled, frowned, nodded, shook her head. The way she looked at my painting was as if she was interpreting it with her body.
She’d done the same thing when I finished my classroom detention painting the day before. She’d pulled me back away from the easel and let Ms. Clayborn look at it. Then while my teacher and I talked, Annette examined the painting. She’d watched it take shape over the past week, but her response was as if she was seeing it for the first time. She pointed, giggled, and even bounced up and down. I could only see her taking delight in what she was seeing.
Last night, when we were naked with each other for the first time, she approached me with equal intensity. She wanted to see me from every angle. She wanted to touch and interpret me with her fingers and her lips. In her presence, I felt… I felt like I was Art—I mean a work of art—or the essence of Art—Damn words!—and she was a connoisseur of fine paintings. I’d never been considered in that way. Never felt so valued.
That was the Annette that I sketched. Of course, that meant that I sketched my sketch on the easel in front of her as well. And… Well, I didn’t draw her clothes. I couldn’t. The girl who looked at my painting was naked, looking at herself as though the easel held a mirror. And then another figure took shape. Fay stood beside Annette, a hand on our girlfriend’s hip. Her attention, like mine, was not on the painting within the painting, but rather on our Lady. Fay appreciated her with the same intensity and enthusiasm that Annette paid to the painting.
“Um… Mom? I’m still sort of on detention this week,” I said at breakfast Monday. Annette had spent the night with me again Saturday, but had returned home Sunday afternoon. She would pick me up for school in just a few minutes.
“Detention? When were you put on detention?” she demanded.
“Last Monday. I sort of got distracted in Mr. Kowalski’s class and he sent me to the art room. I did five days for two hours after school all last week.”
“And you didn’t consider this important enough to tell your parents? I thought you and Annette were studying after school.”
“Um… well… sort of. Ms. Clayborn had me paint. She said she wanted me to continue after school in her classroom until Christmas break.”
“Arthur, are your classes suffering?”
“No ma’am. Except for the one day I got distracted. Mr. Kowalski gave me the class notes for the week and I studied them. He said there would be a test today in class, so I was sure to prepare for it. I think I’ll do fine.”
“And this painting you do after school? How many pieces have you done?”
“One.”
Mom looked at me and nodded. She didn’t say anything else, but I could tell we weren’t through with this discussion. I was sure I told her about detention last week. Sort of sure.
Ms. Clayborn liked my new sketch and had me develop it further. She made suggestions about elements and expressions. Annette loved it and as she sat at her desk doing homework, she’d burst out giggling at random moments.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I’d been used to going direct from my dreams to a pot of paint and a sheet of Bristol. It was hard for me to discipline myself to slow down and work out the details in my sketch. I was ahead of where I’d been last week when I started my first painting. I’d worked on the sketch all weekend. Ms. Clayborn said I could start transferring it to a canvas board on Tuesday.
Just before my two hours were up, Mom walked into the classroom. Uh-oh. She marched right up to Ms. Clayborn.
“I understand my son is on detention. Why haven’t I been notified?” she demanded.
“It’s a little unusual,” Ms. Clayborn said. “We didn’t register detention with the office, so no notice went out.”
“Explain.” Ms. Clayborn asked for my sketch of last week’s painting and I gave it to her. She sat down with Mom.
“Something happened last week. I assume over Thanksgiving weekend,” Ms. Clayborn said. Annette helped me gather my things to put away and kept me away from the conversation my mother and teacher were having. She kissed me on the cheek.
“It will be okay,” she whispered to me.
“Arthur was distracted in school all day on Monday. It was the first time that his teachers noticed he was drawing in class since we reached our agreement as a freshman. At lunch, we agreed that we would see if it continued or if this was just a one-time thing. You know we all are aware of Arthur’s need to let his thoughts out. But Dave Kowalski managed to position himself so that he could see what Arthur was drawing in his class. Dave is very perceptive and, for a jock history teacher, he understands a lot about art. He immediately sent Arthur to me. This needed to be developed. Arthur has always had talent, but it was random and undisciplined. This is a new level.”
“It took him all week to draw this?” Mom asked.
“No. To paint it.” Ms. Clayborn led Mom to the canvas I’d completed last week. Mom looked at the painting. She just stood there staring at it. Then she turned to me and asked for the sketch I was working on this week. She stared at that for a long time, too. When she handed it back to me, there were tears in her eyes. She just nodded and left the room.
“What…?” I started.
“Your mother wanted to make sure you were not being abused,” Ms. Clayborn said. “Go home now. She has dinner ready.”
The new piece did not go as fast as the previous one. I only had two hours a day to work on it instead of three. I passed my history test, but Mr. Kowalski was not willing to give me another pass from his class. He was kind of stern when he said, “You have to learn to separate yourself from your art when other things require your attention. I know you can do it, so I expect it of you.”
Things changed with my morning painting, as well. I was no longer flinging paint at the paper in an effort to purge my mind of the night’s dreams. Often, I wanted that dream to stay in my mind. Sometimes I just sketched, thinking of what I would like to paint next. When I painted, it was also more deliberate. Ms. Clayborn had told me to consider my poster paint artwork as a kind of sketchbook to develop later.
It was funny, as in strange, that when I looked at some of my older paintings, I could remember exactly what the dream was like that had inspired it. I sat one evening with a box of old morning paintings and leafed through them until I came across one that inspired me. I thought about what I was doing with my new style in acrylics and decided to redevelop this dreamscape. I noted that it had a prominent clock in it, like my recent classroom painting. It was more Dali-esque, but I thought I could work with it.
It seemed like the weekend was upon us before I was completely aware. Completely. I’d made plans and I was sure they would work out. I closed up my paints early on Friday and both Annette and Ms. Clayborn looked up at me curiously.
“I’m sorry I can’t stay longer tonight,” I said. “I have a date.”
“You what?” Annette said.
“I need to let you get home so you can get ready,” I smiled. “You need to wear something like that emerald green party dress with the asymmetric hemline and the wide belt with a plunging neckline in front and back. I’ve only seen you in it once.”
“And yet you remember it so clearly,” she said. “You are full of surprises this week, my darling Pen.”
“Have fun, you two,” Ms. Clayborn laughed.
Annette dropped me off and had me take her overnight bag with me. I told her I’d pick her up at seven and that she should eat first because we wouldn’t get to dinner until after ten.
My mother walked into my room while I was still in my briefs. My mother never walks into my room. The most she ever does is talk to me from the door.
“Mom!”
“What are you wearing?” she demanded.
“Um… underwear?”
“Hmm. It’s a good start, but we need to give it a little flair. Put this on.” She handed me a lavender silk shirt. It was unbelievably smooth as it slid over my skin.
“Where did this come from?”
“Your sister came by this afternoon and dropped off a few items for you, including her car. She said you needed them for your big date tonight. It’s a good thing someone told me.”
“Um… I thought… well, we always go out on Friday night.”
“Well, you should never make assumptions. Once she told me what was up, I looked at your suit. And replaced it. I know it fits all right, but you needed something in a charcoal gray. Your shoes are polished, the socks match. As soon as you are dressed, get downstairs and let me try to comb your hair.” She paused and looked at my easel. I had a new canvas board on it and had completed my clock dreamscape sketch. I’d begun carefully applying the acrylics. “Is this your next work? I’m proud of you, Arthur.”
She left the room and I dressed. What else could I do? Even on the days when I figure out how to do something special for my girlfriend, my mother and sister come to the rescue with things I forgot. Including a flower.
Comments
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