Chapter 3: Practice, Practice, Practice

The day I was dreading finally came. Professor Leitner called on me in Lib Arts seminar.

“Arthur, what are the principles of good communication?” he asked. I panicked. Be clear. Be concise. Leave room to respond. I had them written down somewhere in my sketchbook and if I could find them, I could read them to him, but my heart was beating in my throat.

“Professor Leitner, if I may...” Kendra started. She was sitting right beside me.

“No, Kendra. I understand your concern, but this one is not for you,” he said. “Take a deep breath, Arthur. I’m not a mean guy and I’m not trying to force you to say something that you can’t. Can you answer a yes or no question for me?”

“Yes,” I croaked.

“Very good! Arthur not only answered the question, but demonstrated the response,” he said. The class laughed. “Arthur, are you stupid?” The class gasped. I clenched my fists.

“No!” I almost shouted it.

“I didn’t think so. You see, class, we talked about three basic principles last week, but they are not all there is to good communication. A good piece of advice is not to make judgments based on partial information. Or, as an old proverb states, it is better to hold your tongue and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.” Kendra lowered her head and blushed furiously. “Are you willing to answer more yes or no questions, Arthur?” I could do this. I started to nod and then opened my mouth.

“Yes.”

“Great. Leonard, within the context of our school environment, please ask Arthur a question that he can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”

“Me?” the kid squeaked. He sat over to my right. After the second week, Professor Leitner had rearranged the chairs so we sat in a semi-circle. I thought the expression on Leonard’s face must have been the same as mine when I was asked a question. Though he was heavier than me by quite a bit, he had that same panic on his face that I felt. I quickly sketched him as he struggled to come up with a suitable question. “What is your...” he started and then stopped himself. “That’s not yes or no. Um ... Was this university your first choice in colleges to attend?” he got out.

“Yes,” I said. That wasn’t so bad.

“Florie. Your turn.”

“Oh. Um ... Arthur, is ... um ... Kendra your girlfriend?” My eyes must have popped as wide open as I saw Kendra’s. Florie blushed.

“No,” I squeaked. I practically scribbled my sketch of her and wrote next to it, “My girlfriend?”

“Susan, I’d like you to ask a reasonable follow-up question to Florie’s. Remember, we are not attempting to embarrass anyone.”

Susan thought carefully for a minute and I sketched her biting her lip. Then I sketched her tummy. There was a gap of about eight inches where her shirt stopped and her pants began. She always dressed sexily.

“Art, one of our professors read a paper and rumor has it that you were the author. So, I’m going to ask a question directly from it. Is it true that you have two girlfriends?” Well, that was my own fault. I never thought Professor Denham would read that to other classes or that anyone would identify me as the author.

“Yes,” I whispered. She didn’t give the professor time to ask someone else.

“Do they know about each other?”

“Yes,” I said. Kendra giggled. “We live together.” Uh-oh. I wondered if I’d broken the rules. I said more than just yes or no. Prof Leitner didn’t mention it.

“Jonathan,” he said.

“Um ... Do you have a sketch of everyone in this class in your book?”

I looked around and quickly leafed through the pages. I looked at him and quickly sketched his interested face before I answered.

“Yes, I do now,” the class laughed.

Everyone in the class got to ask me a question, and it wasn’t too bad. I hardly noticed that I was regularly adding a few words after my yes or no answer.

“Kendra,” Prof Leitner said. She was the last one.

“Arthur,” she almost whispered. Our classmates leaned forward. “Will you paint my portrait sometime?”

“I’d love to, Kendra,” I said.

“He was the star of class today,” Kendra said when we met Morgan and Annette for lunch. “I was so scared for you, Arthur. I know that had to be stressful and then when Prof Leitner shut me up, I was just plain embarrassed. I know I talk too much. I can’t help it! You really knocked it out of the park.”

“What happened?” Annette asked.

“He asked me questions,” I said.

“And you did okay?” Morgan said. She was practically squirming in her seat, she was so excited.

“Yeah.”

“It was really cool,” Kendra said. “After everyone in class had asked a yes or no question, Prof Leitner talked about the process of meeting a person on their own grounds as an effective means of communication. Even though everyone asked simple yes or no questions, Arthur’s answers evolved into whole sentences. When I asked my question, he didn’t even say yes or no.”

“Sure I did,” I objected.

“No. You said, ‘I’d love to, Kendra.’ That made me feel like an absolute queen!”

“So, what is it that you’d love to do to Kendra?” Annette giggled. “Do we need a bigger bed?”

“No!” Kendra squeaked. She really did have a habit of blushing. Almost anything could cause it.

“Paint her,” I said. “Her portrait. Portrait of a Scary Girl.”

We all lost it and started laughing. I was beginning to breathe more easily now. School wasn’t quite as scary with a friend. I sometimes even talked to her. When she shut up.

My drawing class had progressed to where we were drawing things instead of shapes. The last assignment before the change was to draw a design that had no background. It’s harder than it sounds. We had to create black and white shapes in such a way that you couldn’t tell if the white was the foreground or the background. Then our first still life—just a vase without even any flowers in it—we had to draw without looking at the paper and without lifting our pencil. The instructor had us do it with each hand and then turned the vase upside down and made us do it again. We drew that damned vase all week, including drawing it upside down while we looked at it right side up. On Thursday, we were allowed to choose our own perspective and actually draw the vase as we saw it. All the drawings were good. Much better than at the beginning of the week.

“When you repeat an action over and over again, it is called practice. With practice comes perfection. This is true of athletes and artists. A figure skater does not take the ice and leap into a triple axel without having practiced a simple Waltz jump from one foot to the other and building up the body’s memory of how a takeoff feels and how a landing feels. Each step is repeated again and again. The same is true of your art,” Dr. Robinson said as we hung our first of the week art and our end of the week art. There was a big difference.

“Repeated action, in the context of art, takes you further and further into the subject. There is a substance produced by the body called myelin. It is a white fatty substance that forms an insulating layer around the axon of some nerve cells. This layer is an insulation from surrounding electrical impulses that allows the connection from the thought to action to move much more rapidly and accurately. In other words, the more you practice each individual element of your art, the better you will become at it. Over the years ahead, you will do this with nature, drawing a single leaf in a landscape or the reflection of the moon in a teardrop. When you begin drawing life figures, you will fill pages with just fingers, chins, eyebrows, nipples, or what have you. Practice increases your talent.”

I guess lovemaking is like that, too. The first time Annette and I made love, we only really knew how the parts fit together and what we did to ourselves that felt good. Of course, it was exciting. Taking her clothes off was like opening a new box of paints or placing a fresh white canvas on the easel. Even thinking about it was enough to send shivers down my spine and directly into the base of my penis. And when we added Morgan to our loving bed, things became even more exciting. But like Dad told me, newness and excitement won’t carry us through the hard times. I started to notice little things as we made love more frequently.

And we practiced a lot!

I’m not a great lover, but I am observant. Ms. Clayborn said that was what made me a good artist. I observe things and remember. Like I noticed that when Annette and I are making out, there comes a point when I’m lightly sucking and tonguing her right nipple that she becomes desperate to have me inside her. If either Morgan or I happen to be playing with her clit or fingering her pussy at the time, the desperation is not so intense. But if we’ve just been making out and getting progressively more passionate and I dip my head to that nipple, Annette claws at me to pull me on top of her and into her. As soon as my cock opens the folds of her sex and she begins pulling at my hips to get me inside, she lets out a deep sigh like all her dreams have just come true. I was learning the exact correct time to lick her right nipple.

It was funny, but the left nipple didn’t have the same effect. She liked it, there was no question about that. When I bent to take her left nipple in my mouth, she cooed and held my head to her, petting my hair and pushing her breast to me. But she didn’t grab me and try to get me inside her right away if it was her left nipple I was paying attention to.

I wondered what there was about her right nipple that seemed to connect so directly to her pussy. Maybe it was the myelin that was built up through practice. I needed to investigate.

“May I draw you tonight, my Lady?” I asked. We’d been studying with Fay in the studio. I had my next writing roundtable paper drafted and was ready to do something creative.

“I have another fifty pages of this novel to read. Can I do it while you draw?”

“As long as your right breast is exposed.”

“You want to draw my right breast? Is there something wrong with the left?” she giggled.

“It’s a ... uh ... assignment. Sort of.”

“Can I sit in bed?”

“Perfect.”

“Hey, is there room for me? I like looking at my Lady’s right breast!” Fay said. We all headed for bed and, of course, exposing Annette’s right breast meant we all got naked. That was fine with me, but I was really going to focus on this. Annette sat in the middle, leaning against the headboard and Fay got on her left. That worked perfectly for me and I brought my sketchbook to start drawing.

I like looking at her breasts. I’m eighteen. I kind of like looking at any girl’s breasts, but especially Annette and Morgan. Annette held her book in her left hand and just reached across occasionally to turn the pages. Morgan had a book she was reading, too. I started out just looking at her breasts, my eyes flicking back and forth between them. I’d noticed a long time ago that they weren’t identical. Nobody’s are. But trying to consciously see the differences was a challenge.