Chapter 9: Left Out

“I’m looking forward to this little exhibition,” Lily Wells said. We were leading all the parents upstairs to our studio. Part of what we’d accomplished when our friends came over in the afternoon was to arrange our studio so that Mavis, Kendra, and I had artwork displayed. Annette and Susan had manuscripts sitting on opposite ends of the reading sofa. Morgan fired up her laptop with a sales graph for our work. I was happy to see that even some of Susan’s poetry had sold.

“Ah, the scene of the crime,” Richard chuckled as he glanced at the daybed.

“This is a nice room, but isn’t it a little crowded for all of you to work in?” Adam asked.

“We tend to spread out when we are all working,” said Morgan. “Annette, Susan, and sometimes Les often work on the dining table. Mavis has her own photo lab at home and when she’s here it’s usually as a model or to photograph a model. Susan is usually modeling as well. Kendra has to do a lot of her work at the university. There just isn’t room for welding and polishing bronze in here.” We all laughed at that. I could just imagine!

The only full-color piece I’d hung was the painting I’d done of Susan two years ago. I had an all-black painting of Kendra on the easel that I’d done before my color vision had begun to return. Hanging on the wall behind the daybed was the painting I’d done of Annette, Morgan, and Mavis the day of what we still referred to as ‘the silent orgy’. On Kendra’s work table stood the bronze of Mavis and me. It was polished and golden, awaiting the patina stage next. One wall held a cluster of three of Mavis’s photos, all featuring others of us in her surreal landscape settings.

“I want this,” Richard said. He hadn’t moved from in front of the painting of the three girls. “Morgan, since you are Art’s agent, please send me the pricing and terms for acquiring this painting. I want it. That Navaho rug over the fireplace is going to be replaced.” Lily joined her husband and leaned her head against his shoulder as the two continued to contemplate the painting. Mavis slipped up to me and kissed me.

“Kendra, this is beautiful,” Lee said. “Is this part of a limited edition?” Mom and Laura were standing next to him as they surveyed the bronze statue.

“Not quite,” Kendra answered. “This one is an original. It will be much different when it is finished. However, I have cast the pieces for a second piece that won’t have the same patinas and glass work. That one will be a straight bronze and I’m thinking I might use the golden tone as the patina instead of doing any other work on it. We’ve set aside rubber molds of all the pieces in case I decide to do an additional casting later. A piece like this ... well, this one had to be cast in sixty-three pieces that I welded together and had to polish the seams of. Even a limited edition is pretty intense work. I may do a smaller version for that.”

“There must be an easier way!” Mom was just fascinated by the bronze.

“Oh, there is. One of the juniors at school is going on and on about 3D printing with bronze. I guess you can print about anything that can be sprayed.” Kendra laid a hand on her bronze as she spoke, stroking it like it was a living thing. “It just doesn’t seem right. Once the scan is done, they can print as many copies as they want. Mass production of bronze sculpture. Even large pieces like this or larger. I could have paid to have the clay maquette laser scanned and then printed in bronze. No plaster. No refinement. No welding. It just doesn’t seem like art then.” I nodded in agreement.

“These photos are astounding,” Adam said. “I recognize some of these places, but I’ve never seen them like this. So ... intense.” He was beginning to sound a lot less intense himself. I’d only met him once before our dinner and he’d seemed really dominating. Of course, my opinion was colored by my concern for Les.

“These are inkjet renditions. I’m working on some chemical-based developing techniques for color prints, but it’s going slowly. Like the bronze and 3D printing, every advance in digital imaging makes chemical-based photography less common and more expensive.” I’d heard some of this from Mavis before and realized we all had challenges in our artwork.

I glanced around the room and saw Dad settled into Annette’s usual reading position with her manuscript in his lap. I was betting we wouldn’t hear another peep from him till bedtime.

I was wrong, of course. Dad tore himself away from the manuscript to bid goodnight to our guests as the parents all left. The rest of us gathered in the kitchen for another piece of pie and ice cream before we called it a night.

“You’ve turned your darkness into art,” Mavis sighed. “My father loved the painting of the three of us. Charge him a lot for it!” We laughed.

“Your dad ... is unusual,” I said.

“Because he likes black art?” Kendra asked.

“No. He likes me.” They all looked at me.

“He does, you know,” Mavis said. “He’s never liked anyone else I brought home. I was a little worried.”

“Have you brought home a lot of guys?” Susan asked.

“Um ... a few. I’m not, like, pure as the driven snow,” Mavis answered. “I’ve been with guys. And girls. Sometimes at the same time. I hope that doesn’t put me on the outs with you guys. Does it Artie?”

“No,” I said. “Why would it make a difference?”

“Some people are a little crazy about things like that, honey,” Morgan said. “It’s no problem to me. It’s part of the world we live in.”

“Me either,” Annette giggled. “We call it magic. Maybe you can teach us some things.” We all got a laugh out of that.

“Why do you suppose your father likes Arthur?” Kendra asked. “You must have brought home some really weird ones!”

“Kendra!” Annette scolded. I laughed. They’d have to be weird to make me seem normal.

“You know what I mean,” huffed Kendra. “Not that Arthur is that strange, but that Mr. Wells seems so open and tolerant of everyone.”

“Well, there is that, but it’s probably because my father is so weird.”

“I’ve never seen someone look so normal,” Les said.

“Looks are deceiving. One of the reasons I went into photography and wanted to be an artist was because I didn’t want anyone comparing me to him. I’d always come out on the short end of that. He’s so scary smart. His normal conversations are about sub-atomic physics. He wrote a two-volume book on particle detection and modeling of the universe with a foreword by Stephen Hawking. It’s beyond most grad students. But he has a bunch of coworkers that he can talk to about it who understand what he’s saying,” Mavis said. “It’s not that I’m not smart, but I’m not rocket surgery smart.” We all got a kick out of that and talked about school while we ate our pie.

“Dr. Lowenstein hit us with crippling praise yesterday,” Morgan sighed.

“Better than crippling criticism, like last time,” Annette responded.

“How can praise be bad?” Les asked.

“Well, Arthur has gone from a form of art that could be commercialized as prints and even posters,” Morgan said. “He has book covers. Now, every piece is one-off. There’s no way to reproduce them.”

“Because of the black? But there is so much depth,” Kendra said. “It’s almost like sculpture.”

“Right. Maybe we can do bronze castings of my paintings,” I laughed. “Then there are the mixed ones with black and some color like the one Mavis’s dad wants. Maybe the 3D printing you were talking about would get me back into competition with Thomas Kinkade. I just fucked myself up on this one. I’ll create art at night after I get done with my shift at McDonald’s.” Everyone stopped talking.

I didn’t really feel that bad. I guess they were just surprised that I could joke about it. After all the parents left, I’d been more relaxed. These were my friends and I could talk to them. I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to say.

“Every once in a while, you stun me,” Morgan said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “I think it’s time to take you to bed. Anyone want to join us?”

“If we were all just going to cuddle up and sleep, even I’d consider it,” Les said. “But if you three are going to be shaking the bed all night, I’d be better off where I can do a little shaking, too.”

“Yeah. Let’s go do some shaking,” Kendra smiled. Everyone got up and grabbed their coats to leave. I got kisses from Susan, Kendra, and Mavis that made me ready to go to bed with all of them. Just before she left, though, Kendra added, “You know, that whole idea of doing castings might not be so farfetched. Could you do up a sample canvas that I can do experiments with? Something that has the same kind of depth and texture as your art, but not necessarily a picture of something. I might ruin the painting.”

“Sure. Kendra, I’d do anything for my friend.”

“So would I,” she said looking into my eyes.

I used acrylic for the sample that Kendra wanted. Maybe she’d get a kick out of the fact that she was in the picture. I couldn’t just put a bunch of paint on the canvas and imagine that it would be like one of my real paintings. The only reason I used acrylic instead of oil was that it dries faster and Kendra was hot to run her experiments.

“Pen, don’t you see Kendra in color?” Annette asked me while I worked. She’d caught a glimpse of the black paint I was using and did her usual cycle around the artwork, finally resting her chin on my shoulder while she looked at it.

“Um, yeah. I like what I see. She’s ... soft, you know?” I said.

“Hmm.” Annette went to the canvas boards stacked against the wall and began going through them until she’d selected two. She hung them on the display hooks where we’d shown the art to our parents a few days earlier. Then she visually attacked them, pacing around the room and looking at them from different angles and distances. She was the only person I knew who looked at art this way. But she always came up with deep insights when she’d spent time examining them.

She’d chosen two of my paintings that were real favorites. One was of Kendra, working naked and bent over her clay model. It was the first day Mavis and I posed for her large bronze. Annette was behind her, rubbing her shoulders. The other painting she’d chosen was of her and Susan, caught in an embrace as they posed in front of the window. It was just before I joined them and lay Susan on the daybed with Annette. I just watched as my Lady danced around the pieces until she was satisfied.

“You open new doors to me,” she began. “When I look at your paintings, I see things I didn’t observe during the event or pose. Remember the first time you drew my right nipple? I got so turned on just by having you so intensely focused on my breast that I had to make love to you right then. It was like I could see myself through your eyes. That’s what I’m experiencing now.”

“Would you like to make love?” I asked as I kissed her softly.

“Yes, but ... let me get this out first, okay?” I kissed her again and we almost lost where we were going.

“Go ahead, love. You and I have all the time in the world.”

“I’m so glad,” she sighed. “I’m in both of these pictures. And I’m not the focus of either one. I’m behind the other model. Still, you’ve painted me with all the loving attention to detail that I’ve grown to expect from your touch and your kisses—from making love with you. I look at myself in your painting and, like with the nipple painting, I can see myself through your eyes. You have such a clear image of who I am. I love it. Then look at Susan in this painting. She is ethereal. Not out of focus or anything, but it’s like she’s transparent. Translucent? There are places where I can see myself right through her. It’s almost like I gave her shape by holding her in my arms.”

“I think you do,” I said. “You have a very ... special relationship with Susan. It came out that day.”

“Yeah. We’re still exploring it, but you’re right. She seems to mold to whatever I want at the moment,” Annette sighed. “It’s nice. But look at the painting of Kendra. When I look at it, I can see exactly what you mean by her being ‘soft’. She’s not at all ethereal, like Susan. She’s solid and opaque. You can’t see me through her. But I remember touching her that day. I massaged her shoulders and back. I took her to the shower and washed her hair ... and everything else. Kendra is really strong. That work she does with clay has hardened her arm and shoulder muscles. Even her abs ... she’s ripped. But there is a softness to her spirit. You captured that. It’s almost like...” Annette paused and I saw color rise in her cheeks.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s like your cock,” Annette whispered. “You get so hard I can feel and see the rigidity. Yet when I touch you, you are soft and silky. I can’t wait to feel you inside me.” She stroked my length and I hardened in her hand. “Please don’t ever tell Kendra I compared her to your cock,” she laughed. “But I can see her hardness in your painting, and can feel the softness. I can’t see auras like you and Morgan can, but I see your love.”

I think she had more to say, but that was as far as either of us could take it as we stumbled into the bedroom and fell on the bed. Her hand was still wrapped around my cock and mine had found the soft wetness of her pussy. I still marveled at the beautiful treasure in my arms. A lot had happened in our four years together, but when I touched her I still felt the wonder of the first time she placed my hand on her breast and the first time she introduced me to a wet reality and the first time she guided me on a tour of her body and the...

I lost my train of thought as she rolled on top of me and slid slowly down my shaft. My Annette. My Lady. My beautiful, beautiful love. Loving her like this, I could see everything illuminated around us, but ignored it all.

Annette and I had both been focused on our projects for several days and taking a break to make love was like opening a window to fresh air in a stale room. We didn’t stop. When she was rising to her first peak, I latched onto her right nipple and she screamed as she vibrated around my cock. I wanted to feast on her body, so rolled her off me and slid down so I could bury my face in her pussy. She was wet and fragrant and I fervently lapped her juices. She hadn’t come down from one orgasm when she soared to the heights of another.

I didn’t stop ... couldn’t stop. I insinuated my fingers into her hot tunnel and found the spot that always seemed to light her up as I continued to lash her pink bud with my tongue. She did light up. The light that came from her body was like camera flashes going off in my eyes. I pushed her legs back so her bottom rolled up and I attacked the little rosebud there. Annette was delirious. I pushed a finger into her there as I returned to flick her clit and she lit up the entire room. She was panting and flinging her head from side to side, screaming unintelligible encouragement. I kissed my way up her body, paying special attention to places I knew turned her on and discovering new ones as I covered her with my body.

I didn’t need to guide my cock to her ready opening, but slid in until our pubic bones mashed together and her clit was stimulated once again. There was an uncommon wildness and abandon about Annette’s lovemaking that drove me forward. I gave her what she begged for as she slammed her hips up off the mattress. I couldn’t hold off my own impending climax and shook as I sprayed inside her. With one more gasp, Annette rocketed off to space again and we collapsed together. The room spun and glowed in the light of our coupling. The red t-shirt I’d dropped to the floor. Her blue panties lying nearby. The subtle tones of the bedspread we’d just totally trashed. The pale green walls of our bedroom. The rose flush spread across her chest. The red lips that joined mine in continued passion, even as our heartrates began to slow.

“How is your book coming?” I whispered as we drowsed together, still enjoying the afterglow half an hour later.

“According to Dad, ‘solid’,” she laughed. “If I hadn’t had four years of classes with him, I wouldn’t know that was praise.”

“I want to read it, but I have trouble reading.”

“I know, my darling. It will get better. I’m not sure I want you to read it, anyway. The horror might be too close to home,” she said. “Pen, I used the darkening vision theme. It’s not about you, but that’s the concept, and it’s truly evil.”

“Sometimes it felt evil, but most of the time it didn’t have a feeling. It was emptiness. Void. I still struggle against it.”

“That reminds me of what I was going to say when this all started,” she giggled.

“Do you think if we start over we can end up back here like this again?”

“Oh, Pen, I love you. I will be back here like this with you anytime you want.”

“What did you plan to say when I rudely interrupted you with sex?” I laughed.

“Mind-blowing sex. Mmm. It was about seeing Kendra in color,” Annette said, rolling so she could face me. I touched her lips lightly with my own. “I’ve been worried. Morgan and I both. You’ve launched a new artform, but it was based in your darkness. We were worried that as your vision improved and you saw color, you would stop painting the black. Morgan can’t see it, but she knows the significance, just by seeing the reactions of people who do see it. But this new painting you are doing for Kendra ... It’s all black. Even though you see her in color, you can still paint her in black. I think that’s important, Pen. The art that you created doesn’t depend on your inability to see color.”