Chapter 10: Paint Me

I’m not much of a literal thinker. I’m an artist. I interpret things. I’m not as bad as Charmaine, who can turn anything into a dirty joke. But I turn things into an artistic expression.

I drove over to the admin building after I left Eva, figuring that Sarah Lynn would be finished soon. I’d have to make an appointment soon and see if I could get my financial aid increased. Not likely, since even though they aren’t helping pay for my education, financial need is based on the parents’ ability to pay. How sucky is that?

I pulled into a visitor spot near the front entrance of the admin building. Lucky it was summer and there weren’t too many students around. I reached for my smartphone and sent a quick text to Sarah Lynn that I was waiting. Two police cars pulled up in front of the admin building and I thought it was odd that they just stopped half blocking the street without their emergency lights on. I opened the door so I could stand beside my car and snapped a few pictures of the officers as they got out. Just then Sarah Lynn came out the front doors and after checking a paper in front of them, the two officers approached her.

“Sarah Lynn Jamison?” one of them said. I clicked my phone over to video.

“Shit! What do you want? Don’t I have to hang myself before you use me for target practice?”

“There’s no reason to be confrontational here. We’ve been looking for you for several days,” officer one said. “We’d just like to take a look at your cell phone.”

“No.”

“We are asking politely but will frisk you and remove the device if you force us to. We believe it was used in the commission of a crime.” Sarah Lynn folded her arms across her chest.

“Naughty cell phone. I do not consent and if you touch me inappropriately, I will sue you, Officer Brennan and Officer Richards,” Sarah Lynn said, reading the names from their badges. “And your department.”

“You leave us no choice. Place your hands on the hood of the car and spread your feet apart.” Sarah obeyed and I zoomed in as the officer went straight to her back pocket where the phone’s outline was obvious.

“Good girl,” the officer said as he turned the phone on. “This is password protected!”

“Duh!”

“Give us the password.”

“I refuse to say anything further without the presence of my attorney.”

“We just want the damned video,” Officer two said.

“Are you nuts or really that ignorant? If you want the video, it’s on about fifty share sites.”

“Then why don’t you unlock your phone for us.”

“No.”

“Jack, this was supposed to be a simple open and erase. We either need to take her in or let her go.”

“Yeah. You’re free to go, Miss Jamison.”

“My phone, please.”

“This phone is considered evidence in a crime. You can inquire about its release after the hearing,” officer two said. He handed the phone to the other officer, who dropped it in a plastic bag. They got in their cars and left Sarah Lynn standing on the street as they drove off.

“Fucking thugs!” she screamed after them. She turned and ran to me as I turned off my recording. “Did you get all that?”

“Every bit. Thanks for speaking up. Now what?” We got in the car and pulled away.

“Let me borrow your phone,” she said. I handed it to her after I unlocked it. She tapped a few things out and then her thumbs started flying over the keypad. Finally, she exited and handed the phone back to me.

“You bricked it, didn’t you.”

“Yeah. When Lonnie gave us that talk on security and set up the phone blanking, I really thought he was going overboard. I figured, what’s the chance that someone would steal my phone? Well, now I know.” Tears were running down Sarah Lynn’s cheeks. “Damn it! I miss him! The fucking son of a bitch!”

On the way back home, we got her a new iPhone and a prepaid plan. She got a new phone number and we wondered how long it would take her parents to figure out she was no longer using the phone on their plan.

Kelly was hanging onto me a lot as we moved into the weekend. It seemed like whenever I was in the big room at Granddad’s, Kelly was naked and close enough to touch me. Not that I minded. Having naked Kelly close enough to touch all the time was heaven. And it didn’t seem to be a conflict with the other girls. Jasmine had me on my back and was riding her pony when Kelly settled her sweet red pussy over my mouth. As much as we’d shared touching and even getting each other off, it was the first time I actually had two girls sexing me at the same time. I liked it and if the quantity of juices poured over my cock and my face were any indication, they liked it, too.

When Kelly crawled into my lap Sunday afternoon, though, I knew something wasn’t right. She curled up in a little ball, buried her face against my chest, and cried.

“What is it, baby?” I asked. “Did I do something wrong?” I guess the first thing a guy thinks when a girl cries is that he did something. It didn’t make sense, though, since she was hanging onto me like her life depended on it.

“No,” she whispered. “Jett, I have to leave. I have to move back with my mom.”

“What? Why? I thought you liked living with all of us.”

“I do. I don’t want to go.”

“Then...”

“I start my new job tomorrow. I love living out here with you all, but there’s no bus. I have to move back so I can get to work.”

“I’ll take you to work,” I said confidently.

“I know you would, like tomorrow,” she said. “But you couldn’t do that every day. It isn’t fair to everyone else. You are the only one of us with a car and it won’t even hold all of us. It’s not fair.”

“She’s right, Jett. I’m thinking of making nice with my parents, too,” Ariel said. “I love living with everyone, but we won’t even be able to get to school in the fall if we stay out here. And we need to start making more of a contribution to your grandfather than just cooking.”

“We really have to get started on a place to live,” Jas said. “I’ve been looking through housing ads and it’s expensive. I found a five-bedroom five-bath townhome for just a thousand a month. Turned out they expected to rent each bedroom for a thousand a month. What a rip!”

“Geez. If we don’t find something soon, we’ll be moving into that box under the bridge sooner than we thought,” I said.

“Mom already told me I could move home,” Jas said. “Um ... Charmaine, I know home’s never been all that great for you. You could come with me if you want.”

“Oh, Jas. You’ve always been my bestie. If I had a sister, she’d be you. Thank you!”

“So, Kelly and me can go home,” Ariel said. “As long as it’s temporary. My parents won’t say anything as long as they hear me practicing the piano for a couple of hours a day.”

“That leaves Sarah Lynn,” I said. “Um ... Jas?”

“Yes, Jett. Do it.”

“Sarah Lynn, you can stay with me until we all find a place to move to.”

“Really, Jett? I don’t want it to look like I’m shutting everyone out or claiming you for just me,” Sarah Lynn said. “Really, girls, I’m not trying to trap Jett.”

“If you hadn’t eaten my pussy last night, I’d be worried about that,” Ariel laughed. “God! Why can’t I give myself that kind of orgasm?”

“Okay. We’ve got a stop-gap plan. It’s temporary. The goal is to get us a place to live together as soon as possible,” I said.

“We should consider all options,” Sarah Lynn said. “Dorms, condos, houses, fraternity/sorority, co-ops. Whatever we can find.”

“I’ll put together a shared spreadsheet so we can all put in the numbers of what we think we can afford to commit to,” Charmaine said. “I’ll try to create a budget for housing and food and we can test it with each other. If we can find a place to live by the first of July, we should be in good shape. I’m excited about this.”

We held things together in pretty good spirits Sunday night. We didn’t have a real meal in the evening. Granddad had made a big pan of lasagna for lunch. In the evening, we ran the air popper half a dozen times and I sat with Granddad to watch a baseball game while we ate ours. He opened a beer and handed it to me as he settled in with his own.

“I see the numbers downstairs fell off this week. Do you want to just rent this place for the future? I can probably make a better deal than your parents offered,” he said between the second and third innings.

“Um ... We talked about it. Problem is that we’re a long way from the university and we only have one small car. We’ve got to get Kelly in to work tomorrow and I think everyone else will scatter. We’ll all be gone in a day or so, I guess.”

“Well, that’s sad. It’s been fun having you all here. Probably not a good long-term solution, though. What comes next?”

“Um ... Charmaine and Sarah Lynn can’t go home to their parents. Sarah Lynn’s just flat-out disowned her after commencement. You know her father’s a fireman, and her mother thinks she is demon-possessed. Charmaine’s never had a very good homelife and doesn’t want to go back there. She’s going to stay with Jas for a little while, until we can get the housing figured out,” I said.

“And Sarah Lynn?”

“I need to talk to Mom and Dad. I think she’ll stay with me.”

“Mmm. Probably. Your mother will want to disinfect her.” We laughed.

“Ariel and Kelly will go back to their homes. Ariel’s parents are mad at her, but she says that as long as they hear her playing the piano two hours a day, they won’t say anything.”

“She’s very talented. It’s been enjoyable to hear her play up here. That old piano of ours hadn’t been played since your grandmother passed away. It brought back good memories,” Granddad said wistfully. “And Kelly?”

“You know, her mom is kind of weird,” I laughed. “She joined Dad Monday, picketing the police station. It wasn’t a very big demonstration. Nothing’s going to happen. They’ll all go scot free. Kelly’s got great space where her mom lets her do about anything she wants to. Except she wants to be with us. The six of us want to find a place to live together.”

“None of the other boys?”

“Ford’s headed out of state. I think Derek and Dee are going to live at her house together. Their parents have assumed the two of them would be married for the past ten years or more. They raised them to be a couple.”