Chapter 28: Still Life

I held Char in my arms Sunday night as we cuddled in bed. We’d gone to a movie for our date. Not the kind of art film that Mary and I usually saw. Oh, no. Charmaine wanted to see the new Predator movie. There were only a dozen girls in a theater with close to a hundred boys. It’s a guy flick. Ragtag bunch of soldiers—one token woman, of course—are all that stand between an upgraded Predator and the destruction of the human race. I had no idea that Char had that dark side to her.

“I want to be a monster,” she said as we cuddled. She lifted my hand and bit it lightly. “They’d never get me that easily.” She rolled toward me and continued nipping at me—my lips, my fingers, my chest. “My Predator would eat her way through them on my way to destroying my father. And him, I’d eat alive. I’d be sure he watched as I ate his balls. I’d slice him open carefully and pull out his organs to eat while they were still attached. They needed a female Predator. We’d never let the bastards get away.” She bit again and I jumped back. She hurt. “Sorry, Jett. I’m not mad at you. I wouldn’t hurt you.” She kissed where she’d bitten and licked at my nipples.

“The lawyer’s letter didn’t help?” I said as I squirmed a little. She was working her way down toward my cock and I didn’t want her in the organ-eating mood when she got there.

“He said he’d give me back the money when I agreed to come home and accept his choice for my husband. He says I’m costing him the bride price that is due to him.”

“He actually has someone who would pay to have a forced bride? You need to tell the lawyer to go ahead with the suit. You’ll get a judgment against him easily. This is America. You can’t sell your daughter in marriage.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t. He’d pack me off to India where there’s an old man who will pay for a young virgin bride. I’m almost too old for him, but I’m a virgin and he believes he’ll be rejuvenated if he takes my maidenhead.”

“I’m not going to let anyone take you away, Char.”

“And you aren’t going to take my virginity as long as you think I owe you.”

“No. As long as you think you owe me.”

“When I kill him, I won’t owe you anymore.”

“Char, you scare me.”

“I know. I scare me, too. I keep thinking bloody thoughts. I can’t help it. My counselor thinks it isn’t that bad. She’s in total denial that my father could be a real threat.”

“I’m not. I’ll do anything I can to protect you, Char.”

“And I’ll keep owing you. I’m glad I like having my ass fucked so at least we can still make love.”

That’s what we did. She slurped my half-hard cock into her mouth and started working it up. I’d flagged considerably once we got to bed and she started talking about being a monster and devouring her father. Of course, once she had her mouth full and quit talking about it, it didn’t take long for me to get fully hard. And then it was a matter of Char backing onto my cock with her ass.

She was the only girl I’d ever taken anally. Kelly and Ariel had both offered but I could tell they were afraid of it. I wasn’t sure even if I started fucking her pussy, that Char wouldn’t still prefer anal. And, my God, she was active! Going gently into that tight little hole was not in the cards. As soon as I was positioned and started in, Char slammed back against me, driving my cock up into her. I wondered sometimes if the screams were agony or ecstasy—or if Char could tell the difference.

There was no doubt that she was turned on. I reached around and diddled her clit. It was drenched in her juices and slippery as all get out. And sensitive. I could definitely tell when she came because the pulsing was so intense my come was sucked out of my cock into her ass.

My cock kept pulsing as her ass kept clenching and relaxing on it. It softened a bit but was still caught tightly.

“Paint me, Jett. Paint me a demon so I can get it out of me. Please?”

I had a pretty restless night. Not the least of which was caused by Char waking up and coaxing me into her ass again. Not that it required much coaxing. I was already spooned behind her with her breasts in my hands. She just wiggled enough that I hardened completely and then she guided me into the slippery channel.

But my dreams were haunted. Char wanted her demon painted and I needed to figure out a painting that represented Medea for my Literature and the Arts class. The two were coming together in my mind. If there was ever a demon in literature, it was the betrayed and scorned Medea. What Char had said sounded like it could have come from the mouth of the Greek heroine.

I thought about it all day at work, thankful that I had cutting gloves on, as sloppily as I was slicing meat. I could have lost a finger or two.

As soon as I got home from work, of course, I had to get started on dinner. Mondays were my night. I’d decided on a roast and root vegetables with a nice salad. I was so thankful my girlfriends were all meat eaters. Imagine a butcher with a vegetarian girlfriend. I’d guess that would be a short-lived relationship. There was no question they didn’t want red meat for every meal and I was equally thankful for that. I’d go broke quick.

When I got the roast and vegetables in the oven, I started on my 2D project. This was a lot harder than it sounds. I actually used a T-square and triangle to draft out several scale models with the positions for the match and repeats. That was just the format. Kind of like setting the margins when you were typing a paper. The real issue was the design. It was to all be black and white and that can really be distracting.

I saw three paths I could take. The first was a real cop-out and I dismissed it as soon as I thought of it. I could do stripes. No match and infinite repeat. I had a feeling that I’d get exactly the grade that kind of effort deserved. There were other random match patterns. I could do a spatter but that didn’t make any difference, but that was a cop-out, too. I put it in the same category as the stripes. Secondly, I could do a linear match so that the pattern was basically a grid of identifiable objects like diamonds, fleurs-de-lis, or any other linear repeated pattern. That would probably be the most commonly done project. It was easy. It was like the border on one of the Greek vases and could be seen in hundreds of wallpaper patterns. Finally, I could draw something that interconnected in an unusual way. It would need to be a pattern that wasn’t immediately obvious, but that if you stepped back, you would see the repeat.

I was frustrated with trying to plot out a full-scale model, so I switched over to graph paper and just started doodling. On graph paper you could just draw and figure out the matches and repeats later. I blocked out a frame on a grid and drew a random line into it from the left. Then I plotted those points on the other side to create the same line as if it were going into the next grid. I was beginning to get the hang of drawing random lines on one side and repeating them where they would match up on the other. I progressed from matching straight across to shifting the pattern down. Then I started doing squiggles instead of lines. That was a little more challenging because you had to make the same shape. Still, it worked. Finally, I was drawing doodles and repeating them across the tile.

Dinner was ready before I had anything that I thought remotely usable, but at least I’d made progress. We all settled in to study after dinner and the tensions seemed to decrease as we leaned against each other, snacking on chips and soft drinks and trying to read or write. Sarah Lynn seemed to have it the worst of us, but she was taking a crazy course load. She had two papers and four full midterm exams. It’s not that I don’t like learning, but I’m not a glutton for punishment. Still, it was Sarah Lynn and I stayed up with her as she continued to study right through till midnight. Everyone else had gone to bed.

“What are you doing up?” she asked when she finally closed her book. “Do you have more to study for?”

“No. I just didn’t want you to feel abandoned. I didn’t disturb you, did I?”

“I didn’t even realize you were here. You didn’t have to wait up for me.”

“I know. But you are working about three times as hard as the rest of us.”

“That’s not true. Maybe for schoolwork, but you hold down a job thirty hours a week. If anyone deserves...”

“Don’t go there. We’re a mutual admiration society. Can I hold you in bed tonight? Just to hold you.”

“Jett, what do we do to deserve you?”

“I ask myself every day what I do to deserve you. I don’t want anything to spoil what we have together.” We got ready for bed and brushed our teeth. Neither of us wore anything to bed but that didn’t mean we were ready for anything but sleep.

“Is that why you haven’t had sex with Mary?” Sarah Lynn asked. “Are you afraid it will spoil what we have?”

“I don’t think I’m that noble. I’m not going to push her and we haven’t really had much opportunity to do anything more. I mean, I was ready for a lot more when she sucked me off the other night.”

“It will come together. And when it does, don’t worry about us. We’re hoping she’ll sleep with us, too.”

“Really, Sarah Lynn. What did I do to deserve you?”

“You waited up for me and asked to sleep in my arms.”

We didn’t have drawing Tuesday and Thursday this week, but I met Mary before our class time and took her home with me.

“I feel like I’m freeloading dinner off you guys. I need to chip in,” she said as we tossed our bags in the studio.

“I paid the guest fee. We agreed on a rate for having dinner guests early on.”

“I’ll pay it. I’ll pay you back!”

“Your contribution will be welcome, but the truth is that everyone wants to invite you for dinner, so we all toss a couple bucks in the pot when you come over.”

“Do you do the same for Eva?”

“Um ... She is different.”

“She just wants to sleep with you and not everyone.”

“Do you want to sleep with everyone?”

“Not at once.”

“Maybe that’s the difference.”

We laughed it off and after we got sodas, went into the studio.

“What are we going to draw?” I asked.

“We don’t have to draw the same thing. I brought a couple things, but you know he’s really after us to make a composition, not to draw something,” Mary said.

“He made such a big deal about using our weakness that he hid the real purpose, didn’t he?”

“It’s the first project he’s given us that we had to create our own subject. He was very specific about what it could and couldn’t contain.”

“He wants us to compose a still life. Nobody thinks that’s what the class is about. Which is why everyone will fail.”