Nineteen

ABOUT TEN MINUTES after we got in the door, while I was still trying to tactfully suggest that Lissa loan her car to Kate so the others could return to the dorms, Bree pulled into the drive and three more squealing girls came running into the house. I looked at Bree, Sonia, and Allison.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked. Okay, it was after midnight and I was a little slow on the uptake.

“We told you,” Bree said. “Slumber party.”

“Here?” It was clear that I’d been left out of the planning for this entire evening.

“Everything’s downstairs, girls,” Lissa said.

As everyone was trooping downstairs, I heard someone say, “Truth or Dare and there’s only one boy in the room!” I stopped at the top of the stairs and looked down, not sure if I wanted to descend into this pit of pheromones. I felt hands on my arms pulling me back from the brink. Melody and Lissa guided me back toward the bedroom.

“Yes, we are going to party,” Melody said.

“And yes, you are invited,” Lissa joined, “but it’s not what you think.”

“Well, for that matter it might not be what they think either,” Melody laughed. “We haven’t arranged an orgy, Tony. There’s only four tits and two pussies you get to play with in this house tonight.”

“As long as they’re the ones in this room, that’s all I want,” I said. Melody and Lissa both kissed me and started getting undressed. I hurried to get out of my clothes and into bed, only to see the girls putting pajamas on.

“We can’t go to a slumber party naked,” Melody said. “At least not at the beginning.”

“Come on, you,” Lissa said. “Get your PJs on.”

“I don’t have any pajamas.”

“Sweats,” Lissa said. “It’s only for a little while and then we’ll come back up. Watching you at that party with all those girls fawning over you got me all worked up.”

“Me too,” Melody chimed in. “I almost regret inviting everybody over. Come on. Let’s go down and have a glass of wine before they drink it all.”

I followed Lissa and Melody downstairs in time to see all the rest of the girls gathered around the corner I used as a studio. My daybed and drapes were still set up and there were several of my sketches and paintings tacked to the walls. On the other side of the room, Melody’s studio was set up and an equal number of her sketches and paintings were posted.

“That’s it! That’s it!” I heard Sandra squeal in the crowd and saw a camera flash go off. “That’s just the pose in the painting.”

I edged into the group with Lissa and Melody and looked at the daybed setting. Kate was stretched out on the bed in a very good imitation of the pose I’d painted in the mural. God! She was beautiful in a little pajama shirt that buttoned up the front and shorty pants. I’d seen her legs for the first time earlier in the evening when she wore her party dress, but what she was exposing here was all new territory. A camera flashed again and Kate saw us standing with everyone around.

“Do me next, Tony?” Kate husked. I wondered how many glasses of wine she’d had already.

“Oh, you know me, Kate,” I said ignoring her double entendre. “I only paint nudes.”

Never in a hundred years would I have anticipated what quiet, demure, shy Kate did next. She sat up and pulled the curtains over her legs. Then, moving only her right hand, she calmly unbuttoned her pajama top and let it fall off her shoulders to the bed behind her. Oh my fucking god! I knew Kate was a beautiful and exotic looking girl, but she captured something in that pose being partially exposed that I hadn’t even considered before. There was a casual seduction in the way she looked over her shoulder at me that just stopped me cold. She was uncovered from the waist up with the drapery caught around her elbows.

I felt a hand in the middle of my back pushing me forward and someone shoved my sketchbook and graphite into my hand. I sank down on the floor right there and started to draw. Kate’s hair was falling out of the dancer’s bun she wore to the party and it hung over her eyes. I didn’t realize how long her almost-black hair was. The purple polish on her nails just screamed out at me as her left hand was draped off the back of the cushions she leaned against. The one partially exposed breast was enough to make me want to see the rest of her. She had a slightly oval areola and small nipple that was hard and prominent perched on a perfectly rounded breast that faded in a smooth arc to her tummy. There was a natural path from the valley of her breasts, down across her sternum and plunging into the darkness of her navel. It continued in fine dark hair until it disappeared beneath the waistband of her shorts.

I whispered, “Wait. Don’t move,” as I got up to rearrange my drapes, taking the opportunity to look more closely at her. I pulled more fabric down until it created great waves of material all around her, being careful not to let it occlude the shape that I’d already laid in.

I didn’t want to stop and Kate’s eyes never left mine. I kept filling in more detail when I returned to my seat on the floor. The concave where her pelvis stood out from her thin frame. The folds of the fabric piled around her. The individual strands of her hair. The depth of her eyes. The nonchalant smile. I took as long as possible, just so I could continue to stare at this beautiful creature. Eventually, though, I had to say it was finished and stood up.

Kate snatched her pajama shirt and suddenly turned beet red as she buttoned up her shirt.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” she whispered. “Oh my god. I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah, that’s right where I lost my virginity, too,” Melody said taking the drawing to Kate. “Well, I didn’t exactly lose it. I sort of wrapped it in a bow and made a present out of it.” The girls laughed.

“Yeah,” I said. “Only without the bow.”

“Me next, Tony.”

“Me! I want a picture.”

“No it’s my turn.”

I couldn’t keep track of who was talking, but apparently they thought I was going to sketch everyone tonight. No way!

“I’m not a fucking factory, ladies,” I called out. “That pose just happened to be right. I can’t manufacture those one after another. Believe me, I’ve got nothing against seeing each and every one of you naked in my studio, but I can’t do any more tonight. I haven’t even had a glass of wine yet.”

There were generally disappointed noises, but someone handed me a glass of wine and Bree said, “How about a fun little slumber party game before poor worn out Tony has to go to bed?”

My sense of foreboding skyrocketed.

“All right,” Lissa said. Several very sexy games had been suggested. “First of all, Tony, relax. Melody and I have completely agreed on this game, so all you have to do is enjoy it.”

“You see,” Melody said, “all our friends here are lonely and a little scared of the dark. We’re all going to be down here in this big room all by ourselves tonight and we just want a little kiss goodnight.”

“You wouldn’t deny us a goodnight kiss, would you?” Bree asked. “I mean here we are, all in our jammies, ready to be tucked into bed and we just want one little kiss.”

“Each,” Sonia hurriedly added. “Think of poor Allison, Tony. She came all the way out here from Kansas to see you. You wouldn’t make her go to bed without a goodnight kiss, would you?”

“And you practically made love to Kate for the past half-hour,” Amy said. “But you haven’t even kissed her. Just one little goodnight kiss. Please, Tony?”

I could see that I was going to be bombarded like this until I gave in and since Melody and Lissa said they’d agreed, who was I to deny these poor girls a goodnight kiss? It’s not like it was unappealing.

“Okay,” I said. “One little goodnight kiss.”

“Each,” repeated Sonia.

“Each,” I agreed.

“Oh. There’s just one thing, Tony,” Lissa said. She stepped up to me and held out a black scarf. “You get to be blindfolded. Your hands have to stay behind your back. And you have to guess who just kissed you after each kiss.”

Oh. Oh crap! I thought I’d just give a little friendly peck and be done, but this was going to be difficult. Lissa moved behind me and tied the blindfold on my face. Dang! She was good at this and I couldn’t see a thing.

“Okay, girls. Line up. No talking and once you’ve had your kiss, get back in the line where you were. Oh yes. And the bell. Where’s the bell?” Someone rang the bell I’d heard several times earlier in the evening. “There’s a strict time limit,” Lissa continued. “No longer than one minute per kiss.”

A minute? As in sixty seconds? That was never long enough with Lissa or Melody, for sure, but you could do some serious damn kissing in a minute. I wasn’t going to get away with a peck on the cheek.

“Okay. Hands behind your back, Tony. You can only use your mouth. Ready, girls?”

I stood there silently for what could have been an eternity but was probably ten seconds. Then I felt a presence closing in on me before I felt lips on my lips. It started softly, but there was a tongue probing at my mouth in no time and as I opened my mouth a bit to respond, I was nearly devoured. There was almost no lip involved in this kiss at all. It was all wide open mouth and tongue probing as deeply into my mouth as it could reach and enticing me to follow it. The kiss was so active that I was getting tired by the time the bell rang and she pulled away. I shifted my weight around a little because I could tell I was becoming aroused.