Forty-two

PHYSIOLOGY. Team meeting. Parkour. I led and let Coach chase me. It felt good to run flat out until I was so exhausted, I couldn’t move. I barely had time for a quick shower before Literary Criticism.

This was it. I entered the room, spotted Rio, and sat beside her. She looked up at me, a little surprised.

“You okay?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah. You?”

“I’ll live. Talk to you later.”

We sat in a booth in the cafeteria after class. She was surprised when I sat on the same side. She was wearing a turtleneck, but I could see a bulge under it. She rolled the neckline down exposing the collar and dug in her bag to pull out the leash.

I sighed. But Wendy really helped get my head on straight this morning. I reached over and clipped the leash to her collar. Rio inhaled haltingly. I unbuckled the collar and dangled it at the end of the leash.

“You aren’t a submissive; you aren’t a slave; and you aren’t a pet,” I said. “You don’t need a collar and a leash.”

“Do you hate me?” she asked.

“No. Actually I’m rather fond of you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But I’m not going to have another sadomasochistic orgy with you and/or anyone else.”

“That’s mean,” she laughed.

“What do you really want, Rio?” I asked.

“What does everybody want? Love. Fulfillment. A little pain.”

“Why the pain?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I would never do that,” I said.

“I’m not pretty, Tony. No matter how you paint me, I’m not going to lose fifty pounds. I’m not going to have a pretty complexion or silky hair. When I learned about sexual pleasure, I could only get so close. It was frustrating. One day I grabbed my own nipples and twisted them as hard as I could. God, it hurt! It was my first orgasm,” she said. She looked me in the eye. “I realized what I wanted then. I just wanted to come. And a little pain—not a lot—was the ticket to getting me there. And boys ... boys always want to spank the fat girl.”

“I don’t.”

“You got hard.”

“You were lying on my cock rubbing it.”

“You won’t do it again?”

“No.” She dropped her head. “But I’ll make love to you one day.”

Her head snapped up and she turned to face me, looking in my eyes for the truth.

“When?” she whispered.

“One day, when we’re ready.”

Wednesday arrived with an overshadowing aura of doom.

At six, I was to stand before the Board of Regents at SCU and present the design for the mural. I cut all my classes and installed handles on the back of the canvas. I resisted the urge to keep adding paint. It was barely dry enough to transport as it was. And it wouldn’t fit in either of our cars. Doc came over at five o’clock and we loaded the covered painting into his van. He transported stuff like this all the time and the rest of the van was filled with his painting supplies. I rode with him, even though the rest of my family was driving over as well. I didn’t say much and Doc didn’t press me.

There was a huge crowd outside the Board Room where the meeting was to take place. In fact, there were so many people that we couldn’t even get to the room. Eventually a message was passed back that the Board of Regents would reconvene in the auditorium to discuss the Tent City Memorial and we should all move there.

“Better yet,” Doc said. “The auditorium has projection equipment. Grab someone to help you get this on stage and I’ll go set up.”

I’d prepared a slide presentation, even though I don’t really like doing it. Melody helped me. Lissa dressed me in plain black slacks and a black shirt. Wendy was clinging to Kate when I saw the four of them come into the auditorium. Bree and other friends joined them. My own private fan club. Unfortunately, there were a ton of people around me and I couldn’t get to them. The Student Social Concerns Committee had made Eric their project representative.

“Who are all these people?” I asked Eric.

“Interested parties,” he responded. “That’s Mayor Richardson with most of the City Council. I don’t know who those folks are.”

“I know them,” I said. “It’s my degree advisor and several professors from PCAD, including Dean Peterson and President Watts.”

“I understand we kind of put you on the spot when we stole your painting. That wasn’t what we intended,” Eric said.

“It’s okay, Eric. I feel like I’m in way over my head, but I’ve got good friends to help me. I think you’re going to owe me a pose for a painting I’m doing when this is over, though.”

“Sure. Now you want me to get naked,” he laughed. “The whole thing just went viral. You were a hero and I had a snapshot of the sketch you did from the roof when we were up there,” he said. “I uploaded it because it seemed it was the only picture there was that really showed what the place looked like before. When Bree said there was a copy of the finished painting on your computer, I begged her for it. All of a sudden there was talk of a memorial and fundraising. Everywhere there was a message, there was your picture. I couldn’t stop it.”

“I hope everyone likes the actual painting for the building,” I said, motioning to the covered board. “The whole thing scares the hell out of me.”

“Well, you’ve got a lot of people supporting you. You’ll see. Here’s the Board.”

We took seats in the front row of the auditorium and the Board of Regents sat behind a table on stage. I noticed some flashes going off. The press was here.

“We are here to consider a proposal to have a memorial mural painted on the athletic pavilion. Staff is currently distributing a printed summary of the project, so we hope not to have to go over everything in detail. We are here to discuss the plan, funding, impact on the school, goals, and feasibility of the project before approving or disallowing it,” the President of the School said. “We will hear first from the Student Social Concerns Committee which has prepared an agenda. The committee has done excellent work so far and consulted with me on the agenda, so it should address all our concerns.”

That was Eric’s cue and he hopped on stage. A slide flashed on the big screen behind the regents and Eric was off. He talked about the culture at the school and its background as a community of concerned people who were always willing to help. He told about the attack and named the dead and injured. I flinched when he named Wendy and Paulie. That image of her running toward me was seared into my mind. He said the students wanted to help Tent City rebuild and felt that emblazoning the image of Tent City on our wall would not only memorialize those who had what little they possessed taken from them, but that it would keep our attention on the continuing problem of homelessness and be a focal point for fundraising efforts. It was beautiful. He got applause and the president thanked him.

Eric was followed by half a dozen different speakers who talked about the impact of a project of this scope. It covered everything from materials to insurance and security issues. I didn’t realize they were on the agenda, but Doc and Clarice shared the podium for five minutes to address the artistic resources, faculty advisorship, and professional management. There was a motion to revise the banking of the funds raised so that the money could be used to help the homeless in other ways should the city or circumstances prevent the acquisition of a permanent site for the encampment.

“Tony Ames, artist. We’ve reached the part of our meeting where we’d actually like to see what this wall will look like. Can you show us?” President Haywood asked.

“Yes sir,” I said going to the stage.

I went to the podium and my first slide hit the screen. I couldn’t believe there were almost a hundred people in the auditorium. I took a deep breath and looked at Wendy. She smiled and Kate hugged her.

“President Haywood, Regents, Mr. Mayor, fellow students, and guests.” I almost couldn’t go on. I was scared to death. All I could think was What if they don’t like it? “I’m honored to have been asked by my fellow students to create a very large painting that will fulfill their goals. Honored and really scared.” That’s not what I intended to say. There were a few chuckles. “They’ve asked me to prepare a memorial for something that I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember finding a guy who’d told me a joke at ten o’clock lying dead in front of me at four a.m. I don’t want to remember seeing a fireball arcing in the sky while I was frantically trying to turn off gas valves. I don’t want to remember seeing a dear, dear friend running toward me in flames. I don’t want to remember being so frightened and panicked and so terrified.” I heard a few sniffles and held my eyes on Kate and Wendy.