Chapter 8

I was awake, rested, showered, shaved, and fed. It was a considerable advance from the last time I'd had such an emotionally draining studio session. And I was happy.

I'd pulled myself out of my cocoon after Rita left and finishing in the bathroom, I opened the bedroom door to smell freshly brewed coffee. There was, however, no sign of Rita or my mystery date. I poured a cup of coffee and headed directly to my studio. I didn't bother to dress. I have several work spaces in the studio set up to let me work on different kinds of paintings and sketches. I sat in a comfortable chair, set the coffee on a table and pulled a small sketchbook and soft pencil out. In two hours, I'd moved to a larger sketchpad and the remaining half cup of coffee was cold.

I moved to an easel with large sheets of rough paper and experimented with charcoal as I drew sweeping curves. The figure leaned back toward the left of the paper, just her chin showing below the upper left corner of the sheet. Her throat extended as her head was thrown back, arching into the line of her breasts. The feeling was right, but I realized what the problem was as I looked at it. I was drawing shadows against a white background. I needed to draw the light. The sudden burst of imagery that I saw behind my eyes as we exploded together.

On a large sheet of Bristol, I laid in a full-sheet background with the flat of a 4B soft-graphite block until the entire page was covered. Then I pulled out an artgum eraser and a tortillon and began erasing the parts where the highlights would burst out of the shadow. As I saw the shape emerge from the shadows, my heart began to race and adrenalin pumped into my veins.

I prepared a canvas, changing from my initial perception of a horizontal image to a square image. As I worked, I absently chewed on a sandwich and drank coffee without bothering to wonder how they had materialized in my studio. My mind was filled with the image and I could do nothing but focus on my painting. The rough sketch flowed onto the canvas and before I had even finished it, I began laying in the background. The figure would bisect the canvas diagonally. The man below her would be a faint suggestion of a dream-lover penetrating her depths. There was just enough detail to suggest the act without being explicit. The torso twisted to her right, facing the artist slightly. Her right hand extended down to grasp at the darkness with her fingertips as the left arm was flung across her breasts, raking passion out of her ribs.

But most of all, there was the palpable texture of the darkness surrounding the figure. Each color I worked into the highlights was muted into near transparency against the pebbled Paine's Gray background. I painted that texture as if my eyes were closed and I could sense the pinpoint of each rod and cone sensing light and color in my retina. Paint flew across the canvas and much of the area that surrounded me as I let go of the fine control of figure drawing and let the light be borne from the darkness.

That was the theme, I realized. That was what I was truly capturing. Light borne of darkness. It was as different from the painting of Allison as it was from any of my other work, yet it was a complement as well. In one painting, flames of passion threatened to consume the figure and all it touched. In the other, passion seemed to arise from the ashes, coalescing them into the lovers.

I took a deep breath and awareness gradually dawned on me that I was still naked, having come directly from my bed some 28 hours ago. I was spattered with paint, and I sported a rigid hard-on as I looked at my painting.

I'd spent the day on Monday cleaning my house, changing the linens on my bed, and eating. And periodically through the day breaking out into a fit of giggles. As pained as I'd been when drawing and painting the first canvas, this canvas had left me high as a kite. Around noon I sent a text message to Rita that said simply. "It is finished." Even that made me giggle as I noted the religious connotation. Half an hour later I received a response: "We'll be there at six to see. Let's have Chinese."

That was all it took. First, "we" were coming to see the painting. Rita was bringing my model, secret lover with her. I would see her with my eyes for the first time. And we would have dinner. At 5:30, I ordered from a local restaurant and went to pick it up, arriving home just minutes before Rita pulled in closely followed by a late-model mid-class import. A conservative car, I noted as I set the table and dished steaming rice, soup, chicken, and vegetables into serving dishes. I watched from my vantage point inside to see who would step out of the vehicle.

Rita went to the door of the car and opened it, carrying on an animated discussion with whoever was in the car. She was apparently reluctant to come further. I debated whether or not to intervene by opening the front door, but this was Rita's show and I was determined to let her control the way it played out.

Finally, the figure emerged from her vehicle. She was professionally dressed in a dark suit with short-cropped dark brown hair. She stood a good two inches taller than Rita, and though she was fully dressed in shape-concealing business attire, I was certain that I could have recognized her even if I'd seen her casually on a street corner. My eye superimposed the curves, the elongation of the torso from my painting, over the figure of the woman who now approached my door.

"Doc, I'd like you to meet Dr. Kelly Thompson. She's my..."

"Colleague," Kelly broke in. Rita beamed. I was pretty sure Rita was about to say "boss." I instantly respected Kelly for her separation of work hierarchies from her after-hours relationship. She immediately held out her hand and I took her firm grip in mine. I nearly broke out in giggles again.

"Dr. Kelly, I'm Dimitri Peters," I said.

"Doc," Rita broke in.

"I'm not a real doctor," I said. "I have an MFA in art. I can't be Doc in the presence of someone with a degree." Kelly laughed.

"Over the past few months, I've heard Rita talk constantly about 'Doc.' If you don't mind, I'd be happy to just be Kelly here and let you be the doctor. I can't quite think of you as a Dimitri," Kelly said. Her laughter was infectious. I was already thanking Rita in my head for bringing this woman into our lives. I ushered the women to the table and we began eating, carrying on the normal chit-chat of new acquaintances.

I learned that Kelly was the lead researcher on a project at Rita's company and that while they had become good friends, they seldom worked directly together. Rita was the research assistant on a parallel project and they often found themselves in adjoining labs at odd hours. None of us mentioned the events of the weekend or the artwork that was waiting in my studio. Nonetheless, I was fully convinced that Kelly had been the model, the secret lover, and the inspiration for the work. I was a bit nervous to find out her reaction.

I served coffee and the three of us moved to the living room. I sat in an armchair and noticed Rita and Kelly sit next to each other on the sofa. It's a large sofa—Rita and I had first made love on it just a few months ago—but the two sat closer together than was strictly necessary. Nor was it an aggressive act. Neither sat at an end with the other encroaching on her space. They sat as a couple in the middle of the sofa. I thought I detected more than a friendship between the two.

"I've a confession," Kelly said.

"It was my fault," Rita broke in.

"We have a confession then," Kelly corrected.

"I ran an experiment on you without your permission," Rita jumped in.

"Rita explained to me what she had in mind and I jumped at the chance to help her," Kelly added. "But I have to say that I was selfishly motivated. If you are upset, please direct it at me rather than at Rita. As the senior researcher, I didn't exactly follow protocol. I used you."

"Please," I said, "let's not level any blame until you've seen the results. I'm not particularly upset. Although the circumstances were, shall we say, unusual, I did give Rita my assent and trust. I was surprised, but not displeased."

"It was all about creating a safe way for you to be out of control," Rita said. "It didn't go quite the way I'd expected. I kind of lost control myself."

"Well, as far as control goes, I'd say we all suffered a degree of loss," Kelly said. "But Rita, dear, I need to put things into perspective for Doc. After all, I..." She hesitated and I moved to ease the way for her.

"You became my lover and inspiration," I concluded. She grimaced at the words and I wondered what was up.

"Not exactly," Kelly said. "That's what I need to clear up. I am not your lover, nor are you mine. You see, I'm not exactly turned on by men." Now that was a surprise. The raw passion that I felt sometime in the middle of Saturday night was certainly not that of a lesbian as far as I could tell. Kelly reached over and grasped Rita's hand, scrunching her eyes closed before continuing. "I joined Rita Saturday night as a scientist. Although her experimentation base was questionable, she'd described her intent to me in such a way that I agreed—no, I volunteered—to come and record the experiment." She must have seen my eyes pop open at that because she hurried on. "Not on tape. Oh God! That would have been unconscionable. I was just taking notes. It gave me a sensation of voyeurism that was unbelievable."

"What moved you from being an observer to becoming a participant?" I asked. "I have to say, none of the sensations I felt that night led me to believe that you weren't fully enjoying the experience."

"Oh yes. I was. But what moved me, as you say, was Rita. I've been attracted to Rita for some time, but I knew she was truly heterosexual and even though she described various experiments she'd done with you, it was obvious that she was not trying to entice me. Until this weekend, our relationship has been strictly professional at work and strictly friends outside. But as I watched her. In your room. And she undressed. I was distracted. I just wanted to touch her."

"God, did she ever!" Rita exclaimed. "You have always told me about how all your senses work together. You want to see me, hear my voice, touch me, taste me, and even smell me when we are making love. You want to be connected in every way you can. So I set up the experiment to see if I could get you to respond even when all your senses were isolated and I focused exclusively on the bundle of nerves between your legs. So, my intent was to get you turned on without letting you see or hear anything, and without letting you respond with any part of your body except your cock. I'd stay away from your mouth because I know that kissing is one of your biggest turn-ons. For our purposes, I couldn't do much about your sense of smell without introducing some other scent. So I just had to go with that an ancillary factor. If I was doing my thesis on this, I'd have to set the whole thing up in a lab, but I wanted you to be completely unable to control the experience and thought it would be better to surprise you with it than set it all up with you in advance."

"I trusted you," I said simply. "That is what you asked. And it proved effective."

"I was watching, and for a while I thought you weren't actually going to respond," Kelly said. "I thought that was amazing, because I'd always assumed men had a basic disconnect between their brains and their cocks. But what was really getting to me was watching Rita. She was worshipping you. She was so beautiful and so sensual and so arousing, that I couldn't help myself. While she was still lightly stroking you and attempting to get you aroused, I stepped up behind her and began ... touching her." Kelly's voice broke a bit on that last word. "Before I knew it, I was just as naked as she was and I was worshipping her body as much as she was engaged with yours. She guided my hand the first time I touched you. We were kissing the first time you came and my other hand was stroking her beautiful breast. I was so surprised when I felt your sperm spattering against my hand that I almost bolted from the room, but Rita—while she continued to stroke you without a pause—raised my cum covered palm to her lips and licked me. She was so thorough, so caring, so loving as she licked my fingers, sucking each one into her mouth that I came. Hard. I thought for a minute that I'd ruined her experiment and you would know I was there, but the ear and eye blocks she put on you seemed to be holding. I wasn't sure but what you had passed out. Regardless, from that point on, I was actively involved in the experiment instead of recording the notes."

"It was quite an experience," I said. "I didn't actually realize there was more than one person until you mounted me."

"When you started to sit up and brought your knees up, I knew you were aware. I was afraid you would call it off. If you'd said something besides 'Oh!' we would have stopped," Rita said. "But since you didn't, I decided to make it obvious and join in. I had originally intended that it would be me on you."

"What made you decide to do something like that, Kelly? You said that men didn't do it for you." Kelly hadn't let go of Rita's hand, although I was beginning to sense a little discomfort on Rita's part. I wasn't sure yet what was going on.

"I prefer women. Exclusively. But when women get together it is not unusual to use toys for pleasuring each other. With you wrapped up like you were, I could ignore the fact that you were a man and treat your cock as if it were a dildo and Rita was my lover. When she added her tongue to the equation, I lost all sense that I was actually on a living man until I felt you pulsing in me. That was better than any dildo I've ever tried."