Twenty-three

THE CLICHÉD DESERT ISLAND was a mere suggestion of yellow sand and green leaves where two lovers came together. In the background, the world imploded, sucking the stars of space into its wake. My emotion laid bare on the canvas.

Sunday night, I’d slipped out of bed after midnight, leaving my four queens. I’d gone to the studio in a fog—a dream that wouldn’t let me wake up. In three hours, I had used more paint than on any other canvas before. I was not just painting; I was sculpting with oils. The result was Desperate Love.

I suspended it in a new crate by simple expedient of nailing the frame to the crate and allowing a space between the wet paint and the top of the crate. I set it in the corner of the studio with the address of the vault stenciled on it.

Racquetball season was in full swing. Everything would heat up in March with racquetball every weekend. We decided to pass on the National Doubles Tournament in Tempe because of budget. We had an invitational at University of Oregon the twenty-third of February with competitors from Oregon State and Brigham Young for the Saturday/Sunday tournament. I was just getting back on top of my game after the break since Opens when I’d hardly practiced. I squeaked out a victory, but it was obvious to me that I was going to have to get serious if I hoped to repeat my Intercollegiate National Championship. Racquetball was competing for my time with painting and family and school.

Every time I turned around, Lissa was yelling for me to focus, but it seemed so far away I couldn’t capture it.

With finals at SCU scheduled for the same week as Intercollegiates, only four of us plus Lissa made the trip to Arizona. That effectively put us out of the team competition. It was live or die on our own. Rachel and Tonya roomed together. Whitney, Lissa, and I were in the second room.

I was a known quantity now. I was returning to Tempe as the defending champion who had won elite singles at Opens and competed in the World Championships. I could feel the target on my back grow with every person I met. They were all friendly, but every single guy I met was looking at me trying to figure out what it would take to beat me. And I was feeling like it wouldn’t take much.

The response from the women I met was a different, but left me with the same feeling. Several stopped to chat casually in the hall, touching my arm or bumping against me. The look in their eyes told me I was lunch. I went in search of Lissa, Whitney, Tonya, and Rachel.

“Did you want me to get you your own room, Tony?” Lissa laughed when I explained what I was feeling that night.

“We could either have girls take a number and come in one at a time, or we could sell lottery tickets and only allow, say, the first ten places to have time with you,” Whitney joined.

“So say the naked girls sandwiching me between them,” I complained. They each had a hand on my cock and ... well ... both my hands were busy.

“Yeah. To the boy with his fingers in their galets. Just a little harder. I’m almost there.”

I pulled my hands away from my two lovers.

“No! Put it back. Put it back,” Whitney moaned.

“That’s not the way it works,” Lissa laughed. “As long as you are competing, no orgasms.”

“When this is over, will you fuck me?” Whitney sighed.

“Not until I’m out as well,” I said.

“I might help,” Lissa said. “Unless you are too gone on boys now to bother with your girlfriend.”

“Any time, Lissa,” Whitney said. She hopped out of bed to run around to Lissa’s side and crawl in behind her. I shifted over so Lissa was in the middle. “When Melody proposed to you, I thought everything would change. I thought you wouldn’t want me anymore. But it’s not like that. It hasn’t changed, has it?”

“You, girlfriend, are going to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend that is your perfect match someday,” Lissa explained. “I just hope that when you do, you’ll still have room in your life for us.”

In my first match, I met the thirty-second ranked player, who was fresh from an upset victory on Tuesday. The guy was a senior from Villanova and went down in two straight games. He was a good guy and he hung around and chatted after the game, even though he was in the first round of the red bracket in the afternoon.

“Say, Tony, are you doing sketches of players this year?” he asked. “How much do they cost?” Wow! That was something I’d never considered. I sketched at tournaments just to pass the time and keep my head in the game. I couldn’t charge for the sketches or I’d have to get Clarice involved.

“I tell you what, Les. Let’s take a look at when you play this afternoon and if it doesn’t conflict with when one of my teammates plays or when I have to ref, I’ll rip a sketch off for you. No charge,” I said.

“Cool.”

I did manage to get to Les’s match and got sketches of both him and his opponent. Both guys were pleased and I signed the sketches for them. Neither of them knew that I’d had two gallery exhibitions and painted a huge fucking wall. I wondered if either of them would keep the sketches and if someday they might be worth something.

That wasn’t the end of the drawing, though. Three women came up to me close to the end of the day. They were giggling when they approached me but got all serious when I said, “Hi.”

“Hi, Tony. I’m Mary. This is Sue Ellen and Marsha.”

“Nice to meet you all.”

“Yeah, likewise. We’ve seen some of the drawings you’ve done,” Mary continued. “We were wondering if you’d draw a picture of us. I mean each of us, not us together.”

“Hey, as long as it doesn’t conflict with when I’m playing, ref’ing, or watching my teammates, I’d be happy to. You want to give me the schedule for your next matches?”

“We...”

“We want nudes,” Sue Ellen burst in. “Sexy ones.”

“Ah. I see.” I was beginning to. “Well, I’m sure any nude drawing of you would be sexy. I don’t usually do those at competitions, though. I can’t actually draw nudes on the court.”

“It’s okay. We have a house,” Marsha said.

“Here? Do you live here?”

“We’re students here at ASU and members of a sorority. Other girls at the house might want some when they meet you,” Mary said. Some? Not a sketch? I didn’t want to offend them, but this was definitely outside my comfort zone.

“I guess I could do it,” I said and was interrupted by a squeal. “But there are conditions,” I continued.

“Conditions?”

“Yeah. First, whenever I sketch nudes, I bring along a chaperone.”

“Who is he?”

“She. Lissa Grant. My coach. Also known as the Ice Queen.”

“Holy shit.”

“Second,” I went on, “I want to do two sketches of each of you. You get to keep one and I keep the other.”

“Late night inspiration?” Sue Ellen giggled.

“Not exactly. Which brings me to number three. I need model releases from all three of you and ID that shows you are over eighteen.”

“Oh, come on, Tony. How often do you have three girls willing to get naked with you? Play it right and you’d probably ... definitely get lucky.” If only they knew.

“Let’s sit down a minute,” I said heading for the bleachers. I opened my laptop. They were skeptical, but sat with me.

“Sketching players here at the competition is just something I do for the heck of it. I give the sketches away. It keeps things friendly. But painting nudes is something I do for a living.” I started the slide show of my New York exhibition. “These are from my New York opening in December. In a minute it will switch to my Seattle opening last spring.”

“Oh crap! You sell these?” Marsha asked.

“Yes. Both the original oils and the limited edition art prints. If you sit for me as a nude, there is a strong likelihood that you will show up in a painting I do. It’s not quite as private as you think.”

“But if we just wanted you to do us?”

“That’s a completely different question,” I laughed. Mary blushed.

“I mean ... that, too, but I meant just sketch us and not show?”

“Not gonna happen,” I said.

“Thanks, Tony,” Mary said. “Are you gay?”

“No. A thousand times no. I just see a lot of naked women.”

“Well, we’ll see you later, okay?” Sue Ellen said. She was physically dragging Mary and Marsha away.

“Sure. Later,” I said.

As it turned out, they were more determined than I thought and talked to Lissa about chaperoning a posing. I spent the evening in a sorority house surrounded by naked women who had interesting ideas about how to cook, serve, and eat food. By the end of the evening, they’d all found out about our teasing routine during competition and had willingly joined in. I was definitely on edge, but had the beginning of a new suite that I’d already named Delectable Morsels.

“So, when you win the tournament, then can we fuck?” Sue Ellen asked while she rubbed her middle against my erection. I just wanted out of the house so I could sleep before I had to play in the morning.

“He’s got two horny roommates and if anybody else gets fucked before we do, they’re dead,” Whitney panted.

“Two? You both... ? Man, we didn’t have anything to offer, did we?” Marsha moaned.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I sighed. “But some other time, maybe.”

We left the sorority house and headed back to the hotel where all three of us were too close to the edge to touch each other without triggering an explosion.