Chapter 1: Paint and Water

Two attractive, and mostly naked, college juniors were having a blast. They were on a drop cloth in an old high school gym. Paint was everywhere. It was on the drop cloth, on the ladders, but mostly on the girls. Angie had tubes of art paint in each hand. Gretchen had just given up her brush and had grabbed the whole bucket of house paint. Before the inevitable happened...

"Cut. Cut! Cut! Girls, this isn't supposed to be about bloody paint fights. This is supposed to be about bleeding sex. And don't make such a bloody big mess to clean up." Nigil was in full rant mode. Gretchen had woken up that way.

"Well, fuck you asshole. If you can't make life into art, then maybe you're not such a big shot artist. Huh? If your brain was half as big as you think your prick is, you'd..."

Gretchen would be going for some time. Pedro did not want to hear the rest. He had heard it all day, already. He could not believe the coarseness of the language, much less from such chica linda, pretty girls. Why were they doing this? What did they say during confession? What would he say to his priest?

Pedro Miguel Rodriguez Santos de la Garza was born in Puerto Rico. He had run to New York to get away from the bullies and the bribery on the sugar plantations. It never occurred to him that there would be bullies in Estados Unitas as well, not to mention higher prices and prejudices against Puerto Ricans. An unrepentant romantic, Pedro had seen West Side Story 12 times. He even paid once. He loved the music and pined for Maria, but he had no illusions that it was real. Pedro had seen the West Side and run from it.

Part of Pedro's problem was his size: 5'6" and slightly built. At 18, almost 19, but could pass for 15 if need be. He shaved only once a week. He had classic Latin features and hair that women would kill or die for. The looks only added to his problems, since girls noticed, and bigger boys noticed where the girls looked. That meant pretty much all the other boys were against him. Everyone was bigger and stronger. They resented that he was smarter and better looking.

Life had already chased Pedro off two islands—off Puerto Rico as a stowaway at 13, then off Manhattan at 17—eventually to an abandoned school in Brooklyn. There was a place in the cellar where he made a lumpy bed of old rags wrapped in a sailcloth. He found a day job washing dishes, for 10 cents an hour and a meal. He could survive the winter cold and was sheltered from the worst of the summer heat. In half a year, Pedro had saved $10 and felt like a rich man.

Then, a British wannabe porn mogul, named Nigil Owens, found Pedro's school. For Nigil, it was a perfect set up. A little bribery arranged for power and water hookups. Bigger bribes arranged for the police to look the other way, or at least pretend they were looking at something else. In short order, cameras and naked girls were the order of the day. Playboy had created a sensation. Demand for similar, but harder core, pictures had picked up dramatically.

This lasted for three months. Then, Nigil brought in a cut rate movie crew. His desire to do porn movies ran up against a hard fact. The hookers and runaways, which had served as fodder for still photos, lacked even the minimal acting skills necessary for porn movies. So, he went looking for girls that could speak well, but were willing to get naked.

Enter Gretchen Schneider. Daughter of an Albany attorney and a former Manhattan debutante, Gretchen had been expelled from three schools before she was 15. Changing morals—not hers, the school's—allowed Gretchen to finally graduate high school, in spite of three significant incidents. After graduation, she was shipped to her grandmother in the city, who immediately installed Gretchen in a girls only hotel with a strict reputation. More on that presently.

Gretchen found city life challenging. She was enrolled in one of the lesser design schools and found that she had an aptitude, though not a work ethic. Her grades improved to steady Cs, with an occasional B, much to her family's delight. Unofficially, she majored in boys, which was challenging largely because of the lack of straight males in her school. Among other things, Gretchen became a world class sucker of cock, just to keep up with the male competition.

When Gretchen tired of trying to separate the gay from the bisexual, she would go clubbing in the Village. That is where she encountered Nigil. He was hunky, cockney and there were six girls surrounding him. Gretchen was in the mood for a different sort of challenge. To her vast disappointment, Nigil took her to his hotel, let her suck him to orgasm, then propositioned her for a movie deal. She agreed, on the condition that Nigil bring her off three times. Then Gretchen had to fake the last orgasm. Given some time to think about it, a porn movie suited her fancy.

The other member of the tableau was Angela Molinari, aka Angie. She was pure Central Park West, and very much out of her depth. Though she and Gretchen were the same year in college, Angela was almost two years younger and vastly less experienced. Gretchen had gotten Angie involved in several previous unwise excursions, but had also managed to get Angie back out. Knowing Gretchen, Angie assumed they would be shooting in skimpy swim suits, possibly topless. A fight with her society conscious mother had left her feeling rebellious, so, when Gretchen promised a good time, Angela allowed herself to be led.

When they reached the run down school, Angie almost bolted on the spot. Gretchen's fast talking and a lack of cab fare conspired against her. Once the nature of the shoot was explained, Angie literally bolted. Once again, Gretchen talked her back in. This was followed by some lengthy negotiations between Nigil and Gretchen. Girls covering each other with paint was not Nigil's idea of hard core action, but he recognized the market potential. Had he ever used the footage, he might have been justified.

Once the shooting started, his biggest problem was not Angela's shyness. That was appealing. Rather, Gretchen thought she knew more about film making than the crew. The fact that she knew quite a lot about lighting gave her some credibility. Gretchen's authoritarian personality did the rest, sort of. The day became an enduring contest of wills.

Several hours and many takes later, the two girls started the scene. Both girls were dressed in skimpy bikinis. Angie, with an overacted show of clumsiness, splashed green paint on Gretchen's red top. Gretchen launched into a tirade, removing the top and shoving it Angel's face. From that point, things flowed easily.

Gretchen grabbed a wide brush of house paint and flipped it at Angela. Since most of the spray caught her in the face, Angie did not have to act shocked. In retaliation, she grabbed a bowl of turpentine and doused Gretchen's whole front. This was not in the script. Gretchen froze, staring at her dripping tits, while Angela started to giggle. In retaliation, Gretchen loaded the brush and swatted a retreating Angela in the ass. Coincidentally, two cans of paint were knocked over, dousing both of the girl's legs.

This time Angie froze, allowing Gretchen to paint a thick swath across her torso. Angela grabbed tubes of paint. Gretchen grabbed a bucket. Nigil stuck his foot in the middle. Gretchen was right about one thing. Nigil had no sense of timing. Instead of an excellent cat fight on film, Nigil had a heated argument off camera. Naturally, no one knew they were being watched.

Pedro was as far away as he could get and still see clearly. Nigil's invasion had been a mixed curse. Among other things, Pedro had heat and running water. There was also electricity, but Pedro did not dare to use it. Instead, he was able to watch, occasionally, as girls took off their clothes. This was very disturbing.

To say Pedro was a virgin would be an understatement. He had never kissed a girl over the age of 10, save his aunts and mother. He had had no idea how girls are different than boys til Nigil's naked scenery had opened a new world to him. While he had grave misgivings about his own actions, Pedro was not about to leave.

Then came the day of the movie cameras. Movies were Pedro's favorite Anglo thing, even more than bratwurst. He had seen West Side Story twelve times, even paying once. He was very excited to see what sort of movie they were going to make. Nigil's failures quickly disillusioned him, but he stayed anyway.

The day of the paint scene was a day at the restaurant. Pedro was able to watch the entire day. While moments were exhilarating, most of what he saw was Gretchen: Gretchen arguing with Nigil, Gretchen re-directing the cameras, Gretchen upstaging Angela, Gretchen taking off her top. Pedro had no objection to seeing Gretchen topless. While she was not a beauty, Gretchen was attractive and well endowed.

However, Angie was beautiful, and just to Pedro's taste. Where Gretchen was dirty blond and blue eyed, Angela had wavy brown hair and liquid brown eyes. Gretchen was 5'6", 38-26-38, D cup. Angela was 5'8", 32-20-30 and, until recently, a B cup. When they were together, Gretchen usually pulled most of the attention. Pedro had eyes only for Angela.

Though he did not yet know it, his eye was drawn to her delicate bone structure and the rich red undertones of her coloring. At 17, long before Pedro ever saw her, Angela was a boney horse of a girl. At 20, her stick thin figure was starting to fill in and the dirty brown of her hair was deepening into a dark sorrel red. By 25 Angela Molinari would be a famous beauty. Pedro was the first to appreciate it, a fact which Angela never forgot.

That would be the future. The present was a shouting match between Gretchen and Nigil. Pedro slipped behind the stands and slipped out of the room. His mind was full of his angel, which was how he thought of Angela. The irony of her name would be felt shortly. For that moment he drifted down the hallway.