Strange Art 3: Art Critic

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Original cover art by Ben Roman

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First eBook Edition

ISBN 978-1-939275-69-1

1 Getting Things Straight

“When are you going to fuck my sister?”

“I… uh… What? No!” I’d had my doubts about using Tricia as a model in the first place, but when she saw the painting I’d done of Kendra, she would not be denied. Annette looked up from her reading and made an exaggerated surprised face. Tricia couldn’t see her.

“She’d do you. All she ever talks about is what Art is doing and how much fun it is to hang out with Art. I’d do you, too. I mean, you already have two girlfriends. Why not add a couple more? Sisters. Think of the combinations!” Tricia shifted on the daybed we’d placed under the window. It completely changed the draping lying across her breasts.

Damn it! I’d almost figured out how the pattern in the fabric reshaped at that fold. Tricia was nowhere near the model that Kendra was. Oh, she was pretty enough, in a sixteen-year-old way. But she couldn’t hold a pose for more than five minutes. Kendra talked of her as being worldly, but she still came off with a cute innocence most of the time.

Unless she was talking about fucking.

“Don’t need another lover,” I said. “Kendra is my friend.”

“She said she was going to pose nude for you. You could do us together,” she giggled. “Paint us, I mean.”

“Don’t know if we’ll do that.” I looked over at Annette and she was stifling her giggles. Drawing Tricia was more like babysitting than serious art. Kendra and Morgan were off at the park to study auras with Mom. Annette had insisted that I needed a chaperone when I drew Tricia. I was glad she had.

“I need a break,” Tricia said. She didn’t wait for me to capture a photo or tell her okay. She just tossed the draped fabric down at the foot of the daybed and headed for the bathroom. She was in a bikini. We’d stressed that I wasn’t doing a nude portrait—especially not of a sixteen-year-old. I tossed my charcoal into a tray and went to sit by Annette in her reading corner.

“She has no filters,” Annette laughed and then kissed me. She handed me a tissue and I wiped the charcoal off my fingers before I put my arms around her.

“I didn’t think it was possible to talk more than Kendra,” I laughed. “And she can’t hold still. Thank you for chaperoning me.”

“Pen, I know you wouldn’t do anything inappropriate. But young girls sometimes have trouble separating their fantasies from reality. I’m here for your protection, not hers.”

“I don’t understand girls,” I said. Annette laughed at me.

Tricia came back into the room and went to my easel to look at the sketch.

“Hey! You didn’t draw me at all! Just a bunch of folds of fabric.”

“That’s what I was working on today. Different ways that the drape over a person affects the pattern in the fabric.”

“What do you need me for? Just toss the fabric on a chair and draw it.” I glanced at Annette and she winked at me.

“I just like to look at naked girls,” I snickered.

“I’m not…” She stopped and looked at us. Tricia reached for her bikini top and pulled it up above her breasts. They were nice. Really nice. I was glad my body was pressed up against Annette so my instant erection was hidden. Annette could feel it, though. She shifted against me, not helping at all. “There, now you can look at a naked girl,” Tricia said. “Could you at least draw me now?”

Annette stood up and grabbed my posing stool. She directed Tricia to it.

“Sit up here. Turn so your right breast is in profile. It will make a nice addition to the collection, don’t you think, Art?” I grabbed a clean sketchpad and HB pencil then sat on my stool, scooting up close. As soon as Annette took control of the situation and turned it into one of my nipple exercises, my erection flagged and I quit seeing a naked teen. I was in familiar territory here. And Tricia had beautiful nipples. As I moved closer they hardened and popped out a long way.

“He’s staring at my breast,” Tricia whined.

“He’s adding you to the nipple collection. He’s got a dozen of them. Studies of the right nipple. Don’t pay any attention to him. He won’t touch you, but he’s going to examine your right nipple like you’ve never been looked at before. And he’ll draw half a dozen sketches to be sure he captures it in all its glory,” Annette said.

“I’ve never been looked at before,” Tricia whispered. A blush rose on her chest and crept up the sides of her breasts. “Not by a boy. Or anyone, really. I didn’t know he’d be so… close.”

“He’s not just a boy. He’s an artist,” Annette said. “Now tell me something about the real Tricia that I don’t know.”

Of course, my task was going to be more difficult because Tricia couldn’t hold still and each time she breathed, her ample bosom jiggled and moved around. “Art, you should try to capture the whole breast—especially the way her bikini top pushes down on the top of it where she pulled it up. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Interesting. Like it.” It was. I think she’d only planned to flash us for effect, but when she pulled the top up it rested against the top side of her breast and squashed it down. I sketched it and couldn’t help but think that the resulting indentation and bulge was a lot like drawing the folds of fabric. I didn’t think she’d find that funny, though.

Annette sat slightly behind Tricia’s left shoulder so she would turn that way to talk, but I noticed out the corner of my eye that Tricia spent a lot of time looking down at me examining her nipple. Her breast wasn’t huge and floppy, but was plump and round. The nipple sat rather high and pointed up, but I thought that might be the result of the bikini putting pressure on the top of her breast. She had very pale areolas—more so than Kendra’s—but her nipple was very long and very stiff. I studied and drew every detail.

I’m not sure what drew my attention. Perhaps it was just a jiggle. I glanced down and saw Tricia’s hand on her bikini bottom. She was applying and releasing slight pressure. I could see the area was damp. I only hesitated for a moment, but apparently Annette noticed. My girlfriend gently placed her hand on Tricia’s thigh as she whispered in her ear. Tricia caught her breath, almost poking me in the eye with her rigid nipple, but ever so slowly, her thighs parted under the pressure of Annette’s hand.

Tricia’s fingers delved a little deeper into the cleft.

My model was masturbating while I drew. And Annette knew.

I quickly switched over to pastel chalk so I could capture the mounting color in Tricia’s breast. Her extended nipple looked painful and I was sorely tempted to lean forward and suck on it. Just to give her some relief. Yeah. I didn’t, though. I kept up my professional detachment as I smudged the chalk to create the texture and highlights of her breast on paper. But her nipple wasn’t the only thing that was aching and distended.

Interestingly, now that Tricia was blatantly focused between her legs, her torso stilled. Oh, there was still the pronounced rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed, but not the side-to-side twisting that she was prone to. And then she stiffened and I could see only the pulsing of her finger against her bikini as she held her breath. In a moment or two, she began to relax again and her nipples softened.

“Art, honey, I think our model is exhausted. Did you see enough or do we need her to come back for another session?” Annette asked.

“I… It was… No more,” I said. I got myself busy putting away my supplies and heard the garage door open. I wondered if Annette knew they were on approach. As I was flipping through the pages of my sketchbook to look at the couple dozen drawings I’d made in the past hour, I became aware of Tricia looking over my shoulder. She was fully dressed and wasn’t talking. In fact, she hadn’t said anything since well into her sitting. Even Kendra talked non-stop unless I was sketching a particular facial pose. Tricia stood on her tiptoes and gave me a kiss on the cheek, then left.

“I wish my breasts were still sixteen,” Annette sighed as she cuddled against me in bed. I continued to suckle the breast in question.

“They’re only nineteen,” Morgan laughed from the other side. “Why would you want them three years younger?”

“I guess it wasn’t the actual breast so much as… Oh, Pen! Touch me! There! Yes!” I guess I got the right combination because she was unable to complete her thought. Or maybe she couldn’t say anything with her mouth full of Morgan’s tongue. It took us all a minute or two to get our breathing under control. I hadn’t even come. This time. Annette’s orgasm still left me breathless.

“Now tell me what was so different about Tricia’s breasts compared to any of the dozen others we’ve seen in here over the past six months,” Morgan said.

“It wasn’t the shape or her brazen exposure,” Annette said. “It was… a strange kind of innocence. It was like she had this brand-new toy that she wanted to play with, but didn’t understand exactly how it worked. Her breasts were the part that was… um… exposed. Pen did exactly what he always does, focusing on that couple square inches of flesh.”

“Not so square,” I laughed.

“No. And definitely three dimensional,” Annette snickered. “But she was as focused on you looking at her as you were on that little area. And it affected her. I saw her hand creep to the top of her bikini and start to twitch. I just ignored it and kept talking. But when I saw you notice, I put my hand on her leg and whispered to her that if she was going to do that while posing, it was only fair that you should be able to see clearly. I didn’t really pull on her leg. She just let them part and showed you clearly that she was masturbating in front of you.”

“I wish I’d been there to see the aura,” Fay said. “Do you think she’ll try to make a move on Pen?”

“No,” my Lady answered. “I don’t think she’ll even come back here with Kendra Friday. She got exactly what she wanted. She got excited and got a good climax, but she doesn’t have feelings for Art. She was just sort of checking to see if the toy worked the way the instruction sheet said. I guess that’s what I meant when I said I wish I had sixteen-year-old breasts. There was all that excitement of discovering my body when I was that age. Even with you, Fay. We’d kissed and just sort of pressed our breasts together and it was exciting. But I didn’t really know what worked or how. And the night I let Pen touch me in the backseat of the car it was like I finally found the power switch that turned everything on.”

“Are you sad that we have become a family together so quickly, my Lady?” I asked. I was worried.

“Oh, no, honey! I love what we have together. I love you. I love you, Fay. I would never want to trade what I have now for what we had then. It’s not my innocence that I want; it’s giving it up to you.”

Annette’s words about Tricia proved true. She didn’t come back over to our house again, though all five of us went out for dinner the night before she flew back East.

I should say six.

Kendra invited Les Dorn to join us. Les was becoming a fixture in our group, in spite of his father trying to work him to death during the summer. In addition to school, his dad was ‘encouraging’ him to get his real estate license. That involved another forty hours of instruction before he could take the test. I’d never met Les’s dad, but had the impression he was a domineering man. I didn’t much like him all the same. Les practically had to sneak out to have dinner with us.

Once Tricia was on the plane the next day, Kendra came over to pose for me. So far, we’d done pretty much the same thing that I’d done with her sister. Kendra wore a bikini and I sketched her. I’d already done about a hundred or two hundred drawings of her nipples, but we all knew we were working up to her posing nude. In another two weeks, we’d all be back in school for our sophomore year. That would mean less time for our casual sketching and more focus on our classes.

I wanted to do the same setting in which I’d tried unsuccessfully to sketch Tricia—lounging on the daybed with fabric draped over her. It was a classic pose, and I’d learned how to get Kendra posed exactly as I wanted. I just looked up a picture of a pose that I wanted to try and she could duplicate it. Of course, the picture I was painting wasn’t the same as the artist I showed her, but she could really interpret and hold a pose for a long time.

The picture I’d chosen to show her was Lev Tchistovsky’s “Reclining nude with a pink robe.” He was a Russian artist who lived in Paris through the rise of Hitler and the rebuilding after World War II. His paintings were always romantic with tons of drapery in them. This time I was going to go straight to paint rather than doing an extensive sketch. I’d learned a lot about controlling pastels and quickly working in the highlight and shadow. That’s one thing about painting drapery with a model. Once she takes a break, you can never get the drapery in exactly the same position. We’d talked and Kendra promised she could hold the pose for as much as two hours if I needed her to. You can’t ask any better than that of any model! She walked into the room in her bikini.

“Where’s the picture for today’s pose?” she asked. I pulled out the reference book and handed it to her. What I was learning from Tchistovsky was how to use the drapery more effectively to accent and reveal the model. His paintings were very sexy. I was arranging the drapery the way I wanted it, knowing that Kendra would study the pose for at least five minutes before she was ready. I had rumpled satin bedsheets on the lounge and had hung a striped fabric from the curtain rod that would drape down under her and then across her leg. I wasn’t getting too fancy with this one. I was still trying to get the folds in the fabric correct when there was a pattern involved. When I was satisfied that I had the pieces correct, I turned to Kendra. She was staring at me.

“This is it, isn’t it?” she said softly. Annette looked up from her book and just smiled.

“This picture? Yes.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she sighed. “You’re so sweet, Arthur.” She turned her back to me and lifted her hair. “Untie my top, please.” I don’t know why my hand was shaking a little as I reached up to untie the straps. I’d seen her topless almost every day while I was drawing her nipple. She didn’t take the top from me and when I let go of the ties, it fell to the floor. She turned to face me. I still liked looking at her breasts and all her tattoos. “The bottoms tie on the sides,” she whispered. Yeah, I could see that.

Oh!

She was just standing there looking at me. My hands were definitely shaking as I untied the left and then the right. She stepped back a pace and the fabric fell to her ankles. It was the first time I’d ever seen more than the top edge of the gold lightning bolt tattoo that pointed straight at the top of her slit. Kendra shook out her hair so it fell around her shoulders, still two-tone, but over half the length was her natural brown. About the last five inches was blonde. I really liked the look. My mouth must have been hanging open. Kendra was naked.

She took my hand and led me to the daybed.

“Position me where you want me, Arthur.” It was a phrase that Susan had used when she wanted me to touch her—handle her—as I posed her. “You can touch me,” Kendra whispered.

I glanced over at Annette and she was still smiling at me. I wished Morgan was here, too, but she had to work this afternoon. Her summer internship was almost over.

What I did now, I sensed, would establish a lot of my future relationship with Kendra. She was my friend, and while I could get turned on by her—that was obvious by my uncontrolled reaction down south—I didn’t want to lose her as my friend. I took a deep breath and then scooped her up in my arms.

She gasped and let out a little squeak, throwing her arms around my neck. I carried her to the daybed and gently laid her down in the position I wanted her. I took my time positioning her legs and arms, tilting her face toward me, and smoothing my hands down her body from her chin to her toes. I glided over her breasts and lightly across her mound, but didn’t try to squeeze or probe. Her breathing deepened as I paused with my hand on the inside of her thigh and looked into her eyes. I picked up the end of the fabric that was hanging down onto the floor and pulled it up, handing it to her to hold and moving her hand just into position where the fabric draped over her left hip. I stepped back and looked at her carefully. Her eyes followed me, but she stayed still otherwise. I’d never had any other model who could hold a pose like Kendra could.

I lifted her head and smoothed her hair out where I wanted it, then lay it back on the satin pillow. I loosened another of the drapes and let it fall in a pile behind her right breast.

“Are you comfortable?” I asked. “Can you hold this pose for a while?”

“As long as you need, Arthur.” I bent and brushed her lips lightly with my own. Then I headed for my easel.

I became absorbed in painting. I’d chosen watercolor because it was faster than applying oil or acrylic. No matter what Kendra said about posing as long as I needed, there was a limit to how long she could really hold the pose. She could remember a pose and return to the exact same position, but there was no way to exactly duplicate the folds and wrinkles of the fabric draped around her.

As a result, I focused first on the draping. Watercolor has its own blending characteristics and I found the shape of the fabric both easier to paint and less accurate. The hard edges that acrylic tends toward were muted in watercolor. My previous work had tended more toward trompe l’oeil, making it seem as realistically three-dimensional as I could. I couldn’t quite get that with watercolor.

I found myself less and less focused on the drapery and more on Kendra. I used a finer brush and captured the transition in her hair from dark to light. I touched the canvas to trace the contour of her slightly parted lips. I focused on the way the light played across her breasts and sharpened the indent of her navel. I regretted momentarily that I hadn’t parted her legs a little more, but I also recognized that as my own prurient interest and not part of the art I was creating.

Still, I hadn’t realized how incredibly shapely Kendra’s legs were. I wasn’t looking at them in full profile, but rather down at the tops. One knee was drawn up and the lush fullness of her thigh with the hollow concave where it reached her pelvis drew my eye and my brush. And I could see the shape of her calf on the other leg, stretched out with her toes pointed.

I had drawn her nipples a hundred times or more, but somehow adding color to the erect points and blending the areolae so that they transitioned into her pale breasts was almost like touching them. She shaved herself smooth, as well. I could only see the tip of her slit from my angle, but the lightning bolt that pointed at it held my attention. I knew I was aroused, no matter how I tried to ignore it. Kendra knew it, too. She was… desirable.

I hardly realized that I’d stopped painting. Sometime in the past hour-and-a-half, Morgan had come home from work and was cuddled with Annette on the sofa. Kendra’s eyes had shifted so she could look at me. She’d let go of the drape held at her hip and it slumped beside her then fell to the floor. Her finger had slowly edged toward her slit. Her breasts had a new rosy tint to them and her breathing was deep and a little irregular.

I was transfixed and couldn’t stop looking at her, my erection painfully pushing against my jeans. When her finger finally made it to her clit and touched it, we both came.

I sagged back to my stool and Kendra’s head fell back against the pillows, her eyes closed.

Annette and Morgan began to stir from the sofa before I did. Apparently, they’d just had a satisfying time as well. Kendra beat us all, though, when it came to standing up. She didn’t bother with the robe that was hung next to the daybed. She just walked up to me and pulled me off the stool to hug me. Sometimes, being hugged makes me tense up, but this time it seemed natural to just wrap my arms around her naked body and hold her to me.

“Can I see what you painted?” she asked. I turned her toward the easel and she pulled my hands around her so they rested beneath hers on her stomach. “Tricia said all you were interested in was painting the drapes. But you painted me. It’s beautiful, Arthur. Thank you.”

“You’re hard to resist,” I said. She pulled my hands up to cover her breasts and held them there as she leaned back into me. Annette and Morgan finally unwound from each other and came to join us.

“It’s beautiful,” Annette said.

“I could really see the connection this time,” Morgan said. “All the other paintings you’ve done of Kendra seemed a little remote. Not this one.”

“Well, we got past that,” Kendra said. “We can probably work together now without all the tension. Don’t worry, though. I don’t think either Arthur or I need anything else from our relationship. Right, Arthur?” She turned in my arms again and kissed me on the cheek. I realized what she was saying. We’d both had a lot of tension building up around when she would actually pose nude and what our responses would be to it. Now we knew. We were both attracted to each other, but even when we were highly sexually aroused, neither of us had crossed into becoming lovers. We’d simply acknowledged the attraction and now we could go on being friends. Plus, artist and model.

“Right,” I said. “I feel good about us. We’ll make some beautiful art.”

“We still need to get some more models once school starts,” Morgan said. “Kendra can’t work on her sculpture while she’s posing for two hours. That doesn’t mean you should stop working together, though. Just that we need to supplement.”

“I think I should get moving now,” Kendra said as she pulled away from me and reached for the robe. “I’m exhausted after that. Arthur, if you want to work in slower media, like oil, maybe we can work it out so you lay in the drapery during the first session. I can get back into the same pose even if we wait till the next day. It’s the drapery we can’t get into the same pose.”

“That would work,” I said. “If it’s very complex, I can even work on different sections. Like I could do the foreground drapery that is around your body, but then do the background drapery even after I’ve finished painting you. I learned a lot from this session.”

“So did I,” she grinned. “I really need to dress and go home now.” She picked up her bikini and paused to give Annette and Morgan a kiss on the cheek before she left.

Kendra spent a lot of time at our house and in my studio over the next several months. In fact, she became a real collaborator. We did several paintings that were similar to other works, but then we started experimenting. She got a real feel for the fabric and draping techniques and could see it as she would sculpt it three-dimensionally. It got to the point that she’d come in with a pose already in mind and take it. I’d make a few adjustments and she’d memorize the pose so we could work on it all week. While she had a good concept, she couldn’t quite see it from my perspective. Some of those were our best work.

In addition to posing, though, Kendra and Morgan would walk around campus looking for people with interesting auras. It was amazing how many students were willing to come to our studio and pose while I drew and Kendra molded clay with Morgan coaching her on what she saw in the aura. One of our most successful sessions was with a couple they’d spotted making out on the campus lawn. It was obvious to me as soon as I saw them that they had a great chemistry. They were both art students and had no difficulty modeling for us.

I’d been paying models $20 an hour to pose. I felt a little guilty about it because Morgan was the only one of us who was earning any income, and not much as an intern. She told me that we’d been paying models out of the money I earned doing the posing performance on Zen’s cam site. I felt better about it then.

Dean and Joyce were a different matter entirely. They were both painters preparing for their BFA exhibition and offered to trade posing. They each wanted the three of us to pose nude for them.

That was stressful. I was used to being on the paint side of the easel and not on the model side. I did it, but if it weren’t for Annette and Morgan, I’d have panicked and run away. As it was, I hardly said a word for the entire week before we posed and not much for a week after. It gave me a whole new level of respect for the women and occasionally men who agreed to come in and pose. I was pretty much awed by the raw passion I saw in the paintings that Dean and Joyce did. It made me look at Annette and Morgan in a new light, too. I knew I loved them, but I hadn’t realized how all-consuming our passion was for each other.

Susan’s girlfriend, Zen, posed for me once. Her pose was elegant and she worked well with the hangings around her, but there just wasn’t the connection that I had had with Susan. It was obvious that Zen was dominant in their relationship, but even Morgan and Kendra commented about how cold Zen seemed to be. She always wanted to figure out how to make more money from her posing and my artwork. The painting that I did, she raffled off on her site. It was a pretty mediocre auction. We ended up each making $75 off the painting. That didn’t even cover what I’d already paid her for posing.

Morgan was ticked. She figured she could have gotten $500 less commission for the painting from a local gallery. Zen never posed for me again.

My sophomore class schedule wasn’t bad. I had a figure drawing class to suffer through. Right. An hour and a half four times a week with a model on a platform with fifteen students around them drawing the specific thing that Dr. Robinson was directing that day. Expression, tension, gesture, muscle. About once a week, the model was nude and we’d study structure and position. Sitting, standing, lying down, kneeling, walking. The models weren’t students. The university didn’t object to students modeling for each other, but not in the classroom. That was deemed to be an exposure reserved for interpersonal relationships. The models in figure drawing were mostly older men and women who could sit and read or knit while we drew. A favorite, though, was a young mom and baby who posed for us. We had to practice quickly capturing line and form because the baby didn’t pose in one position all the time.

All I wanted to do, of course, was paint, and I had a materials painting class that focused on really exploring the different media and techniques. So, it surprised me that the class I looked forward to most each day was my Sophomore Roundtable. We treated it like an extension of our freshman Lib Arts class combined with the writing roundtable. Annette joined our class and was lucky to get in. Everyone else had been with me in Lib Arts the previous year, but Cora had left school so there was a slot open in the dozen seats. We didn’t have Professor Leitner this year, but we did have Professor Denham, who had been the writing instructor last year.

When I walked into the class and saw the familiar faces of my friends, I just relaxed. The course emphasized refining critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and persuasive writing. I was okay with talking with this group as long as I didn’t get excited or upset. They were my friends. And every one of them, male and female, had posed topless for me during my project last year.

“So, what body part are you drawing this term?” Casey asked before class on Friday.

“Mmm. Not specializing,” I answered smugly. “Full nudes.”

“Why do I have a feeling I’m going to be sitting around naked while Artie reproduces my fine curves?” Mavis asked. That was it. As soon as I looked up at her I sprung a boner. I squirmed a little in my seat and Annette noticed. She reached over beneath the table and ran a finger up my cock. I’m sure I squeaked.

“Well, now,” Prof Denham said. “It seems to me that we have an interesting starting point for our first assignment. The human figure has been the subject of artistic study for thousands of years. We all have a body. So why doesn’t the university allow students to pose nude in classrooms? Certainly, we all know of students who could use the fifty-dollar posing fee. Yet the school persists in hiring outsiders. Let’s spend this session talking about the pros and cons of the policy and for your first assignment, you will each write a one-page position paper stating why you are for or against the policy.”

“I think the issue is bigger than whether or not students pose,” Dee said. “It’s really about social nudity. Where I was brought up, there wasn’t even a concept of it. I was raised to be ashamed of my body and to keep it well-covered. The school policy plays into that stigma.”

We were off and running on the topic and I started sketching the people around me at the table as I kept notes on the discussion. It was going to be a good year.

“Artie?” Mavis said as we were leaving class. She kind of had to wedge herself in front of me because Annette had my hand on one side and Kendra was leaning across me to talk to her. My response to Mavis was immediate. I just don’t know what it is about her. It’s been that way ever since we first met last January. I just see her and get turned on. It was a real task to draw her right nipple as part of my project last spring. Yeah. The problem was staying focused on drawing and not on Mavis’s nipple. It was all I could do to keep from falling forward and sucking on it.

“Hi, Mavis,” I said. “Um… Want to get a cup of coffee with us?” Annette and Kendra both looked up at me. We had decided to go for a cup after class because I had my Materials Drawing Studio last in my day. I think my inviting Mavis surprised them, but not unpleasantly.

“Oh, that would be great. You’re all kind of involved in what I wanted to ask,” she said.

“Let’s walk over to Hallowed Grounds. They have the best coffee,” Kendra said. “I can’t believe this is only the first week of classes and I already feel exhausted.”

“What’s on your mind?” Annette asked Mavis when we had our drinks. Mavis had managed to grab the spot on my left leaving Kendra between her and Annette on the other side of the table. Kendra rolled her eyes a little and grinned. I couldn’t help the response in my groin when Mavis’s knee touched mine.

“Your little studio and models,” Mavis said. “You know, the rules in the photo studio are even more restrictive than in figure drawing. We can’t have nude models at all. For some reason, if you are painting a nude, it’s art but if you’re photographing one, it’s porn. I really want to work with some live models. I was wondering if, you know, sometimes I could join you when you have a model in and I could do some lighting and photography while you’re painting.”

“Sure,” I said before either Annette or Kendra could respond. “Maybe sometimes… um… you…” Oh shit! What was I saying? Mavis grinned at me.

“Yes, Artie. Sometimes I’ll model for you and Kendra. If you want to, Kendra.”

“Hell, yes. I’m just beginning to get into the human form for sculpture as well. Morgan says you have a really strong aura. That will be good for us,” Kendra said.

“And there is no one at this table who doesn’t want to see you naked,” Annette giggled. “Oops! I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I think I’m putting that in my position statement for class,” Mavis laughed. “I understand posing nude for an artist or a sculptor or a photographer. I’m not sure how it works to pose nude for a novelist. I really want to read what you write!”

“Huh-uh,” I said. “It’s scary.” Annette really liked to write horror. And she was so sweet and innocent otherwise!

2 Modeling Contracts

It took two weeks before Dee came to the studio to pose for us. I was surprised that Kendra managed to persuade her to model for all three of us. Dee was the most body-shy person in our class. The first time I’d drawn her nipple, she only pulled her shirt up high enough so I could see it without seeing anything else. She even hid her bra so I wouldn’t see that. She described it as a liberating experience, though, and the next session, she simply removed her shirt and bra and sat for over an hour as I drew. There was a downy softness to her with fine light hairs all down her torso. It made me want to reach out and pet her.

Mavis got to the house early and set up three different lights to flood the area where Dee would pose. She had a pretty hefty camera on a tripod, but we managed to accommodate all her equipment. It was kind of funny in a way. We now had five workspaces in the studio. Annette had her little sofa and reading corner. She called herself a Luddite because she wrote out all her first drafts longhand in a spiral notebook. Of course, she transferred it all to a laptop later, but she felt strongly about her first drafts. Morgan had a desk in the corner and spent nearly all her time on the computer or the phone. I felt bad about the fact that she was the only one of us that we didn’t have a class with because she was a year ahead of us. She even commented about being left out and considered taking a year break so we could be juniors together. But she couldn’t stop any more than one of us could stop painting or writing. Kendra had a worktable with a high-intensity lamp clamped to the edge. She liked working in clay and created maquettes that she then used as models in the sculpture studio at school where she created the plaster master for her casting. She talked about experimenting with porcelain, but didn’t think she’d be allowed to do that until the next year. Of course, I had my easel and paints. And now Mavis had her camera.

Dee didn’t pose completely nude. She was still a little nervous, especially with the camera added into our mix. Kendra had been the de facto organizer of models ever since she convinced Susan to pose for me last Christmas and then facilitated poses by everyone else in our Lib Arts class. But Annette slid smoothly into the coordinator role as Kendra focused on getting her clay ready. Annette gave Dee a fluffy robe and told her she could get ready in the bathroom and then just come into the studio. We wouldn’t remove the robe until we were ready to start. Dee came out dressed in just her panties and the robe.

I hadn’t seen that robe before and I loved it. It was really fluffy. I suggested that we put her on a stool and keep the robe, but have it slide down her shoulders as she held it together just below her breasts. We positioned her three-quarters back to us and got a nice expression on her face.

Mavis and I had our first mild conflict when she wanted to use a flat blue paper backdrop to isolate just Dee with no surrounding ‘distraction’ as she called all my drapes. Of course, I wanted to fill the background with falling fabric. We managed a compromise. I got one draped strip with the rest of the image against the blue screen.

“Um… Dee? May I position your robe? We want it pulled down your shoulder and back. I’ll try not to touch you inappropriately,” I said. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I’m all yours,” she sighed. “And after what Susan told me about what you did to her last spring, I’ll be deeply disappointed if you don’t pet my breast at least once.”

“It’s really not about being sexual,” I explained rapidly. “Just posing.”

“I know. But it would still be a shame to waste the opportunity,” she whispered. “No one’s ever touched them but me.” I pulled the robe down in back and all the way to her elbow on the left sleeve. I’d intended to leave her breasts mostly covered, but what she said moved me. I didn’t get really turned on by Dee. I liked her and appreciated her body, but it wasn’t like the instant arousal I felt with Mavis. As I’d realized with Kendra months ago, caring for my models was more than just seeing that they had a break every half-hour or so.

I leaned in to Dee and very lightly kissed the startled girl as I ran my hand down her chest and over her left breast, pushing the robe down below the downy globe. While our lips touched, I circled her nipple with my fingertip to be sure it was fully erect. She whined a little as I stepped back. Her eyes tracked me as a huge smile lit her face. The flash from Mavis’s camera and lights went off as soon as I was out of the picture and we were all focused on our work.

“You should have seen her aura light up!” Morgan said. “It wasn’t… hmm… Well, there was an element of arousal involved, but I’ve seen more sexual arousal in people who were watching a football game. It’s not like she was suddenly getting ready to orgasm. There was just this light of joy that came from her.”

“You could see that just in her smile,” Annette said. “What a beautiful glamor shot Mavis got. The whole set, actually.”

“Did I… um… do wrong? Kiss her?” I said. My Lady, Fay, and I had frequently discussed the relationships that developed as I was posing a model. I was really worried when Kendra and I both orgasmed the first time she modeled nude for me. She’d modeled a couple more times since then and we didn’t see any adverse effects for either our friendship or my relationship with Lady and Fay. Perhaps we were more casual in the way we treated each other, not avoiding contact that we might have considered inappropriate before.

“I think you did just right,” Annette said. “I heard her ask you to touch her. She placed a lot of trust in you at that moment. You could have just mechanically reached out and squeezed her boob, but you made her first time being touched by a man something that she’ll remember all her life. That little kiss sealed your friendship, but it didn’t make her a lover or damage anything we have.”

“That’s what I meant about it not being arousal,” Morgan said. “She didn’t fall in love with you but she was proud of… maybe how grown up she was.”

I was relieved. If Annette and Morgan were okay with it, I was okay.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that there would be other encounters. Not everyone wanted to pose nude. Rachel had made a very strong argument in favor of the school policy in her paper. She did pose in a little cheesecake outfit like a 1950s pinup. Her paper cited comments she’d made last school year about how seeing drawings of her classmates had affected how she thought about them, even though she had no objections to having posed topless herself.

Leonard continued to pose with Casey. They’d gone their separate ways during the summer, but once back in school they renewed their relationship. It still looked strange, considering Casey was about 98 pounds thin and Leonard was well over twice that, but they gave us one of the hottest poses of the year. Casey straddled his lap and planted a huge kiss on him that she was able to hold for thirty minutes with no difficulty. Leonard kept his briefs on, but we did a swirl of fabric around the two that occluded the small scrap that was exposed. Casey was fully naked and I think if he hadn’t had his underwear on we’d have seen considerably more than either of them wanted us to.

Jonathon came in with his own pose. I’d expected something that let him keep his pants on. He’d complained of becoming aroused when he posed shirtless for my project last year. He didn’t seem to have any embarrassment about it this time.

“I practiced this pose in the mirror,” he said. He wore a flat cowboy hat and a Mexican blanket. The blanket was tossed up across his shoulders and the angle pulled the tail over from the right just enough to cover his junk. His left side was bare from his nipple to his toes. He stuck a short stub of a thin cigar between his lips. Hell, yes. He looked like a naked Clint Eastwood from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Mavis went over to adjust the angle of his blanket a couple times, making a comment about how things were escaping. I found myself a little jealous of their flirtations and a lot hard.

“You know, eventually you are going to have to pose for me, too,” Mavis said. School was out for another two weeks after Christmas and Mavis had offered to pose for me… just for something to do. I was really getting into having models using drapes in all kinds of classical poses like I’d done with Kendra. Of course, we were using them as inspiration and not trying to duplicate the poses. I had in mind doing a full suite of paintings of Mavis, though I hadn’t mentioned it yet.

I needed to see if I could survive one.

Kendra was out East for the holiday and for some reason, Morgan and Annette had both decided they needed to go to the mall. That was strange because one of them was always with me when I had a model in the studio.

And I was nervous. This was Mavis looking at me intently. And she was just wearing that fluffy robe we’d acquired for models.

And then she wasn’t wearing it. It fell in a casual heap at her feet. She was just standing in front of me and I was trying not to stare at her nudity but she was so… naked. And beautiful. And I was so hard it was painful.

She stepped right up to me and kissed me on the cheek. She took my left hand in hers and placed my fingertip on her right nipple. I moaned as she used just one of her fingers to stroke up the length of my cock in my jeans. Then she stepped back.

“I just want you to know that you affect me the same way,” she smiled. “Now what position would you like me in?”

I could think of several. I shook my head to clear it and got back to thinking about the pose I wanted. I’d done rough sketches of half a dozen and showed her one I thought we’d start with. She perched up on the stool and I artfully draped the long strip of silk around her. I’d chosen a dark blue that contrasted nicely with her blonde hair and intensified the electric blue of her eyes. Eyes that held mine the entire time I posed her.

“Can you keep your eyes toward me in this pose?” I rasped as I stepped back to the easel.

“That’s easy to do,” she answered. Her lights flashed. She changed the expression on her face and they flashed again. “Remote control,” she laughed. Then I started drawing.

I’d never posed a model so that she was looking directly at the artist… me. They always had another focus. But I couldn’t bear to have Mavis’s eyes looking anywhere else. I just had this visceral response to her that overrode all my other thinking. When I paused in my drawing to look up at the model, I wanted to look into her eyes.

Over the next week of daily visits, we did a total of eight drawings and I prepared a canvas for the first one. There didn’t seem to be any concern about whether or not one of my girlfriends was with us. Sometimes they were and sometimes they weren’t. We didn’t grope each other, but we didn’t shy away from each other either. When our hands brushed each other or I reached to tilt her head or position her arm, I felt an electrical tingle run through my body. We silently saluted our mutual attraction and then went to work.

Then we were back in class.

Les Dorn hung around all the time now. I liked him. He never said much more than I did and was often as tongue-tied when around other people. When we were alone together, we’d go for an hour without saying anything. Then, odd as it seems, one of us would say something that just cracked us both up.

“Kendra invited me to the sculpture studio to see her newest thing,” Les said. “When I got there, she and Annette were bouncing up and down as they looked at it. Then they kissed each other and I got an instant boner. God, she’s sexy.”

“Annette gets that reaction from me all the time,” I said.

“I meant Kendra.”

We looked at each other and both busted out laughing.

In April, the two of them finally got around to actually going out on a date together. Les moved in with Kendra at the end of the semester over his father’s objections. The objections didn’t seem to be overly strenuous, though. Mr. Dorn made a monthly maintenance contribution to Les to pay for housing and food as part of his college expenses.

It was cool that the five of us could go out together and no one felt left out or like they needed to include someone else. Kendra and Les were a couple just like Annette, Morgan, and me. Well, we were like a trio, but that’s what I mean.

More and more often, Mavis was with us when we went out, and occasionally, Susan.

It seemed that Zen blamed my art for the poor response to the auction of her portrait. She complained about having been taken to the cleaners and that no other model would work that cheap. Susan had told me that she needed to stop posing for me after the performance in the spring for fear she was becoming addicted to the sexual high it gave her. But when Zen forbade her from modeling, it really got her hackles up. Whenever Zen had one of her long cam sessions, Susan showed up at our studio.

Usually, she just sat with Annette while the two of them worked on their various literary projects. Susan was determined to become a poet, but she regretfully admitted that she’d probably make a living as a journalist. She had contributed a short article to the Examiner each week about the goings on at the university—especially during second semester when the BFA exhibitions got rolling. She didn’t get to review an exhibition unless the regular arts reporter didn’t go to the opening, but she did get to do an occasional interview. Aside from that, she was supplementing her income as a barista at Hallowed Grounds.

Morgan interned at a gallery again that summer between her junior and senior years and took three of my paintings with her. They didn’t sell during the summer months, but it was cool to see my paintings hanging in a gallery with real artists. And in September the first one sold. I had enough to pay models for the rest of my junior year.

That was good because it was the only income I was generating and I didn’t feel like I was contributing to the family. We were lucky that Mom and Dad were willing to support us through college and Annette’s parents were helping, too. But we didn’t want to be freeloaders. I didn’t. Annette had a part time job of just ten hours a week in the school library. That was about how much time Morgan could spend at the gallery. They’d asked her to continue working weekends after school started. Kendra had a teaching assistantship for the studio arts fundamentals class. I painted. I was getting worried about ever being a contributing member of the family.

Les surprised us by bringing three other artists to Morgan to get her to represent them. He was good at talking to the artists but not at talking to galleries. Morgan, a year ahead of us, became a sort of mentor to Les since they were in the same discipline. They even created a working relationship in which he handled getting clients to represent and did the bookkeeping. She found places to sell the clients’ work and paid Les a referral fee from her commissions.

Morgan was working on placing some of my paintings in other galleries and larger cities in the Southwest. She had a couple of positive responses and encouraged me to just keep painting. Another of her artists had a successful opening in Phoenix. Morgan was gone a couple of days to help coordinate the installation and opening.

It was Les who made a breakthrough with my Lady.

“Annette, may I read one of your stories?” Les asked at lunch when we were all sitting around comparing our fall class schedules.

My junior year fall schedule was the most varied I’d had since I started. I had an art history class that focused on landscape painting from Nazca to Heizer. How’s that for thrilling? I was having fun in a photography class with Mavis called Ethics and Image. My one studio class was almost beyond me. It was called After Drawing and focused on the connection between idea and image. It was something I felt I had a handle on before I came to college when I was painting dreamscapes out of my imagination. Now I was focused on painting much more perfect representations of real life.

“Really? Why?” Annette asked. I admitted to myself that Les was paying more attention to Annette’s creative endeavors than I had been lately.

“I think it would let me get to know you better. I mean, I can see what Art and Kendra and Mavis create. When I look at their paintings and sculptures, I feel like I can see into them a little. See how their minds work. It’s harder to make that connection with you. Susan let me read a few of her poems. I feel like I know her a lot better now.”

“She writes very sexy poetry,” Kendra giggled. “As you might guess. I don’t have any idea where she’d get any of it published, but I love it when Les reads one of her poems aloud in bed. We have… fun.”

“Wow! I don’t think you’d get the same response from my stories. They’re pretty dark,” Annette said.

“What do you mean?” Les asked.

“I like to write horror stories,” Annette said. “Things that creep a lot of people out.”

“I love Steven King,” Les said. “There has to be a market for what you write. Please let me read something.”

“Well, okay, but they all need to be rewritten and polished. This isn’t very good,” Annette said. I’d never seen her so shy about what she’d written. Nonetheless, she reached into her pack and pulled out a notebook. “I just handed the typed copy in to my creative writing class. The professor didn’t have much positive to say about it.”

Three days later, Les asked to read everything she had.

“This stuff is good. Makes Steven King look like he’s teaching Sunday School. I loved the one where the woman cuts off her finger to trade for a book in the antique store. And then the way the trades keep escalating until she sells her soul and becomes the shopkeeper. You have a devious mind!” Les said.

“But they’re not very good,” Annette insisted. “I can’t seem to get a decent grade on anything.”

“I think all you need is an editor,” Les said. “I read all the instructors’ comments and the problems they cite are almost all technical. Let me see what I can come up with.”

Somehow or another, the Les/Morgan partnership became de facto literary agents for Annette Sample.

“I haven’t had… a man… in me… in more than two years,” Susan said breathlessly as I tied a blindfold around her eyes. “I… You could… If I was wrapped up… Well, I couldn’t stop you… I mean if you, sort of, nudged into me with your cock. Not much, of course. Just, like, five or six inches. I really… couldn’t do anything about it. You know?”

Susan was giving me an open invitation! I could understand that much. I had my mouth wide open staring at Annette. She’d been close enough to hear every word as she helped prepare the setting. But once Susan had a blindfold on, as far as she was concerned, I was the only other person in the room. Annette rolled her eyes and stifled a giggle. I shook my head no, but didn’t say anything to Susan. Annette stood in front of me and kissed me. We stepped away from Susan as she stood there patiently waiting for me to position her.

“It would be okay if it happened,” Annette whispered in my ear. “But it’s really just her fantasy of being blindfolded, bound, and helpless. Play with her for a while before you start posing. You know she’s rebelling against Zen, but I don’t think she really wants to do permanent damage to their relationship.”

I understood. She and Zen had another argument. Zen really wanted Susan on camera with her. Susan tried a few times, but just couldn’t get into it. The last time, I guess, Zen had been kind of rough with her. Susan stormed out and came directly to the studio, demanding that I pose her. Please, sir. After a short talk with Annette, I agreed.

Susan stood, shifting from foot to foot as I returned to her side and touched her cheek. Her response—tilting her head into my hand—was immediate.

“Shall I undress, sir?” Once we knew what was going on with Susan and what she needed, I didn’t give her time to go change clothes. I just tied the blindfold on and listened to her confession of desire.

“My little artist’s Dolly does what she is told,” I said softly. Annette pulled me back and whispered in my ear.

“Be sinister. Dominate her and keep her guessing.” I added a little hardness to my voice.

“Does my Dolly want me to see her nakedness?” I hissed. I dragged my finger along her centerline from her chin to her waistband. She’d left Zen’s in a hurry, dressed only in a t-shirt and gym shorts. I wondered if she even had underwear on. “Does she want to feel my hands on her body?” I continued. “Does she want my touch?”

“Touch me,” she gasped. “Just please don’t hurt me, sir. I couldn’t take it if you hurt me, too.” That was telling. I was getting pissed at Zen. Annette nodded then retreated a few steps, still keeping an eye on our interaction. She used her cellphone to snap a picture. Thankfully she remembered to put it on silent mode.

“I will take care of you, little Dolly.” I wanted to pick her up and go cuddle her, but she needed this safe submission. I caught her hands and lifted them above her head. One of the things about Susan was that when she got into her roleplay as my Dolly, her body was mine to position and she didn’t drop her hands when I released them. I quickly pulled one of the long strips of silk hanging from the curtain rods close enough that she could grab it with both hands. I could have done anything at that moment and she would not let go of the safety line I’d given her. But to emphasize my ownership, I wrapped the drape around her wrists and passed it back between her hands. If she let go of the drape, it would fall away from her, but psychologically she was bound in place.

“I don’t know what the art supply company was thinking when they dressed you for shipment. They certainly weren’t concerned about modesty. I can see your little nipples right through this thin t-shirt. It’s almost as if they wanted them to be seen. And touched.” I drew little circles around her nipples with my fingers, listening to her moan.

I glanced at Annette, who approached me with a pair of scissors. She didn’t look threatening, though, so I must not have done anything wrong yet. She motioned me to grab the hem of Susan’s t-shirt and rip it open. As soon as I had a good grip, she snipped the hem. It was a good thing. That knit fabric doesn’t tear all that easily—especially through a doubled over hem. I ripped with all my strength and it tore all the way up to the neckband. I dropped the ends so they dangled on either side of Susan’s pert nipples. Susan was near hyperventilating with gasps and moans as I traced her areolae and nipples with my fingers again.

“What a good little Dolly,” I said. “That nasty fabric was in the way. Now I can see how amazingly lifelike she is. Even the points of her little nipples harden and stand out when I touch them. Look at the lovely little navel and taut belly. I wonder…” I brushed the side of her breast with my lips as I pressed my ear against her chest. “Mmm. Warm. But, of course, no heartbeat. I should have ordered the deluxe model.” Of course, the truth was that her heart was beating so hard it practically bounced my ear off her chest. I trailed little kisses down her torso to her navel. Susan was gasping with tiny climaxes nearly every time I touched her now. No matter where.

I moved behind her and passed a length of silk around her waist, looping it at the side so it hung like a skirt. A very short skirt.

“I wonder… No, of course the deluxe model would have been, but this basic model? Still… I wonder if she is anatomically correct.” I slipped my hands into the waistband of her shorts and pushed them down to cup her buttocks. Mmm. That part certainly feels anatomically correct. I took a deep breath and exhaled to slow myself down before I pushed the shorts over her hips and down her thighs. There was no underwear to drag along. I knelt and pulled them off, lifting her feet one at a time and stroking up the inside of her leg until I felt the heat of her pussy.

“Oh, they scented her!” I said, inhaling deeply. I leaned forward so she could feel my forehead and nose against her bottom. “She smells positively edible.” Before pressing my hand up into her pussy, I stepped back, still behind her. I pulled her back toward me by the waist while pressing her torso forward so she had to bend. This pulled her hands tighter over and slightly behind her head. Annette quickly stripped my t-shirt from me so that when I bent across Susan she could feel my skin against her ass. So could I. Damn! I spread her cheeks and blew gently between them. “There is a tiny little rosebud opening that flares when I touch it.” I pulled her ass against my face and the sensation of flesh touching her so intimately sent her into another series of fluttering climaxes.

I finally relented in my torture, frankly relieved as well. I reached between her legs all the way to her breasts, my arm grazing across the moistness of her swollen lips and my chest against her bare ass. Then I dragged my hand back toward her waist, into the wet folds of her sex, and around her clit. Susan cried out, letting her weight drag against the curtains.

I stood to find a very naked Annette next to me. The sound of my zipper being let down seemed loud in the tiny studio and Susan began to shake with anticipation. I stepped out of the trousers when they dropped to my ankles. Annette lay across my stool with her face near enough to plant little kisses on Susan’s butt. I stepped behind Annette to enter in a state of near-ecstasy. I pounded into her a few times, her face bumping into Susan with each stroke. We pulled back a bit and watched Susan’s ass and open sex directly in front of us. It only took a few strokes before I held myself deep in Annette and felt the release begin at the back of my balls.

Annette reached forward and thrust a finger into Susan’s sex. Susan’s screamed orgasm muted our own. We uncoupled and I stepped in front of Susan as Annette brought my sketchbook. And snapped a few very intimate photos of our Dolly.

“Now, my little Dolly, stay right in that position, sagging against your bindings with your ass in the air and the flower of your sex open for my use. Stay right there while I draw you.”

Annette got her first break early in the spring. Les placed one of her stories with a well-known genre magazine. I was horrified more by the tiny payment they made for the story than by the story itself. They paid her $25 for one-year exclusive rights. At the end of the year she could release it elsewhere. Les was already planning an anthology of Annette’s short stories, but wanted her to work on a full-length novel as soon as possible. ‘Book length’ was the requirement for her final project next year, but it was up to the writer as to what the book contained. Short stories, novels, movie scripts, volumes of poetry, essays, and other creative non-fiction, like memoirs, were all possibilities.

We all went out to celebrate the publication with dinner at an Italian chain we liked. ‘All of us’ now included the seven who routinely hung out at our little studio—Morgan, Annette, Kendra, Mavis, Susan, Les, and me. Morgan tapped on her glass for our attention.

“I don’t want to take anything away from the celebration of Annette’s success, but we’ve already spent more for dinner than her royalty check.” There was a lot of laughter. “Don’t worry, honey. There are going to be a lot more of them in the future. This was a real breakthrough. And thank you, Les, for getting our little agency established in the literary world as well as the art world.” We all applauded. “Les, Annette, and Susan are going to three different literary conferences in the Southwest this summer to make contacts and shop stories and poems. I wish we were all going.” That got a few questions about the nature of the conferences and why they were going. We also found that Susan was a finalist in one literary competition and Annette was a finalist in another. No one would find out the results until the conferences.

“I received another inquiry today regarding Art’s work,” Morgan continued.

“What?” That was news to me.

“The suite of paintings you did of Mavis,” Fay continued. I had a little twinge of anxiety. I’d actually considered just keeping that set for myself. Not everything had to be sold. And Mavis… She was kind of special. “I’ve sent photos out to several galleries and there has been some interest, but one wrote back today. It seems that a book publisher saw the images while touring the gallery. He has inquired about licensing limited reproduction rights.”

“You mean like making prints?” Kendra asked. Wow! That could be cool.

“No. He wants the right to use the images on book covers for a new series he’s publishing. It’s not a huge amount and we’d have to do the work of getting high-resolution scans of the artwork, but it would be pretty widely distributed and the copyright page would include the artist and contact information. His use would be restricted to book covers and promotional material. He would specifically be prohibited from selling reproductions of the artwork itself. We would retain the rights to that.”

“I could make the digital copies,” Mavis said. “The photography studio has the equipment set up for making art print masters. For art prints, we do film negatives for printing plates. I could do the digital masters at the same time. Then we’d have everything ready when Artie’s ready to create a limited edition.”

“We can make money from that?” I asked.

“$250 for each license,” Morgan smiled. That would mean um… $2,000 for the series. And I’d still have the original paintings and rights to make prints. I’d never sold anything for that much! My heart was beating in my chest so hard I thought I’d pass out. I jumped up from the table and ran to the restroom where I immediately threw up the dinner I’d just eaten.

I was a working artist.

Our sales were not the only cause for celebration. In mid-May, Morgan crossed the platform to receive her Bachelor of Business Administration diploma. She was officially a college grad and a working girl. The gallery she’d been employed with since her internship three years ago wanted her full time. She accepted the position with a few caveats that the gallery graciously agreed to. Everyone knew that her plan was to be a full-time agent. Eventually, the gallery would be a secondary project.

“I really enjoy meeting people in the gallery and talking about the art and artists,” she sighed as we cuddled in bed. Annette petted Morgan’s hair and placed little kisses along her neck. “Let’s face it, though. I make $7.50 an hour plus commissions. The whole gallery averages just half a dozen sales a week. If I’m lucky, I’ll make one of them. If I sell a $250 painting, the gallery makes 40-60%, depending on the contract with the artist. I managed to negotiate 50% for yours, Pen. So, let’s say the gallery makes $125. I get a 10% commission. Let’s see. $12.50 is half of what Annette earned from her first short story sale!”

“Mmm. Less the 2.50 Les earned from the commission on my story,” Annette laughed. “So, you didn’t do so badly.”

We all giggled together and had a few nips and strokes as we cuddled in bed. We were so profitable! But as long as we had each other, I didn’t care about money. I supposed I’d feel differently when our parents stopped supporting us. We’d really be starving artists.

“I think we should lock in our group,” Annette said. “Right now, we’re all showing that we can produce at some level. I mean, Les even got three of Susan’s poems published. The fact that they didn’t earn anything is beside the point. He’s really got a lot of drive on the literary end. It matches well with yours on the art end of things, Fay. We should figure out a way that we all support each other. Some kind of cooperative.”

“A quest,” I said. I’d thought about it before and agreed with Annette. I just had a different way of saying it. Words weren’t my specialty. “Pendragon, le Fay, and my Lady. Our quest for the Holy Grail.”

“Kendra, Susan, Mavis, and Les. Our Knights of the Round Table,” Morgan joined. “Why not?”

“We could call it The Grail Associates. Independent but intersupportive.”

“Is that a real word?”

“It says what I wanted it to,” Annette laughed.

Giggles, caresses, and kisses slowly evolved as my Lady and I showed our pride in Morgan’s college completion and our love for my gentle sister, our le Fay.

3 On Top of the World

Mavis was Kendra’s and my favorite model. And Morgan’s. It was the way her aura blossomed when she modeled. ‘Blossom’ was the term Morgan and Mom used to describe how a person’s aura sort of reached out toward things that excited it. Usually those things were other people, but not always. They found the blossom in people who looked at artwork, cars, food, and televisions, too. As far as anyone knew, it was the first time anyone in our family had taken the time to study the phenomenon of how the women see auras. Gramma even participated a little and said that back in the old days they were called aurists.

After two years of working with Mavis pretty regularly, I still jumped to attention whenever she walked through the room. She’d seen me, nude and pointing to the sky, when I posed for some photos for her. Couldn’t help it. I just had this visceral response to her. Working beside her gave me a hard-on. When she modeled nude, I was in physical pain from my erection. I painted my way through it. And even became… comfortable with it. Like with Kendra, Mavis and I learned to deal with the tight quarters we worked in, the occasional brushes against each other as we worked, and even a hug or little kiss when we saw each other.

Mavis wasn’t as refined a model as Kendra was in terms of being able to memorize and hold a pose, but she just exuded confidence and sexuality. Susan had the sexuality part, but unless she was blindfolded she didn’t have the confidence to let it loose. When she was being completely submissive, though, she certainly responded to me and to my posing her in a decidedly sexual way. Thinking about her scent aroused me. But Susan wasn’t one to casually touch or hug. If she was on, she was on. Otherwise she stayed huddled inside herself. I thought Zen had a lot to do with that.

Susan had backed off from posing again. Things were really difficult between her and Zen. Susan worked at Hallowed Grounds, but it barely met her meager expenses. She’d continued to live in the dormitories because they were covered under her scholarship and Zen had insisted that if she lived with her she had to share the much higher expenses of Zen’s duplex. The only way Susan could possibly do that was if she became a cam model and was as successful at it as Zen. Tensions were high between the two of them. Kendra and Les invited her to stay with them over the summer between our junior and senior years at no charge. She often shared meals with us at our house.

Mavis was different. We had established a routine of models dressing—or undressing—in the bathroom. Annette had put half a dozen different robes on a rack and you could tell what kind of mood a model was in by which robe she (or he) wore into the studio. We’d discuss the pose and when everyone was ready to go to work, the model would take off the robe and pose. I didn’t get aroused when a model posed. I just painted. With Mavis, though, as soon as she dropped the robe, I got hard. Even before she dropped it. I stayed that way throughout our session. It wasn’t possible that my lovers and Kendra wouldn’t notice my response. Morgan said Mavis responded the same way. She wasn’t sure if the response was to being nude or to being with us. Me. Our occasional posing sessions without chaperones told me Mavis responded to me.

I usually paid models $20 an hour for posing. It wasn’t much, but most of them did it to pick up an extra $50 or so on a weekend. They weren’t professionals. They were friends who posed for us. Among the seven of us, though, we simply posed for each other without charge. We’d all been subjects for Mavis’s portrait sessions. Annette and I had held a passionate kiss for an hour while Mavis took photos and Kendra molded clay according to the description of the aura Morgan described. I had no difficulty holding Annette in my arms while I kissed her for an hour. It was like nothing else existed. Kendra and Les even posed while Mavis moved around them taking dozens of photos and I got a couple good sketches.

Mavis had also done a series of Morgan, Annette, and me. One indoors and one outdoors. I had one of the prints framed and it now hung over our bed.

We’d been working for an hour one Saturday morning in late June when we had a three-hour session planned. Mavis lounged back on the daybed with folds of drapery barely concealing her pussy from the angle I was drawing. I focused more on Mavis than on the drapery when she posed, creating nearly photorealistic paintings of her. I often just laid in a rough sketch of how the drapes hung and spent the rest of the time capturing her beautiful body. She still kept her blonde hair short and a little curly, but we did several poses with wigs. They worked fine for me but Morgan complained that the wig dulled her aura.

I loved the reclining pose we’d chosen for this session. She had one leg over the edge of the daybed dangling almost to the floor while the other was drawn up to her knee. We’d asked her for a daydreaming expression as she looked off into space.

It did nothing to dull my sexual response. In fact, I sketched but I really wasn’t concentrating on it. I must have been daydreaming, too.

We took a break and I prepared a new sheet of Bristol for my next sketch.

“Pen?” Morgan called my attention. I wandered over where Kendra was working in the clay and trying to capture both what she saw physically and what Morgan described. I was still amazed at how quickly Kendra could sculpt in clay. Of course, she did a lot of refinement after the model left, but I could already see and recognize the shape. “We were wondering if you’d pose with Mavis,” Morgan said. “Pretty please?”

“N… Nak… Nude?” I asked. That was a disaster waiting to happen. One accidental touch of my cock and she’d be covered in semen.

“Not quite,” Kendra said. “We respect your condition, Arthur.” She actually reached over and squeezed my cock through my jeans. They both giggled. “The pose I have in mind would have most of your lower body concealed behind her. Just shirt off would be fine.”

“Need to… ask Mavis… too,” I stammered. My only hope was that Mavis would say no.

“Ask me what?” she said coming into the room.

“We’ve suggested that Arthur join you in the pose. Nothing lewd. He’d keep his pants on. This time,” Morgan said. “We’ve just seen this interaction between the two of you for over a year now. We’d like to see if Kendra can capture it.”

“Sure.” Damn! It was hard enough having Mavis’s naked body eight feet away from me. It was going to be ridiculous if I was close enough… Shit! Do they expect me to touch her?

“Can… I talk to you… Morgan?” I said.

“Sure. Let’s go in the other room.”

“Is this okay, Fay?” I asked when we were alone.

“Oh, honey! No one is pushing you to do anything with Mavis,” Fay said. “But you have a unique connection. Kendra and I want to find out if we can model it. We might find out that it isn’t really what it appears to be. Think of this the same way as it was with you and Kendra the first time she posed nude. We all knew you had a unique friendship, but that’s what it was—friendship. We aren’t asking you to make love with Mavis or to even touch her as intimately as you have Susan. We just want to capture what is in your eyes.”

“It worries me. I should talk to our Lady. She isn’t here.”

“She’s downstairs working with Les on her stories. There might even be a chance she’ll be able to publish that anthology this year. They’d be up here, but you know Mavis isn’t comfortable having another man in the room while she’s posing. That’s part of why we think we’ll see something cool with your auras,” Fay said. “Why don’t you run downstairs and take a minute to talk it over with our Lady. And Pen, I love you to the depth of my soul. I’m not worried and neither should you be.”

I talked to Annette and she told me the same thing.

“It’s even less than you did with Susan,” Annette said. “And a lot less than you and I did. We won’t be jealous and we won’t ever stop loving you.”

I guessed that was it. I went up to the bathroom and took off my shirt. Then I brushed my teeth. I didn’t know what kind of position they’d want us in, but I was sure she’d be close enough to smell my breath. I thought about just going out for a walk and letting them do whatever they wanted without me, but Morgan and Kendra really wanted to see what was in our auras.

I’d had this uncontrollable response to Mavis ever since I’d met her. The first time she posed for one of my nipple drawings, Morgan had talked about our connection. It scared me. And it made me hard as a rock at the same time. There was nothing for it but to go in and face her. I pulled on a robe, just like all models.

When I got into the studio, Kendra and Morgan were explaining what they wanted to Mavis, who was nodding. I joined and she playfully reached over and tugged at my robe. I got the general gist of the pose and walked around to the back of the daybed. I had to move it out away from the wall just a little so I could get there. I dropped my robe and Morgan got me in the position she wanted me. Then Mavis dropped her robe and my heart skipped a beat.

She got into a position similar to what she’d been in before. Kendra did a little artful draping and Mavis used the remote control for her camera to take a reference photo so I could do a sketch later. Mavis was right up tight against my leg and reached for my hand. It was awkward to hold hands in that position, so she pulled my hand down to her side, just below her left breast. Almost sort of touching it. Then she ran her hand up my arm to just above my elbow.

“That’s good,” Kendra said. “Arthur, you need to look at Mavis’s face.” My eyes had been darting all over, trying not to look at her beautiful breasts or the hairless slit that was almost right under my elbow. I felt her hand touch my face and turn me to face her. I got lost in those electric blue eyes. “Lean in just a little, Arthur.”

Mavis pulled her hand toward her and my face just followed it. I licked my lips. It would be so easy to just keep falling toward her and kiss her.

“That’s it! Perfect!” Morgan said. “Hold it right there.” The camera flashed again and I wondered who held the remote. Morgan began whispering to Kendra as Kendra worked her hands in the clay.

I wasn’t going anywhere. I was caught in her eyes. The gentle touch of her hand on my cheek, my hand on the smooth flesh of her side. I no longer cared to look at her breasts or pudenda. Her eyes told me everything I needed to know.

Have you ever looked into someone’s eyes? Kids used to have stare-downs in grade school. They’d see who had to blink first. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Mavis. I could see her pupils dilate as she looked at me and I fell into those limpid pools. I never wanted to look away. I wanted to hold her in this embrace. I felt more than saw Kendra approach me and move my left hand to Mavis’s right shoulder, then she was gone. It was posed, but I was embracing my naked lover, Mavis.

I looked into her eyes for over an hour and could tell she felt something, too. I couldn’t describe the emotions that washed over me. Words, dammit! This image was burned in my mind forever and I would paint it from memory. Her look was filled with… passion. Maybe even love. We made love with our eyes.

“I think we’ve got everything we can get for now,” Kendra said. “You two were awesome.”

I relaxed and started to pull away, but Mavis pulled me down until I was pressed against her. I could feel her breasts against my bare chest and smell the scent of her shampoo. I was getting a little dizzy.

“Thank you, Artie,” she whispered in my ear. “I loved being with you like this.” She kissed me on the cheek and pushed me away so she could roll off the bed and grab her robe. I just sat there watching her, gasping for air. I grabbed my robe and pulled it on. By the time I got around the daybed, she was in the bathroom dressing.

I wandered over to Kendra’s workspace and looked at the clay model.

“I don’t think I can do it with paint,” she said to Morgan. Annette walked over and kissed me. I hadn’t even seen her come into the room.

“But without the color, it’s just missing something.”

“I’ve got an idea for it,” Kendra said. “It’s not just the color. It’s the transparency. Your mom sees them like this. The aura is opaque to her. But you see details of their faces because the auras are transparent and a completely different shape than their features.” I hoped so. The clay figure Kendra had shaped only looked like two people in certain places.

“What can you do? We run into this problem every time. Even your instructors aren’t getting what you are trying to do,” Morgan said.

“Glass,” Kendra answered. “I’m going to cast the figures into bronze and use glass to form the aura around them. If I make tiny holes in the bronze casting to anchor the glass, I think it will work.” Mavis entered the room, fully dressed in her street clothes.

“Did we look like that?” she exclaimed. Then she caught herself. “I mean, I know you are trying to capture something unusual, but that doesn’t look like people. Sorry.”

“No. This piece is important, though,” Kendra said. “I need to do one of the two of you without trying to capture the auras and then overlay them. Can you both pose in the same place next weekend?” I looked at Mavis and she grinned at me.

“You mean I’d have to look into his dreamy eyes for another hour? Or two? Or three? I could force myself.” We all laughed. Sort of laughed. Mavis said goodbye and I went into the bedroom and collapsed.

Annette followed and stretched out to hold me.

“I’m so sorry, my Lady. I couldn’t help it.”

“Help what, love?”

“Getting turned on. I was so turned on the whole time I was with her that I imagined being in love with her. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“Mmm. Can I help you with that?” she asked. “I don’t mind taking advantage of an accidental erection.” She worked my belt loose and tugged at my jeans.

“How could you? Knowing what made me…?”

“I love you, Pen. Fay loves you. There are probably a dozen other women out there who love you, but we get to be with you,” Lady said. I relaxed enough that she could get my jeans past my butt and still-hard cock. “No matter what makes your cock hard, Fay and I have a place you can point it.”

“I love you so much, my Lady. How can I get turned on by someone else?”

“We live in a strange world, my love. It’s normal to us to have naked models holding poses for us to admire—for you to paint and Kendra to sculpt and Mavis to photograph. That’s not normal in the non-art world. In the art world, we are all magical beings and magic has its own set of rules. The world outside our enclave is mundane. Women get jealous when their men find other women attractive. They haven’t had the opportunity to know the magic.” Annette had rolled on top of me and slid her wet pussy down onto me. All thoughts of Mavis were washed out of my head instantly. This was my lover, my Lady. “Ah! Your magic wand is casting a spell over me. How can I be jealous of something that gives me so much pleasure?”

“They’re gone,” Fay said, coming into the room. “I love Kendra and Les, but I couldn’t wait to get up here with the two of you.” She tore off her clothes and crawled in next to us, kissing first Lady and then me. “Les kept wanting to talk, but Kendra was as turned on as I was and got him out the door as soon as she could. I think Les is about to be struck by lightning.”

We all giggled, thinking about Kendra’s lightning bolt tattoo pointing at her pussy. I didn’t think it would be the first time Les got struck. But with both my lovers in bed with me, I didn’t have the presence to think at all.

Whenever I was with either Lady or Fay, everything else was washed away. My fears, my panic, my darkness. Maybe we did live in a world of magic, but the real magic in that world was here, in this bed with me. I thrust up into Annette’s welcoming pussy. Morgan’s fingers caressed my balls. I erupted in sync with Annette.

Magic was all around us.

“Can we do it all nude with both of you today?” Kendra asked. The day bed had been pulled out into the center of the room so it was more easily accessed from all sides. “The way we did it last week was more like a relief. I’m going to try to make a model of your shape and position in all dimensions, but it won’t have all the details. I can’t work as fast in clay as Arthur can on paper.” I glanced over at her modeling station. The size of the clay boulder she had on the table was impressive. She’d been working on softening it for over an hour already. “I’m not trying to capture auras today. This is the physical model. You’ll probably get bored and we’ll take breaks whenever you need to. I’m guessing it will take six to eight hours to get what I want and I’ll be walking around a lot so I can see you from all sides. We’re not going to try to do it all in one day. But let’s try to get done by the end of Monday, okay?”

We’d already agreed to pose on Saturday and Sunday with the option that we’d all cut classes on Monday. I hadn’t considered being all nude with Mavis for eight hours, though. I needed to talk to her before we got started. I asked her to come into the hall for a private conversation.

“What is it, Artie?” she asked. She was the only one who ever called me that and it never occurred to me to ask her not to.

“Um… Are you okay with me being nude next to you?” I managed.

That was a preview of Strange Art 3: Art Critic. To read the rest purchase the book.

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