Ali’s Art
by
JT Harding
Copyright JT Harding 2011–all rights reserved.
Reproduction or copying by any means is not allowed under copyright law
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to characters either living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
Cover art and interior drawings by J.D. Stroube
Also available from Smashwords by JT Harding
Georgia’s English Rose
June Bug
The Beach House
Summer Secrets (Cherri Red book 1)
Discover more about JT Harding and find out about work in progress by visiting:
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Hazel
Hazel Adams watched her son prepare his lunchbox while she sat picking at a bowl of cereal, wondering when the hell he’d ever gotten so big! Already six feet tall, over the last year Tom had bulked out from all the landscaping work.
Hazel lifted her cheek for a kiss as Tom finished up and prepared to leave.
“Have a good day, baby.”
“You too Mom.”
She stared into the empty space he left, the empty air of the kitchen, all too aware that soon he’d be gone for good and the house would be like this all the time. She sighed. At least she’d still have Sarah, and she loved her little girl to pieces, but a Mom and her son, there was always something extra special there.
She remembered the night he was conceived. Hell, how could she ever forget? She’d been seventeen and hot, always ready for sex, always ready to experiment, and when the band whose name she no longer remembered came to Denton she’d been there after the show. The lead guitarist had picked her. Maybe he wouldn’t have, but she’d dispensed with a bra under her thin t-shirt and her hot-pants left nothing to the imagination. It would have been a perfect night except three weeks afterward Hazel found herself late.
Tears, recriminations, her Dad threatening to throw her out and her Mom crying and saying “How could you, Hazel? How could you do this to us?”
To them! I’ll tell you how, she wanted to say, I lay on my back and opened my legs. And I fucking enjoyed it! As easy as that. Although as she recalled there’d been several other positions involved as well….
Hazel regretted nothing. How could she when the result was a son as perfect as Tom? He looked like his father, that long departed musician, sleepy, sexy eyes, dark brown hair grown too long, smooth chest that had broadened out lately so he looked less like the dissipated musician and more like a football player now. Hazel had never heard of the guitar player again. Obviously the band had never made it big, still touring bars and clubs, or taken the man’s dollar and working straight jobs now. She never considered trying to find him, why would she. He had been her one night of passion, one night of wonder, and the resulting child her perfect boy.
When Jack Adams met her at the bar she waitressed in he didn’t impress her much. She was still a good-time girl but without any of the good times, still a looker but Denton was a small town and everyone knew about Tom, three years old by then, Hazel still only twenty, and nobody wanted to take on that kind of baggage. Nobody except Jack Adams. Indifference on her part had turned to like then slowly like turned to love. He never set any bells ringing like that guitar player, but maybe Hazel didn’t need bells any more. She got them anyway. Wedding bells. Over the years she taught Jack the kind of things she liked in bed and Jack tried hard. Often it was enough.
Until a trucker got distracted trying to change a CD in his player, missed the red and ploughed straight over Jack’s Chevy as he drove home from a late shift.
It had been a tough four years since but Hazel believed she was slowly coming out the other side. Now Tom would be leaving soon. Not yet, not until next summer, but that was soon as far as she was concerned. She wanted him to follow his dreams, wanted him to be the best he could, but she was going to miss him, miss him more than she dared admit to herself.
Chapter one
As the greyhound bus dropped off the freeway and began to wind through the outskirts of New York I stared out the window at snow piled high alongside the road. The date was December 7, five months to the day after my eighteenth birthday. I was going for interview at NYU School of Art, relieved Alison would be there to meet me at the Port Authority bus station, her address written on a slip of paper in my jeans. Big cities were alien to me and I felt apprehensive. It was good to know Ali was letting me stay at her place, otherwise I’d be bunking down for two nights in some cheap hotel room. Left to me that would’ve been my destination.
A week before when I told Mom about the interview, she suggested I ring Ali and ask if she could put me up on her floor. I shrugged the suggestion off, mostly through embarrassment. Ali was two years older than me, and for a little over six years had lived in our house like my sister. How she ended up living with us is a tale both sad and strange.
Ali’s mother had been my Mom’s best friend since, well, forever. They’d gone to kindergarten together and been inseparable since. Inseparable until one nightmare day when I was seven and Ali nine when her Mom slipped on a patch of uncleared snow and cracked her head on the sidewalk. According to those with her she laughed, brushed herself down and carried on. Later that day she complained of a headache. An hour after her speech started slurring and she was rushed to the emergency room but too late. She died minutes before midnight.
Ali’s father was a high pressure salesman, his career beginning to take off when he found himself widowed and bringing up a seven year old daughter alone. What happened next was almost certainly against the law, but everyone seemed to think so long as no one knew, nobody need complain. Ali moved in with us and her Dad took the promotion offered in Chicago.
Our house was small, but there were three bedrooms, my parent’s big enough for a double bed and a dresser. My room and Ali’s held two singles and a small desk each. In the days, months and years that followed Ali and I did pretty much everything together, and most times when we were young I forgot she wasn’t my sister. We played and fought and cried together, like real siblings, and often we didn’t like each other very much even though we knew we loved each other.
Ali was twelve when her Dad married for the second time, to a woman barely in her twenties, and suddenly Ali wasn’t there anymore. I don’t know if it was her absence from our home, or coincidence, but the spring after she left Mom got pregnant and the following winter my sister Sarah was born.
After Ali went back to her Dad I didn’t know if I would ever see her again. My Mom had been friends with Ali’s Mom, not her Dad, but somehow things worked out and we still managed to see Ali once a year. During August our family would up sticks and move to Chicago. Ali’s Dad did well for himself and owned a large house on the shore of Lake Michigan. Set back from the main house was a small cottage they rented out. The first two weeks of August were always ours if we wanted. There was nothing to link our families together except for Ali, but I believe her father remembered how we’d made everything possible for him by taking Ali in, and I guess he was always trying to repay the debt. Mom always came with me, and usually Dad as well if he could manage the time off.
Each summer when we came to Chicago the same thing happened. I was always sure Ali would have forgotten all about me, or grown out of wanting to hang around with a kid, and I’d sit in the window seat of the small cottage living room staring up the path leading down from the main house. Mom and Dad tried to ignore me, and Sarah, at the start, was too small to care.
My heart always turned over when I saw Ali walking down the path. Each year she grew more beautiful, each year I arrived awkward and shy when we me up again, and each year we ended up in tears when we had to part.
During her teenage years she sent me love letters, although they weren’t for me; they were intended for other people. My job was to read and comment before dispatch. For a couple of years these silly letters arrived with a return envelope and I would scrawl my (sometimes sarcastic, particularly as I got older) comments and send them back. When Ali reached fifteen the letters stopped as suddenly as they’d started.
Two and a bit years ago she left her home in Chicago to study Art in New York, which is what I now wanted to do. Soon after she started in New York, eighteen months after my Dad died, letters began to arrive again, telling me about her work and the people she met. They were light chatty notes, probably nothing for Ali, but they had meant a lot to me.
Our summer trips to Chicago continued, but Ali was rarely there anymore. Only once, eighteen months before, had she come home, and then only for two days. We took up together the same as we always did, but it felt different. She’d moved away from home, had grown up, and I felt a barrier between us. I was still in high school, Ali in college, and a chasm had opened up between our experiences.
I guess that had been part of my reluctance to call her, but Mom picked up the phone and dialed Ali’s number, knowing if she left it up to me nothing would happen. She spoke with her for at least ten minutes, laughing and giving an occasional shocked gasp at what went on with a young girl in a big city, then she said, “Hang on, Alison, Tommy wants to ask you a favor,” and passed the phone to me.
“Hi Ali,” I said.
“Tom, it’s so good to hear your voice. It’s been too long!” My stomach gave a little flip at her voice, and the way she sounded genuinely pleased to hear from me.
“Yeah,” I said, then, “That’s kind of what I wanted to ask. I’m coming over next Friday for an interview at the U and I could do with somewhere to crash I don’t suppose I could use your floor could I if it’s okay of course or if it’s not convenient I can always find-”
“Tom that would be great!” she interrupted my solid flow of words. “I’d really love that. Art? Are you thinking of following in my footsteps then?”
“Well, I’m not as good as you, obviously, but it’s what I want to do.”
With the ice broken we chatted for a while longer and Ali promised to meet the bus and show me around town.
I put the phone down and Mom stared a question at me. Finally she said, “Well?”
I grinned. “She said she’d love to have me. She wants me to stay over the weekend. Would that be okay with you, Mom? I’ll ask Dag for Thursday afternoon and Friday off and come back Sunday.” I looked a question back at Mom. She seemed to be thinking about it, but I knew she’d say yes.
I hugged her tight. “Thanks Mom. I know it’s going to be hard on you if I go away, but I want this so much.”
She hugged me back and rested her head on my shoulder. “I know you do, Tommy. And we’ll cope. I managed before, when your father died, and I can manage this time. I don’t want you staying here for me. You need to follow your dreams.”
I gave her one more squeeze and then had to pull myself out of her arms. Mom always was a big hugger, and since she’d been on her own I think she’d gotten worse. She returned to the stove and continued making our evening meal. I sat at the kitchen table and read the paper Dag always passed on to me after he’d finished with it.
Our small house lay on the south side of Market Street, in the town of Denton, east of Baltimore. At least we owned it outright after Mom used the small insurance payment to close out the mortgage after Dad passed.
The insurance pay out was small, and the trucker who hit him had connections and in some way managed to get out of any blame for what happened. Mom used most of the money to secure our home then went straight back to work.
When I was close to finishing High school we sat down and discussed my future. I loved painting and drawing, and I wanted to follow my cousin Alison who had gone to the School of Art in New York and was now in her third year. We sat up late into the night, long after Sarah had been tucked up in bed, discussing whether I should, whether I could, go to College or not.
I recalled every moment of that night, lying on our small couch in the living room. Mom lay against me, resting between my legs, her head back on my chest. We’d sat like that for as long as I could remember. To begin with it had been me sitting between her legs and then, sometime over the last few years the roles reversed and she sat between mine. I felt mature, very much the man of the house, and closer to my Mom than I’d ever been before.
Despite a hunger to take my studies further, I didn’t want to leave Mom to cope on her own. For her part, Mom didn’t want to hold me back, and we talked it one way and another until finally she wore me down. The only compromise I won allowed me to put off College a year. I was pretty young when I graduated High school because my birthday falls at the start of August, and we both thought it would not put me at a disadvantage if I took a year out before going away. I’d been working weekends for a Landscaping firm owned by Dag Eglund, a good man Mom knew through her old part-time job in the office of a construction firm. He was always short of good workers and jumped at the chance when I asked if I could go full time for a year.
I’d applied to various colleges, but I really only wanted to attend New York, the same as Ali. I’d received an invitation to interview, hence the phone call and the arrangement to take the bus.
And now the moment had arrived, five minutes out from the bus station, butterflies flocking in my stomach. They were mostly about my interview in the morning, but also a bit about meeting Alison again. I always felt nervous meeting Ali, but that was because of the way I felt about her. She’d lived in our house for over five years, and I still felt as though she could be my sister, but the things I felt for her I could never feel for a sister. Those feelings kept getting in the way, making me awkward and clumsy. And now Ali’d be all grown up, almost twenty-two, and I still young and naive.
I’d had a crush on Ali since growing old enough to notice she was a girl, but thankfully she never seemed to realize. As she grew and developed I’d often find myself staring at her breasts, had to force myself to look away. She must have known, but never said a word or gave any indication of what was going on. As I matured I made a conscious effort to stop, but at the same time Ali bloomed into full womanhood, becoming even more beautiful and I had to look.
Ali was tall at five-nine, only a few inches shorter than me, she stood slim and long and lean. Those breasts though, they were what topped the package off. They weren’t big, but absolutely magnificent with (and I imagined a lot of this, I admit) a perfect shape. It had been tough, growing up not to stare.
Now we were about to meet again. Ali a grown woman, and I was supposed to be a young man. I’d try and behave around Ali in the way she expected.
The bus pulled in and I grabbed my old suitcase. It held a couple of changes of underwear and my suit, which Mom had insisted I wear to the interview. I followed the queue down the bus and stepped out into icy air and looked around.
“Tom!” I heard, and turned to see Ali waving at me. Her dark russet hair had grown since I’d last seen her and fell below her shoulders. She ran across and grabbed me in a big hug, pulled me tight and kissed my cheek. Wow, the breasts are still there, I thought as she pressed against me, obvious even through the thick coat she wore.
Ali put her hands on my shoulders and stepped back, looked at my face and then all the way down and back up. I wore my old leather jacket, blue jeans and sneakers.
“God Tom, when did you get to be such a hunk?”
I smiled and shrugged. “I’ll let you know if I ever do.”
Ali shook her head, “Oh no, definite hunk material. I’ll have to hide you away or everyone’s gonna want a piece of you.” She put her arm through mine and pulled me away from the bus. “Come on, let’s go, you must be wasted and frozen.”
Alison’s apartment lay at the top of a four story brownstone and by the time we reached her door I was breathless. Ali opened the door and ushered me in. “My palace,” she said with a sweep of her arm to show a small living room, sitting bang in the middle of it an enormous sofa taking up a ridiculous amount of floor space.
“Your bed for the night, I’m afraid,” Ali said.
“If I fall down the back you’ll never find me again.”
A small kitchen area was tucked into one corner with a large window looking over darkness dotted with scattered lights. Pushed back against the far wall of the main room a narrow desk held an old Apple computer, the kind with a built in monitor. In front of the desk stood a tripod with a state of the art digital SLR screwed to it. I kneeled to take a better look.
“Can I?” I asked.
“Sure,” Ali nodded. “You know about cameras?”
“I know a bit, yeah, and this one is gorgeous.” I unclipped the Nikon from the tripod and turned it on. A professional flash attached to the top whined as it charged, the head angled up to bounce light from the ceiling to avoid the harsh shadows often produced.
I turned and centered the image on Ali as she went to make coffee in the kitchen and the auto focus sharpened on her face. I turned the camera to vertical and zoomed so her head and shoulders filled the frame. “Take your picture, missy?”
Ali smiled and as she did I pressed the shutter.
She laughed. “I didn’t think you meant that!”
I looked at the image on the rear display. Not bad, I thought, for an unfamiliar camera. I switched it off.
“Really nice,” I said.
“One of the advantages of the course. I get to borrow stuff for as long as I need. It’s not really the same, but sometimes you can’t always sit for hours sketching. I take pictures and use them as templates.” Alison waved to the dark window with her hand. “The park’s out there. You’ll be able to see more in the morning. It’s the reason I picked this place. It’s tiny but the view’s awesome”
Opposite the kitchen area were two doors taking up half the wall. Alison nodded to the far one, “My bedroom,” she said, then the other, “Bathroom, shower but no bath, and don’t try to turn around with your arms out,” she laughed.
“It’s nice,” I said.
Ali laughed. “Yeah, right. But it’s cheap, and I don’t need to share.”
“Except with me.”
Ali hugged me and laughed, “You’re my favorite pretend brother, Tom. You don’t count. Oops, that didn’t come out right, did it?” She laughed again.
I dropped my small case next to the sofa and flopped down, kicked off my boots and put my legs out, wriggled until the ache in my back eased a little. Ali was right, I could stretch my full length along it easily. It must have been seven feet long, almost four deep, and was totally out of place in the small room.
Alison slapped my feet so she could sit and I pulled them back so she had a space at the far end.
“I thought you’d be tired tonight, so I’ll make us some food and you can get an early night. We want you rested and bright for your interview tomorrow. God, Tom, it would be so cool if you got in here. We could see each other all the time.”
“I like the college,” I said. “I looked at a few others, but this is my first choice. Has it been good for you, Al?”
“It’s been great. One of the best in the country, I think.”
“But you finish this year,” I said. “So we might not see each other anyway.”
“I’ve been asked to do post-grad, and been offered some part time teaching, so I’ll be staying around. You can’t avoid me that easily. I’ll be here to keep an eye on you, make sure you keep out of trouble.”
“Pity,” I said, and she slapped me on the leg and got up. “Is spaghetti okay?”
“I’m probably too shattered to know any difference,” I said. “But spaghetti’s fine.”
The spaghetti really was fine, but as I ate it began to wash over me how exhausted I was. I’d done nothing for several hours except sit on a bus but it felt like I hadn’t slept for a week. When the phone rang it startled me awake and I realized I’d stopped eating, but I couldn’t tell how long ago.
Ali got up and went across to the phone and trailed it back to the small kitchen table, nowhere in the small apartment too far for the cord to reach. I could hear only her side of the conversation.
“Mags, Hi… yeah, he’s here now…” Alison listened and then laughed. “Yeah, he is… No, not tonight, we’re catching up… Yeah, he’ll be here tomorrow… I don’t know if that’s a good idea, you know… no… maybe… okay, see you.”
Ali put the phone down on the table and picked up her fork, swirled spaghetti around it.
“Friend?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t need to put people off because I’m here, Ali,” I said.
“It’s not a problem,” she said. “Besides, I want to spend time with you. I haven’t seen you for ages!”
“I don’t want to get in the way.”
“You’re not.”
“Were you going out tonight, tomorrow?”
“Nothing planned, but Maggie asked. It’s okay though.”
“I’m tired tonight,” I said, “but I wouldn’t mind joining you tomorrow, if you don’t mind a country bumpkin tagging along.”
Ali laughed. “I’m not sure it would be quite your kind of place, Tom, but thanks for the offer.”
“Oh… okay.” I wondered if my joke had been taken too literally. Maybe Ali really did think I was a country bumpkin and didn’t want to be seen hanging out with me. Not cool. I didn’t pick that vibe up from her voice, but there was something in the background I wasn’t quite getting. I lifted my fork and started eating again.
A couple of minutes passed, then Ali sighed and reached across and put her hand on top of mine.
“I’ve upset you now, Tom. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that.”
“S’okay,” I said. “Fine.”
She took a deep breath and stared across at me. “It’s not fine, Tom. I really like you, and I don’t want you to think…” She hesitated, waiting a long moment. “You didn’t know I’m gay, did you?”
“Uhhm… no,” I said.
“I thought you might’ve guessed.”
I shook my head. “It’s okay, Ali, it’s fine.” But it wasn’t, not entirely. I’d had some stupid juvenile idea that we might get even closer than we had been, might get real close. Her confession put a stop to that idea in a hurry.
“And I’d love for you to come out with us tomorrow, but where we’re going, it might not be quite your kind of place. You are straight, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Tom, you’re blushing!” Ali grinned.
“Well… it’s just… we’ve never had this kind of conversation before, have we? It’s not what I’m used to.”
Ali reached across and gave my hand another squeeze. “I love you Tom, you know I do. Just not in that way. But if I do decide to turn bi you’ll be the first guy I call, okay?”
I couldn’t say anything, wondering if she’d been able to read my mind, and Ali burst out laughing, “If you get any redder, Tom, you’ll go into meltdown!”
Ali started clearing the dishes. “Come on, help me wash up and we’ll catch up on all the news.”
The moment broke, and after Ali washed and I dried we sat at opposite ends of the big sofa with our legs stretched out toward each other and kind of half tangled. It was the way we sat as kids when Ali was my big sister and we’d stretch out watching TV. It felt comfortable and comforting.
“Now,” Ali said, “I want to see the work you’ve brought for tomorrow.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Al. It’s not very good.”
“You have brought a portfolio though?”
“Of course.”
“Lemme see then, bro.”
I twisted around and found my battered suitcase, bent over the arm of the sofa and pulled out a small folder containing a sample of my work. I turned back and reluctantly handed it to Ali.
She untied the side and spread the pages open, cocked her head to one side and started to leaf through the sheets. She spent a while looking at each piece, stopping on some and taking longer before moving on. I sat without speaking, waiting.
Finally she closed the folder and tied it back up.
“Am I likely to be laughed off campus?” I asked.
Ali shook her head. “It’s good, Tom. Some of it’s naive, but that’s only your lack of experience. The talent is there and that’s what counts.”
“You really think so, Al?”
She nodded. “You’ll walk it.”
I smiled. “I hope so. I really want to come here now.”
Ali smiled back. “Me too, Tom.” Then she added, “You’ve done a lot of faces, the usual arms, feet, hands, but there’re no full figures in here. Don’t you ever do life drawing?”
“In Denton?” I laughed. “God no!”
“They’ll fix that when you come here,” Ali said. “Life drawing is my absolute favorite. I love drawing people.”
“As in naked people?”
“It is life drawing, Tom. So yeah, nekkid people.”
She got up and walked across to the kitchen and pulled something out of a drawer. When she turned back she had a small joint in her hand.
“You do smoke this stuff?” she asked.
“Uh, sure I have.”
“Wanna share one?”
I nodded. “If you promise not to tell Mom.”
Ali laughed. “Oh, I think your Mom might’ve tried this stuff too, back in the day.”
She sat on the sofa and lit up, pulling smoke deep into her lungs before passing the joint across. “You’re eighteen now, right? I’m sure it was your birthday last summer, yeah?” Ali spoke in a tight voice, trying to hold the smoke in her lungs.
I drew on the joint and inhaled deeply. I’d smoked a little weed when I was fifteen, a couple of times, then stopped, but I wasn’t going to tell Ali. I felt my lungs wanting to cough the smoke up but held it down hard.
I nodded. “August 7.” I let my breath go, took another pull before handing the joint back to Ali. My head was spinning and I could feel the effects spreading through my limbs.
Ali inhaled deeply. She held it down for half a minute, let the smoke drift out and said, “You can come out with us tomorrow if you want. We might as well start your education early.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Ali laughed, “Thank me tomorrow night, if you still feel like it,” she said, “after you’ve seen where we’re going.”
We finished the joint, my eyelids staring to droop. Ali watched me and patted my leg. “I’ll let you get your head down, Tom, you look exhausted.”
I nodded. “I’m bushed.”
“Use the bathroom first,” she said. “I’ll get ready for bed and go in after you.”
I dragged my heavy limbs up and went through with my wash bag, brushed my teeth and washed my face. Ali was still in her bedroom, but had laid a pillow and quilt on the sofa so I pulled off my shirt and jeans and snuggled under in my shorts. I’d just covered up when Ali came through to use the bathroom. She was dressed for bed as well, which consisted of a small white vest and blue panties, a six inch strip of bare flesh between where one stopped and the other started. Ali caught me staring and I glanced away.
She laughed. “It’s okay Tom, you can look if you want. I don’t mind.” Then she added, “I never have, you know.”
I knew I was blushing again.
Ali went into the bathroom and I heard running water, the toilet flush. She came back and turned off the main lamp, light still falling through from her bedroom. She padded across to the couch and knelt beside me, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek then rested her forehead against mine. I could smell the soap on her face and the shampoo in her hair.
“Sleep well, Tom. Good luck for the morning.”
I was awake before seven and tried to get up quietly, crept into the bathroom and showered. When I came out I put on fresh underwear and pulled on my suit trousers and the blue cotton shirt Mom had so carefully packed. I was standing in the bathroom knotting my tie in front of the mirror when Ali came through pulling her robe closed.
“Morning Tom. Could you give me a minute while I pee?”
“Oh, sure,” I said, darting out through the door.
When Ali returned she blinked at me. “God Tom, you can’t wear that!”
I looked down. “Mom made me bring it specially.”
“This is an Art college, Tom. Art with a capital A. You’ll be interviewed by one of the tutors, and they all dress like old hippies. Art College is not like other places, the casual look is part of the lifestyle. Put your jeans back on. The shirt’s okay, but lose the tie.”
“Mom’ll kill me,” I said. “She wants me to look smart.”
“Smart won’t work. And if she ever asks I’ll tell her you wore the suit. But I want you to get through this interview, Tom. Jeans, no tie, that leather jacket is great. You’ll fit right in.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I know this place, Tom.”
“Okay.” I grabbed my jeans and went back into the bathroom to change.
I came out and started to pull my sneakers back on.
“What else have you got?” Ali asked.
“Shoes. Black.”
“Lemme see.”
I tugged the black leather boots out of my suitcase. They were the only black shoes I owned, and were what I wore when I went to rock concerts. High Chelsea boots with zipped sides and pointed toes.
Ali grinned. “Perfect. Wear those. It’ll add that little touch of class. Trust me.”
“I do,” I nodded.
Ali rode the subway with me into campus and instead of leaving me to find the interview room on my own insisted on coming with me. When we arrived outside tutor room 307 she grinned and said, “You’ve got Dave Hunter.”
“Is that good?”
“He was my tutor in second year. Come on, I’ll take you in.”
“Are you sure? Is that okay?”
“Dave’s one of the good guys.”
After introducing me, telling Professor Hunter I was a good friend of hers, and in response to his question if I was as good as her replied, “No, not yet Dave, but he will be,” Ali left with a promise to meet me at two o’clock outside the main entrance.
She was waiting when I came out into the cold air, jumping up and down, looking as excited as she used to get when she was eleven. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“How did it go? Are you in?”
“I think it went okay,” I said. “They’ll let me know in a couple of weeks.”
“They always say that. But what do you think?”
“I liked him. I liked the place. I liked the work everyone was doing.”
“How long were you there?” she asked.
“Until now,” I said. “We finished up about ten minutes ago.”
Ali jumped up and down again and grabbed me in a tight hug. “God, Tom, that’s brilliant! No one ever gets asked to stay that long unless they’re getting an offer. Come on, tonight we celebrate.”
“Hang on,” I said. “I think I’d better wait till they confirm.”
“Duh,” Ali said. “Of course they will.”
We took the subway back to Bowling Green and walked the rest of the way to her apartment where Ali made a sandwich because I’d missed lunch. She made me relate every moment of the morning, which took almost as long as the real thing. By the time I was finished and she’d asked a bunch of questions and I’d answered them to her satisfaction, she looked at the clock and said, “Wow, is that the time? Tom, I need to shower before we go out. Are you okay?”
“I showered when I got up.”
Ali leaned toward me and sniffed, wrinkled her nose. “Nervous sweat, man. You might want to shower again after I’m done.”
I lifted my arm and sniffed. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
“Oh, men are so gross!” Ali grimaced. She bounced into her bedroom and a couple of minutes later came out in her robe. She closed the bathroom door and I heard the shower start up. I lay back on the sofa and put my feet up, then remembered and unzipped my boots and tugged them off before putting my legs back. It had been a good day so far.
Ali seemed to take forever in the bathroom, but when she came out she was stunning. Her hair shone like burnished copper and her skin glowed as if someone had lit a fire inside.
“All yours,” she said. If only she hadn’t meant the shower.
I stepped into a bathroom filled with fragrant steam. I’d been in the shower five minutes when I heard the door open.
“’Scuse me!” Ali shouted. “Promise not to look, I forgot my lipstick. Oh my God! Sorry, Tom–I looked.”
I stood rigid in the shower, face to the wall.
Then Ali said, “You have a fabulous body, Tom.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said to the tiles.
“No, I mean it! You’re gorgeous. You almost make me wish I liked men.”
“Only almost?” I joked.
She laughed. “Yeah, only almost…” I heard the door close.
I relaxed and breathed out, started to rinse myself down and heard the door open again.
“Tom, I want to ask you a big favor tomorrow. A really big favor.”
“Sure, whatever you want,” I turned away to hide my front.
“I want to draw you,” Ali said.
“Sure.”
The door closed again. Once more I let my breath out just as the door opened for a third time.
“Nekkid, of course,” Ali said, giggling, and the door shut and didn’t open again.
I turned off the shower and stepped out, toweled dry. I looked down at the obvious sign of my arousal. My God, I thought, Ali might not be turned on by men, but that didn’t stop this man getting turned on by her. What the hell was I going to do? I dressed, shaved and went back out.
Ali was sitting on the sofa. She’d put on a long, dark blue dress with small white patterning. The dress buttoned down the front, cut low to show her cleavage before falling half way between knee and ankle. She had her hair up so it exposed her long neck. Her lips were pale mauve, and she’d applied eyeliner.
“Wow, Al, you look absolutely gorgeous,” I said.
“Thank you sir. Shall we go?”
“Uh, yeah, okay.” I pulled my boots on and zipped them. Ali put her arm through mine and led me out into the night, both of us spoiling the effect somewhat by having to pull on big winter coats.
We walked three blocks south then turned down steps to a door in a basement. Ali pushed it open and went through into perfumed warmth. She greeted the girl behind the coat counter and asked, “Can I sign a friend in?”
“If you want. He knows what this place is, don’t he?”
“Sure,” Ali said nonchalantly, signing a book before leading me through to a large room, darkly lit with a small stage at one end, set up with a drum kit and guitars on stands, but no musicians.
“Is this where you hang out?” I asked.
“Usually,” Ali said. “You’re going to be okay with all this, Tom?”
“It’s a gay club, right?” I asked.
Ali nodded.
“Guys as well?”
She smiled. “A few, but you’ll be safe enough. It’s mostly girls and the guys are all cool. I’ll let everyone know you don’t go that way.”
“Good,” I said, and realized I sounded uptight. “Thanks,” I added.
“Ali!” A young woman squealed and came across, grabbed Ali around the shoulders and reached up to kiss her full on the mouth. The kiss went on for longer than was comfortable for me and I looked away.
“Is this him?” the woman asked.
Ali nodded. “Yes. Tom, meet Maggie. Maggie, meet Tom.”
I held out my hand, but Maggie slid inside and reached up to kiss me too. She stood about five-four and couldn’t lift herself to my face. Instead she grabbed me around the back of the neck and pulled me down to kiss me full on the mouth. She tasted of cherry lipstick and I admit I enjoyed the experience. I guess she was the first lesbian I’d ever kissed, if I didn’t count Ali. And Ali’d never kissed me in quite the same way as Maggie just had.
“Tom–I’ve been dying to meet you since Ali told me you were coming. Let’s get some drinks.”
“Uhm. They might not serve me.”
“They will here,” Maggie said.
I looked at Ali and she shrugged and grinned. Maggie took both our hands and pulled us across to a small bar. A man stood behind it, bleached blond hair and a tight black tank top.
Maggie ordered cocktails for her and Ali and beer for me. I stood looking over the room, trying not to notice the bartender who was looking at me in turn. The room was ninety percent female, for which I was deeply grateful. I’d no problem with anyone’s sexual orientation, but I would have been apprehensive in a club full of gay men. I was a typical heterosexual teenager. The idea of two women making love to each other was hot. The same image, but with two men, acted like a cold shower. To me, anyway. But I was going to try and act in a way that wouldn’t embarrass Ali. This was her town, her place, I’d try to fit in as much as I could.
When we returned to our table Maggie said, “Ali, you told me he was good looking, but wow!”
I felt myself blushing. Had Ali really said I was good looking?
“And so sweet!” Maggie squealed at my embarrassment. “God, couldn’t you hug him tight and eat him up?” They both laughed.
Maggie pumped me for information about my home town, my schooling, what I wanted in life, and I found myself liking her. She was bubbly and silly, but something genuine shone through, and I felt she actually cared about my answers, about me.
Where Ali was tall and slim, Maggie was small and maybe ten pounds overweight. She had short, curly blonde hair and a great pair of breasts pushed into a too small blouse which showed a lot of cleavage and the top of a red brassiere. I was surprised that she was Ali’s girlfriend.
I started to relax, finished my beer and felt confident enough to fetch another round from the bar, even chatting to the bar-man without growing too paranoid. When I returned I started asking Maggie questions, and caught Ali smiling at me across the table, apparently pleased with how I was performing. Before I could find out too much from Maggie the band walked on stage and started playing loud bar rock. At some time near midnight we poured out of the club and walked back to Ali’s place, the three of us arm in arm with me in the middle.
The sofa was big enough for all of us. Plenty big enough, as Ali and Maggie curled up at the far end from me with their arms around each other. Ali produced another joint and it hit me hard on top of the beer. I laid my head back on the cushions and watched the two women through lidded eyes. Their arms circled each other’s shoulders and their eyes saw only the other. As Ali stubbed the joint out and leaned back Maggie placed her hand on her cheek and pulled Ali’s lips down to hers. I watched their kiss turn into something steamy. I knew I ought to look away, but in my stoned state I was too fascinated. Their mouths opened and I caught the movement of tongues flickering slowly between full lips.
Suddenly Ali sat up, aware they had company. She looked flustered, as though she’d completely forgotten my presence. Maggie reached across to her face again but Ali held the hand away.
“We shouldn’t tease poor Tom,” she said. “His hormones are probably going into overdrive as it is.”
Maggie turned to look at me. I noticed that a button had popped loose on her blouse and as she turned the material stretched to expose a curve of red bra,. her nipples clearly visible through the thin material.
“We could put a show on for him,” Maggie said.
“I don’t think so.” Ali glanced at me, shrugging. “I’m sorry about my girlfriend, Tom, she’s way too horny for her own good.”
“Can’t be no such thing,” Maggie said. “Take me to bed then, Al.”
Ali looked at me again and I nodded. “That’s fine, Al. I’ll bunk down here. I told you I didn’t want to get in the way.”
If she’d been stone cold sober I think Ali would have persuaded Maggie to leave, but she wasn’t, and I guess she was horny too, so she nodded back and led Maggie by the hand through to the bedroom.
I waited a moment then got up to empty my bladder, turned off the lights, undressed and lay on the sofa, pulling the quilt up over me. I reached down and put my hand on my cock through my shorts. It had filled and grown heavy, not quite fully erect but it was on the way there. I considered making myself come, dismissed the idea, not wanting to explain any stains on the bedclothes.
I turned on my side, closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I almost thought I was succeeding until I heard a cry come through the bedroom door.
“Oh God yes, do that, do that again!”
Then a loud, “Shhh!”
There was a murmur, more silence for five minutes. Gradually small sounds began to creep out again. A creak of bedsprings. The sound mouths make when they are kissing hard. A louder groan. I rolled over to the other side and pulled the pillow up over my ears.
Eventually things went quiet. I started to doze again until light hit my eyes as the bedroom door opened. I peeked across as Maggie stepped naked through the door, for a moment completely visible to me.
Her breasts were enormous in the shaded light, deep and curved but with hardly any sag, her hips wide and her pubic area completely shaved. She tiptoed to the bathroom and went inside. I heard her pee and then flush. She tiptoed back and I saw her round ass cheeks in the light as she went back, and heard her call out “G’night Tom,” and then giggle.
I finally dropped off to sleep sometime after two, slept until nine Saturday morning when Maggie woke me as she crept past on her way out. The clouds had cleared and sunlight glowed against the curtains. I got up, pulled on my jeans and padded around the tiny living room, looking at the books on Art and drawing piled on all the surfaces. Ali made a noise in her bedroom and then came out pulling her robe tight.
“Morning bub,” she said. “’Scuse me but I gotta pee real bad.” She trotted into the bathroom and closed the door.
I continued to browse and found a stack of art pads. I decided to start from the bottom, assuming that was the oldest, hoping to see Ali’s development. Even the first sketch was way better than anything I’d ever done, and I wondered if I was really good enough to follow her. I finished skimming the last book, saw another tucked back beneath a pile of papers.
“No!” Ali said from behind me, then more softly, “That one’s kind of private.”
I stopped with my hand on the book. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, “it’s just that one’s a bit different to the others.”
I was intrigued now, and before she could reach across flipped it open.
“Oh,” I said.
“I told you not to!”
I was looking at a drawing of a young woman, naked apart from a pair of white stockings, lying on her back on a couch. Her hand was cupped over her raised mound and a finger was pushed inside her pussy. The couch was the one in this room.
“Um, sorry, Al,” I said, closing the book. “I didn’t realize…”
“Oh, what the hell!” she said. “That’s how I work my way through college, Tom.”
“What, by posing for-” I was shocked.
“No, you dick! By drawing them. I can make $10 for a sketch like that, more for some. I sold one for $50 once.”
“Wow. So how many have you done?” My shock was merging into interest now.
“Hundreds,” she said. “I cut the pages out and mount them in a frame and sell them over the internet.”
“And there’s a market for these?”
“I think there are a lot of people who find drawings more erotic than photographs. Certainly more erotic than porn,” Ali said.
“But I mean, this is kind of porn, isn’t it?”
“Not really. Or at least, I don’t think of it that way. Drawings, even explicit ones, are more subtle. They leave more to the imagination.”
She took the drawing pad from me and closed it. “If you’re good I might let you see some more. But I need to think about it, okay?”
“Okay,” I nodded.
“Come on,” she said. “I’m going to buy you breakfast and then we’re going for a walk through the snow.”
As we walked out onto the street something occurred to me and I said, “Al–why do you need money for college? Your Dad’s loaded, isn’t he?”
Her mouth formed a thin line and she said, “I don’t want anything from him!”
“Al?” I knew she didn’t get on with her Dad, but her outburst surprised me.
Ali shook her head and forced a smile. “Forget it, Tom. I get by on my own just fine. I don’t need anything from him.”
We returned to the apartment mid-afternoon, faces bright from the cold, and Ali turned up the heating and made coffee.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I’m fine. Coffee smells good though.”
After the ritual of grinding beans and percolating Ali sat back in the corner of the sofa and sipped from her mug, looking at me. We’d taken our coats off but I was starting to sweat even in my t-shirt from the sudden warmth in the small room.
I remained fascinated by her erotic drawings and asked if she had many more.
She nodded, “Yeah, a few.”
“All women?” I asked.
“Draw what you know, I guess,” she laughed. “I don’t really get to meet many men, as you can imagine.”
“But you could, like, make something up?”
“I draw from life. I have drawn male nudes, we do them all the time in class, but if they get so much as a tiny boner they’re sacked. So it’s women only. Though I know there’s a bigger market for male drawings.”
“There is?”
“Oh yeah, the gay and straight female market is huge. I could charge more too. But I’m happy with what I’ve got. Unless…” she stopped and looked away.
I drank my coffee for a while, finally said, “Last night you said you wanted to draw me. Is that what you meant? Like that?”
“I think I was a bit over-excited, you being here and everything. And of course, when I saw your butt…” She rolled her eyes.
“So you didn’t mean it,” I said.
“Well… if you’d let me, I’d love to. But would you feel comfortable? You know, taking everything off and posing for me?”
I shrugged, “I don’t know… but I’ll try if you want.”
“You sure?” She looked at me over the top of her mug.
“How would we…?” I spread my arms.
“You can undress in the bathroom and then come out here. Wear a towel if you want. I’ll tell you where I want you to go. But Tom, only if you’re really sure about this. I don’t want to pressure you.”
I shrugged again, “Let’s say it’s rent for my stay here, okay?”
I got up and went through to the bathroom before I could change my mind. I pulled my t-shirt off, peeled down my jeans and then after a brief hesitation removed my shorts. I looked down, thankful I wasn’t too aroused. I’d been worried I might embarrass myself, but though I wasn’t completely flaccid I thought I could get away with being more or less normal. I hoped. It wasn’t as if Ali was an expert on male equipment.
I wrapped one of the big white towels around my waist and went out. Ali’d moved the tripod and camera close to the sofa, piled all the loose cushions at one end.
She looked at me and smiled. “I only got a glimpse yesterday, but I wasn’t wrong. You’re seriously hunky, Tom, d’you know that? I don’t ever remember you having muscles before.”
“I guess it’s all the landscaping work,” I said. “I used to be pretty skinny, but I’ve bulked up this last half year.”
“You sure have,” Ali said, “and it’s good bulk. You see guys with pumped muscles and they look terrible. You’ve got muscle, but just the right amount, and you’re lean. And you have fantastic legs–that’s unusual in a man.”
I shrugged, embarrassed at the compliments. “What shall I do?” I asked.
“Okay,” Ali spoke in a matter of fact tone, and I wondered if she was trying to make this seem normal for me. “Take off the towel and sit against the cushions.”
I tugged at the towel and let it drop, noticed Ali’s eyes dropped too, coming back up quickly. I sat on the sofa and wriggled back, “Like this?”
“Lower, Tom. I want one leg stretched out in front of you… yeah, like that. Now the other one along the sofa so your legs are apart… a bit more, yeah, like that.” She studied me, her eyes cooler now, scanning from my face down to my feet and back up.
“Put your right arm along the back of the sofa… yeah, great… And the other arm… put that down along your thigh… no, palm flat, over a bit… a bit more… good.”
She stood for a moment studying me, then knelt and adjusted the camera. When she stood again she had a remote in her hand and clicked off two shots.
“Just in case I mess anything up, I always take a record. We can get the pose back again too if you need a break at any time.”
“How long will this take?” I asked.
“About an hour. I’ll improve things after, but the first sitting won’t be too long. Try and relax.”
I tried to do as she said, but couldn’t help wondering what she meant by the first sitting.
Ali took her sketch pad and folded down onto the floor, pulling her legs into a perfect lotus. She looked up, drew a faint line, looked up again. For ten minutes she became more and more immersed in her drawing, her eyes constantly darting up to me and then back down.
About fifteen minutes in I felt disaster begin to materialize.
I’d been drifting, thinking about how good it would be to come to college and see more of Ali. Then I thought about really seeing more of Ali, and stopped looking at the wall and looked at her instead. She was completely unaware of my gaze, sitting with her legs crossed, long slim thighs wide encased in blue jeans. She wore a denim shirt with pop studs instead of buttons. The top four were open and I had a view of her cleavage and a narrow white bra strap where the neckline pulled aside.
I became aware of a fullness in my cock, the sensation as it lengthened along my thigh. Ali continued drawing for a while, but when next she looked up I saw her pencil stop and she stared at my cock as it extended along my thigh. My uncircumcised glans was starting to slowly emerge as the foreskin drew back. I watched Ali watching me, still not drawing, then I glanced down to see my cock twitch. Involuntarily I moved slightly and it slid along my thigh, rising up so that it stood away from my leg.
“Sorry,” I said.
Ali glanced up at me, and her color was high. “No, it’s okay.”
“You’ll have to can me,” I said and gave an embarrassed laugh. “You said that’s what happens if the model gets excited.”
She laughed gently, then said “Tom, can I draw you like that?” And then, “Does it get any bigger?”
I looked down. “Oh yeah, it gets bigger.”
“Wow,” she said. “I’ve never seen a hard one before. It’s…” she gazed, searching for words. “It’s beautiful.”
I was aware I was becoming extremely erect, and my cock swung up and raised itself to lie flat along my stomach, the mushroom head extending above my navel. I was almost fully hard now, and the atmosphere in the room was suddenly different.
“I’d better get dressed,” I said, and I started to sit up.
“No!” Ali held her hand up. “Don’t you dare. I want to draw you, just like that.” She looked up at my face. “Is that alright Tom? Can I draw you like this?”
“I don’t know, Al, it feels a bit… weird, you know?”
“Tom, there is nothing wrong or weird about arousal. Nothing at all.”
“But like this? In front of you?”
“I don’t mind, Tom, I really don’t. Not if you’re okay with it.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t completely alright with displaying myself in this state, but it was incredibly arousing to be this hard in front of Ali, the girl I’d fantasized about so often. She looked down at me again, tore off the drawing she had been working on and began to sketch rapidly.
“How long will it stay hard, Tom?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Might be a couple of minutes, might be an hour. Depends.”
“Depends?” she said.
“Yeah… on how excited I am.”
“And are you excited?” she said, still drawing.
“Yeah, I guess I am. Sorry Ali, but it still feels wrong to be as hard as this in front of you…”
“It’s my fault,” Ali said. “I shouldn’t have allowed Maggie to kiss me like that in front of you last night. I knew it might make you feel this way, but I kind of wanted to anyway. It’s me needs to apologize.”
“Perhaps that was it,” I said, hoping she’d believe me and not think it was her presence.
Ali laughed as she continued to draw. “I hear it’s supposed to be one of the archetypal male fantasies, watching two girls fucking?”
I nodded. “I’ve heard that too,” I said, then, “Al, when did you first know you were a lesbian?” I was a question I’d wanted to ask since she told me she was, but there’d never been an opportunity before.
She looked up at me, looked down at my cock. “When did you first know you were straight?”
“That’s not the same, is it?”
“Of course it is. Maybe a better question would be: When did you first know you liked girls? I think it’s pretty obvious you do like girls, yeah?” She smiled and nodded at my erection.
“When I was… about twelve, I guess. When they stopped being annoying, when I started looking at them as something else…”
Ali nodded, still sketching, working fast. “Same for me too. Except in my case it wasn’t boys but other girls.”
“Isn’t that tough?” I asked. “I mean, you share showers, you spend more time around them, wasn’t that hard?”