by Hazel Keys
“But you’re now raising it as a philosophical question, instead of a moral one,” I told him.
“Am I?” he replied. “I didn’t suggest it was any type of question at all. If you answered it as a moral question, then that was your choice.”
“Okay, then!” I smiled wider, and he smiled with me. I had the feeling he knew what I was about to say and was relieved we’d finally got there. “It isn’t art because I say so. I don’t see it as art…”
“… so, therefore, it isn’t. Excellent, Miss Patterson. It’s all about interpretation, people!” he spoke to the whole room again. “You all accepted the first nude as art because I told you it was.And decided the second was not art because society tells you it’s not. Believe me, there have been plenty of people that told me that Angelina Jolie naked isn’t art. Blind people, I assume.
A louder, much more easy swirl of laughter swept around the room. I sat back, pleased with myself for arguing with him and coming, eventually to the right conclusion. Caleb carried on speaking on the importance of defining art for one’s self for a few more minutes, while Julie jabbed me in the ribs and offered me a sly smile.
“Now,” our professor continued, “I’m going to insist you take my word for it this time, but this is definitely art.”
I was checking my cell phone as he spoke, thinking about messaging Adam on my first success of the semester when Julie banged me in the ribs again.Then she did it once more, hard enough for me to yell and ask her what she was doing. She didn’t say anything. Her eyes remained transfixed by the screen and she simply pointed discretely upward.
“What?” I hissed as my eyes followed her gaze. Another picture was on display. It was another sexy girl in revealing clothing. No surprise there. But, as I began to take it in, the pose, the look, the hair, the naughty nurse’s outfit, it all looked familiar. “That’s m-!” mewas what I almost shouted out. I just managed to cover my own mouth before I finished the word.
I looked closer still. It was at the Wrecker’s Ball, that much was obvious. I was idly twisting the ends of my hair – which looked amazing, by the way; long, thick, and curly – between my fingers. I had an odd look in my eyes, something between mild disbelief and intense curiosity. It was strange. It was as though I was looking at someone else completely and, with that look on her face and that smoky makeup, this girl’s eyes just smoldered. Plus, her tongue protruded ever so slightly from her full, dark red lips, giving the most sensual pout and, as I looked further down, I saw the top of the nurse’s uniform was spread wide enough to show off an impressive cleavage and plunged so deeply there was even a hint of areola on show.
It felt like no one else had recognized me, or heard my little squeak of an outburst, apart from Julie. I kept my eyes forward so the other students wouldn’t make the connection. How did he get that picture? When was it even taken? I shouted inside my head.
However, as I finally looked back to Caleb. I realized there was one other person in the room who knew who the subject of that photo was. It was the man that took it, as he was screwing that stunning redheaded up against the wall of the club. The man that I’d been secretly wishing I’d let fuck me in that unisex bathroom.
And he was looking right at me, smiling.
Chapter 6:Caleb
I wasn’t trying to embarrass her. I was kinda under the impression that the types of girls that you find in sexy nurse costumes at fetish parties are a little beyond embarrassment, anyway. But I wasn’t trying to shame her, far from it.
I only meant to share the picture with this new class because I wanted to find out if they saw what I saw, the sheer X-factor of the image. But when I spotted her in the front row of the class, I knew I shouldn’t. I knew it wouldn’t lead to any disciplinary action; neither of us wasabout to talk about the club night to the authorities. It just didn’t feel right I had no wish to make her uncomfortable.
But when she was the only one to speak up, to get on board with the point I was trying to make at the beginning of the lecture, I recognized something. It was the point when I realized she was the girl in the photo, because she looked different enough here in class to fool nearly everyone, but I also saw something else in her. I recognized someone I could connect with.
I’d just been going by what the picture showed me and what I remembered of our brief conversation that night when, I’ll admit, I may have come off a little intimidating. Then, to hear her real voice properly, to see the fire inside her when she made her arguments, she didn’t disappoint. She had a passion bubbling inside her, whether she knew it or not. I had to put the picture up if only to show her how amazing she looked, what a piece of artwork she had helped to create.
“Looking at this image,” I said to the class, “what comes to mind about the subject?”
“She’s hot!” came a guy’s voice from up near the back, followed by a ripple of chuckling.
“Okay. That’s subjective, and colloquially catachrestical, but I’ll give you it,” I told him.“What else, though. Look deeper. Tell me why this is the most arresting, most captivating, most provocative picture I’ve taken in over a decade.”
“Because she’s not trying,” I looked back down to see her answering. Quieter this time, but Miss Patterson, the sexy nurse, the reluctant deviant, was making a point again.
“Clarify what you mean, please,” I asked her. She was having trouble meeting my eyes. I tried to keep a friendly smile on my face for her, but it looked like I’d definitely made the class awkward for her. I hadn’t meant to, but there was little I could do now except try and help her accept that she was beautiful.
“She’s dressed,” I saw her swallow, “like a whore. But she’s not a whore. She’s out of place, like she’s never put herself out there like that before. The subject is alluring, but she’s not trying to be sexual in that moment. She’s innocent, she’s not even in her own mind in the picture.”
“But you think she’s beautiful, don’t you?” I said softly, looking right at her, bending down to be level with her, gazing deep into those big blue eyes, trying to connect with the attractive woman inside her.
“Yes,” she finally replied, meeting my eyes. “Yes, I believe she is beautiful.”
*****
I moved the class on. I wasn’t intending to go into any great detail about ISOs, apertures, or any of that technical stuff that they must have learned about in their last three years of class. In truth, I never found much use for it anyway. If a picture was under or over exposed, too grainy, or whatever, most of the time it just added to the character. Justin, my young TA, could handle that aspect. It felt like he knew more about it that I did, anyway.
In truth, I wasn’t sure what I could teach them. By its very definition, art cannot be learned in my opinion. Teaching kids that ‘this is good and that is not’ just hinders creativity. What I could show them was every facet of photographic art; that there can be as much beauty in the decomposing body of a cockroach as there is in the nude form of a woman, as long as you’re open to seeing it.
We spent the next forty minutes looking at other slides I’d prepared, showing of some of my own work as well as that of my contemporaries. Even now, a lot of the art world still looked down on photographers, which is why we all acted like rebellious assholes, I believed.
Miss Patterson didn’t say much for the rest of the lecture. In fact, she kept her head down, her expression looking like it alternated between discomfort and fury. I was counting down until the end of class so she’d come and talk to me and, as anticipated, she stood as everyone else filed out, kissed her attractive, studious-looking friend goodbye, then stalked over to me with thunder in those wide, pretty eyes. I remained seated at the small desk to the side of the lectern and waited for her to unload on me.
Her voice started off softly, which was a pleasant surprise. “I understand you call yourself an artist, Professor O’Connor, and it seems you have the reputation to back that up.”
“Caleb, please,” I smiled,
then I finally remembered to check down my student list. “My I call you Paige?”
“No!” she snapped, her voice still low. “After the way you just violated my privacy today, you don’t get to be informal with me.” I could see her clenching and unclenching her fists. “I realize that we bumped into each other in a very weird and sexually provocative setting, but that doesn’t give you the right to betray the implied trust of us being there together. You mortified me, Professor O’Connor.”
I felt for her. In this moment, she was outraged and rightly so. However, I needed her to move past it. The more I looked at her, the more silent passion she directed at me, the more I knew she was the muse I’d been looking for. She had such a fire in her glorious eyes, and her beautiful face was wild and unmasked. The fact that she probably wore a similar expression as she writhed in orgasm, grinding helplessly on her lover’s cock sent a desperate throb down to my own loins. I could feel the heat and blood rushing to my dick.
“I appreciate what you’re saying, Paige, and I suspect that, somewhere in there,you know that it was not my intent to embarrass you,” I told her.
“Then, for fuck’s sake, ‘Caleb’,” she raised her voice then and her eyes grew even wilder, “tell me, what was your fucking intention?”
“I had no idea who you were,” I admitted. “I saw you at that club, I took your picture. When we spoke later, I was going to fuck but you seemed to have issues to deal with at the time. When I took your picture, though, you were free, you were yourself, you looked like you’d just had your eyes opened to a world you never knew existed, and here,” I brought the picture back up onto the screen, “you were on the very edge, about to dive right in. Tell me I’m wrong.”
She glanced back up to the picture and a look of distaste crossed her face. “Oh, my God, you are so wrong,” she almost whispered.
I stood up quickly and stepped in front of her, very close to her. “You’re lying,” I whispered back. “I saw that picture the next day and, I swear to you, I’ve never seen anything so amazing to look at in my life.”
“What does it matter?” she breathed, looking back up at my eyes. Standing this close, she was half a head shorter than me, even more beautiful, and she smelled of sweetness mixed with sunshine.
“It matters to me because someone close to you is ruining your life,” I told her softly. “Someone you care about is making you feel less about yourself, making you doubt yourself, but in that instant,” I pointed back at the screen without looking at it, “you forgot all that. Your naturally effortless sensuality and sexuality returned, and that’s how you need to feel all the time. That’s how I want to make you feel. All the time.”
She kept her face turned toward me, her soft lips parted slightly. I could have kissed her, I knew she wanted it and I could almost taste her. However, I felt somehow that if I did, she’d respond but, by the time she got back to her dorm, she’d realize it was a mistake and that would be the last I saw of her.
Her cell phone rang to destroy the moment, and I smiled to myself as she fumbled in her bag to answer it. “Adam! Hi!” she spluttered, turning away from me. I tuned out because it’s never polite to listen to someone else’s phone calls. But, as I watched her walk away from me, she turned back to glance at me one more time, and I thought I saw the barest smile curling around her lips.
Chapter 7:Paige
I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what I was feeling. What began as a mere temptation, most likely borne on the wings of sexual frustration, was suddenly causing me sleepless nights.
Caleb O’Connor, my new photographic arts professor. An aging hellion and punk rock artist, still beloved by many thanks to his wild child reputation. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. During the day, he’d occupy my head with his hushed words about my beauty, my sensuality, his piercing, evocative gray-blue eyes, looking deep into mine from that handsome face with its firm jawline and full lips. I knew I recognized him from when I met him and he wore his black devil mask.
At night, it was that devil mask again that I saw. As I lay awake, next to a sleeping Adam, in my mind it would be held so close to my face that I could smell the leather. I could almost feel the cool hide against my forehead, the sweat from his hot skin behind it, as he pressed our heads together, our ragged, open-mouthed breathing coming out in unison as he drove his thick shaft into my willing pussy.
I’d given up trying to get any action from Adam, counting the minutes each evening until he fell asleep and I could return to that night, to that encounter, where the masked demon stopped fucking that other girl and strode, still rock hard, right toward me.
In my head, though, he says nothing. He simply picks me up and sits me on the counter. With everyone watching, without even kissing me, he parts my legs, lifting one almost painfully high so that the joint of my knee rests on his broad shoulder. Still staring into my eyes, he yanks aside my tiny underwear, baring my wet hole spread so wide for him, and slides in deep.Deep enough to bring a harsh gasp from me and a warm sigh from our audience. Our foreheads pressed together, our faces so close, I feel every inch of him sliding relentlessly in and out of me, filling me completely, making me cry out from the agonizing ecstasy of it but keep urging him on, as my climax speeds toward me with every thrust.
Then it’s over. If I’m asleep, that’s where I always wake up, my mouth dry and my pussy soaking wet. If it’s a waking dream as I lay in bed, I have to end the fantasy, no matter how close I am to sweat release, as I know I’m going to buck, yell, and cry out as I explode over my own fingers, which would surely wake Adam, humiliating me. Almost in tears from the frustration, I pray silently for him to wake up and satisfy me, but he just slumbers on.
On top of this nightly torture, I have the three times weekly ritual of attending Caleb’s class. I haven’t had the courage to stop and speak with him again after the lecture. It’s weird, but I feel like he can see right through me, right into my imagination, and will know exactly the sordid things we’ve been getting up to in my head. Thankfully, he hasn’t called me back to stay behind, either.
Everything I’d ever been taught, every female-centric primetime drama or book I’d read told me that this was the very definition of a fucked-up obsession. A part of me was sure that if I approached him, if I offered myself to him, he’d have accepted. Then we’d have a fucked-up relationship, but at least I wouldn’t be sexually frustrated anymore.
The rest of me wasn’t so sure, though. An afternoon’s almost stalker-like Googling had filled in the blanks about his famous past that had gone over my head. I learned about his wild affairs and reputation for alcoholic, drug, and sexual excess. Name almost any woman famous for being beautiful around the beginning of the new millennium and he’s said to have fucked her. But I also learned about his beautiful wife. Did she, plus the threat of dismissal from his new and prestigious post mean that all my school girl fantasies were just what they seemed to be?
Yet he’d told me. He’d whispered to me how he wanted to make me feel beautiful, sexual, and sensual all the time. There wasn’t a lot of ambiguity in that statement but I was beginning to believe I’d imagined the whole encounter. In class, we’d lock eyes occasionally, and I thought I could see a small smile on his lips and an inviting look in his eyes, but I couldn’t trust myself after a number of dreams and imaginary trysts I’d had with him. A couple of weeks passed by and I was starting to believe I might need professional help.
*****
To add to my problems, my laptop died. Luckily, since a similar issue led to me nearly losing all of my first semester and a half’s work, I always backed up everything on a separate hard drive these days. When I took it to the repair guys, they pronounced it DOA, so I bought another off Amazon.
Waiting for it to arrive, I commandeered Adam’s computer to try and make a start on my first paper one afternoon when I was in the apartment by myself. When I’d finished, I saved the work and cursed to myself as I’d meant to put it straight on my hard
drive so I wouldn’t have to bug him when I needed it.
I plugged my drive into his laptop and made a poor joke to myself about this being the most intimate contact we’d had in months, and it was my drive in his slot. I’d been distracted of late but we really did need to talk. I knew there was no way we could continue like this, no way we could get married. I just couldn’t understand why he didn’t see the problems we were having.
Of course, I couldn’t remember where the work had saved to, so I had to go hunting through his files to track it down. And that was when I spotted a folder that spooked me. I couldn’t explain why, I just had a bad feeling about it. Something was telling me I needed to open it, so I did.
Of course, it was porn. That didn’t surprise me in the least. I’d never had a problem with Adam watching porn, but that was when we still had an active sex life. Part of me was getting angry as I’d found this, and another part was reliving that insecure feeling. He can’t fuck me but he can jerk off to porn all day? I nearly said aloud.
There was video after video saved in the folder, all types of women and girls. Why did he get turned on by them but not me, except when I had on a slutty nurse costume? I felt my heart drop into my stomach. Was he really was just bored of me?
I don’t know what it was but something caught my attention in the fifth video down. Something in the little thumbnail image looked familiar and I felt my hand move on its own as it guided the pointer over, and clicked it.
A sexy pair of young, firm breasts were being displayed for the camera, right up close. “Mm-mm, you like this? You like these?” she quizzed me, suggestively. The camera work was very shaky and amateur, but it pulled back to reveal a flat, tanned stomach then a soft, shaved mound. We panned down a little further and she opened her legs to spread her pussy. Girls weren’t my thing, but I had to admit this one was hot. Plus, there was something familiar in the way she moved, and her voice.