Becoming His Muse, Complete Set (40 page)

He looks around at the gallery, at my paintings covering two of the walls. “You, on the other hand, questioned their plans and made your own decisions. I’ve watched you do that these last few years.”

“You have?”

“Not all of us are as courageous as you are, at least not at first. Some of us need someone to show us the way. It’s not easy to stand up against the conventions we grew up with.”

“Some things are a lot harder,” I say, thinking of the hardships that Logan, and others like him, had to overcome.

“Maybe,” he says, thinking through a thought. “But pain can be a powerful motivator. Comfort, however, is not.”

The gallery is beginning to fill up with students, their families, and the faculty.

“It’s not like it would have been a painful set up, Warren. I don’t know… We might have…I think it could have been good.”

Honestly, it’s kind of weird, but I
can
picture a comfortable, happy life as Mrs Warren Simmonds.

He smiles. “Thanks for saying that.” He slides his arm over my shoulder and draws me into a half hug, but it doesn’t feel romantic, it feels friendly and brotherly. “But I think I know you pretty well, Ava. You’ve questioned convention when it comes to what you want to do with your life and I don’t doubt you’ll make unconventional choices when it comes to your love life, too.”

Oh, boy. If he only knew the half of it.

“I feel better now,” he says as we stand side by side staring at Jenny’s naked torso. “I needed to tell you all that so I could start to let it go.”

“What about Devina?”

“She’s smart to wait. She’s testing me. Waiting for me to grow up.”

I squeeze his hand. “Sounds to me like you’re pretty ‘growed’ up, Mr Simmonds.”

I lean into his shoulder, surprised to be feeling myself also letting go of this childhood notion of our little happily ever after.

“You’re a catch, Warren. I hope we’ll always be friends.”

“Right back at you, Ava.”

Dr. T is walking through the gallery handing out glasses of champagne to all of the exhibiting artists, all of whom seems a little nervous, except for Derrick and Casey, who’ve arrived wearing matching polka dotted jumpsuits and are quite possibly high.

When Dr. T comes by and passes a long stemmed glass to me, I introduce him to my friends and family. My mother seems quite smitten with him. I hear her giggle to Caroline, “But he’s so
young
.”

A few minutes later, Logan arrives with Ruby and a handful of other writing students who are good friends with some of the visual artists. I feel somewhat relieved that Sheriann isn’t with them. Ruby tells me she was in the midst of important research for her writing project.

Jonathan and Owen wander in soon after. Ruby approaches Jonathan and gives him a hug and a sweet smile. I am feeling hopeful that they will finally reconcile.

A little while later, Madeleine walks in with barely a limp in her stride. I see her give Dr. T a special glance. He excuses himself to go talk to her. I’m not completely certain, but I think he may have snuck a kiss on the cheek. Is it possible that he’s her secret
friend
?… I can’t help but smile at the possibility.

While standing with my mom, Warren, and Caroline, I sneak a few glances toward Logan. He catches one and offers me a half smile, nothing as risky as a long lingering look or full body appraisal. He is on his best behavior tonight. Ruby, however, seems hyped up and a little tipsy. She actually drags Logan over toward our small group. Oh no.

My heart is beating rapidly as she says, “Mrs. Nichols, I want you to meet someone.” I give Ruby a strained look. What does she think she’s doing?

She rebuffs my worried look with a flip of hair and a confident smile.

“Our department has had the privilege of hosting Logan O’Shane as our writer in residence this year. Thanks to him, I might just end up becoming the novelist I always threatened to be.”

My mother laughs. “You always were coming up with elaborate scenarios.” She holds out her hand to Logan as I hold my breath. “Mr. O’Shane. Always a pleasure to meet an accomplished artist.”

He takes her hand. “Then you must be proud to have one in the family.”

She glances at me and then back at him. “My father-in-law is anxiously awaiting your next novel. Perhaps we will have a chance at a signed first edition? He collects them. I believe his prized possession is a Truman Capote novel.”

Logan and I share another look. I can’t help smiling.

My mother introduces Caroline and Warren. Logan’s eyes narrowly appraise Warren. He’s about to say something, when Jonathan appears at Ruby’s elbow. “Mr. O’Shane. I noticed the bar is serving whiskey. Want one?”

Logan takes his gaze from Warren and turns to Jonathan. “I’d love one.”

I see Jonathan give Ruby a warning glance as he pulls Logan away. Ruby follows. I will have words with her later.

It’s hard to be in a crowded room with Logan and not talk to him, touch him, kiss him. I remind myself that we are in the final stretches of our secret. This show, exams, convocation, and then, finally, my life will truly be my own.

The gallery continues to fill up. Two of my paintings are getting special attention. Interestingly, they are the two I finished most recently. The one of Madeleine, wrapped in silk and looking both frail and frightened but at the same time strong and intensely present. It’s this captured paradox that seems to intrigue viewers. I included her crutches in the painting, but they lie unused and shadowy in the foreground. Her eyes are wide, clear, bright and piercing as she looks directly out from the canvas. The other painting is my smallest one, the one of Logan’s hands. I called it, “Hope”, and it seems as if his hand are reaching right out of the canvas, as if to draw you in, but his fingers are loose and his palms open and facing upwards, as if he’s waiting to receive something.

The judges are here as well. I notice them spending quite a bit of time circling around Ronnie’s sculptures. They also keep returning to those two particular paintings of mine. They will choose the winner of the Most Promising Artist Award tonight. They will do this as quietly as possible, attaching a gold seal to the artist’s biography page once they’ve made their decision, so the artists themselves keep checking out each other’s pages. I do my best to ignore this tense part of the evening, but soon I hear a squealing off in the corner. It’s Jenny. She comes running up to me.

“It’s you, Ava. It’s you!”

Ronnie is the first to come up to congratulate me. I’ve turned red with embarrassment, though I’m secretly excited, too. The money part of the award means I can take my first steps away from my family on more solid ground, and I’ll also feel more independent when it comes to sharing a life with Logan.

My mother gives me a hug and says, “Your father will be so proud, Honey. Well done.”

All the other artists are generous with their congratulations, but it really does feel rather awful, and I’m sure they’ll be whispering to each other about the judges’ decision, but there’s nothing I can do except move through the evening as humbly and graciously as I can.

Dr. T and Madeleine approach me together.

“Good job, Ava. It was a close call between you and Ronnie,” says Dr. T handing me another glass of champagne. I down it more quickly than is appropriate.

“Apparently, it was the depth and expertise of those two recent paintings that really tipped the cards in your favor,” says Madeleine.

“But your dedication to your craft reached new heights this year, Ava,” says Dr. T with a proud smile. “I’m not the least surprised that you made such an artistic leap by the end of this term.”

That reminds me of Lowell’s email to Logan about his ‘artistic leap’ with his writing. It seems we both helped each other reach new heights this year.

“So it’s obvious that Professor Hare was your model for that painting,” says Dr. T, pointing. “But whose hands are those in the other one?”

I share a brief look with Madeleine and say, “No one in particular.”

My two glasses of champagne have not just gone to my head, they’ve gone straight to my bladder. I duck out of the gallery through the side door that leads to the restrooms.

The hall is lit by fluorescent overhead lights humming and underscoring the echoing clack of my heels, which, thankfully, aren’t so high as to be tippy in my tipsy state.

After peeing, I washed my hands, fluff up my tangled hair, and wipe on a bit of lip gloss. As I step back into the hall, I’m surprised to see Logan leaning with one foot hitched against the wall. I glance up and down the narrow hall.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

He looks at me with those intense green eyes. I see desire and challenge in his smoldering look.

He reaches out and takes my hands, kisses my fingertips, and then places them against his zipper. I feel his rock hard bulge.

“Logan, we can’t.”

My protests are as weak as my knees. I can’t say no to him. I don’t
want
to say no. With him I always want to say yes, but the party, where my friends, family and faculty are gathered, is barely a stone’s throw away. And we are so close to the end of this ordeal. I feel dizzy by both the fear of getting caught alone with him and my desire to pull down his jeans and take him into my mouth.

He leads me farther down the hall, away from the party, pulling against my meek resistance.

“We really should go back to the party,” I say. “We said we wouldn’t take any more risks.”

Without responding he opens another door with his free hand and pushes me through into a clutter of maintenance paraphernalia.

“Logan, I don’t think —”

He lays a finger over my lips.

“Shhhh… No words.”

He kisses me and melts all my resistance, which is mere propriety anyway. His lips, his looks, his touch never fail to kindle my desire.

He undoes his buckle, his button, releases his erect cock into the stale yet sanitized air of the small cleaning closet. As I shift my weight to slip out of my heels, ready to drop to my knees and take him in my mouth, he places both hands on my hips, stilling me. He kneels down, brushing himself against the inside of my stocking calf, first the right side, then the left. He pushes up my skirt and buried his nose into the silky triangle of my thong, which is damp, and getting damper with each of his hot exhales.

He draws the tip of his nose across the nub of my clit. My breath catches and I let out a little moan.

His tongue curls around the silk seam of my panties and slides into me, widening and engorging with each lick and probe. There’s a metal shelf behind me; I spread my arms out against it for support. My knees, already weak, nearly buckle. My grip tightens on the sprocketed metal rim of the shelf as the rest of the room and its contents blur and dissolve into some other place.

As his tongue works his magic, he slides two fingers into me. I begin to grind rhythmically against his mouth. Then he leans back, cool air rushing in where his lips used to be and I moan again, this time in protest. His fingers continue thrusting and dancing in my grotto of soft wet warmth and I focus on this, syncing my rhythm with his movements, adding my own. His tongue roves along the crease at the top of my right thigh, which is bare above my thigh-high stockings.

His cock grazes my ankle. I feel his hand there, stroking, pushing his skin against my calf, sheathed in silk. As he rubs, the friction builds up a small pleasurable burn. His mouth moves to my other thigh, bypassing my clit, which aches with neglect. I try to rock forward to catch his lips but his fingers deep inside me pin me back. I’m tempted to let go of my grip on the shelf with one hand and force his head back to my center, where an orgasm perches deliciously on its edge ready to take me down, but he seems to have his own plans, though I feel, in only a few more seconds, I will explode. I gather up my overflowing arousal, feel it fill my belly and my heart as he chews and sucks my thigh. His cock rubs against my other leg now, his hand working steadily, rhythmically, sliding up and down his length.

He could come himself, with his own touch; we could both come ourselves. I could let go of the shelf and with one twirling swipe across my clit, take myself over that edge and melt onto the floor. A few more fast hand pulls and he’d puddle the floor. But the sweet elixir we were resisting, in the holding back for one another, this almost painful elongation of pleasure, the extension of hunger the moment before it’s satisfied – this time and place outside of everything – is such a gift to share.

Before I come, I want him in me. My pussy, my mouth, I don’t care. I wish he could be both places at once. Trying to picture that, I moan with the force of what’s building inside and it’s like a song to him, his mouth clamps on my clit for a split second and I emit a higher pitched sob of pleasure as he pulls his fingers from me and dips his tongue into the space they occupied, but it’s for the briefest moment and then he is away from me.

Spread there against the metal shelf, trembling, he grabs my hips and twists me around. Holding me steady, he turns my body away from him. My arms reach for the shelf for balance again, his knees wedge between mine from the inside, spreading my thighs wide.

His right hands reaches around across my vulva, his left tugs the string of my thong to the side and I feel the tip of his cock slide along the crack of my ass. With a sudden thrust he drives the full length of his cock into my wet opening. I gasp, moan, and arch my back before pushing back into him, the sensation of him sliding in and out, pushing deeper and then receding, then plunging hard again.

Two fingers of his fingers play with my clit as if he might be dabbling at piano keys, and then they begin to swirl. So tender compared to his hard driving thrusts. I reach down with one hand, wanting to feel everything – his fingers slipping over me, his cock sliding in and out -- but he catches my hand and forces it back onto position on the shelf and then he drills me harder. His fingers leave my clit briefly and dip down to feel the two of us intersecting, his long thick slippery cock penetrating my swollen folds. He’s taking what I wanted for myself. So I drive myself back into him. He likes this, even though he wants to be the one who moves us, and then I pull away, press my body flat up against the shelves so that the tip of him almost slips out. He grabs my hips, hold me to him, and then pushes into me harder and deeper and faster, so that I am banging against the shelf. His fingers flicker and press into my clit. He quickens his rhythm. His other hand holds the base of his shaft, though I can’t see this hand, I can feel his thumb press into my anus, and the pressure there as he impales me while his fingers ravage my clit drives me into a wild oblivion. Behind my closed eyes, nebulous colors spin and implode, my breath rasps, and I cry out in release. The metal shelf digs into my palms and all I feel is pleasure radiating from my pussy, spreading through the core of my being, and oozing from my pores. He thrusts deeply several more times, each one slower than the last as groans his own pleasure into my back, emptying the lust he’s been carrying into the hot wet center of me, adding his warmth, his liquid offering, and his sated desire.