Becoming His Muse, Part Two (12 page)

“Thanks for your encouragement,” I say to them both, dying to escape this awkward moment and disappear into the auditorium.

Stealing the words from my mouth, Dean Ascott says, “I should be going. Keep up the good work, Ava. And keep in mind, the prize money doesn’t have strings attached either. It can pay for whatever your next step is in life.” I try to hide a frown. He knows my father doesn’t want me to pursue art after graduation. “Good day, Professor Hare.” He nods to me and then walks off toward his office in the faculty building.

“You still haven’t stopped by for that chat,” says Madeleine once he’s moved off but before I can get away. “You can come by my apartment if you like. I have a feeling you know where that is?” She gives me a strange look, as if she’s hinting at something more. It makes me think she does know it was me last night. My uncontrollable blush doesn’t help my case.

“I will. Soon.”

I duck into the auditorium and slump into a chair beside Ronnie, who’s already looking like he’s dozing off.

My mind’s buzzing. I whisper to Ronnie, “Are DnC here?”

“Haven’t seen them in weeks,” he mutters.

Dr. T dims the lights and starts discussing the first slide.

I’m having a hard time focusing on the lecture but I force myself to take notes. I keep thinking of Madeleine’s look. Does she know? If she does, is she going to report us? If I just lay low, will she forget all about it? Should I tell Logan? Or am I worrying too much? One thing I know for sure is that I can’t visit Logan’s apartment anymore. I text him during class. He writes back saying it’s been a long time since he’s had reason to pout. A minute later another text comes through.

I’ll try to think of something.

I hope he does, because unless DnC call me back, I’m all out of options.

When the lights come up, I prod Ronnie awake.

“I can copy your notes again, right?” he says, yawning.

“Sure. But seriously, what’s with all the napping? Dr. T’s worried about your progress on your project.”

“I’ve been up late working, if you must know.”

“On your sculpture project for your show?”

He frowns. “I wish. I’ve had to take another job to make ends meet.”

“Doing what? Where?”

“Dishwashing at a pub.” He makes an ‘ew, gross’ face. “Thought I was done with that kind of work back in high school.”

“I told you before I could lend you some cash if you need it.”

He shakes his head. “Too proud to beg, Babe.”

“It’s not begging, Ronnie. It would be a gift.”

“Your notes are enough of a gift.”

“I wish you’d let me help you.”

“You know what would help? Buying me a beer at Mick’s.”

He slides his arm through mine and we head across campus.

Later that night, on my way home from Mick’s, I get this text from Logan:

Meet me across from the Steady Drip next Sunday.

Sunday finds me standing under a shadowy awning waiting patiently, obediently, for Logan. I had to break my tennis date with Ruby, but she has a good idea what I’m up to, and we agreed to keep up the pretence of playing tennis Sunday afternoons.

“It works for me, too,” she said, winking. “I’ll be able to visit Dale and Jonathan won’t have to get his knickers in a twist. But you be careful, Ava,” she cautioned. “You don’t want this whole thing to blow up in your face.”

I’m going over all the ways that could happen as a light rain begins to fall. Then a small white sports car pulls up to the curb. Logan is behind the wheel.

My mouth gapes. He motions for me to jump in. I hurry to do so before anyone sees us.

“Dr. T let you borrow his precious Aston? Why?”

“Ostensibly to drive out to the country to gather sources of inspiration for my writing. In this case, I’m gathering up my source of inspiration
and then
heading out to the country.”

It feels strange to be in Dr. T’s car, his pride and joy. I also feel a little guilty.

“He must really trust you,” I say, running my hands along the stitched leather seat.

“Sure. Why wouldn’t he?”

“Maybe because you lied to him.”

“Is an omission of the whole truth the same as a lie?”

“In most cases.”

“But not this one.” Logan reaches over and squeezes my knee. His touch obliterates all my worries about getting caught. Now all I care about is him touching the rest of my body.

“Where are we going?” I say.

“Wherever the road takes us.” He smiles as he switches into the left lane and slides into fourth gear. I smile, too, as we speed up.

We roar off to the next town where no one will recognize us. It’s such a relief to get off campus. Away from there, we can forget we’re student and professor. We are outside the boundaries of broken rules.

I wonder if Logan’s going to take me to a motel, an afternoon check-in would be the quintessential symbol of an illicit affair. But he drives us out to the country past farm fields and forests.

We park at the edge of a field and make out like high schoolers until the windows steam into an opaque shield that removes us from the everyday world.

Between kisses and gropes, he says, “This has always been a fantasy of mine.”

I murmur, “What exactly?”

“Making out with a coed in a car at the edge of a field. I never got to do these things growing up. I never even graduated.”

I’m surprised. “From high school?”

“I was in a gang. I was rough. No time for school. I made it up later.” He kisses my neck and slides his hand up my skirt. “I missed sweet moments like this. And there weren’t any fields in the city. Just abandoned lots fringed with chain link fences.”

“What kind of gang?”

“Not drugs. It’s where I learned how to fight. So I could stand up to my father. Stop him from beating me up.”

My heart aches to think of Logan being in pain, having to fight when he wanted to be left alone. “Your mom, what did she do?”

“She couldn’t fight.

“Is she…?”

“Still alive? Yes. She’s in a home in Florida.”

“And your father?”

His jaw clenches. “Gone.”

I can tell by his tone he doesn’t want to talk anymore. I kiss him tenderly, and then more passionately. Stroking the growing bulge in his pants, I undo his top button.

“I think this might be part of the fantasy?”

I withdraw his erect cock and curl over the stick shift to take him in my mouth. Leaning back and closing his eyes, he moans with pleasure. A few minutes later he says, “Let’s switch seats.”

He slides into the passenger seat and then pulls me on top of him. He draws up my skirt. It’s very cramped, and awkward, but also kind of a fun challenge.

We move against each other with small, gentle pulses. Chest to chest, we stare into each other’s eyes.

“My sweet innocent Ava,” he whispers.

I don’t feel innocent. Not at all. But I like that he calls me ‘his’.

After, we find a café where we can sit across from each other and drink coffee with steamed milk and talk about art and life and death how we can’t wait to be naked again.

***

The next Sunday we find a country inn. Waiting a week has built up our sexual tension and our hunger for one another is more explosive and desperate. As soon as we’re through the door to our upstairs room, Logan shuts it and pushes me against it.

“A week is too long,” he says, roughly stripping me of my clothes. He takes me standing up against the wall, his own clothes still on, only his pants unzipped to his thighs, so that his cock is free to drive into me with relentless desire. I am drunk on his desire for me. My legs wrap around tightly around his waist. He groans with his fast building release and then curses into my neck.

“It’s okay,” I say, feeling utterly aroused but not quite at the brink of orgasm.

“I couldn’t wait,” he says by way of apology. “You’re too delicious. But that’s only the beginning.”

We run a bath in the claw foot tub. We climb in together and he washes my back. With slippery, soapy hands he massages my breasts. I feel his erection growing again. We dry off and move to the bed, where he lays me down and trails kisses from my collarbone to my pubic bone.

“You first this time,” he says, licking the soft crease at the top of my thigh, and then his tongue is at my center and I’m lost in a blissful tide of undulating waves of sensation.

After I come in his mouth, he mounts me, missionary-style, and looks deep into my eyes as he thrusts with an even rhythm.

“You’re beautiful,” he says. “My beautiful muse.”

His green eyes shine with something I haven’t see before. A softness, a happiness. I feel beautiful reflected in his eyes. I feel whole. And I feel myself falling more deeply for this complicated, wounded, and talented man.

During the week, Logan texts me sexy lines from erotic literary classics by writers like Colette, Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, and the Marquis de Sade. I respond by finding images of erotic nudes and use those as replies. But not as frequently, since, as everyone knows, a picture is worth a thousand words, which is something I like to remind him of often when we banter about the differences and similarities between writing and painting.

“It all comes from the same source, of course,” he says as we zoom along narrow rural routes one Sunday afternoon in Dr. T’s little Aston Martin. “The limitless creative fount bubbles up and needs to be channeled. I channel with words, you do it with images.”

“Could we switch then? I start writing, you start painting?”

“In theory, yes. But then we encounter the elements of craft. It takes a long time to master a form, thousands of hours, years, a lifetime. Most of us only have one, or perhaps two forms that we can devote that much time and attention to. We only have one life after all.”

“And in the end, we die,” I say, sadly, remembering our conversation on the balcony, and the mind-altering kiss that followed it.

“To know that death is inevitable is both a burden and a precious gift. To begin to understand death is to begin to know how to live.”

“It’s still sad to me.”

“That sadness of the heart is paired with the mystery of that truth in the mind. There’s nothing we can do in the face of the facts of living and dying. Except make art perhaps.” He takes his eyes from the road, arching an eyebrow as he looks over at me. “And love.”

My heart skips irregularly for a beat. He’s speaking of love? Real love? Not just sex, infatuation, lust?

He turns back to the road and finishes by saying, “I can’t think of a better way to get through life than making art and making love.”

He’s really just speaking of sex then. My heart sinks a little. But he’s right, too. It’s a good way to live. I’m living it right now and I’ve never been happier. Though sometimes I catch myself wondering about the depths of real love. True love. But I don’t think Logan wonders in the same way.

We pull up to the lot behind the Newshire Cobblestone Inn and Pub and Logan turns the Aston engine off.

“Doesn’t Dr. T wonder why you want to borrow his car so often?” I ask.

Logan frowns. “The first couple of times I said it was to get my mind off…stuff. To hit the back roads for inspiration. I finally had to admit I was seeing someone. He suspected anyway, but I assured him it wasn’t a student.”

“So you lied?”

“It seemed a better alternative than the truth. Plus I promised you I’d never tell him.”

“So who did you say it was?” I feel a serpent of envy uncoiling in my gut just imagining him with someone else.

“I told him it was a waitress here.”

“At
this
pub?”

He shrugs. “Why not?”

I laugh. “If I remember correctly, one waitress is a butch lesbian and the other one is a grandmother.”

Logan laughs with me. “That will keep him guessing then, won’t it?”

Before taking a room, we eat lunch. We’re more relaxed together when we’re away from campus. We laugh more. Talk more openly, and Logan doesn’t resort to his ‘act’ quite as often. His writing is going well, as is my painting. We have both been very productive between Sundays.

At the end of the meal, Logan reaches into his pocket. “I’m going to step out for a puff.”

I make a pouty face. “When are you going to quit that awful habit?”

“I’m trying. I’ve cut down to half of my usual. Give me time.” He winks and slips out the front door. I pick at the remaining chips on his plate until the white-haired grandmotherly waitress comes over to clear the table. A moment later, I hear a loud shattering crash as the tray she’s carrying fall to the floor. There’s a curse or two and a kerfuffle as helpers emerge from the kitchen.

I’m chewing on an ice cube when I hear, “Ava? What are you doing here?”

I turn and see Ronnie wearing an apron and holding a broom.

“Ronnie? You work
here
?”

I glance furtively toward the door.

“Who are you here with?” Ronnie says, eyeing the two empty beer glasses on the table.

“No one,” I say a little too quickly. The door opens and Logan returns. He heads to the front to settle the bill, but Ronnie sees him.

“That’s one of the college profs isn’t it? You’re not…? Ava, are you here with
him
?”

“Ronnie, just go. I’ll explain later.” He looks from me to Logan and I doubt he’ll need more explanations. He goes back to sweeping up the mess as Logan walks over and takes my hand.

“Shall we move upstairs?” he says with a devilish grin.

“Just give me a minute. I want to go to the restroom.”

“We have a private bath in our room.” He arches an eyebrow suggestively.

“It’s the beer, I can’t hold it. I’ll meet you there.”

Logan kisses me and leaves again. I look toward the kitchen. Ronnie saw all that. That hall to restroom passes the kitchen. Ronnie pops out as I walk by.

“You won’t say anything, will you?” I whisper to him.

“Of course not. Do what you want. But I should warn you that Dean Ascott comes here all the time. He has a reservation tonight.” Ronnie looks at his watch. “In an hour.”

A ripple of panic courses through me. “Thanks for letting me know.” I squeeze Ronnie’s arm. “I’ll see you in class Monday.”