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“Fuck it, fine. Four nights. Can’t argue with your negotiation tactics, even if they technically count as cheating.”
“A hand job is hardly cheating.” I slid down the bed. “Now, a blow job? That would be cheating.”
I kissed the head of his cock, then glided my tongue from base to tip. The salt of my father’s cum mixed with my own tang had my pussy aching to be filled again. His fingers curled in my messy hair. I sucked his cock for a while and then crawled up his body to straddle his hips. Instead of grinding against him, I angled his shaft toward my opening and then sank down.
My father grasped my sides, his nails like blunt teeth biting into my flesh.
“Jesus,” he said. “What kind of trouble have I gotten myself into?”
I nibbled his earlobe and whispered, “Me.”
Epilogue
Three months later...
“This is bullshit!”
My painting teacher, Professor Jimenez, traced a circle over her temple. “Please calm yourself, Stefan, or I’m going to have to insist that you leave us.”
“Fuck this critique.” Stefan pointed an accusatory finger in the face of the guy seated next to him. “My painting isn’t derivative. Your ugly face is derivative. And the rest of you are all a bunch of mindless hack drones who wouldn’t know real art if it took a dump on your chests.”
Stefan grabbed his painting from the easel and hurled it across the room. A few people gasped, others laughed. I rolled my eyes. He wiped his shoes on his “real art” and stormed out of the studio.
“There’s one every semester.” Professor Jimenez shook her head and then gestured to the next painting, a grayscale portrait of a sleeping couple entwined on a bed. “And now, what do we think of Paige’s piece?”
The seconds piled like sand at the bottom of an hourglass. I gripped my elbows, wishing my stool had a back panel I could lean against. I had lost track of the number of times I’d started, stopped, and scrapped the painting, much to my roommate and her boyfriend’s exasperation. They’d been good sports about it, willing to strip down and cuddle up whenever I needed a visual reference, their enthusiasm waxing and waning in direct correlation to my offers of free burritos.
“It’s intimate,” said a girl with magenta hair, “and yet, there’s resistance, too. You can see the desperation on their faces, like they’re trying to hold onto each other.”
“The way she plays with light and shadow is really effective,” said a wiry guy whose name I could never remember. “It makes the bedding and the people’s skin look three-dimensional.”
“Does anyone recall the term for that?” Professor Jimenez scanned the group. No takers. "Chiaroscuro. Modeling in light and dark to make objects appear solid.”
“I think she could’ve done more with the background,” said the first girl. “The walls are totally bare. It feels unfinished.”
“But I think that’s the point,” said a student with thick-rimmed glasses. “It keeps our focus on the couple.”
Professor Jimenez moved on to the next piece, and I let my shoulders relax. I studied my painting a moment longer, noting the tweaks I would’ve made if only I’d had more time.
Let it go, Professor Jimenez would say, and she’d be right. The critique was over. There was nothing else for me to do.
We finished class with minimal tears shed, after which, Professor Jimenez wished us all a good weekend and cut us loose. “Paige,” she called just as I was leaving. “May I speak with you for a moment?”
Hopefully this wouldn’t take long. I joined Professor Jimenez in front of my painting and tried not to make it obvious that I was itching to go.
“This is a beautiful piece,” she said. “I know I told you at the start of the semester that I wasn’t going to go easy on you just because your father is Henry Monroe. But I’m pleased to say, you’ve impressed me all on your own.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Professor.”
“Your father has an opening in the East Village tonight, doesn’t he?”
I nodded. The longer we stood chatting, the less time I had to get ready for the show.
“Maybe I’ll see you there,” she said.
A little trill of anxiety skittered up my spine. I had no idea what to expect from my father’s show tonight. He’d insisted on keeping this collection a surprise. For all I knew, he was planning to debut the watercolor close-up of my vagina he’d painted last fall.
That would be awkward.
