Finding Picasso Ch. 01

Ch 1: Violet is the Color of Lust

A girl, a blanket, and a night-flight to Paris

Somewhere between NY and Paris.

The girl in window seat 23A is beautiful. Silky black hair. Piercing violet eyes. Full crimson lips. Flawless complexion.

The cabin is dark, except for the flickering loom of the entertainment system. The hum of turbine engines drowns out everything but her softly modulated voice. I gaze into her eyes and speak in a whisper, as if we are huddled alone on some remote mountaintop.

Which, in a way, I suppose we are.

Almost everyone is sleeping, including the old guy in the aisle seat. He could be snoring, or farting, or talking to himself. I can't tell above the turbine drone.

I first noticed her at the boarding gate. Who wouldn't?

Tried to catch her eye, but she's on her phone. I walk toward the empty seats next to her, but two super-sized nuns beat me. Long black dresses, wide habits, veils, white collars. The whole ensemble. For an instant, I imagine the horror of sitting between them for the next seven hours.

Fortunately, Icelandair has better plans.

"Oh, it's you!" she giggles. Her smile comes easily. Seductively easy. "I was hoping we'd sit together. I'm Violet, by the the way."

"I'm Jason," I tell her, lowering myself into the coveted center seat. "It's funny you say that, because I was hoping the same thing."

Violet's broad smile is alluring, unabashedly welcoming, and ripe with sensuality and sexual promise. One look into her dazzling eyes, and my pulse races out of control.

My aunt who, among many other things, was a well-known NYC art collector, had a theory about "objects of desire." In her later years, art works came to predominate her desires. In her younger years, it was men, and occasionally other women.

"When you signal an 'object of desire,' whether consciously or not, and you're ignored or rebuffed, it's harmless," she explained. "But if there's an instant, sympathetic reaction. Beware! Mutual desire is more explosive than dynamite. More dangerous than drugs.

"Infatuation and impulsive behavior always overwhelm common sense and inhibitions," she warned. I could tell Bea was speaking from personal experience. Extensive experience.

Welcome to the danger zone!

Violet wears a slouchy sweater over a thin T-shirt that's embroidered with a Wesleyan insignia, and denim jeans. The outfit looks great on her. I'm in my standard travel wardrobe. Navy blue polo shirt, khakis, and running shoes that have seen better days.

But there is something deeper, almost inexplicable. As if by some subliminal clues, we recognize each other as kindred souls, outwardly driven by sexual attraction, but inwardly connected by an unspoken sense of acceptance.

"Flying alone is so random," she says in a conspiratorial whisper. "l mean, did you see those fat nuns? Can you imagine?"

"It crossed my mind. You prefer me over the Holy Sisters?"

Violet pauses a long beat as her eyes travel slowly up and down my torso. "You have no idea," she says with that killer smile.

She's on her way to Prague to study European history.

I'm on a bicycle tour of the avant-garde European art centers.

She's thinking of law school, or maybe fashion design. My reason for knocking around Europe on two wheels is to keep my Aunt Bea's legacy alive by collecting affordable early works by promising young artists. I'm actually starting a new gallery in Bea's honor, but that's something I keep to myself for the moment.

"That's so cool," she says. "Most of the art majors I know want to work in museums, auction houses or dealers. Why'd you decide to collect art on your own?"

"My great aunt Bea. She was a fashion model. Hung out with Warhol and those guys. Starting collecting Pop Art paintings when she was 19. She's my inspiration."

"My great aunt bakes blueberry pies and sings in the church choir. Her taste in art run towards Amish quilts and needlepoint samplers with sayings like, 'A stitch in time saves nine.' Your aunt sounds amazing."

"She was once really famous. On magazine covers every month and stuff. Nearly every artist in New York wanted to paint her. She knew a lot of them personally. Very personally."

"My kind of girl," Violet laughs. Maybe it's because I see a lot of my bohemian, free-spirited Aunt Bea in this beautiful girl, but I'm suddenly feeling closer to Violet than to anyone I've met for a long time.

"My aunt loved Paris," I add. "Not many people realize that Paris, or more specifically, Montmartre, is the birth place of Modern Art."

"And I thought it was SOHO," Violet giggled.

"There are similarities. SOHO was just 100 years too late, and didn't have Renoir, Monet, or Degas," I joke. "But Montmartre in the 1870s and SOHO in the 1970s both had lots of empty studio space, low rents, a rebellous population, and lots of nightclub dancers and sex-workers willing to sit as artists' models."

"You learn all that from Aunt Bea?" she asks, eyes aglow with mischief. What I really like, though, is that Violet uses Bea's name. Somehow, it makes me feel like Violet is almost family.

"I just made it up," I reply. "But I think Bea would agree."

The conversation drifts to six-degrees-of-separation. Where are you from? Where do you go school? Do you know so-and-so?

It turns out we do. Violet knows Maryanne White, my high-school class valedictorian.

"Maryanne lived in WestCo my freshman year," Violet explains, twisting her hair between her fingers.

"Westco?" I ask. The name is vaguely familiar.

I haven't kept up with Maryanne, but I recall hearing about WestCo, Wesleyan's "naked dorm." I once lived in a mixed-sex dorm. It wasn't expressly clothing optional, that would have been over-the-top for secondary school. Still, there were a few budding exhibitionists of both sexes. But Maryanne certainly wasn't among them.

"Yup, the infamous clothing-optional WestCo. You look surprised, Jason."

"It's just that Maryanne was such... so... studious."

I almost say "such a nerd girl," because that's exactly how I remember her. The very definition of a nerd girl, actually. Androgynous and inhibited. Big glasses, stringy hair, Birkenstocks and a wardrobe pretty much straight out of a Carhartt catalog. And a straight A average, of course.

"She still studies hard," Violet says with a wicked little smile. "But not nearly as hard as she parties."

"Amazing! And your dorm? Was it really..."

"Naked? Sometimes. Mostly people hung out in whatever was comfortable. Late nights and weekends things loosened up. Especially during parties and snow storms."

"We needed a dorm like that," I say wistfully.

"Awww... Something tells me you never had any trouble finding places to party."

I think about that for a second. "Freshman year at NYU was kind of hard. After that, sure, the New York City social scene got pretty hot."

"Shit, yeah!" Violet agrees. "I spent half my life driving to New York or Boston. WestCo just made being in the boondocks feel cutting-edge."

I'm thinking Violet is pretty cutting edge herself. Funny. Provocative. Incredibly easy to talk with.

The conversation flows seamlessly through the airline meal service and after-diner drinks. Violet's facial expressions are animated. Her fingers busy, whether unconsciously twirling her bangs, or gently grasping my arm when she leans close to make a point. The sexual tension climbs to within a few degrees of spontaneous combustion.

Violet's unnaturally large and unblinking eyes are always looking deep into mine, which Is immensely flattering. Cindy, my ex, was the opposite, constantly glancing over my shoulder, even when we were alone.

Another thing about Violet's eyes. The irises are flower-shaped and laced with tiny lavender specks. When she smiles, they sparkle with intelligence. And erotic promise.

We flirt shamelessly. About the time the cabin lights dim, we have the "first-time"-slash-virginity discussion. Her's happened after prom with a long-time boyfriend. "More of a relief than anything else," she says, "just to get it over with."

Mine was with a woman twice my age. A lonely, attractive and passionate single mom. She'd rented the lake house next door to my family cottage. We made fierce, rock-my-world love almost every night for half the summer. Of course, I fell hopelessly in love.

It ended badly.

We move on to our most recent exes. And how we manage without them. The breakup with Cindy is still painful. "She hated travel, or anything new. And she never really enjoyed sex," I confess, still feeling inadequate.

"That's so sad," Violet says squeezing my hand. The empathy in her voice and misty look in her eyes tells me Violet is no stranger to failed relationships either. Then her face brightens. "You must be so frustrated," she adds with a flirtatious expression that leaves no doubt what she's talking about.

"I find ways to handle it," I reply, taking a deep breath as a different kind of sensation fans out from the primary erogenous zone between my thighs. I have no idea where Violet is headed. But I can't wait to find out. "How about you?"

"Twice a day keeps frustration away," she says with brows arched in an uncompromisingly suggestive smile.

"Oh, wow," I blurt, "that's a lot. How do you find the time... and privacy?"

"I don't need that long. Not if I'm really rushed."

At this point, the only things that exist in my world are Violet's eyes looking deep, deep inside me, and the vision of her naked body with hands reaching between her pale white thighs. "And it's remarkable what you can get away with when you wear a skirt."

She looks sideways long enough to catch me eyeing her long, jean clad legs and I'm sure she knows that I'm wishing, 'if only she'd worn a skirt today.'

"You're thinking about me... touching myself, aren't you?" she says, her eyes growing even larger, if such a thing were possible.

I don't often blush, but when I do, it's hard to miss. My mouth opens, but nothing emerges. This is how a deer caught in the headlights must feel.

"Oh, Jason," she says. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you. For what it's worth, I've been fantasizing about you, too. Do you want to change the subject?"

"No... " I say with a gulp. I've never discussed masturbation this openly with a girl before, let alone a beautiful and sexually available girl. I try my best to be as honest about myself as Violet has been. "Ummm... I guess I'm more of a once-a-day kind of guy. And I need to be somewhere really private to relax."

"You don't look all that relaxed right now," she says in a newly provocative tone, her eyes focusing on the front of my khakis to make sure I don't miss her meaning. "Do you watch porn when you masturbate?"

"Sometimes, I guess." This is so far beyond my comfort zone that my heart is reverberating like a bass drum and I wonder if she can actually see my cock twitching. "Mostly I read erotic stories."

"How about gay porn?"

"God, No!" I blurt, caught totally off-guard.

"Just teasing," she says, pulling her hand out of my grip and resting it on my shoulder. It's the same small white hand with purplish-blue fingernails that I have been visualizing as buried between her naked legs. "Watching pornos of hunky guys jerking off never fails for me."

"Forget about porn," I tell her. "This conversation is doing it for me." Violet smiles approvingly as she pulls me closer with both hands until my shoulder touches her breast.

"You know what they say? A hard man is good to find," she giggles. "So, tell me, if you weren't already so abundantly erect, what kind of porn would it take to get you this way?"

"Well..." I pause, struggling to find the right words.

"Wait, let me guess," she interrupts. Violet is obviously getting off on this. "Girls touching themselves, of course. But when you're getting your kink on..." she hesitates a beat, searching my eyes. "You like to watch girls get cummed on?"

"Guilty," I confess. "I can't believe I'm telling you this, but the thing that never fails is a good titty-fuck porno."

"I love it," she squeals. Her hand lets go of my shoulder and I sense from her movement that Violet is squeezing her left breast, which is still pressed firmly against my arm. After a moment she stops. "Am I freaking you out?"

"Arousing me? Yes! Freaking me out? Not at all." Her hand returns to my shoulder, and I try to steer the conversation to a less stimulating topic before I have my first spontaneous orgasm since early adolescence. "How long have you been on your own?"

"We split in April. But I'm not sure 'we' were ever really together. He's older. A lot older. And married with two little kids. He said his wife was starting to get suspicious," her eyes go misty again. "He was very good looking. But not nearly as handsome as you, Jason."

"Do you miss him?" I ask, smiling at her compliment.

"Not really. But I miss, you know, the stuff we did. He loved to watch me touch myself. I was so embarrassed at first, but he got so turned on that pretty soon I couldn't wait to masturbate for him. It's weird, but we never actually fucked. I guess he felt that would be unfaithful," she looks at me with an ironic smile.

"He loved to dry hump, sometimes in our underwear, sometimes naked. I'd get so wet he could fuck my pussy lips until he came without actual penetration." Violet is unconsciously squeezing her thighs together. "And, man, could he use his tongue."

She does a little pantomime, fluttering her tongue against her lips. "That's all he had to do, and I'd drop my panties. Anywhere! His car. The dorm lounge. One evening, he did me on a picnic table in Harbor Park with rush-hour traffic passing by."

I whistle under my breath. "You must be incredibly frustrated, too!" Somehow, our fingers become entwined again and settle in her lap. Even through Violet's denim jeans, I feel moist heat radiating from her.

She nods approval as I remove my hand from hers and use my fingertips to caress her inner thighs. "Mmmmmm... that feels good," Violet purrs, spreading her legs. Her head falls onto my shoulder, lips turned against my ear, "Oh, yeah!"

I tease, touching softly, fingertips moving up and down but always retreating before I reach the hot triangle between her legs. Each time I get close, Violet gasps and squirms in her seat, struggling to press herself against my fingertips. When I finally make contact with the steamy, moist panel of her jeans, she swirls her tongue in my ear.

"Time for a blanket, don't you think?" she whispers, spreading a thin airline blanket across our laps. I glance toward the sleeping guy. He's nodding off behind a sleep mask. I look back into Violet's blue eyes. "Kiss me," they plead. "Kiss me, now."

So I do.

Lips brush softly. Hesitantly. Then part. Taking each other's measure.

On the second kiss there is no hesitation. Only raw, electric lust. My tongue probes. Her lips part to receive me. She is hot and slippery. Out tongues encircle each other. They stiffen, lunge and retreat. Small fingers grasp my cheeks, pulling me against her wanting mouth. Breasts heaving with pleasure, warm and full against my arm.

Her fingers wander down my chest, then glide below the blanket. I hear the soft pop of a button and a zipper opening. But not my own. Adrenaline surges.

"Help me," she demands. Hips rise off the seat. Struggling to slide off her jeans, I reach down and take a hemmed denim waistband in my fingers. Then something smoother. Thin cotton panties. Together we maneuver pants and panties over her hips and down her legs until they drop to the floor. I breath deeply. Her scent is subtle, but unmistakable.

Violet is naked from the waist with my right arm wrapped around the exposed, smooth skin of her thigh.

"Your turn," she says.

I obey. But before my hand pulls free to reach for my belt buckle, I let my fingers ride along the juicy wet furrow of her swollen lips. Violet gasps and clenches my arm, pinning my fingers against her squirming sex. Our mouths lock in a long kiss, while my fingertips soak up the white hot heat pouring from deep inside her. Finally, she releases her grip and we both reach for my belt. I fumble on the first attempt to unhook it.

"Oh, my, God! Jason, hurry!" she pleads. In the four or so years that I've been sexually active, it's always been like ballroom dancing. I lead and my partner follows. Violet smashes that mold. She's the conductor. I'm the orchestra. It feels strange, but liberating.

I don't dwell on gender roles for long. There is no slow tease for Violet. In an instant, my belt's undone, my fly's unzipped, and my khakis are around my ankles.

"Nice one," she murmurs, warm fingers encircling the center of my universe. "Not too big. Not too small. Just right. Like Goldilocks."

In print, that may not look like the greatest compliment. But there's so much sincerity, not to mention pure animal vitality, in Violet's voice that my male ego goes into over drive, leaving my actual head just about as swollen as my cock. I do the first thing that comes to mind, and dip my finger between Violet's vulva, swirl it around, then bring it to my lips and lick the nectar with the tip of my outstretched tongue. For the first time, Violet looks genuinely surprised.

"You like it?" she asks. I answer by pulling her mouth to mine and pushing my tongue deep in her throat. At the same time, my finger plunges back inside. Violet shudders, but never beaks our kiss. Instead, she relaxes her grip on my cock and rubs my foreskin forcefully with her thumb while simultaneously stroking the frenulum with her forefinger.

This has two effects. It brings me to the brink of orgasm, and it does so with almost no detectable movement, or even a tell-tale tenting of the blanket stretched across our laps. Taking the hint, I pump my middle finger in and out of Violet's slippery vagina, and turn my thumb until it presses on her little nub-like clit.

"Oh, fuck! Yes!" she moans, her head falling back against the seat and flailing from side to side. Maybe it's the long hours of verbal foreplay, but it seems like only a couple of minutes before I feel Violet's hips thrust convulsively against my hand, and the walls of her canal contract around my finger. Her eyelids flutter and she covers her mouth to stifle a long moan.

When her panting subsides, I gently withdraw my hand. Her eyes open in surprise. But not for long.

"Do you like this?" I ask, squeezing her outer lips together and rolling them between my fingertips. She answers with a satisfied moan and resumes her delicate exploration of my cock head.

"Be bad," she whispers, gliding her free hand down her abs and hooking the middle finger over her clit. "Show me how you touch your cock."

I wrap the fingers of my left hand around myself, while still teasing her with my right. I'm not exactly ambidextrous, but it doesn't matter. The sensation of jerking my shaft while Violet stimulates the hypersensitive cock tip brings me right back to the brink.

"Please," I plead. "Stop... or I'm going to cum."

"Don't you want to cum?" she asks, slowing her massage of my cock tip from a feverish pitch to a gentle caress.

"Yes. But I want to cum with you," I say, resuming my finger play with her pussy lips.

"That's easy," she quips, softly kissing my cheek. I can feel the acceleration as she rolls her finger over her clit faster and more firmly. I respond by pushing first one, them two fingers inside her. "Oh, Yes! No problem at all," she moans.

Violet gently increases the speed and pressure of her thumb and forefinger on my aching cock tip. I match pace, simultaneously stroking my shaft and finger-fucking her hot cunt. Soon we are composing a duet, rising together, then softly backing off, until we sense a new urgency, then once again our tempo builds towards climax.