Finding Picasso Ch. 08

Earlier, I'd had fantasies of making furious love with Lysa in exactly this kind of an idyllic, romantic setting. Only now I wondered if I can summon enough energy to merely recover my sleeping bag and air mattress from the strapped-down panniers on my bike. At least the sky is clear, the insect population is not taking notice of us, and it appears we can make it to dawn without pitching the tent.

"The pot roast is ready," she looks at me sympathetically. "Let's use my kit so you won't have to move until later," She says, offering me one of her stainless camp bowls. I nod in agreement.

"Just a few random aches and pains," I tell her. "I'll be fine by morning."

Lysa is dubious. "I'll give you a back massage after we eat," she promises. "To keep your glutes and obliques from tightening up overnight."

"Good plan," I agree, gritting my teeth as a fresh spasm causes my back muscles to contract painfully.

As we eat, I study Lysa's features. Big sister Lilli is an outrageous beauty, completely overshadowing Lysa. But without Lilli's 10,000 watt personality in the room, Lysa emerges from the deep shadows as a beautiful girl.

Her blue eyes sparkle with playful understanding, her lips are full and sensuous, and her figure is ripe and nubile. She has taut, upthrust breasts, a narrow waist and hips, and long coltish legs, except perhaps for the unusually muscular thighs and calves.

In the fading light, Lysa's hair is a tangled nest of golden ringlets and there is a glorious pink sheen to forehead and cheeks. But to be honest, the thing that catches my attention the most is her flat, v-shaped abdomen which is perfectly outlined by her skin-tight biking shorts. Lower, the puffy, outer lips of her labia are unmistakably visible, divided by only the faintest hint of a depression.

Despite the dull pain racking my body, this view is all it takes to revive my animal spirits. Lysa directs me to stretch out, face down on her sleeping bag, where her skilled fingers go to work on my back. Like everything Lysa does, there is no hesitation, only professional competence born from careful study.

"How?" I start to ask.

"A university course in massage therapy," she replies. "It's very popular among cyclists."

"See why," I say, drifting off to sleep.

When I awaken, Lysa is gently rolling me onto my back, after which she takes the waist of my shorts in her hands and works them off my hips and legs. To my surprise, my cock bounds out at full extension, bobbing up and down.

"Never waste a good erection," she giggles, stroking me with a feather-like touch as my eyes flutter open. It's clear from the way I twitch between her fingers, that I'm already a fully primed pump, ready to explode.

Lysa stands up and slips her own shorts down her legs, kicking them off into the darkness. In the dappled moonlight, I can see the shiny signs of wetness on her smooth-shaven outer lips. Without hesitation, she lowers herself on my cock. Inside, Lysa is warm and wet and she slides effortlessly until she's buried full hilt.

Our previous coupling has ridden the ecstasy of our building orgasms in short, frenzied bursts, pausing as we near release, then resuming once the immediate crisis has past. But not tonight. Instead, Lysa initiates a slow, languid pace that builds gradually, but inexorably to conclusion.

It is so all-consuming that I'm not sure whether we have gone five minutes or 50, probably somewhere in between, when I feel the muscled walls of Lysa's womb grip me in a series of involuntary spasms. She moans, I growl from the bottom of my throat, and we orgasm simultaneously on a mossy riverbank beneath the glittering canopy of the Milky Way.

It is as if the entire universe has somehow decided to recognize our coupling and send a wave of energy that rebounds through us at the exact moment of mutual orgasm.

"Holy, shit!" Lysa exclaims, as the afterglow subsided. "Did you feel that?"

"Yes," I whisper, lacking the vocabulary to even begin to describe the sensations I had just experienced. "Ineffable."

"In-whatable?" Lysa asks. I realize it's the first time she hadn't understood my English vocabulary. And it's at least a graduate-level word at that.

"Beyond our ability to express something in words," I explain. We are still joined at the waist, although my tumescence has begun to fade.

"Do you think it will happen again?" she asks.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "But as long as I'm with you, I wouldn't be surprised if anything can happen. Even the ineffable."

When I wake, the hazy Summer sun is well above the horizon, and the fragrance of fresh coffee fills the air.

Lysa is at the camp stove, humming contently in way that brings back the wonder of last night's lovemaking. My eyes drink in her nubile beauty, as well as the fertile green landscape of ripe fields and timber windbreaks.

A voice speaks out somewhere inside my head, soft but insistent. "You could do so much worse than this. So very much worse."

###

Amazingly, despite sleeping on the thinnest of air pads, my back and legs recover overnight. When we get underway, Lysa sets a slower cadence on my account, and we cruise along at 15 or 16 km/hr, instead of yesterday's 18. We also end the day earlier, at about 5pm, at a cow town west of Leipzig that boasts a Bavarian inn with King-sized beds, a swimming pool and a hot tub, all dripping in geraniums. I register in a NY minute.

The other local attraction is an English-style pub, called The Hole, that promises live music nightly. We drift in after a relaxing dinner at the inn and find an empty table near the back. Within minutes, an attractive girl rushed up, and gives Lysa an enormous hug.

"A girl I know from university," Lysa explains. "She's fetching her friends. If they join us, they won't get hit on by single guys all night." An instant later, three beautiful women arrive at our table, carrying their own chairs. Mia, Lysa's university friend, is blond, as is Emma, and Sophia is the lone brunette.

Sophia's boyfriend is in the band and the three girl's have driven from Berlin to watch tonight's gig.

The band plays, quite well actually, the beer flows, and by closing time, it's clear the girls are in no condition to drive to Berlin. Sophia wants to spend the night with her boyfriend, while Lysa offers to share our King-sized bed with Mia and Emma.

I certainly wasn't going to veto that idea.

Back at the inn, Lysa sets the dress code by removing everything but her panties, and snuggling next to me, which leaves ample room for Mia and Emma on the other half of the bed. They giggle, make lewd comments in German, and strip down to tiny thongs while I wonder if perhaps I haven't died and gone to heaven. Within minutes, I'm asleep.

Toward morning, I notice Lysa is no longer tucked under my arm. Sometime after that, I wake to the rustling of sheets and a discreet female mewing. Next to me, the three girls have formed an inchoate scrum of gently undulating body parts. The air is heavy with the tangy smell of sex, and beneath the high note of feminine moans, are the deeper, dissonant sounds of urgent fingering and licking.

It is Emma who discovers me watching when her wide blue eyes lock onto mine. She whisperes something to Lysa, who apparently agrees, after which, Emma rolls next to me, places her fingers behind my neck and her lips over mine. In an instant, our tongues are roaming over each other while my fingertips toy with Emma's erect nipples. A second after that, my right hand is between Emma's legs as she parts them to accommodate my touch, and the hard pearl of her clit rolls under my middle figure.

Emma's own hand plunges inside my briefs and curls around my cock. I raise my hips and we work together to get my tight briefs off. After just a couple quick hand pumps, Emma hoists herself above me and lowers her hot, warm vagina onto my cock with a long, satisfied moan.

It's then I realize Emma has no more English than I speak German. It doesn't matter. She expresses herself perfectly with the rhythm of her hips and the language of her fingertips. My inclusion in the group sex unleashes a new wave of vocalizations. Lysa and Mia moan and trade sweet nothings in German. Emma urges me on with one of the few German slang expressions I know.

Even without words, I recognize Emma is a generous lover, more concerned with my pleasure than her own, which, of course, encourages me to please her all the more. Even as our bodies collide and withdraw with increased fury, I seek out her hidden — and not so hidden — erogenous zones with my fingertips.

In the end, nothing works quite as well as my tongue swirling in her ear and my finger making clockwise circles over Emma's slippery clit.

As she approaches orgasm, her tiny hips and thighs pound down as I rise off the bed to meet her, rocking the mattress and banging the headboard into the wall. Lysa and Mia pause to watch and when angry banging comes from the other side of the wall we all break into stifled laughter.

Mia, who must be a veteran of hotel affairs, suggests we move the bed away from the wall, which with four us we accomplish without difficulty. When we resume, Emma and I hump our way to a fierce orgasm in a matter of minutes. Lysa and Mia are right behind with lots of moaning and mewling.

As we drift off to sleep, I fantasize about running into the dude next door as I leave surrounded by three German nymphettes. Fortunately, that remains an unfulfilled fantasy, unlike my dream of spending the night with a bed full of lusty beauties.

If I was honest with myself, I'm thankful neither Lysa nor Mia decide they want to try me on for a nightcap. One round with a Emma is more than enough to satisfy me for hours and hours.

In the morning, we wrap towels over our underwear and slip into the hot tub. It's almost Noon when Sophia pulls into the parking lot in her VW Beetle Convertible to pick up Emma and Mia. There are hugs and squeezes and lingering goodbye kisses that seem to confuse Sophia, as well as whispered endearments.

We follow the little red Beetle for a kilometer or two before it finally vanishes around a curve ahead of us. "Emma left a present for you," Lysa said with a sly smile. "Not anything you'd guess in a million years. It's about 40 km, and we have an appointment there at 15:00."

When we finally pull into a small private school parking lot, I'm consumed with curiosity. It is called "Vogel Schule," but I can't make sense of the description on the sign that announces "Autismus-Spektrum-Störung."

Our appointment is with Hans, a young special-ed teacher, who appears as confused as me about our reason for being there. His English is halting, so Lysa makes introductions in German and, after a long explanation, he smiles with sudden understanding. He motions for us to follow him into an art studio.

Hans goes to cupboard and pulls out a pile of paintings — poster paint on stiff white Bristol board. Not exactly archival, but light years ahead of typical middle school art supplies.

"The first thing you should know," Lysa translates Hans comments for me, "is that autistic children do not lie. They express themselves with what can be shocking honesty. This is as true for art as the spoken word."

With that he spreads out half-a-dozen paintings that take my breath away.

The style is primitive with each object drawn with its own one-point perspective, outlined in black and painted in primary colors. But the characters are detailed, animated and incredibly accurate, if the portrait of Hans standing at a blackboard in a beige summer suit is any indication. There is a painting of another teacher, an attractive blonde in her late 30s or early 40s.

Hans places a photo next to the portrait. The likeness is amazing. Somehow the young artist has captured the essence of an educator who has devoted her career to helping cast-off students who are a cypher and an embarrassment to the mainstream educational system.

There are portraits of Mom, with close cropped hair and impossibly large breasts, and Dad, who wears horn rim glasses and an angry, defeated expression. In addition to classmates and siblings, there are many detailed scenes of the artist's friends and families, several of them disturbingly violent or sexually explicit and aggressive.

Within half an hour, I feel as if I'm an intimate acquaintance of this adolescent artist. I recognize his deepest longings, his most terrifying fears, his secret animosities, and unrequited sexual fantasies.

It is almost too much. I hungered for images that captured the truth. And now that I had found them, I'm shaken and uncertain. Uncertain that his parents will share anything so intensely intimate with the public, even if it were done with guaranteed anonymity. Uncertain if art collectors will understand and appreciate the anguished truth behind these paintings. Uncertain if I want to attach myself to the public promotion of such intensely private work.

In the end, all I can do is ask to meet meet the young artist. Even that is uncertain, since it's summer holiday and Hans didn't know for sure if the family remained in town, or are traveling. But he promises to inquire and asks if we could return the following morning.

Lysa understands exactly how important finding this young artist could be. A seminal talent at the very beginning of his artistic development — autism or not! Meanwhile, I'm worried that Hal wouldn't reach the parents, that the boy or the parents will refuse to participate, and even that taking on a troubled client is perhaps more responsibility than I'm prepared to shoulder.

Fortunately, Lysa shares none of these concerns, but continues to extol the incredible talent behind this portfolio stunning images.

I keep my biggest concern to myself, which as unlikely as it seems right now, for reasons known only to him, an adolescent Paul Junior could simply turn his back on his easel and never lift a paint brush again.

Lysa's enthusiasm, however, is infectious. And I'm also curious how Emma has learned about this youngster.

"Emma's baby bro had a painting in some regional art show. Emma remembered the best work of the show was by a boy from the Vogel Schule, which she happened to notice yesterday on the drive to the Hole."

"Guess I really got lucky," I muttered under my breath.

"I guess you did," Lysa says, slugging me unexpectedly in the arm, revealing a spark of jealousy about my coupling with Emma during last night's crazy love-in. I knew enough about Lysa to let the comment go unremarked.

A moment later we step out of the school. The air had grown stifling hot and humid with an inauspicious line of towering thunderheads building in the West. "Better find shelter," I tell Lysa, who nods in agreement.

"There's a hostel about five kilometers east. I've never stayed there, but I've heard it's a good place."

"Let's find out," I reply her, surprised at how easily I'm able to swing my leg over the high crossbar on my bike.

At the Herberge Saxon, the private rooms are booked, but there are two bunks left in the co-ed dorm. I couldn't speak for Lysa, but I was more than ready for a night without earth-shaking sex.

The storm is closing in fast, so we rush next door to a little pizzeria that serves as a de facto dining room. We'd just made it back inside the Herberge with our bikes locked safely in the storage room when all hell broke loose with gale-force winds, marble-sized hail and sheets of heavy horizontal rain. The perfect kind of night for a long summer nap.

I could have done without the snorts and snores of the half-dozen other bikers and hikers in the co-ed dorm room. I notice a couple of young guys watching Lysa longingly as she slips into her sleeping bag. If only they knew the half of it.

###

The morning is clear with puffy fair-weather cumulous clouds, cool temperatures and low humidity, which I hope is the portent of a successful meeting at the Vogel Schule.

It is!

Hans has located the boy's parents, who are already at the school when Lysa and I arrive, wearing almost identical outfits with khaki pants and navy blue polo shirts. I suppose I should have known Lysa would coordinate her wardrobe with mine.

The young artist is known as Paul Junior, named after his father. Paul Junior watches the adults with disinterest for a few minutes, then sets up an easel and goes to work on a painting with unshakable concentration.

I use my iPad to show some 1960s magazine covers of my aunt Bea, as well as a couple 80s and 90s articles celebrating her art collecting acumen. Next, I share the architectural renderings of the Bea Plymptom gallery in Glouchester, along with paintings by the four North American artists with whom I already had contracts.

Lysa translates everything, and it goes smoother than I could have imagined. I make a point of articulating the responsibility I feel for maintain Paul Junior's absolute privacy. Throughout the presentation Paul's parents nod with approval and smile appreciatively at Lysa.

We leave with ten paintings and a signed two-year contract as exclusive American representative for Paul Junior, with an option to renew for another two years. Paul Senior and his wife Heidi leave with a Bea Plymptom LLC check for €5,000, and the hope that their son's prodigious talent might help ease the financial burden of his care.

We also review a list of special procedures I developed to protect Paul's anonymity. Above all, Paul, his parents, friends and teachers need to refrain from posting images online of any of the paintings shown at the Bea Plymptom.

I used a digital photo of a painting by my young Canadian artist to demonstrate how an art search program can locate a duplicate image online in less than a minute. It turned up a duplicate image with the boy's name and contact information that had been on the website of a community art organization in his home town near Quebec City for years.

Before we left the Vogel Schule, I asked a Lysa to choose one of the paintings. She picked an image of a youngster wearing a yellow hooded rain slicker.

There was a devilish gleam in the little boy's eyes that foretold a day ahead that would not be fun for anyone who crossed him. The style was innocent and primitive, but the expression Paul Junior had captured was timeless and spoke volumes about the disruptive abilities of certain children.

It all went back to Hans' comment about the inherent honesty of the autistic child. Paul Junior was painting the world he knew. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Later in the day, we stop at the Deutsche Post and mail eight paintings to my UPS-store address in NYC, one to Lysa's apartment in Frankfurt, and I put the last one in a mailing tube and strapped it to my pannier.

After a couple weeks of dead ends and odd fetishes, the bike tour has finally paid off thanks to a series of unlikely coincidences. I'd once run into a celebrated children's author at my neighborhood pub. "Life is full of luck," he assured me as we downed Guinness Ale. "It's when coincidence starts proving fruitful that you know you're on the right track."

Hopefully, my track runs through Berlin and Prague.