Imogen & Clara - Art Studio Mishap

Imogen and Clara arrived early; they had a lot to do. Despite it being Saturday, the best friends were planning on spending the whole day at school and had obtained special permission to use the art studio for the day. The girls were sixth formers, 18 years old and in their last months at the school. They were working on the final practical items for their art 'A' level exams and both were keen to use the normally non-productive weekend for practical benefit.

The girls were prefects, members of the trusted band of pupils sanctioned to operate and administer the school's arcane set of rules. Their status had helped them to persuade Miss Goodrich, the school's art teacher to grant them the favoured access. She had given them the keys and alarm code to the building that contained the school's art studio as well as the home economics classroom and a changing room for the school's squash and tennis courts. The building sat in a secluded corner of the school grounds separate from the school's main building across the sports fields.

Prefects they might have been, but on this day neither girl was dressed in anything remotely close to the school's regulation grey and blue uniform. Blonde Imogen was wearing a pale blue sleeveless summer dress and yellow plimsolls. She was hoping to finish a large and complicated collage formed from hundreds of pieces cut from photographs that she had taken. Redhead Clara was intending to throw a series of pots that she had been planning for a week and had dressed practically for working with clay; she wore paint spattered tennis shoes, a pair of faded blue denim shorts and a white cotton tee-shirt.

Once in the studio, the girls began work. Imogen collected the part finished collage from the store room and her boxes of photograph pieces, all sorted by colour. Clara collected together all of the tools and materials that she needed to make her pots. For the next couple of hours, the pair concentrated on their work, talking little, with just the snipping of Imogen's scissors and the occasional whirring of Clara's potter's wheel to disturb the silence.

Clara had completed four of the dozen pots that she had planned -- each one an evolutionary progression of the previous, growing in size and becoming more elaborate in the shape, ornamentation and decorative details. For the next group she needed a batch of fresh clay from the store room.

"I'm just going to get some more clay from the store, this stuff's beginning to dry out and is becoming unworkable." said Clara.

"Okay." replied Imogen. "Put some coffee on will you when you go by the kitchen. This is not progressing quite as quickly as I hoped. 'Goody' keeps some decent coffee in the red jar. There's a cafeteria in the cupboard by the microwave."

Cafeteria set-up and kettle heating, Clara headed for the art store room. She removed the lid from the small, green, plastic dustbin under the workbench in which the clay was stored and took out the material she needed in two grey lumps. That was when she realised that there was not enough fresh clay left in the bin to make all of the pots.

"Damn, I'm going to have to make up a new batch." she muttered to herself crossly. "I should've checked yesterday that there was enough."

Next to the green bin, there was a much larger blue plastic barrel that came up to her waist. In this was a grey slurry, a mass of sludgy, scrap clay that was mixed with water to reconstitute it ready for reprocessing into usable clay. Clara took a small bucket and dipped it into the barrel several times. Each time, she poured the quantity of the sludge into a fine mesh sieve so that some of the water could drain away back into the barrel leaving a layer of strained clay mush behind on top of the mesh. She dumped this into a second, larger bucket and, when that was full, transferred the contents into the hopper on top of the pug mill. When turned on, the mill squeezed the remaining excess liquid out of the clay, churned it and extruded it from the end as a thick grey sausage of firm, ready-to-use clay.

Clara had the two lumps of clay and two sausages, each about 300 mm long, which, together, was enough for the next four pots, but she decided that she might as well process enough clay for all of the rest in her set as well. As she leaned forward to dip the bucket into the sludge again she heard a plop. Something had fallen into the clay barrel. Puzzled, Clara looked around to see what had caused the sound. All of the tools were in their places on the shelf above the barrel, so she had not knocked one of those into the slurry. Then she realised that the rose-shaped silver pendant that she had been wearing around her neck was gone, chain and all.

Clara realised that it had to have fallen into the barrel. Hoping that it might not have sunk far into the mess, she quickly dragged the small bucket across the surface of the barrel scooping-up the top layer of the sludge. She put the bucket down on the floor and ran her fingers through the sludge. There was no pendant.

Concluding that the pendant must have been too heavy for the sludge and it was likely to be at the bottom of the barrel. She could not leave it there and the barrel was too full to scoop out the whole of its contents one bucket at a time. The barrel was also too tall for Clara to be able to reach the bottom. She needed something to extend her reach. Clara surveyed the collection of tools on the shelf and found one that seemed ideal. She did not know what its true purpose was, but it had a small shallow basket on one end formed from woven, twisted wire. She could use this to scoop the chain and pendant.

Fingers covered in clay, Clara grabbed the tool and pushed it into the clay pushing her hand in up to the wrist. The barrel was too deep. Clara pushed her arm further below the surface. The clay's wet slippery-sticky grip crept further up her arm; past her elbow. Finally, with the plastic edge of the barrel digging painfully into her armpit and the clay almost up to her shoulder, Clara was just about able to feel the bottom of the barrel with the end of the basket tool. She dragged the tool across the base of the barrel. Nothing. Two more attempts yielded the same result. Clara's armpit was sore, so she pulled it out from the clay with a sucking noise. The wet grey clay clung to her arm and hand in a thick layer. Clara turned her hand and flexed her fingers examining her hand. It looks like the arm of a newly made statute she thought to herself. It felt quite nice, clinging wet and cool to her skin, but that was not going to find her pendant, so she used her other hand to scrape most of the clay back into the barrel, leaving her arm streaked grey with the residue Clara swapped the tool to her other hand and plunged that into the clay as well. Again she stirred the clay around with the basket-tipped tool, but still without success.

Clara was pulling her arm out of the barrel again when Imogen walked into the room distractedly picking a scarp of photograph off of the front of her dress.

"Is the coffee ready yet? I need a caffeine boost." She asked. Then she looked up and saw what her friend was doing. "Oh My Lord! What in heaven's name are you doing?" Imogen exclaimed when she saw Clara's sad expression and clay covered arms.

"I've lost my pendant in the clay barrel. The one my gran gave me for my birthday. I though I could find it and scoop it out with this thing," Clara held up the tool, which, covered in clay, was unrecognisable. "I must get it out. Mum will kill me if I lose it and gran will be devastated."

"Okay" said Imogen. "You know it's in the barrel, so all we've got to do is empty the clay out and go through it bit by bit."

"No shit Sherlock!" Clara replied impatiently, frustrated by Imogen stating the obvious. "But what are we going to do with all of the clay and water? I can't just dump it on the floor and the water will just spill everywhere and be impossible to clean up."

"See that floor grating over there?"

"Yeah"

"We can pour some of the water down that. We won't need to clean-up too much and I think I know what we can do with the clay as well."

"What? We can't pour that away like water. It's far too thick for one thing and too wasteful for another. iGoody will notice if half of the clay just suddenly vanishes between Friday and Monday."

"Don't worry. I have an idea. After the builders finished fixing the roof last month, they re-plastered the ceiling in the changing rooms and they left some things behind including a large plastic trough that they used to mix up the plaster. It's like a shallow bath, so it will take most of what's in that barrel. Goody put it in the other store cupboard expecting them to return for it, but they told her that the school can keep it. She said the other day that she's going to use it for mixing up a load of papier-mâché for an art project on masks that she is planning to do with the year sevens. You move the barrel over to the grating and I'll go get the trough."

"Okay. Get a couple of tea towels from the Home Ec. room as well. This could be messy."

"Good idea. I'll only be a moment."

Imogen hurried out of the room and Clara sat on her calf's feeling relieved that Imogen was going to help her with her problem instead of mocking her. For a moment her attention turned to her clay covered arms again. Being a potter she was used to the feel of clay on her hands and splashes of it elsewhere, but she had never had both arms covered almost to her armpits in the stuff before. "This actually feels quite nice. A bit like a mud pack for the arms instead of the face." She said to herself. "Some women pay good money at spas for mud bath treatments. That must feel something like this, though a bit more involved."

Clara made fists, squeezing the clay on her hands out between her fingers, shaking the grey sludge into the barrel. Clara tried to move the barrel, but quickly had to give up on that idea as she could hardly move it.

The sound of plastic scrapping on tiles told her that Imogen was on her way with the trough. Clara went to the store room door to hold it open for Imogen who entered the room backwards pulling the large white trough about four feet long and a foot deep. Inside it were tea towels, a bucket, as well as a roll of sticky tape and a rolled-up piece of plastic mesh.

"Well done! That thing looks heavy."

"It's not too bad. The trough's plastic, but there's a bag of leftover plaster in the bottom that I couldn't lift. You can give me a hand in a minute to get it out. I found a bucket that I thought might be useful and we can tape this piece of mesh over the trough to use in as a makeshift sieve.

"Great idea. Will you give me a hand with the barrel? It's too heavy for me to move on my own."

"Sure. If we pull it out from under the counter and turn it as we do so, we can probably get it over to the floor drain without killing ourselves."

"Okay. I'll take this side and you take the other."

The girls strained to move the barrel in the manner Imogen had suggested, but they gradually managed to move it towards the grating.

"Hey!" Imogen said. "Look, it's got a tap round this side at the bottom. We can let the water out. We don't need to bail it out by hand."

"I'm not sure. The clay will be quite thick at the bottom.There might not be much water down that far. Let's get it over the drain and we'll see."

With a bit more pushing and pulling the tap was positioned over the drain. Imogen turned the handle and a trickle of water flowed out.

"Bother! That's disappointing." Clara said. "It's going to take forever to empty like that. Back to plan A."

"Help me get the bag of plaster out, then I'll tape the mesh over the trough, and you can get the first bucket of sludge." Imogen said.

Clara and Imogen each pushed their hands under one end of the bag of plaster and lifted. Grey plaster dust puffed out of Imogen's end as they lifted it over the rim of the trough.

"Careful," Imogen said. "this bag's got a tear and it's leaking."

"Probably why they left it behind. Put it down, quick, before it spills everywhere." Clara said.

They put it down next to the trough without mishap. Next, Imogen unrolled the mesh and fixed it with tape all around the rim of the trough. The piece of mesh was only large enough to cover about half of its area, but it would help.

Clara dipped the bucket into the barrel and half filled it with the liquid clay. She lifted it out, turned towards the trough and poured it out slowly over the mesh. The thick stream of clay fell through it leaving a number off soft lumps. Imogen squashed them with her hands, pushing the residue into the trough.

"I don't know how you manage to make anything out of this stuff. It's so slippery."

"It takes practice, but what I work with when I make pots is much stiffer than this. This is essentially clay slip which I might use to fix parts of a piece together or cast something, but it needs to go through that pug mill over there which pushes the water out of it. It's only then that it's useful for anything else."

Clara filled another bucket with sludge and tipped that on to the mesh sheet. Imogen repeated the sorting-squashing process, again without finding the missing jewellery. The girls got into a routine and the level of the liquid clay in the barrel gradually lowered and the trough filled. Ten then fifteen more buckets were filled, emptied and the contents examined, all without success. As Clara lifted the next bucket out of the barrel and turned towards the trough, her foot slipped in a trail of liquid clay that had formed from drips off of the previous buckets. Clara fell sidewards and screamed. She landed heavily in a seated position on the bag of plaster and against the side of the trough, pushing it suddenly into Imogen's legs; Imogen fell into the trough.

The content's of Clara's bucket poured out in a flood down her front, into her lap and over the tops of her legs. She was covered in the grey clay slip from chest to knee. Imogen fared worse; knocked into the trough, her face fell into the mesh which tore away from the tape holding it to the sides and wrapped itself around her head. She landed on her shoulder in the clay with her left arm trapped painfully beneath her and her legs sticking out of the trough awkwardly. Imogen screamed from the pain and shock. Clay was everywhere. The bag of plaster had split further and the powdery contents were partially spilled on to the floor.

Ignoring the clay spilled down her front, Clara quickly scrambled to her feet to rescue her friend. Clara grabbed Imogen by the shoulders. She tried to pull her out of the trough, but she was too heavy and the trough turned over on its side banging down on the tiled floor and just missing Clara's toes. Imogen slid out in the flood of liquid clay which pooled around Clara's feet.

Imogen groaned on the floor. "Fucking hell! What happened? Get this off me!" She was beginning to panic.

Clara knelt down and unwrapped the sheet of mesh from around Imogen's head, pulling the tape apart to release her hair.

Apart from her ankles and feet Imogen was completely covered in clay. Clara was only clean above her upper chest and down her back.

Imogen slithered around in the clay trying to get up. Clara helped her into a kneeling position. Imogen spat clay out of her mouth. Clay was running from her hair down her forehead and into her eyes and Clara wiped the worst of it out of Imogen's hair then cleared her face with her hands.

"Thanks. Fuck! What happened?" Imogen asked again. "Look at us; we're covered in it. It's gone everywhere."

"Sorry Immy, I slipped on some clay and fell against the trough." Clara said.

"Brilliant. Clumsy cow!" Imogen said resentfully.

"Sorry. Are you alright, you screamed when you fell in the trough. Have you hurt yourself?"

Imogen assessed the damage.

"My shoulder and the top of my arm hurt a bit. I think I'm alright otherwise - except for being completely covered in fucking clay. It's everywhere. It's in my hair, in my nose and mouth, in my ears, inside my dress, I think it's even inside my underwear. I must look like I've been mud wrestling.

Clara laughed at the mental image of her friend as a mud wrestler. She thought Imogen would make a good wrestler. She was slender and athletic. Clara had admired her friend's body and she thought the she looked strangely good covered in clay. She wondered what a clay-coated Imogen would look like without the dress.

"Hey! Don't laugh at me. This is your fault. Clumsy lump!"

"I'm sorry. But I'm nearly as bad. I'm nearly as covered as you."

"That does not make it any better!" Imogen pointed out. She twisted her legs around into a seating position, her knees touching Clara's. "Yeah the clay is definitely inside my bra. I can feel it pooling between my tits. And in my knickers."

"Sorry, Immy." Clara said again.

"Stop saying 'Sorry Immy', You're nowhere near as badly messed-up as I am. But you're gonna be."

Imogen lunged at Clara, pushing her shoulders so she fell backwards into the slop of clay on the floor. She climbed over Clara's crossed legs and slid on top of her so that she was sitting across her hips. Clara squealed.

"Hey, get off. I don't want to be messed-up any more. Stop it."

Imogen cupped her hands together and scooped up a mass of clay from the floor.

Clara wriggled under Imogen and tried to grab Imogen's wrists.

"Don't! You wouldn't! No!"

"I would! Here it comes girly. Gonna make a muddy mess out of you too." Imogen said. Imogen dumped the clay over Clara's face. Clara shut her eyes just in time as the clay landed with a splat across her mouth, nose and eyes. She spluttered and flailed her arms blindly. She grabbed Imogen around the waist and tried to push her away, but she couldn't move her.

Imogen gathered more clay in each hand. She smeared it over Clara's cheeks and forehead. Clara continued pushing at Imogen but with no success. Imogen grabbed more handfuls of clay and covered the sides of Clara's head, then her chin and neck. Clara straightened her legs and tried to lever herself off of the floor, but her feet couldn't get a grip and Imogen was too strong for her to lift. Imogen smeared more clay downwards to Clara's neck, covering the bare skin down to the top of Clara's tee-shirt. The next handfuls went inside the neck of the tee-shirt, coating her shoulders and the top of her chest.

Clara got her hand between her body and Imogen's left leg but she couldn't push her off that way either and Imogen clamped her legs tighter to Clara's waist and slid a bit further up her body trapping Clara's right hand against her thigh.

"You're not shifting me, Clara." Imogen laughed. She spread more handfuls of clay on to Clara's hair.

Despite her protests and struggles, Clara was actually enjoying Imogen covering her in clay. She gave-in, stopped struggling and allowed her friend to continue. she admitted to herself that the wet slipperiness of the clay on her face felt nice. She always enjoyed working with the clay on her wheel and bench and, now she was covered in it, it felt quite pleasant. Imogen's stroking of the clay over her face and neck and chest was very nice. The feeling of Imogen's body weight on top of her and the sensation of her hand trapped against Imogen's warm thigh were both very enjoyable.

Clara realised that her nipples were stiffening; she was getting turned on by Imogen's 'attack'. Clara looked at Imogen, her best friend, covered in clay. Clara wondered about the clay under Imogen's dress, in her bra; the clay in Imogen's knickers. She wondered if Imogen was experiencing and enjoying the clay the same way that she was. She wondered what Imogen would look like just coated in clay without her dress; without her underwear - naked and just covered in clay. Her nipples got harder.