Naked Portraits Pt. 12

"See the dog curled up on the bed?" I asked.

"Yes."

"In the old days, the dog represented fidelity, loyalty. Manet used the cat as the opposite symbol."

"Nothing less faithful than an ally cat," Neffie said.

I grinned at her unintended pun of Aly's name. I heard Aly laugh too.

Neffie, clearly missing the joke, asked, "What about the black servant woman?"

"Again, Manet was borrowing from an earlier artist named Ingres titled something or other with a slave."

"Odalisque with a Slave," Neffie said apparently having no trouble finding the painting on line. "It's another naked woman, same pose as Olympia but her head is on the other side. Is the slave the woman playing the musical instrument? Or is it the guy in the background in the robes and turban?" She came around to my side of the easel to show me the laptop screen. A nude figure rested on a bed looking all pale and alluring. Beside the naked woman knelt another woman, just as pale but fully dressed playing an instrument that looked like a stretched out mandolin.

"I guess the guy in the background is the slave," I said.

"Let me see," Aly said. Neffie held out the laptop for her to see. "I think the slave in this picture is the naked chick if you ask me. The dark turban dude looks more like a sultan or a prince."

"Odalisque means mistress," I said. "The naked chick has to be the mistress."

"People did keep sex slaves in the old days," Neffie said. "Both male and female."

"I could use a sex slave," Aly said. "I wonder if George Clooney is available?"

"Or all of Big Time Rush?" Neffie said.

"You go girl," Aly said with a laugh. "Who is your choice for sex slave, Gwen?"

"Thor and Captain America ... maybe Iron Man too, just for giggles," I said.

"What about the Hulk?" Aly asked.

"Shut up and keep still," I said.

A knock came at the door.

"Dr. Ling I presume," Aly said in a bad British accent.

I grunted with frustration at the interruption. I put my brush down and found a cloth to wipe my hands. "I'll find something so you can cover up," I offered.

"No need," Aly said, "I'm sure Nelly has seen it all."

I shrugged and opened the door. An attractive Asian woman with a fair amount of gray in her long dark hair smiled at me. She looked familiar but I couldn't quiet place her ... I could only hope that she hadn't seen me naked like Neffie had.

The woman''s jaw dropped open when she saw Aly posing behind me.

"Close the door Nelly," Aly said, "or the whole world will know that I'm a natural blond."

"And that you ARE," Dr. Nelly Ling said with genuine surprise.

Apparently she hadn't seen it all, I thought cracking a smile. I stepped aside to let the woman into my already crowed studio and closed the door.

Aly introduced everybody all around.

"You could have told me you were posing nude," Ling said, after polite handshakes.

Aly shrugged and smiled. It was clear she had meant to shock her friend.

Dr. Ling turned to me. "You look seriously busy. We can do this another time."

"No, you're here and it's time we all took a break anyway," I said.

Aly stretched, sat up, reached for her shoulder bag and pulled out her laptop. Neffie focused on her laptop too although her eyes kept flickering to Aly sitting naked casually reading her emails. Aly could probably make anything look sexy with that bod of hers; doing a crossword, gutting fish ... or dare I say ... disk sanding a wooden floor.

"May we talk somewhere less ... um ... distracting?" Ling asked as she too seemed unable to look away from naked Aly.

"Join me downstairs for a very bad cup of coffee?" I asked.

"Can't be any worse then the vending machines at the psych department," Dr. Ling said as we squeezed our way to the door.

"I think they've gone out of their way to make the coffee spectacularly bad here," Aly warned.

Ling laughed. It was a pleasant sound.

"Don't peek at the painting," I told Aly. "I don't want you to see it until it's near done."

"Wouldn't think of it," Aly said.

"I'm going to take off after I talk to Gwen," Dr. Ling said turning to Aly. "Nice seeing ... all of you."

Aly laughed at her joke as I closed the door.

At the vending machine on the ground floor under the stairs, we each bought a cup of coffee. Dr. ling quickly agreed with Aly that somehow, the art department vending machine coffee was truly shittier.

"What can I do for you doctor?" I asked trying to sound casual.

"Call me Nelly. I hate all that doctor stuff." She smiled, looked at me for a few seconds and then said, "Your dream was off the charts."

I blushed several shades of red. That's why she's here. She thinks I was making shit up. I must be ruining her research somehow. "I was told to describe my dream in detail," I said softly not meeting her eyes. "I wasn't being weird. All the sex happened ... in the dream I mean. I wasn't making things up."

"I'm not talking about the content, Gwen," Ling said sounding a bit surprised at my reaction. "Your levels, your brain activity is what I'm referring to."

"Oh." After a moment of thought I asked, "Is there something wrong with me? Do you think I'm crazy?" My heart skipped at that sudden disturbing thought.

"That's none of my business for one," Dr. Ling said pleasantly—and clearly joking. She sipped her coffee and made a face. "I've been working at getting a grant to study religious cults that profess at having visions while worshiping."

I frowned. "I don't belong to a cult. I'm as secular as they come." Although I have been praying to heathen idols lately, I thought, but kept quiet on that point.

"But you are having dreams of a vivid nature not unlike cult members in some of my studies. You mentioned in your background form you've been having visions while awake?"

Sure wish I had skipped that part, I thought.

"I would hardly call them visions," I said starting to feel a little uncomfortable. "They're more like flights of intense imagination. I am an artist you know?"

"With these flights of the imagination, when do they happen most often?" she asked pointblank.

For several seconds I didn't say a thing, wondering if I should lie. I didn't see the point so I said, "During or just after sex."

"Really? Can you give me some detail?" She gestured for me to sit on a nearby concrete bench with her. We sat.

I looked at her wondering if she was asking me about the dreams or the sex? She looked back passively not hinting one way or another. It was the dreams she was interested in I assumed. "Lifelike," I said. "I can feel, smell and hear things. Like it's real. Like I'm there ... where ever there is."

Dr. Ling sat quietly. The silence seem to stretch on forever. I sipped my awful coffee just to have something to do. Finally she spoke.

"Will you come back into the dream study, Gwen?"

"Will I still be paid?" I asked sheepishly.

Dr. Ling laughed. "Of course. I've come prepared to entice you back. She pulled out an envelope from her shoulder bag and handed it to me. "I'll pay you the maximum per session. Six sessions all together all up front."

I opened the envelope and saw a a check written to me for one thousand eight hundred dollars.

"That much money for just sleeping? Awesome!" Apparently, today was my day for people to hand large sums of money. It made me wonder how my horoscope read. After a couple of seconds to ponder my latest windfall, I asked, "Will I have to take drugs or something like that?"

Ling laughed some more. "Only if you want to," she said, clearly joking again. She handed me a card. "Next Monday night at eight. Call if you need to reschedule." She stood up and so did I. "I like the painting, Manet's Olympia?"

I nodded.

"Tell Aly I'll get her back somehow." She gave me a pleasant smile, shook my hand and made a bee line to a nearby trashcan to dump her unfinished cup of coffee.

I watched her walk away. Being a broke ass student, I made myself drink more of the shitty coffee. Then I remembered that I had just got a check for one thousand eight hundred dollars on top of the four thousand from Li Hong.

"Fuck this shit," I said and dumped my awful cup of vending machine coffee in the same trash can as Dr. Ling.

Back in my studio I found Neffie and Aly talking animatedly when I entered. Both were drinking sodas. Since Aly was still naked, I assumed that Neffie had gone out to get the drinks.

"What you guys talking about?" I asked.

"You of course," Aly said as she put aside her soda and resumed her pose "Neffie was telling me how you flashed her and her cousin sometime back. Truth of dare? Really Gwen, you are such a slut."

"Yeah, like that beats Noah at the seventh hole," I said casually.

"So? How did it go with Nelly?" Aly asked, quickly changing the subject.

"She says she's going to get you back for flashing your belot at her."

Neffie snorted a laugh.

"I'm sure she will," Aly agreed. "You taking part in her study again?"

Not wanting to talk in front of Neffie, I said, "I'll tell you later."

"Dr. Ling looks likes Sandra Oh," Neffie said.

"The actress from Gray's Anatomy!" Aly barked, "I tell everybody that!"

Maybe that's why she looks so familiar, I thought.

Two hours later, we called it quiets. Fully dressed with her lab coat draped over one shoulder Aly stood looked at the painting for the first time.

"Wow," she said with real awe in her voice.

I nodded in agreement.

"What about the cat and black woman?" Aly asked.

"I'll do something, I just don't know what yet," I said.

"Before I leave, I wanna see Neffie's charcoals," Aly said.

Neffie, with her cute face absolutely filthy with charcoal smudges, shyly showed us her seven finished sixteen by twenty drawings. They were all well done with sensitive attention to detail.

"I like this one," Aly said of a nice study of her upper body. The likeness was right on. Neffie had added in elements from Manet's figure like the arm bracelet, the flower in the hair and the black ribbon at the neck.

Neffie passed the drawing to Aly.

"It would please me if you would keep it," Neffie said.

Aly's jaw dropped open as she took the drawing in her hands. "Thank you. I am so framing this!"

Neffie smiled, pleased that Aly liked the drawing.

"I'm going to see if the guys are still at Rosa's," Aly said, "You coming?"

"No, I'm still in the zone. Think I'll keep working."

"Thanks for the drawing Neffie," Aly said and left.

I scrutinized the rest of Neffie's drawings. They were all good. The girl had certainly taken to the charcoal. I pondered over a focused study of Aly's hand resting on her stomach just above the pubic area. Neffie had spent sometime working on the details of Aly's vagina, the clitoris was clearly visible. My mind quickly flashed to my brief groping of Aly's pubic mound.

"Would you like to keep that one?" Neffie asked.

Realizing that I may have been staring at the drawing a bit too long, I shook my head and handed it back to her.

Great, now the chick is sure I'm a lesbian. Bet I never see her again after today.

"Thanks for your help," I said. "You can go."

"I'll help you break down the setup," she said. "I need to check my email first." She sat down on the old loveseat. I looked at her beautiful Filipino face illuminated by the light of her laptop.

I handed her a wet wipe. "Your face is a mess." I watched her absently clean her face as she read her emails.

"You need to leave soon?" I asked her.

She shook her head.

For the next two hours, I painted Neffie into Aly's painting just as she was, laptop screen and all. Needless to say, the girl was totally thrilled.

Chapter 56 Dreaming For a Government Grant

It was eight o'clock in the evening on a Monday night and I sat in a little bedroom in the dream study section of the psych department of Honolulu University in my mismatched panties and bra. My bra was ordinary and black but my panties pushed the envelope of good taste: the front was decorated with black and orange leopard spots and the back half with black and white zebra stripes. Matt called them my zebard panties ... I should have put more thought in my underwear selection.

I looked into Dr. Lings face as she applied sticky sensors to my forehead. Last time I was here, all the prep was done by a grad student. I must rate having the doctor herself prepping me. Guess she was really serious about landing that grant. She got to work putting the sensor over my heart. She was very pretty I thought, and she really does look like Sandra Oh, the part of my brain in charge of pointless things observed.

That feeling I knew her from somewhere else nagged at me. A sudden rush rippled through me starting as a crawly tingling at the back of my neck. Then a feeling of deja vu descended on me so powerful that I nearly swooned. Since this was hardly the first time this has happened, I stayed calm. I looked at the the door positive that someone would be knocking. A few seconds later, the knock came.

"I'm prepping a subject," Dr. Ling yelled sounding put out.

The pretty grad from last time stuck her head in the door. Ling turned to face her, clearly angry.

"I got a crazy spike on the monitors," the girl said in her odd accent. "I came to see if there was some kind of electronic device in the room causing interference."

"Is your cell phone off?" Ling asked me.

I nodded.

"Could be my cell," Ling said sheepishly. She reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out her phone. "Sorry, the thing's on. Okay, it's off now."

The girl eyed me up for a few seconds and then left. Needless to say, this all felt like it has happened to me before.

"You can put your pajamas on," Ling said.

I did. My said pajamas was an oversized t-shirt made to look like the Hawaii State flag front and back.

Dr. Ling picked up a clipboard and read from it. "For the record, how would your describe your dreams?"

"Vivid. Super real. I can smell and taste things," I answered.

"Do the images and sensory experiences fade quickly after you wake up?"

"No. They stay with me."

"Your recall of them is sharp and clear?"

"Yes."

"What would you say your general mental state is when you are having these vivid dreams?"

"Horny," I said mostly to be funny.

"It's sexual," Ling said in all seriousness as she wrote something down.

"Yeah," I said embarrassed at being so flippant when she was so obviously serious. This was not the joking friendly, Dr Ling from the other day. Guess chasing government grants will do that to you.

Ling looked at her clipboard again.

"Let's talk about the hallucinations when you are awake."

"Sure," I said but flinched at her use of the word hallucinations. It made me sound crazy. For the moment, I decided to keep my recent deja vu episode to myself.

"You say they happen while you're sexually aroused."

"Always," I answered.

"Do you take medication for any of this?"

"Beer sometimes," I said, trying to be funny again.

Dr. ling wrote a note. "Have a good sleep," she said. She gave me a gentle pat on the shoulder, got up and left the room.

Crazy and a drunk, she probably wrote in her notes.

I looked around the room. My accommodations had improved from last time. Now I had my own mini fridge and a small private bathroom like they have in hospital rooms. This is gonna be an easy three hundred bucks. Now all I had to do was go to sleep. My fingers brushed over the sensors on my forehead and then felt the one over my left breast under my nightshirt. Having stuff stuck to your skin made sleep seem impossible.

I flopped on my back and stared at the textured industrial ceiling. The room was lit by a small dim reading lamp on a side table. I swung my legs off the bed and got up to get my book out of my backpack, but first I check out the contents of the fridge: bottled water, mini cans of ginger ale, apple juice boxes. I went to the tiny bathroom and clicked on the light to check that out too: low flow toilet with handicap support bar, metal sink with mirror above it.

I walked back to the bed, unzipped my backpack, pulled out my book and my travel bag, tossed my book on the bed and headed to the bathroom. My eyes flickered to one of the three cameras set up in the room. A dirty little thrill flushed through me. Maybe I should strip naked right were I stood. Bet that notion created a spike on the monitors, I thought with some amusement.

Go ahead, prove that you're unstable to Dr. ling and the WHOLE psych department by getting naked for the cameras, my logical half chimed in.

"Wasn't gonna really do it," I mumbled sub vocally.

You're no fun at all my lizard brain complained.

I continued on to the bathroom to brush my teeth. After brushing, I spent a minute looking at myself in the mirror in my Hawaii State flag t-shirt. Aly found it odd that the British flag dominated one corner of the flag. I thought it odd that she found it odd. She reminded me that we had fought a war to be free of England and putting the British Union Jack in the corner of the state flag seemed treasonous to her.

I got out my hair brush and smoothed my long hair to shiny perfection. A pointless exercise since it would become a rat's nest in no time flat. I stepped out of the bathroom and stopped short. Someone was laying in my bed!

"What the fuck?" I grumbled. Apparently, some idiot from another study had stepped into the wrong room. "Excuse me, you got the wrong room, dude," I said.

The little reading lamp on the side table seemed oddly brighter all of a sudden and I had to shield my eyes from it. I could just make out that it was a woman in my bed, and weirdly, she wore the exact same Hawaii flag shirt as me. Just as I reached out to shake the lolo awake, she rolled over.

I barked a small scream and stepped back. The chick in the bed was ME! No surprise that my hair was a ratty mess.

"When the fuck did I fall asleep?" I exclaimed to the room in general. The Hawaiian flag t-shirt was slightly hiked up exposing the leopard front of my panties. "Should have worn more tasteful underwear," I told sleeping me.

Even though I was dreaming, I still took the time to pull sleeping me's shirt down a bit then slipped the sheet over her for good measure. I pushed her hair from her face and lightly touched the sensors on her forehead. I touched my own forehead but felt no sensors there. I checked the length of my hair, and wouldn't you know it, it was short and reddish brown.

"Sheeees baaack," I said as I stepped into the bathroom to check myself out in the mirror.

My reddish short hair framed a shockingly pale face created by a heavy makeup base. Both my eyes were outlined top and bottom with black eyeliner. Blackish-red lipstick covered my lips. The whole make up job screamed Goth. Up top I wore a clinging, black, short-sleeved spandex bustier thing that pushed at my tits, magically creating more cleavage then I usually deserved. Below, I wore black biker shorts and black calf high suede boots.

"This is even more tacky then my animal panties," I said aloud to my reflection. I had to admit though, it was sexy in a tasteless Fredrick's of Hollywood catalog kind of way. I turned sideways to look at my seemingly enhanced bust line. "You gotta like that."

I stepped back into the bedroom. The stupid bright reading lamp blinded me for a second. Then abruptly, the world went absolutely black. "What the fuck," I said as I held my arms out and inched forward in the direction of the bed. I couldn't see my arms in front of me it was that dark. I stopped short when I heard whispers in the darkness from all around me. Then a sudden booming male voice made me yelp and jump out of my skin.

"LADIES AND GENTLMEN! I GIVE YOU THE KABUKI SISTERS!

The voice was followed by roaring applause coming from all around me in the darkness.