A Creative Challenge Ch. 32

Amy was more surprised than I was when Mike said he needed to think about it overnight and didn't agree to model for us straight away. She had simply assumed that he would do it without thinking twice, but it wasn't until when we were in the studio after breakfast the next morning ready to start work that he told us what he had decided.

"It isn't that I'm shy," he told her, "Dad will tell you that there's nothing unusual about anyone in our family being naked around the house, like you two are right now. It's just that I'm making this documentary about you and your work, and that usually means being only an observer, not a participant, which is why I hadn't volunteered before, why I've kept my clothes on – which, incidentally, has sometimes not been easy."

"You wanted to keep some professional distance?" I ventured.

"Exactly."

"So, you won't do it," said Amy, visibly disappointed.

"I didn't say that. If you want me to be part of your work I'm happy to do that, but I don't want to stop making this documentary. That means I need you both to help me by being part of mine."

"What do you want us to do?" said Amy, much more interested again.

"I can't just suddenly appear in Dad's artworks without any explanation, and I can't be in front of the camera and behind it at the same time, so all of us will have to share some of the filming. I can direct you, but you need to learn how to operate the camera so that I get footage I can use. I don't want this to look like an amateur home movie. Deal?"

Amy looked at me expectantly, and I shrugged back to tell her that it was up to her, but she frowned at me which I took to mean she wanted me to make the decision. I had hoped this movie of Mike's wasn't going to take over my studio and upset our work routine. While he was hovering round the outside of our work, it wasn't so bad, but I hadn't planned on having to get involved in actually doing it for him. But I also didn't want to disappoint Amy, so I nodded. It was worth it just for one of her smiles, which lately seemed to come with their own orchestral accompaniment, string crescendos which pulsed in my ears to the rhythm of my heartbeat whenever she projected one my way.

"Deal." she said. "When can we start?"

"Start what? Me modelling for Dad? Or me training you how to be a cinematographer?"

I saw a triumphal expression come over Amy's face, and I knew exactly what she was thinking.

"Oh, the training can come later, I meant let's start by getting you naked at last."

"We came to the studio to work, so I guess this must be the moment of truth," said Mike, standing up and facing Amy, making it obvious that he was not about to be intimidated by her, and wryly amused by her interest in getting him to take his clothes off.

I hadn't seen Mike without a shirt on since not long after he left school, and when he stripped his t-shirt up and over his head I was surprised how much his body had matured, and how much it had been shaped by his training with the college swim team. His chest and shoulders were much broader than they had been before, and he was more wedge-shaped with lean, flat, abs. When he undid the drawstring on his track pants and stepped out of them as they fell to the floor, I thought was how much his whole body looked like mine did when I was his age, except perhaps fitter and even better looking – not that I was going to admit that to anyone but myself.

Except for the brief moment when the shirt masked his face as it came off, Mike had not broken eye contact with Amy, not even to blink as far as I could see. He looked her straight in the eye, a small smile just creasing the corners of his mouth. She responded to the eye contact challenge with a similar expression on her own face, trying to be nonchalant and not look at his body, even when his track pants hit the deck. When she finally broke the magnetic force holding her eyes locked to his, her body language momentarily conceded defeat as she ran her eyes down his chest, across his abdomen and down to the relaxed length of hosepipe resting against his thigh.

Amy turned to me and made the same face-fanning gesture she gave Marlee after she had pulled down Buckingham's shorts in our villa in Jamaica.

"Whew, you were right, Sam. He IS a big boy."

"Oh, I don't know," I said, following her gaze back to what Mike was recently hiding in his pants. "Looks to me we're about the same size."

"I was talking about his shoulders. His general build. Not his penis," said Amy, lying. "With you men it always comes down to the size of your dicks, doesn't it?" She smugly licked her finger and chalked up a point in the air.

"Who mentioned dicks?" I said, "I was talking about the excellent genetics revealed in his physique. I think it was you that just introduced cock size into the discussion." I made a big show of awarding myself two air points, then rather childishly said under my breath "I win."

"Excuse me," said Mike. "I'm beginning to feel like a lump of meat the way you're talking about me." He paused, then, playing the same childish game, added, "A big lump of meat."

"How big?" said Amy, very directly and looking Mike in the eye.

Her very quick and firm response to his small piece of good-humoured banter took him by surprise. Knowing Amy's penchant for being sexually provocative I was not nearly so surprised, although because of my presence in the room and my relationship to Mike I have to admit I was not expecting her to be so direct. Mike was only momentarily silenced, and promptly rose to the challenge.

"That depends," he said, locking eyes with her.

"On what."

"On how I feel at the time. Or..."

"Or on how someone else makes you feel? Is that what you were going to say?"

Mike inclined his head in an assenting nod. Like a dog with a fresh bone, Amy was not about to let go that easily.

"And how do you feel right now?"

"A little awkward."

Mike clearly was somewhat uncomfortable, but he quickly clarified what he meant by that.

"Not at standing here in my birthday suit, you understand, but at being grilled about my private feelings by you with Dad in the room."

Ignoring Mike's push-back, Amy looked round at me as if she had forgotten I was still here. I was now the one who felt a little awkward, even though I had said and done nothing to cause that.

"Would you like me to leave?" I said, sarcastically, and not at all seriously, even though I was feeling like an interloper in my own studio.

"No, Sam, not at all," said Amy quickly. "I think we would like you to do some drawing, wouldn't we?" She glanced back at Mike, assuming his agreement and not waiting for mine. "That's what we're here for, and it might help Mike to give us an answer to the question."

Amy took control, as she so often did when she perceived she had an advantage in sexual power. She stepped towards Mike, her hand outstretched. When he took her hand in his, she led him to the dais, kneeling on it and indicating to Mike to do the same. He knelt facing her, his knees comfortably apart, the tip of his cock just brushing the carpet, sitting on his heels with his back upright. Amy thought for a moment, then moved out of a kneeling position to sit back on her bottom with her legs stretched out in front of her, one foot either side of Mike with her knees slightly bent and off the ground. She leaned back on her elbows and dropped her knees sideways almost to the floor, presenting Mike with a perfect view of her pussy right in front of him.

"How's that Sam?" she said. "I think I can hold this for about fifteen minutes if Mike can."

"That'll be fine," I said, dragging my easel sideways so that I would be more facing Mike and looking at their two bodies from over Amy's shoulder. "You've certainly given him something to think about while he tries not to move for the next quarter of an hour."

I understood the game that Amy was now playing, and for the first time ever when working with Amy, the focus of the picture I wanted to create was not her exquisite body. Mike's reaction to what he was being shown was what I was more interested in this time. What this young man was looking at was obvious from a rear view of the way Amy was splayed out in front of him, I didn't need to show exactly what he could see because anybody looking at the picture would instantly imagine that in a very powerful way.

I drew quickly, blocking in the key lines and shapes roughly at first, because Mike had no experience of modelling for an artist and I wasn't sure how long he could sit on his heels without moving. It sounds easy to just remain still for fifteen minutes or so, but it is a lot harder than you would think, and what feels comfortable for the first motionless minute or so can sometimes be agonising after ten more. I also wanted to capture the whole scene, and the simple fact is that with two bodies there is more to draw than there is with one so I was trying not to waste any time.

I needn't have worried because when I stopped seeing and drawing what was in front of me as just shapes and forms and looked for a moment at the two of them as people again, Mike seemed quite relaxed and comfortable looking straight at Amy's pussy with an amused half smile creasing the corners of his mouth. It occurred to me then that control of this situation had shifted from Amy to Mike. She had deliberately laid back in such a provocative way because she was expecting him to be unable to conceal his real feelings when both their naked bodies came into such close proximity. She thought that if she made it impossible for him to avoid staring at her glistening pussy, his body would betray him and override any intention he might have to appear indifferent. She wanted to make him get a hard-on.

To my astonishment, it looked like she was going to fail. I knew very well the effect her actions would have had on me, and I knew that when Amy does what she was doing to Mike she could give a hard-on to a lump of lifeless granite , so I was at a loss to understand why Mike's cock was still just hanging down limp, gently touching the carpet between his thighs, not even twitching.

After about ten minutes Amy shifted onto one elbow and made a show of flapping her other hand to restore her circulation.

"Sorry, Sam. Comfort pause. OK?"

"Sure," I said, unconvinced by her apparent inability to hold for more than ten minutes a pose that she could normally hold for three times that without complaint.

Before settling back on both her elbows, Amy placed the hand that was supposed to be losing feeling on her stomach and slid it down her body. From my angle, I could only guess what she was doing with it, but when she brought it back up to her mouth and ostentatiously sucked two of her fingers, I knew that my guess was correct. Without seeing it, I knew that her pussy lips were now gaping open and shiny and pink and lubricated. Mike didn't move. He never stopped staring at her pussy, and his expression didn't change, not even for a moment.

Just before the fifteen minutes was up I put the finishing touches to the drawing and told Mike and Amy to take a break. I looked at what I had drawn and it was intriguing. In the foreground was Amy with the back of her head towards me. Over her shoulders I could just see the tips of her breasts and behind them her splayed knees. Between her knees and facing me sitting on his haunches was Mike. The curious thing was that there was no doubt that both of them were naked, and that I had captured the angle of Mike's gaze perfectly so that there was no doubt exactly what he was looking at and smiling at. Yet further down the image, contradicting his obvious erotic interest, was his cock, limp and dangling. Nobody looking at the picture would be able to ignore the question of why he did not have an erection. Was he indifferent to her? No, his expression was warm and approving. Did it look like he had already just fucked her? Not from the expectant way she was presenting herself, nor from his casual and relaxed pose. It was a puzzle.

I looked up from the drawing when I heard the door to the studio shut, and realized that Amy was no longer with us. Mike was sitting on the edge of the platform about to have a drink from one of the water bottles I always put near the modelling area. I looked at him questioningly and nodded towards the door. He shrugged and shook his head, then got up and came round behind the easel to have a look at my work.

"That's... interesting," he said, not sure what to say.

"Is it that bad?" I asked.

"No, it's a good drawing. It just looks incomplete somehow."

"How did you do that?" I said, pretty sure he would know what I was referring to.

"Do what?" he replied innocently.

"Don't be cute, Mike, you know what I meant. How did you manage to not get an erection while you were staring at Amy's pussy? Don't you find her attractive?"

Mike looked me straight in the eye and became very serious.

"Hasn't it ever occurred to you that I might be gay?"

No, it hadn't. At least not until that moment. I frantically searched my memory of his adolescent years for clues that might confirm the homosexuality he was hinting at, but there wasn't a single incident that I could recall.

"No," I said. "It hasn't. Are you?"

"Hell, no. Not at all." Mike was laughing at the look on my face, which I was intending to be supportive and non-judgmental but must instead have looked more astonished than anything else. "I am SO not gay. That was a joke. I just wanted to see your reaction."

"You'll keep," I said, kicking myself for being so easily sucked in. "So how did you do it? Amy's used to being in control, and I think she must have gone off very disappointed at the lack of effect she had on you."

"Given how she has you wrapped round her little finger, I don't suppose that will do her any harm at all."

Mike knew straight away that his comment had stung me a little. I had not been in the habit of thinking of myself as under Amy's control, but I had to recognize the truth of the fact that I generally deferred to Amy in our relationship and if that looked to Mike like domination then I had to accept that. He broke the awkward silence by answering my question.

"A combination of some yoga and some meditation techniques. It's not that hard with a little practice."

"I noticed."

"Ha ha. You know what I meant. It's just 'mind over matter', and it's not that difficult to separate your conscious mind from your autonomic response systems when you want to."

"Why would you want to?" I said, not finding the idea of deliberately avoiding becoming sexually aroused all that exciting. Getting horny was one of the things that made life worthwhile. It had certainly made my life with Amy a rich and satisfying experience. Even if she was more in control of it than I was, I mentally reminded myself.

"Well, it doesn't let me just control whether or not to get an erection, it means I can do lots of things, like ignore pain, or fuck for hours without coming if I want to."

"Mike, can you wait here? I think I'll just go and make sure that Amy's OK. It's not like her to just walk out without a word."

Mike gently put his hand on my arm to stop me.

"Dad, don't. She'll be back when she's ready."

"You think?"

"I know."

He said that with more confidence than I would have expected. My son had become very sure of himself all of a sudden, particular with the woman around whom my life revolved, and although I knew his advice was probably sound, I wasn't that keen to take it. I wanted to go to her, to reassure her, to comfort her if she was upset. I wanted to take care of her.

Before I could do anything, the door opened, and in breezed Amy with a jug of cold orange juice, and some glasses. To my relief, she seemed cheerful enough, and she poured herself some juice, taking it with her to the podium.

"Sorry for holding you up, guys. Do you want to do some more work?"

The next few hours were very productive. Having a creative mind as well as being fresh to the task, Mike suggested several good combination poses. Amy did exactly what she was asked to do each time, holding each one for as long as I needed without a murmur.

Over the next few days, Mike spent some time teaching us both how to operate the video camera the way he wanted it done – how not to cut the tops of heads off, how to hold the camera steady, how to follow movement, how to pan very slowly when the image is static, that sort of thing – and together we worked on both our art and our documentary projects, drawing, filming, and talking both on and off camera.

Late one evening about a week after Mike started modelling with us, Amy and I were relaxing on our bed with a glass of wine, watching an old movie on TV. I had my arm around her, and she was leaning on me like a pillow, the back of her head against my chest. Amy had been no less affectionate than usual, but less talkative, more quiet and withdrawn all day. I didn't get any sense that she was pissed at me, so I had decided not to intrude on her thoughts, figuring that she would probably tell me what was on her mind eventually.

She reached for the remote, and pointed it at the screen.

"Are you watching this?" she asked.

"Not if you don't want to," I replied.

She turned the television off and we sat in silence for several minutes before she took a deep breath and spoke.

"Did you know Mike has decided to go back to University?"

"No. When?"

"Soon. He's signed up to do his Ph.D. He's got an idea for a book and he thinks he can sell his documentary series idea to one of the cable TV companies if he's back where the action is."

"I knew he was thinking about going back, but he hasn't said anything to me."

"He will."

The way she said those two words made me feel that she knew a lot more than I did, but she said nothing more, so I discounted the feeling and let myself simply enjoy her closeness. My arm was round her neck and my hand was resting gently on her left breast. I felt her nipple contract and harden slightly under my palm and I lifted my hand up so I could trace around her little pink button's corona with my middle finger. As always, it tightened and puckered in response to my touch and I felt a little shiver of pleasure run through Amy's torso, accompanied by a very soft and encouraging "mmm".

As my hand went from circling her nipple with one finger to caressing with all my fingertips the soft crease where her breast met her ribcage , Amy reached up with her hand and trapped my hand against her tit, holding me still so that I could no longer stroke her. I became aware of my heart pounding in my ears as if this was a moment of calm before a storm. Gently, she took my hand away from her body and sat up, twisting around to face me. I wanted, as always, to stare in joy at the symmetrical perfection of her breasts, but I knew this time that it was important to look into her eyes.

"Sam, when Mike goes back, I'm going with him."

Her voice seemed faint and far away, as if I was wearing earplugs, so that I wasn't sure if I had properly heard what she had said. Besides the thumping in my head, I could now hear myself breathing, and the noise of the wind rushing in and out was drowning out every other sound. I knew what she was trying to tell me, but I responded as if she meant something else.

"I can understand you wanting to do that. You've become important to his work like you are to mine. It will be a good experience for you."

"He's the one, Sam."

"How long do you think you'll be gone?" She reached out and took my hand in hers, gently, and leaned forward slightly, speaking slowly and clearly.

"Sam. He's The One."

"Does he know?" I said, surprised at how calm I sounded, and puzzled at the absurdity of my question.

"I think so...yes. Yes, he does."