Chapter 201

May 10, 2018 (Thursday)

Dear Ms. Diary,

Brit and Lana touched up a bit of the latex paint all of us had worn last night before we headed to school. We had set it up yesterday with the office that Celeste and Andy would be visiting today, so, at lunch, Liya met them at the main entrance and, along with the SRO – the same guy who had arrested Tweedle Dumber, met the rest of us at the office where they got permits to be in the school. The SRO escorted us to Ms. Sullivan’s classroom and then left.

“Ah,” Ms. Sullivan stated, “the art project. I’ve been looking forward to this.”

Brit responded, “Yes, but I have a request of you, first. Lana helped me extensively, both in researching how to present my idea, but also in the project’s execution. Is there any way she could get class credit for this?”

Ms. Sullivan gazed at Brit for a few moments, gave a small smile, and responded, “I can do that... [she turned to face Lana] ... so long as she writes a summary of her efforts for the project... and ... describes all she did to effect the project’s completion. Is that clear, Lana?”

Lana gazed back at her, then nodded.

Ms. Sullivan added, “I’m not above asking your ... compadres how much and what you did.”

“Yes, Ms. Sullivan.”

The teacher continued to gaze at Lana, then added, “Not in school ... ever, but I’m not much older than some of you, so I’d appreciate it if you use my first name should we ever again meet in a more ... social setting. Would you be able to address me as ‘Caitlin’ in such situations?”

Celeste responded, “I have no qualms about using that name now, Caitlin, but the Central students should probably answer for themselves.”

I interjected, “Is that c, a, i, t, l, i, n or k, a, t, e, l, y, n?”

“The former.”

“Oh, that’s a problem. We already have a lot of friends and family with names beginning with ‘c’. In fact, that’s the single most frequent initial letter of first names in the ... extended family.”

She grinned at me and responded, “Your problems are so difficult.” She glanced around, then added, “I do see that you have three here, accounting for 20 percent of you.”

“And there are three others,” Liya added, “of the 30 people closest to us.”

“Yes, I see ... your first-world problem.”

There was much chuckling, to which she smiled around the room.

“Well, let’s get on with it.”

Brit responded to her teacher, “We’ll have to remove our shirts to show you the artwork, but ... we girls are all wearing sports bras and Brett’s wearing a crop top under his T.”

“That’s fine. I could have dealt with the partial nudity, but that, obviously, would have been a huge no-no in school. Thanks for considering the potential problems body paint could create.”

“We do try to anticipate problems,” Brit replied as she turned to Brett, and reached under his shirt to grasp the crop top in order to hold it down while he took his T off.

We had come into the room in the order that Brit wanted to present the art – alphabetical order, so once we removed our outer torso garments, we stood in a semi-circle around the front of the room, as that was the only way we could fit the 15 of us in the space.

“Is that the view from the school?”

When Brit told her that it was, Ms. Sullivan began at the left end of us – Andy – and inspected the art intensively. During this time, Rache took various photos, all having Ms. Sullivan as one of the subjects. When she reached the right end – Rhee, she walked back toward Andy and looked at us more ... holistically.

“You like science, Brit?”

“Very much, Ms. Sullivan.”

“I can see that.” After a few moments, she breathed somewhat deeply, then added, “I’d call this illustration, not art. That’s not at all a negative, but you have, I assume, presented roughly half of the lunar cycle as seen from the school. You’ve even done a good job of showing the ... intensity and tone of the sky color at what I assume are the different times of the day during which the moon is due north of the school. I see the moon changing from roughly half of it lit by the sun through the nadir of a fingernail paring back to about half illuminated again. Is this actual as of this month?”

“Yes, with the nadir yesterday,” Brit responded a bit flatly.

Despite that Brit’s tone was obvious to me, I thought it was subtle enough that Ms. Sullivan would not pick up on that, but she turned immediately to Brit and asked, “Do you object to my ... classification of your effort?”

I turned to watch Brit and saw her clench her jaw, then answer, “Yes and no. I understand it, but perhaps I don’t understand the distinction.”

“Illustration is generally considered to involve presenting reality in some fashion, with little or no interpretation or originality. The various ... styles or sorts of art ... and there is extensive disagreement where and if there are lines separating them ... are generally thought of as involving one or more of originality, innovation, and new ideas. In the real world, the one that some artists find difficult to navigate successfully, good illustrators are generally much more successful than would-be so-called artists.”

I had watched Ms. Sullivan watch Brit’s expression become a bit more ... mulish, perhaps ... during her exposition. However, I also saw the left corner of Ms. Sullivan’s mouth turn up a bit.

“Brit, I’ve seen your art and now I’ve seen your illustration. I would still like to see a fully realized work of art from you, rather than just a few eyeballs that brilliantly tell a story with incredibly few brush strokes.” She studied Brit’s expression as it moderated from the praise she had just received, smiled a little, and then added, “I think you do not understand the ... power you have. The best... ‘artists’ [air quotes], no matter how that subset is defined, are assisted by being able to fully understand aspects of the world as it is ... and work from there. I assume that you are familiar with an ‘artist’ by the name of Leonardo da Vinci. Yes?” When Brit nodded, she asked, “What art or illustration of his do you know?”

“The Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and that illustration of...”

When Brit stopped in mid-sentence and got a wondering look on her face, Ms. Sullivan said, “Ah. So you do understand the difference. da Vinci may well have been the most incredible polymath our species has ever produced and it’s unlikely you could come anywhere close to matching his impact on our world. However, you have an interest in science. da Vinci was interested in science. You have an interest in art. da Vinci produced some of the most discussed artwork in history. You have presented here an excellent illustration. da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man may well be the most discussed illustration in history. Brittany Whitcomb, I would consider it a shame if you wished to be only one thing in your life.”

Our line of moon illustrations began to break down during Ms. Sullivan’s ... remonstration with Brit, and I had moved enough to see more clearly around Brett in order to see Brit’s face as she broke down from Lana’s teacher’s words. While I began to move in response to that, Brett and Celeste, on either side of Brit, wrapped her up in love.

Given our druthers, we would probably have stayed in Ms. Sullivan’s classroom as Brit got her emotions under control and then discussed Brit and art with the teacher, but Meka said, “If we’re going to get lunch, we need to get a move on.”

Ms. Sullivan immediately responded, “I’ll walk with you since I need to talk to Ms. Escobar about getting you out of classes so Brit can present her work to the senior-level class.” As we were walking, Ms. Sullivan told Brit, “I want to discuss art versus illustration with the ... senior class, although the class does include the odd underclassman or two. Would you be interested in doing something else for that class?”

Brit’s face took on a somewhat frightened mien and she asked, “Like what?”

“I’d love it if you could do a ... relatively extemporaneous bit of body painting that tells a brief story ... in real time.”

“Except for grade school, I’ve never taken an art class in my life. I couldn’t do anything like that!”

Ms. Sullivan rattled her brain hard and asked, “None?”

“None.”

Ms. Sullivan collected herself as we approached the office, then asked, “May I come talk with you at lunch tomorrow?”

“Umm, suit yourself. We’ll be at our usual tables.” Brit closed her eyes, breathed deeply, opened her eyes, and said, “Thanks for what you said. That’s probably the best compliment I’ve ever received.”

“I meant it and I’d really like to talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay. We’ll be there.”

Lana’s teacher said to all of us, “Can you ... college students stick around for the class after lunch?”

The two of them looked at each other, then Celeste replied, “We can do that. I could still make my last class.”

“Thank you, both of you. While Brit’s project would work without you, it’ll be better if you’re both there, particularly since you’re both in the first half of the cycle presented. Your pass should cover you for the lunchroom, and I’m pretty sure you could even get lunch.”

Our appearance in the upper-level art class was somewhat uneventful. Ms. Sullivan used us primarily as an example of a relatively new art medium and had Brit explain about paint and application types, after which Ms. Sullivan conducted the conversation about illustration and art. Upon returning home, we quickly did what we needed to remove the paint and headed for practice. After practice, we all went home, and the girls all shared a single shower while Brett showered upstairs.

Civia announced, “Buddies are Lana and Katie, Meka and Heather, Cera and Civia, Gracey and Rhee, Liya and Char, Kim and Rachel, and the trio of Brit, Beth, and Maren.”

As we exited the shower, Maren gushed, “This is such a great way to shower! It’s just so freaking fun here! Everyone, thanks for being my friends!”

Various of us hugged her before toweling while affirming that we were her friends. We decided on tubwear for the evening so that we did not have to wear one outfit and take tubwear with us to the W. That decision caused a bit of a stir.

“I don’t see why that’s a problem,” Alicia responded. “Most Thursdays, we’re all together wearing such apparel in the hot tub and, recently, we haven’t changed out of it for dessert. Personally, I’ve come to like – and very much, everyone here, so I’d have no qualms about spending the entire evening in my suit.”

Carol responded, “We’ve all talked about moving these get-togethers to Friday nights or even to the weekend. If we move them to the weekend, once our new pool is in, it could be the center of the get-togethers.”

Kalina said, “I didn’t really mean anything about my comment. I was simply surprised that it was not something I’d considered before. Jeff and I are becoming very comfortable with this group of ... friends and, it seems, co-parents of this gaggle of girls. I certainly have no objection to the girls arriving in suits, nor would I with any of the parents arriving in such. Come the summer, I can easily imagine arriving here ready to take a dip.”

Nira, Inez, and Carol had combined efforts on a new dish, baked mushroom risotto. With all the mouths to feed, it apparently took all of them to have the meal ready for dinner once Carol got home from work. It was yummy and received accolades from all. The rest of the evening was interesting, but nothing of particular note took place, so we girls departed around 8:30 to do schoolwork, except that Meka drove Rhee and Brit to spend the night at the Jacobs house.

Celeste’s appointment to receive her IUD is tomorrow, and the rest of us other than Andy will follow her path over the next two weeks.

Rache made love with Jim for the second time ever and again managed to do that in our bed with all the rest of us as audience. I think she tried to keep her mind from truly realizing we were watching her, but from her actions, she was really jonesing. When she was riding Jim, Kim took a slight chance by putting her hand on Rache’s right shoulder and smoothly running it from there down her back, across to her right side, thence up that side to the shoulder, and then down her right arm to the hand as that hand on Jim’s chest provided half of the fulcrum against which Rache was lifting her pelvis to rise and fall on Jim’s cock. The two lovers’ eyes were focused strongly on each other’s eyes. Since Rache did not object to Kim’s hand, I did the same on Rache’s body that Kim had done, running my right hand on the mirror path on Rache’s left side. Since Rache again did not object, I ran my right hand back up her left arm, over her shoulder, slowly down her back in a wandering route, and then down onto her left buttock.

When Rache moaned, presumably due to my hand on her ass, Kim rounded her eyes at me, and I nodded. She brought her right hand slowly up Rache’s right arm, and I moved my hand to roam on Rache’s back. Once Kim’s hand reached Rache’s shoulder, she and I moved our hands all over her back, mostly in concert. When Kim nodded once at me, we ran our individual hands down to Rache’s lower cheeks and rubbed all around them.

Rache responded by moaning again, dropping her chest onto Jim’s, and kissing him with passion. We took that as a sign that she liked what we were doing, so increased the intensity of touching her butt, then initiated squeezing it. Keeping my hand mobile on her left cheek, I began kissing the left side of Rache’s back, an action that Kim immediately began mirroring. Occasionally, I lightly rubbed my right cheek on that back along with my hand, resulting in Rache giving out a low grunt-moan. With Kim and I rubbing her back and ass, kissing her back, and rubbing our faces lightly on her back, Rache stepped onto the Stairway. Her rate up to the edge increased and she began giving out low moans and grunts and her pelvis increased its up-and-down speed. I moved my face to Rache’s left cheek and, while my right hand continued its roaming on it, I began kissing her ass as my hand delineated the route across and around that lovely, firm cheek. When Kim leaned over and put her lips on Rache’s neck, Rache jumped up the Stairway and went up and over, giving out soft moans, grunts, and groans as she climaxed, with Jim filling her pussy with his semen before she had finished cumming.

May 11, 2018

Dear Ms. Diary,

“I can’t believe the ... power of that ... orgasm and I really can’t believe how much I enjoyed ... you and Beth touching me. This is embarrassing for me, but I’m trying to be ... to get across to you what I mean more in the fashion you girls do that. That was probably the ... best orgasm of my life.”

Rache’s face went scarlet, but she managed to keep her eyes on Kim’s and say those words with little hesitation.

She continued, “I had ... no idea.”

After at least five seconds of silence from Rache after her last words, Liya asked, “Do you mean you had no idea that orgasms could be that incredible? Rache, although you didn’t scream like Heather or, sometimes, Lana, that seemed like a great orgasm.”

Her face still glowing hotly, Rache replied, “Yes. It was and ... I’d like to ... figure that out. Was it just getting more comfortable with Jim or ... did Kim’s and Beth’s ... additions cause that to be so good? Or both?” She exhaled noisily, then added, “I ... guess ... I’m going to have to ... experiment to figure that out. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I guess I need to make love with just Jim sometime, then Jim with the ... LA gathered around me, and, finally, with all that and one or two ... girls touching me.”