*****
I moved the class on. I wasn’t intending to go into any great detail about ISOs, apertures, or any of that technical stuff that they must have learned about in their last three years of class. In truth, I never found much use for it anyway. If a picture was under or over exposed, too grainy, or whatever, most of the time it just added to the character. Justin, my young TA, could handle that aspect. It felt like he knew more about it that I did, anyway.
In truth, I wasn’t sure what I could teach them. By its very definition, art cannot be learned in my opinion. Teaching kids that ‘this is good and that is not’ just hinders creativity. What I could show them was every facet of photographic art; that there can be as much beauty in the decomposing body of a cockroach as there is in the nude form of a woman, as long as you’re open to seeing it.
We spent the next forty minutes looking at other slides I’d prepared, showing of some of my own work as well as that of my contemporaries. Even now, a lot of the art world still looked down on photographers, which is why we all acted like rebellious assholes, I believed.
Miss Patterson didn’t say much for the rest of the lecture. In fact, she kept her head down, her expression looking like it alternated between discomfort and fury. I was counting down until the end of class so she’d come and talk to me and, as anticipated, she stood as everyone else filed out, kissed her attractive, studious-looking friend goodbye, then stalked over to me with thunder in those wide, pretty eyes. I remained seated at the small desk to the side of the lectern and waited for her to unload on me.
Her voice started off softly, which was a pleasant surprise. “I understand you call yourself an artist, Professor O’Connor, and it seems you have the reputation to back that up.”
“Caleb, please,” I smiled, then I finally remembered to check down my student list. “My I call you Paige?”
“No!” she snapped, her voice still low. “After the way you just violated my privacy today, you don’t get to be informal with me.” I could see her clenching and unclenching her fists. “I realize that we bumped into each other in a very weird and sexually provocative setting, but that doesn’t give you the right to betray the implied trust of us being there together. You mortified me, Professor O’Connor.”
I felt for her. In this moment, she was outraged and rightly so. However, I needed her to move past it. The more I looked at her, the more silent passion she directed at me, the more I knew she was the muse I’d been looking for. She had such a fire in her glorious eyes, and her beautiful face was wild and unmasked. The fact that she probably wore a similar expression as she writhed in orgasm, grinding helplessly on her lover’s cock sent a desperate throb down to my own loins. I could feel the heat and blood rushing to my dick.
“I appreciate what you’re saying, Paige, and I suspect that, somewhere in there,you know that it was not my intent to embarrass you,” I told her.
“Then, for fuck’s sake, ‘Caleb’,” she raised her voice then and her eyes grew even wilder, “tell me, what was your fucking intention?”
“I had no idea who you were,” I admitted. “I saw you at that club, I took your picture. When we spoke later, I was going to fuck but you seemed to have issues to deal with at the time. When I took your picture, though, you were free, you were yourself, you looked like you’d just had your eyes opened to a world you never knew existed, and here,” I brought the picture back up onto the screen, “you were on the very edge, about to dive right in. Tell me I’m wrong.”
She glanced back up to the picture and a look of distaste crossed her face. “Oh, my God, you are so wrong,” she almost whispered.
I stood up quickly and stepped in front of her, very close to her. “You’re lying,” I whispered back. “I saw that picture the next day and, I swear to you, I’ve never seen anything so amazing to look at in my life.”
“What does it matter?” she breathed, looking back up at my eyes. Standing this close, she was half a head shorter than me, even more beautiful, and she smelled of sweetness mixed with sunshine.
“It matters to me because someone close to you is ruining your life,” I told her softly. “Someone you care about is making you feel less about yourself, making you doubt yourself, but in that instant,” I pointed back at the screen without looking at it, “you forgot all that. Your naturally effortless sensuality and sexuality returned, and that’s how you need to feel all the time. That’s how I want to make you feel. All the time.”
She kept her face turned toward me, her soft lips parted slightly. I could have kissed her, I knew she wanted it and I could almost taste her. However, I felt somehow that if I did, she’d respond but, by the time she got back to her dorm, she’d realize it was a mistake and that would be the last I saw of her.
Her cell phone rang to destroy the moment, and I smiled to myself as she fumbled in her bag to answer it. “Adam! Hi!” she spluttered, turning away from me. I tuned out because it’s never polite to listen to someone else’s phone calls. But, as I watched her walk away from me, she turned back to glance at me one more time, and I thought I saw the barest smile curling around her lips.