The Third Installment

Chapter Three

Jamie is naked and straddling me. She leans down and nuzzles my neck. Somewhere off in the distance I hear knocking and someone saying, “Wake up, P. J., your alarm is going off.” I hear buzzing, but I’m not sure where it’s coming from. Jamie is kissing her way down my body and I can’t remember how she got into my bedroom.

“P. J.,” Aunt Cheryl’s voice booms into my thoughts. “Get up and turn that alarm off.”

The buzzing is suddenly louder and Jamie is gone. I open my eyes and bright sun light streams in from the windows in front of me and to my right. I reach over, grab my phone, and silence the alarm.

“Thank God,” Aunt Cheryl says, “That thing has been going off for a half an hour.”

“Sorry,” I call out.

I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and look up at the ceiling. I’m truly disappointed that I was just dreaming about Jamie. It feels like it’s been forever since we made love. I can’t wait to be able to get our own place so we can be together every night.

Sitting up, I let the sheet fall to my waist and lean against the headboard. I grab my half drank Dew, twist off the top, and take a deep drink. It’s warm and a little flat, but I’m sure it still has a little bit of caffeine in it.

I picked my phone up and looked at the time. Nine-thirty-eight. I switched to the main screen and see that I have a text message. It’s from Jamie. “Good morning, Angel. I didn’t call. I figured you needed to sleep. Call me when you get up. Love you.”

Smiling, I hit the phone symbol to call her. She should be in between classes.

She picks up on the second ring. “There’s my baby.”

“Good morning, babe.”

“You just now getting up,” she asked.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to wake up because I was having the best dream about you,” I said.

“Oh really, and what was it about?”

“You were naked and on top of me, kissing your way down…”

“Oh my,” she gasped. “We’ll have to finish that story later.”

I hear one of her friends in the background. “Jamie’s blushing. You guys have phone sex this early in the morning?”

Now I’m blushing and laughing. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you had an audience.”

Jamie laughed too. “I doesn’t take much to entertain these two. But, we will definitely finish that story later.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” she assures me. “When you going to be on campus?”

“My class is not until twelve, so probably around eleven thirty.”

“This is the long one, isn’t it?” she asks.

“Yeah, this is my drawing class. It goes until three,” I answer.

“Do you have to work tonight?”

“Of course, but not until six, do you think we can meet at the library and work on my algebra? I fell asleep working on it last night and I have a lot of work to do still.”

“Sure,” she says. “Let’s meet at the coffee house by the fine arts building. I’m going to be ready for a mocha by then.”

“Umm, that sounds good,” I say, and then ask, “When’s your next class?”

“In about fifteen minutes,” Jamie says. “Kayla, Brandi and I just stopped by the food court to grab a bite to eat. Why?”

“I was hoping you’d have time to hang out with me for a little bit. I miss you,” I say.

“You just seen me yesterday,” Jamie says with a laugh.

“Yeah, but I haven’t got to kiss you since yesterday afternoon,” I say.

“Oh shit,” one of the girls say, “she’s blushing again.”

I start laughing. “I’m sorry I keep embarrassing you in front of your friends.”

“That’s okay, I’ll get even and I miss you, too,” Jamie giggles.

“Well, I better let you go,” I say. “I need to get up and get a shower anyway.”

“Jesus, what is she telling you,” the other girl asks.

Jamie starts laughing. “She said she was going to take a shower, I was picturing her naked, satisfied,” she says to her friends who start making crude comments. “I’m going now. We’ve entertained these two enough this morning.”

“Okay, baby,” I say, “I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”

“Love you too,” she says and hung up.

I stretch my arms over my head, take another drink of my Dew, and throw the sheet off me. It’s time to get my butt into gear.

An hour later I was on campus and headed toward the library. It was getting close to lunch time so I decided to drop in the student center food court and grab a bite to eat before class. There are four or five fast food chains that have stores in the food court and I try to avoid them. I have enough fast food at McDonald’s.  I pick the restaurant that has the freshest food and hit the salad bar.

After I’d filled my plate with my favorite veggies and some ranch dressing, I went in search of a table that I could get by myself so I could study while I was eating. I spotted one in the corner of the restaurant by a window. That would be perfect because it would give me plenty of sunlight.

On my way to the table, I notice Lori sitting with a group of other girl athletes. We make eye contact and she gives me a wary nod. A few of Lori’s friends glanced over at me.  I nodded back and headed to my seat. 

Her behavior only struck me as a little odd. I’d definitely picked up on gay vibes from her in class, but I’d bet money that her jock friends and teammates don’t know she is gay. That’s cool. After the crap Jamie and I went through in high school, I wouldn’t subject anyone to being outed when they weren’t prepared.

I put my salad down on the table, took my psychology book out of my backpack, put the backpack on a chair, and slid into the chair next to it. Even though I had full view of Lori and her friends, I didn’t look her way again, but I could see a few of her group looking at me from the corner of my eye. I took a bite of my salad and started reading in the book as if I didn’t notice them.

The whole group at Lori’s table got up and left not long after that. I was quite relieved. Now, I could stretch my neck and look around the room without them being there. Another reason I didn’t look over at Lori again was because I didn’t want to give her the wrong impression. She might think that I’m interested in her if I pay too much attention to her. I definitely don’t need that. Jamie and my relationship is still too new to have someone come along and rock the boat.

I head to the fine arts building after lunch. We have been working on linear drawings and drawings of buildings. These are not my favorit type of drawings, but I’m learning a lot about placement of things and people with in a drawing.

The smell and energy of creativity hits me when I walk into the building. I can hear the orchestra practicing as I make my way upstairs to the art studios. When I get to the studio that is our class room, I’m greeted by Andrè Pedrie the assistant professor teaching this class.

 “Good afternoon, P. J.,” he said with his usual warm smile and slight European accent. “We will be going outside to draw today. You’ll want to bring your drawing pad and a plain Number 2 pencil.”

“Okay,” I said. I went to the desk that I normally sit at and leaned on it while I waited for the other people in the class to show up.

There were twenty of us all together and everyone usually showed up for class. The drawing classes were really hard to get into so, so if you got a spot in one of these classes, you made sure you showed up for class. Andrè, as he preferred we call him, had very strict rules about attendance because there were too many other people waiting to take this class, so if you weren’t committed enough to show up, he’d give your seat to someone else in a heartbeat.

Once everyone was there, Andrè directed us to go out to the open auditorium that reminds me of the Coliseum in Rome. He had us all line up in front of the steps and gave each of us a specific structural thing to draw. I got the steps leading up the west side of the seats. I realized that putting me there, he wanted me to draw more than just the steps, he wanted the grass next to the steps, the sidewalk leading to the buildings further up the hill, as well as the steps and the intricacies of the shadows.

I get comfortable and start working on the drawing. Things that I would normally overlook jump out at me, like the spider web next the step, the pebbles strewn about, and the craters and crevices in the steps.

The next hour and a half flew by and I let myself be drawn deeply into my drawing. I leaned back and stretched to loosen the muscles that had grown tight from the position I was sitting in. At the top of the steps that went up to a sidewalk a few yards away from the coliseum steps, I see Jamie walking with a slender blonde girl. I assume that this must be Kayla from the description Jamie has given to me of her.

They stop at the top of the stairs and talk for a few minutes, and then Jamie pulls the girl into a tight hug. My heart stopped beating as I watched Jamie squeeze the other girl tightly and gently rub her back.  When the two pull apart, the blonde girl gives Jamie a kiss on the cheek and walks off. Jamie turns and starts down the steps in my direction. She is smiling and doesn’t see me sitting on the ground next to the steps.

Jealousy surges through my body as the image of the girl kissing Jamie on the cheek flashes in my mind. I shout out to her with a little harsher tone than I intend.  “Jamie!”

Her smile falters slightly as she looks around to see who called her name. She sees me on the ground and her smile widens, making me feel a little better. “Hey, what are you doing out here?” she asks as she walks toward me.

“Drawing,” I say pointing to my picture.

She studies the picture and then looks at the steps. “Wow, you’ve captured every detail of this area.”

Smiling up at her, I say, “You don’t really notice things until you’re asked to draw them.”

“That is so true,” she leans over me to get a closer look at the spider web and tiny spider under the edge of the step. She’s standing close enough to me that I can feel the heat from her bare legs next to my back.

“So was that Kayla I saw you talking to,” I ask, looking up to see the expression on her face.

“Yeah, we just had English one hundred together.  We have a writing assignment that we have to work on together,” she says smiling down at me. I see the love for me in her eyes and manage to quell the jealousy I had felt earlier.

“We still going to hook up this afternoon?” I ask.

“Absolutely,” she says and straightens. She looks back toward the fine arts building and I’m sure Andrè is looking at her. She reaches down and gives my ponytail a light tug. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

I look over my shoulder and see Andrè watching us. “Meet you at the library?”

“Yep,” she said and turned and sashayed away with my eyes following the movements of her butt.

Smiling happily, I went back to drawing. I know I shouldn’t be jealous of Jamie, but the thought of another woman touching her ruffled my feathers.

 I feel someone standing next to me again and look up to see Andrè standing over me. “That is exactly what I wanted you guys to do. I wanted you to capture everything about the element you were to draw and not just the obvious.” He leaned down and studied the drawing more closely. His face crinkled up to a large grin as he looked from my drawing to the scene from which it can. “I love that you’ve even added the tiniest of pebbles in your drawing. You are very talented P. J. I see great things coming from you.”

“Thanks, Andrè,” I say with a big grin of my own.

“We’re going to stay out for about another half an hour and then head back inside. Try to get as much of this as you can,” he said and walked away to check someone else’s work.