Naked Portraits Pt. 05

"She's hot," Deirdre, said, "I hear she's of the sisterhood."

I pretended not to understand.

"You know? A Lesbian?" Deirdre said exaggerating lesbian like I was stupid.

"Really?" I said thinking of my little sneak preview a few hours ago. Playfully I asked, "So you gonna hit that?" To my amazement, Deirdre blushed and looked away.

"She's way out of my league," Deirdre said and busied herself with her camera to hide her embarrassment.

"Aren't you Hawaiian royalty? Maybe Li would like chasing a princess," I joked.

She gave me a look and at first I thought she was going to clobber me. Then a little smile touched her mouth. "Get the fuck otta here," she said.

Meka shouted for everyone to get into position. At the base of the diving platform, Li shucked her robe and climbed up. Standing at the base of the ladder, I had an excellent view of her ascent. The chick had a hot bod from every possible angle no doubt about that. I took a couple shots and walked around when she reached the top. She walked out to the end of the diving board. After a few seconds of focus, she reached her arms over her head and stood on tiptoes causing her breasts to flatten and her thigh muscles to bunch and tighten.

"I wanna do this only once," Meka called out. "Everybody ready?" She got yeses all around. To Li Meka said, "No somersaults, just up and in. On the count of three."

Li nodded at the end of the board causing her and the board to wobble minutely.

"One ... two ... three!"

Li bounced hard on the board, went airborne in a gravity-defying arc, straightened out and hit the water head down, hands first.

Everyone whooped.

When Li resurfaced, Meka shouted, "Stay in the water I'll be right down."

I stood next to David and we watched Li do lazy laps. Meka joined us.

Meka sighed. "I wish I though to bring an underwater camera for the shoot. Personally, I think that underwater nude photography has been way overdone to the point of cliché. But this girl would make it fresh and exciting again I bet."

David left briefly, and then returned with a camera.

"It a GoPro HD Hero Naked with waterproof removable polycarbonate housing." David said handing a sleek little white camera to Meka.

"You dog," Meka said.

David barely smiled, apparently he was accustomed at surprising people. Meka took the camera gingerly into her hands and shouted, "Li come out and let Cole check your make up. Then we're going sub aquatic."

Chapter 36 Mermaid

Cole covered Li with a robe then gave her makeup a once over.

"Fuck," Meka hissed. "I can't get this gash in my leg wet. De's gonna have to do this one. De come over here." Deirdre ambled up to us.

Hey, is that a Hero Naked?" Deirdre held her hands out and Meka handed her the camera. "Man," Deirdre said in awe as she studied the little camera.

"You up to doing some underwater shots?" Meka asked Deirdre.

"I can't swim," Deidre said handing the camera back to Meka.

"What? You're Hawaiian and grew up in the islands," Meka said incredulously. "What you mean you can't swim?"

Deirdre shrugged. Meka turned to David.

"Inner ear injury, can't go underwater," David said.

Meka rolled her eyes. She looked at Brain. "Can you handle a camera?"

Before Brain could answer I said, "I'll do it."

"I think Brain is a bit more tech savvy than an art major," Meka said dismissing my offer.

"How hard can it be?" I asked.

Meka's opened her mouth to protest but I trumped her by pulling my shirt over my head and then quickly peeled off my jeans. My underwear was my usual mismatch set: the bra dark purple and the panties maroon with garish yellow tiger stripes. Fortunately, the bra was dark and should keep my nipples hidden even when wet ... I hoped.

Li walked up to the knot of people at poolside. Her eyes took in my scantily clad form. She smiled and dropped her robe. I blushed at her nakedness because I new it was aimed specifically at me. Deirdre's brow furrowed as she caught the current flowing between Li to me.

"Okay then," Meka said, "Li, back in the water, Gwen will join you in a second."

Li smiled at me, turned, walked to the edge of the pool with a slight sway of her hips that was subtle but unmistakable. Then she broke into a run and dove into the pool cutting the surface like a sharp knife through a ripe papaya. She didn't surface until she was more then halfway across the large pool.

David gave me a quick rundown on the use of the camera. He seemed unperturbed by my near nakedness; I on the other hand, was totally perturbed and avoided his eyes during his instructions. Done with his tutorial, he gave me the same two finger salute he gave Meka earlier. I walked to the pools edge with the camera and Deirdre followed.

"Li likes you," Deirdre said in a schoolyard taunt.

"Nothing I can do about that," I said hoping to end the conversation.

"You look great." she added with an unmistakable leer.

Stupidly, I reddened even more as I headed to the metal ladder to ease myself into the water. For some reason, I was quite the babe magnet tonight.

The water was chilly but not freezing. Steeling myself, I pushed away from the ladder and swam around to allow my body to acclimate. When my shivering subsided, I dunked my head under and gave the camera a once over. Li's naked body, tinted a ghostly bluish-white entered my field of vision. She floated over to me slowly; her short hair surrounded her head like an inky cloud. Free of the downward pull of gravity, her breasts formed round, perky mounds. I pointed a finger upwards and we both surfaced.

"Just swim around me and I'll pick my shots." I said with chattering teeth.

Li nodded and dropped back down below the surface, I followed taking shots of her as she swam literal circles around me, doing the occasional slow motion acrobatic. I surface countless times for air, but Li didn't seem to need as much and stayed under longer. The girl must have gills hidden on her somewhere I mused. Li's circles grew tighter and several times she gratuitously brushed against me. To my dismay, I found myself sexually responding to her.

I surfaced for air at the center of the pool and Li joined me.

"You guys all right? We gotta be out in an hour." Meka called out.

I was about to say that we had enough shots but Li spoke first. "Just a little while longer." In a quieter voice that only I could hear she said, "I wanna take a couple of shots of you." Without asking, she took the camera from my hands.

Not sure I was on board, I gave her instructions on how to use the camera. "Near your right index finger is the shutter button, its soft and easy."

"Right, soft and easy," Li repeated and dropped below the surface. I took a deep breath, dropped down and settled into a neat lotus position on the pool floor. Naked Li, floating front down with her legs up higher than her body giving me an interesting view of her curvy ass, snapped a picture. She swam in closer, took several more shots then we both went up for air ... well I needed to anyway and Li simply followed.

Li tugged at my bra strap, "Lose the top." she said and immediately dropped below the surface not waiting for my reply. Tingling with excitement, I followed her down. She watched intently as I reached behind me and removed my maroon bar that looked black in the blue-green glow of the pool lights. At first, I held the bra in my hand reluctant to part with it, but not wanting to look chicken, I let it float from my hands and could only hope that it wouldn't drift too faraway. Li pointed the camera and snapped a shot. All too soon I had to surface for air.

"Do the full Monty?" Li asked.

I shook my head in the negative then went back down and hovered suspended in my liquid world slowly spinning, trying to catch sight of my AWOL bra. Li swam a slow circle around me and snapped more shots.

Then shockingly, the camera slipped from her hands. The thing fell in slow motion, and instinctively, I reached out to catch it. A weird sense of dejavue only more powerful, descended on me. As the weird feeling intensified, Li gripped my arm stopping me from catching the falling camera. For one brief bizarre moment I was looking up into the face of the wooden forest goddess on Maui. Then just like that I was in the pool looking into Li's face.

Okay, these little weird flashes are starting to freak me out I thought more annoyed than dismayed. Li's hands traced the bottoms of my breasts and her right hand seized my left wrist and guided my hand to her right breast.

Can we worry about the hallucinations later? my lizard brain interjected. A totally hot Chinese lesbian chick is feeling you up right now!

Everything slowed to the pace of the liquid world surrounding me as Li moved in for a kiss. Our upper bodies pressed together. Her arms curled around me searching out my ass, caressing, then gripping it firmly. Then she snaked her right hand between us and it slipped it under the front edge if my panties. Her skilled fingers knew exactly where to go ... and what to do.

I opened my eyes, not exactingly sure when I had closed them again.

You're kissing a chick underwater the conservative, boring corner of my brain informed me. My eyes grew wide and the spell was rudely broken. My lungs screamed for air, I untangled herself and darted for the surface. A few long seconds later, Li joined me holding the camera in one hand and my bra in the other.

"You straight girls are a pain in the ass," she said with a small smile. I took the bra from her and hurried to get it back on.

"You guys all right?" Meka called out.

"Clothing malfunction, Gwen lost her bra," Li said.

"Need some help with that?" Deirdre asked suddenly at the pool's edge.

"No," I said firmly and emphatically.

"You sure?" Brian added materializing at Deirdre's side. Even restrained David had inched closer to the pool's edge.

"We got it! Thanks anyway," I called out.

As Li helped me hook my bra back on, I said, "You should ask Deirdre out."

"She's very pretty," Li said, "But she's royalty ... out of my league."

I laughed. "Try her and see what happens."

We exited the pool. Cole handed Li a robe, she put it on and walked to the locker room. Meka gave me a towel and I slipped away to remove my wet underwear then put on my clothes forced to go full total commando.

Back at poolside, I dried my hair and watched Meka slip Deirdre and Brian envelopes then Meka sat on a poolside concrete bench to line up the spent film for the count. The shots of me were on the card of the underwater camera which was now in David Tanaka's hands and there was nothing I could do about it.

Dressed in her street clothes, Li walked out of the lady's locker room. She walked up to Deirdre and said a few words to her. Deirdre had that awkward look that shy males have when encountering a beautiful female. Li touched Deirdre's cheek, leaned in, and said something in her ear. I wondered if they were going to hook up? Li turned and walked my way.

"Thanks for making this fun," Li said.

"Um sure,' I said awkwardly.

Li leaned in, kissed my cheek then said, "Fucking straight girls." She smiled, turned and headed to the exit tunnel. I noted that Deirdre fell in behind her.

Chapter 37 Seven Dead Cats and psychoanalysis

With my head still jumbled from Li's photo shoot, I called Hawk to see if he was home. He was so I went straight to the dorm towers. I found him hunched at his desk grading student papers.

"What up?" he asked without looking up.

"I kissed a girl," I said as I tossed my backpack on his bed.

He looked up from his work and looked at me wide eyed. Now that I had his full attention, I sat down on the bed told him everything that happened to me today including my brief hallucinations in the pool just before Li kissed me. The only thing I left out was Li's name. Hawk pressured me to tell who I had kissed but I wouldn't relent. I had promised Meka I'd keep my mouth shut on that subject and kept my word.

"Did you Kiss Meka?" he asked, round eyed and full of interest.

I rolled my eyes at his one track mind and said, "Can we discuss my hallucinations please you fucking perv?"

"Have you had other such incidents?" he asked.

I told him everything including my recurring dreams about the short haired version of me.

"Okay, I got a theory," he said. "Your body over produces endorphins in your brain when you're sexually aroused and that might bring on the hallucinations."

"But they feel so real," I insisted, "I can smell things and feel things. In the dreams too."

"I've read studies on how the human brain, in the right conditions, and especially under stress, can create super real audio, visual and sensual delusions."

I can't say that I was too happy with him calling me delusional. Hawk wanted to hear more about the kiss, and to be honest, I wanted to talk about it too. But I knew he had to get his student papers graded for an early morning class. "We'll talk tomorrow," I said.

He groused but I left anyway.

I thought I'd drop in on Matt, but remembered he was on a science stargazing thing for his astronomy class on the other side of the island. I could call Meka? I thought.

No, too early in our friendship to spring something like waking hallucinations on her. She was becoming a good friend and I didn't want to scare her away.

Then bizarrely, I thought of Paul Gleason. Why the hell not? He already knows I'm a little crazy and he's still hanging around.

It's because he wants to fuck you my logical brain inserted.

Maybe, I concurred, but he's certainly been a gentleman about it even after my exhibitionism at the gallery. In fact he's hardly breathed a word about it. I looked at the time on my cell phone and was surprised it was only eight thirty. The on campus bar, the Manoa Garden will be open for another hour. I sent a text to Paul to see were he was. He text back that he was at the art building working.

Ten minutes later, I fond Paul in the sculpture metal shop working on one of his found object pieces. It involved a rusty tire pump, some plastic apples, a rolled up newspaper and a pair of beach slippers absurdly cast in bronze. For a few seconds I watched him attempt to glue the apples to the tire pump making the thing look like a rusted penis. Unable to watch him work on the ugly thing another second, I cleared my throat to get his attention.

"Hey painter girl," he said happy to see me.

"We have about forty five minutes to last call," I said, "you wanna keep working on this master piece or drink beer with me at the gardens? I'll pay."

"Beer!" he declared allowing his poorly glued apple testicle to drop.

At the gardens, halfway through a pint of Addams Dark, I broached the subject of my exhibitionism. "I'm kind of insulted you been so quiet about the the thing at the art gallery."

"Two main reasons, " He said as he traced the condensation circles left behind by our pints of beer on the concrete table with a finger. "First, I'm sure that Matt didn't know I was out their." He looked into my eyes for confirmation.

I gave him a tiny nod. "You have a thing for me," I said bluntly. "You could have used the situation to make a move or something. I wouldn't have blamed you if you did."

"Second and third reasons," he said. "I'm friends with both your lovers. I don't make moves on a friend's girl. Besides, I like you as a friend and no matter how much I wanna fuck you, losing your friendship is too high a price pay." He punctuated that sentence with one of his patented New Yorker shrugs.

So taken aback by his blunt honesty, I found myself close to tears. At that very moment, I officially put him in the best friend category along with Meka. Since I sadly knew so very little about him, I decided it was time to fill the gaps.

"Where did you do your undergrad work?"

"NYU."

"How's the art department at New York University?"

"Great from what I saw," he said sounding oddly guilty.

"What do you mean?"

"I was a psych major back then."

"Really?" I said with raised eyebrows. "You weren't an art major?"

"You Japanese chicks are too polite to state the obvious," he said with a cooked smile. "My work sucks and you know it."

I politely changed the subject slightly to get an answer to a burning question.

"How did you get accepted as a grad here if you weren't an art major?"

"Seven dead cats," he stated as if I knew what he was talking about.

I shrugged and gave him a bewildered look.

"You uncultured swine!" he teased. "Hey you," Paul said to a local guy sitting at a table nearby working on his laptop. "Can you Google seven dead cats, New York, art for me?" Miraculously, the guy didn't call Paul's a rude prick and did his bidding. Paul and I got up and sat at the guy's table to see the screen. "Click on that," Paul instructed pointing at a site half way down the page.

Seven images of what looked like mummified cats appeared on the screen, each in a different pose, each mounted on an elegant honey wood pedestal.

"Those are my cats," Paul said, "There's a brass plaque assigning each a deadly sin from the bible." He pointed at a particularly grotesque blotted dead cat. Laptop guy clicked on it. Close up it was even worse.

Paul said. "I used the old Latin word for gluttony, Abdomen. All the titles are in old Latin."

"Did you kill these cats?" I asked worried that he had.

"Hey what you think I am?" Paul asked taking offense. "I found them like that."

Laptop guy and I gave him a dubious look.

"It's true. Back in New York my dad is one of those guys that cleans up after crime scenes, suicides, accidental deaths, stuff like that. When things got busy he would hire me on as extra help. The work was sickening but the money was good. Anyway, the cats came from a suicide scene. Some old lady poisoned her nine cats then offed herself. No one found her or the cats for over a years. In the sealed apartment with no air conditioning, she and her pets mummified over time. As I helped my dad clean up the mess I got a wild hair up my ass. I took the dead cats and made them into art pieces. The cats won me national acclaim. Sold em for a good sum too."

I thanked laptop guy and we returned to our table and ordered a second round, I had one sent to laptop guy too.

"It was the only thing in my portfolio, but I guess it was enough to get me accepted in the Honolulu U. grad program," Paul said. "I think the grad review is regretting their decision though."

I didn't want to have to say how much I agreed so I changed the subject.

"You were a psych major? Really?"

"Really. Jungian, Freudian, the new stuff. Studied it all."

"Maybe you can help then," I said cheerfully. "I have this friend who's having sexual issues."

Paul leveled his eyes at me and said point blank, "You asked me to watch you blow one of your two boyfriends Gwen."

"Okay, I have these sexual issues," I corrected.

For the next hour I filled him in on my relationship with Hawk and Matt. I even told him about Li Hong but left Li's name out to protect her privacy. Since I was on a roll, I told about Shelly's New dance and the paintings it inspired and how that led to the vivid sexual dreams and hallucinations.

Paul listened quietly during my telling. When I stopped, he dramatically dropped his face into his hands and let out a huge mock sob.

"You are making it impossible to remain just your friend," he said into his hands. He sat up and said, "Okay, I can deal with this. I can be objective. Go on."

"Lately I've been having strange out of body experiences during orgasm."

"Oh-my-God," he said burying his face again.

"What kind psychologist you?" I said in thick local pidgin restraining a laugh.

"A horny confused one," he said weakly.