8
Leif and I went to this opening at the college art gallery. I was excited about it because I'd hung out with the art students from time to time. They could certainly talk the talk and I was curious if they could do the work to support it. It was at eight on a Wednesday night and my Thursday morning class had been cancelled due to the massive amount of snow and ice on the ground. Nonetheless, countless other campus dwellers trekked their way to the gallery that night. The student gallery was located in the lower level of the library and was very modern. It had high ceilings, marble looking floors, and glass walls on one side. The show was of mixed artists. Painters, sculptors, and photographers.
We found ourselves admiring a beautiful and very large abstract painting. The artist demonstrated superior knowledge of color theory. I recognized his name from a party and was impressed, but he wasn't at the opening. I felt his painting represented spring and all the new life it brought forth. Leif felt it was a more internal painting that represented "happy emotional turmoil." We soon turned our attention to a glossy photograph about ten inches by ten inches. It was of a woman in a mini skirt restrained to slats on a wall by her ankles and wrists. She was pissing into a wine glass while another woman with a crop stood over her, her crop pressing into the other woman's thigh and there were red crop marks all over the pissing woman's body. On her thighs, on her back, on her face. The submissive woman had her back turned to the camera but turned her head to face the camera and wore an expression of satisfaction and arrogance. Leif and I were discussing golden showers when the photographer approached us.
"So. Who do you think is in control here?" she asked, obnoxiously interrupting our private conversation. I indignantly asked her who she was.
"I'm so sorry. I'm Tanya. I'm the photographer. What do you think?" she asked eagerly.
Leif said something stupid like, "Well. Obviously the woman with the horse thingy," quickly giving up on our conversation and engaging the "photographer." Tanya was very tall for a woman, 5'8". She was also very slender all along her body, slender legs, a round, firm, but small ass, small breasts, slender arms, a long neck. She had stick straight black hair that hung low down her back in one layer, almost to her hips, and long bangs that nearly covered her dark eyes which slanted down in the inner corners and blinked emphatically.
Tanya turned to me and asked me what I thought. I'm not ashamed to say, I was pissed at her for interrupting, and I didn't want to talk to this broad, but Leif did. And I wanted to please him. I told her it was obviously the other woman. I drew attention to the model's face and said she obviously staged the whole thing.
"That's exactly what I was going for!" exclaimed Tanya and she, in my opinion, way too soon, invited us to her room to look at some more pictures. Leif and I were the only people who had the guts to be caught standing in front of that picture and Tanya was completely over-enthusiastic. Leif was interested, but I was a little taken aback by Tanya's over-enthusiasm but I saw how involved Leif was so I went along with the seemingly minor detour.
It was winter already and we tramped the short distance through the snow, throwing a few snowballs along the way. I totally plowed Leif over into a bank of snow, or, rather, Leif allowed himself to be plowed over, falling over laughing and we shared an intimate glance with each other before the two of us caught ourselves in the company of another. Even though I wasn't really happy with our plans, I didn't want Tanya to be left out, I know how that feels, so I landed a snowball right on the back of Tanya's head, right on her perfectly coiffed silky smooth hair. Tanya retaliated vigorously by knocking me over into another bank of snow. By the time we reached Tanya's room we were all covered in snow and tired from deep, stomach cramping laughter.
Tanya pulled out her portfolio right away when we reached her room. She sat in between Leif and I on her bed, her 20 by 16 inch portfolio in her lap. Her photos were all erotic, all glossy, all BDSM, all so sensual, so sensory, big and in our faces. I could tell Lief was a little more engrossed than I, but he was more of a stranger to such things than I. I could almost feel the sensations being pictured. The pictures were good. There was a woman with clamps all around her breasts. There was a woman with elaborate rope bondage all across her body tied to a chair, shot from various angles. There was a close up of a man's collar being pulled and his face beginning to turn red. This was all instantly exciting for me, but at the time, I was unclear about why, despite my perception of myself as experienced. For Leif, I posited, the juxtaposition of sexuality and BDSM made the photographs equally exciting. The woman with clamps on her breasts had her legs spread. The woman tied to a chair had her labia opened by the rope. And there was something vaguely but undeniably exciting about the photograph of the man in the collar. Lief stared quizzically at that photo a little longer than the other ones.
Leif later suggested maybe he ought to get a collar for me, but he didn't know how that worked, he was worried I would be offended, didn't know who was to pick it out, or how to affix it with the proper amount of care and aggression. He was such a newbie.
When we got into the room and got settled down, I got a chance to observe Tanya more closely. Tanya liked to swing her hair off her shoulders gracefully, almost haughtily, when she was thinking, sometimes knotting it into itself and letting it slowly slip free. She walked fluidly, one step began as soon as the other landed, and it almost appeared as if she were floating.