It was a fairly normal Friday. Gary decided that he needed to visit a couple of the art stores and replenish some of his supplies. Nothing out of the ordinary there, he typically did a run at least once a month and he preferred to spend his money locally rather than order everything online. Not to say he didn't keep a good eye on the pricing and occasionally stock up on something that was on a good online sale, but most of the usual stuff was available at decent prices on the shelves. There was just something about shelves full of art supplies and bins full of pencils that made him happy. And, he admitted to himself, it actually forced him to interact with real people. It wasn't that he didn't like people, but he had gotten so out of the habit, It was almost as if his brain didn't want to make the effort anymore. And he knew he had to get a lot better at it and soon.
There were certain items that he would get at the big hobby stores and there was usually a sale on some item or another that was good. He had to drive to get to them, they weren't located downtown.
But he always made the local art store his last stop, he could walk there from his studio. It was close to the art school, so there were always students there, picking up the materials for their latest assignment. And because there were students as regular patrons, picking up known supplies for specific classes, the store would often have package deals with all the items needed for a particular class. And Gary would often pick up one or two of those when they matched his media needs.
Today he was hoping they had some ink sticks in stock. It was a hit or miss type item not required for any of the main classes and only used by students taking an elective or working on a special project. And never carried by the big stores.
He came around the corner to find the aisle occupied by a young woman. Well, he assumed she was young from her outfit, the woman part was quite obvious. She was wearing tall black boots with chunky soles. Black stockings with bats climbed her legs and disappeared under a black and white schoolgirl plaid skirt. That was topped by a white blouse peeping out from behind a short black leather like jacket. Straight black hair fell just below her shoulders and she was wearing black fingerless gloves in leather, with spikes across the back. She was probably average height, the boots adding a couple inches. She was perusing the inks.
Gary moved to that area, as that was where he had found the ink sticks before. He was looking across the shelves, looking for the small boxes they normally were found in. He was about to give up and resign himself to buying a small bottle of the pre-mixed ink and order the sticks online when he spotted a handful of the small boxes behind the pint size bottles of ink.
Reaching behind the bottles he extracted the boxes and looked at them. There were two brands there, the price difference between them was almost $2 a stick. He opened the box of the cheaper one and took a big whiff.
The sound caught the attention of the girl and she looked at him puzzled. After taking a good smell, Gary made a face. Then he opened the more expensive box, repeating the process, only this time he smiled.
"What are you doing?" Gary was startled, he had sort of forgotten someone else was there.
"I'm smelling the ink." He looked at her and found himself looking at a pair of light brown eyes, they were almost gold. The white face with the black eye liner, black lipstick and black eyebrows completed the picture of a typical goth and it was underlined with a black choker with some rather nasty looking spikes. There was a single piercing on one of her eyebrows, a simple gold bar over her right eye.
"Does it make a difference what it smells like?" He caught a flash of gold in her mouth, probably a tongue stud.
"Well of course it does! Here, close your eyes and smell this." He placed the first box under her nose. "What do you smell?"
"Um, it sort of smells like exhaust."
"Exactly! Now smell this one!"
She took a big whiff from the second box and opened her eyes in surprise. The smile that came with it seemed contrary to every statement her outfit was making. "Pine! That smells like pine!"
"It does! The cheap ones are made with the cheapest materials they can find. In this case, they probably burned old car tires to create the soot, mix with a binder and press it into sticks. The pine one was made using pine wood and pitch to create the soot. I'll always take pine over exhaust fumes!"
"So how do you use them?"
"I use it for sumi-e, you probably touched on it in one of your first year classes. Traditional Chinese and Japanese art form? You use an ink stone to grind the stick with water and make black ink. And you want the pine because the aroma is part of the centering process of making the ink. Apply it with a brush to traditional rice/mulberry paper."
Now that she was facing him, he could see that she was pretty cute. The white blouse was tied in a knot to reveal her belly button, complete with a jewel encrusted bat. It also emphasized her cleavage, which was certainly above average.
"So, you do sumi-e paintings?"
"Well, I've learned most of the traditional topics, the four gentlemen and the seasons. I'm still trying to find something a bit new and different."
"Me, too! Well, for my senior project, I have to come up with some original art, something I have envisioned and created. I like the idea of ink on paper, but just haven't found something that hits me. Do you think you could teach me some sumi-e?"
Gary looked at her. She was certainly out of his league when it came to looks, and Goth Girls weren't typically interested in the artsy types, but she was an artist. He decided to go for broke.
"I can certainly show you how it works and you can look over my portfolio to see if it gives you any ideas. How about we go up the street and get a cup of coffee? If you're finished here!"
"I'd like that!" The smile broke through again, dispelling a lot of the dark side.
"Let me cash out here and we'll go!"
Gary floated to the cash register. He'd actually asked a girl out for coffee and she said yes! If she was looking at her senior project, she was probably only a couple years younger than he was. He wouldn't describe himself as good looking, but he was in good shape. After making his purchase they walked up the street together.
"I'm Gary, by the way!"
"Oh, yeah, hi, Gary! I'm Crystal!"
It didn't take long before they were sitting at a hightop at the coffee shop with a beverage and huddled over Gary's phone. He showed her some of his portfolio of sumi-e paintings. He didn't know at that point that their conversation was probably the longest she had been a part of for years. Despite the Goth look, she was quite pleasant to talk with and she was scrolling through his pictures with her black nails. One of them had a bat in the design. And it hit him like a ton of bricks.
"Oh, I have an idea for you!"
"What?"
