Mary slipped into Will´s car where he waited outside North College. She was dressed for riding: boots, jeans, a light jacket against the fall air. They drove out of town, talking about the stables they would visit.
“I called Sarah Posito this morning before we left to let her know we´re coming. She´s got a class this afternoon I want to watch, and you can look at the horses, maybe do some sketches.”
“Sounds good. I had a great time yesterday. And I like Anne, too.”
“Good. We´re really close. Pretty much a team.”
“This weather is beautiful. I love the colors. I´m from Florida. We don´t get autumn color there. What´s Colorado like?”
“Nothing like this. The evergreens stay green, the aspen go golden. The only other thing you see in the mountains is now and then a larch. They turn red. ‘Course on the flatlands, or where there´s water, there are cottonwoods and sycamores. They give a little color. Mostly it´s green and brown. Glad I´ve seen this. Wouldn´t want to miss it.”
“This our turn?”
They turned into the drive of the stable. When they walked toward the office, Sarah came out and met them. Mary introduced Will.
“You´re an artist?”
“Well, a student. I´d like to sketch some of your horses, if it´s all right.”
“Sketch any thing you like. Just be careful where you step, and stay out of the way of horses unless you know them well... You guys had anything to eat? I´ve got some sandwiches if you haven´t.”
They went into the office and talked their way through sandwiches and coffee.
When they were done, Mary said, “How´s Hero today?”
“Go find him and see. My class starts at two, come and join us, see what goes on.”
Will and Mary walked to Hero´s stall. Mary introduced Will to the horse, gave Hero an apple, and spent a few minutes grooming him and talking to him before she reached for his bridle. Will stood outside the stall, watching her. He had his book out, making sketches all the time.
“You really know what you´re doing, Mary.”
“Well, I grew up with horses, and I like them. They aren´t as smart as people by a long shot, but they have personalities, some good, some not. They like you to treat them like people. If you do, they´ll do anything for you. And these quarter horses really like to work cattle.”
When Hero was saddled, Mary led him out of the stall.
“You want to ride a horse? Not Hero, though. He still needs someone who knows how to handle him. Oh, and try not to get behind him. He gets worried when someone´s back there.”
“Not this time. Maybe later. I know nothing about horses and I want to spend today sketching. Maybe later I´ll want to learn to ride.”
“Well, let´s go see what there is to sketch.”
Mary swung into the saddle and walked Hero into the yard. There were several horses tethered there, and a few weekend riders in the exercise pens and some riding toward the woods. Sarah´s paint was outside the office.
“See what you can do with the paint over there, Will. She´s Sarah´s horse, and you can´t go wrong if you do a sketch she likes.”
Will found a bale of hay to sit on and started to work with his pad and pencils. Mary took Hero into the largest exercise pen and began working him in all his gaits. She paid special attention to his foxtrot, gave him a careful and thorough workout. As she worked, she talked to him, telling him what she wanted him to do, letting him know when he got it wrong, praising his good ideas. Before long, he was well warmed up. She took him back to the yard and swung down next to Will on his hay bale.
“What you got?”
Will showed her his book. He had done several pages of sketches of different parts of the pinto and its tack. Then there was a page from a different view, the paint standing in front of the office, her head to one side, one hoof cocked. The pencil work was detailed, and the figure was very lifelike.
“You´ve really got her right, Will. I think she looks like that a lot – like she´s thinking about what to do tomorrow.”
“Well, that´s what I think, too. Do you suppose it´s true?”
“Who knows? Let´s show this to Sarah.”
Sarah was delighted with the sketch and thanked Will profusely.
“Zulu´s my favorite right now. I´m going to frame this.
“Mary, the kids for the afternoon class are saddling up. How about joining me? You can just watch and listen, if you want. But, if you see something worth saying, speak up. And if you see someone in trouble, see what you can do to help them. We´ll be doing lead changes, figure eights and that sort of thing today.”
Mary went outside with Will and mounted up. There were girls coming from the stables, leading horses into the main ring. All of them wore jeans and many had cowboy hats. A few had English-style riding helmets that looked a little incongruous.
Will climbed up on a pile of bales just outside the ring and settled down with his book and pencils.
Sarah entered the ring on Zulu and called the group around her.
“This is Mary Travis.”
Mary tipped her hat to the group. A couple of the girls tittered.
“She´s from Colorado, and she´s been riding since she was six. You´ll notice she´s riding Hero, one of the horses I won´t let you use. She met him last Wednesday, and they´re buddies already. Mary´s thinking about helping me, so if you have any questions or need any help, just ask her.”
Sarah began the class, getting the girls to walk their mounts in line, turning them on command, working up to more complex maneuvers. Mary and Hero just stood to one side, watching.
As the group worked, Mary noticed one girl was having difficulty controlling her mount. The horse kept trying to run the girl´s leg into the rail. Mary could see her sawing on his mouth, trying to move the horse away from the fence without success.
Mary suggested to Hero that they go take a look. Hero leisurely strolled alongside the girl, between her horse and the fence.
“Hi, what´s your name?”
“Jane Pinski.” Her jaw as set, her brow furrowed. She seemed not far from tears.
“Okay, Jane, and who are you riding today?”
“This is Eddy, and he won´t do what I tell him. I hate him.”
“I think he feels the same about you. He doesn´t understand what you want. Why don´t we go over here and see what we can do?”
They moved to an empty part of the ring. Mary dismounted and asked Jane to get down, too, and stand beside her. Their mounts stood before them, Hero now outside Eddy, who was next to the fence. Eddy lifted his head and bared his teeth, pulling the reins in Jane´s hand. Mary could feel the girl tense beside her.
“Eddy,” Mary said gently, “you need to get to know Jane a little better.”
They worked together, talking to Eddie, while Hero subtly kept the other horse from moving aggressively. After a few minutes, Eddy began to calm. Before long, Jane was able to approach him, touch and talk to him as Mary suggested, telling him she needed him to help her, not hurt her.
In fifteen minutes, Jane and Mary mounted again. Eddy moved off easily, following Jane´s lead. When Mary saw a disagreement begin, she said to Jane, “Now, easy, he knows what he´s doing. Let him show you how to do that.”
The girl and the horse began working together, and Jane looked to Mary. “Gee, thanks. I was fighting him and he was fighting me.”
“Right. Let him show you what he knows, and you learn how to give him the cues he needs so he knows what you want. He´s a mature horse and knows his stuff, but you can learn together.”
“Thank you, Mary. Thanks a lot.” The girl´s eyes were bright as she and Eddy, now a team, went back to the group.
After the class, Will and Mary met Sarah in the office.
“Mary, thanks for working with Jane. I don´t know what you told her, what you did, but it really worked.”
“Sarah, she was fighting the horse and he was fighting back. I just got them to talk it over and agree to be a team. That´s the only way I know.”
Sarah turned to Will. “You were drawing your heart out up there on the hay. Can I see what you did?”
Will opened his sketch book for both of them. He had spent the hour and a half of the class capturing the horses and their riders in little vignettes, each superbly detailed, each catching a moment of the class in strokes of his pencil.
“Wow, Will. That´s great stuff. You can come and do this anytime,” Sarah said. “Will, you draw horses like you knew them. I love this one of Eddy. You can feel his frustration and anger. And then, this other one, where he and Jane are friends.”
“If you want, Sarah, you can give these to the girls, if they want them.” He took the sheets from the book and passed them across the desk.
“Oh, Will. That´s very generous. I will do that. But you haven´t done all the girls. You´ll have to promise to come back next week and do the rest, or there will be war out there.”
“I guess I can do that. Uh, Mary, I saw this horse in the stable. Kind of deep brown. Is there any way I can get a look at him?”
“I think he means that bay we were talking about, Mary. What do you think?”
“Well, if you´ll let me have a while with him, I´ll see what I can do. No guarantees. After all, Eddy was just confused this afternoon. Jane wasn´t on his wavelength. And if Will wants to try and sketch him, it´s okay with me.”
Mary and Will went to the barn and she approached the stall where the big bay was kept. She went to the door and looked in. The horse neighed and kicked the walls. He rushed the door.
“Uh, Mary, should you be doing this?” Will asked quietly.
“Well, so far, he´s no danger, as long as I don´t get too close. I´d kind of like to see what his trouble is. He´s a beauty, you know.”
Will withdrew to a safe distance and watched as Mary leaned on the stall door, talking to the horse. For a while, the response was noisy, with repeated blows of his hooves against the walls of the stall. Mary just stayed and kept on talking, watching him.
Eventually, Mary was able to put a hackamore on the animal, who had calmed down considerably. She broke an apple in two and fed it to him.
“Stay up on the bales, Will. I´m going to take him out in the small ring. You can come and watch once I´m out there, but don´t do anything to get his attention.”
She opened the stall door and walked off with the horse´s lead held easily in her hand. He followed her, but not without pulling and jerking on the lead. Mary tightened her grip on the lead, but just kept on walking.
In the gate to the ring, the bay pushed ahead of her, shoving her out of the way, pulling the lead from Mary´s hands and running to the far side of the enclosure. She let him go, made no attempt to hold the lead.
Mary stood in the ring facing the horse, looking him in the eye. For a moment, he stood, looking back, the lead on the ground between them, his fear and anger showing in his flattened ears and bared teeth. Mary simply looked at him making no move, until he turned and ran around the outside of the ring. After a while, Mary stopped glaring at him and moved her shoulders. The bay became calmer, and Mary walked slowly toward him. He turned away, his nostrils flaring, running around the ring ahead of her.
About three quarters of the way across the ring, Mary turned and walked back in the direction she had come. The bay followed her. At the gate, Mary turned and again walked toward the bay. His time, he turned and simply walked away from her. When she walked back, so did the bay.
For almost a half hour, Mary and the horse just walked back and forth in the ring. Will sat on a stack of bales sketching furiously. Now and then, Sarah´s gray head appeared around a corner.
At the end of the time, Mary stood in the ring, the bay in front of her, his nose not more than a few inches away, perfectly docile. She raised her hand slowly and the bay nudged it with his nose. Then, she walked to the gate, the bay only inches behind her, following her like any normal horse. At the gate, Mary reached behind, took the lead in her hand, opened the gate and walked back to the stall. The horse went on the lead without pulling, walked into the stall without a murmur. She broke another apple and fed it to him, talking to him and stroking his cheek as he chewed. Then, she turned and left the stable.
Before they left the grounds, Sarah said to Mary, “I watched you with the bay. You come any time you want. You can have anything you need.”
“Thanks, Sarah. But be careful with the bay. He´s got a ways to go yet. Talk to him before you try to do anything, tell him what you´re going to do. And don´t let him think you´re afraid of him. Someone´s been real mean to that horse, and it´s going to take time for him to get over it and trust people again. Help him and he´ll be all right.
“I´ll try and come out and see you next Wednesday again, and probably next Saturday. I want to see how Jane holds up during the week. And there´s another girl there I want to talk to. Is that all right? Do you mind?”
“Of course not. Thanks. And Will? You come, too.”
“Thanks, Sarah, I think I will. I really like those horses. They´re beautiful.”
“You ever hear of George Stubbs?” Mary asked Sarah. Sarah nodded. “That´s where I met Will, making a sketch of that Stubbs horse in the museum. One of these days he´s going to figure out which end has the tail.”
Will whacked her bottom. “The tail end, idiot. Even I know that.”
“Don´t be too sure,” Mary said. She climbed into the car and fastened her seat belt.
They drove through the deepening dusk toward the campus. Still outside of town, Will said, “How about supper?”
They ate at a small, Italian restaurant, filling up on spaghetti and garlic bread, talking quietly. The lady who ran the place watched them from her place at the cash register and smiled.
It was evening when they got back to North College.
“Come upstairs,” Mary said. “Bring your book, I want to look at those drawings.”
They went through them all, one at a time. Now and then Mary asked about the way a horse was drawn. Sometimes Will changed it, sometimes not. There was still a drawing of Jane and Eddy he had not given to Sarah.
Finally they came to his sketches of Mary and the bay. There was one of Mary, standing, an island of calm in the ring, facing the bay. The horse, defiant, watched her, his fear and rage leaping from the page.
“God. You really saw that, did you? It´s just what I saw, too. Damn near scared the shit out of me.” Mary turned to him and kissed him full on the lips. “I like you. I like it that you like horses. I think you could be very good.”
“Thank you, Mary. Uh... would you do me a favor?”
“Sure. What?”
“Would you pose for me? Now?”
.oOo.
After Tom and Alex and Mary left, Anne went to work, reading an assignment, knocking out an essay for English, taking notes on her history assignment. She dug a hard-boiled egg out of the fridge, sliced it with tomato and mayo on toast and ate lunch. By one o´clock she was finished. She cleaned up, put on sweats and went out the door with her bag of swim stuff.
Saul met her at the gym. They changed into suits. He wore the usual Speedo briefs emphasizing his narrow hips and powerful shoulders. She wore her figure-hugging purple suit. There were only serious swimmers there; they attracted no special attention.
In the weight room, they each went into their own routines, working slowly. They took a break for drinks, then went back for another round on the machines. Eventually, they were done.
They spent some time doing stretches and twists to get their muscles loose again, then headed for the pool. They began swimming a long series of laps together, matching each other lap for lap, not trying for speed, just swimming along side by side. Finally, they stopped at the end of the pool and climbed out to sit on a bench together, letting their bodies relax and their circulation return to normal.
“You know, Anne, I grew up in Chicago. That´s why I wanted to come to a place where it´s not all concrete. Of course, I grew up in a suburb, but it´s still city. Lots of different kinds of people, but not too green-and-leafy. I really like it here.”
“My home town´s no big city, though it´s no backwater, either. Mom and Dad like it because there´s a good library and lots of good bookstores. The work they do, they don´t have to be in a city; they send their manuscripts out by e-mail. They can get reference books with Inter-Library Loan, or order them through on-line bookstores. I came here mostly because it´s like there, only with a university. It´s a quality place, real comfortable. I think I could settle down here, maybe. Course that´s a long way off.”
“Quality´s important to you, isn´t it? What are you planning to do? Write, like your folks?”
“I don´t know. I think I want to do something else, though. But quality is important. Excellence, I guess you´d call it. Don´t know what, but maybe I´ll open a small business, where I can get to know my customers, have some kind of influence on the business, maybe on the town, too. Not politics, just as a part of the community. You?”
“Business, I guess. Not banking, I don´t think. Selling money is not what I want to do. Probably something like what you have in mind, where you can have some contact with people. Selling something tangible. Just not automobiles. I´ll wait and see. Gotta get through college first.”
“How about some sprints?”
They spent the next hour doing sprints – he, freestyle, she butterfly. They would do a hundred meters and take a rest, then another hundred. When they quit, they were exhausted.
“Food,” said Saul. “Now.”
“Right.”
There was a rib house just off campus and they bought two buckets of ribs – beef for Saul, pork for Anne – and related stuff that they took back to his room.
“Know what I think?” said Anne.
“No idea.”
“I think we would be smart, with all this barbecue sauce and beans and stuff, if we took our clothes off before we eat.”
“I like the way you think.”
They stripped, then ate hungrily for a while. Then, Anne noticed that Saul had spilled some sauce on his thigh and began licking it up. Saul poured sauce on Anne´s breast. They licked each other for a while, then made love. They ate some more and made love again.
Finally there was no more food, and Saul said, “Anne, I don´t care what you do, you are not going to raise the dead. Not until next time.”
After a nice period of hugging and cuddling Anne showered, dressed and left, walking across the campus with her swim bag swinging from her hand, humming happily.
She put her key in the lock and went in. Mary was sitting naked on the desk, carefully lit by their two desk lamps, her hair down and half covering one breast, leaning back on one arm, the other resting on her upraised knee. She was looking at Will, who was drawing furiously.
Anne closed the door. “Uh... Am I interrupting anything?”
Mary looked up briefly, then resumed her pose. “Nope. Not at all. Have a good time?”
“Yeah. I´m pooped. Good workout. Had some good ribs. You eat?”
“Italian on the way back from the stables. Had a great time. You should see the stuff Will did.”
“I´m almost finished, Mary. You can relax some, just don´t move completely, huh?”
“Okay if I look over your shoulder, Will?”
“Sure, Anne. Doesn´t bother me.”
The drawing was in pastels. It caught Mary´s golden glow and perfect tan, her strong legs and perfect breasts. Her eyes, looking out of the page, glowed with fondness and fun.
“Do I get to see this, too?”
“Just a sec.” Will made a few more strokes, turned the page around for Mary to see.
“Gee, do I really look like that? I can´t believe it. Will, thank you. I love it... Uh... will you do me a favor? Promise not to show it to my mother?”
They all laughed hard. Mary went to the fridge and produced beer.
“Anne, look at what Will did this afternoon.” She began showing Anne the sketches Will had done at the stables.
“Will, you do wonderful things with horses. I love them. And the girls, too. They are – well, pardon the expression, but the sketches are precious. So loving.”
“Thank you, Anne.”
Anne continued paging though the sketch book. “Holy God, what´s this?”
“That´s your roommate having it out with a bad horse.”
“You´re kidding. No, that´s Mary. God, how can you be so calm in front of that animal?”
“He´s mostly afraid, Anne. I just needed to let him know he didn´t need to be.”
“They were in that ring together for nearly an hour. At first, I was really worried. But here´s how it turned out.” Will turned the page. Mary was walking toward the gate, the bay at her heels, his muzzle almost on her shoulder, the lead held loosely in her hand. Anne could feel the lack of tension, the relaxed, easy feel of the scene, so at odds with the previous one.
“Will, you´re better than a camera, I swear. You really get the feel of it onto the paper.”
“Well, a good photographer can do that, too, but thanks.”
Will sat on Mary´s desk chair. Anne settled on the couch with her beer, next to Mary´s still-naked body. Will picked up his book, turned the page and resumed drawing with the pastels. Mary told Anne about the class she had helped with and about Sarah´s reaction to the afternoon.
“It was fun, Anne. Just like home on the ranch, at least being with the horses and all. And I kind of liked the kids. They are so screwed up, but you can tell they love the horses. Someone needs to teach them how to relate to animals.”
“Horses aren´t pussycats, Mary,” said Will, his fingers moving rapidly.
“No, but they´re a lot more like pussycats than they are like lions.”
“Except for the bay, Mary.”
“Well, that´s not all his fault. You know, I think I´ll have him rideable one of these days.”
Mary got up and looked at Will´s pad, pulled another beer from the fridge.
“Anne, do me a favor?”
“Sure. What?”
“Take off your shirt. Will´s not getting your shoulders right.”
Anne took off her shirt. “That enough?”
“Fine for now. Thanks,” said Will.
“Pass me another beer, Mary,” Anne said.
“Would you guys be willing to do figure modeling at the Art School? They always need people who are comfortable in their skin. If you like, I can put your names on the list. Pays something, not a lot.”
“Okay with me.”
“Me, too. I can always say no if I´m busy. Do I get to see that?”
Will held the page away, considering. “Well, it´s as close as I can get tonight. Here.” He passed the pad to Anne.
“That really is me. Exactly me. Just like the one of Mary. No flattery, nothing false. You should make a fortune.”
“No, the only way to make any money with art in this country is in commercial art, I´m afraid. I´d love to do portraits, maybe horses, too. But I doubt if it would put food on the table.”
Anne got up off the sofa. She put Will´s sketch pad and her beer on the desk and slipped off her shoes and sweat pants.
“Mary, I´m getting horny again. Think we can get your friend here to help me out?”
“He´s going to have to do both of us.”
“He´ll manage.”
The two women pulled Will out off the chair and undressed him. When he was naked, he was also erect. They took him into the bedroom and pushed the beds together, pulling him down with them.
.oOo.
Spending the day with Mary was wonderful. She´s beautiful, brave, and really knows her stuff with horses. I couldn´t wait to draw her as a nude. And she had absolutely no false modesty. A perfect model.
And then Anne came in. Also beautiful. Also without false modesty. She took off her shirt and let me draw her without the slightest fuss or hesitation. These two women know who they are and what they want.
And, among other things, they wanted me. They took me into the bedroom and one of them went down on me, while I ate out the other, who somehow managed to eat her roommate.
I fucked them both and we went to sleep. We woke up pretty soon and did it gain.
Anne has the most beautiful pussy I´ve ever seen. However she came to be bald, it resulted in a smooth, rounded, absolutely gorgeous pussy. Mary is just as beautiful. I hope I get to draw their cunts.
I´m in love.
.oOo.
The next morning, they showered together and finished the English muffins, still naked.
Will said, “You need to do something about those beds.”
“It´s not so bad when it´s just the two of us,” Mary said. “We pull them together and that keeps us from falling off.”
“You need a king. For all I know, you need two kings, but there isn´t room.”
“Well, I don´t think I want the rest of the floor to know that we´ve replaced our twins with a king, Mary. Bad for our image.”
“Some image. Already this guy thinks we need two kings. Heck, that´s enough for six.” Mary slipped a wink to Anne.
“I don´t think it´s smart to underestimate the capacity of two horny women, that´s all. Now, how about I bolt the frames together and we lay some plywood over them? We put the mattresses on top. No one will know unless they get invited in. Then, they won´t care.”
“Mary, I like this guy.”
“After last night, I had figured that out.”
“No, I mean he´s devious, sneaky and a lecher. That´s what I like.”
Will reached for his clothes. “Let´s go down to the lumber yard. Maybe we can get it done in time for a test-drive.”