Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [49]
Professor Rosen opened a cupboard door and took out two clean jam jars. “That boyfriend of yours—Tom? Wow, did he ever knock my socks off today at rehearsal.”
Shipley started at the mention of Tom’s name. What was she doing kissing another guy in Professor Rosen’s kitchen when she already had a perfectly decent boyfriend? In one of her more recent fantasies, Tom parked his dove-gray Porsche convertible in the two-car garage of their Hamptons beach house, right next to her red one, before making love to her on the beach while the surf crashed behind them. Adam was more lawnmower than Porsche. And Tom was already hers. He was probably waiting for her in his room right now, boxers off, socks on, snuggled beneath his flannel sheets with his Economics textbook.
Blanche opened the fridge and located the half-empty bottle of wine. “Can I get you anything?” she asked Shipley.
“No, thank you.” Shipley swept her bag off the kitchen counter. It was best to leave before either of them noticed the rug burn on Beetle’s forehead or the smelly cigarette butts in the trash. “I have to go.”
“Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday!” Professor Rosen shouted after her.
Tom was not under the covers. He was just getting started on a new painting. He’d brought over a fresh canvas from the art building and was busy mixing shades of apricot and taupe, trying to achieve the perfect match for his own skin. His pulse was raging. He gnashed his teeth and tore off his shirt. He could paint himself. He could paint directly on himself! He selected a new brush and squirted a blob of black paint on the palette. He would paint himself to look like one of those Greek statues, with pecs like fucking Hercules.
“What are you doing?” Shipley opened the door and stared at him as he traced the outline of his godlike nipples.
Tom threw down his brush. “You! You’re here! Oh, you’re so freaking beautiful.”
“No, I’m not,” she protested.
“Come here,” Tom said. “Take off your clothes so I can paint you.”
Shipley went over and leafed through the finished paintings on his desk, an assortment of Eliza’s outsized gory body parts in various stages of undress. She fidgeted with the zipper on her Greenwich Academy sweatshirt.
“Why don’t you just do my head, with the window in the background? That might look sort of cool.”
Tom came over and pulled down her zipper. He brushed her hair away from her collarbone. “I want to paint you naked,” he said, kissing her neck.
Shipley stiffened. Something about Tom was different. His whole body was covered in a layer of slick, cold sweat, and his voice was throaty and hoarse. “Are you okay?”
“I took some E with the Grannies. And I knocked the balls off of play practice. I fucking ruled.” Tom yanked off her sweatshirt and unbuttoned her jeans. “I want to paint you right now,” he told her urgently. “Naked.”
Shipley was no exhibitionist—she never even wore tight jeans. On the beaches in Martinique all the girls took their tops off. They lay on their backs in the sand, soaking up the sun in calm oblivion. But when Shipley tried it, she felt like she was being cooked. Her nipples had shriveled into raisins. She’d tied her top back on and splashed into the water, hiding her shame beneath the waves.
“Can’t I just wear this undershirt?” she asked, taking a seat in his desk chair. The undershirt was white and thin. So was her underwear. She was naked enough.
“No.” Tom stood a few feet away holding a white plastic paint palette. The muscles in his bare chest twitched beneath their war paint. He licked the tip of his brush. “Come on.”
“Come on yourself,” she joked.
He went over and pulled up on the undershirt. “It’s not like I haven’t ever seen you naked.”
“All right.” She took off the shirt and tossed it on his bed. Then she removed her underwear and crossed her legs, placing her hands, one on top of the other, on her knee.
“Too stiff,” Tom protested. “Just sit the way you normally would if no one was looking.”
She uncrossed her legs and allowed her knees to open a quarter of an