The Virgin Artist Ch. 01

Note: All characters engaging in sexual activities are 18 years or older.

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Winston Thomas, a lanky artist with lanky hair and lanky eyes and lanky everything, lean and sharp as a blade of grass, leans against the railing of the cruise-ship Allure and stares out at the ocean, trying his best to sketch the distant waves and not worry about being a member of that most ignominious of combinations: a college freshman and a virgin.

It almost works. Drawing water is no mean feat. It never stands still -- it's even more poorly behaved than small children and only slightly more favorable in comparison to wind because you can't really draw wind, you can only draw windy things. Like trees and waves and hair. A girl's hair, long and beautiful, caught in the jealous fingers of the wind. And with that fatal thought, Winston's back to worrying about being a virgin.

It always comes back to that. Girls have a sixth-sense about it. They can just tell. They just know and that's that. They like an experienced guy, an older guy. Now, Tiffany Rosens, she of blonde hair and blue eyes... he had a chance with her. That is, she mostly ignored him but a couple weeks back, she'd told him she really loved his artwork. The look she'd given him... Smoldering is the only word Winston can think to describe it. He understands looks. He has an eye for them, an artist's eye. Yeah, Tiffany Rosens -- he had a chance. Key word: had. But, instead of making business with her, his parents had forced him to go on this trip, a graduation gift that they just so happened to have invited themselves upon.

Cause, really, a Caribbean cruise? How trite.

Winston pauses, erases one of the white-caps of a distant swell, and amends his thought: the cruise is alright. There are some parts he doesn't mind. He likes people watching, the range of people from fat to skinny, swarthy to pale, smooth to wrinkled, red-heads, gold-heads, raven-heads. He likes the gentle almost imperceptible rocking of the ship in its ocean cradle, the inescapability of the sun and the infinite expansion of the sea. And, of course, he likes the girls in their bikinis, all curves and slopes and?

"Crrkkkkk!"

Startled, Winston looks around, nearly has a heart-attack when he almost drops his sketch-pad into the ocean, and then watches with some annoyance as a young girl, no more than eight or nine, bodily drags one of the lounge chairs up to the railing and proceeds to stand on it to look out over the edge.

"Oooh!" she says followed shortly by the requisite "Ah."

Oooh, she says again, and ... ah! Ooooh... ah! Like the vocal beat of a techno song. It irks Winston. Unfairly, of course, definitely unfairly. The girl's still innocent, still able to appreciate the primal beauty in things. Winston had been like that once. And then he'd hit puberty. With a sigh, Winston turns back to his sketch pad -- but then, from the corner of his eye -- he sees the girl tilt too far, overbalance, and fall.

Winston reacts instantly. His arm shoots out and snaps hold of the girl's wrist. Small though she is, her weight jerks his arm, and he nearly lets go. But he doesn't.

Winston's not exactly a football jock, and the girl's wrist, slick from the ocean air, begins to slip from his hold. "Help!" he shouts.

Two nearby sailors hear his cry and rush over. They grab the girl by her other arm, her clothing, and haul her up. In moments, she's back over and safe. Her mother, a pretty but mousy lady, rushes over and grabs her daughter and begins to cry. The little girl, not quite realizing her peril until now, bursts into tears as well.

One of the sailors turns to Winston. "Wow, kid. What the hell happened?"

"Dunno," says Winston. "She slipped."

"And you caught her?" The sailor offers his hand, which Winston awkwardly shakes. "Timothy Owens. Pleased to meetcha, and how'd you manage it anyway? What are you, some kind of martial artist?"

"Winston Thomas," says Winston. "No -- just an artist." And saying it, Winston realizes that in his haste he dropped his sketch-pad.

"Quick of the eye then huh?"

But Winston, not finding his sketchpad, has already exited the conversation. He leans slightly over the edge and spots his expensive moleskine, caught on a balcony several floors below. "My?" but the wind grabs it and carries it off into the sea. "Shit," says Winston.

Meanwhile, the girl's mom displays a rapid switch of emotions that would have sent any nearby psychologists screaming for some lithium. She gets angry and scolds her daughter Madeline and shakes a finger at her and cries, and then turns to Winston with a melon-eater's grin and offers effusive praise, giving him a fierce hug that crushes his lanky frame. He can't help but notice her large breasts, rare as they are on a woman -- as Winston now notices -- of oriental descent. Or, at least, half oriental, by the slanting of her face, the dusky tone of her skin.

Drawn by the commotion, a crowd begins to gather and Winston slips away. He prefers the cool silence, the distance, and always had. It's easier to observe, easier to capture motion, when you aren't a part of it. And anyway, he needed time to mourn the loss of aksaray escort his work.

But the story spreads -- thanks in no small part to Timothy Owens, who runs the cruise ship's little commodities shop (toilet paper, toothpaste,