In the Nude

Thus, on a sultry August night punctuated by the scent of the blooms of gardenia trees ranging across the entry porch of the president's on-campus mansion, Singleton and his wife were standing by the door in their entry foyer to welcome that evening's crop of students and the assigned faculty and college staff members and spouses as they wafted through the entertainment rooms and, most, to the back lawn and the tables supporting punch bowls and platters of cookies.

"Terry," Carl Singleton said, with surprise, as his twenty-two-year-old son, now pre-med at Emory University, entered the house. The president's wife, Katherine turned at the sound of the name, as did their two teenage daughters. "I didn't know you were on the invitation list tonight."

"I'm not," Terrence Singleton answered, with a laugh. "My date is, though. This is Kirk Wilson, Dad. He's a sophomore here and it was his turn to get an invite."

Singleton stood, speechless, and, seeing that he had frozen, his wife, Katherine, reached over and took Kirk's hand, becoming the obligatory welcoming party. Kirk seemed a bit frozen in place as well. She gave him a warm smile. "Welcome, Kirk," she said. "We knew Terry had a special friend who was a student here. It's good to meet you." The Singletons had long since known that their handsome, head-strong son was gay. She'd heard nothing about him going with a Buena Vista College student, but she knew the importance to establish immediately that Terry's preferences were known and accepted. The young man looked like he was in shock, so maybe he thought Terry didn't intend to acknowledge the relationship, at least at this reception.

The truth, though, was that Kirk didn't know that his Carl was the Carl Singleton, who was president of the college he was attending, or that Terry was "his Carl's" son. The name link had passed him by and Terry had just asked if dates were allowed to attend the reception and Kirk had responded that they might as well try it.

For his part, Carl Singleton was equally unprepared to be meeting up with the young man he'd been screwing for a past few weeks. Just as he hadn't revealed to Kirk who he was in real life, he had gotten enough information out of Kirk to have discerned that Kirk was a Buena Vista student. He most certainly had no inkling that Kirk was his son's boyfriend.

It was sometime later, when the crowd was thinning, and Katherine had called Terry away to consult with him on something upstairs, that Carl Singleton managed to maneuver to where he could talk to Kirk on the back lawn, in the shadows, privately.

"So, now you know," he said, "if you didn't know all along."

"Yes, now I know. But, no, I didn't know before."

"What didn't you know?" Carl asked.

"I didn't know any of it. I didn't know you were president of the college I was attending. I didn't know you had a family and a supposedly straight, public life. And I sure as hell didn't know you were the father of my boyfriend."

"But it's OK, isn't it? We're good together. You're being well paid and I'm being good to you. Nothing needs to change. I'm good with sharing with Terry. It might be kicky if we try a threesome sometime."

"Everything has already changed," Kirk said. "If Terry asks, tell him I had to get back to my studies and I thought maybe he'd already left."

"Kirk," Carl said, reaching out with a hand. But Kirk was already gone. He'd backed into the shadows of a line of pine trees and was gone.

* * * *

A new nude art class taught by Dex Taylor at the community education center was starting up and Carl showed up early with a bit of non-art business in mind. Dex was there, setting up the blue-velvet-covered dais and the sketching materials.

"So, can I hope that Kirk Wilson is the model again for this class?" Carl asked Dex.

"Kirk? I thought you knew. In fact, I thought it was maybe something that happened between you two that made him pull out and transfer colleges to Temple, up in Philadelphia, on such short notice."

"He's gone?"

"Yes, so what is that happened between you?"

"Nothing from my end," Carl said. "Everything was working out fine. Just a minute. I have to make a call." As he was going out into the lobby the other students for the class were showing up. He saw that that included the blowsy old broad who did more ogling in last session's class than sketching.

He called his son. He was thinking that he probably should have done that the previous week when he hadn't been able to get hold of Kirk. He hadn't seen or talked to Kirk since the college reception at his house. "Terry. Just checking if you got back to Emory OK. Good, good. Say, your mother and I enjoyed meeting your boyfriend the week before last. Seems a nice guy. Ken was that? Oh, you're not? Well, if you hadn't gotten too serious yet . . . since you've gone south to med school, and you say he's transferred college to Pennsylvania . . . long-distance relationships are hard to sustain. Yes, sorry. I'm sorry about that too."

Terry didn't know just how sorry his dad was about Kirk breaking off with him and transferring up to Temple. Kirk had been the best lay Carl had had in some time.

Carl went back into the classroom, where they were already starting with their sketching of a male model. And a real honey he was too, Carl could see. A small, perfectly formed body. Dark and sultry coloring; an angelic face. Such a sweetheart. Most of the class were sketching from his rear as he stretched out on the dais. The blowsy woman, of course, was sketching—without doing much sketching—from the front. Carl chose to do that as well.

Dex saddled up behind Carl and whispered to him. "What do you think?"

"About what?" Carl asked.

"You know about what," Dex said and then laughed.

"I think he's delicious," Carl said.

"Soon as I heard Kirk had taken off, I looked for another model you might like. I've talked it with him. He's approachable, if you're interested."

"You bet I'm interested," Carl said, pulling a wad of cash out of his pocket that he'd come prepared to regained Kirk with. He peeled a hundred-dollar bill off and slipped it to Dex.

"In the nude," Dex said with a chuckle.

"Yep, sticking it in the nude is my favorite art project," Carl said, already forgetting Kirk.