“Let us-let me-speak tonight about the data of reality.
“A redundancy, I suppose, we could call that expression; after all, that which is data is by definition real.
It is real-but it is not selective.
“Data, ladies and gentlemen, cannot select itself, you see; only we, we creative artists, we geniuses, we masters of taste and discretion may accomplish this.
“Now, some of you have seen fit to heckle me-”
Pause to listen to protests, denials from his audience, until, smiling, Armand holds up his hand, saying, “No, no, it’s quite all right. This is a constructive, non-disruptive type of heckling, coming from. the students and faculty of the computer graphics curriculum here at this distinguished institution of higher learning.
“They have taken the time and trouble to prepare for us a little demonstration of the interface between art and reality.”
“Lights, please.”
The lights are dimmed.
On the screen above the chalk board, a blank screen appears.
Lines, black on white begin to emerge, travel, proliferate.
“This is what I believe is called wire outline drawing. Notice, in this case, that it is of the painting, ‘Irene I’.
“It will go through several enhancements, becoming by degrees more and more realistic-”
Colors appear, flat planes at first, then crudely shaded, the shading becoming more and more subtle and detailed until a fairly creditable, three-dimensional representation of ‘Irene I’ is achieved.
And then, in a display of technical pyrotechnics, the picture is rotated, is viewed from right, left, above and below, without interruption, in a continuous, smooth scan, until it returns to the original position.
“-ultimately becoming surreal, that is, its representation exceeding in detail that of reality itself.
“Now, if I can have the slide of ‘Irene I’ to the same scale, side by side with the computer simulation-thank you.
“Study the two side by side, if you will, and ask yourself, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’- meaning, of course, the computer creation on your left, or, if you prefer, the painting itself as shown on the right.
“Go ahead, take a few minutes. I want no snap judgments. Study them carefully.”
Silence.
Then, “Very well, ladies and gentlemen, time is up. No, no, keep the lights off, please. I want to make a point.
“Something is missing, am I right? “The computer simulation is a remarkable technical achievement, no question-but. Is it art? “Same composition, exactly, same color scheme-but something is wrong. It doesn’t speak to us. It is what it is, and nothing more.
“And why? “Too-much-data! “Too much information, telling us, on the one hand, more than we want or care to know and, on the other, not telling us, not speaking to us about what kind of a mood the model is in-which, whatever that• mood may be, is certainly not that of the couch on which she is seated.
“In the computerized version, however, her mood is the same as that of the couch is the same as that of the window frame, is the same as that of the floor- you get the picture, I think, no pun intended.
“We look at Irene in the painting, we see a person.”
“We look at her computerized, we see a dummy, a clearly identifiable but lifeless object, seated in a setting likewise devoid of life-of the life she alone could have given it.
“We conclude, then, that reality speaks to us- and speaks and speaks and speaks, yakkety-yak, ad infinitum.
“So that, in order to create art from reality, it is often necessary to recognize in imagination, not that unbounded, glorious leap of absolute freedom, but instead a meticulous, diligent process of search and selection.
“My compliments to the gentlemen in engineering for pointing out the failure of Webster’s second definition of aesthetics. We have seen science at its best failing to produce an aesthetically satisfactory effect of the degree and intensity of the original from which it derived its data, hence the establishment as an oxymoron the term, science of aesthetics, of aesthetics as a science.
“Lights, please.
“So then, far from being a science, we see that science, with the best intentions in the world, may actually succeed in destroying that delicate, esoteric, perhaps indefinable…
“You were very good tonight, Armand,” Jessica says, as they embrace, naked, in Armand’s bed. “Is that to be a running battle with the engineering people, or what?”
“I find them… useful, and they find my work challenging.
“They’re going to try again with some of my less complex work. Who knows?
Perhaps they will succeed.”
“Succeed at what, exactly?”
“Succeed in seducing me, Jessica.”
And he is inwardly amused as she stiffens in his arms, as she at once forces herself to relax.
“Seduce you how, Armand?”
“Seduce me into recognizing computer graphics as a valid medium.
“Seduce me into going down there, collaborating with them, conducting various experiments with computer graphics or mixed media modification and enhancement-whatever.”
“You’re not going to, to… let them, are you, Armand?”
“I mean, you certainly don’t need what they have to offer you.”
He shrugs, replying, “How do I know that until I see what they come up with? I mean, after all, that was certainly a rather remarkable piece of simulation and animation we saw tonight, wasn’t it?”
“It was a failure, Armand, as you yourself so ably pointed out.”
“It was a failure because of the context in which they chose to deploy their technology.”
“That particular subject, style and original medium are not conducive to computer simulation, given current state of the art, is all.”
“You mean you’re going to help them find their niche?”
“Mmmm. Haven’t quite decided yet.”
“Then don’t, Armand. Find our niche instead, okay?”
He doesn’t reply, turning her over instead, insinuating himself between her legs, spreading apart the cheeks of her ass, checking the aesthetics of her ass hole.
She amuses him with her obviousness, with her attempts not to be obvious. Don’t waste her valuable time, is what she’s saying.
Don’t spend creative time in directions in which she can’t participate, in areas where she has no shot, is what she’s telling him.
As though she has a ghost of a chance even without his getting involved with the computer types at the university, he thinks.
He sees her looking at him, sees the calculation in her gaze, sees her picturing herself playing him like a finely tuned instrument of infinite complexity, the difficulty of doing so overcome by her consummate skill.
Yeah, right. In a pig’s ass! Speaking of which- Armand seals his lips to the puffy pucker of her bung-large, round, protruding, obviously no stranger to two-way traffic on a regular basis.
With whom? Armand wonders, reminding himself that he doesn’t really care, that when she is with him she is not with that other, significant or otherwise.
Because this is all there is to her, this body and what she chooses to do with it and what she feels while doing it.
There is nothing else to her, however much she might think otherwise.
Her plans?
Those are figaments of her imagination, are reassemblings of the elements of reality in combinations which are not going to be realized-made real.
False beliefs, after all, are also composed of very real elements, their combination not finding a counterpart in reality. Indeed, some of the most spectacular imagery ever known was based upon false beliefs.
The splendor of the ancient world was reserved, not for man, but for his gods.
So fine, let her think what she likes; the results of that thinking are real enough, even though they are not what she has in mind by way of the final goal of their relationship.
Armand raises her hips, raising her ass hole right with them, never for an instant losing contact, lips sealed to her bung, tongue going round and round over the segments, seeking and finding their convergence.
And now, he pushes his tongue in, in, into her ass hole, an act he knows some women associate with sincerity-the logic of such thinking escaping him completely, but what the hell, as long as it makes him look good, right?
So that now he is tongue-fucking her in her ass deeply (sincerely?), feeling the heat of her interior, the yielding of her rectal wall to his probing, rimming, reaming tongue, concentrating on the entrance, slackening it, stretching it.
And only when he is convinced that she can take him easily does he sit back, then stand up on his knees.
And now, her ass hole spread between the fingers of one hand so that it actually smiles at him, with his other hand he buttons his knob inside her ass.
He places both hands on the belied flare of her wide hips, holding them steady, as he rotates his own hips, corkscrewing, drilling in and in and into the depths of her bowels, the battering ram of his cock head spreading the channel before its relentless onslaught.
And now, he is fucking her in the ass, her face on the pillow, turned to him in profile, ruddy with the engorged blood of her arousal, eyes closed, a smile (of triumph? contentment? raunchiness? all?) on her face.
She has good reason to smile, he tells himself, because he is very good at this-good and enthusiastic, this being the most creative thing he has done since his last exhibition, the Darlene exhibit, gaining him money he doesn’t need, perpetuating a fame of which he cares nothing, and leaving him empty, drained, devoid of ideas and enthusiasm alike.
Because, in the end, what is art but symbol and substitute for the real thing-like all the rest of human endeavor, he tells himself, had we but the courage to face ourselves, to know ourselves for the big-brained beasts we are.
From time to time, Armand feels sad, depressed that this should be the case, that, for him, all the rest of it is nothing more than lying to ourselves; that outside ourselves, there is only darkness, emptiness, nothingness.
But, he reminds himself, he has not fared too badly in this vale of tears, in which he weeps for paradise lost, paradise that never was.
He is big, strong, wealthy, respected-and right now, sticking it up the ass of a beautiful, intelligent, conniving bitch who is not going to make out worth a damn.
Well, not true, exactly, he tells himself, admiring the shape of her back as he leans back to check the connection, the juncture, noting with satisfaction the ease with which his long, thick cock feeds in and out of her nether orifice, now become a toothless mouth which sucks his cock as he continues to plow in and out of her ass.
Enlightenment, insight, truth, however unpleasant, is never without value.
So that Jessica Farnham, graduate student, is about to earn a bit of life experience credit, as soon as Armand tires of her.
Right now, of course, he can see them going a fair way together-especially if she and he stick to their custom of the once a week, after the lecture gettogether.
This way, they don’t get used to one another.
This way, they continue on in their other worlds, Armand’s the world of the gym, hers, presumably, the academic world.
Where there are-people.
Armand smiles to himself, imagining Jessica in bed with her boyfriend, a fellow graduate student and pseudo-intellectual, no doubt, discussing with him the Armand project.
In which she inspires Armand Fortuna to yet another burst of creativity, in which she actually causes him, against his original intentions but helpless in the face of (her) overwhelming inspiration, to set up canvas, to take brush in hand and to capture her in her many moods, for all the world to see and be enthralled.
So that her own creations will have the stamp of authentic artistic merit because, after all, Armand Fortuna has seen fit to paint her, to “do” her, over and over, one mood after another, one manifestation of her many-sided, versatile, ever changing personality after another.
So that her works will be sought after.
So that critics will see in them what isn’t even there.
So that she will appear on talk shows on public television, or maybe even Oprah (“women who pose nude for Armand Fortuna and become famous”), and be so rich that she won’t have to give a shit what anybody thinks.
Yes, Armand can see her now, building the edifice of her own greatness, one tier after another, a veritable tower of Babel (Jessica spoken here)-and, like that tower, destined to remain forever unfinished, falling into disrepair before disappearing forever beneath the sands of time and the fading of memory, his and her own.
But if she is building and building now, then so is he. Except that he is building a full head of steam.
He feels a moment of viciousness, as though he would really like to hurt her for her remark concerning his virility or possible lack thereof.
Here ya go, babe, he wants to say to her, in action, not words, how’s this grab ya for proof positive of what he has to offer?
This virile, this manly, this macho enough for ya?
Stupid, he tells himself, the macho bullshit.
Maybe macho originally meant stupid, in fact.
Certainly, every macho man he ever knew was a total ass hole. Speaking of which-he concentrates on the work at hand, varying his motion now, rolling his hips, feeling his cock rotate its internal pressure, in the sleeve of her rectum, which it, which he stretches and fills.
And now, he holds onto one of her hips, reaching down and around with his other hand to weigh her breasts, hanging big and heavy, beneath her, thumbing the nipples as he does so.
And yes, he possesses her completely-even as, in her mind, he surmises, she is possessing him, is manipulating, is maneuvering him.
And Armand wonders what the female equivalent of macho is, thinking that, whatever it is, Jessica is surely full of it, and that it goes as badly with her as it would with any man.
His free hand explores the curves of her body, squeezing here, lingering there, as though to memorize the details of her body.
Fine with her, no doubt, Armand reflects, fine that he should be so taken, so entranced with her that he must come to know intimately every nook and cranny of her specific being.
And she hasn’t got a clue that what he is actually doing is confirming quite the opposite, is firming up in his own mind-once again-the unstinting reality of nature’s bounty.
As her body confirms the very opposite of what she intends, telling Armand, telling him beyond argument, beyond the shadow of a doubt that she is as one poured from a gelatin mould-delicious, delightful in and of herself and, as though that were not enough, as an added feature for his delight, there are plenty more where she came from. So very delectable, so very disposable, is Jessica. Fully expendable like fucking toilet paper.
And he masks an involuntary chuckle at this last, thinking of her indignation, if only she knew what he is thinking.
Ah, but she is good, he tells himself. Or rather, she would be, but for the rest of the package, but for that load of shit she carries around in her head.
He would have no problem in keeping her around, really, but for her ambition.
He is a lazy guy, actually, and she an adequate means of his working off any buildup in his libido, which buildup has been, is exacerbated by his absence of any creative activity.
Of course, it could be argued that he is creating himself, with his almost daily visits to the gym.
And he does belong to Buck’s, which is, after all, the hardcore iron pumper’s establishment of choice; still, he knows himself, knows his own creative intensity, thus knows that he is not approaching what, in theory, should be his greatest creation with the attitude he has come to expect of himself.
Rather, he is timid, is cautious, and is encouraged in this by the manager of the place, who seems determined to treat him like some sacred relic, anxious lest he so much as stub his toe in the locker room.
The celebrity member treatment, Armand knows, understands, but Stan really carries it too far.
So that Armand, like a lot of the other guys who work out there, has signed up for an appointment with Rhino, the training director of the whole franchise, for a conference, one on one, to discuss his whole training regimen, from routine to diet to rest.
And Armand is hoping that will work, that it will somehow inspire him to the same enthusiasm in his exercise routine that he had in his painting, when the spirit was full upon him.
Later for all that, he tells himself,, as he redoubles his efforts, humping away in Jessica’s ass.
His free hand delves now, between her legs, down and around, to the point that he can feel his own balls and, right in front of them, Jessica’s joy buzzer.
So that now, he is titillating her, is twiddling her twat, is cuddling her clit between two fingers, her clear, hot juices flowing freely over his knuckles.
So that her cunt, pushed forward, displaced by the mighty marauder which services her rectum is doubly stimulated, inside and out.
So that it doesn’t take very long at all before she is right up there with him on the scale, the ladder, the rainbow which leads ever upward, toward the ultimate pleasure.
So that now, they are rising together, level after level, breaking through to vista after vista of lascivious, sensation, each grander than the one before.
Hotter and hotter they become, the slap of abdomen against protruding buttocks, all of them coated now with sexual sweat, resounding again and again off the cinderblock walls of Armand’s apartment within his loft.
Faster and faster the slaps come, one after the other until now, they sound like the applause of a single enthusiastic voyeur.
Because Armand has summoned the pleasure beyond pleasure from within both their innermost depths, has united them in the grip of that which is far greater than themselves.
And it has taken them over, is jerking them this way and that, only Armand’s grip on her hip and that of her rectum on his cock keeping them joined now, his fingers, slippery with pussy juice remaining on station only with great difficulty.
As the pressure of the greatest human experience exerts itself upon their safety valves-and blows them.
So that they are coming and coming now, her pussy’s orgasmic contractions milking his fingers of all the pleasure they contain for her, of that pleasure far beyond what she herself can contain.
Even as Armand is spurred to frenetic, irregular activity by the ultimate pleasure, which manipulates him like a puppet on invisible strings, Wad after wad of his jism he injects into the depths of her hot bowels, as her cunt continues to milk his ever-working fingers so awkwardly curled down and around beneath them both.
And thus do they ride out the celestial storm of unadulterated sexual rapture.
And, when they land back in the bed, Armand rides her all the way down,’ fully inserted.
And thus do they lie there, bearded cheek to smooth, breathing the same air as their bodies seek to recover normal temperature and respiration, he glued to her by their common surface of still flowing sexual Sweat.
As his mighty monolith of monster meat slowly detumesces within the sleeve of her rectum until, at last, it is sufficiently flaccid that the peristaltic action of her bowels expels him, a long, thick, smooth turd.
And their minds return to their bodies, return to their normal executive functioning within them.
And they separate mentally, even as they have separated physically and their thoughts become once more their own.
True, she tells herself, she gave him her ass, an act of abject surrender; but true as well that he rimmed her, and not in some hesitant or perfunctory manner, either.
And this is their second date, following a preset and therefore recognizable-and recognized-pattern.
What he does with his days, with his other nights, well, that is something over which she has no control, nor has she any intention of driving herself crazy over this gap, this lacuna, this imponderable within her plans.
Enough, sufficient to the program that they are here now, like this, as she has every reason to believe they will be ‘next week-especially after what is generally recognized as the ultimate intimacy.
Because to take it in the ass is to have the other person physically enter the very core of one’s being, is it not?
And surely this is not something lightly done, lightly given, lightly received-especially not in the case of so avid a rimmer as Armand who, for all his fame and fortune sucked her butt as thoroughly and yes, as lovingly as would have any sophomore-or sophomoric-undergrad.
So yes, hell yes she has him.
Too soon to stake her claim, of course-besides which, that is something she will have to work on, will have to work out details of approach, timing, and so on and so forth-if.
If he himself doesn’t gain spontaneous inspiration from her, from her presence, from what they do together.
Because it shouldn’t be necessary for her to have to do-anything.
That ignorant, barely post-juvenile slut Irene certainly didn’t know anything, much less how to manipulate so sophisticated a man of the world as Armand Fortuna.
And as for Darlene, well, she was surely the most brazenly blatant thing ever to walk on two legs, so much so in fact that she was typecast even before accepting her role as a soap opera villainess.
Yes, Jessica tells ‘herself, two brilliant careers springboarded off of Armand Fortuna, so why not a third?