Unknown: Posed For Pleasure

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.