Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down (3 page)

Cole’s
descriptions made sense.

Since that day,
Ava had been making her own observations alongside Cole’s; her purple pen
appeared like a second language overtop his black script, taking notes for the
first time ever in Wilkins’ class.  The phrases and scribbles and sketches
swirled like clouds meshing  with Cole’s meticulous notations, leaving a
multi-layered rendering of ideas, more detailed than the original. 

Her second essay
received Wilkins’ highest praise: 
“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
She hoped this latest essay would do as well.

Feeling the
first bloom of heat from the truck’s heater, Ava popped it into gear.  She
headed onto the icy road, aiming for student parking near the Arts Wing where
the Printing studio was located.  She and Cole had only one class together, and
it bugged her that this was the class she had to be late for.  Of all her
courses, printmaking was the one she enjoyed the most.  It was a
two-dimensional medium, but Ava had been surprised to discover how meticulous
the process was, compared to painting. 

Ava made it to
the campus without incident, heading into the heated parking garage and swiping
her pass at the gate.  A space in the parking garage was one of her splurges,
though with the age of the Beast, it was almost a necessity in the winter.  She
was late but not too bad, as the prof tended to give sketching and
collaboration time for the first bit of class.  Crossing her fingers that today
would be no different, Ava pulled her bag off the seat and sprinted toward the
building.   Her lungs burned with cold, skin tingling within seconds.

The first few
days of the semester, the class focused on mono-printing: spreading ink across
the plate with the brayer, then wiping away the lighter areas with fingers and
rags.  It was a form of printing designed to capture that tenuous moment of
creation.  Ava loved it; Cole endured.  By the end of the week, they’d started
to branch into other aspects of printing. Today their first long-term project
began.  The phone in Ava’s bag rang and she ignored it, running faster.  

‘When I said
five minutes,
Cole,’ she thought in exasperation
, ‘I didn’t mean it literally.’
   

She headed up
the back entrance, hoping someone was outside the fire exit taking a
mid-morning smoke break.  Rounding the corner, she got the first warm whiff of
tobacco and grinned.  She’d guessed right.

“Hold the door,”
she bellowed. 

The woman up
ahead pulled the door back open with a chuckle.  In seconds, Ava was inside,
making good time to the printing studio.  Down at the end of the hallway, she
saw their prof – a small, slightly-built woman with short, grey hair – stepping
into the classroom. Ava loved Giulia and her informal approach (first names
being a requirement with her).  Ava gingerly walked into the large printmaking
studio, hoping she hadn’t drawn any attention to herself.  She stepped up to
Cole and eased her bag to the floor, sitting next to him.  His hand gently
squeezed 'hello' on her shoulder just as Giulia called everyone to put away
their sketchbooks.

“Thanks for the
call,” Ava whispered, smiling as Cole's hand ran down her arm to capture her
fingers under the table.  “I totally slept through the alarm…” she added. 
“Dead to the world.”

Cole chuckled.

“Have I been
keeping you up too late?” he teased.

Ava smirked.

“Both you and
Clem.”

Artist and
printmaker Professor Giulia Cezzano stood at the high printing table, a variety
of zinc plates and wood blocks along with their respective prints laid out in
front of her.  Cole tried to focus on the instructor’s words, but Ava was
beside him, and his concentration dragged away to her instead.  Her breathing
was slowing after her panicked run to class, and the sound reminded him of her
fading pants after they’d made love.  Letting go of her hand, he slid his
fingers to her back, rubbing absent circles, his own breathing quickening at
her nearness.

“Feels good,”
Ava murmured, leaning into his hand. 

Cole chuckled. 
Praise like that wasn’t going to help his concentration at all.

At the front of
the class, Giulia began pointing out the various prints, talking and gesturing
happily to the equipment around her.

“Since the start
of the course, we’ve been working primarily with mono-printing and relief
prints,” she said, pulling out a carved wooden block and running her fingers
across the surface.  “For the next unit, we’ll be starting to work with
intaglio...”

Giulia laid out
woodblocks while she talked, then picked up a heavy silver plate and a print of
the image made from it, passing them around the table.  The image looked like a
pencil sketch of a little girl at a piano.  The cuts were incised with
precision, the simplicity of the image refined down to an individual line.

“...this one
here,” Giulia said, “is my daughter, Lucia.  It’s dry point, which means I’ve
used a needle to cut a line into the zinc plate.  When ink is applied, it fills
the lines, and then it can be printed to reveal them.  Rembrandt did many of
these prints.  They’re the most like drawing of any of the printing approaches,
and you can create some really interesting effects with the technique.  It’s a
very immediate art form...”

Ava pushed into
the movement of Cole's fingers.  Feeling a knot of muscle that had formed a
ridge in Ava's lower back, Cole switched to his thumb and the knuckle of his
forefinger, kneading instead of rubbing.  She moaned quietly under his
ministrations and he grinned, digging his fingers harder into the band of
muscles.

Another plate
came by as the students passed them around.  Ava gave it a cursory once-over
before handing it back to Cole.  It was a rendering of a river-bottom flower,
the detailed shading of the image created in crosshatches.

“...and the
second print that I handed out,” Giulia explained, “is an etching.  In
yesterday’s class, I showed you how to apply resin to a plate and use the acid
baths to reveal the lines you’ve scribed into it. Well, today we get to start
playing with that.  The print of the yarrow was created by etching.  That’s yet
another way that you can work with a plate...  another form of intaglio...”

Next to Cole,
Ava turned, her voice pitched low.

“Keep going,”
she whispered, “harder... lower...” 

Cole’s body
jumped to attention at the sound of her voice.  Ava knew exactly what those
words made think about.  He grinned, thumb pushing harder into her muscles,
heading down her spine.

“...The last
print I want to show you,” Giulia continued, “is one that’s created by
burnishing with oil.  It’s a technique called mezzotint, and it’s similar to
dry point in that you roughen or damage the surface...”

Giulia lifted a
small T-shaped tool, handing it to a nearby student.  The tool had a serrated
surface on the curved base like a meat texturizer.  As Ava reached forward to
take it, the low waist of her jeans flared open. Cole dropped his fingers inside. 
Ava squeaked in shock, swivelling back around, tool in hand.  Her cheeks
flooded with colour, her chest rising and falling in rapid pants.  Again the
memories of her under him flashed to mind and Cole smirked.

“Sorry... was
that not low enough?” he asked, falsely innocent (secretly glad that they were
sitting at the back, his hands hidden from view.)  Ava giggled, sitting up once
more in a semblance of studious interest.  Cole’s fingers ran back and forth
along the lacy edge of her panties, and he watched her struggle not to squirm.

“...for
mezzotint, you stipple the entire surface of the plate with the mezzotint
rocker to create burrs in the plate's surface,” Giulia said, her grey head
bobbing. “It’s a lot harder than you’d think.  I suspect a few of you’ll be
complaining about tired arms by the end of class...”

Cole dropped his
fingers lower, brushing the curve of Ava’s ass.

“Cole!” she
hissed.  It was a warning, her voice breathless.

“Yes...?” he
answered, laughter at the corners of the word.  His fingers paused for a
moment.

“Don’t,” she
commanded, voice wavering.

Cole chuckled,
his fingers picking up the movement once more, teasing along the line where the
fabric met the soft skin of her back.

“Ava, I’m trying
to listen to the directions here,” he said with an exaggerated sigh.  She
scowled at him, then jerked as his fingers dropped lower.

“Cole....” she
warned again, and a jolt of excitement lodged in his groin.  It was very much
like the noise she made when she was begging him for more.  He was glad the
table was blocking his lap from view, and even happier that Giulia was
continuing her discussion of the project at the front.  Right now, the prof was
holding a variety of new tools aloft.

“...and once you
have a solid black plate, you use a scraper and a burin with oil to burnish in
the lighter areas of the image.  Essentially you’re filling it in with light
rather than dark in this case...”

Cole leaned
closer, his mouth directly next to Ava's ear.  To anyone watching, it’d appear
he was whispering some thought on the discussion.

“I want to fuck
you, Ava Brooks,” Cole whispered, lips brushing the shell of her ear.  “Right
here.  Right now.”

“Cole,” Ava
whispered.  “Please...”  She flushed from her chest up to her ears and Cole had
the inappropriate urge to kiss her in front of everyone.

“Please what?”
he asked darkly.  “I like it when you beg.”

“Don’t!”
Ava growled,
catching his fingers, preventing him from moving. 

He raised his
eyebrow, trying to pull his hand back, but she held it tight.  Up at the front,
the professor sighed, calling to them.

“Cole and Ava,”
she said dryly, “could I get your attention?  I want to make sure that everyone
understands this next project.”

With an
embarrassed cough, Cole pulled his hand out of Ava’s grip.

“Sorry, Giulia,”
he said, dropping his voice bashfully, “I was asking Ava about her project for
the Student Show.  Sorry, should’ve waited until break.”

Giulia smiled
indulgently.

“I’m sure we’re
all looking forward to the Student Show, but let’s focus on this for now.”

He nodded, and
class continued.  Ava waggled her eyebrows in admonishment, clearly trying to
hold in her laughter.  Giulia was now pointing out the series of plates before
her.

“For this
long-term project, you’ll be working on ten different prints,” she explained. 
“You will have to create each of the ten prints by altering a single plate...”

There was a
murmur of concern as the project’s parameters suddenly crystallized.  A single
image was hard enough, but with ten images being created on a single plate, the
challenge became exponentially more difficult.

“... you need to
obscure the image each time – either by etching in, or altering the design, or
using a mezzotint rocker on the surface.  I’d suggest starting simple at
first... perhaps just dry point, because the more completely you use the plate,
the harder it is to obscure it next time.  Keep in mind you need to totally
change your design, and the deeper you dig into the plate, the more difficult
it is to alter it.  I’m going to warn you,” Giulia said, lifting the dry point
needle in the air.  “Don’t cut too deep in your first prints.”

“But what if we
do dig too deep?” a girl in the front asked.  “What happens then?”

Giulia reached
out to the side, pulling up a print stained with inky shadows, but within its
depths, the faint outlines of something else.  An echo of what it had been
still visible in the second plate.

“Cut too deep,”
she said, “and your image will keep coming back again and again, no matter how
many times you rework it.”

Cole sat in the
cozy depths of the armchair, his eyes unfocused.  He was supposed to be
talking, but instead he was counting the minutes until his penance was over. 
Today was the first meeting with the counsellor, the one that both he and his
father had agreed to see.  Nina had been the one to suggest Marta Langden, the
same therapist that Frank and Nina had seen years ago, and Nina swore that she
had single-handedly prevented their divorce, assisting them through months of
marital problems in the wake of Angela Thomas’s suicide. That revelation was
one Cole hadn’t been expecting, but it made the suggestion to go for
counselling with his father much easier.  Being here, and talking about it,
however, were two different things altogether.

Cole hated it.

The woman was in
her early forties, with warm caramel skin, long dark hair, and a youthful
demeanour.  She had broad lips, and a wide grin, but most striking were her
dark eyes; they sparkled with good humour.  Cole liked her on sight, found her
comforting in a way he couldn’t explain.  She’d suggested that for the first
session, Cole and Frank simply talk.  With this advice, both of them had fallen
back into their old patterns.  Frank grumbled on about life as he remembered
it.