Emily pretends as if the whole thing didn't bother her, but it really did. She loves art, both looking at it and creating it. She never says she is any good at it, but she never thinks of herself as awful. But she felt that way earlier, during her art class. She can hear the other girls laughing and pointing at the red blood-like splotch that's supposed to be an apple on the canvas.

Just a bowl of fruit, how hard could that be? She sighs, staring at the blank canvas. Class has long ended for the day, but she sits at her stool, staring at the white, empty space. She can still hear the other girls laughing, talking shit behind her back, just because of a silly art project?

Emily is determined. Her eyes fixate at the bowl of fruit. It's not even real fruit, which seems to bother her to end. She inhales deeply and dips the paint brush into some red paint.

"Relax, Emily," she says to herself, "it's only a bowl of fruit. You can paint this better than the other girls... you were just under pressure..."

She dabs a bit of color on to the canvas slowly and deliberately.

Class is out and while all the other girls have filtered out, while Emily continues to fluster over her painting, Anna's been pulled aside for a talking to. It seems she considered a fruit still life beneath her, that she opted to paint whatever the hell she wanted instead of the required assignment. And while the professor prattles on about "following the course" and "starting with fundamentals", Anna just stares on sullenly, the professor just getting that more animated and agitated until she finally just throws her arms in the air and pushes from her seat. There's an exasperated sigh from teach as she sees Emily, still earnestly dabbing away at her still life before she marches out, door slammed shut behind her. Anna just glowers at the closed door for a while before she finally lifts herself up. She's about to head out herself when her eyes catch on Emily. Poor, desperate, repressed little thing. Lips curve up slowly and she saunters over, long circle around the room to end up standing over Emily's shoulder, intimately close, fingers laced behind her back, voice just brimming with delightful amusement.

"Is that a tomato or a bloodsplotch?"

So concentrated at her failed art project, the world seems like a blur to Emily. It's only her and the canvas, which she ruined with an ugly splotch of paint. She couldn't even get the colors right! There's a small blue stain at the edge of her tomato/blood-splotch when she accidentally brushed over another color trying to get red paint.

Emily didn't see Anna coming. So fixated she is on the ugly dab of paint, she forgot where she is. When Anna speaks her delight words, Emily almost rockets off her stool and into the canvas, ruining it even more, but she didn't. She merely jumps up from her stool, screaming, and almost hits Anna with her brush full of red paint, which flies backwards off her hand and leaves a streak of red paint across Emily's left cheek.

"H...Hi..." Emily says trying to catch her breath and pretend she didn't just make scene with her flailing arms.

She's a contrast of shades, creamy white and jet black and varying hues of violet: school skirt cut high on her thigh, jangling with a panoply or colorful pins. Her short-sleeved top gives way to form-fitting black long-sleeve beneath, flaring past the wrists, plum nailed fingers just barely peeking out. Black painted lips contrast with the clever, offsetting gold of her eyes. Piercings glitter from all over, hooked through her lip, her brown, her tongue, narrow chain running from nose to ear, jangling as her brow lifts in wry amusement. She steps subtly to the side as Emily flails around like an epileptic.

"Jeez... Spaz much?" She brushes a purple/black bang from her face, pink tongue brushing against her thumb as she cranes forward to smear the streak of paint from Emily's face with her wet finger. Her hands cross behind her back, rocking on heels as she examines the canvas like a gallery critic. "That's an interesting style you're rocking. Very.... Jean-Michele Basquiat...." voice lingering, teasing.

Emily winces as Anna wipes the streak of red paint from her face. She reaches up and follows up with the back of her hand, Anna's touch leaving a bit of a tingling sensation on her cheek. Sighing softly, she watches as Anna examines her painting. She feels so ordinary next to Anna. As her eyes roam all over her classmate, she grows a bit jealous. She seems so unique, so different. Every element in Anna's ensemble has thought put into it. Emily is the complete opposite, wearing regulation uniform, with a regulation skirt that's regulation length, with regulation socks and even regulation panties.

Emily runs her fingers through her brown hair nervously as Anna eyes her work."I...I don't even know who that is..." Emily says, failing to detect the teasing inflection in Anna's voice.

"Of course you don't.." she sighs, as if she's the epitome of patience, a martyr practically! She sets the red-spackled canvas to the side and replaces it with a fresh one. Poor, nervous little thing. Anna's lips twist up mischeviously as Emily flinches away like a little feral cat. She reaches around her, hand smoothing behind her back, turning her slowly to face away. Hands slip up to her shoulders, gently but firmly pushing her down into a seat on the stool. She looms over the girl's shoulder, tongue stud clicking against her teeth as she tuts derisively. "It's not your fault. That hack teacher wouldn't be qualified to teach fingerpainting to a preschool."

Anna is practically draped over her shoulders, the way her fingers guide her and the pedantic sound to her voice borders on demeaning. Emily can feel Anna's breath against her ear as she talks, getting her in position, hand smoothing down her back, straightening her spine. She settles the brush into Emily's grip, hand over hand as she daubs the brush into red paint, then lifts, guiding the brush held in Emily's hand over the canvas, one smooth line at first, a curved half heart, mimicking the shape of the apple in the bowl. "Paint the trees and miss the forest, and all you'll get it a page full of ugly green splashes and brown squares. You want to look for the form of things. It's all basic shapes, just dancing with each other." Her chin rests nearly on Emily's shoulder, curving back around to finish the basic shape of the apple. "Find the important lines, the ones that compose the shape, the ones that give it character, and then gradually fill in the smaller ones, the details, until it looks right. That's all it is, girl. Whether you're sketching or painting, it's just lines."

"Oomph!"

A small grunt slips from her lips when Anna pushes her down onto the stool. She didn't want to sit back down, she was happy to throw that canvas in the incinerator, go back to her dorm and lose herself in some music. But being the type of person she is, Emily could not say no to Anna. She plants her butt firmly on the chair and her eyes fall the fresh canvas, ready to concentrate on a new painting.

But it doesn't turn out as Emily expected to, things rarely do. Instead of concentrating on the new painting, Anna's presence overwhelms her. She swallows hard, trying to listen to Anna's instructions, all the while oblivious to her mildly condescending tone. She tries to listen, that is. With Anna's curvaceous against Emily's back and her voice tickling her ears, shivers shoot up and down her spine.

Her hand goes limp, she doesn't even bother controlling the brush, she lets Anna guide her delicate hands around the canvas as if her hand is the brush itself. With each sentence Anna spouts out, Emily responds with a barely audible murmur of affirmation. She sits in the chair, not knowing exactly what to do, except letting a pretty girl paint for her.

Her body is arched forward, lips pursed in high amusement, soft swell of breasts brushing just faintly, warmly against Emily's back as she leads the strokes. Slowly they fill in the details, splashing the brush in water, finding another shade to etch the sheen of light reflected off of the apple - smooth, calligraphic strokes as they fill in the general shape of the other fruit, the bowl itself, little fingers just barely peeking out from the long sleeve, gingerly manipulating Emily's digits. The girl is practically trembling and Anna can't help but grin.

Her free palm waves in front of the timid girl's face. Earth to Emily. "Jesus Christ girl. It's like you think I'm going to try to eat you alive.... or jump your bones." Smirked, still leaning over the girl as she lets her hand loose. "There you go. Think you have a handle on it?"