Objets d'Art

I was in my senior year of college, with the clock ticking down on my final weeks until exams, graduation, and then ... decades of being an adult. I wasn't even waiting, putting it off for a few more months—I'd already lined up an internship for the summer.

I had a list of things I always meant to try while I was at college, but never got around to doing, and now I was more determined than ever to check off each item on that list. Ten things on my list. Ten weeks to graduation. One item per week. It was now or never—I'd procrastinated long enough.

Item number one. The college's art department hosted a monthly life drawing session. I'd gone once or twice to draw from the live models and was always curious what it would be like to model for the group myself. I was shy, though, and although I wasn't close to any of the other artists in the group, the idea of taking off my clothes in front of strangers—strangers that I'd see around campus—was too daunting. Now, though, there were only a few weeks and then I might never see these people again. Suddenly, it was a little less daunting.

I was comfortable with my body. I'd put on a little weight during my four years, but it was mostly in the right places—my ass, my tits. That shouldn't matter, I know, but my feelings about how I looked naked inevitably fed into my calculations about disrobing in public. I had straight, black hair down to the middle of my back. My belly wasn't flat, but I didn't think of myself as chunky, either. Boyfriends—I'd had one for each year of school, mainly in the first semester—had said that they found my curves to be sexy, a turn-on.

I wasn't sure what to do with my pubic hair. Judging by the other models I'd seen at the sessions, there was more variety than I would have expected. But the models also weren't all college students—some were men and women from the local community, and they ran the gamut as far as age, from early twenties, up until ... there was one woman who must have been pushing seventy, but she was amazingly comfortable in her skin. I adored her.

She'd had the full bush going on, grey hairs and all. But then I'd also seen some, usually on the younger end of the spectrum, who were completely shaved. Even one man, which I hadn't expected. My boyfriends usually kept their pubic hair in check, enough that I wasn't picking hairs out from between my teeth during blowjobs, anyway, and I did them the same courtesy—short and sweet.

I decided that I shouldn't change who I was just for this. Even though I'd broken up with my last boyfriend just before winter break, I'd continued, out of habit—and just in case—to keep my dark hair trimmed into a neat triangle.

Our college had a May Day tradition where students would strip down and go bare for the day. The administration had adjusted to the fact that there was very little they could do about this. They knew the optics of campus police chasing after, tackling, handcuffing naked women was bad, and you can't even ask nudists for their ID to prove they belong on campus. Instead, they took to issuing safety guidance, advising nudists to stay well back from the main roads to avoid gawkers. Because I lived in one of the few dorms on the other side of the only major road going through campus, I didn't even see any of this my first two years. Word had it that the main practitioners were lesbians and granola-heads who hung out near the quad playing frisbee and acoustic guitar in their all-together. My junior year, I went to school abroad, and my school in England had no such tradition. Instead, they celebrated Guy Fawkes' Day on the fifth of November with beer and fireworks.

Nudity, for me, was reserved for bathing and sex, and full nudity sometimes only the former. I didn't play any sports in college, either, so I was four years removed from the vaguely uncomfortable feeling of public showering.

From my experience as an artist with the life drawing group, the model arrived fully clothed, then about five minutes before the start, while everyone is still setting up, they go into the back room, and emerge again wearing a robe. When everyone is ready, the moderator gives a signal, and the model disrobes and takes the first pose. There's nothing sexy about it—no striptease. No tease at all. One moment robed; the next moment unrobed.

I tried not to think of the models in terms of attractiveness. I tried to think of them as a body, a collection of parts, a challenge to translate curves and features and hair and that disobedient bitch foreshortening, all into a two-dimensional representation that on my best days at least looked like a person, if not that person. Sometimes, though, even a person who is not presented in a sexy context, exudes that sense nonetheless.

There was, for example, Nadja. Nadja was actually a professor at the school—to my knowledge the only professor that participated in the life drawing group in any capacity. Even the art department was largely absent from the group's functions. And as a professor of statistics, Nadja was about as far from the art department as one could get within the bounds of the campus. It wasn't even basic statistics—she taught advanced probability and algorithms. Not the kind of thing a freshman takes, and certainly nothing I'd taken in my liberal arts focus. Sexy math. At least, that's how I thought of it after seeing her model. Her dark Indian skin glowed and shone as she worked up a sweat through a series of poses and by the end of the session, I realized that I was damp, too, and not just with sweat.

Her breasts were small, but not flat. They were shaped like large breasts from a woman with a smaller frame. Her dark, wavy hair was thick like a mane, and it was matched by the tight curly thatch between her legs. (Impressed by her sensual intellect, I'd even tried studying stats on the sly, hoping to strike up a conversation.)

There were also several male models in the rotation. Tim was a comedian who worked with props, but was otherwise nude. Gary was a yoga practitioner with amazing flexibility. My favorite, though, was John. John had a muscular frame, but not hard muscles, like a bodybuilder. Maybe a bodybuilder who'd decided to let himself go about six months ago. He had ebony skin and a lightly furred chest. His most distinguishing feature was the leaky faucet that hung beneath his legs. The tip of his penis was perpetually beaded with pre-cum that sometimes caught on the hair of one of his long thighs, drawing out a strand like a spider's web. I wasn't sure if being nude in front of us was a turn-on for him, or he was just always like that underneath his clothes—reading a book, taking a class, pouring a bowl of cereal. But the thought that he might be excited in front of us made me excited, too. Sometimes, lost in thought, I stopped drawing altogether and just stared, picturing myself kneeling in front of him, my hands grasping at his slightly saggy butt as I rubbed my cheek along the length if his cock, drawing a snail's trail of seminal fluid across my face before cleaning his tip with my tongue.

When I realized I was staring, I looked up and our eyes met. He'd noticed that I'd stopped drawing and could probably tell that my eyes had been focused on his drooling member. Busted!

On the night I agreed to model, I was surprised to see John there, already in his robe. "Oh," I said, passively, but loud enough for the moderator to hear, "I thought I was modeling tonight. I didn't even bring my drawing pad."

Mary, the moderator, flushed with embarrassment. "I'm sorry! We did agree to that, didn't we? I forgot. Well, I'm sure we can work something out."

Not that I was doing this for the money, but the model got paid forty dollars for two hours of modeling, the cost split among the participating artists. After all the time it had taken me to build up the nerve to do this, going home without modeling would be a big disappointment and wreck my momentum for checking things off my list in the final weeks of college. Clearly, though, either John or I would go home empty-handed, or if we each modeled for an hour, we'd each take home twenty dollars, and without my art kit, I'd have an excuse to ogle John for an hour.

Mary went off and spoke with some of the more senior artists and came back with an unexpected compromise. "It seems the artists don't mind paying for two models if you'd be willing to work together." My knees suddenly went weak. 'Work together'? What did that even mean? As if reading my mind, Mary immediately clarified: "You know, pose together, at the same time."

"Like as a couple?" I looked over at John, stunned by his use of the word 'couple' to describe us. Oh, sure, I'd thought about 'coupling' with John, but this isn't what I meant. Or maybe I did. What the hell was this? It had to be a joke.

"So, are you both willing?" This was feeling distinctly like a wedding, a shotgun wedding. "You'd both get paid the full rate, work the same two hours. Everybody wins."

I looked over at John, whose grin seemed to transmit his response.

"I- I guess," I stammered. "I mean, we'd both be naked at the same time?"

"Yes, you would. Is that okay? With both of you?" She looked pointedly at John first, knowing that he was in agreement, and maybe I'd feel the pressure and cave, just as the lower half of my body already felt like it was doing. I was new to figure modeling, and I'd only just barely convinced myself that I was ready for what I knew it was—and now this.

"Maybe you'd even interact somehow ..." Mary threw this in as she looked at me, nodding her head in agreement with whatever words escaped her lips. At least they were on the same page. I realized that as I was watching Mary's head nod up and down, I was doing the same, in perfect reflection. I could think of no way to refuse this and save face. And I had to save face, because I was giving them my body.

I went into the back room, and, shaking, changed out of my street clothes and into my robe, stopping to look at myself for reassurance in the full-length mirror in the corner. My dark hair framed my porcelain-skinned face with its big blue eyes, pert nose, full lips. Sweeping forward over my clavicle, my hair ended mid-chest, the ends tickling my pale nipples. My full chest gave way to my soft, yet trim, belly, marked with the sunken hole of my belly button. My generous hips flared out from my mid-section. This was the part of my body I was most self-conscious about. A legacy of both friends and boyfriends had assured me, over my objections, that they would not call me 'pear -shaped.' "You're much too top-heavy to be pear-shaped," one well-meaning boyfriend told me. I took it as well as if he'd said "No, you're not too fat—you're just the right amount of fat." By my knees I thinned out a bit. I didn't have chicken legs, though, I have very shapely calves. In contrast with my wide hips, I was proud of my calves, down into my ankles. I think of my feet as non-descript, and as such, I will not describe them. No one has ever told me my feet are ugly, nor have I been specifically sought out by foot-fetishists. I'm right there in the comfortable intra-quartile, as far as my feet are concerned.

Satisfied with my assessment, I took my blue terrycloth robe out of my yellow Piggly Wiggly cloth grocery bag and put it on, placing my clothes in the bag before tying the robe shut with a flourish. There's something special and a bit majestic about wearing a robe in public. I felt like royalty, or at least like a patron in a European spa, taking the waters for my health. I looked into the mirror one last time and sighed. "Let's do this."

While I was in the back room changing, I could hear the main door opening and closing, signaling the arrival of a steady stream of artists. That assumption was confirmed when I entered the gallery room that doubled as the drawing studio. A circle of fifteen yellow stacking chairs signalled that the room was at capacity. Some nights, like during summer months when the university wasn't in session, we only managed a half-circle or a horseshoe, and we used a black backdrop with lights at the corners. At full capacity, though, we couldn't afford the luxury of using a wall as a backstop—the model was drawn from every angle. Some artists like to move around from pose to pose, getting different perspectives. Other artists, usually ones that set up an easel, stayed put for the entire two hours, only moving during the ten minute break mid-session.

"First time?" I was startled to find John standing just behind my right shoulder, a head taller than me. "I've seen you drawing before, but I didn't know you were a model, too."

I was relieved that he didn't bring up my incessant staring. "Uh, yeah. Long-time artist, first-time model."

"That's good, though," he said, looking over at me. "I wish I could draw. I'll bet it gives you a better idea of how to pose, how to make it ... interesting ... for the artists."

"I suppose so."

I was rescued from having to come up with something else to say by Mary calling the group to attention. "Tonight, we have something special. We have two models, John and April, who will be working together." I gave an awkward little wave and so did John as we shuffled to the middle of the circle.

At a nod from Mary, John and I turned away from each other to disrobe. Out of courtesy, the artists all pretended to be busy sharpening pencils, straightening their easel, etc., utterly disinterested in anything that could be seen as a strip tease. It was like they blinked and we were there, naked—not even people, but objets d'art, devoid of context.

Each drawing session began with a warm-up—more for the artists than the model—consisting of a series of five to ten one-minute standing poses. Because this had never been done with two models, John and I had no template to work from. We largely ignored each other, staying back-to-back, playing to different halves of the circle. I nearly forgot he was there until the switch between the sixth and seventh pose, when I stepped back into him, bumping his thigh with my hip. I jumped forward a bit and mumbled an apology over my shoulder. But now I was very aware of his presence. I could feel the heat radiating from his body, and felt like I could use that sensation to gauge my distance without looking over to the naked man next to me. It was also clear that we couldn't ignore each other forever. For one thing, when the one-minute poses were over, we had to strike ever-longer poses—five, ten, fifteen, even twenty-minute poses. For those we had to relax, find comfortable positions, and certainly couldn't contain this ruse that the other model did not exist.

I'd drawn enough models to know right away whether a pose could be held for the allotted time or not. I could just glance at someone and I'd think—"two minutes in, her leg is going to be screaming" or "there's no way he can hold that for ten minutes." When Mary called for the shift to a five-minute pose, I knew I should still try to stay standing while I could, but also should at least acknowledge John's presence next to me.

I turned toward John and he did the same toward me. I struck a defiant pose, legs slightly spread, hands on my hips, chin high. "You look pretty intimidating," John laughed, and moved his right foot back, and lifted his arms up, as if shielding his face from my power. This made me laugh, too, and it took me a while to steady myself as the five minutes started.

The difference between one minute and five minutes when you're just standing still is vast. I tried not to look at John, because as soon as I did, I felt the tremble of an oncoming laugh. He has overextended himself with the exaggerated arm posture, and he knew it, too. A few minutes in, I saw his arms begin to tremble as he struggled to hold them locked in the air. I was proud of my choice of pose, arms akimbo—a very stable human structure. I was proud, but also felt relaxed—not only because of the easy position, but also because John was putting me at ease with his time-frozen clowning. It was very endearing that he'd struck a pose to make me laugh, and then held the position, despite the difficulty, as if he was doing this for me, as a tribute.

When Mary called "time," John immediately dropped his arms to his sides and shook them out. I laughed, finally, and smiled at him, then realized the absurdity of our courtship. Here I was, naked, standing in front of a naked stranger, in the middle of a circle of clothed voyeurs. And I was comfortable with that.

John and I spent a moment shaking out our limbs—swinging arms and making little kicks with our legs, like we were half-heartedly kicking a soccer ball back and forth.

"Next pose, please! Ten minutes."

Sometimes the artists had special requests, but usually they were happy to stay silent and draw whatever challenge the model presented. It was up to us—and although I had never modeled on my own to have a baseline for measurement, it seemed like it would be much more difficult to spontaneously come up with a pose involving the two of us. I was feeling playful, though, so I hopped behind John, put my hands on his waist, just above his hips, and peeked out over his shoulder, which my eyes just barely cleared. I was self-consciously hiding my body from view, but I had daringly made contact—skin-to-skin contact—with John.

We suppressed our giggles and settled into the pose, my hands dampening with sweat on his sides and my breath warming his left shoulder. My breasts were pressed against his mid-back, my nipples hardening enough that he must have been able to feel their distinctive poke. I had not thought about the effect that a naked woman grabbing him from behind on John. It's a bit easier for a woman to hide her excitement, so I hadn't considered his anatomical differences. I had five minutes, though, to meditate on this fact. I wished I were a little bit taller, to look down over his shoulder and across his chest. While I couldn't see the effect I was having on his penis, I could gauge his breathing—deep, meditative. He must have been trying to distract himself, to think of something else, or nothing—anything but the woman standing behind him with her dainty, lily hands contrasted on his dark hips.

When Mary called time, there was no levity. John took a step forward, but did not turn around to face me as I shook out my limbs.

"Next pose, please!"

Before I could engage, John whirled around, moving deftly behind me, copying my pose, but instead of placing his hands on my hips, his right hand he laid higher, on my ribs, his fingertips brushing the slide of my breast. His left hand encircled my upper arm, moving my hand back behind me to rest on his left leg. I had started this escalation, and I was in no position to object.

"Ten minutes!" Mary called, freezing us into place.

There was no clock in the gallery, and thus no way to gauge how much time had passed. At first I tried to focus on the paintings on the gallery wall beyond the artists who were in my line of sight. There was a rather good oil painting of a forest—maybe a bit derivative of Klimt's beech forest, but still something to be proud of for whichever amateur painted it. To the left of that was a drawing of a horse whose head was just slightly too small for its body.

Soon, though, I had exhausted my analysis of the relative talents and abilities of the artists whose work was on display and my mind drifted to the sensations I could feel at the points of contact between my body and the body of the man standing behind me, holding me as if a shield against the possibility that at artist might draw him with a head slightly too small for his body.

I could feel the power of his right hand just from the pressure of the heel against my ribs and his fingers making dimples in my sideboob. His left hand, on my upper left arm, was relaxed and gentle—the yin and the yang. His chest was just touching my upper back. I wondered how far back I could push into him without moving so much that I spoiled the pose. His lower body, I could tell through my left hand on his thigh, was angled slightly away from me. It seemed like I probably could lean back into him and he could support me. I have his thigh a little squeeze and tilted slightly at the waist. He leaned into me like a buttress, countering my lean. I arched my back, pushing my buttocks out just enough to make contact with his upper thighs.