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Shit. I’m the last one to arrive and everyone is already well underway with their sketches and paintings.
Karinna, the woman who leads the classes, told me to bring a sketch pad, pastels, pencil, whatever I felt most comfortable with for sketching a portrait.
However, she did not say there was going to be a nude model. There is a completely naked woman lying stretched out on a... table?
I’m completely floored. And it’s not because I’m straight-laced or uptight. I’m not. But I can feel my eyes darting all over the place, not quite knowing where to look, how to behave.
I need to play it cool.
I’ve already interrupted the session and I don’t need anyone taking any more notice of me. I can see Karinna studying my face. She looks like she recognises me.Christ.I hope I’ve not run into her on campus before. In a café, library, or on some committee. That’s what this place is like. The university lulls you into thinking that it’s this big city—it’s anything but. It’s a small town where you are always in danger of running into people you’ve met somewhere along the way. Or worse, people you’ve never met but who know you and all the details of your life.
It’s why doing something like this makes me so incredibly nervous.
Fuck. I never should’ve come. Someone is going to recognise me, and when it gets around the department I will be forever known as Professor Perv, the guy who gets his kicks staring at nude women in eveningart classes.
This was supposed to be some sort of stress-relieving activity. What the fuckety-fuck has Dalton gotten me into?
I see Karinna staring at me intently.
Shit. I am sure she recognises me. I can feel my pulse racing and I clench and release my fists in an attempt to bring some sort of control over my internal thoughts.
Everything will be fine. I say this over and over, inside my head, until the lie finally starts to take hold in my basal nervous system and my blood pressure slowly returns to normal.
Karinna gives me a nod and a warm smile, and she continues to walk around the room.
I removed my contacts before I came and had put on my spare pair of glasses. I’ve wrapped a scarf around my neck and put on a non-descript flat cap in navy blue. It’s a bit grandad-style but it was the best I could do at such short notice. My disguise, if you will.
I realise I have two paths. I can let the fear and anxiety win, something I’ve done far too much the last several years, or I can choose something different.
I place the large sketch pad on the easel that’s already been set up, waiting for my arrival. I take out a box of charcoal and set it on the small table beside the easel.
And I get to work.
I haven’t done this in years and, truly, I can’t believe I’m doing it now. In my teens and early twenties I used to draw. I wasn’t bad. I won a few competitions. But eventually life got incredibly busy, and I just stopped. I put time into my career and my artwork, which had always been a hobby, fell to the wayside.
I take a deep breath and start sketching.
I am unprepared for how invigorating it feels to sketch a naked woman. My hands are black, covered in charcoal, both greasy and dusty at the same time. I’m so enthralled in the process that I don’t think about my rapid pulse, I don’t think about anything. I sketch ravenously because I haven’t tasted this kind of excitement in years, if ever. Like a starved man, with each stroke of the charcoal, I’m gorging on the smooth curves of her back, her muscular legs, her supple posterior.
My breaths are ragged and sharp as I even out some of the sloppy, frenzied strokes.
And then I notice her shoes. How did I not see them before? I rifle though my bag and take out a box of pastels. The entire drawing is in charcoal except for the hint of bright yellow pastel.
Despite my near panic attack when I first arrived, I find I’m enjoying myself and wondering why I hadn’t done this years ago. Is this what was missing in my life? A bit of art?
However, this is more than simply drawing. The university surroundings, the other artists, the awkwardness of a nude woman in the middle of an austere place of learning adds a completely new layer to the experience. It is almost as though my earlier anxiety intensifies the sense of satisfaction I’m now feeling, looking at my creation.
Before I know it, Karinna is handing a robe to the model and is walking her out of the room. I never get to see the woman’s face.
