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I can’t do that. Reflexively I look away, then see the line that I drew, then feel even more embarrassed. Reaching to the back of my giant drawing pad, I drag a sheet back over to cover what I’ve done.
“Ten-minute break, everybody,” Mr. Pecker calls out. “Don’t be late!”
People rise, stretching, as the chair legs make those hollow noises against the linoleum tile floor. Diego reaches over and grabs his bathrobe from the back of a chair. He slides it over his shoulders but leaves it open in the front as he begins to walk toward me.
I freeze. His robe is totally open, a column of tanned flesh bordered by two white edges of unfastened terrycloth. With every step, his muscles churn and flex, and his large, flaccid member sways between his well-modeled thighs. It’s darker than the rest of him, heavy and obvious.
The smile is still there. Is he going to talk to me? This is totally new ground. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to run away and seem like a terrified chicken. But I also don’t want to talk to him, if I am being totally honest.
I mean, I’ve just been staring at his naked body for forty minutes like he was a piece of fruit or something. That feels a bit objectifying, doesn’t it? Or does it? I really don’t know what the rules are here.
But just before he comes over, Mr. Pecker strolls through the aisle with his arms folded. He has that official “art professor” look on his face, kind of a cross between a smirk and a kid who just took a dare to eat something awful but doesn’t want to admit it yet.
“Miss Jameson,” he squints.
To my great relief, Diego immediately changes course and slips between two desks as he closes his bathrobe. He glances at the artwork of the other students as he walks away.
“Hi, uh, Mr. Pecker,” I smile with my lips closed.
He jerks his chin at my drawing, which is hidden under the blank sheet of paper.
“How are you doing today? Making progress?” he asks.
I feel like this is a trick question. Do I show him the single line? Make some excuses?
“I’m exploring some things,” I answer like any good art student would. “You know. Really trying to feel it.”
He nods slowly, as though really taking in what I am saying. Like it is a smell. Like it is a whole bunch of complicated smells that have to be explored, one by one.
“Love to see you taking chances,” he replies blandly.
I nod, hoping he’s about to get distracted by something else. I don’t want to go over this ground again.
Art majors are always getting caricatured as people who are overly sensitive, delicate creatures who demand 100 percent praise and adoration, no matter how crappy the thing they just made is.
I am not like that.
I already have a two-year degree in drawing. I know how to draw. The thing is, they hate the way that I draw around here. It’s stuffy, they say. It’s too academic, they say. It’s too old-fashioned, because I make things look like thething that they are, I guess.
Taking chances? That thing he is always saying to me? I don’t even know what that means. I thought that studying my ass off to learn how to make a drawing of a person look exactly like that person was taking a whole lot of chances.
Thousands of hours learning how to move the charcoal in just the right way, thousands of times on every piece of paper, just to make a ball look like… a ball. That’s what I did.
And here, making a ball look like a ball is exactly thewrongthing to do. It’s like some kind of terrible joke.
What I am saying is, I don’t expect a standing ovation for every line I put on a piece of paper. I just expect some kind of respect for quality.
“Can I see?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
My hand flattens protectively against the sheet that is covering the drawing that I didn’t finish, barely even started.
“Not just yet,” I chuckle shyly. “Really going to push this one.”
He shrugs. He doesn’t believe me.
“Glad to hear it,” he sniffs. “By the way, I got a message from Dean Rhodes. She wants you to drop by after class.”
I swallow. “Oh, really? Today?”
