AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’d better get to class,” she sighs.
I don’t kiss her. For some reason, wanting to kiss her before I know for sure she’s really ready for what all this entails means I absolutely should not kiss her.
But she stays on my mind all morning.
Chapter 15
LINDY
Iget my slab of heavy, red clay off the storage rack and heave it into the middle of the sculpture pedestal. The pedestal is about three feet high, with casters that roll in all directions. The clay sits on top of a small square of wood that also turns. The idea is that I can walk around the model and get a good look at them from every angle. Then I can walk away to check my measurements, walk back up and check my details.
Sculpture is really energetic. It’s practically aerobic exercise. And we make a giant mess with bits of clay flung everywhere. It’s a lot of fun.
The class only has six people in it, so we distribute ourselves around the pedestal at more or less even intervals and just wait. Eventually the model begins to pull the curtain back on the small changing alcove in the corner of the room.
My jaw drops open.
Diego emerges, and he doesn’t even pretend he doesn’t know me. He looks right at me as he crosses the room, untying the sash of his robe as he walks.
When he drops the robe across the desk behind me, he brushes very close to me. Not so close that anybody would notice except me, but I notice. My heart is hammering.
Climbing onto the podium, Diego takes a standing pose and reaches above him for the support rope that is suspended from the ceiling. Models use this to keep themselves steady while they stand. It’s dangerous work, modeling upright. More than one model has passed out after an extended time on their feet.
Diego tucks one ankle behind the other and dips his head, folding his opposite arm behind him. It is a beautiful pose. My mind is already racing with possibilities.
And then I remember I need to do the opposite of whatever it is I think that I want to do.
My heart sinks.
Or, you know what? Screw that. I’m going to do whatever I want. This is my education, my scholarship, my summer job money for the last five years. Dean Rhodes has an opinion that I respect, but I know who I am. I can’t just turn into somebody new.
The person that I am looks at this figure and sees the triangle of tension at the base of his spine, the way his buttocks clench on one side and relax on the other, and the way his calf muscles knit and tuck into each other, and I’m fuckinginspired. That’s what I want to see in this clay.
Grabbing a sponge, I trickle some water over the formless mass of reddish clay and begin grabbing handfuls, squishing it through my fingers. I need to work this into a manageable consistency.
But I can do that blindly. I do it by touch. I never have to take my eyes off him.
And I don’t want to. I feel like I know him so much better now. After talking to him just these few times, he is no longer a polite bowl of fruit. He is a breathing, seething, real man. He deserves the best that I can give him.
The timer goes off every ten minutes. We are supposed to shift clockwise, about one-sixth of the way around the circle. This way everybody gets a chance to see every part of the model. Some classes have a model stand with a rotating platform that the instructor will come over and nudge. But in here, it is the students who have to move.
Since the pose began with his back to me, my new position is at his side. Right about seven o’clock. I can watch the way his ribs move as he breathes. His face is turned away.
My hands work in the clay, removing large chunks, placing them elsewhere. It’s not like working with marble, where you start with the stone and then chip away everything that doesn’t belong. With clay, I can push my hands all the way through it. It’s very intimate. Very sensual.
The shape begins to take form in front of me, but I don’t think about it too hard at this point. I just want a rough idea of the mass of his left hip and buttock, where it joins with his left thigh.
The right side of the sculpture—I don’t know yet. Maybe nothing. Maybe I will only work on one butt cheek. Just one glorious, perfectly formed, thickly muscled, sexy as fuck…
I hear myself moan.
Well, I don’t hear it, I just see everybody look at me suddenly, then replay the last few seconds in my mind and realize that was me. I made a noise. Out loud.
The horror!
See, this is forbidden. The top five art school sins are, in order:
Stealing another person’s work
