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He must’ve heard me flee his room. Then again, if he had heard me, he would’ve known I wasn’t really sleeping. So, why hadn’t he said anything? Maybe he’d only heard my footsteps in the hall and wanted to check on me?
Nothing made sense. I hugged myself and rocked from side to side as uncertainty, embarrassment, and arousal tumbled like gym shoes in the dryer that was my stomach.
I had kissed my father and watched him jerk off. I’d invaded his privacy—like mother, like daughter. Worse, I had almost gotten off while watching him. Even now, imagining him hard and flushed, was enough to make my clit throb.
I could feel the wetness between my legs, soaking the crotch of my underwear. Slowly, almost against my will, I inched my fingers downward.
Eyes closed tight to hold back tears, I surrendered to the gush of pleasure, envisioning another set of fingers in place of my own. Strong fingers. Calloused fingers. Stained with paint and charcoal.
I came like a shot, fierce and penetrating, teeth gritted and toes curled. Shifting onto my side, I rode the waves of my orgasm. Panting and twitching. Soothing and stilling.
A car alarm blared somewhere in the city far below. Sirens wailed. I drifted, depleted and ashamed, yet grateful to be above it all, in this place removed from reality. From consequence. From right and wrong.
I didn’t see it until I opened my eyes the next morning.
On the nightstand, backlit by the rising sun. The glass of water from the night before.
The one I had left in his room.
Chapter Six
I was ten years old when I first modeled for an artist besides my father. At the time, he was teaching drawing and studio art at a local community college, and had agreed to let me sit in on his evening classes, so long as I promised not to get in the way.
Some nights he’d place a table in the center of the room and arrange it with cut flowers and fruit. Other nights he’d bring in a model for figure drawing. My favorite was a woman named Nadia. She had thick eyebrows and a wine-red mole on her neck and crepe-papery stretch marks around her navel. I could’ve sketched her for hours and not captured everything there was to see on the landscape of her skin.
One evening, the model who was supposed to show up canceled at the last minute. My father appeared to take the news in stride and began searching the classroom for items he could use in a still life.
I can’t explain it, but I’ve always been deeply tuned-in to his moods. I wet the bed for weeks before my parents’ divorce, and peeled the skin around my fingernails bloody in the days before he left. When he grew solemn, I cried. When his teeth clenched in anger, my stomach cramped.
That night, I could feel the tension rolling off of him like storm clouds over a lake. I had to do something. “Daddy,” I said, hooking his sleeve. “I’ll do it.”
He waved me off. “Do what?”
“I’ll sit for the class.”
He started to say no and then stopped, his gaze assessing. I stood up straighter to show him I meant business. After a long and thoughtful pause, he handed me a smock—most of the models brought their own robes—and sent me to the bathroom to take everything off except my T-shirt and shorts.
I had been my father’s inadvertent muse for years, so I knew what was expected of me. What I didn’t expect was the weight of all those eyes. They bore down on me like bags of sand, or one of those lead aprons they make you wear every time you get an X-ray. I imagined myself sinking through the chair and into the floor.
My father kept a close eye on me, making sure I got enough bathroom breaks and time to relax between poses. Eventually, I settled into the job, lulled by the scraping of pencils and the buffing of erasers. I began to have fun with it, choosing active postures that involved standing on one foot or twisting myself into a human pretzel. I was a lanky kid, long-limbed and flexible.
The best part was getting to walk around and survey the sketches. All those little approximations of me.
My father ended class twenty minutes early; he could tell I was getting tired. On their way out, students approached us to thank him for the opportunity to study such a lovely subject. Most children couldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes, they said. I was a rare gem.
“You have a beautiful daughter,” said a man with a talent for capturing hands and feet. “I hope we’ll be seeing more of her.”
My father thanked the student with a proud smile.
“You did great tonight,” he said, as we were locking up the classroom.
I danced and skipped all the way down to the parking garage.
Back home, I told my mother and her then-girlfriend how much fun I’d had posing for my father’s class. My mom’s face turned pale as she listened. Before I could finish telling her what the students had said about me, she rushed into the kitchen to call my father.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she hissed into the phone. “You know how I feel about Paige being photographed... I don’t care that it’s just drawing, I don’t want images of her floating around where anyone could see them.”
My stomach braided into knots. I thought I’d done a good thing by offering to model for my father’s class. His students seemed happy to sketch me.
