It's that advert that keeps bringing back the horror of the entire situation. That one about impulse with that song and that beautiful woman provoking a prominent, embarrassing, (and natural, damn it) reaction from the model of the art class. See, I know exactly what the situation is like. I've been a life model myself and I went through that very same ordeal, once.
I suppose I kind of drifted into the job, but I can't really remember how. You'd think that if I'd just sit down and try to recollect the details, I'd come up with some sort of chain of events that led up to my earning money by sitting in the nude in front of a bunch of total strangers so that they could draw me. But no, I just can't.
I can remember the first day, of course. I can remember it quite clearly, because of how frightened I was. I can remember knowing on one level that everybody in the room knew exactly what to expect, but on another level that seemed to be dominating all the more logical ones, something was screaming at me not to venture out from behind the screen and step in front of all those strangers. At least, not without my clothes, anyway. I was convinced that someone was bound to cry out in shock and I would be branded as some kind of a perverted streaker, forever more.
It would have been easier if I'd thought to take along a housecoat or something. I mean, they always wear them in the films, don't they? They always step into the middle of the room, nonchalantly drop the gown at their feet and effortlessly adopt some stylish pose or other. But I didn't even have that little buffer between privacy and total exposure. I had to cross the room wearing nothing at all, before I could adopt the pose. So eventually, I summoned up my courage and stepped out. There was no laughter. There was no sniggering. There were no gasps of outrage or anything like that at all. These people simply reacted as if they saw sights like that every day. And to be fair, they probably did. All in all, the response was a little disappointing. I didn't want laughter or shock or ridicule, but some sort of response would have been better than nothing at all.
But I soon settled into the job. I made friends among some of the artists and one of them in particular, has done my ego no end of good by assuring me that I have been the subject of several complimentary conversations. Apparently, where "measuring up" is concerned, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I've even been to the exhibitions and at the most recent one, I lurked in the vicinity of one of the better pictures so that I could hear comments and had the pleasure of listening to two observers making references to a particular appendage and drawing comparisons to a "baby's arm". That's as in size, not shape, by the way.
