God DAMN this was crazy! What the hell was I doing here?
I looked down at my bare naked body and prepared to open the grungy door in front of me. I watched nervously as my fingers closed around the cold brass knob and slowly twisted, my sweaty palm making it almost impossible.
The old door was wedged in place, requiring an additional push to get it free. The resulting
POP
from the frame releasing its snugly-hinged companion announced my nude arrival into the spacious studio much more conspicuously than I had hoped.
As the door swung wide I scanned the room for Penelope, dragging my gaze across the room full of colorful canvases and easels, painted bulbs and wispy scarves. My eyes settled on her head among the soaring skyline of blank and colored works of art. She was looking down, and seemed to be plotting a night full of wretched embarrassment for me on her evil pages of devious plans, or she was mixing up some paint. It could go either way.
My feet obeyed their forward instruction and propelled me into the room, and I could feel the dried dabs of paint under my toes as I padded across the floor in her direction. I could barely breathe, and the stress hormones coursing through my veins caused my entire body to tremble.
She spoke without looking up.
"Go ahead and lay face up on the table Ben," her soothing voice instructed me. Keeping her eyes down on her work allowed me some space to adjust, and I appreciated the shred of dignity this afforded me . . . for now anyway.
The massage table had been recently covered in a clean, white terry cloth, giving the lofty perch a relaxing and comfortable look. Too bad I wouldn't be enjoying it.
As I approached the table I pictured a naked man lying atop, Penelope's imminent view. How does she even do this? How do other people do this? Why the hell am I doing this??
I had no idea anymore. Penelope was so fascinating and charming that she could have asked me to eat my own foot and I would have started looking for a fork. I knew this was how she was able to craft her unique art form into a reality. A phallic artisan would need many subjects, and being able to charm a man out of his pants and up onto a table in the nude was an art form in itself. I was in awe, and my mind flashed back to how it started.
***
Sitting at a small table at The Trusty Café, I scanned the room for anyone I knew. It had been a while since I'd graduated college, so most of the students around were fresh-faced and unfamiliar.
June, an ex-girlfriend of mine, had called me the day before about an artist friend of hers who was looking for a volunteer to help with an extended project. This friend was exhibiting at a gallery showing in a couple months, and desperately needed a model to help complete the project.
Half joking I asked if it was some kind of nude modeling or something, to which she dryly replied it most certainly was. I asked, 'why me?' and she told me this friend of hers, Penelope, was looking for a good fit for a very specific type of model. It seemed I was the only person June could think of at the time, and had offered to give me a call to see if I'd be willing to consider it.
I didn't like the sounds of posing nude, although I've always been comfortable in my own skin. I mean, I don't go around showing it off or anything, but I don't have any hang-ups about my body either.
I agreed to meet with Penelope and talk it over, if only to see what she had in mind. Maybe a muscular pose with my legs crossed would be okay. Years of cycling had kept me in peak condition.
As I sat at the table, every person who walked through the door of that Café somewhat startled me, until finally it opened . . . and in strolled the most amazing life form to ever grace our planet.
To say she was angelic would have been an insult. You could have placed her sparkling green eyes and her enchanting smile on a rusty flagpole and still wanted to ask it on a date. The way she carried herself gave me the instant impression that she was a liver of life, a . . . life, liver . . . good god, I couldn't think. All I knew in that instant was that I would definitely be taking my clothes off for this woman.
Our eyes met, and hers widened upon realizing I was the man she was there to meet. She walked right over and asked, "Ben?"
I stood so fast my chair tipped back, and I clumsily lunged to catch it before it could crash to the ground. Her amused expression when I turned caused my face to flush. I smiled wanly, put my hand out and said, "Penelope?"
She graciously shook my nervous appendage and I motioned to the other chair. She thanked me and sat right down. I couldn't believe my luck; here was one of the most perfect forms of feminine precision I had ever laid eyes on, and she was here to talk me out of my clothes!
We chatted about ourselves for a few minutes, and I was fascinated by her background. Her art major had been cut short due an overwhelming demand for some of her work. She quickly set up a large studio, where she began teaching workshops in the morning and painting every night.
I told her about my engineering background and how I mainly design bicycle accessories, spending a lot of time riding and training for races. She seemed aloof about my job and hobbies, taking them in stride with polite comments; I could tell she was itching to get to the point.
"So how does this work?" I finally asked.
"Well," she began, "as you already know you will need to be in the nude to model for my project. Does that bother you?"
I tried to keep my eyes locked on hers as I said, "It might. What's the subject, besides the human body I mean?"
"The phallus," she said simply, letting the words hang there for me to try and desperately grab onto like a slippery bar of soap.
"The . . . ph-phallus," I stammered, "you m-mean like . . . only that?" I was immediately thinking she couldn't very well be sitting around creating portraits of naked penises all day!
"Well, yes, mainly that," she said as if we were talking about the rain, "for this project anyway."
"So, it's definitely a painting you're doing."
"Yes."
