The Outsider Ch 32

(Author's note: the following three chapters are a continuation of my novel "The Outsider", which I originally published to Litererotica in July, 2010.)

Epilogue 01 - Ruthie's modeling career

By the time she entered her sophomore year as a student in Davenport State University, Ruthie had quit her job at the coffee shop to concentrate on another she found much more to her liking; artistic nude modeling.

Mike knew about his girlfriend's modeling and fully supported her. He was fascinated with her obsession with nudity and, from the time they first started hanging out together, had found it a huge turn-on. It was the part of her that made him overlook a lot of other quirks and flaws in her personality.

Ruthie became the most popular model among the university's art instructors and independent artists around the Davenport area because she was so easy to work with. Unlike a lot of the art department's previous models, she was punctual, dependable, and willing to do whatever she was told. Most important, she was being paid to do something she truly enjoyed.

Ruthie Burns had absolutely no inhibitions about her body whatsoever: she had no problem spending an entire day in the nude waiting for photographers or artists to set up art supplies or adjust their cameras. She normally stripped as soon as she showed up for work, and didn't bother to get dressed until she was dismissed for the day. Even when the students had a practice session outdoors, the class model preferred to go outside in the nude and walk that way to wherever the class was going to be held. She got an erotic thrill from being the only naked person in a large group of classmates, especially if the group was outside.

The art instructor who first hired her the previous year used Ruthie for all of his classes, both painting and photography. The model's exhibitionism went beyond even his comfort level, but the professor indulged her whims because she was so valuable to the department.

She had become a total exhibitionist, so she never worried about who was watching while she was modeling or whether images of her would be posted on the Internet.

In fact, the more daring the project and the more it exposed her, the more enthusiastic she was about participating in it. As she put it: "I'm good for anything, just as long as I don't get arrested."

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The art department at Davenport State University received a large endowment from an alumni who had started a successful tech company in San Francisco. The department had the opportunity to expand, but one challenge was to increase student enrollment to match the enlarged program. The university decided to use several scholarship contests as a way to publicize the opportunities available to aspiring artists and photographers at DSU.

There were several photography contests, one of which was intended to to force the participants to focus on technique by severly limiting the subject matter.

Attention photographers!

Davenport State University

presents:

the 100 x 100 x 10 challenge

- 100 photographers

- 100 photos

- 10 locations

- 1 model

Do you have what it takes?

Registration: July 20th through July 28th.

Contest session dates - August 1st through August 14th

Judging - August 16th - August 19th

Prizes awarded - August 21st

for more information: call: 508-555-8322 or

email: photoart.DSU@megamail.com

The competition was called the 100x100x10 challenge. 100 photographers would take and submit 100 pictures of a single figure model in 10 different settings. Each location would have a winner and two runner-ups, and the contest winners would be whoever had the highest over-all scores for all 10 places. The first prize was an all-expenses-paid art scholarship, the second prize was four-year's free tuition, and the third prize was one-year of free tuition.

High-resolution copies of all of the 10,000 submitted photos would be posted on the Internet, each with a description of the camera, lens, and lighting used to create the image. For photographers who were using old-fashion film, information about the film and the development process would be included.

The contest needed a model who had no inhibitions about spending a couple of weeks in the nude in front of 100 photographers and other spectators. She also had to be comfortable with having 10,000 high-resolution photos of her in different environments and every pose imaginable posted on-line.

Fortunately for the art department, there was a model on their pay-roll who was perfect for the assignment.

When she told Mike that she would be featured in the very publicized "100 x 100 x 10" photo challenge, he did have some doubts, but he kept them to himself. There was no way he'd get her to reconsider something that was the fulfillment of a major fantasy. She wasn't thinking about the consequences of having so many pictures of her posted on-line. Nor was she thinking about a pattern that he had observed with her fantasies, that when she fulfilled a fantasy, it was replaced by another fantasy that was even more extreme.

And this fantasy was pretty extreme. It wasn't just that she was going to be nude in public for two weeks. She was going to be exposing herself in every way imaginable to 100 photographers, to the artistic community in central California, and to the entire world. There would be no going back: the nude photoshoot and its aftermath would become an important part of her identity.

Mike did not know how to express his concerns without her becoming defensive and obstinate. So, he didn't try. She'd do the photoshoot and that would be the end of it.

As they watched the sun set from their balcony, Ruthie did say something that quieted her boyfriend's fears:

"I... I don't know what I'd do without you, Mike. I really don't. I... I know I'm kinda a bit... you know... crazy... and you put up with all my shit. I do... I mean... I guess I... I do love you for it."

It didn't sound like much, but Mike knew that it was. Ruthie had extreme difficulty expressing any feelings of affection. Very rarely could she bring herself to use the word "love".

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The 100 photography contestants, along with their friends, partners, and assistants, as well as members of the local media, students, and other people who were interested in the university's challenge, filled the DSU ballroom on the morning the contest began.

The art professor who first hired Ruthie was the DSU faculty member who took the microphone and announced the contest. Ruthie stood next to her boss while he introduced her as the project's model and explained the goal of the competition, which was judge photographers' technical skills by forcing them to all take pictures of the same subject. Ruthie wore nothing on stage but a chemise that was open on the sides and a pair of cheap tennis shoes. Soon enough, she wouldn't be wearing even that.

The professor gave a long-winded speech about art philosophy and how that affected the way artists could think about photography. Ruthie stood quietly, patiently waiting for him to finish with his intellectual pontificating. She was nervous, not from fear, but from erotic anticipation. She couldn't wait to take off her clothes in front of all those spectators.

For the next two weeks, Ruthie and the contest entourage traveled around central California so the participants could photograph their subject in a variety of settings, both natural and urban. No one else could be in any of the pictures, nor could the model have anything covering any part of her body or be holding anything in her hands. In natural areas she wore shoes until the group arrived to the location where the photo session would take place, but she always took off her foot gear before anyone took a picture.

The first three days of the photo-shoot were in outdoor settings, but the final two days of the first week and the first three days of the second week were mostly going to be pictures taken indoors. The professor running the project commented that many of the indoor photos would be taken close-up. The professor leading the contest project had told Ruthie that detail to help her mentally prepare for the next several days, but also to hint that she might want to shave or at least trim her pubic hair. The model took the hint and decided to shave herself completely. When she thought about it, shaving excited her because she knew that she would be even more exposed to the cameras than she was already. Every square inch of her skin would be on full display.

Ruthie had never shaved her vulva, so she was totally nervous about having a sharp razor touch that part of her body. She turned to her boyfriend to help out. He had been shaving himself for several months, so he knew what to do. He told her to get on their massage table and to relax. Being completely relaxed was important, given where the razor was going to have to go.

When he finished shaving her, Mike told Ruthie to stand up so she could look at herself. He held her hands behind her back so she could get a better view, and also to make her feel more submissive. She did not resist. Ruthie could feel the exposure as the cool air blew directly on her stripped vulva. She felt very vulnerable, which, of course, was what she wanted.

Ruthie's sexuality only came alive when she was fulfilling a kinky fantasy. The anticipation of being so completely exposed in front of all those photographers totally excited her. A few minutes later, Mike and Ruthie had a couple of rounds of really satisfying sex. It was one of the rare times in their relationship that she actually enjoyed having him inside her.

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During the days the photography contestants were visiting a town or city, the entourage always stopped at one of the better local restaurants. The project sponsors pre-reserved the entire dining area, partly to make sure lunch didn't take too long, but also to allow the photographers to take pictures of their model while she was doing mundane things such as eating and talking without being distracted by onlookers in the street.

One irony was that Ruthie seemed to be able to converse much more easily in the nude with people she barely knew than with classmates and co-workers with whom she was more familiar (with Mike being the only real exception). She found out that she was more in her element as a figure model than she was anywhere else. Interestingly, many of the photographers were more nervous during their conversations than she was.

Ruthie totally loved her role as an artistic subject in the university contest. As the days passed, she realized that not only did she enjoy nude modeling, but she was very good at it. She felt much more at ease in the nude than she did when she was dressed.

She could tell that many of the photographers wanted to contract her for their projects as soon as the university photo-shoot was over. So, she realized that she had found her calling. Yes, she'd continue studying geology and get her degree, but she figured she'd concentrate on actually getting job in that field only after she had gotten older and her looks started to go. In the meantime, she'd do what she truly enjoyed doing and was really good at.

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Ruthie's career as a paid commercial model started on the second day of the photo contest. A local auto dealer invited the contestants to take pictures of their model in his showroom, figuring the publicity would help his business. The contest organizers knew that the photo-shoot at the auto dealership would be one of the more popular locations, because of the fascination the a lot of people in the US have with cars combined with women. That hunch turned out to be correct. During the weeks after the photo-shoot in the car lot were published, sales jumped.

The owner of the dealership hired Ruthie for a publicity job that started right after the DSU contest ended. She posed with cars in the dealership showroom, but also posed with vehicles on the beach. The props included a surfboard and bottles and glasses of wine. Ruthie smiled at the whole situation, because it was so fake. Ruthie didn't drink wine, she didn't know how to surf, and she didn't know how to drive. Her mother never owned a car, and in college she always relied on Mike to drive her around.