I knew she was a new model by the way she took off her clothes. She untied her robe with a quiet determination; chin high, eyes fixed on something on the other side of the room. She did not look at us when the robe fell to her bare feet. As she stood naked before 20 senior art students she looked only at our professor, calmly asking him what she should do.
The first time I saw a woman take off her clothes for an art class I acted as the model was acting now, compensating with extreme dignity in an attempt to mask my flustered embarrassment and timidity. I was a freshman, as were most of the students in the class and wanted to show everyone that I was a man of the world, an artist, not some slack-jawed 18-year old idiot who had only seen 2 other naked girls in his life that weren't celluloid or glossy photos. And one had been my sister, on accident on a family vacation.
The model for my first Life Drawing class was in her mid thirties and when she took off her robe she did it with such simplicity and matter-of -factness my mind went blank. The only real girl who had ever taken her clothes off in front o f me had done so after 3 months of movies and pizza parlors and talking about our mutual but unremarkable adolescent anguish at a late-night diner. She was the second girl I kissed and the first one who's breast I touched. When she took off her sweatshirt and jeans it was with the greatest secrecy, in my bedroom when my parents were gone and my sister on a date. In the fuzzy half-light I could see the outline of her body, the marks on backs where her bra pressed too close. I kissed her breasts, and squeezed them gently, terrified that at any moment I would do something wrong, that she would put on her clothes and go away. The taste of her nipple-flesh made me dizzy and hard I remember thinking that her skin was the softest thing I ever felt. She put that velvet body in my hands with shame and elation, pressed so close and burying her head in my chest. My parents came home about 10 minutes into our naked frolic and we pulled apart and shoved our jeans and sweatshirts back on. We both graduated two weeks later, I went to a summer camp to work and she went to New York to start her ridiculously competitive violin program. I never saw her naked again.
The memory of Sarah's body left me with a craving I categorized as lust, the desire to see more real women without their clothes. I wanted to see everything, I couldn't look at a girl without picturing what her belly and breasts would look like, couldn't watch a female teacher bend over without tracing the crevice of her rear. I was still shy with girls, and paranoid that they could sense my overwhelming desire to see them naked. My obsession had nothing to do with beauty; I craved the bareness, the naked vulnerability and beauty that I had glimpsed. I was sensed that there was a mystery of female flesh that lay just under the blouses and skirts and socks. Why else would men have been wiling to give up kingdoms and buy stupid cars and gel their hair? As my reverence of the yet unseen girl-skin grew, I found myself avoiding the drunken hook-ups in the back of dorm rooms and parties...What I wanted to couldn't been obtained in fumbling snatch-fuck...I wanted to drink a woman's body until I had had my fill.
So when I heard that first year art majors got to draw breathing, naked models their second semester, I found myself signing up for Drawing I followed by Drawing II.
The woman for Drawing II had none of Sarah's shame. She stepped up on the platform from which we sketched her like she was climbing up a diving board. Her shoulders were broad and muscular, skin tanned, knees rough, hair clipped short, pubic hair sparse. I later found out she was a swim coach at the YWCA. At first all I could look at was her nakedness but gradually, as we went from 30 second active poses to 15 minute standing poses I found myself noticing the shadow and light of her body, the darkness behind her knees, the play of light on her breasts. I made 2 drawing of Ann that day, both of them seem horrible to me now but I kept them anyway, even when I threw out most of my other stuff from freshman year.
Oddly, though, that craving that began with the sight of Sarah's bare skin did not decrease with that model, rather I felt an even sharper hunger to see and to depict. I began to draw seriously, taking more art classes, working diligently to point of obsession on the intricacies of figure drawing. The more nude women I looked at the more I felt that the true understanding the true visual knowledge of their flesh was just beyond my reach. My professors were pleased, seeing me as a dedicated art student. I believed them most of the time, classifying my hunger to look as artistic passion. But no matter how subtle my drawings, no matter how much praise they garnered from the department, I felt very little satisfaction. "Perhaps I am a perfectionist, " I thought. My years at the university plowed on, with me acquiring so many art credits that I found myself declaring it my major.
I wondered idly if the nervous new model would stay after today. Sometimes the girls (it was almost always girls, though some men posed) were so uncomfortable that after the first day they quit. I took out my sketchbook and pencil, ready for her first pose.
*********
In a little while, I thought, I will stand naked in front of strangers and half-strangers. My mind thought the thought dutifully, but refused to believe it. I tried again. Soon, more students will come into the class, I will take off my clothes, then I will walk into the room and I will be naked. My mind regarded the thought dubiously, like an odd but wondrous fact I had read. "You can change here, " the professor said, showing me a corner where a few plywood boards had been nailed, to form a sort of dressing room.
I went behind the boards and took off my coat and scarf that was crusty with snow. I hung them one of the nails project from the board, then slowly, deliberately I unlaced my boots and took off my socks. With the same careful movements, as performing a ritual, I unbuttoned my shirt and folded it immaculately on the chair. I pulled my jeans to my ankles, stepped out of them and lay them, also fold on the back of the chair. As each button opens and my legs were peeled of denim I felt the soft animal of my body peer out curiously. My brassiere, once glamorous and expensive, now a scrap of exhausted lace and falling straps, I unhooked. Panties, plain and slightly too large, were removed. I took off my earring, stuffed them in my boots and unwound the elastic from my hair. I was naked now, with my hair tumbling and my red nipples puckering. My body was inquisitive and demure, wondering why it was so exposed in the middle of the afternoon. I wrapped the blue velveteen robe around myself and stepped out.
The students were there, taking out charcoal and pencils and rubber erasers. "We are ready to start," the professor said.
I climbed the stairs, my mind blank. My clothes were so habitual, I never slept without a nightgown, never bathed without a suit, that as I disrobed I felt that I was peeling off a layer of skin. I let my shoulders slip out, white and marked with the lines of my bra. My hair hurried to cover them, but then I loosened the belt and fed my breasts to the open air. Now back, which I held straight as a girl in finishing school, now my navel peered out. Slowly, slowly, feeling my heart beat, once twice, I let the skirt of the robe part and unveil my thighs and buttocks to the front and back of the class. I breathed deeply, not looking at anyone, not taking my eyes off the professor.
The air was cold enough to make my flesh come alive, but not so cold to make it cringe and draw itself in. The professor instructed me to pose quickly in 30-second segments and I stretched up and around like stop animation feeling my flesh twist around on itself and my hair brush my back. I thought of nothing, only the movement of my bones in skin, still not looking at anyone. I reached up, feeling my breasts point out, become round as saucers. I crouched and I knew my buttock cushioned over my heels. As I stood up again, my wrist brushed the edge of my pubic hair and I felt and thin shiver in the inside of my thigh.
The professor asked me then to stand with one foot slightly forward. "Are you familiar with Degas?" I nodded. I put my hands behind me like a schoolgirl reciting lessons and one toe pointing slightly. Degas's little ballerina only my breasts, not a tutu stood out in front of me. As I stood in the pose my mind began to unlock and noticed the student in my peripheral vision. I watched them scratch them pencils across their sketchpads and I wondered what they thought of me, of my body. Was it beautiful? Repulsive? Ordinary? I wondered what they saw, what they were drawing so intently. Who was I in their eyes? I felt their pencils trace my calves and thighs and my skin stung into goose bumps
When the professor asked me to lie for a reclining pose I obliged. He turned on a space heater and I felt the warmth spread over my chest, softening my nipples and touching my thighs with its fingers. The warmth calmed my frightened skin and I felt my eyelashes brush my cheeks as I grew lax and sleepy. Their students eyes traced the lines of my body as I sank deeper into a half-awake nap, deprived of my clothing in only my thin fur, I was cat against the fire, my breasts laying quietly on my arm and pillowing out over my torso. The gaze of the students wrapped around me like a blanket. The contrasting feelings of absolute exposure and absolute security made me feel like an infant, naked and beloved and oh so vulnerable.
I grow sleepier and sleepier and the polite scratching of charcoal on paper lulled me. I let my eyes close and my body open before them in oblivious, dreaming nakedness.
She posed for us every Tuesday, she was better than the other models at holding still, and unlike then others, and she never looked bored or unhappy. On the contrary, she often came in tense and preoccupied but as soon as she took off her close, her jaw relaxed and her face took on a dreamy, peaceful expression. It was if only by exposing herself she could pull the parts of herself together and relax.
The third week I drew I felt my shoulders unlock and my charcoal stick began to feel disjoined from my hand. I watched it make wide sweeps and gentle furrows across the page like I was watching someone else's hand. As she grew more soft and relaxed, so did my lines. When I finished, it was one of the best drawings I had done, yet I felt that it had been done through me, not by me. I put it in the back of my folder...perplexed. I was so deep in thought that I did not realize that I had nearly run into the model.
