Another short and sweet story idea from totesanalt. All characters are over eighteen.
***
"Excuse me."
Tanya looked up, brushing dark hair from her face. She smiled up at the young man talking to her and blinked.
He was...he could best be described as
weird
. He must have been a college student like her- but clearly not a freshman like she was. Maybe a post-graduate? He was dressed in a dark outfit that must have been smouldering in the hot summer sun, capped off with a shapeless hat and a moustache that probably belonged in a museum. He held an old-style camcorder in his hands and was smiling at her with a strange sort of intensity.
She coughed, smiling as politely as she could at him. He was not looking at her like he was going to ask her the time. He was looking at her like he was going to want to talk to her about God or his political philosophy or his band or possibly all three; he was looking at her like a man who was already expecting to get a phone number.
That was not going to happen. Tanya knew all the stories about college; frat parties and hookups and experimentation
oh my
. She wasn't that sort of girl. She was the sort of girl that put her head down and studied and, as rule, avoided boys. Boys were...they were scary. Violent. Demanding and rough. She'd had a handful of bad experiences with them and had resolved to keep them at arm's length for the time being. Possibly forever. So she was already thinking of the best way to politely refuse the odd young man in front of her when he spoke again. "Are you able to help me with something?"
"Um. What?"
"I need you for a live-performance exhibition."
"A what?"
The man smiled the smile of a man utterly in love with his own genius. "It's going to be a dramatic live-action performance intended to immortalise the fall of innocence! An encapsulation of the fall from grace, brought on by the call of the libertine upon the soul of a young lady such as yourself!"
"Um." She didn't really understand half of what he said but it sounded...well, naughty. Tanya didn't do naughty. She wasn't the naughty sort. "No?"
"Please?"
"I don't think-"
The young man stood up straight and took a deep breath. He glowed with the zeal normally reserved for madmen, prophets and political theory majors. "It is for," he said, every word carefully intoned, "the Art."
"The Art?"
He nodded as though he'd imparted some great secret. "The Art."
"Oh." That shouldn't make a difference. Men lied. Everyone knew that. It's just... there was something in the way he spoke. Something so utterly certain, so completely and totally honest, that she...she couldn't find herself to say no. It was like his self-belief was a strong current, dragging her along despite her best intentions. She found herself nodding. "Okay. If, um. If it's for the Art."
"It is." the boy said, helping her to her feet. He looked her over and she blushed. Eighteen years old, olive-skinned and dark-haired, with a body that was just a little too plump and a little too plain. He smiled at her. "A classical beauty! And such a picture of innocence! Tell me, what are your sexual experiences?"
"What?"
"It's for the Art, dear! I need to know if you're a suitable subject." He smiled and she forced a smile back. "So tell me- are you a virgin?"
"Well..." She swallowed back her embarrassment. It was for the Art, after all. "I haven't- I mean, I'm still a virgin."
"Why?"
She thought about expounding on six years of complicated trauma and bad experiences before settling on, "I get shy."
"Shy. That's entirely understandable. And very good! Yes, I think you'll be perfect." He took a deep breath. "Please. Stand up and tell me your name."
Tanya rose to her feet, closing her bible. She smiled uncertainly as the boy raised his camera, the light going green. "Um. Tanya Fernandez? I'm a junior in college. Studying literature? And I'm, um..."
"Go on."
"I'm a virgin." She hated the way her face flushed red.
"Could you take off your clothes?"
"Definitely not!" She looked around her. They were both in the park nearby the campus and the crowd was a mix of college students and afternoon crowd. A businesswoman typed away aggressively on a park bench while an older man and a teenage girl talked, coffees in hand, on another. A young couple sat on the grass and swapped lazy jokes, staring into each other's eyes. A little distance away a trio of girls gossiped with earnest expressions. Others meandered in the background, walking and talking and taking in the summer sun. "That would be embarrassing!"
"That's the point!" he scoffed. "And anyway, it's for the Art."
She grimaced. It made sense, didn't it? Art was all about the ugly as well as the beautiful, which was where
she
came in. She paused, looking around her. She was going to do this. She was actually going to do this.
She bent down and carefully gripped the hem of her shirt. Took a long breath and then...
The only saving grace, the only thing that stopped this from being the worst experience of her life, was that it felt so unreal. So dreamlike, so not her that it couldn't
be
her. Tanya didn't strip off her shirt and undo her bra, letting her big, plump breasts hang down, her dark nipples stiff with fear. Tanya wouldn't kick off her shoes, wouldn't push down her jeans exposing her meaty hips and her bushy, unkempt hair. She wouldn't stand there- naked in the afternoon sun- while people around her stopped what they were doing and stared.
No, it couldn't have been Tanya. Which was good, since that way she didn't have to die from shame.
And the artist- this crazy artist- was capturing every trembling moment, every agonised expression of uncertainty on her face, every obvious flaw in her body with his camera. He gazed up at her, smiling. "Beautiful. Just beautiful."
"I'm fat and ugly."
"You're not. You're nicely full-figured but not fat." He laughed. "A voluptuous young girl in the full flower of youth, trembling with maidenly innocence. Yes, this is perfect. Precisely what I'm looking for."
Tanya grimaced. "This is humiliating!"
"No," he said, frowning. "That's not right at all. This is an art piece about the first touch of desire, the transformation from girl to woman! It's a musing on the liberation of the self from the shackles of shame! You need to be feeling the first stirrings of lust. Can you do that?"
"What?"
"Please be horny."
"Are you serious?"
"Please try," he said. "It's for the Art."
Okay. Okay. For the Art. She could...God, this was a nightmare. She was naked in front of all of these strangers. Her big, wobbly breasts all exposed to ridicule and lust-
"Listen to me. I want you to dig in deep. Every naughty fantasy you've repressed, every desire you've ignored. Your wildest dreams, your secret lusts. Imagine that everyone looking at you
wants
you. Every man, every woman desires your body.."
"I-"
"Please try. For the Art."
She closed her eyes. Tried to forget where she was. Felt the heat of the sun on her skin, the breeze brushing against her nipples. People were looking at her. She imagined that they weren't looking at in disgust, that they were looking at her with
desire
-