Becoming His Muse, Complete Set (6 page)

Right. School. Classes. “Art History.”

“Ah, yes. Dr. Tennenbaum.” He nods.

“You know the other profs already? You just got here.”

He shrugs. “I don’t sleep much. Stayed up late reading staff bios.”

“Sounds thrilling.”

“I tried to make other plans, more
thrilling
ones, but they fell through. Or rather ran away.”

I furrow my brow. What did he mean?

“You ran away from me last night,” he clarifies.

“I didn’t!” I say this a little too quickly, nervously. “I just had to go. It was late. I had an early booking in the art studio.”

He nods, watching me closely. “So I didn’t scare you away?”

I feel hot under his close gaze. I shake my head, willing myself to make this white lie convincing. “No, no. I had the studio booked, and a model…”

He nods his head knowingly, as if aware of the gravity of my commitment to my craft, of my need to hightail it out of there last night.

“I see. You’re serious about your work.”

“Yes. Very.”

“But you’re not actually indifferent to me, are you?”

His hands slide into his pockets, a sexy smirk plays across delicious lips, his green eyes hold mine hostage and I’m desperate to look away, to gather my wits, my composure, but his eyes, the intensity of them, the way they seem to want to penetrate right through me to my core, freeze any rational thought. I don’t know what to say. My mind is buzzing, my body vibrating, and I’m just trying to control my inner responses to his look, his presence. Of course, I am not indifferent to him.

“No,” I say, with a sigh. The confession releases something within me and I’m finally able to look away, down at my feet, at his. This is a small defeat, and the letting go is a relief, but also a disappointment to the part of me that feels safer when I’m in control, when I know myself better than someone else knows me. But Logan seems to know something about me that I don’t yet grasp. It makes me nervous. And curious. But also wary.

Logan leans forward, and quietly, daringly, he says, “Good.”

Then he rocks back on his feet a bit, as if satisfied.

I’m clenching my fists just the littlest bit. It’s not good that I’m not indifferent to him, and he should know that. If he stayed up late reading the staff bios, he must have read about the new policy forbidding relationships between students and teachers. It’s not ‘good’ that he’s teasing me, testing me.

I glance around the quad, but no one seems to be paying attention to us. I wonder how they can be blind to what feels like heat waves of tension between us. Then I realize Logan looks like he could be a student, sort of. He’s not recognized as a teacher. At least not yet. But if he’s been hired on as the new writer-in-residence, he will be considered a prof this year, so he shouldn’t be flirting with me. And I shouldn’t be wanting him to.

“I have to get to class,” I say, desperate for more space, more distance, between us.

He steps aside casually, but his eyes rove over me, head to toe. “Clearly, you’re a serious student, Miss Nichols. If there’s anything I can do, as a teacher, to help you. Please don’t hesitate to drop by my new office.” He gestures with his shoulder to the window he emerged from only a few minutes ago.

I nod. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Logan tips his hat and turns away and I am now free to dash off to my class, the word dapper flapping about in my mind, a surge of heat flowing through my veins.

I don’t run into Logan again for a couple of days, which is a good thing because I need to get my head on straight and the rest of my body calmed down. He’s a teacher now, albeit a temporary one, which means he’s off limits to me. And I’m a student, which means I’m off limits to him.

I can fantasize but I can’t act on those fantasies. I suppose the same is true for him. The thought of him fantasizing about me nearly drives me crazy with desire. To distract myself, I throw myself into my studio work. I have to create enough paintings for a solo show at the art department’s Mellman Gallery in the new year in order to graduate. Several east coast gallery owners will attend the grad shows, possibly even one from New York. I keep my mind on my future and try to ignore all distractions.

I manage to get a lot done during my Thursday morning session with Jenny. Her coffee with three sugars gives her more verve than usual and some of her poses are quite dynamic.

After Jenny leaves to go do her workout and then go to classes, I stare at the empty space on the podium she occupied a few minutes ago. Standing in front of my easel, I sketch from memory. The curve of her thigh, her tight calf, her stretched out toes. Her thick dark hair falling behind her shoulder. Her smallish breasts with nipples that extend almost a full inch when erect. Her pubic hair, a trimmed dark bush. I draw quickly, sketching her in different positions, just a few gesture strokes here and there. Soon the positions grow wilder. I have her legs splayed, her arms up, holding up thick tresses of hair, a pouting bottom lip. Here was a Jenny who
wanted
. She wanted to be taken. She peeks over her shoulder. Her eyes beg. I tear off pages as I overfill them with multiple images. I draw on my memories of Jonathan the last time he modeled for me. I put them in a picture together. I make their two bodies one.

The sound of footsteps draws me back to the present moment, to the empty, wide studio, and I look around at all the sketched pages on the floor. Some look like perverted doodles, others like the beginnings of sweetly erotic paintings. I’ll keep those, toss the rest.

I hear a cough and spin around. Logan O’Shane stands in the doorway. It’s just after 7:30 AM.

“I thought I might find you here,” he says.

I’m completely caught off guard. Even though he’s totally invaded my thoughts and dreams, it’s still a shock to see him standing in the doorway, in the flesh. If possible, he’s even more handsome than my thoughts and dreams. His thick, dark hair is slightly messy. He wears old jeans and a faded madras shirt over a white T-shirt. He gives me a crooked smile, his green eyes glinting.

“Am I interrupting anything?”

He can see for himself I’m alone, but in answer, I shake my head as I attempt to temper my feelings of surprise, nervousness, and embarrassment, which, combined, leave me at a loss for words.

I watch him as he crosses the threshold into the studio. He has a sexy sloping stride, as if he has all the time in the world to get where he’s going and he intends to savor every moment of the getting there. He takes in the visual details of the studio while I work to slow down my breathing, get over my initial shock at his presence, and gather my wits. The studio is my territory, I’m at home here, so I rally my confidence and force myself to see him not as some larger than life hero but as a man, a writer, who happens to be visiting me, a painter in her studio. I try to make small talk.

“Have you settled into your new office?”

“I have. Feels like home already. You should drop by.”

Probably not a good idea. I clear my throat. “So how are your classes?”

“A handful of promising students, I guess. But the one I’m most intrigued by isn’t a writing student at all.” His green gaze holds mine.

I turn away, my nervousness returning, and busy myself by gathering up my sketches.

“Don’t,” he says, coming toward me. He glances at the newsprint pages on the easel, the charcoal, the empty podium.

“Can I draw you?” he says. For a second he looks like a little kid with a new toy.

I’m surprised again but for a different reason.

“
Can
you?” I say, wondering if he’s even capable of drawing.

“I’d like to try. Would you go up there and pose for me?”

He gestures to the podium and stool still draped with the blankets I’d brought out for Jenny.

Refusing to give up my reclaimed confidence, I shrug. I’m done with my drawing, so why not? I’m honestly curious to know if he can create anything more than stick figures.

I climb up and perch on the stool as he selects a rod of charcoal. He stares at my face and my hair for several minutes. I feel self-conscious under his gaze but I also kind of like it.

“Aren’t you going to take your clothes off?” he asks.

I laugh and start to descend from my perch. “Ah, this is just another seduction technique, silly me for believing you were serious.”

“I
am
serious.”

I stare him down, at home and in control in the familiar environment of the studio. “Then draw me with my clothes on.”

“Fine.” He starts sketching so I sit back down and wait. He studies me, studies the page, me again, back and forth as he translates something of the third dimension into the second.

“It’s just not as interesting. But you know that,” he says, still drawing and looking, gathering details, recreating them on the page. “I know you go to great lengths to get your live
naked
models. You’ll even suffer through literary readings. Oh, the agony.”

I smile. “Yes, you’re right.”

“And you know how frustrating it is when a model doesn’t want to undress. After all, you’re only trying to honor the beauty of the human body, capture its transience on paper or canvas, interact with the wonder of being human. But there’s nothing you can do about the fact that some people are prudes, just don’t
get
the wonder of the human form.”

I frown. “Okay. You’ve made your point.”

As a writer, he understands something of art and art making. I’m a hypocrite if I don’t play by my own rules. I‘m nervous though. Shy. I always tell my models to relax, to not feel shy. But I’m always the artist, behind the easel, not the model. Words and feelings are different things. Easier said than done, as the saying goes.

I take a deep breath, unbutton my sweater, and slide my arms out of my sleeves. Logan smiles, tears off a page and starts on another. I feel heat rising on the skin of my back, and under my arms as I pull my T-shirt over my head. I readjust myself on the stool in just my bra and jeans.

Logan frowns. “That’s it?” He shakes his head. “If you’re not going to go all the way you might as well put everything back on.”

It’s a challenge and a rejection all in one. No way to win. I blush from head to toe, heat radiating off every inch of my skin—from embarrassment and anger. I’m hot enough to take my clothes off, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“What are you afraid of?” he says in a very gentle tone of voice, a tone I don’t associate with him. At least not yet.

“Is this a power trip to you?” I say.

“Is it to you?” He seems genuinely curious.

I reflect on the question and finally, I admit, “I don’t like the loss of control I feel up here. I prefer being behind the easel.”

He takes a few slow steps toward me, still holding the charcoal between his fingers.

“It’s easier to observe than to be observed, is that it?” he asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know if it’s
easier
. It’s different. Feels more uncomfortable. In that way it’s easier.”

He stands on the floor in front of the podium. I look down on him. He doesn’t look so scary from up here. And that’s when it hits me: I do feel scared of him. Why?

He sets a serious gaze on me. “Would you feel more comfortable if I were naked as well?”

I bark out a small laugh. “That would just be weird.”

The choice of word seems to confound him, but it’s just the first one that came to mind. “I mean it would be awkward.” I say, revising myself.

He nods, sets the charcoal stick on the edge of the podium, and reaches for my foot. For my shoe actually. I usually wear clogs in the studio, and I have my scuffed up brown Danskos on today. He slips one clog off one heel.

“What are you doing?”

“I think you should take your jeans off. You’ll need to remove your shoes first to do that.”

I laugh again. “What makes you think I’m going to take my jeans off?”

He looks up at me, his eyes dancing with mischief, his crooked smile half-cocked. He’s literally at my feet, his hands sliding along my instep almost to the point of tickling. A rush of restless butterflies takes flight behind my navel.

“Because I’m going to ask you nicely,” says Logan. He licks his lips to moisten them, smiles more broadly, and bows before me with a flourish.

“Please, oh brilliant artist, will you let this lowly writer draw you in the flesh?”

When I flinch at the word flesh, he added, “Or at least in your undergarments?”

He brings his hands together in supplication and bats his long-lashed green eyes. Then he winks. I start giggling. He can certainly be charming when he wants to be.

He adds. “Aren’t you the least bit curious about how I might render you?”

Yes, I absolutely am. I clear my throat.

“I will derobe only to my undergarments, kind sir,” I say in a formal, slightly accented, high-pitched voice. On some level I owe him that. No, I owe Logan nothing. Rather I owe it to myself to take my own medicine. I have something to learn by being the observed instead of the observer. My resistance proves it.

“Go back to the easel and turn around,” I say. Logan gives me a funny look but quickly complies after his eyes light up like a kid who’s finally offered an anticipated treat as long as he jumps through one more hoop. He can draw me
almost
naked, but I don’t want him watching me as I take my jeans off.

I always give my models their privacy as they transition from clothed to unclothed is because it’s like stepping out of one role and into another. Those moments of transition, as clothing falls away from skin, are private, intimate, something to share with another on mutual terms, when you choose to. When making love, undressing is part of the ritual, but with life drawing, certain respectful boundaries are observed. When boundaries break, or slip into the gray areas, things have the potential to get awkward and messy. Nakedness for the sake of art has to be treated differently than nakedness for the sake of sex, because truly, the line is very thin; there isn’t much difference. Art, in most cases, is intended to make you
feel
, and when do humans feel the most? When naked. When having sex.