Becoming His Muse, Complete Set (7 page)

I kick my jeans off to the side and adjust my panties over my pubic hair. I haven’t shaved in a while because, as Ruby so kindly pointed out the other night, I haven’t had a date in over two months. I actually rather appreciate the break from personal cosmetic care, although, for some reason I now feel very self-conscious in front of Logan. It’s taking all my effort to act as fearless as my models always seem to be. I’m aware of wanting to look good for
him
. That just makes me mad at myself. I don’t like being this vulnerable. I don’t like being the object of someone else’s intense scrutiny, particularly his. But I feel as if I have to prove to him—to myself—that I can do this.

“You can look now,” I say as I perch on the stool.

“Very nice,” he murmurs after stepping out from behind the easel. He looks at me, and I feel his eyes burn into my skin, as if branding me. He makes a few marks on the page.

“Open your legs,” he says with a kind of authority that surprises me, and I react in the oddest, conflicted way; I want to tell him to fuck off
and
I want to do what he says, and want to know what he’ll command next.

“Why?” I say, to buy myself some time to sort out my feelings.

“Because I want to draw you that way, why else?” He sounds irritated, bossy, as the charcoal dances across the page. “Sit with your hands between your legs, your palms pressing into the stool, and then lean forward a little, so I can see your cleavage.”

I roll my eyes. “Next you’re going to ask me to pout.”

“Yeah, do that,” he says in all seriousness and a flurry of charcoal over paper.

“I usually let my models choose their own poses,” I say.

He stops and looks up at me. “Why? How do you get what you want if you do that?”

“I do give them some direction. I just don’t treat them like mannikins by telling them
exactly
how to pose.”

“What directions to you give them?” He seems to really want to know, like he wants to learn something new about this process so different from his own.

“A feeling maybe, or a memory, something they can truly embody. That way I can try to capture something real, authentic, through the form.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“I don’t know. Like longing, or sadness, or peacefulness. Sometimes anger, dissatisfaction, indifference.”

“Oh. Then how ‘bout longing?”

In that moment I realize how hard it must be for my models. How am I going to pose for longing?

“Better yet,” says Logan. “Desire. Show me
desire
.”

Desire? “What?… How will I…?”

His eyes bore into mine. “Not so easy? I’m surprised. You seem the type to be simmering under the surface.”

I raise an eyebrow. “A minute ago you insinuated I was a prude.”

“Yes, well, prudes are little volcanoes needing just the right tectonic shift to explode in a great fiery mess. Just let some of that boil over. Let it out. A tempestuous desire. For a man. A man who is a mystery to you.”

I close my eyes, not sure if I should jump off the stool and grab my jeans or go along with this and prove that I can do what I ask my models to do for me. And a man who was a mystery to me? That would have to be him. And I’m afraid that he knows that. But he’s busy sketching away, making something of my stubbornness, and I’m curious to see what it might be. More curious still to see what he would make of me if I actually can pose with such desire.

“You’ll show me your sketch after?”

“If you promise not to be too critical of it.” So he has something to prove, too.

I sit up on the stool, run my fingers through my hair, and then shake it out a bit, letting the reddish brown waves fall forward over my shoulders. I place my hands between my legs at the edge of the stool, which pushes my upper arms into my breasts, making their fullness roll forward so they almost spill from my bra. I open my knees, my heels wedged onto the low bar of the stool. I felt like a pin-up girl from a 50’s calendar. I know such a pose lacks life if only acted on the outside, so I pull the sexiness in, feel the weight of my ass cheeks on the hard stool surface, the wood warming under my heat, the arch of my back creating a certain tension that wants release. That’s the feeling, that’s what desire is about: a tension wanting release, like a spring coiled wanting to unwind, like a deep inhale wanting to be exhaled. Desire means… wanting. I remember my earlier sketches of Jenny. I become the Jenny of my images, I feel her desire, her anticipation of release as Jonathan appears in the images. I imagine Jonathan behind me, erect, ready. But then it’s not Jonathan, but my own man of mystery, sidling up to me, ready to release the spring that holds the coil tight. He has Logan’s eyes, and his touch. The memory of the touch of Logan’s fingers on my instep transfer to my spine. My whole back tenses in anticipation as I imagine his touch sliding down the length of my spine, to the edge of my panties, and then lower. My breathing changes. I press myself into the wooden surface of the stool and feel frustrated by the flatness of it. I want a different shape between my legs…

“That’s good, I’m done,” says Logan, drawing me from my dream of desire. My skin is hot. My bottom lip has fallen to a natural pout and I pull it back in, blinking myself back to the reality of the studio.

Logan’s green eyes look kind of shiny as he watches me. “You did good. There’s no way I did that level of desire justice. My skills are limited, at least when it comes to charcoal and paper.” He winks at me. I slide off the stool, a poor compensation for the level of stimulation I now crave. If Logan tries to seduce me now, I’ll be a wet whimpering puddle.

“Can I look now?”

He nods. “Just don’t be too hard on me.” He actually steps back, away from me, as I approach the easel. I pick up my jeans, sweater and T-shirt before I step down from the podium and I carry them with me as I walk toward him in my bra and panties. And I watch him
back away
. Has he worked me up just to tease me? As I turn to face the easel I can sense he’s watching my barely clad body, a body now craving to be touched, but he keeps his distance.

I stare at his rendition of me. It’s messy, has a chiaroscuro effect — full of lights and darks— it’s me all right, but a scary, hungry version of me. Do I really look like that? To him perhaps. I’m naked. He ignored my underwear and filled in what had been hidden. My nipples don’t look like that at all. And my pubic hair is dark and thick and practically filling the circle of the stool seat. I start laughing, a constrained embarrassed chuckle at first, and then a deeper, richer laugh. All around the image of me on a stool are words. Dozens of words he scribbled as he drew. The hair on my head is a dark, thick mass and words are woven through it. Sex. Fear. Hunger. Warmth. Saving. Hold. Thrust. Wine. Laughter. Sorrow. Baby. Breath. Tender. Devouring. Revenge. Beauty. Slide. Never. Want. Eat. Take. Love. Lust. Dependence. Attraction. Twisted. Bondage. Surrender. Dominion. Possession.

“Is it that bad?” he says, taking a step toward me.

“That’s how you see me?”

“It’s just what happened when I saw what I saw in you. When you let me see it.”

All laughter has drained away. Awkwardness is returning. He’s seen something I’ve never seen before, though I’ve sensed it, deep down in the secret recesses of my being. No one else has seen it or sensed it though. Until now.

“Is it ugly?” he says. There’s a catch in his voice, a hesitation, a fear.

“Did you mean for it to be ugly?”

“No. Not at all. I was aiming for some kind of truth, but I’m not an artist.”

I turn away from the disturbing image and face him. “It’s beautiful,” I say. “Even if I’m the only person who sees it or thinks it, it is.”

“Thank you,” says Logan.

“But my nipples don’t look anything like that.”

“They don’t?” His gaze flicks to my bra. And then to my panties. I can see he’s aroused, yet he makes no move to touch me.

“Do you remember the inscription you wrote in my book?” I say, dropping my sweater and T-shirt and putting one leg in my jeans. I don’t care that my belly hangs as I bend over to put my other leg in my jeans. We’ve just shared something more private than sex. He has
seen
me. I’ve let a deep part of myself be seen.

“About wanting to see you naked?”

I nod. “And about it being wrong?”

His gaze roves over my body and eventually lands on my eyes, where they burrow, as if looking for buried treasure.

“What if I was wrong about that being wrong?”

“What if you weren’t?”

I button up my jeans, feeling the constraint of clothing on skin. Heat and dampness from my panties transfers to denim. I grab my T-shirt, pull it over my head. All this time, Logan watches me. I watch him, too.

“Did you come here to seduce me?” I say.

He can’t hold back a secret smile. “Life itself is a long seduction. A morning is just a string of moments…Anything can happen. Or nothing.”

A heavy pause lingers. Full of anything. And nothing.

“Spoken like a writer. Cryptic and poetic,” I say, “but not an answer to my question.”

He still stands an arm’s length away from me. Is he aware that if he were to touch me at any point since I descended from that podium that his fingers on my skin would be like gasoline on a fire? What would he think if he knew that? If he does know that, what is he thinking right now?

“Can I keep the drawing?” I say.

“Sure.”

“Sign it.” My voice is as commanding as his was earlier. I’m not sure if it’s the tone of my voice or something else but he hesitates for a moment before he steps up to the easel and reaches for the charcoal. He bends over to sign the bottom right corner. As he does, I stand behind him and trail my fingers along his spine, the way I imagined him doing to me while I was up on the podium “acting desire.” He shivers under my touch but says nothing as he straightens and hands me the thick black rod that has stained his fingers a sooty mess.

His eyes meet mine and I see his desire, but still he doesn’t touch me.

“I have to go now,” he says, his voice low and husky. “My class starts in fifteen minutes.”

I’ve hardly been aware of the time, but it if that’s true, it means that it’s nearly 8:30 and this studio will be filling up with students in about the same time.

“Thank you for letting me draw you,” he says. Then he starts walking backward toward the door, keeping his eyes locked on mine.

I nod. He’s leaving. He hasn’t laid a finger on me. Not a finger. So why do I feel as if I have been just been fucked?

I skip my morning classes, go back to my dorm room so I can shower and… relieve myself. All that desire I felt on the podium, all that pent up sexual energy, it needed release, and I was vibrating with self-pleasure within minutes of being drenched with warm soapy water.

Briefly satisfied, with my skin lightly flushed from my efforts, I towel off and then sit on the edge of my bed to comb my hair. Next to me is my rolled up sketch signed by Logan O’Shane. Now my anger hits full force. I had floated out of the studio feeling confused, exposed, aroused, and intrigued, but now I just feel mad.

What is his game? Why did he seek me out, tease me, and then leave me wet and wanting? Is this his way of drawing me in? Is he testing me? I have a half a mind to find his office, storm in, and demand an explanation. But with his way with words he’d probably weave some vague story as insubstantial as the smoke from his cigarette. No, it’s best if I just stay away from him. Best if I stick to guys my own age. I have only eight months left until I graduate. I have to focus on my studies, my artwork, building my portfolio, and submitting to galleries in New York. That’s my plan. I need to stick to it.

Damn Logan O’Shane.

He’s messed with my head
and
my body. I still feel all that desire I conjured while he was drawing me. I want his long fingers on me now, everywhere. I want to draw his lips to mine and then force them down the length of my body until… I roll over on my bed, frustrated beyond belief. I think back to all the guys who approached me the night of the reading. I need a distraction. I need more release. I need to end this celibacy streak. And I need to put Logan O’Shane out of my mind.

I revisit the night of the reading in my mind and go over the many invitations I received that night. Stephen Mallory, a senior, had been there that night. We’d been in a third year English class together, so we weren’t total strangers. I sent him a Facebook message asking if he wanted to hang out later that night. He said he’d come over after basketball practice. With that to look forward to I head out meet Ruby and Jonathan at the Student Union Building, the SUB.

I give them a thumbnail picture of my morning, stating only that Logan had surprised me in the painting studio.

Ruby’s eyes are wide.

“Nothing happened,” I say, trying to convince myself it’s true. “I’m sure he’s just exploring the campus. He just happened to stumble into the art department.”

“At 7:30 in the morning?”

Ruby’s eyebrow makes a beautiful arc over one of her deep brown eyes.

“Be careful, Ava,” says Jonathan. “Playing with fire gets you fried to a crisp.”

“Logan’s the one holding the match,” says Ruby. She shakes her heard. “But honestly, I don’t know if I’d have the self control if I were in your shoes.”

Jonathan twirls the noodles of his chow mein around his chopsticks. He says, “I heard that he was asked to leave one university after getting involved with a student,” he says, slurping up some dangling noodles.

“That was more than five years ago, Mr. Google,” said Ruby. “And the story was that she seduced him.”

For a brief moment she goes all starry eyes. “Maybe it would be worth it to get kicked out of school for balling a famous writer.”

Jonathan rolls his eyes and starts mimicking Ruby. “Oh, Logan I would do
anything
to write like—”

Ruby shoves Jonathan to shut him up and his bowl sloshes around on his tray.

“Hey, don’t mess with the food, Rube.”

“Have you boned that waitress, Laura yet?” she says.

“No!” Jonathan actually looks hurt by her crass remark. I’m beginning to think he’s a real romantic.