Nude

I.

In college, I took a figure drawing class.

I was, at the time, a decent sketch artist,

and it was spring quarter and the class

was in the evening; I liked to walk the

campus at that time of day, when it

was less crowded, less hectic, less hectoring.

I was prepared with charcoal, pencils, 

all the accoutrements of the artist.

Still life: bowl of fruit; vase and flower;

components of a disassembled pocket watch.

The final project was a series of nudes. 

One evening, we walked into the classroom

studio to find a woman in a silk kimono 

standing on a platform in the middle of the room,

our easels arranged in a circle around her.

At the teacher's signal, the kimono slid off 

and she stood, nude, unmoving for an hour

as we drew her. I was displeased with my work;

on my page, she was angular and gormless. 

I went back to my room and placed an ad for a model;

the next day I met a girl for coffee. She had answered

the ad. She was a freshman at the community college

in the same town. She was tall and slim,

Israeli: olive-skinned, black haired, hazel eyed.

In short lovely, and just the sort of girl I would not

be opposed to seeing naked for an hour. 

We made our arrangements and met at the appointed 

time at the studio. 

She had the body of a soldier: lean, taut, ready.

She was flat chested and had a great black cloud

of thick pubic hair. She posed, and I drew her

from every angle. I shaded her inner thighs,

her sides, under her breasts. Her cheekbones,

the notch of her collarbone, every detail

of her I made sure to capture, to trove away;

this was not for anyone's eyes but mine, I realized

as I sketched her thigh. 

I made several good drawings of her, gave her one, 

gave her the agreed sum, and wished her well

in her studies. I wanted to sleep with her, 

but I knew after I would rip her drawings in half.

II.

Awkwardly I asked a friend to pose.

I needed a male model for the portfolio,

and the overweight, balding yet congenial

mechanic who had come to the classroom

had been turned unsightly by my pencils.

I began to wonder if I were only able to draw

the beautiful in any manner of realness.

My friend was handsome, he looked like 

he had aged out of a boy band, and was not

offended or otherwise put off by my request.

He stood still, lean and pale and uncircumcised,

as I drew him from one angle only, rushing through

the hour, yet managing to capture the shyness

of his pose, the embarrassment and the thrill.

After, we went and got drunk at a party

and I told the girl he was flirting with that I had

just spend an hour with him naked.

III.

That summer, I posed nude.

The Israeli girl called me out of the blue,

asking to return the favor. I was nervous, but

agreed. It was to be, she said, for her whole class,

and my nervousness compounded, but the

exhibitionist in me prevailed. The classroom was 

small, there were only seven students, arrayed

in a tight circle around a slightly raised platform.

I stood, in undershorts, my clothes in a pile on

an unused desk. Most of the students were older

women, finally taking that night course they had always 

been talking about. At a sign, I slid my shorts off and 

stepped out of them, my eyes going to the Israeli girl

without meaning to. I was well-made, I had heard

and believed it. I listened to the scratching of the

nubs on the paper, the rubbing of erasers, the 

occasional clearing of a throat. I had left shyness

behind as a boy's curse, I had resolved to be more

true and more myself; I stood, telling myself

I was liberated now from self hate and worry,

that because they could see all of me, they would

would not judge me. I dressed in the bathroom;

when I came back in, the Israeli girl showed me

her drawing. It was, I admit, an excellent likeness.

We went for coffee again, and she made a joke about

how we had both seen each other naked but never touched,

I shook her hand professionally, and said There, and she

laughed for some reason. She stood to go and

leaned over the table to kiss my cheek, and then

she walked away. 

A month later, she mailed me an index-card sized version

of her drawing and a letter that said she was going back

to Israel, that she had gotten a four-point on her

portfolio, and thanking me. 

That night, I set the drawing of me side by side

with one of the ones I had kept of her

and jerked off all over myself.

I also got a four-point on my portfolio.