Dani hovered there in the doorway. Christopher looked up and smiled. He said something to a student, patted the young man’s shoulder, and headed her way. ‘There you are.’
‘Here I am.’
‘Nervous?’ He gave her a quick hug. ‘Never mind. Don’t answer. You’re stiff as a board and practically vibrating. I’ll take that as a yes.’
‘Extremely,’ she said anyway.
‘You’ll be fine.’ He kissed her forehead and that small gesture calmed her raging nerves a little. ‘Be right back,’ he said.
He came back with a brightly patterned patchwork kimono. ‘Ladies’ room is down on the right. You can just slip into this and come back when you’re ready. We have a few things to go over before we start.’
‘Everything?’ she asked. Her breath came in little fits. Her heart banged like an angry creature caged in her chest.
He gave her a half smile. ‘Everything.’
She sighed. ‘Is this … clean?’
He chuckled. ‘It is. I take it home at the end of each semester and wash it thoroughly.’
‘Once a semester!’
He tried not to laugh and failed. ‘I take it home every week. Or I let the model take it home and launder it. It’s only going to be you wearing it, you can be in charge or I can. But I assure you, it’s clean.’
‘Sorry. I’m being a bit … obsessive. I’ll go change.’
He gave her a small squeeze and let her go. ‘Just breathe. This is going to be good. You’re going to do great.’
In the ladies’ room she stood inside a stall and manoeuvred out of her clothes. All that work choosing her sleek, modest outfit and she was stripping naked in a forest-green cubicle while trying not to drop her shoes in the toilet. She folded everything with shaking fingers and stuffed it into the empty canvas tote bag she’d brought. When she was naked, she took a big deep breath, shut her eyes and willed her body to calm down. An electric current seemed to be running beneath her skin. She was electric. Alive.
‘Alive,’ she muttered. ‘Remember that. This is the feeling before a big step. Before taking a chance. This is good.’
It dawned on her that, despite her near terror, she still wanted to do it. Something about baring herself fully in front of strangers was intoxicating.
‘Right,’ Dani muttered. She pulled on the oversized kimono, wrapped it tight around her and held it with one hand. She grabbed her bag and her tote with the other and left the stall. She spared herself one glance in the bathroom mirror as she left. Her cheeks blazing with blush, her hair down and full and slightly windblown. Her eyes startled and shiny with a mix of anxiety and what could only be described as arousal.
‘Here we go,’ she told the woman in the mirror and then she left the small room and padded down the hall to Chris’s classroom.
* * *
Christopher was just wrapping up his welcome speech when she entered. He smiled, waved a hand at her and said, ‘This, class, is your first assignment. This is my friend Dani. Dani will be your nude model tonight. I want to get her set up quickly because you’ll need the majority of class to get your sketch down and then you can fiddle with it.’
Someone in the class laughed and Dani felt the blush in her cheeks bleed down to her chest. She had the urge to laugh or maybe cry. She definitely had the instinct to run. Somehow she managed to tamp it down and tune back into what Chris was saying.
‘Obviously, it will depend on how many of you have complete or nearly complete works by the end of class. If we need to set her up in the same pose next time we will. If not, we’ll move forward. Dani,’ he said, addressing her. He wore that small calming smile she remembered from her youth. Somehow, no matter what they were about to do – diving into a swimming hole rumoured to be the home of water snakes, racing downhill on their bikes at Turner’s Twister, a particularly challenging twist of country road, or egging houses the last Halloween before he left for college – his smile had always acted as a soothing balm on her worry. ‘This is the class. If for any reason you need to take a break, you just say my name. Other than that, you just do your best to stay as I position you.’
Dani nodded, not trusting her voice.
He moved towards her and an interesting thing happened. Maybe not interesting, she thought wildly, more like unanticipated. Between her thighs she went damp. So fast and so much she worried that the students would see. So much that she felt an urgent need to be touched. Or touch herself.
Great …
Because that was the moment Christopher reached her and said, ‘Can you drop your robe, please?’
For a split second it was only them in the room. Time stood still and he was asking her to disrobe for him. And him alone.
She shook her head and his forehead crinkled. He didn’t know she was shaking her head at her own internal ramblings. So, to clear things up, she took an enormous breath, blew it out and opened the kimono. Then she let it fall free of her body.
Cool air kissed her skin. Her nipples pebbled instantly. She saw Christopher register it. His expression changing, his pupils dilating. But then he retrained his gaze to her face and smiled. He arranged her to his liking. A not too difficult pose to hold. One hip cocked just so, her right hand at her side, her left on her hip. Her head slightly tilted.
The wetness at the apex of her thighs had turned to a steady thumping pulse that matched her pounding heart. She bit her lip, trying not to focus on the fact that her body apparently thought there was sex to be had.
Then she tried Cheryl’s advice. She went Zen. She thought of one of her favourite things. Falling leaves. The weather outside had turned. The leaves had changed to golden honey tones, vibrant reds and spectacular shades of orange. She pictured a single leaf in her mind and studied it. The different shades, the sombre hues, the veins …
She was vaguely aware of Christopher walking back to his desk. Of him urging the class on and making a joke that he was now going to tackle a mountain of paperwork. And that at the one-hour mark they’d allow a fifteen-minute break for Dani to stretch and walk around.
Her anxiety morphed into calm. Her instinct to flee changed to a heavy kind of patience. She stood there, focused inward, aware that they were all looking at her body. Studying it. Putting it down on paper.
It’s sort of like being immortalised. The thought flickered through her mind and then she let it go.
She could do this. She was doing this.
* * *
Dani felt eyes on her. Of course she did. Many, many eyes. But when she’d come back from her fifteen-minute break a bit calmer, not so incredibly freaked out by the exposure of the whole situation, she felt a particular set of eyes.
Chris had asked her not to make eye contact. To try and act as if the class wasn’t there at all. ‘Look off into the distance like the maidens in the classic works of art,’ he’d said with a small smile.
She’d snorted with amusement. To even try and put herself in that category, even to get into a mindset, was laughable.
Chris tugged a piece of her hair and she heard herself gasp like a scandalised maiden. ‘You can do it,’ he said, ‘You know what I mean.’
He’d gone back to the classroom then, leaving her in the hall to walk and stretch her muscles. She touched the end of that lock of hair, feeling the surge of heat and pain and then the little blip of pleasure all over again. He hadn’t tugged her hair in … too many years to count.
Back in the classroom she’d kept her eyes pinned to that land of far off. She occasionally glanced at