"Is it weird that your brother-in-law has seen you naked?" Carla asked Abby.
Abby put on her serious face and asked, "Are you saying your brother-in-law hasn't seen you nude?"
"Oh my gosh!" the skinny, flat-chested woman gasped. She raised a hand to her mouth, and her eyes grew wide. "No, he hasn't!" She looked shocked and horrified.
Abby laughed and said, "Sorry. I couldn't resist messing with you."
"What's so funny?" Teri, the host of the neighborhood pot-luck dinner, asked.
"Carla asked me about my time as a nude model. One of the artists I modeled for was my husband's brother. He introduced me to Paul."
"I'd like to hear that story," Carla said. She topped off everyone's glasses with the bottle of white wine she was carrying. She pulled out a chair, joined the two women at the table on the patio, and said, "How did you, a respected nurse at the local hospital, become a nude model?"
"Where to start?" Abby pondered. "First, let me make it clear that I was never a whore or a stripper."
The women nodded.
"When I started I was twenty-four-year-old. I was an impoverished student struggling to pay her way through community college to become a nurse.
I had the bad luck to be born on the wrong side of the tracks. I had it tough growing up. I never knew my father. My mother got knocked up in high school, dropped out to have me, and worked a series of low-paying jobs to keep a roof over our head and food on the table."
The guests at the party wandered over and stayed to hear the story.
Abby said, "At the time, I worked three jobs. None of them full-time. My two retail jobs paid minimum wage, and in the third, I was a waitress at a greasy diner and relied on tips. I wished I earned more, but this was my situation.
When I made enough money to cover my tuition and help Mom pay the household bills, I went to school. When I didn't, I dropped out. In five years, I've managed to earn fifty college credits. I had twenty more to go, and at the pace, I was accruing them, it would take me two more years to graduate.
I worked in the mall at Sunglass Hut. According to the company, I worked 'casual part-time' which meant I worked less than ten hours a week, got no benefits, and was paid next to nothing.
Sound great? No, but it fit my schedule, and some money was better than none.
During my training, I was told to 'make a connection' with customers. That translates to: make small talk with people, get to know them, so you can recommend the right pair of sunglasses for them.
I am an outgoing person, so talking, I mean 'making a connection', was easy for me.
One morning, a gentleman stopped into the store, and like any good employee, I chatted with him in hopes of getting a sale. This man, who was in his late 60s, was wearing a red tracksuit, flip-flops, and carrying a gym bag.
He was friendly, I was pleasant, and we talked for fifteen minutes. The conversation ended, and he walked out with a nice pair of sunglasses. Mission accomplished.
For the next few weeks, I saw this gentleman in the mall. If no customers were in the store, he'd stop in to say hello. He always came on Tuesday mornings, which is a slow time for retail stores, so we had many chances to speak.
I learned he was widowed and was trained as a jet mechanic by the Air Force. He put in twenty years, got his pension, and went to work for a national airline. He retired a second time and moved here because his daughter and grandchildren live nearby.
A month after selling my mall friend some spiffy sunglasses, it was a Tuesday, I was alone in the store, bored out of my mind, and staring out the door. When my friend walked by, I called out, "Hello, Lou. How are you?"
"I'm doing well," he answered. He came into my empty store and asked, "How are you?"
"I'm doing great. Were you at the art gallery again for the drawing class?"
"Yes."
"How come I never see you carrying a sketchbook?"
"I'm not an art student. I'm the nude model."
"Oh!" I gasped. I'm sure my face turned red.
He laughed and asked, "Are you surprised?"
"Yes. You don't look like the kind of guy who..." I didn't finish my sentence because I was confused and embarrassed.
He finished the sentence for me. "I don't look like the kind of guy who gets naked in front of strangers?" He laughed and added, "The men in my squadron would tease the hell out of me if they knew.
"My wife and I started doing it ten years ago. A neighbor of ours taught art at a community college. He got into a jam when the two main models for the school's figure drawing classes suddenly quit. One was in an automobile accident, and the other left town to care for an elderly parent. He asked us to take their place, and on a lark, we said yes.
"My Dorothy, God rest her soul, was a creative, artsy person. She'd done some modeling before we were married. She was game and dragged me along. It's not as bad as you think," he said.
"I could never do it," I said. "Being naked and having all those eyes staring at you. My body is shivering just thinking about it."
"I thought it would be weird, and I'd feel uncomfortable, but it wasn't like that. For one thing, the room is silent. No one is talking, pointing, or laughing. I'd describe the atmosphere as bordering on reverent. The students take it seriously, and you soon realize that although you're nude, you are not naked."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Both words describe a person not wearing clothes. Naked has a connotation of being unprotected and vulnerable. Like someone walking in when you're changing clothes, or you and your friends going skinny dipping. Nude is being unclothed for a purpose, such as being examined by a doctor, posing for a painting, or using a sauna. It's not a sexual thing."
"I get the distinction," I said. "But I'm not fit or pretty enough to be a model."
"And I am?" Lou asked as he patted his beer belly. He laughed and said, "Remember, the purpose of a life drawing class is for an artist to practice drawing. His or her goal is to capture you accurately. They don't give a fig about how you look. They care about how well they can draw you.
"That's another reason being nude in front of a room of strangers is not embarrassing. You soon realize they aren't looking at you with lust or any prurient interest. They're focused on shapes and lines, the combination of light and shadow, and positive and negative space."
"If the goal is to create a good likeness," I asked, "why not draw a piece of fruit or furniture?"
"They can and do," Lou said. "Some artists spend a lifetime doing still life or landscapes, but the pinnacle is drawing and painting people. It's the hardest thing to do. The best artists can render a person accurately and capture their personality and emotions.
"I model for various groups: galleries like the one in the mall that offers classes, colleges, sketch clubs, and the like." He smiled and said, "They are constantly searching for new models and are open to all kinds of bodies. Your weight, degree of fitness or attractiveness, or your age is not a disqualifier."
He laughed and said, "Of, course, the nude models must be over eighteen."
"And you're telling me this because..."
"I know you need money for school. Modeling pays three or four times what you make here. You'd be earning more, so you could cut back on the number of hours you work and have time to study, sleep, and have a social life."
"That would be nice, but I'd have to be naked...nude in front of people. I'm twenty pounds heavier than I such be because I have too many rushed mornings where I breakfast on Cheetos and a Coke."
"I can't deny that I was nervous the first time," Lou said. "I felt better when I realized they weren't perving on me, and no one cared about the size of my penis, my hairy back, or the extra pounds I carry on my waist.
"Why don't you give it a try?" he asked. "I can line up a gig for you and be on stage beside you if that would make you feel better."
"Yes."
I was shocked when the word came out of my mouth. I was tired of working so many hours and struggling to pay for school and the rent, and the thought of a social life was enticing. I hadn't been out dancing with my friends in ages.
"What the hell," I said. "Why not give it a go?"
I was a nervous wreck the afternoon I met Lou for my first life drawing class. I'd insisted we not go to the mall class because I was afraid someone would recognize me.
When I arrived, Lou met me in the parking lot. I was wearing shorts, flip-flops, and was braless in a tank top. The girls were sagging, and my erect nipples showed through the soft material. I hadn't bothered to dress up since I knew I'd soon be taking my clothes off.
He said, "Hey, kid. The flip flops are a good idea. The floors of our venues are not always the cleanest. Do you have a dressing gown? It's nice to throw something on during breaks."
"Yes," I answered as I reached into the car and grabbed my robe.
"Nervous?"
"Yeah."
"This is a good place to break into the business. There are eight members in the sketch club. They're all nice people, and they take this seriously. They know this is your first time, and no one will yell at you."
"Good."
"This is a two-hour session. The artists need to warm up, so we start with some short, quick poses of one and two minutes. Then we do five, ten, and fifteen-minute poses. After a break, we will do a thirty-minute pose."
"Okay."
"The leader of the club has a timer and may suggest some poses. Usually, I do whatever I feel like for the shorter poses, and they pick the long pose."
I nodded.
"You know the deal. Once you've struck a pose, you mustn't move. If we move, they have to erase and redraw. I do the difficult-to-hold poses where my body is twisted, I'm standing on one leg, or extending a limb in the short sessions. For the longer poses, we will be sitting or reclining."
