Contrapposto
"The at ease pose preferred by the ancient Greeks in the depiction of the human body; it encompasses the tension as a figure changes from resting on a given leg to walking or running upon it."
"Have you seen him yet?" Andrea asked her and Carol stopped in the process of tacking a large clean white sheet of drawing paper to the easel in front of her.
"Him?" Carol asked, frowning.
"The new model." Andrea said with a sultry, knowing smile.
"Him?" Carol asked again, blinking and hearing crickets in her head, her brain unwilling or somehow unable to process what her new friend was telling her.
She had been forced into taking this Figure Drawing class after the ceramics class she had originally trying to register had closed before she'd gotten in. She needed both for her Art concentration, but had been leery of taking a night class which could potentially interfere with any job she might get off campus to help pay her tuition and living expenses. Going back to school after her divorce to earn a teaching degree had been a leap of faith.
She'd been afraid that the young traditional aged students in her classes would run rings around her; that she'd never be able to keep up with them. Meeting Andrea on the first night had been a huge relief. Andrea had invited her to join the N.T.S.O., the Non-traditional Student Organization, known by the lesser wits as the "Nutsos." She hadn't asked, but the other woman seemed to be mid to late thirties, and had the flowing locks, taut tight body and smooth skin of a woman who took excellent care of herself. And not because she was out to snag a man—she'd announced at their first meeting that she was in a committed relationship—but because she simply had her shit together in ways Carol could only imagine.
At thirty-one and one year out of a nightmare of a marriage, Carol was doing her best not to compare herself to those around her. She knew she was too thin, a kind person might use the term "petite" to describe her, and her short red curls had started to go grey from stress years ago. She thought that her best feature was her eyes, large in her pale freckled face, an arresting crystal blue, her only vanity the careful application of mascara to enhance them. Her fellow art students in this class ranged from Beth, the teen beauty queen with the big eyes setting up her things across the circle—another blonde, she could be Andrea's kid sister—to the mysterious ebony skinned dread locked goddess taking the stool next to the young girl's, Michonne, who flashed Carol a narrow eyed assessing stare.
"I hear he's got these fucking amazing tattoos." A new voice to her right interrupted her wool gathering and Carol turned to see Glenn, the young Korean guy that could always make her laugh, plunk himself down next to her after putting his paper up on the easel in front of his station.
Andrea leaned behind Carol to add her two cents worth to Glenn's assessment, but before she could speak the man in question strode into the room. Just as their previous models had done, (all female, which explained Carol's surprise at his gender) he wore a bathrobe, under which he would be nude.
"Gay?" Andrea whispered, asking Glenn's first impression.
"I'd do him." Glenn mused with a sigh and a cocky smile. Glenn didn't discriminate. Neither did his girlfriend Tara.
Carol snorted at them both delicately and took her seat on her stool, effectively blocking their view of each other. Andrea blew a raspberry at Carol for ruining her fun and Glenn pouted, but started using a small knife to sharpen his pencils, ignoring her.
Carol sighed and listened as their teacher set out the requirements for tonight's session: the model would do a series of two minute poses for a rapid fire sketch drill and then they would take a break before a longer standing muscle study, working on contrapposto and tonality. It took a great deal of physical strength to hold the longer poses and Carol was curious about this man's background. Most of the female models had been tanned athletes and dancers, comfortable in their skin, used to being admired for the beauty and fitness of their sylph-like forms.
The one Carol liked drawing most though was a woman from the acting program—more voluptuous—with long ropes of red hair, a lovely rounded belly and full breasts and a wicked smile. She admired the actress's moxie and passion; her take no prisoners attitude, eschewing her robe on break, laughing and talking with the students as she wandered through the room to look at what kinds of images of her had been captured. She'd been interesting to draw…
The new model wasn't what she'd expected. Not at all. He wasn't a stereotypical athlete type, no burly thick necked six foot seven linebacker or fireplug bulldog of a wrestler, but he was fit, muscular from what she could tell by the way his upper arms pulled tight at the sleeves of the robe. Just under six feet tall, he had the "V" body type of a Greek statue, broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hips, she could see how he got hired for this gig. His face was partially obscured by a fringe of red blonde bangs as he stared at the floor, patiently waiting for the professor to finish talking and signal for the class to begin.
Carol's foot accidentally brushed against her easel as she adjusted her position on the high stool, causing its leg to squeak loudly against the tile floor and the model's head came up and his cool blue eyes met hers as he looked for the source of the noise. Carol gave a rueful half smile of embarrassed apology and he quirked her a tiny one back in reply and then winked at her. It surprised her into blushing and his grin became broader, framed by his reddish brown mustache and goatee, the beauty mark next to his mouth rising, a dimple showing in his cheek. Oh good lord, the man was electrifying when he did that…
"Way to go Carol." Glenn teased out of the side of his mouth, raising his hand for a fist bump, which a mortified Carol ignored.
"Don't Bogart the hottie, cougar momma." Andrea added in a not so soft whisper.
Before she could respond to either of her friends' comments, Carol's moment with the model was interrupted by the impatient throat clearing of their professor, drawing the his attention back to the job at hand.
"I think we're ready to begin, if you please Daryl?" Professor Ogden asked pleasantly, holding out her hand for the robe. He schooled his face to impassivity and untied the belt, shrugging the robe off of his shoulders and letting it fall into his hands as he tugged it the rest of the way off and handed the garment to the woman.
Carol took a deep breath and wondered if everyone else in the class was silently muttering the same mantra as she was inside her head: "I won't look at his dick, I will not look at his dick, I won't look at hi…"
"Oh. My." Andrea said with the inhale and exhale of a breathy sigh, her hand finding Carol's left forearm and giving it a quick squeeze and release.
Daryl stood in his first pose, hands on his hips, eyes closed, head turned to the side and down.
Carol picked up her pencils and studied him, trying to be objective. This was simply another human form, a collection of lines and shapes. The highlights and shadows were shaped by the skeletal structure and musculature under the skin. They'd spent the first part of the course drawing skeletons, giving them an underpinning in anatomy.
To Carol all bodies were beautiful and interesting, each had its own challenges for her when trying to capture them through hand and eye in live observation like this, plotting out the correct proportions, the way a shadow fell…she focused on his shoulders for the first quick study, checking and rechecking that they were really that broad, following the line of long lean hard muscle from traps to biceps, concentrating on each part rather than the whole of the man.
The two minutes went quickly and he moved into his next pose, turning to place his back to Carol's side of the room this time, his arms raised, his hands resting on his nape.
"See? Amazing tats." Glenn murmured.
"Silence, remember Mr. Rhee?" Ogden admonished as she walked by behind them, checking their work. "Try for more ease in your marks—relax your hand, you're too tight. Use your whole field, go big."
As the professor walked away Andrea leaned close to Carol.
"Get him to turn around again and I'll go big." Andrea chortled softly in Carol's ear.
"How old are you?" Carol whispered and made a disgusted face at her friend, nudging her back to her own space.
Carol was fascinated by the twin devils climbing his shoulder and focused her attention there to try to capture the complexities of them, but suffering her friends' distractions, only got a rough start before he moved again. This pose turned him in profile to her and the long muscular line of his back as it curved down to his behind was simply perfection. Carol carefully unpinned and pulled the page she been working on off her easel revealing the clean one next in line and used almost the whole sheet, practically life size, to try to capture what she saw. Her hand flew over the paper fluidly, in the zone, recreating hip and thigh, the Venus girdle of muscle differentiating his abdominals from his groin and then there it was; the edge of the smooth crest and flared head just visible beyond the juncture where leg turned to torso. Swallowing hard, she lightly sketched it in, chiding herself just as she'd done to Andrea. She was a grown-up—she'd been married for Christ's sake-why should the sight of a penis throw her in a tizzy?
And then he changed pose again, coming full circle, facing Carol, Andrea and Glenn full frontal.
Carol's eyes stayed where they had been focused during the profile position, frozen, staring, silently apologizing to Andrea and feeling a little sorry for herself with the realization that her ex had, relatively speaking, so little to offer. She knew male models had tricks to keep from getting hard, cold shower beforehand, cold room to pose in, reciting or picturing the least sexy things possible, so she wondered if this was him quiescent, what would it…what would he be like when…
Carol swallowed hard and then ripped off another page, the sound of tearing paper seeming to echo in the silent room above the soft whooshed whispers of pencil on paper. Wincing, her eyes involuntarily rose to his face again, and damn it of the son of a bitch wasn't smirking at her, his eyes flashing with mischief, hardly the bland cipher a figure drawing model was supposed to be. Again Carol's hand moved across the white surface, this time quickly capturing that arched brow, dancing eyes, those high cheekbones, that pointed chin, the strong jaw and the strong column of his neck all framed by that wild mop of hair falling over his forehead.
"Very nice, Carol!" Professor Ogden said in a warm tone from over Carol's shoulder, loud enough for the whole class to hear. "Though this is figure drawing, not portraiture," she continued with a small bit of censure.
"I'm sorry –I just—" Carol began, but the Prof. patted her shoulder comfortingly, telling her,
"It really is very good." And then she squeezed her way through the small space between Carol and Glenn's stations so she could hand Daryl his robe, which he donned casually, not like he'd been embarrassed in any way to have everyone in the room see his body.
"All right, fifteen minute break—remember no food in the studio and no smoking on University property!" Ogden reminded them and Daryl grunted and pulled out a Nicorette blister pack from his robe pocket, popping one of the pieces of nicotine gum into his mouth.
Most people quickly left the room, heading out for a snack or bathroom break, but a couple of the students remained, including Carol and the girl opposite her in the room.
"Can I get you a soda or anything?" Beth, the doe-eyed beauty queen asked Daryl as she came out from around her easel into the model dais space.
"Nah, I drink anything Imma have to take a piss before I'm done with all this fuckin' artsy fartsy bullshit." He drawled in a slow South Georgia twang, scratching at his belly, making Beth blink at him, wide eyed.
"Oh….well…oh. Okay…sorry?" Beth sputtered, backing away and fleeing the room, her face flushing red.
"That wasn't very nice." Carol said in her lighter drawl, continuing to work on her portrait of Daryl instead of taking the break, leaving them alone in the room.
"How old is she? Twelve?" Daryl said dismissively, strolling towards her on those long legs.
"How old are you?" Carol asked, frowning—it was hard to tell. She'd thought at first he was a college student, but as she studied his face more closely she thought older; something about his eyes…
"Twenty-seven." Daryl said easily, "You?"
"Thirty-one." Carol said unashamedly. She was proud to have survived the hell of her twenties and was looking forward to the rest of her thirties and beyond; free to do whatever the hell she wanted to do.
"Cool." Daryl said, nodding, "I like a woman with some miles on her." He turned sideways so he could come between her and Glenn's easels and stood next to her so she could see her work.
Carol continued to draw, doing her best to ignore his closeness, his clean masculine scent, his entirely disturbing presence making the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand up at attention.
"Fuck me, Carol, you're an artist." Daryl exclaimed quietly, sounding impressed with what he saw. Others began filtering back into the room and after a brief glance up at them Daryl leaned closer, his lips to her ear.
Carol froze, her cheeks pinkening—he seemed to be making a habit of getting her to do that—and her hand stilled on the paper.
"That was an offer…in case you were wondering." Daryl said, his mint tinged breath warm on the side of her face. And then he was gone, walking around the back of the room to check out the rest of the students' work, engaging some of them in conversation as well, but his eyes always seemed to find her again, full of warm interest.
Did he just? What? Proposition her? Carol's mind scurried around like a little gray mouse looking for a way into the farmhouse to escape the winter cold.
She was drawn out of her reverie by the return of Andrea and Glenn, who sneaked her some forbidden peanut M&Ms which Carol gratefully popped in her mouth, feeling a little light headed.
"I think you were inspired." Andrea said, looking at the portrait.
"I know I was." Glenn sighed, earning him a pinch from Andrea, making him add defensively, "Hey, the dude is hot. Don't tell me if you weren't exclusive you wouldn't do that."
"I certainly would." Andrea agreed and then looked speculatively at Carol. "You know there is someone in our little group who isn't in a relationship…"
Carol let her gaze find Daryl, who flashed her a grin before he sobered and he moved back towards the dais to get back to work.
"What do you say Carol?" Glenn teased, "You ready to give Daryl a tumble?"
Wasn't that the point of her new life? Carol thought, that she was free now? Free to do whatever or whoever the hell she wanted to do? She was tired of her at ease pose; resting, waiting, recovering…it was time to get on with it…take that first step…
The artist stood and pushed against her easel, forcing the same scraping squeak from it as she had accidentally done earlier. Daryl's head came up and his eyes met hers again, his head tilting slightly in a silent question. Carol slowly nodded her head up and down and silently mouthed the word "Yes."
Daryl looked surprised, then pleased, that full on dimpled smile lighting his face and warming his eyes as he returned the nod.