Clown Girl - Monica Drake [18]
When we met, Rex was a model. I was a student, late for drawing class. He was already naked on a pedestal, posed on a draped white sheet. He had the knotted biceps of a gymnast, the rock-solid terrain of a dancer’s thighs. It was winter. He was pale except for a blue lined tattoo of fish that swam around one arm.
Ta da! Magic.
We were a silent movie, Rex and me, that first day, in a class full of students. His eyes shifted toward me, then away, then back. I looked down as I set up my easel. I started to draw, and looked up. Our eyes met. I dropped my charcoal and stepped forward to pick the charcoal up—stepped closer to the pedestal where Rex stood, naked. He watched as I stepped in. I looked up and at the same time bent down, and with one hand groped for the charcoal stick on the floor. Then Rex was a whole geography that loomed over me, the lines of his muscles, shape of his bones, curls in his hair, and I wanted to move to that country, that continent. He was the Man in the Moon, the Eiffel Tower, Apollo, Dionysus. I didn’t have to put Rex on a pedestal, because he was already there. Posed.
My face was hot. Something inside me tickled.
He knew I looked with more than an interest in light and shadow, contour and planes. When it was break, Rex reached for his robe. We, students, were the audience, he was the show. He pulled the belt of his robe around his hips, ran a hand over his dark hair, stepped off the pedestal, and turned to me.
Then I was part of his show. Other students pretended not to watch. I brushed charcoal from my hands. My hands were hot, and the coal stuck in a black dust.
Rex walked around the edge of my drawing board to look at my charcoal drawing of him naked—Yikes! There it was: penis, dick, cock, peter, willy, wanker, forced meats, soda jerk. Call it what you want, but it’s the hardest part of a naked man to sketch. A penis always looks too big or too fat, except for when it looks too small. Too oceanographic, a sea creature. I know, I’ve worked at it long and hard, and working at drafting a dick only makes it worse; too much study and the organ is like something from the Art of the Insane, pure fixation. Carefully done, the lines of a penis grow overly detailed, painful in their stiffness, until you’ve drawn the penis like a second figure alongside the larger body. It’s a tiny man, to stand for all men. A dick.
Hidden or blurred, it’s as though the artist is afraid of seeing something clearly, afraid to look straight on, to take the bull by the horn, as they say. I’m sure Michelangelo gave his famous David sculpture those massive, oversized hands not so much to convey the power of God working through David, but more to distract from the meager proportions of David’s sculpted dick.
Rex was tall, and more than proportionate. The first time I drew him I worked to make his penis look real: a dark cluster of charcoal lines, curling hairs, deep shadows. Obsessive. Inspired. I didn’t expect the model to step from his pedestal and see that my eyes had traced every line, curve, and fold. He nodded. Maybe he liked the way I handled his dick. Who knows? He broke through the silent movie then and said, “Take your break outside?” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his bathrobe pocket.
I didn’t smoke, but said, “Sure, OK.” He pulled on unlaced, paint-stained work boots, no socks. I followed him into the hall, downstairs, and out of the building. It was raining out and we stood under the building’s overhang, apart from other smokers. Rex stood in his bathrobe, naked underneath, as though that was normal.
“Those your pins?” he asked.
I folded my hands over my chest, felt myself blush.
He nodded toward the building, the classroom. Ah, pins! Of course. My juggling pins were in a backpack. They were too long for the pack and the silver, black, and white ends poked out the top as three round knobs.
“You juggle?” His breath was a white trail of smoke, teeth yellowed and perfectly square.
“A little. Just learning pins.” I was nervous. Pins are harder than balls