THE NAKED TRUTH

All characters are over the age of 18 at the time of any sexual activity.

Dear readers,

* * * * * * *

"Alright folks, let's all recenter."

The professor of my mixed media art class used a calming, wise voice that I always thought would be appropriate for an elementary school class. From the first day, we were told to call her simply Jan. Not Professor or Dr. Carmichael. I only knew her bona fides because I read the entire syllabus before spring term started.

"Very good, thank you," she continued, as the group of twenty or so of us quieted down. "Now as most of you are probably aware, today we start on our unit on the human form. While probably more familiar to our mind's eye than a bowl of fruit or a mountain landscape, I'll bet you'll find people much more challenging to represent."

"Dude, it's finally happening," said Donny under his breath, leaning toward me.

I arched an eyebrow and deliberately kept my focus on the careworn woman at the front of the room.

"You think she'll be like, you know... totally nude?" he whispered.

"Who said it's a she?" I said with a smirk. I was pretty sure I remembered Jan talking about a specifically female model for this unit, but guessed my dorm neighbor hadn't been paying much attention on the first day of class. Our instructor spoke again before I could catch his reaction.

"Alright then, if you'll all follow me to the atelier and bring your supplies..."

The class rose from our chairs and gathered our choice of medium. Charcoal, colored pencils, and a large sketchbook for me, an iPad and electronic pencil for Donny. We followed Jan out the side door of our usual studio, and into a narrow hallway towards a different corner of the building.

Jan stood near the door, ushering people through as the group dwindled. I was a bit surprised when she fell in step next to me.

"Hello, Sage," she said warmly as we walked. "I'm very curious to see how your experience plays here." The professor cocked her head and flashed me a knowing smile. "Your work showed some obvious skill in many of the intermediate forms."

Although it was an introductory class, everyone had been given the opportunity to submit a portfolio of work if they wanted specific guidance. I'd hand-picked a few of the drawings I'd done in high school, a collection I was proud of that didn't sway too far toward suggestive. Most of my work tended toward manga and anime styles, the proportions of certain elements a bit more pronounced than others. Stuff I drew for my buddies, usually on request, skewed toward, well... as you could imagine.

"Oh, thanks," I said, surprised that she'd even remembered. "Should be a new challenge, right?"

"Indeed," she said with a nod, cutting ahead to open the door at the end of the hall. As she pulled it open, warm light spilled out into the hallway.

We filed into the larger studio, a huge open room with high ceilings and full windows on two walls. Skylights with translucent glass let even more diffuse, natural light into the space. Narrow workbenches lined the two opposite walls, the splattering of years of dried paint covering them almost art in its own right. We made use of a stack of folding chairs, stands, and easels as appropriate, all surrounding a kind of multi-level plinth that was obviously to be our point of focus.

"Very good," said Jan, her gaze sweeping us. "Now, a little expectation setting for our session today. Our model is uncompensated, and participating only to further your journey as artists. She is familiar with the process and will attempt to make our session productive and comfortable."

"See, told you it was a chick," Donny whispered.

"Shut the fuck up, Donny," I hissed back, suppressing the grin that usually accompanied my overused Lebowski reference. We'd agreed about a month in to fall term that I got one of them a week. I'd learned to make the STFUDs count, and this seemed like a worthwhile use.

"I'll ask that you do your best to make her comfortable as well," Jan continued. "It will be up to our model to what state of undress she's comfortable with, her pose, expression. Now..." she said, sinking into an even more calming tone, "for some of you, this level of nudity might be new." She paused and the expected quiet snickering circled the room before she continued.

"I would ask that you show respect to our model and each other, and refrain from unhelpful commentary."

I could have sworn she gave Donny a briefly pointed glance.

"I'll be wandering the room and observing. If you have questions or need help, simply ask. Alright, without further preamble, I think we're ready."

The instructor strolled to a door in a gap between workbenches and knocked lightly. It swung open and our model strode out.

A collective intake of breath echoed around the room, at least among most of the guys. Even though she wore only a robe, I still would have described her as stunning. Her face was objectively beautiful. High cheekbones, a smallish nose with an adorable almost-upward point to it. The feature that drew my eye, at least initially, was her hair. While I'd been prepared to get very far away from comic books and graphic novels in this exercise, her bright, almost-silver strands would have been quite at home on a busty anime girl.

I could see a few warm highlights when the light caught it just right as she walked, suggesting she was probably naturally a light blonde at one point. My eyes finally wandered down her body as she made her way up onto the plinth, still wrapped in the robe. She certainly didn't have unnatural anime proportions, but the gentle curve to her hips and the way her bust stretched the robe was quite alluring for a real, flesh and blood woman.

Her skin was fair, bordering on pale, but again, the natural light gave her a warm glow that seemed to emanate from within rather than simply being revealed by good illumination. I couldn't tell if she was wearing makeup, the smooth even tones of her exposed skin were the same everywhere, with maybe a slight rosy blush on her cheeks.

Our model stepped up one level on the platform and gazed around the assemblage of students.

"Well hi there, all!" she said brightly

Her voice somehow perfectly matched her, at least in my head.

Jan smiled at our muse and addressed the class again. "As this is a study on how to represent the human form in your chosen medium, I'd recommend you try and replicate our gracious model as closely as possible. However, this is art! Follow your inspiration."

I glanced at Donny, who was indeed looking appropriately inspired. When I turned my gaze back to the girl, I found her at least briefly looking directly at me.

"I guess you're waiting for me then," she said with a pleasant glance around the room.

Two distinct emotions immediately clashed in my brain as polite chuckles reverberated through the room. I was a bit surprised to realize that my embarrassment for her, or something like it, was the overriding feeling squeezing my adrenal gland. I could feel my cheeks getting hot, as if the bare skin she was about to show us should make me self-conscious instead of her.

As she slowly undid the tie around her waist, the obviously more visual part of my mind took over. The robe slowly slid around her shoulders, then arms and chest before fluttering to the floor. She unceremoniously kicked it aside before sitting primly on one of the upper stair-step levels of the plinth. While she took obvious care to keep her legs together as she bent at the knees, her breasts were now on bare, glorious display.

I stared at her face almost unflinchingly for what felt like an eternity before finally dropping my gaze to her body. Her breasts weren't overlarge, but they also weren't small. Like her nose, her delicate pink areolae and nipples might have had a slight upward angle. The beautiful swell of her chest collaborated with her taut, narrow waist and rounded hips to form a sensuous hourglass, even while sitting. I was no stranger to nudity in art, and while some might prefer a bit more here or a bit less there, I would have described her form as perfect. At least to me.

"Do your best," she said brightly, with more than a hint of challenge in her pretty voice. The look on her face was now as far from embarrassed as I could imagine. Her eyes sparkled as they met the pointed gazes of the strangers watching her.

I had a brief thought that neither Jan or our model herself had shared her name. I supposed that was to maintain some bit of anonymity, even though she was now obviously rather intimately sharing with us.

"Alright then folks, you have an hour," said Jan from a corner of the room. "Remember our chapter on the basic building block shapes, start there. Get as much of the framework as you can while we have access to our beautiful and generous volunteer. After an hour..." she chuckled, "you'll have to rely on your memory. And no pictures," she added pointedly.

I instinctively turned my head to glance at Donny, who already had a live camera view of the plinth on his iPad screen. I glared at him until he closed the app, the shutter button fortunately untouched. He shrugged somewhat apologetically.

"I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to do this," he whispered.

"Remember the exercises. Start with ovals, get the proportions right. Watch me."

I popped the cap off a charcoal pencil and began to draw. I'd done this a thousand times, and even though the circumstances were quite different, I knew the shapes. Torso and hips. Shoulders, upper legs, lower. Biceps and forearms, then hands. Head. The head was the most important, it needed the most detail. I could usually get the shape right in one try, but anime people were drawn to be easy to animate by human artists, not whatever miracle of nature created the person perched in front of us in her birthday suit.

"God, how do you do that so fast?" Donny said, peeling his gaze away to watch my deft strokes.

"Just practice. Go on, then."

We turned back to our respective media and continued. After a few moments I had the basic overlapping shapes outlined, then switched to my putty eraser. Slowly removing the crossing lines, the cartoonish shapes began to become more human. A small but insistent voice in my head encouraged me to simply stare at her, to take every advantage of laying my eyes on the actual flesh and blood in front of me, the most beautiful creature I'd seen in real life. My inner artist ended up winning the argument most of the time, allowing a glance only when I needed it to refine a shape, a proportion, or a detail.

I had to suppress a giggle as I glanced at Donny's iPad, he'd started with her chest. The two large perfect circles dominated the screen as he clumsily attempted to add nipples.

Twenty minutes had passed before I even started on her face. After getting the general outline right, her features were, from an outline perspective, indeed more anime-like than I would have expected. I initially did draw her eyes a bit too large to begin with, and had to erase and reshape. Another ten minutes and I was happy with the overall effect, the happy, almost excited expression on her face translated to the paper well.

Quite out of order, I hadn't yet started drawing our model's exceptional breasts. Normally the swell around the bust would be early, shaped at the beginning with the other ovals. Perhaps out of some nervous deference to her obvious sacrifice for our class, I had left them undrawn. The girl on my sketchbook looked odd without them of course, so with an uncharacteristically shaky hand, I began.

Donny stopped his own drawing to watch me, which didn't help my nerves. I forged ahead anyway, starting with the standard basic heart shape. After a few tweaks and more erasing, I had the reasonable shapes of a pair of breasts. The rounded teardrops looked accurate from my vantage, with a light smudge of charcoal in the center of each, what I hoped looked reasonably close to her areolae and nipples. I was just touching up to make sure I had the position and angle of those oh-so-important bits when I felt someone behind me.

"Not bad, Mr. Carter," said Jan warming, looking over my shoulder. "Good job with the proportions."

I willed my hand not to shake as I continued, specifically not looking at anyone or anything other than my drawing.

"Thanks, Jan."

The instructor wandered off, pointedly not bothering to glance at Donny's iPad. I grinned at nobody in particular.

Over the remaining time, I added as much basic shading as I could, trying to replicate the softness and luminance of her skin. The crease where her thighs met, under the arm propping her up on the plinth, the slight change in light where the underside of her breasts met her chest. Except for the unique tone of her hair which I'd have to figure out later, I was reasonably pleased when she spoke again.

"Well," said our model, sharing a nod with Jan, "I guess that's an hour." She smiled widely and carefully bent to retrieve the robe.

I felt the overwhelming urge to rush forward and help her put it on, as a chivalrous man might help a woman don a jacket. Obviously no such gesture happened, but I watched as the majority of her skin was gently covered by the light fabric.

"Thank you all for being so kind," she said, almost gushing as she knotted the tie around her waist.

No, thank you! My brain yelled inwardly, still wondering how she could be so calm amidst the sea of eyes that had stared at her for the last hour. My psyche was simultaneously terrified for and proud of her. The confidence she must have to sit there wearing nothing and smiling would be huge. So many times I'd wished I had the chutzpah to not care what people thought, to be able to just be. I had succeeded in some measure in the less than a year I'd been here, but my facade felt more like a house of cards than a real difference. This girl had just sat in front of twenty people for an hour... very, very naked. I couldn't even comprehend the amount or quality of whatever it would take to do that.

As we packed up our supplies, the mood in the room quickly descended from the oddly other event that had just occurred... to simply another group of kids being let out of class. I slid my sketchbook into my leather portfolio, not wanting to risk it to a stray spring shower that were all too common. Donny had already stowed his iPad and we walked out.

I risked a glance over my shoulder as we left the room, Jan was just closing the door to whatever room our muse had entered from.

"You still doing Harry Potter cards tonight or whatever?" said Donny as we walked out of the art building.

"Magic the Gathering," I said, shaking my head. "Why you gotta be like that?" I said with a grin, dropping a shoulder and shoving him toward the sidewalk.

Donny laughed, stumbling ahead into the late afternoon sun. "It's just a head trip, someone like you still playing a kids' game."

I wasn't about to have the adults play it too, douchebag discussion. Instead, I went for a quick Lightning Bolt card like any self-respecting MTG player.

"Dude, you're an engineering major... make fun of gamers and you'll end up real short on friends in life." The words sounded harsh as they left my mouth, but it had been eight months and he still ribbed me about it.

"Sorry, sorry..." he said, smiling back. "Have fun being king of the nerds, I'll probably still be studying for my calc final when you get back."

"Later," I said coolly, parting ways as we reached the sidewalk.

Since arriving in the fall, Donny had been my shared bathroom roommate. We were both freshmen, living in a quad room that was really more like an apartment. I was very glad to have at least a little of my own space, having envisioned the bunk room style dorms I'd seen in movies. Despite my parents being barely able to scrape enough together to get me to my first year of college, I saved a good portion of my paychecks from the day I turned sixteen to make sure I could afford a single room, at least for the first year. Getting a few small scholarships and some financial aid helped too, but I knew the sacrifices they were making for me to be here.

The real miracle, without overselling it too much, was me. With a bit of unintended motivation from Donny, the person I'd become closest to in the months since arriving, I'd managed to keep alive the idea that I wasn't some comic book-loving, Magic the Gathering-playing, basement-dwelling indoor kid that was simply trying to reinvent myself. I knew lots of people tried to manage the same new place, new person grift after graduating, I just never thought it would be me. And yet somehow, I was kind of pulling it off.

Donny played sports in high school, I was in AP math. He dated two cheerleaders, I had a kinda-girlfriend for a month that I was reasonably sure would tell funny stories about me to her future wife.

Somehow in the first weeks of university, I had managed to keep alive the impression that I was one of the cool kids. Maybe a little misunderstood, a little alt, but enough on the other side of the fence. In reality, I'd only come close to approaching the other side of that fence a handful of times in my short nineteen years.

I knew it was largely an outward thing. Not working at my parents' bakery anymore, I was able to let my jet-black hair grow out over the summer. The day I turned eighteen I got my ears pierced. I don't think my folks would have cared if I'd asked to do it earlier, but the act of doing it on my own was a stepping stone. Having the guts to do something as permanent as putting extra holes in my body was exhilarating and terrifying in the best of ways.

The day after graduation took my newfound confidence up another notch. One of my best friends in high school handed me an envelope after the ceremony out on the football field, no explanation, just a smile. I didn't open it until I got home. The handwritten note inside was from his mom — a gift. I knew what she did for a living, but didn't realize until I showed up at her studio the very next day that she was one of the best tattoo artists in the state.

I asked if she'd made the same offer to all her son's friends, not downplaying the generosity by any means, but I was absolutely dumbfounded when she said no. Something about me, she said introspectively, whatever her son had told her somehow put me on a different level. She told me about seeing some of my drawings in one of the school shows, and knew she had to offer her own talents as a fellow artist.

I was floored at the magnitude of the gift. I knew how much tattoos cost, and honestly would have never considered getting one. When reading the note that there would be no restrictions on the size or colors, it just felt like a sign. I brought along the original of the piece I was most proud of, the only image I'd ever created that I would even remotely consider getting permanently etched on my skin.

She stared at the thick paper and grinned, saying something along the lines of I knew that's what you'd pick. She had apparently come to the event junior year when I'd displayed it in our regional art sho. The design had felt a bit random and meaningless at the time, especially amongst my peers' less than subtle jabs at social justice, and some honestly superior works that were simply really good art