“Change.”
She stopped thinking as Seth shifted smoothly through a series of poses, all long lines and unfocused eyes. He turned as he changed postures, giving each student a different angle. It took two minutes to run through ten postures. By the last one, Arden was over her blush, more comfortable in the room.
“Time,” Micah said. “We’ll do two forties, with a break in between. Sound good to everyone?”
Seth stepped off the pedestal and waited for Micah to use blocks and blankets to support him in the pose he would hold for forty minutes. Arden sharpened her pencil and watched covertly as Micah had him sit on the pedestal—one leg stretched onto the polished parquet—then twist to his right so his right arm bore most of his weight.
“Music?” Micah asked belatedly. The standard rule of thumb for a class was that the model chose the music. If the artists didn’t like it, they wore headphones.
“Anything from my phone is fine,” Seth said without moving. “Left cargo pocket.”
Micah opened it and connected the phone to Betsy’s wireless speakers. To her surprise, the opening lines of New Orleans jazz colored the air. Definitely not what she expected.
She leaned over to Betsy’s easel. “This is ridiculous,” she murmured under her breath. “Mom’s so medicated she doesn’t know what century it is, Garry’s not returning my calls, and Neil says we should prepare for the worst.”
“Life is ridiculous,” Betsy shot back. “Is this taking your mind off your life?”
“Yes,” Arden said.
“Then shut up and draw.”
“Ladies,” Micah said gently as he passed behind them. “The pose.”
That was the point. When Betsy suggested the class, she had been thinking of Arden’s panic attacks, but now any break at all from the swirling hell of her life was not only welcome but vital.
Seth was different. Rather than lulling Arden into a sense of beauty and order, stylized into a smooth imperturbability, she hardly knew where to start—the taut swell of buttock braced on the pedestal, the sword or dragon, the way his toes spread and flexed against the floor—yes. Start there. Toes. She lightly sketched the shape of his foot, oval, the arch a pale shadowy arc underneath, before defining the slope of his toes, rectangular, then making each a distinct, flattened circle topped with toenails, a tuft of hair gilded by the sunlight. Narrow to the bones of the ankle, that defenseless bump of bone, the Achilles tendon, then the curve of his calf, an odd slope of muscle, not rounded like hers, but a plane that dropped off into space then reappeared as the back of his knee, bent at a slight angle, the back of his thigh, the muscles taut oblongs narrowing at the connections with hip and knee. Kneecap, a circle, the bulge of muscle alongside the knee.
His penis hung soft between his spread legs. She sketched in a suggestion before continuing the line from his pubic bone to his other leg, bent and dangling in the space between the table legs and top. The proportions stymied her until Micah stopped at her side.
“Don’t think too much,” he said. “Find the essence of the pose, the line of energy,” he said quietly, one arm folded across his abdomen, his chin braced on his thumb, his fingers obscuring his lips.
Arden blinked, then looked again at Seth. If she had to use one phrase to describe the essence of the pose, his energy in the room, it would be hidden in plain sight. He was physically there, irresistible, but somehow not in his body.
Don’t make this more difficult than it is, Arden. Just draw his body.
She re-created the twisted line from his hipbone to his opposite shoulder, then added his arm, braced to hold his weight, and the table under the palm. Micah nodded, gave her an abstracted smile, and moved away to stand beside Libby.
When it came, Micah’s soft “Time” took her by surprise. Seth waited until all four artists had set down their pencils and stepped back before he abandoned the pose. He snagged his boxers and shorts from the floor, stepped into them, zipped and buttoned the fly, then stretched side to side while his spine cracked all the way down. Carlotta brought out chilled white wine and water, trays of grapes, cheese, crackers, hummus, vegetables for dipping, olives, little pastries and cakes, setting them on the dining room table next to plates, napkins, glasses.
“Well?” Micah began, looking first at Libby.
“I can tell it’s been years since I’ve done that,” Libby said, cradling her wineglass between her palms.
Arden took two of Carlotta’s truffles and nodded a yes, please to Betsy, who filled her wineglass. Seth poured water into a wine goblet, filled his plate, and sat down across from her. Close up his bare chest was even more daunting.
“Betsy?”