There was a knock at the door. I could hear it open and a woman’s voice calling.
“Gale? May I come in?”
“Come on in!” Gale called over her shoulder. To me she said, “Tammy’s my next-door neighbour. She’s really nice.”
She was, I thought to myself, really cute, too. Not much older than me, she was very tall for a woman and slender in a exceedingly good way, Tammy had long, dark hair flowing loose over her shoulders, blue eyes and a sinuous walk that contrasted oddly with her apparent shyness when Gale introduced us. When we shook hands, her long fingers were soft, her grip very gentle, as if afraid I would squeeze too hard. I tried not to, let go the instant her grasp loosened.
“I know I’m early,” she said, “but I thought you might need some help setting up.”
“We’re good,” Gale replied, “but find a chair. Ty, might I ask you to pour for us? I’ll have white, please.”
“Red for me, please. It’s ‘Ty’?”
I smiled. It was a common question. “Yes — short for ‘Tyson’.”
“And you’re a… poet?” I could see she was trying to make conversation. She had a sweet voice, high without being girlish.
“Aspiring,” I smiled. “Not particularly good, yet. There’s more to it than I’d thought originally.”
I asked an obvious question.
“May I ask what you do, Tammy?”
She gave me a half-smile.
“I’m a stay-at-home mom.”
“The most important job I can think of,” I replied, quite honestly.
That got me the other half of the smile.
“Sometimes, but it’s also nice to get out of the house for a bit.”
“How old are your kids?”
“Danny is four and Ariel just turned three.”
“Enough to keep you busy. Is your husband sitting tonight?”
Her face fell.
“I’m sorry if I…” I started.
Gale stepped in. “Tammy’s a widow, Ty. Charlie died in a climbing accident two years ago.”
“Oh. I am so sorry.”
She dabbed a corner of one eye with a forefinger.
“It’s OK. Really.”
“You still miss him. I can see that.”
“Oh, yes. I do.”
I felt as awkward as I’d ever been.
Way to start out the evening on a relaxed note, fathead!
She looked up at me, smiled ruefully.
“It’s OK. Truly. You couldn’t know.”
I was saved by the doorbell. I rose when two other women entered with Gale.
“Heather, Quinn, I’d like to introduce Ty, our model for the evening,” Gale said.
Heather, a very cute woman in her late 20s, stepped forward, offering me her hand. Curvaceous, just short of voluptuous, Heather had curly red hair, a brilliant smile and soft brown eyes. Her handshake was firmer than Tammy’s.
“Hello, Ty,” she said. Her voice resonated all through me, smoke and old cognac.
The third woman, Quinn, was by far the shortest, barely five feet tall. In her early 30s, she had a nice figure, a spunky, devil-take-you-all attitude and a gutsy swagger in her walk. Stopping just in front of me, hands on her hips, her eyes started at my feet and ran up to my head, her own head bent back in an exaggerated gesture. She turned to Gale.
“Wow! You weren’t kidding!”
Looking back at me, she grinned.
“How’s the weather up there, Slick?”
I’d heard the joke before, but could see there was no malice or mockery, just friendly jesting.
“Warm and sunny thanks. Pardon my asking, Princess, but have you ever thought of suing the government for building the ground so close to your butt?”
Her bray of delighted laughter filled the room. The others joined in. It was a good start, I thought. Quinn and I locked eyes for a second. We understood each other pretty well, I thought, would get along just fine.
“What will you two have to drink?” Gale said.
+
“It doesn’t bother me, Heather,” I said, chewing on a ham roll. “I’d grew up in a pretty relaxed family, which is to say that casual nudity was accepted and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Mom and Dad had an in-ground pool at the farm and skinny-dipping was pretty much the norm if there weren’t guests.”
She smiled, tilted her head to one side. I continued.
“I was actually sort of surprised when I got to school and learned how embarrassed some people could be, how shy they were.
“Now? Well, if people want to pay me to sit on a stool while they practise their sketching, that’s just fine with me.”
Her hand came out, touched my forearm.
“You’re pretty unusual, Ty. You know that, right?”
I shook my head.
“I prefer to think of everybody else as unusual, Heather. I’m pretty normal by my own standards.”
She chuckled happily.
“Actually, posing gives me a paid hour in which to work on composition, an hour in which I can ignore my phone, an hour in which I can’t goof off and waste time on Twitter. I get some pretty good poems started when posing. The hard part is remembering them until I get home and write them down.”
“Oh, that’s right. Gale said you’re a poet.”
“Hoping to be. Third year English major at this point.”
The five of us had had half an hour of polite conversation, general cocktail party light chatter. I found myself growing to like all of them. Tammy was woefully shy, but seemed to open up after a while and I knew enough now to tread carefully. Quinn was as bubbly and as brash as they come, but there was a solid mind and sparkling wit inside that pretty head and I found her both interesting and attractive. Gale and I were already comfortable with each other. I admired her smarts and her 40-something figure was still striking, still caught my eye.
And Heather? I’ll confess it. I have a thing for redheads. A serious thing. Heather had my complete, puppy-dog I’ll-roll-over-if-you-rub-my-tummy attention from the moment we’d been introduced.
Gale rose, caught everybody’s eyes.
“OK, let’s get some work done, folks.”
With that, the other three followed her towards the studio; I headed into the bedroom.
I hung my clothes up on some hooks on the back of the door. There was a full-length mirror on the wall and I took a moment to comb my hair. That done, I took another to examine myself. I wasn’t displeased. Six feet four, 225 pounds, buff but not quite ripped. Not yet. My shoulders were broad enough, my waist as narrow as it would ever go, but I figured I had to work off another five pounds or so to get the look I wanted. Nothing too extreme, but it would give me better muscle definition, especially my abs and pecs.
So, yeah, I’m a bodybuilder. I enjoy it; it’s a challenge. I’ve invested a lot of time getting to where I am.
Donning my housecoat, I stepped into the studio. Four sets of eyes jumped to me, noted bare legs, looked quickly away.
Gale spoke again, almost in her professorial voice.
“Before we begin, some formalities.
“First off, Ty, please confirm that you are over the age of 19 and that you understand that you will be expected to be pose nude today.”
I smiled, nodded. “Yes.”
“And do you understand that we will be producing images of you while nude and that those images will remain the property of the artists and, further, that they may be disposed of as the artists see fit?”
“Yes.”
She had a couple of other questions, ones pretty well following the terms of the artist’s release I’d signed earlier.
“Thank you, Ty.” Her head turned to the other three.
“Ladies, a reminder of the basic rules. Ty is a professional, well, semi-pro model. He is to be treated with respect. No touching, no staring, no comments on his body, no sexual inuendo., no…”