It’s realizing, for the first time ever, that I may possess a teensy tiny bit of sexual power. It’s realizing, in spite of my will to succeed based on intelligence alone, that Teddy might not have been entirely crazy to suggest my body could be a strong asset for me.
There’s a knock at the door. I clasp my shirt to my chest and pray that Teddy doesn’t come marching up the stairs to find me like this.
“Annie? You awake?” Gigi loud-whispers. “My feet are killing me. Would you massage them?”
I don’t make a peep, and she finally pads back to her room. I slip my shirt back on and decide to force myself to sleep (because I’ll be joining Ornithology Club, which starts at 7:00 A.M., which is 4:00 A.M. back home, which will feel terrible tomorrow). I reach to draw my shade. And at that exact moment, just as I let my eyes fall on the Zin mansion for what I thought would be a nanosecond, I glimpse someone standing at a window there.
No, not someone. Two people.
I can see only their silhouettes, but it’s clear one is a man and the other a woman, and something tells me the man is not Dr. Zin. Too lean. Which means it’s Ben. With a girl. A girl who is reaching for him…not in a motherly way.
The air empties out of my room. Everything deflates at the unmistakable sight of Ben with some girl.
“Of course he has a girlfriend,” I sigh, drawing the shade. He was out with her tonight, and he brought her back to his place on that Ducati. “Of course.”
And just like that, everything I thought I saw in the mirror disappears like the candlelight I extinguish between my fingertips. As I get into bed, my new confidence, like a stream of smoke, floats away, rising to twist around the beams of the attic ceiling and, in the darkness, disappear. Just in time for my door to squeak open. Just in time for Teddy to tiptoe up the stairs, stand over me, and scribble something on his notepad.
THE ART OF THE STRIPTEASE. REMOVING LAYER UPON layer of clothing to expose the flesh in small, seductive increments. Tantalizing. Like Salome’s dance of the seven veils, Mata Hari’s gradual shedding of nearly every garment save one, the burlesque dancer’s beginning to end. Enticing…
…and clearly not something our nude model has even considered, given how rapidly he drops his robe. Blink and you’d have missed it.
Somehow I’ve made it through a night of tossing and turning, nightmares of finding my mom on the kitchen floor plaguing my mind. Somehow I’ve endured a broken coffee maker at Gigi’s. And a cold sprint to school, during which Ben zipped by me on his Ducati—without even pausing. And an hour spent craning my neck as I watched the sky during Ornithology Club.
Somehow I’ve survived the night to make it to my morning art workshop led by Garnet. This week’s lesson will be on the human form. Which is why a grown man now stands completely naked just beyond my reach—not that I’m about to reach.
Somehow I’ve made it here. To where a penis dangles in front of me.
As the swoosh of his robe leaving his body still reverberates, as we sit at our workstations with pencil in hand, twenty eyebrows go up and ten chins go down. Only yours truly and Garnet seem unfazed by this man’s very exposed, very chiseled self. (And I’m sure Garnet’s lack of surprise isn’t due to the fact that she’s helped her dad dress hundreds of naked cadavers.) To my surprise, even Harper is blushing. To no one’s surprise, Lotus looks like she might cry.
“Feast your eyes,” our model Trey exclaims, drawing his hand down his body. He’s a member of the faculty, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him. He’s nowhere near as hard on the eyes as most of the teachers here. “I am man. Hear me roar.”
Pilot, who sits across from me, snickers at the same time I do. But no one else makes a sound. Probably because they’re all shocked, some with jealousy, some with fear—others, dare I read into Plum’s pout, with lust.
Garnet simply sweeps the robe from the floor and tries to keep a straight face. “Thank you, Mr. Sedmoney,” she says. “We appreciate you taking the time out of your teaching schedule to help us this week.”
“I don’t have any classes first period, so no worries.” He swings his gaze around the room and settles on Harper, who is practically gyrating in her chair in an effort to get his attention.
“Well, then,” Garnet says, “if you could sit still like a…like a tableau vivant.”
“Tableau vivant?” he repeats. “Mmm, French. Sexy.” He rests his chin on his fist like The Thinker and gazes around the room from the corner of his eye.
Seeing Trey in his pose, Garnet seems at a loss for words, so she turns her attention on us, on the sea of crimson faces and wide eyes. “This is a refresher in gesture and proportion,” she explains. “Learn to break the body into manageable pieces as opposed to…to…to trying to swallow the form whole.” Immediately, she shakes her head; she seems relieved that none of us have the cojones to laugh at what she just said.
We have a little under an hour to try not to stare at this man who seems intent on getting a reaction from us. He crosses his legs. Uncrosses them. Opens them wide. Stretches them long. Does everything but hold an arrow-shaped sign to his crotch and shout, “Look at this!” I painstakingly work to replicate his form on eleven-by-seventeen sheets of grid paper as Garnet strolls between our workstations, looking over our shoulders and offering advice before, returning to her desk, losing herself in her own sketches.
As the minutes tick by, Harper and Plum fall into one of those our-conversation-is-so-awesome-you-should-all-hear-it chats that I do my best not to listen to. It’s about the dance this Saturday, which Harper’s Social Committee is organizing and which I don’t even want to think about. Unfortunately, those girls make it hard to ignore them—so hard that a few people, unable to endure another twang, squeal, or yip, demand they shut up.
“Ferme la bouche!” Augusto cries. “We do not care about your idiotic clothing for that idiotic dance.”
“Idiotic stripper clothing!” Emo Boy tacks on.
Lotus frowns. “Please, everyone. Let’s not argue.”
“We didn’t ask y’all to eavesdrop,” Harper snorts. “Can’t help if we’re so interesting you’ve gotta pay attention to us.”
Plum glares at Emo Boy, clutches her boobs, pushes them up, and adds, “Don’t even play like you don’t want this. You’d kill for this.”
“If you mean kill myself to avoid going near it.”
With a high-pitched huff, Plum leaps to her feet. She opens her mouth wide like she’s about to shout something terrible, but she stops herself unexpectedly. And, to my surprise, sneers my way. “Oh, whatever!”
Shoving his hair out of his eyes, Emo Boy stands, marches up to Plum, and shoves her in the chest. Hard.
“No
