Adventures of a Nude Model: Complete Read online

  Adventures of a Nude Art Model: Complete

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ADVENTURES OF A NUDE ART MODEL:

  COMPLETE

  by

  CASSIE CAINE

  Copyright Cassie Caine 2012, 2013. All rights reserved.

  Originally published as Adventures of a Nude Model and Adventures of a Nude Art Model Part 2

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sophie sat at her desk on the first floor of the Dalchester Public Library, stifling a yawn. It was only just past ten O'clock but she felt half asleep. The day seemed to stretch endlessly ahead of her.

  Usually she very much enjoyed her job, dealing with people's enquiries, bustling around among the shelves. After almost twenty years it still gave her a childish thrill every time she stamped out a book with a satisfying whump. But this morning it was raining heavily, a summer downpour that drummed on the windows and made the library seem stuffy and dank. The weather had kept everybody at home, which meant there was no one to help.

  It wasn't just that, though. Sophie was usually a cheery soul, but last week she'd turned forty, and she was struggling to come to terms with this watershed. Forty! She was getting old. Not that she looked old. She still had a cute, almost girlish air to her, what with her slender 5'6'' frame and her small, pretty features set in a striking oval face under a ragged bob of shiny chestnut hair. But it was hard to ignore the fact that time was marching on. It was the sort of thing that made you question whether you were making the most of your life.

  What life? she thought, suddenly becoming gloomy. You've always been a bit on the boring side, Sophie… and now you're middle-aged as well.

  Sophie frowned, and then just as suddenly chuckled to herself. Self-pity didn't suit her. She could never keep it up for long. Thinking she might feel fresher and brighter without it, she peeled her tight sweater up over her head. As she wriggled, she was aware of her T-shirt riding up almost to her bra. She didn't rush to yank it back down, since there was no one around to see.

  She was wrong about that, however. When she finally succeeded in getting her head out of the sweater, she saw a girl standing there waiting for assistance.

  “Sorry! Got myself in a muddle there! How can I help?”

  The girl laughed. She was very pretty in a tawny way, as pretty as anyone could be who had just stepped in from a deluge and was wearing a dripping anorak.

  “I was wondering… do you have a noticeboard for local events?”

  “It's downstairs. There's a place for loose fliers too. Would you like me to put something up for you?”

  “If it wouldn't be too much trouble.” A smile flashed, and the girl went delving into her shoulder-bag. “I'm an artist, and I'm trying to get a nude figure drawing class off the ground. Got funding for it, just need the bodies… Here we are.”

  Taking care not to get it wet, the girl handed her a glossy A4 sheet. Nude figure drawing class, it read. Tutored by award-winning fine artist Clodagh McDowell, this class aims to reinvent life drawing in an informal, intimate atmosphere. Come and experience the fun of drawing from live nude models – you'll soon be hooked. The words trailed down one side of the page but the lion's share of space was taken up with a colour-washed pencil drawing of a naked girl, seen from the back, stretching, her arms clasped behind her head.

  Noticing that Sophie was looking at the drawing, the girl, Clodagh, laughed pleasantly and said, “I've got some plain ones too if you'd rather not put that one up.”

  You could see the girl's bottom and the edge of one breast, that was all. Sophie didn't think it would be a problem. “No, it's fine,” she said, jumping up from her chair. “I'll put it up right now and run off some extra copies so people can take one home. Can't draw for toffee myself, sadly, but it looks really interesting, so good luck with it.”

  “Well, if you'd really like to be involved, I'm also looking for nude models.”

  Sophie's face must have been a picture of consternation. Clodagh burst into laughter. “Whoops – see I've stunned you into silence. Well, posing nude isn't for everyone. It's the sort of thing you either love the idea of or you absolutely hate it.”

  “I don't absolutely hate it,” Sophie said quickly, not wanting to seem impolite.

  “Then you must love it.” Clodagh gave another one of her flashing, ear-to-ear grins before turning on her heel. “Anyway, thanks tons!”

  Sophie smiled uncertainly as she watched the girl go trotting off down the stairs towards the exit. She stood there for a moment, feeling a little numb from the exchange. Then, slowly, bits and pieces of it began to sink in, and she suddenly felt the need to sit down.

  Would you believe it? A complete stranger, a girl nearly young enough to be her daughter, had just invited her to take off all her clothes for the sake of art. Sophie was friendly and approachable, so she was always getting asked to do things, but even so...

  She had to admit that she was actually quite flattered. She thought back to her tummy-flash. The girl must have liked what she saw. Otherwise she wouldn't have been so keen to see the rest. Not bad for an old lady of forty. Plus, it was reasonable to suppose that Clodagh had asked her not just because she liked her looks but because she liked her as a person, sensed that she would be jolly to work with, could perhaps contribute something to that informal, intimate atmosphere mentioned in the flier. And that was flattering too, perhaps even more flattering; it was always nice when young people seemed to think you were worth knowing.

  But then she thought of what was actually involved. She looked at the drawing of the naked girl. That could be a drawing of her. Her bare bottom, her arching back, twisted slightly so that the swell of one breast – her breast – was visible. And look at the flier. Fliers for life drawing classes were usually quite terse and uninformative, downplaying the nudity aspect, but Clodagh had gone the opposite way. The word nude was all over the place. It had kept on popping up in her conversation too. “I'm also looking for nude models,” she'd said. It was as if she'd wanted to underline to Sophie just how bare and naked she would have to be.

  As she thought of herself standing exposed in front of Clodagh and God knows who else, she coloured up and her heart began to thump. It was frightening, a little sickening, but exciting as well. At any rate, her encounter with Clodagh had accomplished one thing. She was no longer in the least sleepy. She seized the flier and, chestnut bob swaying, denim-clad backside swinging, marched across the floor to the photocopier.

  By the time she'd run off thirty copies, a handful of people had finally percolated up to the second floor, bringing a smell of rain and wet clothes with them. As she walked past them towards the stairs, she suddenly had the absurd feeling that they were all imagining her naked.

  It was also busier downstairs now, a queue at the front desk and a chatter from the cafeteria area. The fact that she was carrying around thirty pictures of a naked girl suddenly struck Sophie. Ducking her head, she hugged them to her small, pointed breasts. Hopefully no one would notice her putting the flier up. She plopped the photocopies down on the shallow ledge in front of the noticeboard, and p
inned it in place quickly and almost furtively.

  She hadn't quite finished when a short, bespectacled Asian girl who couldn't have been any older than in her late teens sidled up and began reading the flier.

  The librarian blushed. The girl though didn't seem remotely embarrassed. In fact, she smiled warmly.

  “That looks amazing.”

  “Yes, it does, doesn't it?” Sophie crossed her arms, their bare skin prickling. She felt as slender as a moonbeam standing next to the girl, who was quite broad in the hip and wearing layers.

  “I love drawing, especially life drawing,” the girl added, which surprised Sophie because she seemed young to have already tried it. “Do you think they'll be able to get models and everything?”

  “Oh, I don't know. I expect so.”

  “I hope the model's a girl. It's such fun drawing the curves. Thanks for this. Hey, maybe I'll see you there!” She helped herself to one of the photocopies and tucked it away in her jacket pocket before moving off.

  Well, that certainly put things in perspective! What on earth had Sophie been getting in such a stew over? Face it, there just wasn't the social stigma around nudity that there used to be. Feeling much better, Sophie grabbed one of the photocopies too, then trotted back upstairs. On an impulse, she went to the art shelves.

  Books on how to paint in watercolours, how to paint in the outdoors, how to paint your dog… Ah, How to Draw the Figure! She yanked it off the shelf, but was disappointed to find that the illustrations were all black and white pencil drawings, with no actual photographs of models. She moved on. Another, with a different title but very similar content. She slotted that one back too. Then she found what she was looking for. The Life Model: A Guide for Students. This was a large, glossy tome full of colour photographs of models in nude artistic poses, an encyclopedia of nakedness.

  Perfect! She wasn't really thinking about modelling nude herself, not really and truly, not seriously, but it was fun to toy with the idea, and this would definitely help. She walked back to her desk, swinging the book under her arm – a first, small step towards letting go of her taboos.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sophie lived with her 18-year-old daughter Beth in a cramped but cheerfully furnished two-bedroom terraced house on the wrong side of Dalchester. A single mother, she was on friendly terms with Beth's father, Graham, but he wasn't around very much as his work involved a great deal of travel. Since Graham, there had been no steady man in her life; she dated occasionally but her relationships had a habit of dwindling into nothing.

  When she returned home that evening, she knew she would have the little house to herself for at least an hour, because Beth was at her clarinet lesson. It was an ideal opportunity to do some research. She wasted no time in switching on her laptop and rooting out Clodagh's flier. She read through all the details again carefully. The classes, of which there would be ten in total, were on Saturday afternoons, 2 to 4. The venue was a room in at the back of Dalchester museum. There was a contact number, an email address, and the address of Clodagh's website.

  Sitting cross-legged on her bed with the laptop perched on her knees, Sophie brought up Clodagh's website and became spellbound. Fine Artist Clodagh McDowell – Celebrating the Nude Figure, the banner read. The landing page consisted mainly of a beautiful painted image of a girl leaning against a wall, her arms curled above her head, her hips pushed out towards the viewer. It was photo-realistically detailed. You could see the cracks and bumps in the wall. The model was shaven, and Clodagh had delineated the folds of her pussy with equal care.

  Sophie flushed. She wondered how the model felt, to be caught with such an exact eye, and to have her image emblazoned on this website. Just posing that question in her head gave her a warm, queasy feeling. Her hand trembled slightly as she clicked a link to a gallery. More exquisite nudes. A few male, but mainly female. Working her way through the thumbnails, she saw certain themes repeating themselves. A preference for hairless, shaven models. Poses that were open and quite revealing. They were challenging in that respect, but they were brilliantly accomplished. Art with a capital A. Sophie felt her admiration for Clodagh surging.

  From there she went to a bio page. At the top was a photograph of Clodagh looking incredibly young and fresh-faced for someone so well-advanced on the road to success. It was a head and shoulders shot. She was wearing a dark blue velvet jacket with a copper-coloured shawl draped over it. Sophie thought it was interesting that the artist hadn't chosen a slightly, well, sexier image of herself. Although she loved to paint revealing nudes, nudes that seemed very naked, she obviously had no interest in trading on her own beauty to further her career. Again, Sophie's admiration was stimulated.

  The rest of the page said something about Clodagh's background and listed her achievements. She was a local girl, educated at the High School. And only 23, Sophie saw, just five years older than Beth. As a student in London and afterwards, she'd won first prizes in various national competitions. Her work had been exhibited at the Royal Academy and purchased by several important collections and institutions. She was represented by a leading London gallery.

  Sophie sat back, surprised. It was starting to dawn on her just what a big fish Clodagh was. She was clearly past the point in her career where she needed to supplement her income through teaching. Sophie could only assume she was starting up the drawing class out of a passionate desire to share her love of the nude figure.

  Put that way, Sophie realized what an honour it was to have been asked to help out as a model. Her shoulders slumped as she thought back to how she had reacted. God, she hoped she hadn't seemed rude!

  She lifted the laptop off her knees, then stood up and walked the few short steps from her bed to her wardrobe, which had a full-length mirror fitted on the outside. After seeing Clodagh's website, the desire to model for her class was burning brighter than ever, but would anyone really want to draw her naked?

  “You're a forty-year-old woman. Who's going to want to look at you?” But even as she asked the question, she was yanking the T-shirt up over her head and kicking off her shoes. She unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them and her underpants down in one go, then reached back to unhook her bra and let it fall.

  As soon as she glimpsed herself naked in the mirror, she felt more confident. She liked what she saw, and in some ways she thought she had never looked better. With her sharp cheekbones and straight nose, she had always been reasonably pretty, but the slight loosening around her jawline, those tiny, almost invisible wrinkles in the corners of her eyes – they added something extra, an air of wisdom. Well, perhaps not wisdom, that would be stretching it a bit, but at any rate a kind of soulfulness.

  She ran her fingers through her shiny chestnut bob, which was as fine as air, and entwined them behind her head. She'd been doing yoga for years, and as a result her body still looked supple and fresh. True, she was a little bottom-heavy, but she'd always been that way, thanks to her narrow shoulders, small breasts and rounded hips. She'd never had much pubic hair, and she'd started waxing off what little she had once it became fashionable to do so. She'd always been of the opinion that her bald pussy, with its simple cleft, looked rather smart.

  Not that anyone would be seeing her pussy, she reminded herself. For a beginners' life class Clodagh would probably require more modest, classical poses… wouldn't she?

  She pivoted sideways to the mirror. Her pelvis had a natural tilt. As a result her profile had a delightful S-shape, which she could emphasise even more whenever she chose. Her bottom was her best feature, firm and peachy. Her hips were slightly more bumpy-looking than she would have liked, and when she twisted, a little fold appeared at her waist, but those were the kinds of details artists were supposed to relish, weren't they? She wasn't perfect, but surely perfection was a bit boring?

  Striking a pose with her chest out, she tried to imagine what the girl from the library would think and decided she would be more than satisfied.

  Then she froze as the front do
or slammed and a voice called out, “Mum, I'm home!”

  God, was Beth back already? How time flew when you were thinking about artistic nudity.

  Hearing Beth's feet thumping on the stairs, she quickly snatched up her bathrobe and tried to put it on. But the sleeves were inside out and she was still struggling to disentangle them as her daughter appeared in the doorway. She clutched the robe to her chest and panted, “Hey sweetie, how was the lesson?”

  “Fine, except I'm sick to death of playing Weber. His music is so lame.” Apparently oblivious to the fact that her mother didn't have anything on, Beth marched in and sat down heavily on the bed.

  If it hadn't been for the fact that they were best friends as well as mother and daughter, Sophie would have found Beth quite intimidating. She was beautiful, clever, assertive, level-headed, brilliant at everything she did and everyone loved her, teachers, other girls and, of course, boys. Sophie rarely did anything without seeking Beth's guidance and permission.

  Although she usually loved their chats, this was slightly uncomfortable, so she said, “Oh dear! Well!” and smiled in a way that suggested that was all she had to offer on the topic.

  Beth flopped back on the bed with a sigh. “Or maybe I'm sick of the clarinet,” she said, looking at her mother. “I've been playing it for five years. That's longer you and Graham were together.”

  Sophie would usually have winced at a remark like this, but her mind was on other things, so she simply went from a sympathetic smile to an amused one.

  “Anyway, enough about me,” said Beth. “How was your day? You seem unusually bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

  “Do I?” Sophie was surprised. “I thought I was always bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

  “It's true, on the whole you do have a very good temperament,” said Beth in school report tones, with a grin. “But you've seemed a bit down in the dumps recently. Ever since the big Four Oh.”