For The Sake Of Art...History. (Continuation Of A Thread Back In The Dom's Dungeon.)
"Are you nervous about tonight?"
"No Master, I can't say that I am."
And truly, I wasn't. The notion of bearing all to a room full of strangers was an oddly pleasing thought to me. As I listened to J's voice on the other end of the phone telling me to “be careful,” I realized my strange and bold sentiment was His fault – an unexpected irony of belonging to this man. There was no room for a self-conscious thought in my head – the body that was going to be put on display Thursday evening was His. It didn’t matter that no one else in the room would know it; I would know, and I could not and would not ever be ashamed of something of J’s choosing. On the contrary, I would take great pride in the showing.
“Be careful,” Master stressed again.
“Of course.” Then, in the midst of my boldness, I realized there was still something I needed. “Sir?”
“Yes Pet?”
“Would you come and get me afterward? Walk me home?”
“Of course.” Perfection – a girl, bold or not, likes to know her Dom will be there to take care of her.
I prepared that evening in some ways similar to how I prepare for J, the thought of my Master at the forefront of my thoughts as I scrubbed and shaved and applied a lightly scented body lotion. I wanted Him to be proud of how I presented myself. The lotion? The scent would serve as a subtle and visceral reminder of how I cared for this body of His.
Dressed in runners and a pair of J’s lounge pants and hoodie, I jogged the couple blocks from my apartment to the art museum. Joe, the head of the study session met me at the front info desk. He checked his watch with a smile as I came in. “Wow, we rarely have models that show up on time.” Joe’s smile matched his jeans and boots – casual, comfortable, more than likely worn often. His genuine good humor was a pleasant compliment to the seriousness with which he took his craft. “Are you sure you still want to do this?”
“Why not?” I grinned, “it’s either this or sit home and watch 187 channels of bad cable.”
“Right,” he smiled back. I could tell Joe was still not positive what to make of me, but he had decided to like me. I decided to like him back sometime during the next three minutes as we meandered through the museum to the studios toward the rear – as we walked Joe explained who would be there and what format the session would take, all while stressing often that it was up me to when we started, when we stopped, and that if I felt uncomfortable at all just to nod to him. I was half tempted to ask if we should employ a safe word. “Would you prefer to meet the artists or not have them talk to you?” he asked as we approached the studio door.
“What? I’ll meet them of course.”
There were a dozen artists in the small studio, a near even mix of men and women ranging from their early thirties on up to mid-seventies: Western artists, modern artists, a body painter and an “erotic” artist from California that helps organize Burning Man every year. An eclectic mix, but no one it seemed other than serious professionals. I wished there had been a way for J to be there to see that I was nothing less than safe in this crowd.
Joe wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and handed me a long men’s robe. “There’s a dressing room in the back,” he motioned, “whenever you’re ready. Is there a particular type of music you like? I have a few CD’s here to choose from. Do you need water? Anything?”
“Put on whatever music you want to draw to, I’ll be fine,” I laughed, flattered by the fussing. “And no, thank you, I don’t need anything else.”
I changed quickly, and came out to find the lights in the room dimmed save for several spots placed to illuminate a stage at the front of the studio and the individual lights over a few of the artists’ easels. I felt a fleeting moment of shyness as I realized just how much the center of attention I was about to be, but the moment passed and I allowed Joe to set me on the stage as he explained that the first series of sketches: warms ups, ten different one minute poses, I could position myself however I would like. One of the artists had a timer, and at the end of each minute he would let me know and I could switch position. “Any questions?” Joe asked.
“No.”
“Then whenever you’re ready.”
I closed my eyes and pictured J at the back of the room, a grin on His face as He watched the dozen sets of eyes in the room roaming over His Pet, her body that she had gifted to Him appearing on the sketchpads beneath the moving pencils and charcoal. I opened my eyes, slipped the robe off my body and tossed it to where it would take a step to reach it. There was the most brief of silences before the scratch of implement on paper began with a quiet ferocity.
There is a particular pain to enduring the unique difficulties of stillness. The initial one minute poses evolved into ten minute holds, ten minutes during which one is tasked with not allowing a single body part more than a centimeter of give. Your eyes find a spot on the wall and you fixate, creating an imaginary anchor between your body and that place in the distance. You can allow your eyes to roam, but never for long and you must always come back to your point if you even foster a hope of remaining steady.
One’s breathing loses the ability to be an automatic function. You become so aware of each part of your physical being and what it’s doing that the control of every aspect of motion becomes a conscious choice.
Under the stress of stillness one’s body betrays itself in strange fashions, ways that a simple weight shift in a normal situation would alleviate: tendons tighten, joints lock, muscles ball themselves into twisted kinks. Pain is self-applied in slow motion, taking its time as it knows you have nowhere to go and nothing to do but sit there and think about it. The trick is not to attempt to ignore it, but to find the pleasure in the endurance. I wore J’s necklace tat night, and its feel around my neck was more than enough of His presence to allow me to dedicate my pain and my stillness to Him.
“How’re we doing?” Joe’s voice checked in from somewhere over my right shoulder. “You know if you get uncomfortable you can call a break at any time, right? I know this isn’t as easy as you’re making it look.”
“This is the most relaxed I’ve been all day Joe, I’m just fine.” I could hear Joe laugh under his breath. I’m sure he was shaking his head.
We paused for a ten minute break, which I used to self-massage a few of the cramps out of my neck and legs. As the artists found their seats again, Joe asked if I thought I could handle a fifteen minute pose. “Sure, why not?” I shrugged. He laughed as he had before, pleasantly baffled at my nonchalant agreeability.
Though only a five minute increase in time, the fifteen minute stretch proved itself to be another unique meditation. Not a “subspace” feel by any stretch of the imagination, but a different place to put one’s head nevertheless.
My position allowed me a better view of the artists themselves, as well. Perhaps not erotic, but a sensual experience indeed to watch someone else’s eyes move over your body, someone else’s hands recreate your particular curves and motion of line. One of the charcoal artists would raise his hands to me, trace in the air the shape he wished to put to paper, my shape, committing my form to muscle memory before taking me to paper. It was odd to see something so intimate from across the room, to see something so intimate be so one sided.
As the session ended Joe wrapped the extra blanket around my shoulders and ushered me past the artists to the tiny dressing room. I slipped back into Master’s things before making my way back out into the room. Nearly everyone stopped to say thank you, including one older woman that cocked her head and smiled at me and said, “you were such a pleasure to draw dear. So many women drop their eyes or hide their faces. You were very fierce.” I think J would have smiled at that, and I thanked her for saying so.
True to His word, J was right outside the door to gather me up and walk me home, then massage out the rest of the cramps and knots I had nurtured along that evening. There are few things I have ever experienced finer than that minute the museum security guard stuck his head in the door and announced, “there’s a man outside who’s here to pick up the model.” I wanted that room to know to whom I belonged. The “fierceness” that woman had seen? The fierce pride and the deep confidence of a woman owned.
