But Jude kept his expression as fogged as inner emotions.
“It’s whatever,” he said after several Mississippis. “I’m fine with it. It doesn’t bother me at all.”
Those feelings of anger and spite roared inside Al’s chest so hot, they almost burned. Propelled by them, Al turned to Corbin and said, “How do I become a naked model for your class?”
“Wait, you seriously want to do it?” Corbin asked, eyes widening.
“Yes, thank you please.”
“Oh good god,” Jude huffed, covering his face with his hands.
“Yes, good god. Good, great, merciful god.” Corbin put his own hands in a prayer pose and winked up at the sky. He then wrapped an arm around both Jude’s and Al’s shoulders and started to guide them down the pathway to the art building.
“You, Mr. Leon,” Corbin said to Al, “have just turned my whole day around.”
Al hazarded a glance at Jude, whose day, judging by his scowl, had not been improved. If anything, Al’s impulsive action had done the opposite. Two halves warred inside Al upon seeing him that way: the side that felt love toward Jude, and the side that felt spite.
Unfortunately for Jude, today the spiteful side won.
* * *
The figure drawing professor was a tall woman with lots of gray hair she had clipped up on the back of her head and a long, flowy dress that came so close to the floor, Al couldn’t see her shoes. She had seemed slightly alarmed when Al announced, “Hello, I am Al Leon from Greece, and I am here to get naked so that your students can draw my human body,” but after a bit of clarifying from Corbin (even though Al thought he’d been perfectly clear), the professor understood his intentions and produced several forms for him to sign. The forms were very specific when it came to detailing laws and regulations, which made Al feel annoyance because clearly humanscouldbe specific, but chose not to.
He signed them without complaint anyway.
The professor ushered Corbin and Jude away to their easels, and took Al aside to explain to him that he would need to hold random poses for ten minutes at a time, and as such, he would need to pick ones he found comfortable. She assured him that if it got to be too much, or if anyone acted in a way that made him feel unsafe, he had the right to cease his duties at any time.
When she had finished her explanation, Al remarked, “Human beings are very strange about the need for privacy regarding their nude bodies.”
This gave the professor pause, but after an awkward moment, she finally said, “All right.”
She let Al undress in private, handing him a thin white robe to wear between drawing sessions, and when she came back to fetch him, she frowned and said, “You don’t need to wear the lanyard.”
“I do not remove it,” Al told her seriously.
“… All right.”
He was led to the front of the class, where idle chatter petered off as the twenty or so students took in the sight of Al, barely covered in the flimsy robe. A group of two female humans and a male human, all approximately of Jude’s age, exchanged glances and conspiratorial giggles, one of them whispering, “Oh, he’shot,” so quietly that Al almost missed it. He saw Corbin winking at him. Al gave him a quick smile to acknowledge he had seen, then looked away to seek out Jude, who was the only one not looking at him, focused a little too intently on a piece of charcoal in his hands.
“Everybody, this is Al,” the professor announced. “He was kind enough to sub in for Darren today. Let’s remember to keep things respectful.” She turned to Al. “When you’re ready, remove the robe and pick a pose, and we’ll begin.”
Al wasn’t sure which pose to choose. His mind wandered back to that first night with Jude in his very bad vehicle, and the cover of the book that had been his inspiration for his human disguise. He would mirror that, he decided. He took off his robe and sat down on the stool, one foot perched on a rung, the other on the ground, his knees open wide. He put his hands behind his head and tilted his chin up, elongating his back and sucking in his tummy so that his abdominal muscles flexed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Corbin do a gesture like he was marking himself with a cross.
“And begin!” the professor said, pressing a bell on her desk that dinged brightly, signaling to the students that it was time to work. Charcoal met paper and sketching began, and as silence set in, Al’s gaze wandered to Jude. Their eyes met. Jude swallowed hard and his face turned bright red. He looked away quickly and began to sketch, and after that, he did everything he could to avoid making eye contact again.
“Time!” the professor announced ten minutes later. She nodded to Al, who flexed the stiffness out of his arms and legs, then turned to the side and dropped into a lunge. He couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure he heard more than one person squeak.
Honestly, though, Al wasn’t aware of what the other students were doing. They could have stopped drawing entirely and he would have been none the wiser. He had eyes for Jude, and for Jude only, and watched him throughout the entire class period, never once shifting into a pose that would break his line of sight.
Jude, though? Jude seemed to be very aware of the other students. Every giggle or whisper made his expression darken, and he started pressing the charcoal to his paper harder, like he wanted to stab through to the other side. Despite his treatment of his materials, it did seem like he was drawing, and Al wondered what the art he was making looked like. What did his human body look like through Jude’s eyes?
He wondered, too, what Jude would think of his true form. Would he depict it like he might a monster? Or would he find beauty in it to project upon the page?
Al thought on it until—much sooner than expected—the professor announced the end of class.
“Everybody thank Al for the last minute fill-in!” she said as Al put on his robe.
“Thank you, Al,” the class said as one, with a not insubstantial amount of giggling mixed in.
