Free Still Life by Lush Jones Page A

wasn’t so sure.
    Still, she found herself reporting for duty the next morning after she dropped the girls off at school. She’d felt so weird getting ready. Did it matter what she wore to work when her job was getting naked? As she brushed her hair, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She was okay with her body. She was tall and slender with a curvy bottom, but naked and exposed in front of strangers? She wasn’t so sure. She brushed on a coat of mascara, threaded long silver hoops through her ears, and dressed in jeans and a silky white cotton T-shirt.
    She kissed the girls goodbye, feeling a little Hester Prynne as she slunk off into the carpool lane, headed for her new life of vice. Too soon, she was standing at the door to the classroom, duffel bag in hand.
    A tall man in his mid-forties with short silvery-brown hair arranged a cloth over some boxes in the center of the room. Stools and easels circled the boxes where, Sara realized, she’d be sitting. A thrill of horror shot through her as she looked at the soft linen sheet draping the surface her bare bottom might be sitting on moments from now.
    She cleared her throat.
    The man looked up. He had dark eyes and slightly flushed skin, and he smiled at her, extending a chambray-clad arm toward her. “Sara?” he surmised.
    “Professor Roberts?” She stopped herself from saying, “I presume.”
    He smiled again. “John.” He gestured as a couple of students entered the studio, motioning for them to enter. “They call me Professor, but you can call me John.”
    Then he glanced up at the clock on the wall and nodded toward Sara’s bag, saying, “You can change in the ladies’ room and bring your bag back here.”
    Sara bit her lip. “Sure.” She walked out into the hall and tried to catch her breath. She watched as girls who looked ridiculously young chattered as they headed into the classroom, toting heavy leather portfolios. She cursed herself for feeling ten times more insecure than they could possibly ever be.
    She pushed open the door to the bathroom and entered a stall, fumbling with her clothes as if she’d just learned to undress. She shoved the shirt, jeans, panties and bra into the duffel bag and shook out the thick, fluffy robe. Somehow, she’d thought a giant, white robe would make her feel protected against the situation, but as she stepped out of the stall and looked at her reflection in the mirror, she just felt worse. Instead of looking casual, as if she’d just grabbed a simple wrap, she’d made it obvious how much she wanted to conceal.
    “ Well, fuck it, Sara,” she said out loud in the mirror. And then, taking the deepest gulp of air she could find, she grabbed the duffel bag like a life preserver and left the bathroom.
    When she entered the studio classroom again, she almost fainted. The class was full, all easels taken.
    Professor Roberts was lowering the window blinds. “Nobody can see in,” he assured her with another kind smile, which should have made her feel better but didn’t. She stood frozen until he pointed to a small stack of metal cubes in the corner. “Please feel free to stash your stuff in one of those.”
    She did, and then took a hesitant step toward the middle of the room.
    She started sweating.
    Glancing to her left, she spied a young man with a short blond ponytail, tattooed forearms and silver hoops in his eyebrows. He was laying out stubs of charcoal on his stool and whistling when he looked up and noticed her noticing him. He scanned her briefly, and then he nodded and looked toward the center of the room. “I think he’s ready for you,” Blondie said in a soft voice, pointing with a ringed finger to the center where Professor Roberts waited.
    She blushed. This was horrible . She could not possibly do this. She’d have to explain. The humiliation would kill her, but if she could only leave this room right now she’d do anything .
    “Sara?” Professor Roberts gestured to the boxes, acting as