Life Drawing

Sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating dust bunnies swirling through the air and making the hardwood of the attic seem several shades lighter. I slid off my thin white dress. Joanie watched as she had so many times before. A breeze licked down my chest. My cheeks grew hot. I noted with some satisfaction a blush spreading across her face as well.

“Just like that.” Then she frowned. “Can you slide a little this way?”

I glided to the right, slowly. She exhaled softly. I smiled. “Am I good?” I asked.

She swallowed. “You’re good.” 

The room was slightly brisk and my nipples were hard. I straightened my back so she would get a perfect view of my breasts. 

I had posed nude for Joanie before when she needed an anatomical reference. It was a simple arrangement that existed mostly in the asexual manner a model for a figure drawing class might pose. 

What separated my modeling for her privately from a classroom environment was a deep fondness and closeness which made the initial moments way less awkward. When I took off what I had on, there was no moment of silence as there might be in a classroom where an enormous penis or a suggestively-shaped birthmark was revealed. Just a steady stream of conversation that flowed like a fountain, bubbling and neverending. The easy banter which frequently characterized our sessions, however, was missing today. 

Recently, Joanie and I had gone out. The night had progressed like many others, adorned with slinky backless tops revealing tanlines from days spent at the beach, soundtracked by bangles clashing into each other when we locked arms. Fizzing spritzes full of ice seemed to materialize at our table–someone must have been buying us drinks–and if I close my eyes I can still see Joanie sucking the juice from her orange slices. I can still see the juice dripping down her chin. 

I remember us running to her apartment, giggling and tripping over nothing. We crashed through her door and the room spun but only slightly. 

“We’re ho-ome!” She cried, throwing her arms around me, engulfing me in the scent of musky vanilla perfume, salty sweat and cigarette smoke. 

I kissed her on the forehead. She giggled. “I missed you so much.” She said.

“I missed you, too.” I said. 

“Even though it’s been like three days. I always miss you when you’re not around. It’s pathetic.”

“It’s not pathetic.” I slumped to the floor. She collapsed next to me. “I feel the same way.” I said.

She pressed her glossed lips together. A silence began to stretch between us, made louder by the hum of the AC and the whine of her small fridge. “Do you actually?” She asked.

“Yeah, I do actually.”

“You really mean it?” 

I swallowed. “I really mean it.” 

Her glazed eyes met mine. Her lips stretched in a slow smile and then kissed mine. She tasted like oranges and prosecco. I moaned into her mouth. I felt her shake slightly under me. The room spun and nothing mattered but the woman in my arms, my best friend, tethering me to this Earth.

“Fuck.” She whispered, face inches from mine. I trailed slow kisses down her neck. My fingers dragged down her tan back, tracing her delicate shoulders. With my other hand I started playing with the waistband of her miniskirt, dipping my fingers under and stroking her thigh. Her hand slid down to meet mine.

“I want you.” She muttered. “I’ve wanted you for so long now.”

My face grew hot. “What do you want?”

She moaned, blushing. Wordlessly, she inched my hand towards her panties. I rubbed soft circles on her clit through them. She gasped, bucking her hips against my fingers. “Please.” She moaned. “Please please please.”

That’s the last full scene I can conjure from the night. I remember other brief flashes—the smell of her on my fingers, her pretty eyes meeting mine, her tongue lapping at my pussy—but everything is fuzzy. It felt too good to be true, which makes me wonder how much happened and how much was the dizzying world of my own fantasies coalescing with this one. 

I worried the ecstasy we shared took our relationship to an alien place we didn’t know how to operate in and felt my fear was confirmed by the fact that we had only spoken in passing for two weeks, mainly in group settings and for brief periods of time. 

When we were apart, I picked at my nails and drank espresso until I had a headache and tried to write. But my mind drifted back to her shoulders and the texture of the lace on the edge of her panties.

Then she’d approached me to complain about a figure drawing assignment given by her notoriously strict professor. She asked if I was free and willing to pose for her again. Of course, I’d said. Of course I’ll be your model. 

~~~

“Stretch your arms above your head?” Normally, she briskly instructed me without any hint of the question currently marking her voice. I raised my arms slowly to reveal my curves. 

“Good?” I asked.

“Very good.” 

I smiled. 

“Keep your face straight,” she said and so I did, staring deep into her eyes. She concentrated on her paper for what seemed like an unreasonable amount of time, then, suddenly, her gaze flickered up to meet mine. What passed between us was thick. 

Blushing, she broke the stare off quickly to examine some lines on her page. Disappointment whimpered inside me, then a slight nauseating sense of shame. I didn’t have the right to be disappointed. After the night we had shared, I’d bustled out of her bedroom at dawn before she woke up. I sat on the subway in my body glitter among commuters in suits. I didn’t call. I didn’t text. Neither had she, but I knew I was the cowardly one. 

Still, I could feel myself getting wet as her eyes took me in, a delicious suspense. Focus. I thought, shoving my reservations and enjoyable agony away. 

For about an hour I stood. The sun sank, darkening the room slightly. As the minutes stretched, Joanie’s gaze lingered on my body for longer than felt necessary. She seemed to be getting bolder as the room grew a little darker, no longer shying from our eyes catching or flitting hers immediately down after she had captured just enough of my body to sketch with a quick look. 

Goosebumps prickled my skin. I felt a little sick. I shivered slightly. I wonder if she noticed.

Eventually, she broke the silence. “Grab that chair and sit backwards in it.”

A dark wooden chair with a small, rectangular pillow stood to my right. The white pillow was embellished with lace, pale blue stripes and baby pink bows. I recognized it from her bed. 

I did as she asked. 

Then: “Spread your legs,” she said.

She’d never asked anything like this of me. 

The pillow, wedged between me and the back of the chair, rubbed against my pussy slightly, deliciously, obviously. I tried to ignore it, cheeks growing hot. Joanie’s gaze fixed on mine. She was working, I reminded myself. I am a model for her work. My body is a vessel for representation. I am her reference. I am her tool.  

Her eyes travelled to the pillow. She inhaled sharply. My incantations melted uselessly in my skull. 

I moved my hips against her pillow, exaggerating a little to be sure she would see. I heard her breath hitch a bit. I pressed my lips together, fully grinding against her pillow now, feeling pleasure awaken in me. I moaned quietly, turning my eyes down to the floor.

“Veronica,” she said. 

I stopped.

“Look at me and keep going.” 

With her permission, I grinded against her pillow harder, emboldened. I sighed, tilting my head back and slumping a little. “Joanieeee, fuck,” I moaned. 

Scribbling furiously, eyes tearing between me and her page, she bit her lip. “Keep going. You’re doing so good.” 

The words brought me closer. “Joanie,” I gasped, high-pitched, shocked at how needy I sounded. 

“Keep going. Keep going and don’t stop.”

Moaning, I moved faster. I dug my hips harder against the pillow, mashing my pussy against the pretty fabric. Heat built below my stomach. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I whined, trembling from the force of my building pleasure. 

The sound of her scribbling stalled. I glanced up. She was watching me, face hot, lips pressed together so hard they were turning white. “Cum for me,” she whispered. It was almost like she didn’t want me to hear, but I did and I came hard, crying out. 

“Fuck!” She shouted, dropping her sketchbook. The thwap echoed across the room. We were both breathing heavily. 

“Joanie?” I blinked sweat out of my eyes. 

“Fuck fuck fuck.” She whispered. I tried to meet her gaze. 

Without another word, she stood out of her chair. It groaned against the floor. She grabbed her sketchbook and–finally, finally–looked at me. Her mouth dropped open, then closed. Her eyes scanned me, lingering on my heavy breasts and full hips. They stopped at the frilly pillow from her bed, which was slightly damp with my sweat and juices. 

She stood, panting, eyes boring into the pillow as if she wished to see right through it to my pussy, dripping with cream. The tension that had built over the past hour had been barely satisfied by my one shuddering orgasm. I was ready for more and I was ready to please her.

“Joanie.” I sighed.

She took a step towards me, then turned around and heaved with a shuddering sigh. 

“Hey?” I said. She looked back at me. Our eyes met. 

The desire I felt for her and the sudden indication that she wasn’t going to satisfy it made my stomach flip. The hours we spent together, night chewing its way into day and day melting into the night– the hours we spent as bodies circling and brushing up against each other without coalescing into one made themselves known in the stare we exchanged. 

I wanted more. I wanted more so badly I shook.

She groaned. Her voice cracked. She walked closer to me, slowly, until she stood over me. I could smell paint and wood and the vanilla notes of her perfume. I tilted my face up to her. I remembered the lace of her panties, the curve of her neck, the–

She inhaled sharply. Then, she turned. Without another word, she walked out of the room, leaving me naked and alone sitting backwards on her chair pressed against the pillow from her bed.