Sinful.

It’s currently summer and most new graduates from high school are probably spending their days soaking up the sun and making the most of the last summer they’ll spend as “children” before being shipped off all over the country to universities to be “adults.” School let out perhaps a couple weeks ago and Eames, unlike most of his peers, is spending his days indoors, inhaling the smell of charcoal and thick paper and chemical fixatives until his very person smells of these things at all times, even after he’s returned home and showered to get black, powdery charcoal out of his hair (how it manages to get there, Eames will never quite figure out).

Eames aspires to be an artist, always has, and is spending every moment he can taking art classes at the art college not too far from his home. It’s a figure drawing class that he’s currently attending, and in the two weeks he’s spent there, it’s been nothing short of brilliant. He’s enjoying himself more than he ever had in high school, and the calming, relaxing feeling that being in an art studio for hours on end induces is something he never wants to go away.

They’ve had the same model for the first two weeks, and on the second Friday, his art teacher, a round-faced, redheaded woman who goes by the name of Patty, announces that come Monday, they’ll have a new model to work with. He tucks this information away in the corners of his mind and thinks nothing of it as he goes home for the weekend.

When he’s not sleeping, he spends the majority of the next two days lying in the grassy park by his house with a couple of his friends, eating ice cream and absently drawing quick, thirty-second sketches of people in the park who catch his attention – a kid running after a balloon that got away from him, a gaggle of high school girls giggling into their palms, an elderly couple sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons. It’s peaceful and lazy and feels so much like summer, and it’s just how Eames loves to spend his days.

It isn’t until he returns to the studio on Monday that he remembers that they’re to have a new model to work with.

For the past two weeks, they’ve been working with a curvy woman, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties, with her black hair styled into a smart bob, and Eames half-expects to see here there, bent over her purple journal as she always is when he first arrives (he’s usually amongst the first to get there). So when he walks into the room and sees a slender man he’s never seen before, he’s a little surprised.

This man – the new model, Eames assumes, as that’s the only person this man can logically be – is sitting casually in a straight-backed chair, tilting back precariously in it, his long legs dangling off the edges of the seat and just barely touching the ground to keep the chair from falling over. One of his arms is hanging over the back of the chair and the other hand clutches a worn book, by the looks of it, one of those old classics Eames never bothered reading, which the man is currently engrossed in.

He’s wearing a simple white linen shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow and crisp, completely wrinkle-free black slacks that fit him well (almost too well, Eames thinks) and his feet are bare, his shoes cast aside by the edge of the small raised platform that the models pose on. A messenger bag sits next to the man’s shoes, and Eames thinks he can hear the man humming something softly, though he can’t really be sure.

All Eames is really sure of is that this model is much younger than their previous one – he must be in his early twenties, at most – and he is undeniably attractive, with his black hair slicked back into a hairstyle that he pulls off so well and, from what Eames can see, smooth, unblemished milky white skin. Eames would blush at the thought of drawing this man if he were the type to do so, but he’s not so he’s spared the embarrassment of having flushed cheeks.

Eames makes perhaps a little more noise than he normally does as he sets his bag and sketchbook down at his usual seat. He can’t deny that he wants this man to look at him, even for just a second, so he can determine what color his eyes are. And Eames does indeed get his wish, for the man peeks over the top of his book and meets Eames’ eyes easily for a moment before looking back down and picking up where he’d left off. It’s just a brief, fleeting glance, but Eames managed to catch it; brown eyes, warm, lovely brown eyes that would make anyone melt – or maybe Eames is just biased.

Eames goes to get the large sketchpad and box of supplies that they were each given at the beginning of the summer and sets those up at his spot before perching on his stool and looking around slightly awkwardly. That man is still reading his book and there’s no one else here and Eames doesn’t know what to do. He wonders if he should say something, but the man doesn’t exactly look like he wants to be disturbed, so Eames ultimately decides against that.

It’s another minute, uncomfortable on Eames’ part, much less so for the slim man sitting casually in a chair not more than five feet from Eames, before other people begin slowly trickling in, one by one. They’ve all just recently graduated from high school, like Eames, and will all be attending one college or another with the intent of majoring in fine arts. They’ve all chosen to take this class because they’re all too eager to just plunge into the art world already and this is the closest they can get at this point. This class is less of a real class than an open studio in which they all receive critiques from a professional artist and each other anyways, so it’s nice, a perfectly enjoyable way for all of them to spend their summer.

Patty arrives right on time, eight o’clock on the dot, as she always does and greets the class with a warm “good morning.” She goes over to the iPod dock they keep in the studio and plugs in her iPod. Quiet, almost haunting music fills the room and the words sound foreign to Eames’ ears, though he can’t quite make out the meaning of any of it. The new model lets his chair fall forward onto all four legs again with a low thunk and tucks his book away into his messenger bag. He crosses one leg over the other and looks over at Patty expectantly.

“Alright,” Patty cheers in her enthusiastic way. “Today, we have a new model to work with.”

Patty exchanges a smile with said figure model.

“Everyone, this is Arthur,” Patty introduces. “He’ll be with us for the next couple weeks.”

Patty continues on about something else, but Eames hardly listens. Arthur. Eames rolls that name around in his mouth. Arthur. It’s simple, Eames thinks, a classic, just like the book Arthur had been reading when Eames had walked in this morning. It fits. Arthur it is, then.

“Okay, let’s warm up with a short, five minute pose.” Patty claps her hands together, telling everyone to get their supplies out and flip their sketchpads open. She motions towards Arthur, “Arthur, if you will.”

She turns out the lights in the room and goes to get the large, bright spotlight that will cast dramatic shadows every which way around Arthur, but Eames isn’t paying any attention to that at all. Instead, his eyes are focused on Arthur’s slim fingers, which are working to undo the buttons of his white linen shirt. Eames swallows, nervous, even though he doesn’t know why. It isn’t like he hasn’t drawn nude models before, because he has, numerous times. This shouldn’t feel so nerve-wracking to him, but for some reason it does, almost as if Arthur is undressing solely for Eames and not for remotely artistic purposes.

Eames takes a deep breath to steady himself and forces himself to look down at the blank sheet of white paper before him as he listens to the rustle of fabric falling to the floor. Out of his periphery, he sees Arthur step up onto the blanket covered, raised platform, set a small, circular white timer, and move into a pose.

“Five minutes,” Patty says, beginning to make her rounds around the room as everyone begins to draw.

Eames takes a few more deep breaths for good measure and reminds himself that he is here to make art, not ogle at the models, no matter how attractive this one may be. And then his eyes flick up and he gets his first good look at Arthur and all those responsible little reminders vanish, being replaced only with the phrase “oh my god.”