Troubled Youth

He took a deep breath, the portfolio slung over his shoulder weighed a ton. Just on the other side of that classroom door would be someone nude; someone nude he would have to look at for three hours and paint to the best of his ability. He wasn’t sure what was so intimidating about this idea; he’d been through two classes of figure drawing already. He was nineteen, he knew what a naked person no matter the gender looked like. So why was he still standing outside the door to the classroom?
“The door locked?” A female voice from his left asked.
His eyes snapped open and he glanced sideways at her. “No... I don’t know. I was just thinking.”
She eyed him a moment considering her words before she decided against saying anything and tried the door. It was unlocked and she started to head inside. “Are you coming?”
“What?” He looked at her face again. “Oh yeah, in a minute.”
Great, now at least one person in the class was going to think he was weird. He shook his head, re-shouldered his portfolio and opened the door for himself. Getting into a classroom with a huge bag on the shoulder is always a complicated action. Sometimes the bag catches the door, sometimes you hit someone. He made it in a little less than gracefully but no one seemed to notice. They had all experienced a similar kind of entry after all.
The same grey bearded man from the first day of class sat perched on a stool in the middle of the room. He was their professor and a rock was warmer than he was. Whether that was because it was the first day of the semester when they met and all the boring things had to be run through or just because it was his personality, most of the people in the class avoided looking at him.
The boy so tentative to enter the room took a seat close to the center and further forward than most. He wanted good light and he didn’t want to see other people painting while he looked at the model. All his nervousness had channeled itself into his left foot as he tapped it and set up his canvas and paints.
It was then in a glance around to room to see what everyone else was doing that he caught sight of the girl who had talked to him before. He noticed the short silver grey robe she was dressed in and the red tint on her lips. She didn’t have a portfolio with her which he thought was weird. At least he thought it was weird until it hit him, she was their model for the day.
“It’s two so we might as well get started.” Spoke the bearded man in the center of the room. “I’m not giving you any instruction today. You are just going to paint to the best of your abilities and turn it in after the second session tomorrow. Then I can see where this class will need focus. I expect proportions to be correct as you’ve had two classes before this to learn them.” He turned to the model who stepped out into the light when he motioned his hand to her. “This is Ella. She’ll be sitting for us the next two classes.”
“Any requests?” She asked not really looking at anyone in particular but glancing around the room. “Sitting, lying down. I can do whatever you like.”
He smiled at that comment. She caught his smirk.
“How about you Smiley? What would you like?” She stared him down letting the robe she was wearing slip off one shoulder as she untied it.
“It’s Jared, and I’d prefer you on your side facing them.” He pointed to the other side of the room.
He was pleased that he’d come back with something so smoothly and quickly.
“As you wish.” She said letting the robe hit the ground.
Jared watched her climb on top of the massage table and lie down facing the other side of the room. She got comfortable and the professor turned on the radio. They all took that as their cue to start painting. He pulled out a pencil to measure her proportions and make reference marks on his canvas before picking up a brush. He could feel the professor standing behind him rechecking the measurements he’d just made but Jared tried to ignore him.
The class seemed to be going by far too quick. At the break halfway through Ella got up to stretch and pull her robe back on. She walked around the room to see what the class was doing to her figure and paused a little longer than the rest at Jared’s.
“Any particular reason you wanted me facing away from you?” She asked running her eyes over the painting again.
“Just wanted you that way when you asked.”
“Have you changed your mind?” She looked sideways at him.
“Nope.”
“Looks alright.” She left him sitting behind his canvas to finish the room and then walk out.
Jared shook his head finding his mind going back to the red lipstick she was wearing. Something about that, about the choice to wear it when she wore nothing else, made him smile. She was a deviant and he could tell just from the few words they’d shared. He wondered if she was like him, a troubled youth just trying to make something of herself now.
Break ended and she came back into the room. She climbed back onto the table and laid down in the same position asking if she was right. Someone on the other side of the room asked for her to adjust the angle of her hand and that was it. Class continued on quietly with the hum of the radio in the background. No one talked because no one knew each other well enough yet.
At the end Ella got up pulling her robe on and came back to Jared’s canvas. He was across the room washing his hands and brushes out but knew she was over there. By the time he was done she was leaving the room. He didn’t know what he would have said to her but it bothered him that she was gone. No matter, she’d be back next class.
Jared stored his painting in the provided class racks and went to load his portfolio into the locker he shared with a friend. He was tired and hungry so he headed to his apartment wondering if his roommate would want to get something to eat. He shouldered his bag that he pulled from his locker laden with reading homework already and started on his walk home.
He noted the trees as he went and took in the fresh air. The only nice thing about having a class that ended at five in the afternoon was he could walk back and look at the world when not many other people were about. The day was cooling off and the air was shifting around tossing his hair.
Across the way he saw Ella on a bike still in her robe heading away. He laughed knowing she probably wasn’t wearing anything under it and shook his head. Already he wanted to be that girl’s friend, she acted like someone he’d get along with great if given the chance.
At his apartment he found himself alone so he shrugged off his backpack to toss it on the couch and look in the fridge for food. Grabbing an assortment of snacks that in no way added up to a balanced meal he sunk into the couch and pulled out a history textbook thumbing through the pages until he hit his reading assignment.
Homework was only important the first few weeks of the semester to Jared. He tried his best to turn in assignments and do what was asked of him but then he would start to slack off about halfway through. While he still made decent grades he wasn’t doing what he was capable of. Art was more interesting to him anyways.
The next few weeks of that semester proved to Jared that Ella would be a model quite often for his figure painting class. She and him were fast friends when she walked in with a Nirvana t-shirt instead of a robe one time. It was just long enough to cover her backside as she walked down the hall where other students could see her. As always she wore red lipstick and when she saw Jared looking at her for a reason other than painting she smirked at him.
After one particularly warm day in the class Jared walked over to Ella and tugged on the back of her robe. She turned knowing who it was and tried to look annoyed. He grinned and let her robe go.
“Am I any better now?” He asked.
“Should you be asking Guy that?” She meant the professor.
“I’m asking you.”
“A bit. You’re pretty good at painting my backside but you need to work on my breasts. You’re not quite getting them right.”
“Oh.”
“I can show you how to look at them a better way if you want.”
“Uh.”
“What are you doing this weekend? I’ll bring my boobs and you bring your paint.”
“But I don’t...”
She cut him off. “We can meet here. There’s no classes on Saturday. Ten am alright for you? I have work later.”
“Sure.”
“See you then.” She left the room.
Jared was left wondering how that had just happened. As he was putting his things away he we running their conversation through his head. Once he was outside the building he realized this meant in a matter of two day he was going to be sitting in a room with her more than likely nude and he’d be the only one there.
There had been a reason he didn’t paint her from the front that often. He wasn’t letting himself look at what he liked the most. With any of the other models that came in it was so analytical and sterile that he had no problem painting them any way they chose to position themselves. They were just bodies.
With her it was something else. Maybe it was the lipstick, maybe it was because she talked to him. Or maybe it was because he wanted to get to know her. He would admit he found her attractive and that made things a little more difficult. He also sensed that she knew this and was maybe toying with him.
More than a few times she had gotten up during break to stand next to his canvas with her robe tossed over her shoulders but open in the front. If he turned his head at all he could see her standing bare next to him, watch her chest rise and fall as she breathed. He wondered if this weekend was just her playing with him too.
He went home to find Robert, his roommate, asleep on the couch. Jared left him there going into this own room and shutting the door. He turned his music up and started drawing rather than doing his homework. His grades had already started to slip.
Friday went by pretty normally. Jared called home to talk to his mother and get what news he could of his brother. The brother in question, Shannon, had gotten tired of home and decided he was going to hitchhike around the country for a while. It was just something to do, to see how far he could get. Jared’s mother told him Shannon was working his way towards Philadelphia to visit Jared but she didn’t know how long it would take. She’d spoken last to her oldest son four days ago.
Saturday morning Jared woke up fifteen minutes before ten. Grabbing something to eat on the go he hurried to the art building to find Ella standing by his locker. She looked up to see him coming down the hall and waved shrugging off the locker.
“I thought you weren’t going to show.” She said taking a step back so he could get into the locker.
“Overslept.”
They walked down to the classroom finding it unoccupied as expected. Ella hung the class in session sign outside and started pulling her jeans off when the door clicked shut. Jared averted his eyes not sure where to look. He wasn’t even sure why she was taking her pants off if this was supposed to be about her chest. He chewed the inside of his lip.
She threw a sheet over an armchair and sat down in front of him. “You’ve got a problem keeping me rounded.”
“Hmm?” Jared looked at her.
“My boobs. They tend to look flat when you paint them.”
“Oh.”
“Try it now. Take as long as you need.”
Jared looked at her confused for a moment. She waved her hand at him to push him into action. He pulled out a sketchbook and paints to get started. Ella picked up a book and started reading just letting Jared do what he needed to. He turned it around so she could see and she looked up from her book.
“Yeah, see. Flat. think about a ball. You’re missing the reflected light right here.” She said pointing to her chest. “See what I’m talking about?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“I think you’re not taking enough time. You hardly look at me when you’re painting.”
Jared scratched the back of his head. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was getting paint in his hair. Ella went back to reading so he assumed he was supposed to go back to painting. After a few more tries Ella got up and sat Jared in the chair. Her hands reached for the hem of his shirt and she tugged it off him like he was no more than a mannequin. Then she pried his sketchbook from his hands and perched herself on his stool to paint him.
He found it hard to keep still. He’d never been a model before and she’d tugged his shirt off like it was nothing. He wouldn’t dare think about how she’d done it naked, the thoughts that sprang into his mind as she tossed his shirt on the ground. Mercifully she’d left his pants where they were but she hadn’t put on a scrap of clothing before she started painting.
Another thing he thought about what he’d never found out what she was studying. He’d known her half a semester now they’d only ever talked in class. He saw her with her clothes off more often than not. Come to think about it, she was the one who talked most of the time. She probably knew nothing about him yet she was sitting in front of him with his sketchbook in her naked lap. She was staring at him intently analyzing him and then looking down to use his paints.
When she was done she plopped the sketchbook into his lap and started to tug her clothes back on. He hadn’t noticed her getting dressed because he was staring at the book in his lap. She’d painted him in under an hour and from what he could see it was damn near perfect proportionally. There was no question that was him sitting in the chair on a page in his sketchbook.
“See you later Jared.” She called over her shoulder reaching for the door handle.
“Hey wait, Ella.”
“Yeah loser?” She paused at the door with a smirk.
“Wanna grab something to eat after your off work?”
“I’m off at ten.”
“Doesn't matter. I’ll be hungry.”
“Sure. Where?”
“My apartment?”
“Fine. Write your address down and I’ll be over later.”
He scrawled his address on a torn corner from his sketchbook and handed it to her. She was gone after that. Jared tugged his shirt back on and held his sketchbook as he walked home. The page was still drying and he didn’t want to mess it up. When he got back to his room he set the book on his desk and pulled out some homework to do. He was behind and needed to pull up his grades in a few classes.
Robert came to his door sometime after ten and threw a couch pillow at Jared. Jared sprung up from his nap that had begun shortly after he’d started his homework and spanned four hours to look around the room alert. Robert motioned to Ella with his thumb and then left the doorway. She gave Robert a last glance before stepping into Jared’s room and perching on the edge of his bed.
“Whatcha got for food?”
Jared shrugged. “Any preferences?”
“No meat.”
“Vegetarian?” He asked a little surprised. “How come?”
“I fucking hate plants.” She said with a straight face.
Jared laughed and got up from his bed rubbing his eyes. “I think we have some plants you can murder. Come on.”
She followed him out and into the kitchen. Robert had gone into his own room obviously thinking Jared would want time alone with Ella. Neither of them really thought anything of it. Jared opened up the fridge and then walked away from it intending for Ella to have a look through on her own and grab whatever she wanted. There was no problem with this as she picked out some baby carrots and sat down with him at his table. Jared grabbed a few from the back and nothing but crunching sounds were heard between the two of them.
“So what’s up?” Ella asked.
Jared shrugged.
“Weird seeing me with my clothes on, isn’t it?” She wiggled her eyebrows.
He nodded with a smile averting his eyes though he wasn’t sure why.
“Where’s the clever Jared gone?” She asked offering him another carrot as he had finished the ones he’d grabbed.
“Dunno.”
“You’re suddenly very shy and I don’t like it.” Ella crossed her legs and sat up straight to stretch, Jared’s eyes were on her chest.
“I don’t know what to say. Up until a few hours ago I had no idea you could paint.”
“Yeah, saw that on your desk still. Guess you liked it.” She snapped a carrot in half with her teeth just for the cracking noise.
“It’s really good.”
“I like throwing paint too. You know there’s an action painting class next semester. We should take it together.”
“Yeah?”
“I think it’d be fun and I want a friend in that class. I can’t get anyone else I know to take it. I assume you’re a painting major...?”
“I am. I guess you are too then.”
“Indeed sir.”
“What year?”
“Freshman, but I should be a sophomore.”
“Oh?”
“What year are you?” She asked ignoring his interest.
“Sophomore, but I should be further along.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“Dropped out in tenth. Came back later.”
Ella nodded like she understood.
“Why are you behind a year?”
“My mother.”
“Strange reason.”
“She kicked me out of the house. Dad sent me to Brazil. I studied with a little old man who spoke no English. Learned a lot. College wouldn’t let me ahead because I don’t have the core classes. I’m behind.” This sounded like she explained it a lot and was totally uninterested it the reasons.
“Why’d your mom kick you out?”
“I didn’t follow her ideals and she found out. Tossed my ass to the streets.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I’d been going against her ideals for a while. It was getting boring trying to hide it. She found out when I was seventeen. Been on my own... ish for a year now.”
“Ish?”
“My Dad’s paying for my school as much as he can without my mother knowing.”
“Oh.”
“It’s all fucked up. I see him once a year on a business meeting that he never has. I like my dad.”
“What did you do that pissed your mom off so bad?” Jared asked taking another carrot she was offering him.
“Lost my virginity at fifteen.”
“And she kicked you out for that?”
“Super Christian.”
“Oh.”
“Yep.”
There was a pause. Ella snapped a few more carrots and examined Jared’s face. “You might be fun.”
“Hmmm?” He asked being brought out of his train of thought.
“Nothing, I just thought you might be fun.”
“Fun for what?”
“Sex.”
“Oh.”
“You say that a lot.”
“I’m not sure what to say to you.” He admitted.
“Then ask me something.”
“Why sex?”
“It’s fun. You’re male. I’m female. Statistically we’ll probably end up fucking at one point or another the longer we know each other.”
“You think so?”
“I know so Jared. I spend much more time with boys than girls. Can’t fucking stand the whiny bitches.” She pushed the bag of carrots to Jared.
He nodded agreeing with her statement and put the carrots away. “Want anything else?”
“I wanna paint you.” She said though she knew he meant food.
“You already did.”
“Not naked.” She smiled.
“Uh.”
“It’s only fair. You’ve seen me naked more often than with clothes on. You’ve got quite a few paintings of me now. Besides, what if I want to know if you’re worth falling into the statistics with.”
“I’m worth it.” He grinned turning back from the fridge.
“That remains to be seen. You were shy earlier.”
“Caught off guard.”
“Plenty of time to recover.”
“Didn’t want to move and mess up your painting.”
“You were so fidgety it wouldn’t have mattered. Half of that is made up.”
“Looks good.”
“Brazil was a good year for me.”
“You’ve led a strange life, haven’t you?” Jared asked sitting down again and resting his chin on his hands.
“It’s only about to get stranger.”
“How.”
“If we go back into your room I’ll show you.”
Jared looked at her stunned for a moment trying to figure out if she was joking. There was no hint of a smile on her face. He tested her by standing up. She mirrored him and pushed in his chair. He knew she was serious now and was in a position where he couldn’t really back down. Ella sensed his hesitation and made a move to head for his room. Jared stepped in front of her and grabbed her wrist leading her there himself. He shut the door behind himself turned his eyes to hers.
She could see he was nervous and unsure as to what to do. Ella grabbed his hips and pulled him close. Their noses bumped on accident. His breathing caught. His eyes looked terrified.
“Don’t tell me, you’re a virgin.” She smirked planting a quick kiss on his lips.
“No.”
“Then why so nervous.”
“I hardly know you.” He tilted his head and pushed his lips to her tentatively.
“Good. You’re getting it.”
“But Ella-” She covered his lips with her finger to silence him.
“The only sound I want to hear coming from you is my name in a moan.” Her left hand slid to the button on his jeans. “Got it?”
“You sure?” He asked, his hands taking her hips and holding on.
“Come on, it’ll be fun.” She laughed falling back to tug him onto the bed with her.
Jared climbed on top not wanting to ask anymore questions. He didn’t know what was going on and how he’d been so lucky for this to happen but he wasn’t going to fight it. She unbuttoned his jeans and started to slide them off. He tugged at her shirt a bit uncoordinated because he was still off his guard.
Her lips were on his neck kissing and sucking. His breathing shortened and came quicker. She was faster at getting his clothes off than he was hers and started tugging her own jeans off. He grabbed her jaw so he could attach his mouth to hers, her hands slid down his sides and stopped at his hips. One slipped underneath him grabbing hold.
“I think I can work with that.” She leered up at him. “You’re not bad.”
“Thanks.” He laughed not sure what the right reaction was.
“Gunna put it in anytime soon?”
Jared only lowered his hips against hers instead of answering. She gasped as he entered tensing up, the smile on her face told him this was good. He started rocking against her hips and her nails dug into his skin. She moaned telling him it was good, that it felt right. He pushed harder wanting more, her thighs tightened around him telling him to take his time.
“Slow down.” She panted. “Wait for me.”
He bent his head to kiss her neck going at half the pace he was before. Her thighs loosened around him just a bit before tightening again. He was getting her there. She called for him to go harder again and he forgot about kissing her neck. She came with a moan tightening around him so that she pulled him over the edge with her. Jared cried out her name followed by profanity before collapsing on top of her.
“Not so bad.” She laughed running a hand through his hair. “I’ve got to get home.”
“You can stay here.” He said picking his head up to look at her.
“This ain’t a relationship.” She said pushing on his shoulders telling him to get off her.
He moved so she could get up. Ella pulled her clothes back on and picked up her shoes before leaving his room. Jared laid in the middle of his bed wondering what had just happened. He had heard Shannon’s stories of how girls did that to his older brother but Jared never thought it would happen to him.
He shifted his eyes to the sketchbook on the desk where her painting was still visible. He grinned running the last ten minutes through his head again before rolling over and pulling a blanket over himself. It was near midnight and he was tired.