Class 1

Watching her stick of charcoal crawl across the sheet of drawing paper was the visual equivalent of a fingernail on chalkboard. Every one of her lines or smudges looked jarring, or out of place, or lost. Which exactly mirrored her state of mind.

She had expected some kind of direction, at least a word or two about the materials or what they were trying to accomplish with this first drawing. Instead, the instructor gave no preliminary lecture, no instruction of any kind. They were asked to set their drawing pads upon one of the many freestanding easels in the room, then take out a stick of vine charcoal. The next thing she knew she was staring at a lovely young woman casually disrobing on a model stand. They had fifteen minutes to draw the model as accurately as they could.

Accurately? Catherine glanced at the deformed representation of a human being on her sheet of paper and then back at the model, who was a knock-out. The model sat almost demurely on a simple wooden chair, her back straight, legs together. In Catherine's drawing, every joint on the poor girl was misaligned and somehow flattened, as though she'd been hastily reassembled after some cataclysmic accident. Maybe a figure drawing class had been a bad idea. Her level of natural talent was probably too small to be measured, and she could already see that she had no beginner's luck.

A quick scan of the room told her that she wasn't the only one having trouble. A diverse class, as she had expected on a weekday afternoon. There were an even dozen students, more women than men, the youngest looked to be nineteen and the oldest, a tall frail-looking man, had to be pushing eighty. Getting his geezer kicks by staring at the naked model? He was scowling, though — in fact, most of the students were scowling as they drew. She couldn't see the other students' first efforts, but she didn't need to. Hers wouldn't be the only drawing that was a mess.

Catherine's eyes wandered to their teacher, Pierce West. He was tall and lean with greenish eyes and a wonderfully chiseled jaw. Thirty years old, tops, but he projected a quiet sort of maturity and confidence just by the way he moved around the room. Fairly new to the city, Catherine had learned from one of the other students, and well credentialed, with a BFA from Cranbrook and an MFA from Yale. He showed his work at a gallery in Chelsea and his paintings fetched prices approaching six figures.

Catherine returned to her hopeless drawing, trying to perform some sort of miracle surgery by lengthening one charcoal leg while shortening the other. She blew out a puff of air in frustration, as every correction just made matters worse.

At the end of their fifteen minutes of drawing shame, the students were gathered together with their pale efforts on their laps. At Pierce's instigation, they discussed what they had learned.

"I learned that I can't draw at all!" a young woman offered.

"I was afraid to make mistakes," another woman followed. "But there were nothing but mistakes — it was unnerving!"

"I learned that I still like to look at the ladies," the old man proclaimed, and everyone had a good laugh.

"What you all confronted was uncertainty and maybe even some fear," their teacher suggested. "How many of you had anxiety about what the others would think of your drawing?"

All hands raised.

"How many of you felt the need to get things 'right', even though you knew you couldn't?"

Most hands raised.

"How many of you felt discomfort at seeing the model disrobe?"

A few hands raised, and Catherine noted that her own hand was among them.

Pierce gave them an outline of the course and what he hoped they would accomplish in the short time allowed: Five sessions in all — after this introductory class, they would meet three times the following week, working intensively with the model every time. A short break would follow, to allow them to draw outside of the classroom environment, and then a final class the following week.

And what were they trying to achieve? A sense of exploration as opposed to striving for perfection, a willingness to find their own creative "voices" over trying to draw like some artist they admired. Interpretation over emulation — the goal was not to copy what they saw in front of them, but to reach inside both the model and themselves, to arrive at something authentic. Making mistakes was okay and even necessary, because drawing was primarily a deep search, a search for freedom and truth.

Catherine liked the teacher and the atmosphere he was trying to create. She especially loved his voice — its tones were rich and soothing, with a natural singsong lilt that brought back memories of fairy tales being read to her as a child. She began to feel a bit sleepy and was almost thankful when Pierce asked them to close their eyes for what he described as "a kind of guided meditation", to relax them and focus their concentration. It was more New Age-y than she had expected in a figure drawing class, but Pierce obviously had a plan, a favored method of teaching.

She shut her eyes and listened to her teacher's voice, steady yet melodic, telling them to relax, to breathe normally yet with attention on the breath. Catherine felt a little silly at first. Whatever you called these sorts of things — meditation or contemplation or relaxation techniques — they smelled of wishful thinking. Soon, however, she sensed the air entering and leaving her lungs, felt Pierce's words calmly slipping into her ears, and her skepticism seemed to slide right off of her body, puddling invisibly beneath her chair. She breathed in the voice, and breathed out all tensions, in and out, in and out... It was such a full voice, so round and compelling. And she did feel unusually relaxed, and open, almost embracing every word, every pause, falling into every silence...

No, she wouldn't be afraid to make mistakes. And yes, they were all there to do more than draw, they were there to learn about themselves, going beyond what they thought they already knew. The human body was beautiful, and all that she was, all of her creative energy, was already known to the body, was known to her body. The hand and the charcoal in the hand was an extension of the body, and the body was the container of all the creative energy they had within themselves. The body's knowledge is fluid, slipping between the cracks in the walls that the mind erects.

Yes, drawing could be hard. More often than not you had to submit to unseen currents that carried you along. It was all about flowing, and if she submitted to these steady currents, she could work indirectly to get what she wanted, teasing things out, stimulating them until everything came together. You never knew when you might be flooded with creative energy, might even be poised to explode with creative energy. She had to allow her ordinary mind to stay out of the way, giving in to the creative juices so that everything could flow.

She needed to trust her body. Her vision would gradually become more focused, her hands more intuitive. Her eyes and her hands would lead the way, revealing new truths while guiding her forward. She would establish a new relationship between her eyes and her mind's eye. And yes, her ordinary mind would forget most of these words, even though her body would remember, following the instructions just as she had followed the breath. Trust the body, follow the hands, focus the vision and long to hear this voice again...

Now, write three words on the back of your drawing that best describe who you are, she heard, and her hand that was an extension of her beautiful body fulfilled the assignment.

She felt as though she was floating for several unconnected moments, and then a tugging sensation in her hands told her that her drawing was being taken from her. Upon opening her eyes, she found the others already up and moving. Pierce held her drawing and looked down at her with interest.

"You seemed to go very deep during the meditation, Catherine," he smiled. "Extremely deep."

"So deep..." she whispered. Wow, what a head-melting, er... heart-melting voice. She could barely remember a word he'd said during the meditation, but the effects lingered with a delicious aftertaste, quickening her pulse.

"Now, back to your easels," Pierce commanded. "Let's start drawing!"

Catherine returned to her easel and got a new sheet of paper ready as the model once again stepped out of her robe.

"Drawing the model is a study in relationships," Pierce addressed them. "You focus on the parts as you go, but always in relation to the whole. We need to see the model as an accumulation of related shapes, not an assemblage of words. Yes, an arm is an arm, but the word has no value while drawing, it has no specificity. What sort of relationship between various shapes do you see that comprise what your mind calls 'the arm'? Even the space between things, such as the space between two spread fingers, or the space between the thighs, can be seen in this way, as having its own shape."

The brief lecture completed, the model took a standing pose with her legs somewhat spread and her hands clasped behind her head. It wasn't a conscious plan, but Catherine approached this next drawing quite differently than before, laying in several long, sweeping strokes that mimicked the model's verticality and curviness, even though they did little to describe the particulars of the body. She tried to make her brain see shapes instead of body parts, but it was hard. She felt a part of her mind thinking the regular things, like "that girl has such lovely dimples above her rear", or "that's a really toned abdomen, she obviously works out". Still, she could ignore that voice to some degree as she tried to see shapes, keeping her mind on the whole.

And things were definitely going better than before, which gave her confidence. She swept in a series of oval curves to fix the position of the head and then moved down, giving an indication of the neck and shoulders.

What about the breasts? She hesitated, feeling a bit... perplexed. The model had gorgeous breasts, full but not too full, with nicely shaped nipples. With her body angled somewhat towards Catherine, each breast presented a very different shape to work with. The left breast was almost pointing right at her; it was essentially a milky circle with a darker circle in the middle. The right breast was defined in space with a more volumetric shape, somewhat conical with a nipple that was... that was...

The nipple was erect. As in hard and, um, excited. Actually, both nipples looked excited.

Catherine wiped her brow. Wow. Even the expression on the model's face looked sort of... well, hot and bothered. Either the model was a million miles away, remembering the touch of some lover, or the girl really, really enjoyed modeling.

"Hold still," Catherine heard in her left ear.

Pierce, licking his thumb, then wiping something away from right above her eyes.

"Charcoal on your face," her teacher whispered. "It's easy to see where you've been touching yourself in a drawing class. Beautiful form, by the way. Keep the juices flowing and try to go even deeper. Focus on the whole, don't let the details interrupt your sense of freedom."

Pierce moved on, and for some reason Catherine just felt... moved. Her body trembled as a leaf trembles in a barely-there breeze, although she couldn't say why.

And when Pierce stood next to the model to point out a few particulars of female anatomy, the trembling intensified. Drawing attention to specific areas that the students were having trouble with, Pierce's hands drew sensual curves in the air that echoed the model's lovely form. He never touched the girl, but his gestures were so... so... suggestive. The model, completely trusting, closed her eyes, her lips full and slightly parted. Something about her expression made Catherine shift her weight back and forth on restless legs.

Pierce lectured about anatomy for several minutes, his fine hands almost touching the areas in question. Words like "clavicle" and "fibula" and "pelvis" slipped into Catherine's ears, and every time the teacher's hands moved near the model's flesh, a little echoing chill of excitement seemed to fire inside of her own body. Oh no, she thought, all of her focus drawn to the area between her legs. She felt all alive down there and sensed that she was becoming moist. Oh my. Her first experience of studying a nude model and she was getting kind of excited. How inappropriate.

"Many of you are having trouble with the breasts," Pierce announced. "Yes, breasts, there's no need to feel nervous about them or about having them pointed out. Now, pay close attention to the shaping of the breasts, their curvature and weight. Even Michelangelo, genius that he was, failed to understand that breasts are not cones or globes added onto the body — their shaping extends from the body. You must remember the interior of all that you draw, as the surface is always informed by the interior. Try to feel the inside of a thigh, for instance, as you draw a thigh. Feel your own thighs as you draw a thigh, to tap the inner knowledge there, to let it flow.

And play with different ways of making marks with your charcoal, different line-weights. Vary your strokes by changing both the speed and the length of the strokes. Vary the pressure of the stroke, too, sometimes soft and light, sometimes hard, with more pressure. The harder the pressure, the more weight the line conveys. Be delicate where you see delicacy. Be hard where you see hardness. Draw with relaxation where you see relaxation, draw excitedly where you see excitement..."

Hardness, excitement, flowing thighs and strokes and pointy breasts... Catherine felt light-headed, her teacher's voice seeming to echo in her brain. Her eyes had closed somewhere during the lecture and she felt like she could really use some hot sex... er, hot coffee. And speaking of heat, it really was hot in the room. For the nude model's benefit, no doubt, otherwise the girl would catch a cold.

Shaking herself awake, she smudged out the breasts she had started to draw, and tried to be in touch with her own breasts as she moved her stick of charcoal. Damn, that model's nipples were so erect. She pressed down on the paper as she drew the bottom of the right nipple and felt a corresponding tingle or... something, within her body. Both of her nipples felt like they were standing on end, at full attention.

By the end of class she had four more drawings. Pierce handed back their first effort and Catherine had a hard time gathering her things, her hands were shaking so badly. A series of sharp chills permeated her body and her breathing was off. Maybe she was going down... er, coming down with something.

She had errands to run on the way home. Charles was flying in for the weekend and she wanted to cook for him rather than go out. She stopped by Kate's Paperié to check on the wedding announcements, and put in an hour's workout at the health club.

One of the doormen at her building, Giuseppe, carried her things into the elevator and all the way to the entryway of her loft. It was an informal rule in Dorchester Towers, that one of the two doormen on duty would assist the building's female residents if there were things to be carried up. She tipped Giuseppe, as always, although she knew the pleasure had been all his. She had figured out long ago that Giuseppe gave her tons of extra attention whenever she wore a short skirt. He was obviously a leg man.

After hanging up her coat and removing her shoes, Catherine spread her five drawings on the living room carpet and assessed her progress. The last drawing was much better than the first, which was something, at least. They all looked a bit awkward, though. Her hand had a way of making several hesitant, jerky lines when her eyes craved something more sustained and fluid, making parts of her drawings look sort of... constipated.

Rhythm, that's what it was. There didn't seem to be a sufficient sense of flowing rhythm in the lines. That had been her strength in ballet — creating strong, flowing lines with her body. Funny, then, that it showed so negatively in these drawings.

She gathered the drawings together to put them away, and it was then that she first saw the three words she had written on the back of her initial effort: "Graceful", "Repressed", "Struggling".

Catherine stared at the words, searching for a memory that wasn't there. For the life of her she couldn't remember choosing those three words to describe herself. The handwriting was hers and she remembered her hand moving across the back of the paper... But why those three words? How did she come to choose them?

"Graceful" was certainly accurate. She had done some modeling herself, three years of high-end advertising work before reorienting her interest towards the publishing side of fashion. Her face was well poised between cute and lovely, set off by fine auburn hair and an elegant neck. Catherine's parents pushed her into ballet classes at an early age, and she had gained obvious physical benefits from her many years of dance. She was svelte and well formed everywhere, especially in her legs. She had gorgeous legs, absolutely gorgeous. Fashion photographers had gone crazy for all of her assets, but they clamored most loudly for her shapely stems, finding them ideal for animating hosiery and shoes and lingerie of all kinds.

And she wasn't naïve —a man like Charles Hightower would never have proposed to her if not for her beauty. She remembered their first meeting, with Charles almost swooning over her at a ballet fundraiser. She had been all dolled-up in a little black dress and heels, and Mr. Old-Money Surgeon Man hadn't been able to remove his eyeballs from her legs all night long. He looked stricken, as though beset by a disease from which he would never recover. And maybe he never had.

So graceful, definitely. But what about "Repressed"? Some people might think that she sounded repressed, because of her accent. Eight formative years in Johannesburg, South Africa had indelibly grafted an accent onto her English that people sometimes mistook for something out of a Merchant Ivory film. And her life had been a tiny bit like that — all the right schools, with so much deportment crammed into her brain and body that it had long ago become first-nature. So okay, she could certainly be more... well, unrepressed, who couldn't? But her training was a good thing — without a proper sense of decorum and restraint, people could become lost to all sorts of undesirable behaviors. Money and family lines weren't the only factors that separated the well-bred from the undisciplined riff-raff — manners, carriage, and a clear sense of right and wrong also came into play.