We discuss where to commence and in the end it just happens. I aid in undressing the model, but it never veers off and into the sexual. It is so uncertain, and it doesn’t seem possible to enjoy the moment. Soon, she stands before me completely naked and more comfortable than I had imagined she might be. Now, as I sit and look at her and wonder where to place my eyes – exactly – not that I haven’t seen female nudity many times before, she starts to ponder the experience, voicing some of her sensations.
She is facing me. Her hair is tied
back, her ponytail falling in front of her shoulder, her nipples are large,
consuming the lower area of her ample breasts. They hang like succulent fleshy
droplets, fruit ripe and waiting to be plucked from their tree, raindrops
desperate to plummet towards earth and shatter upon the ground.
She has been standing, allowing me to
simply admire her in this new state. Now, she moves over to and takes a seat
upon her sofa.
She is presently half sitting, half
lying, her upright upper body neither too stiff nor overly relaxed. She appears
comfortable, talkative, nothing at all forced. It’s almost identical to a
standard portrait, the absent clothes not spoiling anything. I proffer that she
might be a willing participant for modelling nude for an artist class, but it
smacks of something a little too open to any kind of unwanted attention and
spotlight to her. She prefers the intimacy of the one-on-one treatment, and you
can’t blame her for that.
We discuss skinny dipping and her
naked experience at a German spa, where it felt natural given everybody else
being in the same state. Her figure is well toned, a fit, healthy, and vibrant
woman in her mid-forties.
Her face is glowing with an almost
youthful exuberance, the shared experience bringing out her colour, perhaps a
mix of excitement, nervousness, and embarrassment a cocktail of emotions as she
is surprised, stated again, at how easy it is to be naked with an artist –
myself fully clothed – and being written about in such a state of undress.
The lights are quite low, some
curtains are drawn, it is still day outside, and the mood of the room is a
relaxed one, somewhere in between a Danish showroom at a lighting company and
romantic/sensual. She has shifted position, my unnamed model, legs now facing
sideways, sticking out of her body to my left. Her hand is placed on her thigh,
concealing her vagina, though it briefly appears as she shifts to have a drink
of her tea, or the hair of it at least, and then it is gone again.
One of her arms is now up behind her
head in a pose the great impressionists of yore would have loved. It wove its
way down like a sublime sculpture. As smooth as the sea when it has nary a
ripple, glass-like, as if it were blown by a master glassblower.
Her tummy is toned, muscly but also
soft, far from betraying being the body of a mother of two. She is comfortably
seated, observing me, looking around, wearing the room, the scenario, the
moment, if not bedecked in a stitch. It must be liberating.
She grows silent, also looking at me,
listening to the room, how her new outfit speaks to her, what it comments upon
her nakedness, to how it admires her willingness. She asks me if she is hairy
down there – what do I know? – but it is not the easiest question to answer as
the feeling exists that there is a required answer to such queries. And… is not
everything relative?
She walks out of the room (unrelated
to the previous question and my less than forthcoming answer – I did say it was
not overly hairy), with a clear tan line on her bottom, which is peach-like, a
succulent posterior as it powers gently through the room. Her body is compact,
beautiful, as warm as the perfectly dimmed Scandinavian lighting.
She re-enters the room, asks if she
should sit down, and as she is willing (maybe she was pushing me to ask her to
stand) she remains on her feet and slowly moves her weight from one foot to the
other repeatedly as though a silent song does it to her.
Behind the dense dark blond hair of
her vagina are thick, full, rich lips protruding, requesting passion,
attention, endless desire, puckering up for touch and feel.
Her hips draw out to where the outer
edges of her lower bikini tan line live – for now – and as she gently shuffles
sideways (a pendulum style rocking) she appears more petite than when she is
fully clothed. There is the vulnerability not of our characters, but that which
our nudity represents.
Her belly button goes inside, as if
to take anyone peering at it to the interior behind the walls of skin, where
her womb once held a body and then another. There are some tiny scars nearby as
well as a few small moles. Her whole body is one of a younger woman, mostly
smooth, soft to the eye, easy to look at, to devour complete.
When the topic of ‘cellulite’ is
brought up – by her, of course, what do you think I am, crazy? – she states
that she hopes she doesn’t have any. Cue a brief joke from the artist that
leads to the model wishing she had not brought it up. It’s a little banter that
might not ordinarily be possible, not with most other people. But… Is it not to
deny her age, her life on earth, what her body has lived until now to wish
cellulite away?
I become aware – as I write, looking
at the page – I am looking down and not admiring the wonderful naked female
body in front of me. This is one of the disadvantages of a naked portrait with
words. Her bottom is in front of me, legs stretching, tiptoeing feet, as she
tries to make herself look taller or just stretches out her limbs, so they
don’t get stiff. She stares into the distance, a deliberate, slight rotation,
like a pig on a spit, only slower, only vertically, full of life, far from
overheated, and much prettier, of course.
I now see the side of her shapely
breasts. They hang a couple of inches below where they emerge from her lower
chest as she reaches down to touch something, the breasts stealing the
limelight. The position is pure modelling – not sexual, not enticing, just a
simple display, a demonstration of the body that had been (and normally was)
beneath her clothes. This was a perfect example of our lives – our sleeping or
hidden sides. How often were they even allowed to surface? Did it always have
to be just so, the way society dictated? Our bodies were often craving escape,
release from the prison of conformity. Did we let them? Mostly, I would say
not. On this occasion, the model had allowed it to happen. We ought to be brave
and take a chance a little more often. As this wondrously shapely Danish pixie
before me was showing, right now – in all her naked glory – life was very much
for the living.
Connected to this literary portrait is the artwork with number DJS00003 above.
Both works by Dominic J Stevenson (for more details contact me on dominicjstevenson@yahoo.co.uk)
