Page 6 of Painted

Fuck. What if Rhys didn’t like incredibly modest genitals?

A knock on the door nearly caused Early to jump out of their skin.

“You ready in there?” Rhys asked.

Early winced, no idea how they’d gotten themself into this mess.

No, that was wrong. The very thing that everyone was about to see was what had gotten them into this mess.

Oh, God! What if they got hard while everyone was looking at them?

“Yeah?” they answered, their voice squeaking. “Just about.”

“You know you don’t have to do this if it’s too much,” Rhys’s voice came through the door, so quiet that Early doubted anyone else could hear him. “I won’t hold it against you if it’s not your thing.”

Early swallowed hard. It very much was their thing, and they wanted Rhys to hold it against them and then some.

“No, I’m coming,” they said, then winced at the alternate meaning of those words.

“Take your time,” Rhys said. “The class is setting up their supplies right now.”

Early nodded, even though they knew Rhys couldn’t see them. They stepped out of their panties, then quickly tucked them deep between the folds of the rest of their clothes on the shelf. From there, they grabbed the oversized robe from the hook on the wall, then threw it on and tied the sash with shaking hands.

“I can do this,” they told themself. “Rhys needs me. I can do this for Rhys. And then maybe he’ll see?—”

Maybe he’d see too much.

Early swallowed hard, then turned the handle and pushed the closet door open. They stepped into the room, pausing on the other side of the door and glancing around. They expected everyone to be gawping at them…but actually, it was just as Rhys had said it would be. The students were milling about, fetching their supplies and setting up large pages of newsprint on the boards attached to their easels.

“You okay?” Rhys asked again as Early stepped hesitantly forward.

Early nodded tightly as Rhys escorted them to the big, black block in the center of the room, then pushed out, “Yeah. I’ve got this.”

Rhys smiled. That made everything so much better. It was a genuine smile of gratitude, one that connected the two of them. “Great,” he said. “Posing for a class like this is really simple. First, I’ll ask you to pose and switch up poses every three minutes. It’s part of the initial exercise I do to give the class a taste of sketching different body shapes. Try to move and extend as much as possible so they can work on all sorts of poses. Does that make sense?”

Early nodded tightly again. “Yeah.”

What made sense was that they couldn’t get away with balling themself up in a way that would hide everything important from the old ladies and—oh God—the younger people, too. Including Hazel Brightly, who had been in their class in school.

“You’ve got this,” Rhys said, clapping Early on the back.

That quick touch convinced Early that they actually did have this.

“Great,” Rhys said. “You can keep your robe on your shoulders or let it hang from your elbows if it makes you more comfortable. You don’t have to take it off entirely.”

“Okay,” Early said, letting Rhys direct them to sit on the block.

They didn’t want to let Rhys down by taking the easy way out, though. They picked at the tie of their robe, far too conscious of everyone settling in at their easels and watching him expectantly.

Was this how people felt when doing things like Only Fans? Hell, if they could get naked for a class full of amateur artists, maybe they could make enough money online to move out of their parents’ house if?—

Nope. They nipped that thought in the bud immediately as the sash came loose and their robe sagged open.

“This first exercise is sort of like the lightning round,” Rhys explained to the class, drawing everyone’s eyes away from Early as they tried to work up the courage to bare it all. “Our model will assume a series of poses and hold them for just a few minutes each. Your job is to sketch the movement and lines of their body with your charcoal pencils. Don’t think about it too much and don’t spend too much time on detail.”

Early took a deep breath and let it all go, shrugging the sides of their robe aside. The whoosh of cold air hitting their skin had gooseflesh breaking out all over. They had no idea how to hold their body at first. Every single instinct within them screamed at them to hide it all, to hide everything that had caused so much confusion in them for the last few years.

“First sketch starts now…go,” Rhys said, looking at his mobile phone as he started some sort of timer.

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