Fear in my eyes

So I went for my first official “posing nude for an artist and getting paid for it” gig. And…I kind of failed at it. Which shocks me. I thought the hardest part would just be getting naked. But no. There’s more. First off, I forgot where Hashpa lived and spent ten minutes ringing every door of the apartment, next door nervously asking “J’ai trouve Hashpa?” only to hear “Quoi? Non!” Oops. Wrong building. I finally find the right one where Hashpa and his feral cat are waiting.

We greet one another, he hangs up my coat, we sit down in his studio and awkwardly chat for a long time. This time I really can’t understand him and it’s frustrating. I really just want to say, “Okay, buddy, time is money. Can I take off my clothes and get this over with?”

He finally pulls out a brown, battered blanket that has seen better days, lays it on the floor, and walks away—-presumably to give me privacy while I get naked. I quickly take off my clothes, sit down, and strike an artistic, noble pose. Legs propped up, arms crossed, looking pensively into the distance. But alas, it is not to be.

Hashpa walks in and shakes his head, “Non, no! Allange! Allange!” he gestures that I lay down.

Mmmm. Laying down. Head on dirty carpet. Feel defenseless. No like. But I do it. I awkwardly move my body around while he gesticulates where to put an arm and leg. Finally, he begins to sketch, and I try to relax, even though I’m on my stomach with my legs spread a little too wide for comfort. This is probably more than even my gynecologist has seen.

And let us not forget the feral cat has now begun attacking me. It’s highly disconcerting to have a cat scratching and biting you when you are completely nude. I began to freak out thinking about, well, what if the cat, like, scratches me down there and I get a terrible infection and I have no health insurance and oh sweet jesus I’m gonna get a staph infection in my….

“Un autre chose!” declares Habash.

Oh, I get to pick a pose. Let’s do the fetal position.

“Pas mal,” he grunts.

We go on like this for awhile, I choosing a pose, Habash critiques and rearranges, and I think everything is hunky dory. Until…he stops.

“Non, non. Ees no good. You are very sensual, nice body nice hair nice eyes nice face…but ees no good! You have fear in your eyes. No good.” He gazes with frustration at his sketches. I think they look quite lovely and would love to frame one for the memories—fearful eyes and all.

“You are young, ees first time, we try again. You bring ami with you?” he asks hopefully.

There’s a thought. Would posing nude with a friend of mine be more or less comfortable? Depends on the friend I guess. When’s the last time I was naked with a girlfriend? Fifth grade? Hashpa would probably make us embrace each other and I just don’t know if I have anyone who’d be down with that. I tell him I will ask my friends and see what they say. He seemed very pleased.

He offered me some wine, I drank a couple glasses naked, and then got dressed. He paid me twenty Euros for my time and I went to walk the streets buzzed once again.
I felt kind of sad, actually. I failed as a nude model. Of course there is fear in my eyes, I can’t exactly be smiling with joy when I lay on a dirty blanket in some Parisian studio with a cat dangerously close to my nether regions. I thought I could just naked and phone this shit in. Why does Habash have to be a real artist? Why can’t I just fake it in Paris? Don’t they know that’s what America was built on? Pretending you got it when you don’t? Merde.