ART, HUMOR, SHORT STORY

I Wasn’t Meant To Be An Art Model

My Pigmentumphobia has been replaced by Gymnophobia

“Stay still!” Her shout echoes through the mainly empty penthouse, earth quaking crystal stemware. I stare at the tiny ripples spreading from the center as though a tiny pebble had been dropped into the pinot grigio.

“I’m trying!” And I am. My left thumb has lost feeling, my right nipple itches, and everything below both knees feels as though I’ve been napping under a backhoe’s bucket for at least three days.

I really wish I hadn’t lost the bet. I had been so sure that metrophobia was the fear of riding the subway. Who wouldn’t taste bile swimming up their throat at the very thought of sitting on public transit amongst so many unwashed buttcracks?

She had insisted that it was the fear of poetry. Who is afraid of a poem? Maybe if I started quoting Sylvia Plath while on the tube I would have a wider berth?

And here I am. Naked as a freshly shaved ferret, sitting as an artist’s model. While she mixes red, yellow, and blue to achieve just the right shade to match the skin below my armpits.

“I think I’m developing gymnophobia!” I announce. It’s well beyond my normal 4:00 pm pee-time and the chill has shrunken a few unmentionable parts of my body.

“What does fear of working out have to do with any of this?” She asks, dipping her brush into an old teapot that holds water.

“It’s not GYMnophobia. It has nothing to do with sweating or exercise,” I insist. I know this. “It’s a fear of being naked.”

“Uh uh. No way,” she states acrylic-splotched palms on hips. Her eyes, the color of chipmunk haunches, are almost golden now that her spunky spirit has emerged. “Wanna bet?”

Bet? Oh, do I ever! I’m starving and maybe she’ll learn what Mageirocophobia is.

This story is in response to Will Hull (and Tree Langdon).

I now tag Carlos Garbiras, Brenda Mahler, and Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她).

©Jennifer J. McDougall 2021