Lost and Found in San Francisco

(From Part 1)

Modeling is tedious work and most especially so in an art class where one does it in the nude. As an established male in the business I work au naturel and have learned to wrap myself in a psychological cocoon which helps me get through a boring hour. I pay as little attention as possible to our dingy instructor and even less to her fledgeling Picassos unless I chance to spot a toothesome morsel among them.

I sat on an ancient piano stool, one of the circular kind which I associate with the jazz age with tassles of a faded rose hue, wondering what this bizarre setting meant to our instructor as I shivered from the cold and dampness of the loft which will forever smell of human sweat, a leftover from myriad ballet classes.

Ms. Reaves flirted with a reluctant forty and worked for the Adult Education Program who also pays my fee. She is a natural born drear and I had given her scant attention until the day she brought a baton to class, which seemed odd as an art class has nothing in common with an orchestra, but when our Ms. Reaves commenced to touch my flesh with the stick, the ghost of Freud came to the fore and I sensed that the wood was her way of fondling my body parts vicariously while pretending to talk about body musculature.

Reaves hair was mousy brown, she disdained makeup and jewelry and sheathed herself in shapeless dresses that were periodless in their bad taste. I categorized her as the type who takes perverse pride in her dowdiness which meant to me that she was a time-bomb ticking.

These occurrences made me cognizant of her seething passion for my body and I could not help but recoil when near her. Why is it that we cringe from unwanted lust being thrown our way by an undesirable creature when we can drool over an object of our selection, one who finds us equally repugnant? I'd ask Dr. Freud but he's no longer taking calls.

Ms. Reaves wore a wedding band so one assumed that she had a husband with whom she cohabited in some manner or form. Was he a lousy lover, a sadistic creep, a rabbit who left her unsatisfied? Did she despise him; did her flesh crawl from his? Not necessarily. Who would know better than I the complexities of human sexuality, the longing of the repressed, passion out of control? I might not understand the subject in terms suitable to Freud but mine were equally authentic as they came from the sexual arena. I was self-taught on and by the streets.

Some say that we cannot be in love with more than one person at a time. Empirical data from the archives of my existence deny the validity of this hypothesis unless I am the exception that proves the rule. Who could know better than I that she could be in love with her husband while lusting for another, in this case, a naked model, and that said lust could make hamburger of her innards because mine have scar tissue to prove the point. The lady was strangling with lust for my flesh and what she got or didn't get at home was of little consequence as I sat on that stool with Goosebumps showing. Her mind was lost in a swirling fog of passion, her vision had become opaque and she was confused to the point where she was incapable of knowing lust from love from obsession and would end up calling them love when all three have their different meanings.

It was at this point that I wanted to get free from her and the inevitable explosion by requesting another assignment. But if I did, I would surely be asked why. Advising my superior that the instructor had the hots for my body would most likely backfire leaving me as the villain of the piece.

I would have given the matter scant attention had Ms. Reaves refrained from touching my anatomy with the baton but in Freudian terms, this was her way of caressing me without actually touching which gave her a certain safety in numbers by doing it before the class as if it were part of instruction when any dolt would recognize the change in her voice timbre, that her face grew flushed and that she became erratic when touching those body parts where she wished to emphasize musculature to her students, so it seemed, but in reality, her's was a ruse for caressing my body parts with the baton, the buttocks, abdomen and thighs in particular, while coming as close to the groin as her slight hold on reality would allow. Clearly, I had need to get rid of Ms. Reaves before she got rid of me by losing the last of her self-control and attacking me before the class.

On the last day that I modeled for her class, I recalled my first obsession for the flesh of another which occurred during my freshman year of college. I was swept into the vortex of madness and confusion with symptoms of both love and hate for the same person and some brain once said that there is a thin line between the two. The passion that consumed me made me want to destroy with passion that individual for whom my lust burned. Now I was on the receiving end and even if I were stupid enough to take this crazed creature she would ultimately destroy herself and me as the gossamer strands between love and hate were erased. Conversely, if I continued to ignore her, she might attack me before the class. I felt premonitions from her hot breath on my neck, back and arms, and when she ran the baton through my pubic hairs it took all of my will power to keep from recoiling. Even so, eyebrows were raised and sardonic smiles appeared among the students who were onto her little game. Fortunately, the bell rang before Ms. Reaves lost her total cool and dissolved into a psychotic puddle and whatever happened, she would blame me. In this case, the cliche saved by the bell had much validity. I put on my robe, slipped into my zoris and made my way toward the men's dressing room. As my hand touched the knob, I heard her feather steps behind me before she spoke in that breathlessly apologetic voice that I have grown to despise.

'Mr. Stone, please, a word with you. It seems to me that you are showing a marked disinterest in your job. I felt it my duty to call the matter to your attention. Perhaps a little more joie de vivre.' She made her twitching grimaces that pass for smiles while twisting the lapels of her coat.

Angered by her desperate charade, I said: 'Ms. Reaves, a model is nothing but a hunk of flesh to be studied and drawn by a group of students. Just as a cadaver is to be dismembered by doctors of the future. Both model and cadaver perform their jobs in total silence and with utmost discretion. You will excuse me. I should like to take a hot shower.

'But it does seem,' she rattled on, refusing to let go. Strictly by impulse, I let my kimono fall open as I told the lady, 'It's yours, if you want it, but I don't come cheap.' She choked on shock and as I entered the dressing room I heard her scream.

I luxuriated under the hot jets from the shower and wondered if she would dare appear at the next class, or would I receive a summons to answer whatever tale of woe she might concoct. As the sting of the spray brought relaxation, I went back to my desperate collegiate affair and recalled my voracious appetite for the flesh of another which assumed cannibalistic proportions. Succinctly put, this type of passion is too hot not to cool down ... thank you, Cole Porter.. and the day finally came when my love object became strangled by my insatiable appetite. Perhaps it was karmic that I found myself on the other end of the spectrum, the object of Ms. Reaves' monstrous appetite for my flesh. Gasping for air, during the college contretemps, I heard words that I had never heard before, words new to my ears but old to my soul. Said my collegiate fantasy, 'Somebody has to win out in these things. To hear what I felt for another referred to as a thing was high blasphemy and stung as would a hive of angry bees. With a primal scream, I crossed a threshold from which there is n