Chapter Text
November
“Kip?” George’s voice comes through the door.
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Got something for you, kiddo. Before you head out.”
“One second,” Kip calls back, fingers hovering over his keyboard where they have been for the past five minutes.
“Okay, I’ll just be downstairs."
Kip waits for the inevitable pause as George decides if he has anything else to add and then the creak of the floorboards as he leaves. He reads the same paragraph again. If he finishes his personal statement today, and double checks the endless amount of documents he needs tomorrow, he can have his applications in by the end of the fortnight and Megan might stop nagging him. And yet, the words still refuse to come.
He groans, leans back in his chair and stares at the noticeboard above his desk – grad school timelines littered in notations from Megan because she “knows how it goes”; shift rotas bordered by penciled kingfishers; orange-tinted photos from Halloween, courtesy of Maria, Kip pressing a drunken kiss to Shawn’s cheek; the decades old clock above the accidental collage telling Kip he’s going to be late. He gives up on getting the final sentence just right in favour of leaving the house on time.
Slipping his bag over his shoulders, he half-runs down the stairs in his socks. George presses a thin battered cardboard box with an ancient rubber band wrapped around it into Kip’s hands as he’s stepping into his shoes.
“Found ‘em in the attic. They were your Pop’s I think,” he says, pleased. “Proper artist’s set and everything.”
Kip takes the box, lifts the lid just enough to peer inside – eight pencils, neatly stacked and perfectly sharpened.
“They’re great, Dad. Thank you” Kip says, meaning it.
George beams, nods. “Ah, you’re welcome, buddy. Just glad I still had them.”
Kip tucks them into the front pocket of his backpack, next to his wallet.
“I gotta go, I’ll be back for dinner,” he says, half out the door.
“Okay okay, I love you.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
He waves as he turns the corner of their street, knowing his dad won’t close the door until he’s out of sight.
—
Kyle calls just as Kip’s exiting the subway, griping about idiot customer of the week and asking Kip if he can do an extra shift at the end of the month. Kip agrees without checking his calendar, says thank you, Kyle when he tells Kip to have fun drawing naked people or whatever, hangs up as he arrives just about on time.
The door to the studio opens with its usual hollow scrape and he closes it quietly behind him, smiling at Alyssa, the class’s regular instructor, as he steps in. The set up is the same each week, a horseshoe of ten or so easels in a large art studio, bare plaster walls with daubs and sketches and notes scattered across them. One corner is taken over by an array of fibre creations – a crocheted net pinned up to the ceiling, countless garlands, and oversized plushies of what appear to be Bert and Ernie. The light is entirely natural, streaming through the skylights over their heads and washing the room in gray or pale yellow depending on the day. It smells of paper and dust and oil paints. Kip fucking loves it.
Shawn is sat near the centre, early as ever. He gives Kip a little finger waggle as Kip spots him, slipping into the final empty seat. He had convinced Kip to come along four weeks ago – you’re into art, right? – after being gifted a voucher for the classes by some well meaning family member last Christmas and well, the 12 months limit on it was about to run out. Picking up art again had seemed like a nice idea until Kip had remembered he used to be good, and had then been quickly forced to reckon with the fact he wasn’t anywhere close to the skill level he’d been able to boast aged nineteen. And then there's the fact that for someone who had recently deemed all this “proportions shit” to be a “waste of time”, Shawn is irritatingly proficient in producing a likeness. Still, it gets Kip out the house.
The first few classes were with the same model each time, Kathy, an older woman with a patchwork of black ink tattoos covering her entire body. Alyssa had mentioned it would be someone different for the next set. Kip will miss Kathy – she was fun, had a story behind each piece of artwork inked into her skin. He thinks he probably has the faded mermaid on her thigh etched into his memory at this point.
He sets the new pencils from George and his small pack of charcoal down on the easel as he takes in the new model this week. A man this time, closer to Kip’s age than Kathy was, brown hair and well-kempt beard, tall and a little lanky from what Kip can tell with the robe on. He’s stood in the centre of the room next to Alyssa, a relaxed but sure set to his shoulders. He introduces himself as Scott, makes easy eye contact with most of the group and says he’s happy to take a bit of direction on poses. He sits on the stool in the centre of the room while Alyssa reiterates the expected etiquette of the class and talks about what she wants them to focus on today – think about how the muscle changes to form each pose, how they contract and relax, the groups they form.
As Scott takes off his robe, it’s immediately clear why Alyssa suggested they focus on musculature for this session. The man could be used as an anatomical diagram, as sculpted as he is. Kip’s here to understand the human form, to see a body as its shapes and map it with lines and smudges of charcoal, but Kip has eyes. It’s not just the objective fitness. There’s a distinctive physicality, a commandingness in how he stands that Kip is immediately considering how he might capture.
They start the class with a warm up pose – twenty minutes of Scott sat on the stool in perfect profile to Kip, chin resting on loose fist. Kip feels some odd vestigial envy over the easy masculinity in it, before losing himself in getting the curve of Scott’s back just right, the press of his elbow on his thigh. The bend of his pinkie, at odds with the rest of his fingers, captures Kip’s attention more than the muscles he’s using to hold his chin up. He hopes Alyssa won’t be too disappointed – he can’t always seem to help what his mind highlights.
Then the quick poses which Kip actually really loves. They’re hard but he likes the challenge, the forced time limit. Scott stands, twists his torso and crosses one arm over his chest. The turn in his abdomen is tricky, the stretch of his obliques translating clunkily into two dimensions. Kip isn’t quite happy with the end result.
Before he can dwell, they’re onto the next pose, Scott leaning his weight on the stool with his back mostly to Kip, the dip of his spine in shadow. The round of Scott’s shoulders is messy on Kip’s page, the lines too harsh, but Kip likes the dimple on his lower back, a soft smudge he made with his thumb. He stares at it for a second, flicks his eyes between the two versions of Scott in front of him before one of them moves.
Scott’s posture changes into something more upright then, more poised as he shifts into the final quick pose. He raises his hands and tilts his head back, almost ballet-esque. Kip knows that can’t be easy to hold, even for minutes. He questions idly what kind of an athlete Scott might be, if he dances, as he spins the curve of his arm on paper.
Scott rolls his shoulders as they settle into their first break. He doesn’t cover up totally – it’s only two minutes – instead sitting down on the stool with the robe laid over his lap. Someone asks how long he’s been modelling – couple years, if he’s an artist himself – I take photos sometimes. Kip wonders if he can ask Scott to keep the robe as it is, half on half off. He needs to practise how fabric falls and it looks pleasing on Scott, softening. Maybe next week, he’ll work up the nerve.
For the next half hour, Kip manages to focus enough he can feel his tongue sticking out a little. He likes the soft white noise of the studio, pencils and charcoal scratching and the occasional page turn. This pose is different, seemingly less deliberate. After listening to Kathy talk about the artistry that goes into modelling, Kip knows how hard it is to make a pose look so unposed. One leg is folded on the stool holding half Scott’s weight, his hand clasped round the edge of the wooden seat. It’s strangely vulnerable, curling in on his body in a way Kip feels a sort of kinship to. He finds himself focussing on the crease between his thigh and abdomen, where the plane of his stomach folds.
In the longer break, Scott slips the robe back on and sips from a water bottle that’s clearly been through the wars – silver scratches where the color’s worn off and stickers so old the original designs are almost unidentifiable. There’s a newer sticker, a small polaroid camera printing out a photo that says Trans Rights. Kip holds that knowledge for a second and moves on. He cracks his knuckles, feeling the pop when the tension releases.
Scott is pulled into a conversation with Alyssa and another member of the class at the easel next to Kip’s. He’s about to turn his sketchbook to an empty page when he hears Shawn’s voice from behind him.
“I like it, Christopher,” he coos, peering over Kip’s shoulder.
“Ah, thanks.”
Scott catches his eye, curious, and his gaze flicks over to the graphite rendition of himself. He cocks his head, nodding along to what Alyssa’s saying about the focus of the next few sessions but he shoots a smile at Kip.
Scott holds two longer poses after the break, standing first, pelvis titled and feet placed as if walking. This one, Kip does in pencil, crosshatching around every plane of muscle, smudging the lead where the shadows dissipate.
Scott sits into the second pose, body facing Kip and legs pressed together hips to ankles. Kip marvels at him keeping his back so perfectly straight for forty minutes, hands clasped on each knee. Elegant, not performatively, settled into a shape that looks like it fits Scott – at least Kip thinks so.
Movement registers in Kip’s periphery, Alyssa weaving a line through the easels, leaning in to give quiet direction every so often.
“Don’t shy away from making some of these shadows darker,” she says, tracing the lines under Scott’s jaw and on the inside of his calves with her finger.
Kip nods, taking out a 4B from his set.
By the end of the session, Kip has four pages of poses, varying equally in quality and style with notes scattered around the periphery on muscle definition and function, how motion in Scott’s fingertips shifted tendons on the back of his hand, up into his forearm. He’s getting better, he thinks. Each line comes a little more naturally, a little more controlled.
Shawn runs off at the end of the class, calling a bye girl to Kip before he’s out the door, citing an important catering event he’s supposed to be early for. Kip takes his time packing up. Leaving the studio means going back to real life – holed up in his childhood bedroom pushing all the reasons he loves art history through an application shaped stencil. Not the stuff of fairytales.
In his dawdling, he ends up leaving the building at the same time as Scott.
“Christopher, right?” Scott says as he holds the door open for Kip.
“Kip, actually. Christopher if I’m in trouble, or dressed up, or when Shawn feels like it,” Kip replies, gesturing to the direction Shawn left in.
Scott smiles, big with teeth. Now they’re outside, Kip can see his eyes are hazel, flecked with gold. He can forget that – his various forms of carbon only come in one colour – but he doesn't think he will.
“Nice to meet you then, Kip.”
“You too, Scott.”
Scott pulls a pair of dark red gloves on and nods in the opposite direction to Kip’s way home, before leaving at a half-jog.
—
The subway is quicker on the way back. Kip’s earphones break half way through the journey and he lets the rattle of the train fill in the silence, considering the negative space around the passengers opposite him – how they shape it, how he’d fill it on paper, which fleeting expressions on their face he’d choose to pencil down.
Elena would raise her eyebrows and call him pretentious and artsy, laughing gently at his refound obsession with people and how they look. But she’ll sit still for half an hour while he practises getting the bow of her lips just right, the arch of her eyebrows. She’ll angle to see every iteration, however terrible he claims them to be.
He texts her.
Kip: drinks on sat?
Elena: Missing me?
Kip: obviously