The 'Cock-Up' Story

It's that advert that keeps bringing back the horror of the entire situation. That one about impulse with that song and that beautiful woman provoking a prominent, embarrassing, (and natural, damn it) reaction from the model of the art class. See, I know exactly what the situation is like. I've been a life model myself and I went through that very same ordeal, once.

I suppose I kind of drifted into the job, but I can't really remember how. You'd think that if I'd just sit down and try to recollect the details, I'd come up with some sort of chain of events that led up to my earning money by sitting in the nude in front of a bunch of total strangers so that they could draw me. But no, I just can't.

I can remember the first day, of course. I can remember it quite clearly, because of how frightened I was. I can remember knowing on one level that everybody in the room knew exactly what to expect, but on another level that seemed to be dominating all the more logical ones, something was screaming at me not to venture out from behind the screen and step in front of all those strangers. At least, not without my clothes, anyway. I was convinced that someone was bound to cry out in shock and I would be branded as some kind of a perverted streaker, forever more.

It would have been easier if I'd thought to take along a housecoat or something. I mean, they always wear them in the films, don't they? They always step into the middle of the room, nonchalantly drop the gown at their feet and effortlessly adopt some stylish pose or other. But I didn't even have that little buffer between privacy and total exposure. I had to cross the room wearing nothing at all, before I could adopt the pose. So eventually, I summoned up my courage and stepped out. There was no laughter. There was no sniggering. There were no gasps of outrage or anything like that at all. These people simply reacted as if they saw sights like that every day. And to be fair, they probably did. All in all, the response was a little disappointing. I didn't want laughter or shock or ridicule, but some sort of response would have been better than nothing at all.

But I soon settled into the job. I made friends among some of the artists and one of them in particular, has done my ego no end of good by assuring me that I have been the subject of several complimentary conversations. Apparently, where "measuring up" is concerned, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I've even been to the exhibitions and at the most recent one, I lurked in the vicinity of one of the better pictures so that I could hear comments and had the pleasure of listening to two observers making references to a particular appendage and drawing comparisons to a "baby's arm". That's as in size, not shape, by the way.

But then there was that day. That day that has been burnt into my memory ever since. When that very appendage suddenly decided to start acting independently of the rest of my central nervous system. It started off the same as usual. I stepped into the room, got changed behind the screen, put on my house-coat, stepped back into the room and waited for the armchair to be set up. No uncomfortable

poses today, with my left leg tucked behind my right ear, or anything alike that. But as soon as I sat down, my best friend started acting like a total bastard.

Now, it's not like it has a habit of behaving itself. I've lost count of the amount of times, I've had that rising sensation, but I've got a whole canopy of responses designed to prevent it from going too

far up. So I didn't instantly start to panic. I just stared into space and started counting to ten. Not a brilliant result. It slowed, stopped, seemed to consider this for a moment, then carried right on rising. Shit. OK, switch to stage two. Recite the alphabet. Well, it was all I could think of to help prevent one of the worst cock-ups I could possibly make. Again, the results were far from satisfactory. This time, it

didn't even slow down and I could only hope that none of the artists were currently actually looking at me - or at least that part of me. I hoped that they would be currently drawing a hand, or a foot or something. Only that morning, the tutor had commented on what a wonderful profile I had. Let them be drawing that instead.

By now, it was certainly high enough to draw attention and I could see a couple of raised eyebrow as the artists looked up from time to time. OK, time for stage three. Return to counting, but switch languages. Now, I can only count to ten in two languages and the other one is German. Surely, there wasn't a boner in existence that could stand up to a sustained attack of German numbers. OK. "Ein, zwei, drei...!"

I had forgotten the cardinal rule of my plan, though. And that was, that the purpose of counting was meant to occupy my whole mind, in the belief that if I wasn't thinking about hard-ons, then they would just go away. But it was too far up, by now. And I was in such a state of panic, that I could hardly not think about it.

It was too late. I finally had to face facts. I was sitting in a comfortable arm-chair in front of all the students, with a rock hard erection and there was nothing I could do about it. Everybody had seen it and the two teenage girls who had positioned themselves directly in front of me were engaged in muffled hysterics. Finally, the tutor took pity on me and she said I could take a break. I grabbed my house coat and scurried behind the screen, though not with my "tail" between my legs. That was bouncing merrily along in front of me.

There was one thing that could have made things worth going through that ordeal, but there was n such luck. None of the females took note of my obvious virility and tried chatting me up - instead, they had probably decided I was some sort of pervert or menace to society. And at the end of the day, when I felt I just had to satisfy my curiosity and wandered among the pictures, I found myself totally disappointed to discover a big blank space where my tackle should have been. You'd think at least one of them might have taken the opportunity.

Ah well. I can always comfort myself by claiming that the guys were too intimidated and the girls simply thought no-one would believe their proportions were accurate.

Maybe.