I Became a Nude Canvas

This is a story written specifically for the Nude Day Story Contest 2022. It is a celebration of nudity, and contains no sex. Even though the story had its genesis in real-life events, the story has been re-remembered to make it more literary and celebrate a woman's acceptance of body positivity.

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I am relatively new to publishing in Literotica, and guess that having a following as a reader favourite helps garner votes, but please vote if you like the story.

There I was in a semi-crowded room standing naked—or nearly naked—in front of a man I had just met, and arranged around me were his instruments, vials, bowls, lotions, air gun, and brushes. I was clearly uncomfortable, now that I had removed my robe. I had to remind myself that I had volunteered for this; though, it had taken some serious cajoling from my sister and my husband. I was about to be the body paint canvas for an artist I will call "Robert" and then be put on display for the public.

I did check out the artist organization on the Web before agreeing. The Organization reported that they provide "creative services" to local and national events, businesses, and private parties. I had volunteered (for a little bit of pay) to be painted, naked, head-to-toe by a renowned local artist, and then model in nothing but paint at the entrance of a business mixer for two hours, and, by the end, I was very glad that I did it.

Maybe the hardest part was the initial fear that I would chicken out even before the artist who was to paint me got started. To avoid clothes creases on my skin, I was told to wear loose-fitting clothes to the downtown hotel location where the event was being held, and was politely escorted to a changing room by a (male) hotel employee. Robert and his assistant, Gail (his girlfriend, I think, maybe), met me there a few minutes later and offered me a robe and a tiny nude-colored thong to change into. I think it was latex.

Robert left to get his gear ready and Gail stayed to provide some instructions and guide me to Robert's designated work area. After Robert left, Gail explained that because this was a private event, and not a public event like at an art gallery or museum, I had the option of going just topless or completely nude for double the pay. I was already scared of being nude in front of strangers, and the fact that they offered an extra $200 to be completely nude seemed really suspicious and invasive, like a bribe for something pornographic, so I told her that my husband and I had agreed to the thong, to which Gail replied with a no-big-deal "OK," before walking me, robed, to a little stage in the corner of a big hotel ballroom.

The actual painting experience was something else, some thing I will never forget. Robert was nice in a professional way. To say that we bonded on any sort of personal, emotional level would not be true, but maybe that was because I was so nervous, and when I get nervous I get shy and quiet. Robert explained all that he was going to do before he did it, and why, which helped me concentrate on the art. He apologized for the location.

The stage where I was to spend the next couple of hours getting painted was near the front entrance, where the guests would be entering, but the hotel staff was already busy getting the room ready with tables, chairs, decorations, tableware, the sound system and everything else. Because there were lots of people coming and going through the staff doors at the other end of the room, the hotel had constructed some attempt at a privacy screen for me, but the privacy it provided wasn't entirely adequate; after all, if I could see all of those people working, then certainly they could see me. But both Robert and Gail apologized for the situation, saying it was the best the hotel could manage given spaces the event organizers had paid for. Robert explained that he preferred working in private when he could, but also explained that like the television show Skin Wars, sometimes he competes in competitions where the audience and judges watch the whole thing on a public stage from start to finish. I was relieved I wasn't his competition model, and because the hotel workers, going about their business, mostly ignored us, I didn't back out.

Instead, I climbed onto the little decorated stage and, when Robert was ready to begin painting, I disrobed. Robert looked at me and Gail looked at me. All over; up and down. But it wasn't a leer, or in any lusty way like I am used to being looked when I am naked.

I'm not a supermodel, and certainly not a Perfect 10, maybe a good 7.5, but I have never had trouble getting others interested in me sexually. If anything, earlier in my life, before marriage and two children, and before dimples on my bum and stretch marks on my stomach and hips, I attracted more interest from men than I really wanted.

Maybe Robert was just pretending and being politely professional, but he certainly made me feel like I was just his canvas. As he got underway, he talked about the putting a lot of paint on big areas of my skin as fast as he could to make me feel like I was covered. He talked about shaping the straight lines of the company logos I was to adorn around the curves of my ribs and legs and hips. He told me that he uses a special paint mixture with lotion in it so that it doesn't dry out and crack on my skin like regular acrylic paints would do. The brushes sometimes tickled and the airbrush felt like a gentle shower. It was uncomfortable on my face, especially around my mouth, nostrils, and eyes. Every time he had to touch me with his own fingers, he warned me in advance and told me why.

I think out of shyness and nervousness and maybe a little embarrassment, I blocked out everything else and just listened to Robert describe what he was doing. When putting detailed elements on my buttocks, Robert gently pulled away the top of the thong to paint both on top and underneath so that, as he explained, "skin won't show at all, even if the thong moves a little."

It was about this time that my husband arrived. I had wanted him there the entire time, for support, encouragement, and protection, but his work and childcare arrangements made it impossible, so we arranged for him to be there for the public part, when hundreds of people who had access to an open bar would be there.

As soon as he saw me, he smiled, and grinned and said, "You look fantastic!"

At that moment, Robert was kneeling in front of me, brushing fine lines from my breasts to my hips. When it came time to paint details on the only part of me that wasn't bare, the thong, Robert again explained that he needed to pull it away from my skin a little to paint the lines. I told my husband about being offered the option of going completely nude without the thong.

He met my eyes and replied, "If you want to." I knew he was serious in letting me choose, and that felt empowering. If my husband had said anything else, my reaction would have been much different. If he had said something like, "I would like that," and made it about himself, I wouldn't have done it. If he had said, "I dare you," and made it a judgment, I would have stepped off my little stage, put on my clothes, and gone home. But it was my choice. Mine.

So, hesitantly, I asked, "Robert?"

Robert explained that the paint he uses on skin is different than the paint he uses on fabric and that color matching is never perfect. When I asked about smudging the painting he had already done, Robert said he had an easy solution to that. So I said ok, let's do it. Gail handed Robert some far-too-ready scissors and just like that the thong was gone; no smudges that way. But then I quickly realized that I was standing in public with every part of me covered in paint, every part except what the thong was covering.

The night before, my husband had helped me shave every part of my body, parts that I trim but don't ever shave and parts I could never reach, but having Robert asking me to lift one leg and the other to get paint and airbrush into those places, and having him part my cheeks with his hands, with my husband watching, was an intimacy for art I never thought I would be writing about.

Robert finished my body and face, and then did hair and props just as the main event was to begin and the guests were to arrive, and I was to be on display for them all. Robert disappeared and hotel staff wheeled away the screen.

I looked around at a ballroom ready to hold a cocktail mixer for several hundred people. On the far side of the room, the side I couldn't see earlier because of the screen, were displays of products the company was selling. Every guest had to enter the doors and walk right past me, most within a few feet. More than half stopped for a good look, often surprised at how very naked really was, and while some obviously were gawking and leering, especially at my naked female parts, most seemed to genuinely appreciate the beauty of Robert's artistic creation. Many pulled out camera phones, but event staff discreetly asked them not to take photos. Some did anyway. The host company sold industrial parts, so over eighty percent of the guests were men, businessmen in their late thirties and forties and some older. Some tried to talk to me, often in a flirty, hit-on-me way, but I had been instructed to remain silent.

One man said to his buddy, "Nice breasts...the paint, I mean."

I have great boobs, surgically enhanced after my second breast-fed child, if you must know, and Robert had used them to full effect to highlight key parts of the company logo, which in turn emphasized my breasts. I could only think to myself, "I bet you really mean the paint."

While I was sure Robert's art on my body was incredible, I mostly felt exposed, until two women, with their husbands, stopped. The women were beautiful, tall and elegantly-expensively dressed. They looked like stereotypical trophy wives, in their mid-thirties, probably, everything I thought a woman like me should want to look like.

After the husbands walked on, one of these wives said to the other, "I wish my body looked that good naked," to which the other replied, "If my body looked like that naked, I would wear nothing but paint in public everywhere I went."

Because it came from these two stunningly beautiful women, it may have been the best compliment I have ever received.

I know that I could have written this account as something like "Being a nude canvas is great because of Reason 1, Reason 2, and Reason 3," But I couldn't write this story that way because it wasn't all great. Some of it wasn't good at all. I was scared I would chicken out. I was scared to get naked in front of Robert and in front of all those people. It was really awkward in an embarrassing way when Robert was underneath me painting the body parts the discarded thong no longer covered, checking meticulously for any skin showing, all while his girlfriend and my husband watched.

But then it was good. Even though the paint I was wearing probably weighed more than a typical summer outfit, I stood completely naked in public for nearly 2 hours, and I realized being scared about doing so was wrong. I am a mom with two kids, and not nearly as good looking as I once was. I used to like being hit on, and even be flattered--and annoyed--when creepy guys hit on me. Now, however, when I am out and about, only creepy guys hit on me, and then not so much.

But now I know that there were things much worse than any of the not-good parts of modelling like this. Worse was being afraid. Worse was at first pretending to my husband, and sister, and myself that I didn't want to do it because I thought a "good " woman shouldn't. Worse was thinking I needed my husband there for protection. Worse was knowing I would have gotten angry at my husband if he admitted at the wrong moment the very natural and flattering thing that it was some sort of wonderful thrill for him to enjoy displaying naked in public the wife he finds beautiful and enjoying her beauty on display. And most worse of all was thinking only women who looked like the media ideal we're beautiful.

Instead, what happened was I was almost completely naked in public, and every single person who stopped to look--average guys, some very nice and very, very handsome men, creepy guys, creepy guys who ignored direct instructions and threats not to take photos, my own husband, and two beautiful women who I thought I once wanted to be—found me at that moment worthy of stopping to look at.

It was thrilling.

And the next story I write will be about the time after when I hired a female artist to paint my husband and had him stand naked in nothing but paint in the upscale living room for a bachelorette party attended by elegant, stunningly gorgeous current and ex-trophy wives. Man, didn't his dad-bod, made to look fantastic in paint, look even sexier when those women found him beautiful, and I knew he was mine.