MY TEN MODELS by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2007 written on November 14, 1993 translated by the author English text kindly revised by John
USUAL DISCLAIMER
"MY TEN MODELS" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.
CHAPTER 1 - The beginning of my story
Really they are many more. But if mister Manzoni, a famous Italian writer of the 19th century, wrote about his "twenty readers", out of modesty I will write about my... ten models.
My painting production was about landscapes, or more exactly mainly about landscapes of my green Ireland. At present it is not easy for me to judge those paintings. They are dream-like scenes. I sold them easily. But I had never been really proud of them.
I started painting at fifteen, at that time taught by my mother. When I was seventeen she, very proud of my works, persuaded my father to send me to take lessons from a painter. He started by having me make many drawings from life and nudes. I so tried my first portraits, my first figures. My teacher said they were anatomically excellent but lacking in liveliness and spirit. Especially the faces, he said, were way too staid, almost inexpressive. Thus I worked again on landscapes, in spite of my teacher insisting that I paint nudes.
The girl models came to the atelier, undressed and started sitting for us. We were six pupils. Our teacher painted them too and once in a while came to check our work, giving us advice and correcting us. Jane was a little bit on the plump side, all gentle end generous curves, all light and shade. Maggie, by contrast, was more angular and bony, thin and had small breasts. Liz was abundant, flooding, both physically and in her personality - she was the most likeable of all the models. But the one I liked to draw best was Maggie.
Once, our teacher arranged for us to have a male model. I don't remember his name. I should have the sketches and drawings I did in some of my folders. I discovered that for me it was easier to draw the male body than the female one. And I realised that, of the three girl models, Maggie was the one with a more masculine body, or to put it better, she was the least feminine one.
I continued taking lessons from that master until I was twenty-one.
At that point my landscapes were selling quite well. I was earning enough money to sustain myself. Thus I decided to leave Dublin and to move to London. I found a tiny furnished flat at Digby Road, Barking, within a stone's throw of Upney Station on the District line. Not far from there was Mayesbrook Park where, on fine days, I often went for a stroll.
London has been really important to me. First of all it meant freedom. Being able to stay up late if I liked, sleeping to lunchtime if I felt like it... These could be mere trifles, but to me, emerging from of an Irish family, catholic and traditionalist, and finding myself in a world where I didn't have to account for my life to anybody, was a real liberation.
One of the first consequences of that freedom was that I had my first sexual experiences. As a good catholic boy, until then I didn't even masturbate. So at twenty-one I was still really a virgin; pure in my thoughts and actions. Quite apart from my education and social ambience, this possibly came from the fact that I arrived at puberty rather late - I had my first wet dream when I was about fifteen.
It also came from the fact that my sole erections happened while I was sleeping, the classical hard-on of 5 a.m. To me (possibly also because of my artistic development) girls were only nice objects to draw, when they were pretty. I mean, their attraction for me was aesthetic rather than erotic.
At present, knowing that I am gay, I'm trying to remember and to understand if there were some early signs before I became clearly aware of it. Honestly, I would say there weren't. That is, and I'll try to make myself clear, I never felt aroused at that time for a male, not even when we had that male model. I never felt physically attracted to a boy or a man. But at the same time, my friends were exclusively boys, and on an aesthetic level I felt the male body to be more beautiful than the female one.
Could that be because it was easier for me to draw a male body than a female one? Or was it possibly my subconscious that was trying to reveal itself? Who knows. Perhaps psychologists would have good topic to elaborate on... but after all I'm not interested in that.
Anyway, my education and my ambience were pushing me towards women, and, at least all during my adolescence, to me the woman was above all a future wife and mother of my children. I was, in short, really "orthodox".
It was London that started to produce the first changes in me. I had been living by myself for rather less than a year and at times, as I had joined a group of young and somewhat bohemian painters, I was taking home (to my "atelier") a girl model to paint.
One of these professional models had a crush on me and started to court me. Her name was Shirley, she was nineteen, that is about two years younger than me. She had a thin body, almost ephebic, with small breasts. I quite liked drawing and painting her. She was also rather likeable, intelligent, and had an average culture. So, Shirley was my first woman, even though I clearly was not her first lover and even less her only lover.
At first I was feeling really insecure, embarrassed and inadequate and it was she who guided me to explore sexuality. I think she had had a great deal of patience for me, but after all, I also believe that the fact that she could initiate an almost twenty-two years old youth, still a virgin, in the paths of sex, was amusing and gratifying her. In our relationship there was no love, but rather friendship and connivance. Anyway it was she who always took the initiative, in fact I got aroused only when she started to touch me. But once I was aroused I was all but passive and enjoyed doing things with her. We didn't live together; neither of us was interested in that.
I am almost certain that for the five months our relationship lasted she also made love with other men. I was paying her for the hours she was sitting for me, and she never charged for the hours we were making love - she was really scrupulous on that point. And it is only natural, as she was a model, not a prostitute. Then one day Shirley stopped coming to sit for me, so our sexual encounters ended at the same time, with the same simplicity and naturalness they had started.
For several months I didn't have any more sexual encounters but, honestly, I didn't miss them.
When I was twenty-three I met my second woman. Her name was Susan and she was twenty-five. She worked as a freelance mannequin. I met her at a varnishing-day. She was slim, very elegant and rather sophisticated. Amongst my exposed pictures, besides the usual landscapes and a few portraits, there were also three canvasses of Shirley. Susan was in front of one of them.
When I stopped near her, she said, "This painter has talent, doesn't he? The look of that girl, so enigmatic, so detached, gives me a strange sensation... I would like to know the painter. Do you know if he is here in the gallery, now?"
I smiled and answered, "Yes, he is here."
"Do you know him?"
"Yes, rather well."
"Good. Do you feel like introducing me to him?"
"By all means. Come with me."
She followed me. I took her in front of a mirror hanging at the entrance of the gallery and, pointing to my reflected image, said, "May I introduce you Shaun O'Malley?"
She looked at me in the mirror and burst into laughter. She had a silvery, shrill laughter. "Well, how do you do, mister O'Malley?"
Shyly I said, "You can call me just Shaun..."
"Alright, Shaun. I'm Susan."
We turned facing each other and she gave me her hand.
That same evening I was in her apartment or rather in her bed. She was living in luxury, she was full of money. She asked me to paint her portrait, she paid for it and was generous.
When I finished her portrait, she looked at it for a while, then said, "I like it. You gave me that detached and enigmatic look too, almost ambiguous. So, it is the way you see people... But I like it. It makes me seem even more seductive than I really am. And these veils that allow a mere guess of my naked body... You are a real artist."
Thanks to her acquaintances I had a period of intense work. I sold both landscapes and portraits. One of the best portraits I painted in that period was the one I did of the three sons of Lord M. They were three boys of eighteen, twenty-one and twenty-three. I portrayed them very close to each other, so that their faces formed an irregular triangle. I was able to catch the three boys' expressions rather well, especially those of the youngest and of the oldest.
In my paintings I was a perfectionist. Every least detail was carefully represented, almost as if I was painting a miniature, down to single hairs of eyelashes and brows. It was a long job. But the price justified all that care or perhaps all that care justified the price... I don't know.
Susan and I didn't live together. She often was out of London because of her work, of her fashion shows. But when she was at home she looked for me and I often spent the night at her place. She playfully called me "my toy-boy". Effectively I was her toy, and I loved how she played with my body.
I met my third woman when I was twenty-five. She was Tina, was twenty-one and worked in a travel agency. We met on the underground. She had a beautiful face and couldn't stop looking at her. She also got out at Upney, with me. Outside the station she looked around with a hesitant expression, so I approached her and asked her if she needed help. She had to go to see a friend at Oulton Crescent. I offered her to see her there and she accepted. We introduced each other and along the way we chatted. Before leaving her, I told her I would have liked to paint her portrait and gave her my address. I felt she accepted just out of kindness, and in fact she didn't give me her address.
But about ten days later, she called me. I invited her to come to visit me and, surprisingly, she accepted at once. I went to wait for her to come out of the station and brought her to my place.
My flat was composed of just three rooms - the kitchen, where the entrance door led, to the right of the kitchen there was the toilet and to the left my atelier, filled with paintings, easels, a bed full of cushions, a tall chair and two stools, an open folding ladder... An agreeable confusion, at least in my opinion. One wall of the room comprised a wide window with two curtains, one of white veil and the other of heavy cream colour cloth lined with black cloth so that I could control the external light and also eliminate it totally if I wanted to. On the ceiling I had fixed several adjustable spotlights.
Tina looked around quite for a long while than said, "It's great, here... so unusual... Do you sleep there?"
"Yes certainly."
"But... and all those cushions?"
"They are for my models, when I paint. When I go to bed, I put them away."
"Do many models come here?"
"Professionals, a few. Normally people asking me their portraits, just the face, half-length or total..."
"Also nude?"
"Also."
She looked around stopping in front of the paintings hanging on a wall. "You're really skilled." She said at the end, turning to look at me. Then said, "Will you do a portrait for me... just the face, right?"
"Yes, alright." I answered.
"Do you want to start now?"
"If you feel like it..."
"Where should I go, and how have I to stay?"
I had her sit on the tall chair, her bust at three quarters but her face facing me.
"Now try to keep still, Tina..." I said and started to draw a set of preparatory sketches in my album.
She came again four or five times. Until one day she said, "If you like, Shaun, I can also sit for you nude..."
I understood that she was really proposing to me. I told her to undress and to lie down on the bed. While I was near her to set the cushions and touched her body to make it assume the pose I wanted, she circled my neck with her arms, pulled me to her and kissed me. Very soon I was naked like her, on the bed, and we started making love. She was the first one to give me a blowjob. After we had been fucking together for not even a month, she moved to my place. We lived together for two years. I liked Tina - she was a very hot number.
I also met her brother Georges, a handsome boy of twenty-three. We became friends. I persuaded him too to sit for me, but he never agreed to sit nude - he was ashamed. The most I got from him was to sit wearing just his underpants. He had a pleasant body, a swimmer's complexion, and a really beautiful smile. The most beautiful portrait of him I painted was one where I had him wear only his jeans, the fly half-open, so that a tuft of his pubic hair was visible. He held a bunch of grapes high in his hand, his face and lips stretched to remove a grape.
I sold this portrait almost immediately. I had noticed that my male portraits were the ones I could sell more easily, then came my landscapes and last my women's portraits... could that be a forewarning of my real sexuality? But towards Georges I never felt a real and explicit sexual attraction. I liked him, and was conscious of that, I enjoyed portraying him as scantily dressed as possible, and I was good at doing so, it was clear. But I never got aroused seeing him half-naked there in front of me. Now, thinking back to him, or looking at my sketches of him, and also at the photos of the portraits I sold, it happens I can get an erection, but never at that time.
I was saying that I lived with Tina. We got on very well together, also because I was normally doing what she wanted. It was she who, for instance, becoming aware I was selling my paintings portraying boys more easily, pushed me to look for boy models. I now think that perhaps she was also somewhat jealous of my girl models.
Amongst my boy models there was Julien, a twenty-year old French boy working as a waiter at a restaurant. His most beautiful portrait, which I sold for a good sum, represented him nude, a cigarette in his lips, sitting on the edge of a fountain, a leg raised, the foot on the granite edge, while he was opening the buckle of his sandal. His intense expression was directed towards whoever looked at the painting, as if he was asking "Why are you looking at me in that way?"...
Julien attended a gym in his free time and his body was really beautiful. His curly brown hair, his thick eyebrows were contrasted nicely with his hairless body. Possibly that portrait, of which I have now just the photos, was one of the most sensuous of my first period. Unconsciously sensuous though.
Tina was living with me for two years. We didn't want to risk a pregnancy, therefore we always took precautions. But she started to talk about marriage, and to insist, then to say she wanted to have children with me... We discussed. I told her that I didn't feel ready to start a family. We started to quarrel... Not violent fights but long sulks and heated arguments. Georges never interfered but I had the feeling he was on my side.
In the end, Tina left me. She is now married and has a family of three. She is happy and I'm glad for her. She now knows about me, that is that I'm gay, and I think she lit a candle to the Virgin Mary for the saving her from the danger. Anyway, she still is a good friend and accepts me as I am. I never saw Georges again, because at present he is working in Australia. He too is now married.
After Tina left me, I met Thomas Banshawe, the famous American painter. When, after a while and we had got to know each other, he came to my place, I showed him my paintings, my sketches and the photos of the paintings I had sold.
He then told me, "You are really talented, Shaun. But you should apply yourself exclusively, or almost exclusively, to male portraits, nude or otherwise. They are your most beautiful works, where you show a remarkable sensitivity. You would have a good market, in fact painters with such talent are really few. But, if I can give you some advice, you should make a journey around the Mediterranean. Mediterranean males are particularly beautiful, full of life and virility, as well as possessing a sensual languor... I think that painting a set of models from those lands could be a great preparation for you. And I could open the States market for you where such works would be greatly appreciated. If you are interested, I can give you some addresses of my artist friends living there, who could help you to settle without having to spend too much. What do you think?"
At first, possibly more out of laziness than for other reason, I told him it was a good idea; but I didn't consider it seriously.
But in June 1991, when I was just twenty-eight, I decided that it was possibly worth making such a tour of the Latin countries. So I asked Thomas to give me the his friends' addresses and then he also wrote a letter of introduction for each of them. I prepared and carefully planned the journey. I had enough savings and by using my American Card, I could draw on the savings throughout my journey. I closed my little flat, paying one year's rent in advance, and departed. I felt that a new life was beginning for me, but I surely didn't guess to what extent that would prove to be true, nor how I would return from that journey greatly changed and mature.
My first stopping place was Florence. I went by plane to Pisa and availed myself of a short visit to that peculiar town, with its monuments of white marble and its unlikely leaning tower. However, what struck me most was the incredible brightness of the air. The month was warm and the coming summer was announced in all the glory of its rich colours and scents.
Three days later I finally reached Florence. Thomas' friend was a French painter in his forties. The man read Thomas's letter and welcomed me with real kindness. He was living in a small house at the back of Santa Maria del Fiore. He asked me how long I intended to stop in Florence so I told him that I was thinking of spending about a whole month there. He helped me to find a place where I could live and paint, almost opposite the Orsanmichele.
In the first days I simply visited Florence - a splendid city filled with works of art in all corners of the old town. It was possibly a little too full of tourists, but still really enjoyable. The Frenchman also introduced me to my first model, but he is not one of the ten models about whom I want to relate. He was a twenty-year old boy, well built. What struck me most were his eyes, so bright and luminous such as I never saw before. He was a professional model and he was able to sit really still for a very long time.
He was also sitting for the Fine Arts Academy, and he was not too expensive. With his job he paid his university fees - he attended the faculty of architecture and was a freshman. Also, he spoke almost perfect English.
I had been in Florence for some ten days when I met Giovanni. He was twenty-five and worked as a waiter in one of the most elegant restaurants of Florence. He also spoke rather good English.
I met him one evening on the Ponte Vecchio. He was leaning against the railing under the central arch, an unlit cigarette in a corner of his mouth, and was looking at the people passing through the bridge. He had a thick mane of dark brown hair partially covering his forehead, an intense expression, soft and sensual lips. He was wearing a salmon coloured shirt and a black waistcoat, with tight black trousers allowing one to see a powerful muscular structure. His attitude and his whole body were oozing with self-confidence; an almost animal sensuality, and power.
I leaned against the opposite railing almost in front of him and checked him out. He was following the passers-by with his eyes, almost studying them. There was in him something of agreeably cheeky. After I had been looking at him for a while, our eyes met for a moment, then he resumed observing the passers-by. He had a small nose, a strong and square jaw, and small, perfect ears. His hands, leaning on the rail at his sides, looked strong and were long and elegant.
I at once thought I would have liked having him as a model. It seemed as if he was waiting for somebody so I thought I had to hook him and make my proposition to him before he went away. But, I don't know why, I was unable to leave my position to go towards him and instead I was going on looking at him from head to toe, observing him.
Our eyes met again for an instant and I saw his piercing look glaring at my eyes, then he moved his eyes away and resumed looking at the passers-by. Apart from his eyes, all of his body was perfectly still, bending slightly backwards leaning with his buttocks on the railing of the bridge. But his body was far from relaxed. He gave me the feeling it was rather tense, as if it was ready to jump on some prey. He made me think of a hunting leopard...
The sky was darkening and on the Ponte Vecchio the lamps were turned on. On Giovanni's body, the play of lights and shadows changed suddenly and that change fascinated me. His face now seemed harder. No, possibly not harder but more serious. That unlit cigarette, still at the corner of his mouth, made me think of a character in an American movie, even though his appearance was clearly Latin.
After I had stopped there to look at him, or rather to contemplate him, more or less half an hour had elapsed; for the third time his eyes stared into mine. And the hunting leopard sprang. He stood up with elastic, self-assured movements, without moving his eyes from mine, and came towards me. He crossed the bridge carriageway and walked in front of me. He stopped. He didn't speak at once. When he did, he said something in Italian. It was a question, uttered in a low and warm voice.
"Do you speak English?" I then asked.
"Yes, enough. Where are you from?"
"I'm Irish. But I live in London. And you?"
"From here. Florentine. Do you have fire?"
"Sorry, I don't smoke."
"Oh, it doesn't matter. Are you a tourist?"
"Not really. I'm a painter. I was thinking, looking at you, that I would like if you would sit for me."
"Sit? For a painting?"
"Yes, sure. I will pay you."
"How much?"
"Well... thirty thousand lira per sitting."
"And how many sitting do you need to make a painting?"
"Five... ten..."
He seemed to thing about it, then asked, "And I have to sit nude, of course."
"Well, why not?"
"In your atelier."
"Yes."
"The two of us alone."
"Yes."
"When do you want to start?"
"When you want. I'm planning to stay in Florence three more weeks."
"How about now, then."
"Are you free? Now?"
"Yes... until tomorrow morning. Then I've to be at work before ten."
"What is your work?"
"Waiter."
"Alright. I'm Shaun. And you?"
"Giovanni. Pleased to meet you." He said and we shook hands.
He had a strong, firm hold, without squeezing too much. A virile handshake.
CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 2
In my home page I've put some more of my stories. If someone wants to read them, the URL is
http://andrejkoymasky.com
If you want to send me feed-back, or desire to help revising my English translations, so that I can put on-line more of my stories in English please e-mail at
andrej@andrejkoymasky.com