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Michael wasn’t a perv. Luke liked to joke that he was, call him a stalker, but anyone in Michael’s position would do the same. In fact, many artists did exactly what Michael did. It was good practice, impromptu lessons in capturing ideas quickly at a moment's notice.
There was nothing weird about drawing the beautiful man that caught Michael’s train most mornings on the way to uni. He was an artist. His brain was wired to notice pretty things, the desire to replicate them on paper was in the fibre of his very being and besides, anyone would agree that this man had a face worth studying, with prominent angles, pouty lips and sharp eyes all framed by dyed red curls.
The curls were Michael’s problem this morning. Hair really wasn’t his forte but he couldn’t keep acting like he needed more practice with those massive biceps. He wasn’t yet ready to give up on finding excuses to stare at picturesque strangers on the train, though, so… curls.
Michael swapped his pencil for his black brush pen, a popular choice among his favourite comic artists, and went over the grey with bolder shading. His early sketches were all in pencil; he hadn’t yet had the confidence to ink them but now that he knew he’d see the guy most mornings and have plenty of opportunities to draw him as many times as he wanted, he wasn’t as afraid of fucking up.
In fact, the expectation of seeing the stranger was great enough that Michael had even set aside some of his coloured markers to keep in his travel supplies where normally he wouldn’t bother with anything more than lead pencils, black ink pens and erasers. As the linework of the current portrait dried, Michael went over one from yesterday, a sketch of the back of his head, with red. The waves were all wrong, but the saturated colour drew attention from the haphazard linework.
Michael wished the tattoo on the back of his neck was better, though. Some kind of bird of prey, wings outstretched. There was a larger version of it at the bottom of an earlier page in his sketchbook, one he’d taken down when he’d found himself standing right behind the guy one morning, intrigued by the choice in ink.
Michael finished the warm skin of the guy’s neck, capping his pen. The colours weren’t quite true to life, but they were true to the feeling of the stranger. That was his job as an artist, his teacher had told him in high school when he’d been upset over his shitty attempts at realism. Anyone could learn to depict things realistically, but only an artist could portray feeling.
Luke, the classmate that always had a coffee ready when he reached campus, was a fucking god at portraying feeling. Plants were his area of expertise, but somehow he could make a bunch of lavender look cheery, sexy or mournful. Michael only knew how to do dramatic.
“Morning, stalker,” Luke greeted when Michael arrived, handing him his coffee.
Michael rolled his eyes, taking it and giving Luke his sketchbook. He’d steal it in class later if he didn’t surrender it now. “Pretty sure stalking requires some level of following people around. I only see this guy on the train.” And around campus sometimes, but he wasn’t about to add fuel to the fire by telling Luke that the guy was a student here.
“Eh, you’re still a creep,” Luke replied, flipping to the most recent page.
“I need practice with hair,” Michael pointedly told him, “Calum doesn’t have any.”
“Calum has plenty of hair,” Luke argued with a pout.
“How can you get on my ass about this guy when you’re the fuckhead who has a crush on our nude model? That’s gotta be some kind of dumb cliche.”
“At least I know his name and actually talk to him,” Luke quipped.
“We all talk to him. So he doesn’t zone out and fall asleep again.”
“What’s all this?” Luke asked, gesturing to the notes around the page.
Fuck.
“Ideas,” Michael said tightly.
“Ideas.”
“It’s good practice,” Michael told him, “You come up with ideas about what traits and shit you’d give the character based on their appearance.”
“Right.” Luke cleared his throat. “Broody,” he read, “Classy, knows the tango, tragic assassin backstory, takes no shit…”
“Give me that.”
Luke held the book out of reach, giggling. “Woah, hey, I’m still reading! Keeps suit clean, not afraid to get his hands dirty, hypnosis, hates kids—”
“Shut up and give it back.”
“No, I’m invested!” Luke protested with a grin, “Is hypnosis his superpower?”
“No, he’s just really good at getting people to talk with eye contact,” Michael explained, grabbing at the book half-heartedly. At least Luke couldn’t keep reading it like this.
“What about this tragic backstory? Did assassins kill his parents?”
“No, he lost someone when he was an assassin, so he quit and put his skills towards getting revenge.”
“Doesn’t sound very good-guy.”
“He’s a villain.”
“Ooh!” Luke wiggled his eyebrows at him. “You do have a thing for bad boys, huh?”
Snatching back the book, Michael shook his head.
They’d reached the visual arts block, the weird blue sculpture just outside attempting to distract everyone from the fact that the building itself was fucking ugly. Michael had to give it points for effort, even if he wasn’t quite sure what the sculpture was supposed to be.
This morning’s lessons were mainly focused around using impasto medium to paint still lifes of fruit, which of course had Luke thriving and Michael trying not to pull his own hair out. Still life itself wasn’t so bad, drawing comics required knowledge in all kinds of subjects, but he couldn’t help but feel that learning this kind of painting was a huge waste of time for him. Comics were much more two dimensional than this.
“At least we have that new unit today,” Luke said when they were out having lunch, “Printmaking? That sounds fun.”
“You’re just trying to be nice, your painting looks fucking amazing.” He jabbed at a gravy-soaked chip. “It’s not even done. Paintings are supposed to look like shit before they’re done.”
Luke appeared to be ignoring him, staring at something over his shoulder.
Michael snapped his fingers at him. “You okay there?”
“Is that the guy you’re stalking?”
“What?” Michael looked over his shoulder, almost dropping his fork when he laid eyes on the beautiful stranger from the train, “Holy fuck.”
“It is? You didn’t tell me he goes here!”
Michael turned around, ducking his head as if he could hide himself. “Shut the fuck up,” he hissed, “Stop looking at him.”
“He’s coming over here.”
Peeking over his shoulder, he realised that Luke was right.
The stranger smiled and gave them a wave as he approached.
Michael gave him a nervous wave back.
“You take my train,” the guy greeted as he arrived, pulling up the other seat at their table, “I’ve seen you drawing? I’m Ashton.”
“I’m Michael,” Michael squeaked. He cleared his throat.
“I’m Luke!” Luke offered his hand with a grin.
Ashton accepted it, returning the smile. “What are you guys doing?”
“Eating lunch.” Michael wondered if he should offer some of his chips. Would that be weird?
Ashton giggled. “No, what are you studying here?”
“Art!” Luke eagerly told him, “Michael’s a great artist, you should see his sketchbook!”
“Is that it?” Ashton asked, pointing to Michael’s book.
He snatched it off the table. “No.”
“Aw, don’t be shy Michael,” Luke goaded with a pure evil grin, “They’re really good!”
“It’s fine,” Ashton laughed, “I’m doing music.”
“Wow, what’s that like?” Michael asked before Luke could embarrass him further.
“So good,” Ashton gushed, “I’ve loved music all my life, it’s such a deep, visceral expression of the human soul, you know?”
“Yeah, definitely,” Michael agreed, “Do you play anything?”
“Drums.” He laughed. Ashton laughed and smiled a lot when he spoke. “I know, I know, but it’s just got such a rich history, you know? I bet percussion was probably the earliest manifestation of music in our history. Aside from the voice, of course.”
“Totally.”
“Are you coming to the nude drawing session today, Mikes?” Luke cut in.
Michael gave him a confused look. “Yeah? Gotta make sure you’re getting enough practice with ass muscles. You’re getting good at them.”
Luke flushed.
“They offer that here?” Ashton asked, “That’s cool. You know, the human form is the origin of a lot of visual art. Easy to see why.”
“Yeah, Luke loves it.”
Luke glared at Michael.
“Our model’s pretty good, even though he can only come in once a week.”
“You only have one?” Ashton asked.
“Yeah. Kind of a shame, to be honest,” Michael admitted, “He’s great, but he only has one body type. Not a lot of people come to sessions anymore.”
He nodded, then checked his phone. “I better head off. Good meeting you two.”
“You too!” Luke returned, wiggling his eyebrows at Michael.
Michael ignored him. “See ya, man.”
“Broody,” Luke commented as they watched him walk away.
“Huh?”
“He just takes no shit.”
Michael groaned. “Shut up.”
“I was fully hypnotised that whole time,” Luke continued, “You reckon he can tango?”
“I hate you.”
“I bet he’s an assassin on the side.”
Printmaking looked interesting, as Luke had said. He’d immediately picked out some sketches of peonies to fix up and turn into prints while Michael had designed a superhero breaking through a window. Although it was fun to occasionally step outside their comfort zones, they both appreciated the opportunity to use what they knew best to experiment with this new medium.
Michael was quick to suggestively elbow Luke when Calum walked in, Jane announcing that, while class was over, they’d be holding the usual Tuesday figure study session next door. To Luke’s horror and Michael’s amusement, Calum felt like hanging out with them before they went in.
“What are you guys up to?” he asked, pulling up a stool next to Luke.
“Um, printmaking,” Luke told him, eyes bugging out of his head in alarm as Calum leaned closer to peer at his work.
“Those are good,” he said, nodding at Luke’s flowers.
“I gotta carve them out on this,” he said, showing Calum the square of lino he’d transferred his design onto.
“Sick. Show me when you’re done, ay?” he said, giving Luke a thump on the back before getting up to head to the storage room and undress.
“See ya,” Luke called after him, looking horrified when Calum grinned back.
“See ya?” Michael teased.
He ducked his head, quickly packing away his supplies. “Shut up.”
Luke had been hopeless at figure drawing when the semester began, eventually confiding to Michael that people had always frustrated him; one wrong line and the entire drawing was shit, he’d said. These days, Luke was incredible… at drawing Calum. Somehow, there was still something distinctly floral to his figure studies, something in the linework or the shading or the colours in his paintings that reminded Michael of the softest petals in Luke’s sketchbooks. Luke’s Calum was pretty.
Not that the real Calum wasn’t something to appreciate, Michael thought as he idly shaded his balls. For this pose, he was standing with one foot propped up on a box, giving Michael and Luke a spectacular view of everything. He had the smile of someone laughing on the inside, a broom handle in hand that Michael was turning into some kind of sci-fi spear. He hoped his Calum looked as cool as the real one.
“Is that a stripper pole?” Michael whispered, frowning at Luke’s sketch.
“No.”
“Yes it is.”
“Well, I had to turn the broom into something,” he huffed.
Michael grinned. “Hey Cal, do you dance?”
Luke gaped at him in horror.
“Like at parties?” Calum gave a small shrug, but held his pose. “Sure?”
“No, like exotic dancing,” he explained with a grin.
Calum grinned back. “Why, you looking for a lap dance?”
“Aren’t we all?” he replied, smiling at Luke, who appeared to be trying to hide behind his easel.
“You’re a monster,” Luke whispered to him.
“I’m flirting on your behalf,” he whispered back, “You should be thanking me.”
The timer beeped and Calum relaxed, shaking out his arms and legs a bit. Luke pretended he wasn’t staring at his dick.
Michael would remember the next few days as utterly mundane. Ashton would give him a smile every time they saw each other on the train and Michael would try to be a bit sneakier about drawing him, but ultimately not much changed until Wednesday.
Blursed Wednesday. Michael couldn’t figure out if the universe was trying to bless him for appreciating its beauty or curse him for being a weirdo, so he decided to play it safe by calling it blursed.
Determined to catch him off guard, the day started out normal. He woke up, prepared for the day, waved to Ashton on the train, banged out a few sketches of him and went to uni. They were starting a sculpting unit, so Michael agonised over what he could make into a sculpture while Luke drew lilies. Things took an odd turn after lunch, when Jane announced that there would be a figure drawing session after class.
“Isn’t Calum busy on Wednesdays?” Michael asked. Maybe his schedule has cleared up a bit.
“No, not Calum,” Jane explained, “A new guy signed up, I can’t remember his name, though. So be nice, guys!” she said to the class, “We don’t wanna scare him off, yeah?”
Michael nudged Luke. “She means you.”
Luke rolled his eyes.
“I hope this one’s got a different body type, though,” Michael said thoughtfully, “It would be funny if he was like Calum’s twin or something.”
He was not Calum’s twin.
Michael nearly fell off his stool when today’s model walked in. The first thing he noticed was the dark red curls.
“Oh, hey Ashton!” Luke called, waving.
Ashton looked at them and grinned. “Hey, Luke! Fancy seeing you here! Hey, Mikes!”
Michael gaped at him. Ashton from the train was their new model?
“You know what you’re doing?” Jane asked Ashton.
He smiled. “Yep. I’m all set.”
“Just sitting poses today,” Jane told the class, “All five minutes at most, so he doesn’t get tired.”
Michael barely heard her. Ashton was shrugging off the gown he was wearing, one from their closet of model props, revealing everything. Calum had started out in underwear, going nude after a few weeks once he was comfortable with the environment and the class. Ashton seemed to be utterly devoid of shame.
“Mikey,” Luke murmured, “If you don’t hit that, I swear to god I will.”
“Stop staring at his dick,” Michael hissed. His disarmingly impressive dick…
“He’s our nude model,” Luke said, taking to paper with his charcoal the moment Ashton was seated on the stool at the centre of the room and the timer was set, “We’re supposed to stare at his dick.”
Although Luke quickly sketched out Ashton’s shape, doodling a few sunflowers as he went, Michael kept looking from Ashton to his page, completely lost. He barely managed to outline his form before the timer went off, reminding him that his time to appreciate Ashton’s body was incredibly limited. He might never model for them again for all Michael knew. He might get so creeped out by Michael’s staring that he took a different train to uni every morning.
Spurred on by this realisation, Michael focused on the details, the things he didn’t already have in his sketchbook. Ashton’s hair looked incredible, but it was his soft tummy Michael needed to etch into his brain now, the way his thighs curved from his hips to his knees, the dimples in his back.
The session was too short. Michael barely understood the way shadows fell in the curves of Ashton’s back before the timer rang for the last time and Ashton stood, picked up his gown and slipped back into it, cruelly hiding away that incredible body. Ashton smiled at him and Luke as he came over as if he hadn’t just hit Michael in the heart with a hammer.
“How was I?” he asked, “This was my first time modelling, so…”
“Yeah, you did alright,” Luke told him, “Your body’s completely different to Calum’s.”
Ashton came around to see Luke’s page. “What are the flowers for?”
Luke shrugged. “You seem like a sunflowery guy.”
“Can I see yours?” Ashton asked Michael.
“Uh… sure?” Michael replied, sitting back to give him room.
Ashton whistled. “You made me look hot.”
“You are hot,” Michael said before he could stop himself.
Ashton grinned. “Aw, thanks, buddy!”
Luke grinned evilly at Michael.
Luckily, Calum still showed up for his modelling session next Tuesday and Michael was able to take the opportunity to tease him relentlessly. Unluckily, Ashton came back again the next day, exactly as comfortable without a stitch of clothing on his body as he’d been last week.
This time, though, Michael was ready. He’d been using last week’s sketches to draw Ashton in more dynamic poses, fighting superheroes and shit, and noticed where his knowledge of his body was lacking. As Ashton got comfortable on the floor, surrounded by the class, Michael eyed his calves and got sketching.
“Lotta people here today,” Luke murmured.
Michael glanced around, realising that he was right. “Guess they wanna see the new model.”
Most of the class used to come to Calum’s sessions, but attendance had been going down for a while, maybe as people got bored with his body. The only people who’d come to every session since the beginning of the year were Luke and Michael.
“You know he has a dick, right?”
Michael glanced at Luke, then looked back at his sketch of Ashton’s legs, a blank space where his dick and balls should be. “I’m not a perv,” he grumbled.
“It’s a nude session,” Luke reminded him, “We’re supposed to look at his dick.”
“We’re supposed to look at all of him,” Michael corrected, pulling his sketchbook out of his backpack. He flipped to a page featuring villain Ashton in a skin-tight costume punching a squid monster, erasing his legs and redrawing them with real Ashton’s legs as reference. “Stop being weird.”
“It’s weirder to not draw his dick,” Luke replied, “What do you have against artful nudity?”
The timer rang and Ashton shifted to lay out more, dick prominent. As Michael wondered if he was trying to torture him, the door opened and a tall Maori man walked in, frowning at Ashton before looking around the room, eyes settling on Michael and Luke.
“Who’s that?” Michael asked Luke as the guy headed towards them.
“Who, Cal?” He looked at the guy. “What are you doing here? I thought you had work.”
“I got today off!” The guy smiled at Luke, giving him a thump on the back as he leaned in to see his sketches and Michael realised that it was indeed Calum but clothed. “Lookin’ good,” he gruffed.
Luke smiled bashfully. “I’m still learning.”
“I was talking about you,” Calum said with a grin, lightly tugging at Luke’s hair, “Do something different with your hair?”
Almost going red, Luke mumbled a, “You too.” He stared at his sketchpad in horror. “I mean, you… You look good too,” he floundered.
“This guy bothering you?” Ashton called, grinning.
Calum eyed him. “New guy treating you right?”
Luke nodded. “He’s alright.” With a mischievous glance at Michael he lowered his voice. “Mikey has a crush on him.”
“I do not.”
“He made him a superhero.”
“Super villain,” Michael hissed, “And it’s normal to use real people as inspiration for your work.”
“Did you make Calum a character?” Luke asked pointedly.
“Yes.”
“Really?” Calum asked interestedly.
To prove the point, Michael flipped through his sketchbook to find the page, handing Calum the book.
“Oh, sick! Am I like Spider Man? Crawling around on ceilings and shit?”
Michael shrugged, throwing together a quick sketch of Ashton’s current pose. Calum didn’t tend to lie on the floor, so it was useful practice.
“Can I look through this?” Calum asked, pulling up a stool between Michael and Luke.
“Sure,” Michael replied.
Calum showed Michael a page of Ashtons. “When did you do all these? I thought he just started last week.”
“On the train,” Luke whispered conspiratorially, “They catch the same one every morning.”
“Huh. Is that why he started modelling? ‘Cause of your drawings?”
“He doesn’t know Michael draws him,” Luke explained with an evil grin.
“He’s got the kind of face artists wanna draw on the train,” Calum mused, frowning at Ashton, then Luke.
“Luke gives people flower-sonas,” Michael blurted a bit too loudly.
“What’s a flower-sona?” Ashton asked.
“No I don’t!” Luke said.
“Do I have one?”
“Uh…” Michael leaned over to see Luke’s sketchpad. “Sunflowers!”
Ashton grinned. “Like the ones you drew last week? Nice!”
“Do I?” Calum asked in a tone that almost sounded nervous.
Luke huffed. “Jacaranda.”
“What’s that?”
He turned to the table behind them to grab his sketchbook, opening it to a page and giving it to Calum. Calum accepted it, leaving Michael’s on the table.
“Wow.”
Luke had painted a portrait of Calum, wreathed in small, cool purple flowers.
“These are jacarandas?”
“Yeah.”
“And they remind you of me?”
“It was for colour and composition practice,” Luke said quickly.
“I dunno what that means, but it’s fuckin’ sick,” Calum replied in wonder, “Can I…”
“Yeah, sure.”
They fell into relative silence as Calum flipped through Luke’s book, notably giving Luke way more compliments than he’d given Michael even though he knew almost nothing about flowers. Michael loved plenty of compliments, but he took comfort in getting ammo to tease Luke with later.
“Hey, how are those flowers going?” Calum asked suddenly. “From last week? I wanted to ask yesterday, but I had to run off to work right after the session.”
“Oh, I’ve got a few prints done!” Luke told him, “I have pictures on my Instagram.”
Calum took out his phone. “What’s your name?”
As he looked Luke up, the timer rang for the last time and Ashton got up to stretch and put his gown back on. He came over, giving Calum a friendly smile.
“You’re the other model?”
“Yeah, Calum.”
“I’m Ashton.” He leaned to peak around Michael’s sketchpad. “Can I see?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Grinning, he stepped around to Calum’s side to get a good look. “Lotta legs?”
“Yeah, I… didn’t really get them, so I focused on them this week.”
“And sunflowers!”
Luke smiled at Ashton. “Yeah! They suit you.”
“You said you’re on Instagram?”
“Yeah, a bit of it’s my art, but it’s kind of a mix of stuff.”
He nodded, then looked at Michael. “Do you?”
“Yeah, uh…” Michael patted his pocket for his phone, taking it out to open Instagram. “What’s your name? I’ll follow you.”
Ashton helped him find his profile, promising to follow back once he got home since he didn’t have his phone on him at the moment.
“Lotta lemons,” Michael commented, scrolling through.
“Yeah, I’ve got a tree at home,” Ashton said, examining Luke’s sketches, “A little one.”
“Got any spare lemons?”
“Yeah, I’ll bring you a bag tomorrow.”
“Really?”
Ashton grinned. “Yeah! Little guy’s been working hard, I’ve got stacks of them at home.”
“Nice!” Michael put his phone away to return to his sketch pad. He wanted to touch up a few of the drawings before going home.
“Is this your sketchbook?”
Michael frowned and looked back, finding Ashton leaning on the table, staring at Michael’s open sketchbook.
Shit.
He hurriedly got up to take it, but it was too late; Calum had left it open on a page of morning train sketches.
“I draw people on the train sometimes,” he explained, trying to casually rub his head, then wondering why the fuck he was rubbing his head.
Ashton pointed to the bird silhouette at the bottom of the page, smiling. “That’s my condor!”
“Yeah, you know, it was, like… inspiration or whatever. Sometimes you just get inspired.”
“You’ve got like a comicky style going on here,” Ashton said, “Is that rude to say?”
“No, it’s… what I’m going for. I wanna do comics. One day.”
Ashton grinned at him. “Can I be in one?”
Michael laughed awkwardly. “So, you’re not, like…” Incredibly creeped out and considering never doing nude modelling again? “I’m not stalking you or anything. You’re just visually appealing.”
Ashton pouted. “I like to think I’ve got a good personality too. Are there others?”
Michael glanced at Luke for help, but he had stopped packing his stuff up and was grinning like he couldn’t believe one of his reality TV shows was playing out in real life right before his very eyes. “A few?”
“Can I look?”
“Sure.”
Fuck. He’d meant to say no. It was too late to change his answer now; Ashton was already pulling the book towards himself to flip through.
But he didn’t flip through. He turned to the first page and examined it for what felt like several months before slowly turning to the next, taking in every shitty drawing before moving on. The worst part was that Michael had started that book when the semester began, so the Ashton drawings appeared early and had been almost daily additions since then. Michael had no idea how many there were, though he had to say that he’d never filled a sketchbook faster than he was filling this one.
Apparently bored with the lull in conversation, Luke resumed putting away his pencils and sketchpad.
“What are you doing tonight, Luke?” Calum wondered.
“Hm? Oh, uh… not a lot?”
“You wanna get a drink?”
Luke blinked at him, mouth slightly agape. “A drink?”
Calum shrugged. “Yeah. There’s a bar down the road I’ve been thinking of trying.”
“A drink. Yeah, okay.” He glanced at Michael, but Michael was as helpful as Luke had been for him. “Yeah, I just gotta drop off my stuff at… home.”
“Alright. Are you nearby? I’ll come along.”
Luke looked lost for words for a moment. “Okay. Yeah. Okay.”
He suddenly seemed in a much bigger rush to pack up, clumsily knocking the sketchpad to the floor. Calum immediately dropped to pick it up for him and Michael rolled his eyes about how weird they both were. Grinning like a dumbass, Luke took his bag and art folder and nearly ran out, pulling Calum along.
“These are really good,” Ashton said, finally emerging from Michael’s last page of drawings. He gently closed the book and handed it back to him with a grin. “I didn’t know you found me so inspiring.”
“I mean… you know…”
Ashton laughed. “Right.”
“So what are you doing today?” Michael blurted before he could stop himself, “I’ve got like a few hours before my train leaves, so…” He didn’t, but there was another train that could get him home that night.
“I was gonna get Italian for dinner after this,” Ashton said, invitation in his eyes, “Today’s payday, so…”
“Can I tag along?”
Ashton grinned. “I’ll put on some clothes.”