The Figure

T.B. Grennan

T.B. Grennan’s writing has been published in Digital Americana, White Stag Journal, Brokelyn.com, The Seventh Wave, and Construction Literary Magazine, as well as Spaces We Have Known, an anthology of LGBT fiction. He was born in Vermont, lives in Brooklyn, and once read the entirety of Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venus while stuck on a delayed plane. The initial drafts of Grennan's piece, The Figure were written during his February 2018 residency at the Vermont Studio Center.

ONE

She’s standing, hips cocked to the right. Stretch marks visible, curling there like soft, gray wires. One leg straight, one bent. My eyes returning again and again to the teal polish on her toenails.

TWO

Crouching now, hand thrown back to brace herself against the wall. Timer held like an offering in the other one. A slight fold at the navel, a dark freckle under one arm. Veins standing out blue and cold on her upper arms.

THREE

Facing away from us, freckles on her back like constellations. Stretch marks running from just above her waist to the crack of her ass. Foot planted on a sherbet-orange pillow, knee bent at a perfect right angle. One arm on the studio’s wooden handrail, the other behind her head, fingers threaded through her hair.

FOUR

Crouched over, knees half-bent. One hand behind her on the railing, a thin, metal bracelet cutting into her wrist. Head turned to the side, her expression sad, resigned. One breast pressing into her arm, the other hanging free. Both nipples erect. Pubic hair the color of straw poking out from the tops of her thighs.

FIVE

Seated, one leg up. The other beneath her, its heel pressing into one buttock. Eyes closed, body swaying slightly from side to side with each breath. Breasts hanging down, a slight discoloration visible. (It might be a bruise.)

SIX

Seated again. Her right leg outstretched, toes extended; left leg curled inward, foot disappearing beneath her. One hand at the junction of her legs, one resting just below the knee. She’s got a simple necklace on, a chrome shape hanging at the center. A vein stands out on one breast; freckles run across her collarbone in a brash horizontal line. Her fingernails are free of polish and dingy around the edges. Her jaw’s moving and moving and moving.

SEVEN

Leaning backward, expression skeptical, the lamp casting harsh light on her far side. One hip against the railing, her shoulders swinging toward us. Soft brown birthmark above one ass cheek, dark blue veins standing out on her ankles. Watching her, I’m struck by the slight tremble of her knees—it hadn’t occurred to me that this would be so much like yoga.

EIGHT

Seated on a wooden beam covered in pillows and blankets. An arm thrown across her body, the way people subconsciously do when they’re feeling fat. Her other arm a triangle, fingers tucking her hair back—hair that’s dirty-blonde and much darker at the roots. Shadows beneath her breasts. The expression on her face shifting from pensive to thoughtful and back again. And I’m left wondering if the dark, propulsive song on the radio is affecting her mood; it’s certainly affecting mine.

Watching her breathe. Aware suddenly how much it moves the body—arms rising slightly, her whole front in motion from clavicle to pubic mound. Lifting. Relaxing. Noticing a bubblegum-pink pillow under her knee that makes me feel like we’re doing this in someone’s rec room, instead of an art studio. And the longer I look, the more I find my gaze moving to the sad, squalid corner where she’s posing: the daybed that feels like something from a first post-college apartment; the battered steamer trunk at her feet; the white furniture marked with black splotches of spilled paint.

NINE

Leaning against the wall, a quilt hanging down to cushion her back. One hand pinching the skin at her hip; the other holding onto the railing like she’s drinking champagne and looking over the side of a yacht. Hair falling, mane-like, onto one shoulder. The light casting boxy gray shadows on the wall. Her expression fierce around the mouth. 

Soft flesh protruding above her armpits, where ribcage meets upper arm. Breasts smaller, somehow, in this pose; one hangs lower than the other. A faint white line running between them. Belly button dark and endless, like the illustration of a black hole in a science textbook. Her pubic hair wispy by the thighs, thick and lustrous near the center.

TEN

Unclear if this is actually a pose: legs twisted beneath her, breasts pressed between her upper arms, yes—but she’s also playing on her phone. Not sure if it’s rude to look in her direction between poses.

ELEVEN

Reclining there on pillows and blankets. One arm up, curling back at the elbow to toy with her cheek. The other out of sight except for the fingers splayed atop one upward-facing hip. There’s a red pressure mark across her ribs and her breasts seem noticeably whiter. Her throat jumping and jumping, like a character in a movie who’s trying not to cry.

Eyes closed, face growing red. Looking like she’s struggling with a painful dream. Finding myself classifying her body by color: reddish face; tan shoulders; pale breasts; tan chest and stomach; red-pink knees; soft peach legs; and blue, distant feet. A mournfulness surfacing—if this were a scene in a movie, she’d be curled up on a bare mattress in the corner of some burned-out efficiency, sleeping fitfully, the anxiety and pain of life just radiating from her. So much of the emotion here is in the face. The pose looks relaxed, feels relaxed; but when you glance at her face, the mood changes. Deepens. Tightens. There’s a vein standing out at the center of her forehead, contributing to the tension. Her mouth opens. Her jaw flexes, like it’s uncomfortable to hold it where it was. There’s natural light coming through the windows, fluorescent lights overhead, and a spotlight shining yellow-orange against the wall, faintly shifting the color on the underside of her legs. Her mouth moves, moves again—and then the timer bleats and bleats.

TWELVE

Reclining diagonally on a mountain of multi-colored pillows. Arm folded at the elbow, shoulders high and tense. Eyes open, staring in my direction, but not at me—maybe at the stained white pole marked with fingerprints and splashes of paint that’s just to my right. There’s a sleepiness to her eyes, an ambivalence to her mouth. Breasts standing out high and full, the shadow beneath them blurring into the dark pillows holding up her torso.

She reaches up, rubbing her nose like it itches, or like she’s trying to stave off a sneeze. I wonder what it feels like to lie there with all these clinical eyes on you, how it’s possible to do it without feeling deeply self-conscious. Deciding that maybe you just have to lean into the self-consciousness. Embrace it. Accept that tension and weirdness as part of the experience, and just build it into the pose.

We accidentally make eye contact for a moment—her eyes quickly ticking left, to the pole; mine jumping to her stomach. It’s a strange dynamic, the way it feels fine to let your gaze linger on the model’s breasts or to take in the dark, hanging folds of her labia, while eye contact, even for a second, feels invasive, something to shy away from.

THIRTEEN

After a couple hours of this, it’s hard not to become hyper-aware of the painters’ bodies next to me—the soft flesh above a woman’s jeans as she leans forward, the rounded, boulder-like protrusion of a man’s stomach as he paints the model’s splayed shoulders.

When the pose ends, there’s a pressure mark left behind on the model’s thigh that’s roughly the size and shape of a human heart. She dresses to use the bathroom, pulling on a red-pink fleece and standing there bottomless for a moment, playing on her phone as her buttocks tense and release. Then slipping on a pair of midnight-blue pants and slipping out into the hall.

FOURTEEN

Seated on a fabric-covered chair, her body separated from it with blankets and pillows. Arms both bent: one curving down to her hips, the fingers loose; the other curling upward, gently holding a pillow in place behind her head. Legs off to the side. The edges of her torso obscured by the fringe of pillows, by the shadow her body casts.

Her expression’s as guarded as ever, but there’s something about this pose: instead of anxious, or mournful, or vulnerable, she’s got a regal air, like she’s a queen sitting comfortably on her throne. The harshness of her gaze playing now like haughtiness, like disdain for the people—her inferiors—with whom she must deal. Her eyes tick left to right; her breasts lift as she breathes, the exhale like a bored sigh.

I turn my head and watch a bloom of pubic hair come into being in the portrait being painted next to me. Aware suddenly of the impact that placement can have on what you see—from my vantage point, you’d have no way of knowing if the model had pubic hair or not.

The model’s eyes close—and though the pose doesn’t change, there’s a sudden feeling of relaxation, as though she’s nestled herself further back into the pillows. I’m struck suddenly by the realization that her nipples have remained continuously erect for hours and hours now. Unsure whether to chalk it up to some unknown difference in how her body functions compared to mine, or just to a chill in the room that the clothed can’t feel. The easel next to me begins to creak with each brushstroke, the pipes suddenly noisy in the wall. The effect reminding me of meditation, how if you focus on any one thing long enough, your mind will explore and shift the experience you’re having without anything concrete needing to change.

She frowns, lightly scratches her cheek. Adjusts her neck. Swallows her lips into her mouth for a moment. Then returns to the pose. The half-dozen little movements reminding me of the confidence I’d heard in her voice when she’d said she could hold this pose for an hour, no problem. Realizing with the warning beep of the timer—telling us that the pose is halfway done—that the sounds around me are so much stronger because the music on her phone has stopped. The pose continues, stretching on and on. Until I find myself embarrassed at how difficult I’m finding it to just sit in this chair, at the way I’m crossing and recrossing my legs to keep them from cramping or falling asleep.

FIFTEEN

The visual artists finish up. Putting away sketch pads and pens. Collapsing their easels with a procession of squeaks and clacks. The model relaxes. Still in the chair, folding over herself until only her head and side and feet are visible. The pose so classical and yet so modern—Nude With iPhone.

 

Issue 10.2