Teddy Bare Pt. 01

"Did I er, pass muster?" I asked her as I pulled my jeans back on, finally concealing from view the cartoon bunny that was emblazoned on my underwear.

"Definitely," Natalie responded affirmatively. "I'd say you have great potential. So with that in mind, I would like to offer you the job - if you still want to do it of course. Think it over for a day or two, and let me know.

"Yes, er, of course," I said as I finished getting dressed.

To be honest, I almost said I'd do it right there on the spot, but I knew the responsible, adult thing to do, was to fully weigh it up in my mind once I got home.

As soon as I was decent once more, we went back into the living area and rejoined Mum, who was at that point admiring one of the paintings that adorned the walls.

"All done?" she asked as Natalie and I entered the room.

"All done," Natalie confirmed. "I've offered him the job, should he want it."

"Great!" Mum enthused.

"Yeah, well, I need to think about it first," I said cautiously.

"What's there to think about?" Mum said to me. "She's offering to pay you much more than you're earning at that supermarket, for basically just sitting still for a few hours."

"Oh, I think you know!" I said, adopting a grave tone of voice.

Mum and I took our leave shortly after that, after I promised to call Natalie with my final decision, and as Mum drove us back home I felt that I couldn't hold myself back any longer.

"Why didn't you tell me she wanted me to pose nude for her?" I demanded.

"Well, you never asked," Mum answered.

Well, she had me there - in hindsight I should have asked exactly what kind of posing I would be doing.

"Anyway, it's done now - she's seen you naked," Mum went on.

"Not quite," I responded. "She let me keep my pants on."

"Oh, well she saw you nearly naked," Mum corrected herself. "There's not much else for her to see, and I don't suppose for a moment you have anything she hasn't seen before. And certainly nothing I haven't seen before!"

By the time we got home ten minutes later, I had more or less made up my mind that I would take up Natalie's offer, despite the feeling of shame and embarrassment I'd felt that brought old ghosts from the past back to life. The feeling I felt stood there in only my underwear had felt mesmerising, almost intoxicating in a way, and if I took that leap of faith and stood in front of her completely naked it might feel even better and even well and truly exorcise the old demons in my head once and for all. Of course, the exact opposite could equally happen, but there was only one way to find out. And besides, I had told my mother I was prepared to do anything to save enough money for a motorbike, and I was determined to prove it.

The next day I called Natalie to tell her that yes, I would pose for her. She of course responded with what could best be described as barely concealed glee - she practically squealed down the phone at me! Once she'd gathered herself we made the necessary arrangements - I would pose for her for two hours at a time, twice per week. One session on Sunday afternoons, and one on Wednesday afternoons when I had no lectures scheduled. I would make my own way to her studio rather than rely on Mum ferrying me there - and besides, if I was posing nude I did not want her being around, even if she would stay in the living room throughout.

* * * * * *

The following Sunday afternoon I cycled down to Natalie's place, my head full of nerves and a conflicting mixture of emotions. Excitement and anticipation mingled with anxiousness and fear in equal measure. I recited over and over in my mind that I was going to let a woman see me naked - I was going to go in there and take off all my clothes, leaving me as naked as nature intended. It still troubled me, but I was determined to go through with it.

My heart was pounding in my chest as I chained my bike up on the quayside and boarded the Maggie Bray for what felt like a date with destiny.

"Teddy! You made it! Come on in," Natalie greeted me warmly from where she sat on a lounger on the deck.

She beckoned me to follow her down below.

"I was worried you might've had second thoughts," she went on as we descended into the main living area.

"Yeah, well, this is a big step into the unknown for me," I said as I followed her down. "I don't quite know how my, er, body will respond to, er, y'know, being naked in front of you."

Natalie turned and looked right at me.

"If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, I can assure you it won't be a problem for me," she said calmly. "And if that does happen, which it won't as long as you remain calm and relaxed, then we'll find a way to deal with it. But believe me, Teddy, I'm a mature adult and over the years I've seen plenty of men naked, so it'd take a lot to shock or surprise me."

"Er, if you say so," I replied uneasily.

"Perhaps a drink would calm your nerves a little before we get started," she suggested. "A glass of wine perhaps? Or I have some beers in the fridge if you'd prefer."

"Er, wine would be nice, I guess," I replied.

I wasn't much of a beer drinker at that age, but Mum often partook of a glass of wine with dinner, and over the past couple of years I had joined her in having a glass of my own. She took a bottle of white wine from the fridge, which I later found out was a nice fruity Chardonnay, and poured out two glasses. We sat on the settee for a while as she outlined her plan for the painting she was going to work on with me.

"Since you're a complete novice when it comes to posing, we'll start off with a simple seated pose that shouldn't be too hard for you to maintain," she said as she sipped her wine. "Posing can actually be quite physically demanding, having to hold your arms and legs in a specific pose for long periods of time can cause muscle fatigue, so we'll take things slowly to begin with."

"Uh-huh," I acknowledged as I sipped from my glass.

"We'll work for half an hour at a time, with a short break of five minutes or so to give you a chance to have a stretch," she went on. "To begin with, the first couple of sessions will be for me to make preparatory sketches using charcoal on paper. Once I'm satisfied with the composition I'll switch to laying down some paint on canvas and begin creating the finished work."

"How long would that take?" I asked her.

"Well, it varies from one work to another," she answered my query. "Sometimes Just four or five sessions, sometimes seven or eight. I won't be finished until I'm satisfied with it, and it'll just take as long as it takes."

"And this first painting is going to be part of a collection, you say?" I enquired.

"That's right," she confirmed with a sip of her wine. "I want to produce a series of works that explore the male body. You see, I believe that the most beautiful sight in the world is a man who is confident in his own skin, who is totally unashamed of his nakedness and proud of his masculinity."

"Well, I'm not quite sure if I fulfil that criteria at the moment," I said to her. "But I'll give it my best shot."

"That's the spirit!" she said with a warm smile. "Be under no illusion though, that no part of you will escape my critical eye, from your head to your toes, and everything in between. Over the course of the next couple of months or so your body shall be my muse."

"I guess we ought to just get on with it then," I said after I drank the remainder of my wine in one large gulp.

"I'm ready when you are," Natalie said as she stood up and offered me her hand.

I took it and she guided me into the studio - it was the moment of truth, would I have the nerve to take everything off? There was only one way to find out.

"Right then, take your clothes off - all of them this time - and pop them on the stool there," Natalie instructed as she set a large sketch pad up on her easel. "Did you remember to bring a dressing gown with you?"

"Er, damn! I forgot!" I groused.

"Well, not to worry, I'll get a towel to wrap around you for when we're not working," she responded.

And with that she left the room to go and fetch a towel, leaving me on my own in the studio. I took a deep breath and started to undress. By the time I was down to my underwear, a much more conservative pair of light blue boxer shorts this time, Natalie returned holding a couple of large white bath towels in her hand.

I took another deep breath to settle my nerves and compose myself a little, and then I simply hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my boxers, and in one swift movement took them down and off completely. I was now in completely unknown territory - for the first time in my life I was totally and utterly fully naked in front of a fully clothed woman. Well, apart from the obvious exception of my mother, but of course that's different.

"So, how do you want me?" I asked her as I placed my underwear atop the pile of clothes on the stool.

"Well, let's get you up on the platform first," Natalie said as she looked me up and down.

I saw her make a distinct double-take as her eyes briefly scanned my now naked body.

"Oh!" she exclaimed.

"Is... is something wrong?" I asked her, looking down at myself and quickly checking if she had seen any lumps or bumps on me that I was unaware of.

"Nothing's wrong," she assured me. "It's just, well, I had no idea you'd been circumcised. I just, er, assumed you were, erm, intact."

Remember I mentioned something that involved me was the reason my parents split up? Well, dear reader, I shall now have to enlighten you before we go any further. My parents met in Cambridge in the summer of 1972 where they were studying for their degrees. Mum was studying biochemistry, and my father was studying physics. He was originally from America, from a small town in upstate New York to be precise, and before long they fell in love and eventually married. After they both graduated, my father was offered a place at Caltech, and keen to experience life in her new husband's native land, Mum gladly followed him across the Atlantic and they settled in an apartment on the outskirts of Pasadena. A few months after they arrived in California, Mum found out she was pregnant, and nine months later she gave birth to a boy - me. It should have been a joyous occasion, and it was, for a short while, but a few days after my birth something happened that led to the breakup of their marriage.

At that time in America in the mid 1970's, getting your newborn sons circumcised was all the rage. It still is, I guess, although I hear it is now in decline in some areas. As soon as I was born the obstetrician who delivered me asked my mother if she'd like them to circumcise me, to which her response was a firm and unequivocally vehement no. My father, on the other hand, had other ideas - he was the man of the house, and as far as he was concerned, he was the one who made the important decisions. He had been circumcised, as had his father and grandfather before him, and what was good enough for them would be good enough for me. He wanted his son to 'look like he did down there.' And so, without consulting my mother, he signed the consent form, and a matter of hours later I was permanently deprived of my foreskin.

To say my mother was apocalyptically angry with my father would be the understatement of the century. She was furious with him for going against her wishes in a way that no words could ever adequately describe. Needless to say, divorce proceedings were initiated almost as soon as she was fit enough to leave the hospital. Once their marriage had formally ended she moved us back to England where we've lived ever since.

I never got to know my father, and although I actually don't mind being circumcised and don't hold that against him since I don't miss something I've never really had, it was the fact that he went behind Mum's back and basically betrayed her explicit wish for my penis to remain intact that has meant that I have no desire to ever get to know him. He isn't 'dad' to me and has no part in my life, and I'm totally fine with that.

"Oh my, that's awful!" Natalie gasped once I'd explained to her the reason I was permanently sans foreskin.

"Rather ironically," I said to Natalie. "My father told my mum it was for the best, because other boys would taunt me if they knew I was uncut. However I ended up being taunted anyway on this side of the Atlantic for not having a foreskin."

"Well, it makes no difference to me," Natalie assured me. "Foreskin or not, you have a lovely penis, Teddy."

"Y-you think so?" I asked, for I was sure I had misheard her.

"I do," she confirmed levelly and sincerely. "It's going to be an absolute pleasure to depict it on canvas. And speaking of which, it's about time we got to work."

She took another stool that was resting beside the one I'd placed my clothes on and set it up on the platform. She then took one of the bath towels and draped it on the stool.

"Hop up onto the stool and we'll get you into a nice comfortable pose," she instructed.

I mounted the dais and sat on the stool. She spent a couple of moments moving my arms and legs around, and though it felt really strange having my naked body touched and manhandled by a fully clothed middle aged woman, there was nothing sexual about it. She took a step back once she'd finished adjusting my pose to assess the overall composition.

"Hmm, looks okay, but there's something missing," she pondered aloud. "Looks a bit too flat right now."

She mused upon it for a moment before an idea popped into her creative mind.

"Hang on a moment, I think I have an idea," she announced. "Stay exactly as you are and don't move a muscle - I'll be right back."

And so she left me there sat on the stool. I was posed in a way that ensured that everything I had was on display. It wasn't an explicitly sexual pose, but one where I was displayed in all my naked glory. Natalie returned a couple of minutes later with a large full length mirror, obviously taken from her bedroom, and she spent a moment setting it up behind me.

"There, that looks better!" she announced triumphantly. "Now I can paint your front and your behind at the same time!"

And with that, she took her place on her own stool behind her easel, took a piece of charcoal from a box on the table, and set about sketching quickly and with long and swiftly executed strokes. The only sound in the room, other than my own breathing, was the sound of charcoal on paper - Natalie worked feverishly quickly, but then I guess that was to be expected since it was only intended to be a rough preparatory sketch. Her gaze flitted constantly between the paper set up on the easel and my naked body perched atop the stool. It felt bizarre to be sat there totally naked whilst a fully clothed woman drew me. I was her sole focus of attention and I would wonder every now and then exactly which part of me she was focusing her gaze on. Was she drawing my penis right at that precise moment?

Of course, with that thought in mind it was somewhat inevitable that I felt the stirring between my legs that heralded that my penis was about to betray me. Panic set in - I was okay with her seeing me naked, otherwise I wouldn't be sat on that stool in the first place, but I definitely did not want her to see me with an erection! I remembered her words to me that as long as I was calm and relaxed it wouldn't happen, so I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed calmly and deeply. I opened my eyes and found a picture on the wall opposite me of a pastoral scene that Natalie had worked on, and I focused my gaze on it. I found myself scrutinising every minute detail of it - the little cottage with the blue door in the bottom left hand corner, the oak trees in the distance, and the tiny depiction of two people sitting on a hillside surveying the rural idyll laid out before them.

Mercifully, that technique proved successful, and for once my usually wayward appendage answered the helm and returned to its normal state. It had been a close call and it had only managed to engorge about halfway before I managed to 'head it off at the pass', so to speak. I breathed as calmly and as deeply as I could, taking long and steady breaths like a metronome keeping to a steady and regular rhythm. I continued to focus my attention on the painting, relieved that I hadn't totally embarrassed myself.

After that brief moment of near disaster, the rest of that first session passed without incident. Natalie continued working away at her sketch of me, and I hoped she hadn't noticed my near brush with erectile embarrassment.

"Right, I think that should do for now," she said as she set her charcoal down. "Let's take a short break shall we?"

She picked up an instant camera and rose to her feet.

"Now, don't move a muscle for a moment," she said as she pointed the camera at me.

"What? Why do you need a photo of me?" I asked her, but managed not to break my pose.

"I just need a few photos of you in this pose as a reference, so that we'll be able to put you in the exact same pose when we resume later on," she said as she snapped a few shots of me from several different angles. As each photo came out from the device she placed them atop the work table to allow them to develop fully. "Don't worry, these photos will not be leaving this studio, and when I'm finished with them they'll be disposed of properly. Now just hold still for a few more moments."

Natalie took another four pictures before she set the camera down on her work table.

"Right, you can get down off the stool now," she said as she picked up the other bath towel.

I dismounted as instructed and for the first time I was made aware of how physically demanding posing could be - my arms and legs ached, and it felt wonderful to stretch and get my circulation going again. Natalie handed me the towel and I wrapped it around my waist, concealing at least half of my nakedness.

"Are you sure you've never posed before?" she asked me. "You're a natural at it!"

"You think so?" I asked her in slight disbelief at her compliment.

"You maintained your pose perfectly throughout the whole session," she explained. "Despite the fact that you, er, started to become a little, y'know, aroused during that session."

"You noticed that?" I asked her, and immediately felt colour rising in my cheeks.

"I couldn't not notice it!" she responded with a a soft giggle. "You were about halfway hard at one point! But like a total pro you managed to make it go away - how did you manage that?"

"Well, I, er, just tried to calm myself down and not panic about it, like you said to me to do." I replied. "And then I found a picture on the wall to concentrate on."

"Well, it certainly did the trick!" Natalie said with a smile. "But honestly, if you find yourself becoming hard it's not a problem - I'm a woman of the world and I've seen more than a few erections over the years!"

I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, so I simply followed her into the living room.

"Seriously," she said as she entered the kitchen area to put the kettle on. "If you have an erection I don't mind at all - and I promise you I won't be at all offended by it."

"Well, that's good to know, I guess," I said as I sat down on one of the settees. "But what if I can't get it to go down?"

"Well, you'll just have to take care of it," she said matter of factly as she deposited a couple of teabags into the teapot. "And I don't think I need to spell out how you can take care of it, do I?"

She was obviously referring to me masturbating to completion in order to force it to return to flaccidity. Once again I felt myself blushing furiously.

"But like I said, as long as you stay calm and relaxed it's much less likely to happen," she went on as she assembled two mugs, a small jug of milk and a small bowl of sugar on a tray.