Naked.

Two years ago, I started tagging along with my artist cousin to life drawing classes. For those of you not in the know, these are classes where people come to draw the human figure. Nude.

The first five classes I attended were all women models, easing me into a false sense of familiarity and security. The female form is elegant and well-organized. My inherent awkwardness seeped through just enough so that I refused to make eye contact with any of the models, but otherwise I was becoming quite accustomed to the class.

My illusion of safety was shattered, however, when I came into class one day to find that our model was to be a very athletic young man. We will refer to him as Parkour, as that was the explanation for his impeccable musculature. In a cruel twist of fate, I had arrived to the class before our model and, feeling confident from my prior success, I had seated myself towards the front of the room. At that point, it was too late to move to a different seat without appearing conspicuous. Lights were dimmed and a spotlight cast onto the stage, where our model stepped into place and disrobed.

Avert your eyes, children and people with a phobia of large, fleshy objects... This man's penis was HUGE. At first, I found myself transfixed in horror at what appeared to be a small arm dangling limply between his legs. My perplexity was interrupted as the timer started and our first round of sketches began.

Fortunately, the initial timing per pose for this particular group is quite fast for the first half hour or so. This gave me an excuse to loosely sketch the figure without focusing on any phallic details. As time wore on, however, we eventually had to start defining particulars and this is where I made my mistake.

A professional artist, like my cousin, would simply look at the person as an object and draw it according to reality. As an amateur filled with angst and disbelief, I felt compelled to make corrections to my drawing. I found myself spending an excess of time struggling to correctly depict an accurate size. If I drew it too large, I would seem lewd and gawky. Unfortunately, my realistic attempt at drawing his anatomy turned out looking like cartoonish porn.

This is where I made the mistake. I decided to overcorrect and go with a smaller size. This eased my anxiety considerably and I muddled through the rest of the class, foolishly thinking I had successfully mitigated disaster.

How was I to know that Parkour would make a post-class round to peruse his two-dimensional likenesses? My heart pounded as I watched him make his way towards me across the front row.

What should I do? I couldn't hide my sketches or he might think I was some pervert who had covertly wormed her way into the class in order to stare at his humongous trouser-snake for an hour. I was backed into a corner and I had no choice but to share my anatomically misleading drawings!

He arrived in front of our table and leaned in. Feeling a cold sweat form on my brow, I gingerly pushed my notebook towards him. After cooly surveying my work for a few moments he looked up at me and half-raised an eyebrow. I laughed awkwardly and mumbled something about being a terrible artist and thanks so much for modeling (don't mention his penis, don't mention his penis).

Then it was over. As suddenly as it had entered my life, the substantial phallus was gone. All the memories I would retain from that session were crudely sketched by my own nervous hand in a notebook, now stuffed under my bed somewhere; hidden like a teenage boy might hide his copies of Playboy, lest someone discover his surprising perversion.

In any case, it's been months since I attended a class and I anticipate that my notebook will continue to collect dust.