"Probably Wiktor," said Karou. "We haven't had him in a while."
"I know. I'm hoping he's dead."
"Zuzana!"
"What? He's eight million years old. We might as well draw the anatomical skeleton as that creepy bonesack."
There were some dozen models, male and female, all shapes and ages, who rotated through the class. They ranged from enormous Madame Svobodnik, whose flesh was more landscape than figure, to pixie Eliska with her wasp waist, the favorite of the male students. Ancient Wiktor was Zuzana's least favorite. She claimed to have nightmares whenever she had to draw him.
"He looks like an unwrapped mummy." She shuddered. "I ask you, is staring at a naked old man any way to start the day?"
"Better than getting attacked by a vampire," said Karou.
In fact, she didn't mind drawing Wiktor. For one thing, he was so nearsighted he never made eye contact with the students, which was a bonus. No matter that she had been drawing nudes for years; she still found it unsettling, sketching one of the younger male models, to look up from a study of his penis—a necessary study; you couldn't exactly leave the area blank—and find him staring back at her. Karou had felt her cheeks flame on plenty of occasions and ducked behind her easel. Those occasions, as it turned out, were about to fade into insignificance next to the mortification of today.
She was sharpening a pencil with a razor blade when Zuzana blurted in a weird, choked voice, "Oh my god, Karou!"
And before she even looked up, she knew.
An unveiling, he had said.
Oh, how clever.
She lifted her gaze from her pencil and took in the sight of Kaz standing beside Profesorka Fiala. He was barefoot and wearing a robe, and his shoulder-length golden hair, which had minutes before been wind-teased and sparkling with snowflakes, was pulled back in a ponytail. His face was a perfect blend of Slavic angles and soft sensuality: cheekbones that might have been turned on a diamond cutter's lathe, lips you wanted to touch with your fingertips to see if they felt like velvet. Which, Karou knew, they did. Stupid lips.
Murmurs went around the room. A new model, oh my god, gorgeous…
One murmur cut through the others: "Isn't that Karou's boyfriend?"
Ex, she wanted to snap. So very, very ex.
"I think it is. Look at him…."
Karou was looking at him, her face frozen in what she hoped was a mask of impervious calm. Don't blush, she commanded herself. Do not blush. Kaz looked right back at her, a smile dimpling one cheek, eyes lazy and amused. And when he was sure he held her gaze, he had the nerve to wink.
A flurry of giggles erupted around Karou.
"Oh, the evil bastard…" Zuzana breathed.
Kaz stepped up onto the model's platform. He looked straight at Karou as he untied his sash; he looked at her as he shrugged off the robe. And then Karou's ex-boyfriend was standing before her entire class, beautiful as heartbreak, naked as the David. And on his chest, right over his heart, was a new tattoo.
It was an elaborate cursive K.
More giggles burst forth. Students didn't know who to look at, Karou or Kazimir, and glanced from one to the other, waiting for a drama to unfold.
"Quiet!" commanded Profesorka Fiala, appalled, clapping her hands together until the laughter was stifled. Karou's blush came on then. She couldn't stop it. First her chest and neck went hot, then her face. Kaz's eyes were on her the whole time, and his dimple deepened with satisfaction when he saw her flustered.
"One-minute poses, please, Kazimir," said Fiala.
Kaz stepped into his first pose. It was dynamic, as the one-minute poses were meant to be—twisted torso, taut muscles, limbs stretched in simulation of action. These warm-up sketches were all about movement and loose line, and Kaz was taking the opportunity to flaunt himself.
Karou thought she didn't hear a lot of pencils scratching. Were the other girls in the class just staring stupidly, as she was?
She dipped her head, took up her sharp pencil—thinking of other uses she would happily put it to and started to sketch. Quick, fluid lines, and all the sketches on one page; she overlapped them so they looked like an illustration of dance.
Kaz was graceful. He spent enough time looking in the mirror that he knew how to use his body for effect. It was his instrument, he'd have said. Along with the voice, the body was an actor's tool. Well, Kaz was a lousy actor—which was why he got by on ghost tours and the occasional low budget production of Faust—but he made a fine artist's model, as Karou knew, having drawn him many times before.
His body had reminded Karou, from the first time she saw it… unveiled… of a Michelangelo. Unlike some Renaissance artists, who'd favored slim, effete models, Michelangelo had gone for power, drawing broad-shouldered quarry workers and somehow managing to render them both carnal and elegant at the same time. That was Kaz: carnal and elegant.
And deceitful. And narcissistic. And, honestly, kind of dumb.