Little pink boxes

When the second group of the day arrived, they all had little pink boxes with them and those immediately intrigued me.  I didn't ask about them right away, though.  I took up my usual hiding place and waited to be introduced.  In the absence of Jodi, I got the girl who had booked me to introduce me to her friends.

I walked in wearing a mask.  There seems to be a lot of that, just lately.  This time it was the mask of the bride's soon-to-be husband.  I didn't keep it on for long, though.  It was just a comedy touch for the introduction of the class.

While I was waiting for the girls to arrive, I could hear the previous group upstairs - still sounding loud and animated from their class.  It was great to be able to listen to them, even if they were too muffled to make out any words.  But I was a little concerned that the first group would say something that the second group would overhear - and thus spoil the surprise.  It was beyond my control, though, so I didn't let it worry me.

The second group was composed - barring one girl - almost entirely of medical professionals.  So there were jokes here and there about them being completely used to nudity and about how this was nothing new to them.  It made me wonder if there was anything particularly novel about hiring a naked man.  Like someone working at Starbucks going on a coffee tasting tour or something.  It was a bad comparison, though - and I couldn't think of a better one, so I never tried to voice it.  Anyway, anybody who works at Starbucks would probably be astonished and bewildered if they went on such a tour (if they even exist) and discovered what coffee isn't actually supposed to taste and smell of a cocktail of vaguely coffee flavoured chemicals.  I offer no apologies for throwing in a dig at Starbucks here, by the way.  They deserve it.

There was a third group of girls celebrating a hen night in the Standard, today.  They were completely unrelated to me, but three of them wandered past the barriers and walked down into our area.  I was standing in full view when one of them walked round the corner, looked right at me, looked shocked, walked away, then walked back again with her two friends.  They asked if I was part of the entertainment for their group later, so I think they might have been snooping about to get some clues about what to expect.

Anyway... back to my group.  Whether the girls were jaded or not by nudity, it didn't seem to affect their appreciation of the class.  But then, perhaps it's all in the context.  One of them said later, that she was astonished at how completely comfortable I was throughout.  Almost like I wasn't even aware that I was naked.  I have, in fact, become so used to this that I do genuinely forget about it for large chunks of each class.  It's just not something I'm consciously aware of the whole time and so I probably do act as naturally as most other people do when they're fully dressed.

One of the girls was handed a straw and challenged by her friends to demonstrate how to insert a catheter as part of a drawing pose.  There was a little debate about the best way to do this; she was told it was up to her, how intimate she was happy to get.  In the end, I lay down on the floor, while she knelt beside me and pressed the straw against my abdomen, then told me that was how far the catheter would reach.  Then she told me that it wouldn't be her job, anyway.  That was a bit shocking, though - much more internal than I would have suspected.  I had always assumed a catheter would only penetrate a very short way.

A really funny touch was the fact that from the moment I started writing up the girls' scores on the board, I was actually deducting points from them rather than adding them.  The bride asked for a rubber and a couple of her friends seized on the innuendo and heckled her for it. (Note for American readers - in the UK, an eraser is called a rubber).  I wrote her name on the board and deducted one point for "being predictable".  She protested that she hadn't meant to be funny - she had genuinely been requesting a rubber.  So I deducted another point for "being gullible".  This put her at minus two points - and one of the girls got a point deducted very quickly as well, which put her at minus one point before I'd even chosen a winner for the first competition and actually given anyone any points.

About halfway through the class, one of the girls requested a break so they could get more drinks in and during the lull, I asked one of them about the pink boxes.  She opened hers and started fishing things out to show me.  A vajazzle kit which consisted of a couple of glittery stickers.  A couple of pink, fluffy things on sticks which completely bewildered me.  A little card with scratch-off dares on it. And that last one intrigued me.  I dared her to reveal her dare.  It said she had to ask a man for his 'phone number, then refuse to take it.  So she asked me to offer her a business card, then when I held it out to her, she turned it down.  I got the impression that she was a little disappointed at how mundane it was, but I couldn't be sure.

But that got me interested in the other dares, so I awarded her an extra point for doing the dare - then announced to the rest of the room that anyone who revealed and fulfilled their dares would be given a bonus point.  One girl had to dance badly and act drunk.  One girl had to slap the back of the loudest man in the room (which had to be me) and then toast him.  And a couple of the others apparently had dares that couldn't be fulfilled right there.

Just after the final pose, one of the barmen came downstairs and caught my attention.  We had overrun by a little while and there was another group waiting to use the room.  I felt bad about that, because it meant we had to wrap this class up a little abruptly, but we still made time to take a couple of group photographs - employing the barman, since I didn't have the assistance of a tutor.  Then I got dressed, while the girls were still milling around, which is something I hate to do, because it sort of disrupts the "continuity" of the event.  I don't like them to see me dressed in my everyday clothes, while we're still in the place where the class was held.  For some reason, it doesn't matter so much in a different part of the pub or in another room and I'm really not sure I can explain the logic of that.

One of the girls offered to buy me a drink again, and this time - since the class was over - I accepted and asked for a Peroni.  Then, once I'd finished packing everything, I went upstairs (passing a man in  a kilt on the way up) into the bar and joined the girls.  I was able to wind down the class and conclude it up there, by producing the feedback book and some coloured chalk and passing it round.

I noticed that someone was looking at me a lot and muttering something to her friends, so I wandered over to speak to her.  She asked me if I was "the man she had seen earlier" and that's when I realised that these were the girls who had wandered into our class as it was starting.  She seemed disappointed that I wasn't part of her class, so I gave her one of my cards and told her to keep me in mind for any future events.

When I left the Standard, I suddenly felt exhausted.  I had felt completely fresh and lively during the classes and when I was talking to the girls afterward, but as I was walking back towards Princes Street, the case with the sketchpads suddenly felt intensely heavy and I felt very sluggish.  I was still on a high from having gone through two successful classes, but - without the help of Alison or Jodi - they had definitely taken a bit of a toll.  But it was a good day and I really enjoyed it.

Update: I eventually found out what happened with Jodi.  There had been a mix-up with the bookings. Alison had offered the tutoring job to Jodi, she had accepted, then later something else had come up.  Alison was going to offer it to a different tutor instead, but somehow things got a bit messed up after that and she forgot to tell me.  Normally, any mistakes are my fault and a result of my general state of confusion (I'm creative - not organised) so this is a bit of a novelty.  It was also a relief that there wasn't a more serious reason for Jodi's absence.