oranges, cologne, shampoo, and coffee.

I have recently started meditating while posing for long periods of time.

Meditating causes me to be very aware of my surroundings, and while it may be considered polite to warn a model before approaching him or her for measurements, if other models are anything like myself, they can already feel your presence before you open your mouth to speak.

Until now, none of the students- save one- had ever approached me for measurements. I heard the professor occasionally mention to them that they should really be getting into my space and making accurate measurements, but they all just seemed to be far too uncomfortable.

Today, that changed. Quite a few students warned me that they were near, and I began to notice something very interesting...

When the professor approaches me for measurements, he is very confident, and treats me exactly as I would expect of someone who has worked with the nude form for a while- as if I am a statue. Sometimes he'll vocalize what he's about to do, and other times it's more of an understood thing, if he is in my line of sight. Either way, he stands close enough that I would be able to pinpoint him in a room based on scent alone. I can tell he is near because the energy around me changes, and I can tell when he has stepped down because his scent is gone. I never feel interrupted by him. His energy is constant whether he is talking to me during a break when I am fully clothed, or whether I'm stark naked on a platform. His heart does not fly out of his chest, and his voice is steady. He treats me as if I'm fully clothed, regardless of the actual state of things. He smells like coffee and cologne.

When a student approaches, it is a different experience entirely. Students, for the most part, did not announce themselves as they approached. Instead, each person would walk toward the platform, and stand there in my energy field staring at me. Then, after I assumed he or she must just be looking, I was startled by their voice behind me, speaking far too softly for me to register in any sort of timely fashion.

"I'm uh...I'm going to measure your...[inaudible]"

Pause.

"Oh. Okay."

When a student comes near, I am thrown completely out of my element because I can sense their hesitation, and feel I need to verbally respond to each one in order to make him or her more comfortable. I feel if I don't say "Okay.", or something similar, that he or she may think they've not been heard, and end up just standing there trying to decide whether or not to move forward. It's not as if anyone actually touches me, or if I would be started if someone accidentally did. I feel more comfortable nude than I do clothed, and am not at all inconvenienced by the technicalities of art.

Anyway, not all were timid. One girl walked onto the platform, and told me confidently that she was going to measure my armpits. I didn't respond to her, because I didn't feel she needed the reassurance. She then got down, and I had a flashback to about ten minutes earlier when I saw her eating an orange in the hallway. I didn't smell it as she was eating it, but when she made her measurement, her hands were close enough to my face that the air smelled like oranges for a good thirty seconds after she stepped down, and I was able to tell who she was before I turned my head to be certain.

Another girl smelled like shampoo, and I wanted to run off the platform and just breathe in heavily, taking in the scent of her hair. I didn't, of course...but I started to wonder how many people pay attention to that sort of thing throughout the course of any given day.

Rarely am I close enough to smell people, unless they happen to have doused themselves in perfume...but when you are naked and focusing on yourself, subtle changes are very noticeable. Scent is a very powerful sense, and I learned a lot about the people in the classroom today.

***

Check back later today (Nov 12) for an updated version. In this space I will be writing one more story.