The Model

Marianne stood in the small back room, waiting. She could hear the rumblings next door, chairs scraping, papers rustling, muted laughter and chitchat.  She was nervous. Very nervous. She took a deep breath and down on one of the unstacked tables. This was obviously where they stored the extra furniture from the main hall. She slid further onto the table so her legs were swinging, placing her hands behind her she leaned back, taking more deep breaths she gazed up at the ceiling. The white paint was peeling off, slowly revealing the yellow watermarks, signalling damp, or perhaps just an overflow from a bathroom upstairs. It was a depressing room, that smelt faintly of old sandwiches and dust. Her fingers lightly traced the carvings in the cheap wood of the table. Still staring at the ceiling she moved her fingers along the outline of the etchings. ‘Em woz ere 06’ and ‘Tom luvs Steph C 4eva’, it made her sad. Not just the poor grammar and spelling, it was the futility of the effort. Teenagers, she presumed, unless their teachers were sneaking into the hall to carve their own names, always so obsessed with inscribing their own personal histories. 

It was odd really, teenagers by their nature were temperamental, always moving, always changing and progressing, they believed that everything would stay the same ‘4eva’ that their friends would always be their friends, that Mum and Dad would always be pricks, that they would remain with the boy or girl they loved, until the end of time. Yet, they documented it like someone on the brink of losing their memories, annotating every minute piece of information. It was as if they were in public denial that things would change, but privately they knew that the days would go in the blink of an eye, the way they had for all the adults that came before. Marianna thought briefly of her own teenage years, of the thousands and thousands of photographs taken, she took more photographs in the two years between sixteen and eighteen than she had in the last six years of adulthood. Marianne wondered what exactly that said about her, and her life now.

There was a knock on the internal door. That was her cue to get ready. Her little trip into the psyche of teenagers had done little to calm her nerves. It would be good for her, she knew that. It would be challenging, of course it would, but she needed to do it, if only to prove that she could. Mark had asked her to attend once or twice before, he told her she was interesting, that the group would enjoy her presence, that they would learn a lot from her. She had hushed him, embarrassed at the flattery and what he was asking her to do. Then it had all changed. In the blink of an eye, something she would never consider doing, became important. It was important for her to reclaim it for herself. She had taken  so much, and had so much taken, that she needed a portion of it back. She needed to keep something for herself. She needed to know she could still be something even if only in the shadow of what she had been. So she had approached Mark, and asked could she take part, even though she had changed. He was delighted and more then happy to offer up his group to her. Now, after six weeks, she was here. It was the moment of truth. She knew that she could just slip out the other door, Mark would be disappointed, but she had asked him not to tell anyone she was coming, just in case she backed out last minute.

Marianne took another deep breath. You’re here now she thought to herself. You might as well get as far as you can and then see what happens. You can do this. She pushed herself off the table and lifted her heavy rucksack onto the table. She removed the robe, the hair brush, the small makeup bag and mirror. She started by brushing her hair, usually she wore it down but Mark had asked for it up. She took the simple black hair bobbin and slipped it onto her left wrist. She glided the brush from root to tip, again and again. She wanted a high ponytail so she tipped her body at the waist and furiously began brushing the underside of her head. It hurt, when she was rough with the underside of her hair, and she could feel the tender smaller strand pulling apart from the scalp as she ran the brush, pulling it into a shape she wanted. Next she turned her attention to the clothes she was wearing. Mark had advised her to wear something light and easy. A sundress he had suggested. She had no sundresses. She always wore as many layers as possible, like an armor protecting her from the outside. She removed her jumper first, tugging it over her head and stuffing it back into the rucksack. She contemplated pulling the shirt off over her head as well, but she new it would snag, and in true fashion she would panic when she found herself blinded and trapped by her own head. She slowly began unbuttoning the small buttons, her large fingers slipped on the small buttons, but still she continued, the tremor in her hands increased steadily with each new button she opened. When it was open she could see the curve over her stomach, hidden from view by the white camisole she wore underneath, she gently slipped the shirt from off her shoulders and pushed it into the rucksack. She reached down to her jeans and popped the button, pausing for a second to slide the zip she wiggled her hips out of the jeans until they were in a heap around her ankles.

Marianne stood completely still with her eyes closed. She stood in her camisole, bra and panties. She knew they had to come off as well, but she needed just one minute to regain her composure. She wanted to cry. She looked around the room, blurred through the rising tears in her eyes. How many times she wondered had young girls stood in this same room, semi naked, with would-be lovers, running their hands under and over uniforms, tearing jumpers and skirts in an effort to reach adolescent nirvana. Maybe not that many she acknowledged, her own school days had been decidedly sexless, yet if she listened to the sex stories of her friends, everyone was at it. Marianne almost smiled, as in life, she thought, the truth lies somewhere between the two. Marianne slid back onto the table. It was uncomfortable now. The table cold against her thighs, the edge digging into the soft flesh. She kept her eyes averted from her body as she pulled the camisole over her head. She reached behind her back, fumbling with the catch of her bra and finally unhooking it. She closed her eyes as she felt the weight of her breasts without her bra. She had always been ashamed of the feeling, as if it betrayed something inside her, something weak and base, something other. She stood once more and hooked her thumbs in her panties, pulling them down and off. She bundled them quickly in with the bra and camisole and whipped the dressing gown around her. Pulling the sash tightly around her, her breath was forced from her lungs, the burning feeling calmed her, made her feel real.

Suddenly, as she stood there in her dressing gown, waiting for Mark to knock again, Marianne dissolved into tears. She bit her knuckle to stifle the sobs escaping from her chest. She felt a hole in her heart that she thought had been filled rip open again, dragging up feelings of pain and suffering, at her own hands and someone else’s. It had been four years since she had seen her own body naked. Four years. She knew it was a long time, perhaps too long. She felt disconnected from it, like she was stuck on a busy train sharing an intimate space with a stranger. She knew that her form was a part of her, she knew that it and her mind were linked in ways she didn’t even understand. Yet, it was easier to pretend that she was above it. That the base passions of the body, were nothing compared to the cerebral thoughts of her mind. She distanced herself from it. She distanced herself because the body felt pain. It was weak, it would let people abuse it, even when she lifted her own hand against herself her body did nothing to stop it. Her body betrayed her in ways she would never imagine, in getting older, getting fatter, weaker. The strange hands that ran over it, spreading heat and passion throughout the molecules that made up her being, once they were gone she was left with her mind, a mind that would gift her with shame for letting such things take place. Her mind punished her, not just for allowing it, but for enjoying it.

The loathing she felt for herself had brought her to many a dark place. She had denied herself many things, most notably the type of love that she afforded to everyone else. It was hard for her, to love herself willingly, to believe herself worthy of love, especially as those who were supposed to love her often didn’t. So she surrounded herself in her armor, laughed at jokes at her expense, reduced her self esteem to a puddle at the end of anonymous men’s beds and most seriously she had taken out her loathing on herself. It was always her fault, it was an irrational belief that there was something inherently wrong in what she was, who she was. There was a need inside her to seek validation from outside of herself, and when she received none, she purged and punished. She denied herself the very essence of self-love; respect. The memories of the things that she had done often left her like this, huddled on the floor, sobbing silently, filled with fear and remorse.

As she rose from the floor she reminded herself of the teenagers. She once again traced her fingers along the etchings, hoping that they would endow her with a love of life, something she had been missing since she stopped taking photos. She took her nail file from her make-up bag and carved into the table, a message for herself and for anyone who found themselves in this room, like her, lost and unsure, so that they would know that once there was a woman who went from hating herself, to waiting for a knock on a door. That knock, would change her. It would see her walk from this room and strip all her armor off,to leave herself naked in front of strangers who would agonise over every pencil stroke as they traced her form and shaded her in. They would take her form, and they would see something in her that she had yet to see in herself; a person. She hoped to see in their eyes a recognition that she was here, that she was real and that she was worthy of some sort of life.

The knock came and with one last look at the table, she left the little room, with the peeling ceiling and ‘Em woz ere 06’ and ‘Tom luvs Steph C 4eva’, engraved on the table, and her own mark; ‘You are here’. A reminder to those who would seek it, that no matter what, you exist. You are something. Someone. You are worthy.