O the shame, the hideous shame

One of the most emarrassing events of my life just happened to me. Y'see, I was in my studio and I was working on a new painting. (That's it there, on the right; its working title is erm Self-portrait as an alien). I had just finished a wet layer on the t-shirt area, and I had decided, contrary to my original intentions, that I was now going to ornamate the figure with - how shall I put it - a cock and balls. To those of you familiar with my work this should come as no surprise; to the rest of you, welcome.

Problem was, it's a big painting (1.6 m tall), and I needed an appropriately big model. Not in the interests of vanity or anything, mind - I just needed a decent-sized todger to look at in order to paint one at larger-than-life scale. Now I had a few pictures in an underwear catalogue, but that wasn't going to cut it. So I decided, since there was no-one around, I'll draw myself. A little awkward to *ahem* pull-off, given that I didn't have a mirror, but I thought I'd make do.

So there I was, perched on a chair, overalls 'round my ankles, inspecting my own tackle, when the door suddenly opens and in walks one of the other studio occupants, on his way through to the main door.

Poor guy didn't know where to look. (Neither did I for that matter.) He muttered an apology and hurried off.

I don't want to know what he thought I was doing, but needless to say, I rapidly revised my plan, and went back to work on the torso.

Afterthought: Actually, I've got a reasonable idea what he thought I was doing, because I was kinda playing with it - undertaking a certain manipulation, an auto-stimulation; this was necessary, of course, due to the aesthetic requirement of having aforementioned tackle not in a condition similar to Michaelangelo's David, but rather something approaching the soft, heavy semi-wood of a Playgirl model.

I also feel the need to point out that my familiarity with Playgirl magazine stems from the fact that the fiance of one of my best friends is the former editor; during a dinner-party at 'theirs' one night she got out a stash of back issues for our regalement.