STRIPPED Read online

  STRIPPED

  Brooklyn Skye

  For Ryan

  (tap, tap, point)

  CHAPTER ONE

  His lips don’t look like mine feel. Like they’re dying. Dead.

  It’s creepy, I know, staring at this old guy’s lips, but I can’t help it. They’re so…animated. Full of life. And then they start to move again and I think he’s going to say the words, “You’re hired,” because those words I’m expecting, but they don’t come.

  Why? Because I’m expecting them and whenever I do that—

  I need to stop doing that.

  “Our requirements are fairly basic,” Mr. Hunter says, “and you meet them both. You own a bathrobe.” One of his fingers ticks up. His wrist is resting on the desk and he looks like one of those people who count things off on their fingers because it’s easier to sort information if you can count it on your fingers. “And you’re willing to take it off.” Second finger.

  I should’ve expected Zoe to die because then she wouldn’t have. Then I wouldn’t be standing here in the middle of this dumpy classroom Mr. Hunter calls his office. Students linger past the opened door and I try not to look at their faces because it’s their faces that’ll remind me this job isn’t one of my better ideas.

  “Any preference on times?” the man asks. His lips move with such ease my eyes surrender to them again.

  “After three would be best.”

  He consults his schedule, gnawing on the end of his pencil.

  “Normally I save the more experienced models to deal with the freshmen, but I’m afraid I don’t have a choice. The others can’t stay past two. How ’bout three to five on Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

  I wipe my hands on my jeans to keep from touching my mouth.

  “Sure.”

  Hunter nods.

  “That’s all for now, Quinn. Here’s the employment application. Fill it out and, if possible, I could use you tomorrow.”

  I take the packet from his paint-spattered hands and force a smile. It isn’t easy; dying lips don’t smile. But I hold this smile all the way to the bus stop, and then as I sit on the grimy seat watching the late afternoon sun glint off every storefront window in such a sad way that it hurts to look at. I get off the bus and hold this dead smile for each of the one hundred thirty-seven steps to Garrett Hall when suddenly a finger jabs into my stomach.

  “Wouldn’t it be great,” Derek says, his putrid beer-breath in my ear, “if guys could just poke a girl to let her know he wanted to fuck her?” His words echo down the empty hall. I shove his scrawny hand away.

  “Girls would never fall for that.”

  He pokes me again. “Hot girls would.”

  “Too bad you don’t have one of those.” I try to step around him, but he grabs my sleeve and presses his skinny body into mine.

  “I’ve seen you naked,” he says, glazed eyes sliding over my face. Would it kill him to wait until after dinner to get wasted?

  Icy fingers slip beneath the hem of my sweatshirt, tracing a line up to the edge of my bra. “You’re a guy’s wet dream under all this,” he says. Then he pokes me again.

  “Derek…” I lean in close to him, moving my lips up to his ear, resisting the urge to knee him in the balls. “If you jab your finger into my side again, I swear I will punch you in the face.”

  Chest rumbling with a laugh, he wraps his arm around my waist and drags me toward his room. “C’mon, Feisty Girl. I’ll show you my favorite kind of poking.”

  Along with questions of where I’ve been for the last hour, so no thanks. A few feet across the Commons, I grind my feet to a stop. “Not right now, okay? I’m not feeling so great.”

  Slowly, his hand slides up to the nape of my neck, squeezes and pushes me closer to the hallway. “You’re in luck—something I can fix.”

  Please.

  A group of guys emerge from the hall just as I spin out of his grip and say, “I’m going to my room.”

  Derek stiffens, red creeping up his neck. A moment passes. The guys slow their pace, taking in the two of us. Derek releases a huff, sounding more like a thirteen-year-old girl than a college freshman.

  “Whatever, Quinn,” he spits out for the purpose of his buddies, I’m sure. “Call me when you feel well enough to act like my girlfriend.”

  I turn for the girls’ hall, biting back a smile. That will be never.

  In our room, Nikki’s slumped in front of a half-empty bookshelf, her entire collection of smut-books littered over the floor.

  “Feel my lips,” I say and close the door. She plops a book on the shelf, blowing a geyser of dark curls off her forehead.

  “Eww. Why?”

  I stand in front of her.

  “They’re cold.”

  With a grimace, she leans in and touches my mouth with the tip of her finger, the scent of rubbing alcohol stinging my nose.

  “They feel warm to me. Is it really that cold out?”

  Not cold outside. Just on my lips. But telling her this would mean explaining the reason Zoe is currently lying face-up in a coffin. Or why I was at Pacific Rim anyway—not sure she’d understand after what my dad did.

  Without answering, I point to the shelf. The standing books don’t seem to be in any order. Author names are scrambled, spine colors mix-matched. “By copyright date?” I venture with a flick of my wrist, entertaining her ridiculous habit of organizing and reorganizing. She shakes her head, bending to retrieve another book.

  “Hero’s name.” She grins. “’Cause, you know, it’s the only reason I read them.”

  I cringe.

  “My ears just threw up.”

  Giggling, she snatches the book off the shelf and opens to a random page.

  “He thrust his hips against hers, a gasp lurching from her mouth—”

  “Oh my God.” I plug my ears. “Stop.”

  “Take it.” The book soars in my direction and lands with a thump on the floor between us. “I know you’re dying to find out what happens.”

  “I know what happens,” I say, collapsing onto my bed. “Those books are like Matisse’s stories about Connor—all the same and never amusing. Or believable.”

  Carefully, Nikki slides a handful of books to the opposite end of the shelf—heroes she doesn’t get off on, I’m guessing.

  “Any luck on the job search?” Another book propped up. I stare at our sad, gray ceiling. “I still can’t believe you have to get a job. It should be illegal to make freshmen work and try to graduate. Child abuse. Like little-kids-in-the-field illegal.”

  My head sways. We both know the alternative—move back home and become Community College Quinn.

  Hiding the shake in my lying voice behind a casual shrug, I say, “You know the dry cleaning shop over on Del Sol? The one in that beat-up looking shopping center—Steamers?”

  She flips open a book, skims the page then tosses it back to the floor.

  “Dry cleaning?” she says with a glance to the pile of dirty clothes beside my bed. “Quinn, you’re the messiest person I know. Do you even know how to do laundry?”

  “Yes, I know how to do laundry.”

  “News to me. Good thing there’s no aptitude test for dry cleaning interviews. You would’ve failed epically.”

  I blink, my new contacts scratching the inside of my eyelids. Good thing there’s not much to standing naked before a classroom of art students either. I can’t afford to fail.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Pacific Rim University is only a ten minute bus ride from Loyola, but the two may as well be different worlds. No way would I bare my body to people at my own school.

  This campus is a hundred years old, and so very familiar—a place I’ve been coming for the last decade. My feet know every inch of this property, my intrinsic clock able to ide
ntify the time at any point in the day based on the shade of white the buildings take on. By how much I know—including gossip on the staff, even some of the students—one would think I actually attend the school.

  Which is good, I guess, seeing that I’ll be here on a regular basis now.

  Past the library, I spot the art department nestled against the base of the hill. I can’t help it; my nerves are going ape-shit. My own personal earthquake. And trying not to think about what I’ll be doing only makes it wor—

  A wall of red jumps in front of me. I slam into it then stumble back. My duffle bag flies off my shoulder.

  Fuck.

  And ow!

  I rub my nose and look up.

  “Jesus, are you okay?” the red wall says. He’s tall, head capped with messy brown hair, large hands straightening his red T-shirt.

  I raise an eyebrow. “I’d be better if you didn’t practice your body-slamming skills on innocent victims.”

  He picks up my bag and holds it out with a grin. “Me? You aimed for my chest.”

  Right. Whatever. I take my bag, sling it over my shoulder.

  Shuffling his feet, he skims his gaze over my face the way you see on TV when a guy is using his peanut-brain to decide a girl’s worth. Does he have the time and energy for someone like her? Then he extends his hand and I know what’s coming next. He’ll want to know my name. Where I’m headed or what I’m in a hurry for, and I don’t want to share any of that so I quickly step past him.

  “I’m late,” I say and resume my walk to the art building. “Try not to take out anyone else today.”

  “Wait.”

  I wave over my head, but don’t stop.

  Inside, Mr. Hunter takes the packet from me. “Montgomery?” he asks, looking at the top of the application with his brow furrowed to his nose. “You’re not related to William Montgomery, are you? Former dean?”

  Mental note: my new boss’s lip twitches when he’s about to crap himself.

  I shake my head, and then I get all self-conscious that he might recognize me. Maybe highlights and contacts aren’t enough to keep people from associating me with the complete train wreck they saw on the news a few months ago—also known as my dad.

  Thankfully, Montgomery isn’t a rare and ostentatious name like Halfpenny or Monhollon. This would be much harder to pull off if it was.

  “No. No,” I answer, scrunching my nose.

  “You hear about what happened here? Back in November?”

  The office we’re standing in is much too cheery to be discussing Dad’s calamity. Fish stare at me from the wall behind him, a mural Hunter probably painted himself. Yellow post-its cover the desk and computer—a sunshiny deception to the blackness I feel inside.

  To play it safe I deny knowing what happened in November too.

  “Dean Montgomery was fired,” he explains all gossipy like he’s suddenly morphed into a high school girl, “because he granted college credit to a kid who wasn’t even going to school here.”

  “Wow.” I am a statue, my feet glued to the floor, face frozen. I want him to shut up because—seriously—I don’t need to listen to this. Again.

  “Yup.” He nods, filing my application away without further glance. “Turns out the kid was some star athlete the school needed. For funding, I’m guessing.”

  “Hmmm.” It was funding, according to the countless conversations between Mom and Dad I eavesdropped on over the past year. Then there was Dad being put on administrative leave and investigators which lead to news cameras and the decline of my life.

  Because God forbid John Kingsley II—the stupid kid Dad ruined his life for—could actually be a man and accept punishment for what he did. Or, at the very least, some accountability.

  However, Hunter has one detail wrong: my dad wasn’t fired. His tenure prevented such misfortune. After he refused to step down to a teaching position and negated a forced retirement, he quit. Just like that. With no pension. No retirement. Not even unemployment.

  My bag suddenly feels heavy, the strap pressing into my shoulder. I shift and Hunter catches the movement.

  “Anyway, as long as you’re not related to him, I guess we can get started. I’ll show you where you can change.” He heads for the door. I follow, skipping step to catch up with him.

  “So…” I pull simple curiosity into my voice to mask the sudden urge to tell him to take a paintbrush and shove it. “If I were related to Dean Montgomery, I wouldn’t be allowed to work here? Isn’t that discrimination?”

  Mr. Hunter walks with a gait that’s a little lopsided. He leads me down a cold, concrete hall.

  “Sure is. That’s why I’m glad you’re not.”

  I rake my fingers through my hair.

  “You really wouldn’t have hired me?”

  He smiles politely.

  “Things haven’t quite settled around here. Wouldn’t want a new employee’s family drama stirring things up in my department.”

  I take a deep breath. It reeks questionably of bullshit in here.

  He stops in front of a door at the end of the hall, scratching his gristly cheek. His lip isn’t convulsing anymore, so it’s safe to say he truly doesn’t know who I am.

  “You can change in here.” He swings the metal door open to a dark room that can’t be bigger than Mom’s walk-in closet. Stale air wafts from the small space. He switches on the light, revealing shredded carpet, paint curling off the walls, and a few wooden crates scattered over the floor. Lovely.

  “It’s not much, but it’s a lot closer than the bathroom. If you want, I’ll show you where that is—first floor, opposite corner of the building.”

  “This is fine.”

  “Get your robe on,” Hunter instructs, glancing down at his gold wristwatch. “I’m going to prep the class. I’ll come back for you in five minutes.”

  “Sure.” My voice is gone, like the heavy, musty air has swallowed it. Hunter walks away. Deep breath. I can do this. If I want to stay at Loyola, I have to do this.

  I step into the tiny room, close the door behind me. There isn’t a lock and the image of someone walking in on me plays in my mind for about two seconds before I laugh it away. What would it matter if someone saw me changing? I’ll be naked in front of a bunch of people anyway.

  Hesitantly, I pull out my pink terry-cloth robe and slip my clothes into my bag. A half-empty pack of Derek’s cigarettes sits in the side pouch; we used this bag a month ago for our Freshman Beach Bonfire. I reach for the pack, ready to throw it away, but can’t find a trashcan in the room. Instead, I bury the cigarettes beneath my jeans, which is stupid after I think about it—I’m eighteen and on a college campus where no one cares about smoking.

  “It’s show time,” the deep voice booms after a knock. “Ready?”

  “No,” I whisper, and then open the door. Standing here in a bubblegum-pink robe feels all wrong. Like wearing pajamas in a grocery store. A bathing suit in the library. Hunter’s already limping down the hall. I follow, walking fast.

  “The class is two hours,” his voice echoes from up ahead, rebounding off the concrete wall. “We’ll start with a few gesture drawings. They’ll last one minute each.”

  I swallow, test my voice.

  “Gestures?” My heart races, flip-flops tap against the hard linoleum and I try to match the two, but the further we tread from the closet where my clothes sit perfectly creased, the more impossible that task seems.

  “Any position difficult to hold for a lengthy period,” he explains. “Stretches, lunges, reaching. Poses of that sort. Then we’ll do three poses each lasting thirty minutes. You’ll break for ten minutes between each. Feel free to wander the classroom during the breaks and look at the sketches. With your robe on, of course. Wouldn’t want you,”—he turns, cups his hands over his man-boobs—“hanging out.”

  My feet catch the edge of my robe. I stumble, get hot in the face, and look away.

  “Um…” I pull my collar shut tight. “Are there any particular pose
s I’m supposed to do?” Maybe I should’ve done some research on different positions? Or practiced in the mirror? The most I did was shave my legs. I feel so unprepared. Like I’m about to be thrown in front of an audience and be expected to tell a round of hilarious jokes.

  I suck at jokes.

  Hunter shakes his head.

  “I never tell the models what to do. Takes away from the creativity of the exercise.” Up ahead, the classroom door is propped open; chatter and laughter drift into the hall. Beads of sweat collect beneath my robe.

  All of a sudden it feels like there’s a string attached to my back, tugging me in the opposite direction. Back to the little room. Back to my clothes.

  “It’s simple,” Hunter says, facing me a few feet from the door. “This is a gathering of intellectuals. You are not a sexual object to them, but a muse for art. They are going to scrutinize every inch of you, and they will portray your every imperfection. That’s what they’re graded on.” And this is supposed to make me less nervous?

  I brace my hand against the cold wall as he slips his wire-framed glasses out from the pocket of his shirt, pulls them wide so they’ll fit on his round face. Then he stares at me. Waiting.

  I don’t know what to say except to quietly mumble, “I’m ready.” Although, by the braid my stomach has twisted itself into, I’m not certain I am.

  Hunter leads me around the corner, and I avoid all of the faces because looking at faces will make this real. And I don’t want it to be real. So I glance up at the wall. However, seeing a mass of nineteen-year-old artists may have shocked me less than what I stand staring at now.

  A young woman. My age, maybe a little older. It’s difficult to tell because her head is tipped down, resting in the palm of her hand while she poses one foot in front of the other. Or maybe, just maybe, I can’t tell because her naked body is so distracting. Perfectly poised. And completely exposed.

  It’s only a painting. A large one, hanging on the opposite wall from me. But…everything is showing! Her round breasts. The curve of her ass. I can even see enough of the front to tell she’s shaved off all the hair there.