1.

The problem with being a nude model in a small country town is word gets around. I try explaining this to Carly, the arts and crafts shop owner who hired me, but she’s not the sympathetic sort.

“Get over yourself,” she says. “As if people don’t have anything better to do than talk about you.”

Carly could easily have been an army general or an evil dictator in another life, despite her elephant earrings. I’m almost as scared of her as of the local men.

You see, two nights ago I was drinking with Dave at the Mercantile when this knuckle-dragging ape lumbered up to me, his primate pals flanking behind him.

“You’re that poser, aren’t ya?” the ape slurred.

Here we go again.

“Look, I’m just having a quiet beer,” I said.

“Fucken answer my question, poofter,” monkey man rumbled. “You’re a poser, aren’t ya?”

A familiar fear gripped my gut.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Thankfully my voice remained steady but then, that comes with practice. Even before the modelling I was intimate with violence.

It all comes down to my looks. Although I was born and bred in Australia, my father was Polish and my mother Italian, giving me a pretty boy appearance that makes men want to put their stomping boots on. Think curly hair, high cheekbones and pale skin. Then imagine that in a dinky di country town, surrounded by beefy blond thugby players twice my height and three times my weight.

Modelling nude on top of that is just suicide.

“I’ve seen the pictures my wife has drawn of ya,” the ape said, prodding me with a thick finger. “You’re nothing but a perve, aren’t ya? Ya get off on being naked in front of women like my wife.”

Actually, I do. I have to preoccupy myself while posing so I don’t get too excited, which obviously leads to unprofessional results – it is an art class, not a strip club. Not that the women (men never turn up) care about the difference. After all, there’s nothing else for them to do in the evenings other than stay home with the kids or play Keno.

“I just need the money, mate,” I said. “I don’t even know who your wife is. It’s just a job. What do you do?”

“I’m a butcher. I have a real fucken job. I can pick up half a cow carcass with my bare hands. Imagine how far I can throw you and ya poofter mate. I reckon I can bounce you boys off the back wall there.”

The meat-cleaving gorilla probably thinks everyone who isn’t six-feet tall and four-feet wide is, in his words, a poofter and yet you’d be hard pressed meeting anyone as girl-starved as Dave. The only thing Dave loves more than pot is staring longingly at the local women and despite being in his 20s I suspect he’s a virgin. It’s not like he’s ugly, although he’s no soap star, but like me he’s just too skinny to breed in a town like this. Here, evolution works in a different way.

“You know, John,” Dave said to the butcher, obviously knowing him from somewhere, “maybe if you could get it up, your wife wouldn’t be drawing my friend here.”

For a smart guy Dave can say some stupid things.

The butcher visibly twitched as the last shred of self-control shoved its way out of his body. In a blur of motion he grabbed Dave by the throat, Dave’s stool crashing behind him, and took several steps forward so Dave’s centre of momentum became based on his thorax.

“Listen granny fucker, from now on get your meat from someone else,” the butcher growled.

Just then the pot-bellied manager came and gripped the ape’s shoulder from behind.

“Not in my pub,” the manager barked. “You can beat the shit out of these two anywhere you want but not under my roof.”

The colour in Dave’s face faded; the butcher became conflicted.

“Let him down,” the manager continued, as if talking to a pitbull with a bird in his teeth. “Let him down.”

The befuddled butcher reluctantly let Dave go, who stumbled and sprawled against the bar for support.

“How can I fuck grannies if I’m a poof?” Dave said, his voice strained. “It’s one or the other, fuckhead.”

Luckily the manager still had his grip on the butcher, ‘cause otherwise Dave would have copped it.

“Go home and cool off,” the manager told the butcher before turning to us. “And why do you two have to keep coming here? There’s a fucking tearoom in town you can prance off to. I don’t want you causing any more trouble here.”

I wonder whether the manager’s wife is also in my arts class. There’s usually 20 women there, which for a town this size is big – especially since only half are regulars and I usually see some fresh faces every time. As I said, word gets around.

This might explain why Carly doesn’t want me to quit – she makes a packet from it, and who else but me would be stupid enough to pose for footballers’ girlfriends and wives?

“Well, it’s making my life … uncomfortable,” I tell Carly now. “It’s not worth it. But maybe I can help you out in the store? I know how to work a cash register, I know about art supplies.”

“I don’t need help in the store, I need a nude guy,” Carly says. “What else are you going to do for money?”

This stumps me.

“I’ve already booked the next class,” she says. “It’s full. You can’t ditch now. At least turn up for that one.”

As I think about my lack of options, my lack of a future, Carly continues.

“Do it for me,” she adds, her voice artificially softening.

I’d rather do something for Hannibal Lecter but I could use the cash.

“Ok,” I say reluctantly. “One more. But that’s it.”