“You’ll be working on a female torso.”
“Oh, really?” I said feeling disappointed. It was my introductory sculpture class and I had imagined my clay taking a different shape. “I was planning to sculpt a statue of Justitia – the Roman Goddess of Justice. I’m a lawyer, and I thought she’d look good in my office.”
“Well, I don’t know much about justice,” said the teacher. “But today you’ll be sculpting a nice female torso. You can put that in your office.”
“Oh.”
“We don’t normally get complaints.”
“Do you normally get lawyers?”
“No,” she said. “I guess we don’t.”
She led me into a room where half a dozen others were already pinching at lumps of clay. It was the regular class. They’d moved on from the torso and were working on the rest of the woman … who was sitting naked on the floor.
I introduced myself around, shaking hands with everyone – except for the naked woman.
“Linda’s our model for today,” said the teacher, thudding down my lump of clay.
I sat and studied Linda’s torso. I imagined her wearing the blindfold of Justitia and holding scales of justice and a sword.
As if reading my mind, Linda shot me a look. Quickly, in my mind, I removed the blindfold and hid it away with the scales and the sword.
She was naked again.
I glanced, blushed, and looked away. This really wasn’t working at all. Justice, like love, might be blind, but a sculptor needs to peruse their subject.
I steadied my mind, and again fixed my gaze on Linda’s torso, but, this time, as a precaution, I imagined the blindfold was over my eyes.
“Okay, here’s your model,” said the teacher reappearing and dropping a statue in my lap – just in time to stop me from, in my mind’s eye, peeking around the blindfold to see Linda approaching with scales turned into wrist-restraints, and a sword raised for spanking.
“What? I’m not sculpting Linda?” I said, as all Justitian fantasies disappeared.
“No, she’s for the other students. Your job is to copy this statute.”
Now, any Roman God, or indeed Goddess, would have been pleased with her proportions, but the statue was lacking arms and a head.
“Can I add some extra bits and pieces to make it look more like Justitia?”
“If you sign up for the regular class, you can make one that looks just like Linda … with all of her bits and pieces.”
I kept my eyes on the statue, and set down to work.
Gradually, conversation sparked up in the room. The sculptors were retirees and ladies who do more than just lunch. They discussed their children, and me.
“We don’t usually get lawyers in here,” said one.
“Yeah, I wanted to sculpt the Goddess of Justice,” I said. “But it looks like I’ll have to put this in my office instead.”
“A naked torso in your office? That’s sexual harassment!”
She had a point. I wasn’t sure I’d get away with my sculpture at home either. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t perfect the breasts.
“We have that problem a lot,” said the teacher. “Men tend to make the breasts too large, or the back too muscular. You seem to be partial to both.”
It was refreshing to get feedback, and encouragement too. And it was relaxing to work while someone else prostrated before their clients, made to change positions 10 times an hour.
By the end, I was proud of my busty, muscular statue. I drove her home slowly, nursing her gently in the passenger seat. Arriving home, I presented her for a family-appraisal (deciding she might be best placed in the home-office).
“I thought you were going to do a Justitia,” said my de facto. “I don’t recall her breasts being that big.”
“Dadda!” said my baby son, pointing at the thing.
I took off my jacket, appraised my man-boobs and sighed. ‘Justitia’ went to the back of a shelf. I went back to my day-job … in justice.