Like nobody's watching

Last night, he had lost a bet to one of his colleagues while they had gone out to Little Soho. Nothing especially exciting: they had disagreed about something trivial such as the name of an actor that played in a particular film. Extremely sure of himself, Asher had stated that he would be willing to do anything if it turned out that he wasn’t right about this. His colleague agreed, they shook hands, and an objective third party in the form of another co-worker had looked up the information needed to establish who was wrong and who was right. As it turned out, Asher had been dead wrong.

Now, he hadn’t expected much of it. He’d expected his colleague to ask him to buy her a drink, or wash her car or something stupid like that. But she had been part of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and especially they were in dire need of ‘volunteers’ there. Volunteers for what, he wasn’t entirely sure, but his co-worker had lined up an appointment for him to help out. So, to honour him losing the bet, he went to the faculty at two in the afternoon to go do what was asked of him.

Once there, however, it all became clear to him. He walked into a decently-sized classroom, which had both chairs and easels neatly positioned around one particular spot in the centre. There were art supplies anywhere, and slowly but surely, Asher came to understood what was going on. “Oh, fuck no,” he said, fully ready to turn back around and leave. But the students were gathered together already, and they did not have anything in the way of a model to work with.

As far as he knew, he had never even been inside the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. There was nothing for him to do or see here. His job never required him to be here, nor did he particularly want to be around all the eccentric, artsy types. It made it so that he barely knew his way around and had to find the designated classroom by following the signs scattered around the faculty. Even then, he had no idea what to expect from all of this.

Until he arrived at the actual room in question. It took him a few seconds to arrive at a conclusion, but once he did, he felt this horrible sinking feeling. Apparently, one of his co-workers had jokingly set him up to be a nude model for a bunch of art students who were supposed to learn a little something about human anatomy today. For a second, there was only this sheepish, thousand-yard stare. Was he actually supposed to do this? Or had she just wanted to startle him a little bit? He was sure that there were at least three school policies advising against this. Then, the lecturer spoke up, asking him what he was doing here. He raised his brows a little bit. “I, uh… I was supposed to…” he started off, first pointing at the door, then vaguely motioning at the class. “Someone asked me to be here today. For some reason.” Hopefully, it was not the reason he was currently thinking off.

When his co-worker had suggested he come to the faculty in the afternoon to fulfil his dare, he hadn’t exactly expected anything of this sort. He supposed that she would make him do some boring administrative tasks for her, or that she would just make him grab her coffee. This… This was actual punishment, and he wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve it.

Sheer internal panic struck when he figured out what he was supposed to do. Still, he managed to keep himself looking calm and collected by telling himself that this was just some stupid prank. His colleague had just meant to scare him a little bit, and the actual model would show up any given second now… Except no one came. Class was starting, and he was here, standing around like an idiot. The lecturer put her class on hold and came up to him, begging him to tell her that he was – in fact – not the model for today’s class. “I sure as hell hope not,” he hastily said, a little under his breath so that the students wouldn’t hear. He had only worked here for a while and he didn’t know any of these people, but that couldn’t mean he could just… do this. He didn’t even want to. “I was just told to be here at two o’clock sharp because they needed volunteers.” Jesus Christ, why hadn’t he just asked what she had wanted him to do before going?