Drawn Together

“Hey, sugah, how about we change things up a little and your cute patoot models for me now?”

“Shtoh?” Piotr asked, as ever needing a moment to further translate Rogue’s distinctive way of speaking through his necessarily limited knowledge of English.

Rogue hung off him, her carefully covered body rubbing maddeningly along the miles of muscles that led down from his broad shoulders. “It’s real simple, big britches. You make all this art malarky look so fun that I thought to take a turn at it myself. So how ‘bout it? You willing to strip down for little ol’ me or is this only a one-way street?”

Many times, Rogue had deigned to pose for Piotr and his etchings, as had many other X-Men. But Rogue seemed to get a particular charge out of the friendly intimacy of it. Being naked for him, knowing it was only an act of aesthetic pleasure, that he would not lasciviously take it further and it would be a satisfaction in and of itself.

To merely think about it, Piotr supposed letting Rogue sketch him would be more of the same, but the way Rogue went about it was undeniably flirtatious. But then, Rogue seemed to enjoy being a flirt, whether or not it could develop into anything more. He’d heard Rogue was making progress in finally controlling her mutant power, even if Piotr considered himself too much of a gentleman to inquire about something so personal before it was volunteered.

“Of course, I would be happy to help with your studies,” Piotr said, trying to suppress his thick accent as much as possible—he often worried that Rogue found him as incomprehensible as he sometimes found her. “But should not I give pointers on you drawing something else? Perhaps a still life or some simple household item, before you move on to the human figure? Anatomy can be real challenge!”

“Don’t I know it,” Rogue muttered. “Nah, I’ve touched enough people who’ve had enough art classes that I can make a go of it on my own. And why not start with you, handsome? You’ve got one hell of a build, even before ya turn into metal. I tell ya, Pete, anyone who ain’t as ripped as you would look awful silly in some a’ those outfits you’ve worn.”

“Da, the Professor has me keep in good shape, with or without my mutation. But still, I have never posed before…” Piotr said, scratching his head.

“What’s to figure out, muscles? You put yourself in some cute little pose and hold it till I’ve drawn all them ripplin’ biceps and whatnot. Sure, it’s liable to take a while, but imagine if I had to draw ev’ry hair on Logan’s head!”

Piotr chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “I suppose is good I just get haircut. Will not take up so much of your time. Okay, but remember locking door.”

Rogue went over to turn the lock. “Alright, alright, hoss, but I think anyone around here who wants to scope some skin just waits for Emma to get up. Now shuck yourself and stand there by the window. You can pull down the shade if you’re real shy.”

“And waste this natural lighting? Nyet.” Piotr shook his head.

He figured the more he treated his nudity like no big deal, the less eroticism would hang over the proceedings. Betsy was certainly a beautiful woman, but his sketches of her had never taken an erotic turn because she didn’t flaunt herself, just displayed the excellent conditioning of her ninja’s physique.

Feeling more silly than seductive, Piotr stripped. He took a cigarette and matchbook from his shirt pocket before discarding the garment.

“You mind if I smoke?” he asked Rogue, planting the cigarette between his lips.

“Go ahead. If it relaxes you.”

Piotr tried to resist the urge to turn his naked body and not present himself to Rogue so openly. Such bashfulness would make his nakedness more… complete.

“Any particular pose you would like?” he asked, thumbing a matchstick to life before lighting his cigarette.

“Just anything you can hold for a minute or two. I need to get warmed up,” Rogue told him, setting a pad of newsprint on her easel.

This is not what I expected when I left Mother Russia, Piotr thought, assuming a stance he hoped was neutral enough. Not showing off but also not just standing there.

“That’s good, sugah, hold yer pretty self just like that,” Rogue told him, sketching in short, swift motions.

Piotr was a good model, his skin a well-tanned shroud over bulging muscles. It was hard not to think of when he was in his organic steel form, fully realized, even when he was as much himself like that as he was like that.

Rogue tried to capture that duality: that the same man who could be a walking weapon was also this big, beguiling lug; a gentle giant with a fierce intelligence belied by his chimney-smoke accent. But she got mixed up. There was the friendliness of him and how arousing it was to have all those big muscles, all that bare skin, and it seemed impossible to capture both with the same skinny gray graphite.

Try as she might to concentrate on the refined power of his brawny arms and legs, her eyes kept veering back to his hips. Checking so often on whether he found it arousing to be stripped for her that Rogue had to consider it wishful thinking. Of course, it was difficult to tell if he was half-hard or just hung like a mule. Or maybe both. Which did nothing to steer Rogue back to thoughts of artistry.

The pose didn’t help, she decided. Him smoking his cigarette, he looked like he’d just made love, but there was all this tension still in his body like he was about to jump out of an airplane. And him naked still, not free and loose like Rogue was when he put her at ease. She could be naked as a jaybird and feel no shame; why couldn’t she get Piotr feeling like that?

“Could y’all face the other way?” Rogue asked, and ripped through her current page to a new one. For several minutes, there was no sound but the scratching of her pencil.

Piotr had thought that facing away from her would make him less self-conscious, but as if given permission to, his member was growing harder and harder. Drinking in the attention he felt Rogue was lavishing on him.

He knew that it was only a matter of time until he had to move and Rogue noticed, but though the tension built for him, it could not interfere with his body’s intensive preparation for the sex it felt sure was coming. Why else was he naked, feeling the tender caress of admiring eyes and the charge of air filled with only the noise of two breaths?