Skinman on Campus: The Model Model
by Frohike's Love Child  (AKA Keleka)

Email: keleka@keleka.net
Distribution: Gossamer and any place
that doesn't discriminate against Doggett.
Rating: PG 
Spoiler Warning: All you need to know about
is the last scene of Existence.
Content Statement: humor
Classification: V,H
Keywords: Skinner, Humor
Summary: The Big Guy has a hobby.

Disclaimer: Sure...I own the X-Files.  Now,
can I interest you in a bridge in Brooklyn?
Feedback:  If you feel like it, thanks.
Author's Note: Blame this one on Shoshana, 
from whose original idea this one morphed.
In response to a challenge on the IWTB mailing
list.


The Model Model
by Frohike's Love Child


Cursing beneath my breath, I race from my car into
the classroom building with my art case tucked
securely under my arm.  It's the next to last session
of the drawing class I'm taking at GWU, and I'm
ten minutes late.  It figures that I finally find a
hobby, something I enjoy doing, something that has
absolutely nothing to do with the FBI, and that
son-of-a-bitch Kersh has to start holding bull
sessions every week on my class night. Fortunately
the instructor has been very understanding.

Tonight we've been promised a nude model.  My
classmates--not a one over twenty-five--twittered
nervously last week when the instructor made this
announcement.  I've seen plenty of naked women in
my life, so it didn't faze me.  At least this one won't
be dead and lying on a slab in the morgue.

I slip quietly into the classroom and move quickly
to take my usual place in the far corner of the
room.  I like it back here.  No one can see my work
without moving around behind me.  I prefer it that
way.  While I set up my easel and get ready to start,
I can hear the instructor whispering comments to a
student somewhere else in the room.

Finally, I'm ready.  I look up to the dais and am
surprised to see, not a shapely young woman as I
was expecting, but the finely honed muscles of a
lean-bodied male.  I'm immediately thankful that I
sit on this side of the room.  My perspective will let
me avoid the more 'troubling' aspects of the male
anatomy.  Just as I'm about to begin, the model
turns and looks directly at me and breaks out into a
broad smile.

Oh my God, it's Fox Mulder.

The pencil falls from my hand and lands on the
floor with a resounding crash.  When I lean over to
pick it up, I accidentally knock over the stool
where I had perched my artist's case with my
assortment of pencils and charcoals.  Everyone in
the room turns to see what the commotion is and I
can feel every skin cell on my bald head turning
bright fucking red.  I can hear Mulder chuckle and
when I throw a warning glance at him, he quickly
bites his lower lip to keep from breaking out in full
laughter. 

The instructor comes over and helps me round up
all my errant pencils and looks at me oddly. 
"Something wrong, Walter?" she asks.

"What's he doing here?" I whisper.  "You said we
were having a female model."  I immediately regret
my words.  Now she thinks I'm upset at having to
draw a nude male.  She probably thinks I'm 'in the
closet.'

"My model cancelled at the last minute, Walter. 
No one else could come on such short notice, so I
called an old friend.  We were lucky he was willing
to do it."  The instructor has decided to take the
stance that I'm being silly about this and must grow
up quickly if I'm going to pass her class.

"It's not...it's just...he's..." I stammer around for a
moment, trying to decide how to explain my
distress.  Her look tells me to get over it, and I
realize that silence is probably my best option here. 
I wave her off, indicating that I'm ready to get back
to work.  That makes her happy and she moves off
to help other students.

When I swallow, I'm sure the 'gulp' that vibrates in
my ears is loud enough to drown out the metro at
rush hour.  'Get a grip, Walter,' I tell myself and
slowly raise my head to look at the 'model' again. 
Mulder is looking right at me with one of his best
wise ass 'gotcha' grins.

I do the only thing I can think to do.  I scowl at him
and when he laughs, I raise my hand and give him
the universal 'turn the hell around' signal by twirling
my finger in a circle.  It's one thing to have to draw
Fox Mulder naked.  It's quite another to have to
look him in the eye while doing it.

Mulder draws it out for a moment, as though
saying 'Make me!' but then finally, mercifully, turns
his head to look the other way.  Once I get started,
I'm almost able to forget that it's Fox Mulder's
naked ass I'm drawing and just do the job.  I make
his hair a little scruffier and don't include the scar
on his thigh from an old exit wound.  I even add a
few muscles.  By the time I'm finished, I've drawn
Fox Mulder as he *could* be if he'd just work out a
little more.  It's not bad, if I do say so myself.

The instructor calls time and hands Mulder a large
beach towel which he takes his time wrapping
around his waist.  I notice that several of the young
women in the class seem particularly charmed by
our model, but then, they were sitting in *front* of
him.  They crowd around him, chatting him up, and
I can tell he's enjoying the attention.  There's some
serious flirting going on.

Payback's a bitch, I decide.  As soon as I gather up
my materials, I march up to Mulder and listen
quietly for a moment as the women gush over him. 
Finally I speak up.

"So, Fox, how're the wife and baby doing these
days?"  

Is that a pin I just heard drop?

The word 'wife' has the desired effect.  The
co-eds--who were practically handing Mulder their
underwear a moment earlier--make hasty exits.

"You're a cruel man, Walter Skinner," Mulder says,
laughing, and offering me his hand.

I've never shaken the hand of a nude male model
before, but I do now with gusto.  "What goes
around comes around, Mulder.  Now get dressed
and I'll buy you a beer."

*end*