His Model Student: A Student-Teacher Romance

56. Headlines

[RECAP: Mr Marek's painting of Sera has sold for a huge amount of money...]

The next day the story of the quarter million pound painting broke and a huge bouquet of flowers arrived from Lionel with a two-word message:

"Respectability restored."

Sera was beginning to realise what he meant. The enormous price had elevated the painting from a "dirty daub" as Joel had phrased it to something considered an internationally acclaimed work of exceptional quality.

It meant that day at school - even though she faced the excruciating embarrassment of everyone having seen her naked - the general consensus was awe rather than condemnation. St Christopher's could hardly expel a student of adult age who had been featured in a "modern masterpiece that heralds a 20th century Renaissance" according to the Telegraph.

The fact this was actually a quote lifted directly from Lionel, faithfully repeated by a love-struck critic who had made a pass at the gallery owner, was not disclosed.

Lionel had played his trump card and won.

The painting being a nude also boosted interest. "It gives them a free pass to put Page Three on the front page," Lionel had said. "Not that you're Page Three, darling, you're far more beautiful and refined. But tits, at the end of the day, are tits to the tabloids."

And so a story that might have remained confined to the broadsheets was all over the mid-market and gutter press as well. The worst was the Daily Mail: "Would you pay £250k for this girl?"

"The answer to those headlines is always 'no'," Joel said, "only in this case someone clearly decided they would pay that."

A couple of the papers had photographs of Sera standing by Mr Marek, but even more had photos of him and the ghastly Victoria. Sera was dismayed how well Victoria photographed. The Daily Mail had a whole paragraph on the "glamorous former model Victoria Venables, recently separated from husband and well-known art patron Maurice Venables, on the arm of Tarquin Marek".

"It makes it sound like the Maurice guy is dating Marek," Lois said. "It's not very well written, is it?"

"I imagine he'd rather date old Maurice than that vampire," Joel remarked. "I know I would."

"Obviously you would. You'd rather date him than me as well. Or Sera."

Joel gave an expression of mock thoughtfulness. "Yes, I rather think I would. Quite apart from the matter of appendages he's apparently spectacularly rich."

Better still there was no mention of Sera being Mr Marek's student so the reputation of St Christopher's remained, for now, intact. Sera feared that it could still slip out in future and kept her fingers mentally crossed that no journalists would find out.

She was nonetheless summoned to the headmaster. He was a creepy little man with a mousy moustache and an unctuous voice. His office always smelt of stale coffee and talcum powder, bizarrely.

Sera was told to take a chair. This was a good sign as if you were facing the music you were forced to stand.

"I expect you know why I've called you here," he began. "While we wouldn't normally condone this sort of activity, I understand that it is your own ambition to become an artist and that you currently take drawing classes with Mr Marek outside school. I imagine this project emanated from that and has been a form of work experience."

So that was how they had decided to tolerate with it, Sera thought. By considering it to be something external to the school.

The headmaster continued. "To date the school has fortunately not been mentioned and it would be preferable all round if this was to remain the case. While you may be eighteen and of legal age to model, awkward questions may still be raised to the board of governors by concerned parents. So for everyone's sake it would be best not to have St Christopher's named in association with this."

He had spoken his prepared, stuffy little speech. Wisely Sera kept her response demure, thanking the headmaster for his understanding. She wondered whether they would be summoning Mr Marek as well-but didn't dare ask.

The painting was naturally the talk of the school all day. Quite a few girls were envious as they had crushes on the art teacher.

"Wasn't it weird seeing him in class after doing that?" "What's his house like?" "Did he ever try anything?"

Sera managed to fend off most of the more compromising questions. She explained that it had come about through evening classes, which it had really, and had been a purely professional arrangement.

"So how much were you paid?" "Oh my God I wonder if he'd paint me!"

One girl called her a skanky slut and some of the boys made boob jokes in front of her. Generally it wasn't as bad as it might have been and Sera survived it.

~~~~~~~~

JUST TO CLARIFY: this chapter was written some time ago (it was published on Amazon on 23 July) so the "trump" line is a complete coincidence. I also didn't schedule this chapter to come out this week on purpose,  it just happened that way - another coincidence.

Maybe I'm a prophet. You decide ;)