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To say that Bernie would never have guessed that putting a flyer on a board could be so life-changing would be grossly understating it.
Bernie has been teaching art for close to two decades in the Holby School of Arts. If you asked around, she would be described as the coolest teacher of the whole school. Never taking herself seriously, always eager to help, eager to encourage.
She also gives lessons, one night a week to a very diverse group of people wanting to expand their horizons and do something more than just working and sleeping.
And it is for this lesson in particular that she needs a model for their next segment, nude drawing. That’s where the flyer on a board comes in.
She went around town, in shops, to the town hall, and even to the two hospitals asking if she could put a flyer up for her art class. Some said no, some said yes.
People at St. James for example, found the whole concept preposterous.
People at Holby City Hospital thought it was a grand idea.
That’s where it got life-changing.
Serena Campbell is bored. Quite the feat really, when you know she’s the lead vascular surgeon on her ward and the deputy CEO of Holby City Hospital to boot. She’s also the sole carer for her lovely if sometimes challenging nephew Jason.
So, really, how could someone like Serena be bored, you might ask?
Well, it is like this.
Nothing is challenging her bright mind anymore.
She’s overhauled a majority of things at the hospital, some things people liked and some people got pretty cross about. She spent two whole years on the frontline learning trauma surgery with the best trauma surgeon that ever was. Flirted and slept with said surgeon, but that’s another story. She’s basically the fount of knowledge everybody needs when they have a problem, be it business or medicine-wise.
And now that the hospital runs like a well-oiled machine, that she and her nephew have their routine down to an art, and that she has been, she’s sad to admit, single for nearly ten months, the truth is, she is bored out of her skull.
Which is why, when her eyes landed inadvertently on a bright blue flyer asking for models in big burgundy letters, Serena first dismissed the idea as a silly notion before thinking that, maybe, just maybe, this might be exactly what she needed to spice up her life a bit.
Taking a picture of the flyer with her phone, she giddily told herself that she would give a call to this art teacher this very evening.
Bernie. Seems like the name of a kind and warm man, she thought.
Imagine her surprise, when that same night, comfortably installed in her bed, she hears “Bernie Wolfe, speaking,” and it is the voice of a woman.
“H - hello, um - ”
“Hello, who is this?”
Serena clears her throat and starts again.
“Yes, sorry. Hello, I’m calling regarding that flyer you left at the hospital. Requesting volunteers for -”
“Ah, yes! Would you be interested then,” Bernie asks hopefully.
“Absolutely,” Serena purrs, taking Bernie aback.
You see, Bernie is very shy, always becomes a blubbering mess when a woman starts flirting with her. Even remotely. She’s a disaster lesbian, as one of her colleagues would call her affectionately.
“O - oh g - good! Good!”
“Yes, very good,” Serena agrees, more and more attracted to the voice of her new friend.
Bernie gives her all the details and they agree to meet half an hour before the class starts, to better acquaint themselves.
The following Wednesday, they find themselves at Bernie studio, which is essentially a nice bright room at the end of her garden, coffees in hand. Again she tells Serena what would be expected of her, promises her that none of the pupils are lecherous old men searching for a bit of thrill - a statement that earns her Serena’s richest laugh, making Bernie shiver in the process - and asks her one last time if she’s still okay with it all.
“Of course, I’m okay with it.” Serena reassures her, “I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I have absolutely no problem in getting my kit off as they say. I’m not an exhibitionnist but I’m quite confident in my body’s capacity to draw the gaze. Be it male or female,” she adds with a saucy wink.
Bernie’s only answer is a blush to end all blushes. Something that Serena finds adorable.
“Oh y - you - you’re -” she trails off with a jerky movement of her hand.
“Bisexual?” Serena supplies with a raised eyebrow and smirk.
“Y - yes.”
“Yes, I am indeed.”
“Oh g - good. I’m gay.” It comes out quickly and almost awkwardly, making Bernie blush anew.
“Perfect.”
Bernie might be wrong - she’s not what you would call an expert on facial expressions - but if she had to qualify Serena’s smile in this precise instant, she’d say it was positively predatory.
She gulps and, desperate for a way out, looks at her watch.
“Oh look at the time! I’m just - just going to -” and indicating a vague spot over her shoulder with a nervous thumb, she gets up and leaves.
Serena keeps smiling. Coming here tonight might have been the best idea she’s had in a good long while. Not only is she going to have some fun posing naked - something she’s never done before, which makes the activity all the more appealing - but she also managed to find a deliciously good looking art teacher in the process.
Good job me , she congratulates herself.
Not even fifteen seconds after she left, Bernie comes back, wrenches the door to the studio open and, without coming in, tells Serena that she can get undressed behind the curtained area and there should be a robe waiting for her on a coat hanger. As soon as she’s done, she’s out in a flash, the slam of the door the only proof that she had been there.
Behind the curtain, Serena takes her time. Humming softly, she takes her clothes off and folds them neatly, and leaves them in a small pile on the chair. She then puts the robe on, some kind of velvety number - burgundy - of course, a color that Serena herself loves very much.
Hearing people come into the studio, and chatting amicably, she comes out. Bernie, the first in the line, stops short and surprises a couple of her students who collide with her back as a result.
Apologies fly but Bernie doesn’t hear any of them. She’s frozen, looking at her model with a slacked jaw, a reaction that pleases Serena no end.
“Everything alright,” she asks, laughing knowingly, before turning her attention to Bernie’s students. “Hi, I’m Serena.”
She shakes hands with the five people, charming them all in the process, to the point that when Bernie asks her to take place on the small sofa at the front of the room, the atmosphere is light and easy, and nobody - outside Bernie - is nervous about having a naked person before their very eyes.
Well, nervous. There’s another understatement for you.
Bernie can’t take her eyes off Serena, has to force herself to look away to give directions to her students, before stopping in the middle of a sentence because her eyes keep straying back to body of the astonishingly beautiful woman lounging naked in front of her as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Serena is gorgeous. Soft, luminous curves asking to be revered. Hips and breasts waiting to be softly caressed. Strong legs perfect for kneeling in between.
Bernie is dizzy with desire. She’s always managed to look at the models with a somewhat dispassionate gaze, but tonight she can’t.
She wants to draw that skin.
She wants to paint it.
To touch it.
To kiss it.
To drown in its warmth.
And it's the same thing every Wednesday. Four of those to be exact.
Serena has arrived earlier than necessary each time, flirting with Bernie, touching her and sending her looks that made her whole body tremble with a want she didn’t even know was a possibility until then.
She stayed behind as well, just to have a chance to have Bernie all to herself before leaving.
Today Serena seems ready to pounce.
Even though she can’t move, offering her profile to the students as she is, her dark eyes always find Bernie’s, who keep fleeting between her neck, the small of her back, her breasts, standing proudly or the very inviting curve of her backside.
Bernie is well aware that her tutoring isn’t at its best these days, but there’s only so much she can do with a living artwork in front of her.
When the class is over, Serena puts the robe back and sits sideways back on the sofa, legs crossed and an arm thrown back. She waves at Bernie’s student s when they leave.
“Finally alone,” she says softly, still managing to startle Bernie.
“Wh - what?”
“I’ve been waiting for this moment all week.”
Serena gets up and walks slowly towards Bernie.
“Thi - this moment?” She blabbers and starts walking backwards until she’s blocked by an easel.
Serena is now so close to her their bodies are almost touching.
“Hm,” she purrs. “I can’t stop thinking about you.” Her voice is low and deliciously dangerous, and it overrides Bernie’s brain completely.
“I’ve been think - thinking about you too,” she confesses, her eyes fixed on Serena’s lips.
“Excellent news.”
Seeing Bernie so transfixed, Serena can’t help but play with her collar, her other hand playing with the belt to loosen it just a smidge, offering a more detailed view of the skin Bernie has only seen from afar until now.
“You’re so beautiful,” she compliments, her voice full of wonder.
Her hands, out of her own volition, join her eyes in her quest to find just how soft Serena’s skin is. When she makes contact, the jolt of electricity running through her fingers brings her back to the present and she jerks her hand back.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Serena counters, tilting Bernie’s chin with a finger so she will meet her eyes. “I want you to touch me.”
“You - you want -”
“Yes, Bernie.” She takes her hand and puts it low on her cleavage.
“Shouldn’t we - um - go on a - on a date or something, before?”
Serena laughs, a sexy sound that makes Bernie’s insides turn into molten lava.
“Oh, we will go on a date, don’t you worry about that. I hope we’ll even go on several dates. But first, I need to kiss you.”
“Oh.” It’s a breathy sound, barely audible.
“Would that be okay with you?”
“Yes.”
For once, her answer is sure. Eyes flitting all over Serena’s face, she looks at her coming closer, eyes only closing when the sensation of Serena’s lips on hers is too much for her to be able to multitask. The kiss is slow, very much not chaste but the passion is held in check in favour of discovering the other’s mouth and taste, biting gently into full lips and letting tongues battle languorously.
When Serena pulls back, Bernie’s eyes stay closed, her mouth slightly open, head bent backwards a bit. A vision that makes a tender smile bloom on Serena’s face.
“How about going on that date, now,” she asks, gently cupping Bernie’s face.
Licking her lips, Bernie slowly comes back to herself. “Hm, sure. Yes. Perfect.”
Again, Serena laughs.
“Let me just get dressed then.”
“Do you have to?”
“I’m afraid so,” Serena answers with a snort. “Unless you want to share this,” she adds, a finger indicating her person, “with even more people.”
“No way.”
She gets up and puts her arms around Serena’s waist.
“I’m not sharing you, anymore.”
She concludes this statement with a kiss, and a gentle shove towards the curtained area.
“Go on, I’m famished.”
Walking backwards and biting her lower lip, all the while loosening her belt completely, Serena’s answer actually makes Bernie break into a sweat.
“Oh, I’m famished too.”
And then she disappears behind the curtain, leaving Bernie alone with her arousal and her thoughts.
Putting a flyer up on that hospital cork board was the best idea she has ever had.