Taylor nods, letting a mob of designer-clad divas pass before coming closer. Her shoulders rise and fall with every breath, the faint freckles spotting her cheeks and nose making her look gorgeously delicate. I want to tell her she’s more beautiful than a sunrise streaking red across the sky, more incredible than a white sand beach that stretches to the horizon; I want to tell her I would wake every morning just for the promise of her next to me; but when I open my mouth all that comes out is: “Penile fracture.”
She leans toward me like she’s having trouble hearing. “What?”
“Uh… That’s why I couldn’t do anything with you that night in Mauritius,” I say, realizing that I probably could have segued better into this. “And that’s why we haven’t been able to do more than kiss.”
“Because you fractured your… uh…”
“Penis,” I nod.
“That’s an actual thing you can do?”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “It’s an actual, very painful thing.”
I’m staring into Taylor’s green eyes, certain she’s going to crack a herpes joke or ridicule my damaged manhood. Or both. But instead her expression softens and she says, “Poor you.”
Suddenly, I’m filled with the urge to hug her and never let go, but I worry that might be a strange reaction, so I don’t do this.
“But it’s better now,” I say. “The doctor said not to use it for a few months and it’s been that long.”
“So, it’s healed?” She says.
“I think so.” The bruising is gone and wearing my favourite Calvin Klein underwear no longer feels like a noose choking the life out of my penis, which are good signs.
“Good.” She mashes her lips together as she fights back a smile. “Because it’d be really mean to laugh at you if you were still hurt. But since it’s all in the past-”
Taylor starts to laugh, and though it’s at my expense, I can’t help smiling.
“At least my pain makes you happy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She grins and takes my hand. “Let me make it up to you. Come on, I want to show you something.”
Taylor leads me into the rooftop atrium, sixty floors above the street in the Central Plaza building. The triangular glass façade surrounds us, coming to a point high in the centre of a space lit only by stars. The air is still and the windows mute the noise of the streets below. Everything feels incredibly vast, but somehow near, as if the stars are in the room with us.
“I’ve never been in here,” I say, Taylor’s hand is soft in mine as she tugs me forward.
“I love this spot. I did a bunch of test shoots here and got in with the security staff because I speak Mandarin,” she says, gazing through the glass at the night sky. “They’re cool, they let me come and go when no one is using the place.”
I’m reminded that a female model is better than a lock pick for getting into places.
We stop at the glass wall. Below us, the Hong Kong convention centre sits like a rounded silver pebble at the edge of the water. The jagged electrified skyline of Kowloon is silhouetted in the distance, and the reflection of a million lights shimmers in the waves of the channel.
“It’s an awesome view,” I say.
“It is.” Taylor looks at me, the lights from the city bathing her face in a warm orange glow. “But that wasn’t what I wanted to show you.”
She pushes me against the glass, her body pressing against mine.
“You know there are no security cameras up here?” she grins. “The guards shared that little secret with me.”
“Good thing we’re not burglars,” I say, holding her tight as those full Maybelline-campaign-worthy lips—slightly parted, always sexy—travel up and meet mine. Running my hand under her shirt, I caress the smooth skin of her back. My lips wander to her neck. Taylor moans, her hands fumbling with the button on my jeans.
“Take these off.”
“Really?” I pause. “Here?”
“Don’t you think you’ve teased me long enough?” She says, slipping her shoes off. She undoes her jeans and wiggles out of them, her long, smooth legs gleaming in the light.
I’m fumbling with my button and finally get my pants unzipped. Taylor lifts her shirt over her head, letting it waft to the floor. Then she stands before me looking like she just stepped off a Victoria Secret runway.
All I can do is gawk with my fly down.
“It’s been a while for you,” she says, wrapping her arms around me as I wrestle with my jeans. “You remember how to do this right?”
“Of course,” I say, her breath hot in my ear as I pop one of my shoes off and step on my jeans with one foot trying to yank the other free.
I think I remember how to do this.
Turning Taylor and pressing her back to the glass, I pull her bra down to reveal two soft perky breasts. She moans and wraps a long slender leg around me, and I feel the warmth between her legs on my upper thigh. I should be nothing but happy in this situation, but part of me is growing anxious.
Taylor pulls my shirt off. She rubs one hand through my hair as our tongues touch, while her other hand moves down to toy with the waistband of my cotton briefs. And though there’s no pain, my anxiety builds to full blown fear.
We kiss, my arms wrapped around Taylor—the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen—and I should be feeling diesel but am overwhelmed by insecurities. What if three months with no sex has bestowed me with the sexual prowess of a teenage virgin? What if my penile fracture isn’t completely healed and I’m headed to another catastrophic cock-cracking?
These thoughts nag at me as I rub Taylor over her panties and she grits her teeth, a low moan escaping her lips. She’s is so incredibly hot that I can scarcely believe I’m seeing her naked. And I’m a veritable expert on getting hotness naked.
“I want you inside,” she whispers as her hand moves past my waistband, and I flinch. She stops. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” I say, feeling stupid because there’s no pain.
“It’s okay.” She smiles and caresses me up and down before taking me gently in her hand. “This won’t hurt. I promise.”
She guides me into her, and then her warmth—moist and soft—is all around me. Taylor’s mouth gasps open. As I move inside, her green eyes, soft and sensual, meet mine. The way she looks at me—like all her inhibitions are gone, like all that matters is us—washes my fear away, and everything feels right. Our bare skin lit from the light of the city. Our eyes are locked onto each other, and as we move as one, everything around us fades—save for a thousand eyes in the night sky.
CHAPTER 34
Colin Bryce Hamilton
I’m gonna be taking a break from everything social media. It’s not you. It’s me.
4 people like this.
“THIS WILL JUST take a second,” Jasmine says, slipping out of her backpack and setting it next to her rolling suitcase. She pulls her camera from the pack. “I know, I know. I left this to the last minute.”
I’m standing on the crowded seaside promenade at Stanley Market, a row of busy restaurants clattering behind me as Eduardo and Larissa put their own rolling luggage next to my sisters. Jasmine’s leaving for Milano today and her roommates are leaving for some second-tier market like Athens or Istanbul, I don’t remember. Point is everyone’s leaving and I’m staying behind.
“Bro, I can’t believe you walked off the stage at Gucci,” Eduardo says, eyeing me like I’ve invented some method to gorge on carbs yet keep a ripped six-pack. “Awesome, bro. I walked off stage once, too, but that was ‘cause I got blinded by lights, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say. He crosses his arms, his bulging biceps obvious in his tank top, and I wonder if Eduardo ever wears sleeves. “That sucks.”
“Occupational hazard, bro,” he says, and I notice he’s slotted his fists under his already bulbous biceps to make them look even bigger. It’s a good move. I used to do the same thing teamed with a wrinkled forehead for my Captain-Crossed-Arms-Confidence look. This mak
es me hope I can find everyday uses for all my looks. It’d be a shame to waste all that work experience.
“Eduardo, Larissa, go over there,” Jasmine says, pointing to a spot in front of the metal railing. Behind it, the blue sea stretches to the horizon. “I’m so happy we got the chance to come out here for lunch. I’ve wanted to do this before, but never had time.”
Jasmine flicks through the settings on her camera as Eduardo and Larissa stand on the spot. Taylor walks over, thumbs the end call button on her phone and pockets it.
“That was my booker.” She says. “I’m now officially an ex-model.”
“Congrats.” I grin. It’s nice to call and officially end your career. Most model careers fizzle to a stop when the silent agreement is made between agency and model to never call each other again.
“What did I miss?” Taylor says.
“Not much,” I say, Eduardo and Larissa hug and smile at the camera while behind them the sun gleams silver off the turquoise sea. Jasmine snaps a shot. “Model roommate bonding.”
Eduardo breaks the pose by pecking Larissa on the lips before manhandling my sister into a hug. He keeps his arm around her, her shoulder jammed into his bare armpit as they laugh, and I can only hope his deodorant is working.
“Your first roommates are always the best.” Taylor grins.
“Yeah,” I say, realizing that the first model apartment I stayed in was in Athens. That makes Damian my first roommate. “Yeah, maybe they are.” Eduardo releases my sister and goes back to holding Larissa’s hand.
The startling fact that Senor Brazos Muy Forte hooked up with my sister’s roommate, and not my sister, makes me realize he meant what he said about Jasmine being like a little sister. That’s a first.
“Hey, guys. Look here,” Jasmine calls, pointing her camera at Taylor and me. Before I decide what look to use, the camera snaps. She checks her LCD and laughs. “I wanted a shot of you two together and this is perfect. Look!”
Giggling, she hands us her camera. On it Taylor and I are smiling and holding hands. My head is turned, my eyes are closed and my hair—which I forgot to put styling product in—is disturbingly flat. I look awful. I’m about to ask her to take another shot when I notice Taylor. She’s not posing either. She’s just standing there, her green eyes sparkling in the sun, looking like her beautiful self. Every time I look at Taylor, it’s like it’s the first time. “This is fine. Your brother has enough fancy pictures of himself,” Taylor smirks. “You should post it on PicsbyJas.”
“What’s that?” I grin.
“It’s your sister’s Instagram account.” Taylor says. “What do you know about your sister?”
“No, her account is Jasmine Verano—”
“I have another account for my…” Jasmine starts.
“It’s blowing up.” Taylor pulls her phone from her pocket.
Jasmine bites her lip as Taylor taps her screen and hands me her phone. On it is PicsbyJas, my sister’s secret Instagram account. Except it’s only a secret to me apparently. Her account has 75, 453 followers.
“Uh… When did you get this account, Jas?” I squint at her latest post. A blonde in full makeup backstage at Vivienne Westwood. I scroll through the photos, which are all pretty good.
“When I got here,” Jasmine says.
My sister is hot, and the photos are mostly of hot girls and guys, but getting over seventy-five thousand followers in less than three months seems pretty fast no matter how much hotness there is on display.
“What do you do?” I say. “Look for cool shots, from events you’re at and repost them?”
“No,” Jasmine says, playing with her hair. “Those are my photos.”
“What?” I say, still scrolling. There is a shot of Larissa on the street looking into the distance while Hong Kong traffic is a blur behind her; a black-and-white shot of a booker standing with her back to the lens, staring up at the wall of comp cards at One Models; then I see myself on the street that day she bought her camera, people passing all around me as I squint into the lens. “These are really good.”
Scrolling all the way down to her first picture, I recognize the blackand-white headshot Wannabe Testino took of my sister, the headshot that has been on the front of her comp card the entire time she’s been in HK. I hold the phone out and show her the screen.
“But your friend shot this.”
“Not really,” she says like she’s confessing to breaking a window. “I shot that using Dad’s camera, and a tripod.”
“Really?” I look down at the photo and then up to my blushing sister. Taylor grins. “Why didn’t you just tell me you shot it?”
“In case you didn’t like them,” she says. “You can be pretty judgemental.”
“Oh,” I say, my face flushing red as Taylor watches. “Well, I’m impressed, Jas.”
“You don’t think I’m a dork for using a tripod and autotimer to shoot myself at home?” She says. If I could take pictures as well as her I would have spent substantially more time shooting myself than she probably has. “Oh, you’re a dork.” I grin and hand the phone back to Taylor. “But you’re a talented dork.”
“Thanks, modeling can be rough, and I like eating.” She says. “I guess photography can be my out.”
“You realized you need an out?”
“Of course,” She says, her brown eyes burrowing into me. “Modeling is the ultimate trap.”
My sister has figured this out in months and I’ve been doing this for years. And then I don’t know what to say but Jasmine angles her head and smiles that beautiful toothy grin I will forever recognize as my kid sister’s, even though I know my sister’s not a kid anymore.
“Jas,” Larissa calls from the collection of luggage as Eduardo hails a taxi. “Our flights…”
“My gosh,” Jasmine says. “I’ve got to go.”
She hugs Taylor, kissing her on the cheek as a taxi pulls up. Eduardo puts those biceps to work, piling luggage in the trunk. When I look back, my sister is standing in front of me. I hate saying goodbye, so I don’t.
“If things go bad in Milano,” I say. “And I mean like end-of-the-world, a-crazy-Italian-man-breaks-into-your-bedroom sort of bad, you can always call Damian. He’ll be there.”
“Damian?” Jasmine grins like an idiot. “Maybe I’ll have crazy Italian men in my bedroom every night!”
I laugh like that’s funny.
“Jas!” Larissa calls again, sitting in the backseat of the taxi with the door open. “Ok!” Jasmine shouts over her shoulder. Then she turns back to me and frowns. “I wish you were coming but I’m happy you’re moving on.”
“Me too, Jas” I say, trying to act casual when I add. “The industry was getting to me a bit.”
The industry was getting to me a lot.
Jasmine nods at the floor. Then she smiles and launches into a wiry armed hug. I hold her tight, lifting her off the ground, and she whispers, “Thank you.”
When I let her down, there’s a moment before she dashes away to the taxi and her future; a moment where everything slows and my sister stands before me; her brown hair blowing in the warm sea breeze, her eyes full of hope and strength, and I see what Taylor always knew about Jasmine; fashion will never touch her.
My sister runs to join her friends in the taxi. Everybody is leaving and I’m staying behind.
The door shuts and the taxi drives off with Jasmine waving back at me. She’s grinning this big stupid grin while wiping tears from her face and that taxi is around the corner and she’s gone.
Then I think, it’s not that I’m staying behind. I’m just not going where the other models are going. Because I’m not one.
“Are you okay?” Taylor says.
And I’m not alone. Not anymore. “Yeah,” I grin at her. “I’m okay.”
Taylor takes my hand and we start down the crowded promenade, the smell of salt water mixing with the scent of lit coals from the restaurants. We walk like this for a few minutes, and no one takes our picture, or
stops us to fix the clothes, or makes us walk the same three steps over and over. This is real.
“No more castings, fittings, auditions,” Taylor squints into the sun. “No more awkward Polaroid snapshots in the agency. What do we do now?”
‘I guess…” I pause, because I hadn’t thought about a life after modelling until right now. “I guess, we do whatever we want.”
Taylor smiles, her finger flitting over my knuckle like it did that first day on the beach in Mauritius, and says, “Good answer.”
As we walk, newly un-modeled, and free to eat what we like, to never let another billboard campaign make us feel bad about ourselves, to recklessly let our gym memberships lapse. I remind myself to message Damian to make sure he takes care of my sister in Milano. And that if he even thinks about touching her—I know all about penile fractures.
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