by Mimi Strong
Please, please let it be more airbrushing, I prayed.
My suspense over the big change didn’t last long.
I walked onto the set in my snazzy purple underwear to find the tallest, blondest man I’d ever seen. He wore a pair of purple briefs that were the size of a bow-tie, and he seemed to be smuggling an entire daschund inside the briefs. His golden abs went on for miles, like a giant, Christmas-stocking-sized, white chocolate Toblerone bar.
Reaching out to shake his hand politely, I said, “I didn’t know the human body had that many abs.”
“These ones are implants,” he said, pointing to the top row.
“No way! They look real.”
“You can touch,” he said, his accent sounding Swedish.*
*I watched all the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies in their original Swedish versions, plus that creepy-kid-vampire movie, so I’m practically an expert.
Just as I reached out to touch the round bumps, Mitchell grabbed my hand and said, “He’s full of monkeyshines. Those are real muscles, but Sven here is quite the prankster.”
I turned to Mitchell. “Thank you for saving me from the horror of touching this man’s abs. Can I buy you dinner?”
We grinned at each other.
“Good to see you again,” Mitchell said. “We ordered Pop Tarts, just for you. Shall I toast one for you now?”
I threw my arms around the short blond man and squeezed him. “Thank you so much. I had a parsley smoothie for breakfast.”
I didn’t tell him who made the parsley smoothie, because it wasn’t his business. I looked around for Keith, who’d come into the building just behind me, but I didn’t see him.
One change.
Catching the attention of a person with a headset, I asked if she’d seen Keith Raven around.
“He won’t be in today,” she said curtly, and then left.
The crew on set all started laughing behind me, amused by something Sven was doing. He strutted around with his bare chest stuck out, saying, “How about this? It’s not a tumor. Arnold Schwarzeneggar, you know? I’ll be back.”
Sven was a real jokester, all right.
I knew he wasn’t to blame for Keith being let go, but I still wanted to karate chop him in his ridiculous abs. How dare he push out Keith?
He opened his mouth wide and stuck his whole fist in, to everyone’s amusement.
Something told me it was going to be a very strange day.
Big-mouthed Sven was truly gorgeous, no doubt about it, but posing with him felt like a competition, not a collaboration. Any charm or charisma he had was funneled straight into the camera, bypassing me.
“You’re in my light,” I had to keep telling him.
He gave me a suspicious look. “I thought you were an amateur.”
“Not after Sunday, when I worked with the immensely talented Keith Raven.”
Sven responded by rubbing his trouser anaconda against my hip.
“Excuse me,” I said as he prodded his wang into me like a bratty kid poking all the fresh loaves at the bakery.
“Am I in your light?” he asked innocently.
I started to wave my hand in the air, to call for Mitchell’s help, but then I caught a look at all the bored and irritated faces around me. The horrible truth of the situation sunk in. If I complained, I’d be the girl who went to a sexy underwear shoot and couldn’t take the heat. Was I overreacting? I mean, sure, if I was working at Pizza Hut and my coworker stuck his barely-covered wang into my back, I’d have him fired. But this? Gray zone.
Mitchell came running, having caught enough of my wave.
“Bottle of water?” I asked.
He ran off for water.
We took a short break, and I said to Sven discreetly, “I don’t care where you put your hands, but my body is penis-free and I’d like it to stay that way.”
“I do not control him,” he said.
I turned away in disgust, only to feel a familiar body part grinding into my back once more.
Mitchell returned with a full water bottle. “Ooh, nice and cold,” I said, turning to smile sweetly up at Sven.
“How cold?” he asked.
I held the bottle to the center of his smooth chest. He closed his eyes, grinning.
And then I let go. The large bottle sailed straight down the front of him and ricocheted off his overly-intrusive semi-chubby.
“Fuck my ass tits!” he howled, clutching himself.
It was the first time I’d heard such a colorful expression, and—judging by the laughter—the first time for everyone in the studio as well.
I apologized profusely, of course, blaming my sweaty fingers. He kept whimpering, so I told him, “Maybe if you loosened the Velcro strap and let a little air out of the tires, there wouldn’t be so much sticking out to get caught on things.”
“Thanks for the tip,” he said, giving me a wary look.
We got back to bright lights and photos, and Sven behaved himself. In fact, he seemed almost frightened of me, because when I suggested we take a few pictures of me slapping him—the classic rom-com slap—he cowered and pleaded for me not to.
“How about a nipple twist?” I asked. “Or love bites?”
Poor Sven looked like he was about to cry, which was an interesting look for a seven-foot-tall man.
We finished the shots with both of us, and then I did a few more solo pictures, thankfully some of them with a chair, because my feet were killing me in the high heels I’d been wearing to bring me closer to Sven’s height.
I kept wondering where Keith was, and how he was feeling. I hoped he was still getting paid, and that he wouldn’t be mad at me.
We worked straight through lunch, with me eating a spicy tuna salad sandwich between bra changes. As I munched away on the pickle that came with the takeout, I marveled at how quickly I’d gotten used to the whole modeling scene.
The scene. Granted, it was just letting two women stick their hands inside my bra cups to rearrange my peaches, not going off to fight a war, but I felt proud of how much I was able to endure.
The long day and all the scrutiny did eventually get to me, though.
We’d just wrapped up the shoot, and I was in the dressing room when Mitchell walked in and found me with my face in my hands, feeling vulnerable.
He sat his immaculately-styled skinny butt down next to mine on the bench and gave me a sideways hug. “Don’t be sad! You were even better today. Are you sad because Keith’s off the campaign?”
“Yes,” I whimpered from within my hands, because that was a big part of it. How could we still be friends if he felt humiliated about getting fired?
“He just wasn’t a big enough presence,” Mitchell said with a sigh. “Keith is a good-looking man, but we needed someone more masculine, to accentuate your femininity.”
I took a breath and tried to pull myself together. It had all happened so quickly, this mood slump. I’d gotten a text message from home, and then I felt like I’d fallen off a diving board, at the deep end of the pool. The message was still on the screen on the phone in my hand, and I couldn’t deal with those emotions, plus talking about the model change.
“At least the photo shoot’s over,” I said. “Just the commercial, but that’s days away.”
“The change to use Sven was nothing personal.”
“I understand. They wanted someone bigger to make me look less big.”
“I respect you too much to lie to you. You’re not wrong. But don’t worry. These things happen all the time.”
I looked down at my phone again, my breath catching in my throat.
“What’s this?” He tilted his head down, and I showed him the phone.
He read the message out: “Kyle says he misses you and wants you to come home. Your father and I wish you would check in with us more. Why have that fancy phone if you’re not going to use it? Love, Mom. P.S. What’s the shower like at Dalton’s house? Is it one of those deals with the seven sprayers?”
Hearing the message in Mitchell’s voice gave me some perspective. It was just them checking in on me, not trying to break my heart.
“I guess I’m homesick,” I said. “I haven’t seen Kyle very much these past two weeks, and it just hit me. I’m a terrible person.”
“I have a little black cat,” Mitchell said. “His name is Pretzel, and he lives with my parents in a little town called Squirrel Mountain Valley. Don’t laugh; it’s a real place. Now, when I moved to LA, the apartment wouldn’t allow pets, and I figured I’d eventually get settled and send for him, but I haven’t. Every day, I miss his little whiskers and the shiny spot on his chin below his lips.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better? You’re bringing me down, Mitchell. Way down, like a sad country ballad.”
“The point of my story is that Pretzel is just fine, because he is a cat, and as long as there’s food in his dish, he’s good. Parents, however, will use any dirty trick in the book to make you feel guilty about running down your dreams.”
“My parents are supportive.”
“Sure, they want you to do as well as they did in life, but they don’t want you to do better than them. They don’t want you to get above yer raisin.’”
I chuckled. “Do you want to go get that sushi now and tell me all about it?”
“Aren’t you sick of me after working with me all day?”
“You’re the nicest person I’ve met in LA, except for Keith.”
Mitchell winced. “He really sucked you in, didn’t he?”
I grinned. “Nobody sucked anything. We’re just friends.” (This was, at the time, somewhat true. We’d had sex once, and nobody had sucked anything, though I was looking forward to trying, if he didn’t hate me for the photo shoot disaster.)
“Just friends?”
“Totally,” I lied.
“Honestly, I don’t know Keith at all. But I do know male models, and I can tell you that, without a shadow of a doubt, every single one of them is a narcissistic, lying, using, son-of-a-whore.”
“And you know this because…?”
“Because I keep dating male models. It’s terrible, I know. I can’t stop, and there’s no self-help group. It’s like when you open a tube of Pringles to put out on set, and you think you’ll just have one or two, but pretty soon you’re cramming them into your mouth by the dozen, and you can’t get enough, even though they’re shallow and bad for you.”
“By the dozen?”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay, just one at a time, but a guy can dream.”
With that, we got to our feet, I grabbed my bag, and we went out to the parking lot, to Mitchell’s little blue Miada.
Was going for sushi the right choice?
I took out my phone and mulled over my options. Keith had programmed his address into my phone that morning, because we figured I would have to stay longer at the shoot and take a taxi to his house. We’d been rushing around, arguing over how much parsley he was putting in the fruit shakes, and I’d neglected to get his phone number. The proper thing to do would have been head straight to his place and find out how he was doing, but I’d forgotten about him just long enough to get myself into dinner with Mitchell. That made me feel twice as bad, but I was already on an I’m-a-terrible-person kick anyway.
Mitchell kept driving, and I crossed my fingers that Keith wouldn’t be too upset if I popped out for a quick dinner.
“Mitchell, do you think someone can tell if they’re a narcissist?”
“Nope. But it’s like alcoholism. If one person tells you, ignore them. If two people tell you, it’s true.”
“So, am I a narcissist? Do you have to be one to feel okay about taking your clothes off in front of the camera?”
“Oh, girl models are nice. It’s just the guys.”
“But you don’t date the girls.”
“They mostly have Daddy issues, and eating disorders.”
“Shape aside, I don’t fit the profile. My father’s in my life, but I do have a problem with cupcakes.”
He grinned, staring ahead at the traffic, then giving me a quick glance before looking the other way to change lanes. In the golden early-evening light, Mitchell looked cherubic with his blue eyes and curly hair.
He said, “You’re going back to your real life right after this, aren’t you?”
“That’s the plan.”
“What about Dalton Deangelo?”
“We’re done. Broken up. Kaput. Over. Please don’t tell anyone, though. I’d rather go quietly back to Washington without a lot of nosy questions.”
He reached over and patted my knee, which was such a sweet and perfect gesture, I nearly told him I loved him.
We got to the sushi restaurant, parked, and went in quickly, only to have to stand in line to be seated. The place was packed, and unlike the few sushi places I’d been to, didn’t smell of bleach, but of food. Waitresses sailed back and forth with plates of food—tempura vegetables, teriyaki beef, and rolls of spectacular size.
Mitchell turned to me. “There’s nothing quite as life-affirming as a great live band, or a busy restaurant after a long day’s work.”
“Thanks for taking me here. Everything looks really good.”
The hostess took our name and told us the wait wouldn’t be long.
Mitchell, looking sly, turned to me and said, “Didn’t you come here Sunday, with Keith?”
“No, we, um…” My cheeks were burning with embarrassment. “We went to a steak house. I forget the name. He’s friends with the owners.”
Mitchell’s blue eyes got huge, his blond lashes blinking to accentuate his interest. “Tell me you didn’t. No. Tell me you did, and then tell me everything.”
“I thought you didn’t approve.”
He waved his hand. “Cat’s out of the bag now. May as well have some fun while we’re all on this planet.” He leaned in closer and whispered, “Is Keith the reason you and Dalton broke up?”
“No, those were completely separate events.” As I said the words, I detected a lie. It was a small lie, but the events weren’t entirely unrelated. I’d already kissed Keith, and I was at his apartment when I broke up with Dalton. If I’d been at Dalton’s house that night, or even at a hotel—one that didn’t have the waiting arms of another man on the other side of my door—would I have done the same thing?
Did Keith break us up?
I felt dizzy. Everything in my life was happening so fast, out of my control.
Dalton would be back in LA the next day, and my stuff was still at his house. The clothes were expendable, but I had to get my laptop. What would seeing him do to me?
The hostess took us to a seat in the window and told us we were a beautiful couple. I wrinkled my nose, because Mitchell was shorter than me and probably weighed the same as my purse, but he gave her a heartfelt thank-you anyway, which I suppose is the proper response to a compliment.
The menu had twelve pages, with photographs of everything. I’d never seen anything like it, and admitted to Mitchell I was in way over my head, and that he should order for me.
He did, and we enjoyed a sumptuous feast with a bit of everything. Even the rice was delicious, and it was just plain rice, but cooked perfectly. The thing that surprised me was the spinach gomaae, which was lightly cooked spinach with a peanut sauce. It was delicious, and probably my second favorite thing of the night.
My favorite thing was Mitchell telling me all his hilarious stories about dating models. He dated one guy who was obsessed with crafting the perfect root beer, and succeeded mainly in spraying sticky soda all over the kitchen. Another one had a chew-and-spit eating disorder that was the cause of many fights—not so much about the disorder, but the wasting of pricey food, because he also liked fancy restaurants. A third male model was just exceptionally dumb and sent sexy text messages that were incomprehensible. Mitchell received one of his texts, then responded with a naked torso shot, which he thought was what the guy wanted. It turned out the man’s brother had been shot
in the chest and was at the hospital. Now, before you get all bummed out thinking that last story was just sad and not funny at all, I should mention the brother was just fine, as he’d actually been “shot” in the chest with a champagne cork, right before he fell over a railing and broke his leg.
I could have stayed all night, eating green tea ice cream and hearing Mitchell’s stories, but I had to get back to Keith’s place.
Mitchell drove me there, and made sure we had each other’s phone numbers in case I needed anything else from him while I was in LA.
“Just gimme one of those awesome Mitchell hugs,” I said, and he gave me one.
I knocked on Keith’s door, which had regular music playing on the other side—top forty stuff.
He opened the door wide, wearing absolutely nothing but a big grin. “Hi, honey, you’re home!”
I herded his naked body back into the apartment and pulled the door shut behind us. “Are you drinking?” I asked, though the empty bottles on the kitchen counter should have been my first clue.
“Let’s go swimming,” he answered, his goodies waggling back and forth.
“Only if you put some shorts on.”
CHAPTER 10
Keith waved his hand clumsily. “They don’t care around here. The neighbors are very lacka—” He hiccuped. “Lacka-da-da-daisies. That word.”
“Lackadaisical.”
“Yes. Let’s go swimming. Just us. Nobody else.”
I looked around the apartment for signs of drugs, but this seemed to be a garden-variety, one-person booze party, and I can’t say I haven’t done the same from time to time.
He walked into his bedroom, so I followed his cute buns and watched as he rooted around inside dresser drawers for a swimsuit.
“Keith, I’m so sorry they pulled you off the shoot. They’re absolute idiots. That Sven guy is a big jerkwad, and I’m sure the photos won’t be good. I’ll probably have a look of disgust on my face in every shot.”
He stopped rummaging and turned to me. “Disgust? Did he do something to you?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll kill him.” He seemed to sober up instantly.