“Stephen, are we going to somewhere in particular? I thought we were just going to fly around and see the sights.”
He gave me his trademark grin. “I thought while we were flying around we might as well grab dinner.”
He refused to say anything else except to enjoy the view while we had it. Shadows drew longer and the land grew darker as we came in to land on a platform.
“And we’re here,” Stephen announced as the engine cut out and the rotors braked.
The pilot came around to open the hatch and assist us out of the helicopter. I wouldn’t have been able to manage it on my own—the tight dress and heels I wore weren’t cut out for clambering over heavy machinery.
“Where are we going now?” I asked as Stephen put his arm around me and we walked across the pier.
“Not far.”
He steered us toward a large boat moored alongside the pier, and Stephen’s arm steadied me as we climbed the ramp onto the vessel.
The back half of the boat was open to the night air, and a table set for two sat square in the center of the space. Glimmering flickers of candlelight shimmered against the white linen as we approached. The majesty of the city lights on the horizon spread out in front of us, a view unlike any other place on the planet.
A man dressed in fancy waiter attire waited beside the table. “Please have a seat, sir and ma’am.” He pulled out a chair and waited as I finished taking in the scene.
“I can’t believe you set this up,” I said to Stephen. I wrapped my arms around his waist and looked up at him. “Thank you.”
We kissed lightly, and as always I fought an internal struggle to not let it go deeper. I always wanted more when it came to Stephen.
I smiled at the waiter as I sat down and he pushed the chair in behind me. He poured glasses of champagne and then left the deck.
“This will take a hard brainstorming session to top,” I said. “Don’t think I’ll let you get away with doing something so outrageous without payback.”
Stephen laughed. He knew my feelings on him spending more money on a date than I made in a year. “Come on Liberty, we shouldn’t limit ourselves when we don’t have to. I like spending the money on you, and it’s not a burden. I don’t feel you’re taking advantage of me.”
It was nothing we hadn’t discussed before.
“It’s not that I think I’m taking advantage of you,” I said. I hesitated. In an effort to shield him I’d hid some of my true feelings so far in our budding relationship. “I don’t want to grow accustomed to a decadent lifestyle and then find myself unable to cope when you move on.”
“Move on?” His eyebrows narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know, not anything bad. We’re both young, you’ve come into a life-changing amount of money, and relationships are hard work.” I took a sip of champagne, more as an excuse to gather my thoughts than because I was thirsty. “I’m just saying I can’t rely on us staying together forever.”
“Liberty, come on,” he said. “Can’t we enjoy the time we spend together without planning our entire futures around what may or may not happen?”
I shook my head slowly. “It’s a lot easier for you, Stephen. You have the money, and if something comes between us you won’t lose anything except me. This is why I have to keep trying to break into modeling and doing what I can to be successful. Not only to prove my worth and to make a difference, but as protection just in case something ever happens.”
He took a deep breath looked me in the eyes.
“I completely get what you’re saying Liberty. I understand. But we don’t have to pretend like we’re normal people. I have a lot of money, and you’re an up and coming model. We should be able to enjoy this. I don’t pretend to know what the future has in store, but I know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
He reached across the table and took my hand. His eyes burned into my own. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Liberty.”
My heart jumped in my chest and skipped a beat.
He loves me?
I hadn’t let myself over think things too much. I knew what we had might be a passing fling, a small albeit interesting chapter in each of our lives. I hadn’t dared let myself think of the L-word.
When he said it, I knew I’d been feeling the same thing. We meshed too well not to.
“I love you,” I said.
We stood up from the table at the same time and closed the distance for a fierce kiss. Any concern for whether the waiter or boat crew might watch fled my mind, the only thing that mattered was the man with his arms around me and mouth on mine.
“Yes!”
I jumped up and down, almost bashing into the walls of the small apartment as I celebrated.
“Finally! Fuck yeah!” I screamed until my neighbor pounded on the thin wall separating our apartments.
I threw myself back on the bed and reread the email from one of the best modeling agencies in the city.
Ms. Tilset,
We have reviewed your letter and the accompanying head shots and wish to have you come in for an interview at our headquarters. It will involve a few questions and a test shoot to make sure the photos you provided were not altered in any way. The shots you provided fit the look we strive for, and if there is no discrepancy when you arrive then we may want to sign a contract to have you work with us.
“It’s happening.” After so long struggling, the doors were opening. As much as I wanted to accomplish everything on my own, I owed a lot to Stephen and the photos he’d taken of me. The head shots and the lingerie shoot were my ticket to getting noticed after so long being rejected. The ads for Denise’s collection were running in the papers and online, and I featured prominently in the campaign.
I bounced to my feet and couldn’t help but break out into my happy dance once again, flinging my arms around and bouncing on the balls of my feet. With a dire look at the shared wall, I refrained from screaming my happiness even though I dearly wanted to.
I have to call Stephen. He’ll be ecstatic.
The phone rang before I could dial out. It was a blocked number, but that wasn’t unusual—half the time Stephen called me it was from a blocked number. One downside of great wealth was not being able to use phones like a normal person.
“Hello?” My voice was jovial even to my own ears.
“Is this Liberty Tilset?” The voice on the line wasn’t familiar and had a heavy eastern European accent.
“It is.” My heart beat fiercely and my breathing was heavy from the jumping around. “Can I help you?”
“Paul Goldsmith told me to call you and bring you in for a photoshoot, said you were exquisite.”
It had been weeks since I’d spoken with Paul about modeling. The success I’d seen with Denise’s campaign and positive reactions had all but wiped my memory of it. I’d never expected him to follow through on his promise.
“Oh. Right, I forgot about that.”
“The shoot is tonight. We’ll pay you five thousand dollars to come and model a few things. It will be a big advertising campaign.”
“Whoa, hold on.” The man spoke quickly, and it was hard to make out the words through his accent. “Five thousand dollars? Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
Holy crap. That kind of money was unheard of for any but the top echelon of models. The only possible explanation was that Paul felt so badly about what he’d done that he was throwing money at me since he had so much of it.
“Tonight? I don’t know if I can make that. Can’t I have a little more warning?”
“Tonight or never.”
I chewed my lip. “Who is the designer? And the photographer?”
The reply was unintelligible—I couldn’t tell if he spoke English names with a bad accent or Russian names.
“Ah, can you repeat those?”
It wasn’t any clearer the second time.
“Okay, I don’t know. Can I have time to think it over?”
“Half hour. That’s it.” He gave me the number to call back. I made him repeat it three times to make sure I wrote it down properly.
Wow. Photoshoot tonight.
I was supposed to meet Stephen for a simple dinner at his place tonight. And I had the interview with the agency next week. If that went well then I would have a reliable source of income and steady stream of work, get my name out there and earn recognition.
I didn’t have a contract yet though. For the past two months I’d said I couldn’t justify turning down work, and my relationship with Stephen shouldn’t change that even though he paid for almost everything when we were together.
And five thousand dollars. That’s an insane amount of money!
When I tried calling Stephen’s cell it went to voicemail. I stared at the screen. There were only fifteen minutes left to respond to the photoshoot offer.
I called again and got his voicemail once more. This time I left a message.
“Hey hun, I guess you’re busy right now. I know I’m supposed to come over tonight, but I got an offer to do a photoshoot. I guess maybe their model bailed last minute or something. There isn’t a lot of time to get back to the guy, so I think I’ll do it. I need more experience and who knows if this might turn into something great. Call me back.”
The decision hadn’t crystalized in my mind until I was in the middle of the message. I had to take chances and go out of my comfort zone if I would be successful. Bailing on a great opportunity to go cuddle up with Stephen in his bed and watch Netflix wasn’t how I’d become a household name.
“Hello.”
“Hi, this is Liberty Tilset calling you back about the photoshoot tonight. I would love to do it.”
“Good, good. Come to the office at five and we’ll get started. It’s at seven-seventy west thirtieth.”
I took the address down. “Okay, thank you so much!”
I checked the time. I’d have to rush to get ready and be there on time.
The Uber pulled up to the address I’d written down. I looked up and down the street, a little worried. The Hudson was just down the street and the rail yards rumbled with activity.
“This is it,” the driver said. “You know where you’re going? This is a sketchy part of town.”
I hesitated. I wanted to tell him to take me to Stephen’s instead, but kept my chin up. How bad could it be?
“Here’s perfect, thank you so much.”
I got out of the car and pulled out my phone. Still nothing from Stephen. I shot him a quick message saying I’d gotten to the shoot and I would call him when it finished. Hopefully he’d still be in the mood to have me over by then.
The car drove away, and I walked up to the door of the building. It was a large structure with the feel of a storehouse—not the vibe I expected for a high class studio able to shell out thousands of dollars to a model for a photoshoot.
I pulled the door open to reveal a small and tasteful reception area. A couple couches sat around a low table that held a few magazines in another language. A woman sat behind a cherry wood desk, dark hair down her back and large breasts with a shocking amount of cleavage shown off by her low cut top.
“Hi, I’m here for a shoot tonight?”
“You are Liberty?” The woman’s accent was much like the man who called me earlier, although hers wasn’t as thick.
“Yes, that’s me.” I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. Despite what it looked like from the street, it didn’t appear too bad inside.
Must just be out here for the cheaper rent. I guess so long as the sets are done up nicely then it doesn’t matter what the building and neighborhood look like.
“Excellent. Please have a seat and someone will be here for you soon.” The woman got up from her desk and disappeared through a door.
With nothing else to do, I settled into a couch and picked up a magazine. It was in a language that was either Russian or looked a lot like it. The subject of the magazine was hard to guess, but there were a lot of beautiful women inside doing everything from shooting guns in skimpy outfits to washing dishes in nothing at all.
Weird.
By the time I’d flipped to the back of the book, the secretary had returned with a large man in tow. His shaved head gleamed under the fluorescent lights.
“Come with me,” he said. He sounded different than on the phone, but I thought I recognized the voice of the man who’d called me. He turned and walked down a hallway, barely looking to see if I followed.
“Thank you for this opportunity,” I said, trying to spark a conversation.
He grunted and didn’t look back, so I left things the way they were. I couldn’t think of what to say to a man who wouldn’t have been out of place playing a thug in a James Bond movie.
The hall opened onto a big open space that once may have been a warehouse. Now it contained a few stages set up with lighting and cameras. One had a large bed on it and looked like a bedroom while one was a living room. A stage on the far side had a couple cages and a rack that held whips and chains.
What the hell?
“Ah, there she is.” A short man with a considerable paunch stood by another set with a few chairs placed around a coffee table. “Paul said you were beautiful, and I can see he wasn’t lying.”
This man had no discernible accent, which was a refreshing change.
“Oh, thank you so much,” I said. “Are you the photographer?”
“Anton Scaleto, that’s me,” he said with a wink. “Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of me, I work in circles a little further away from New York high fashion most of the time.”
His voice was easy and open, the kind that invited you to relax and unburden yourself. My guard came down from where it had risen since I’d arrived.
“This place was a little scary to walk into,” I said. “And what’s with all the sets?”
“I won’t lie to you,” Anton said. “Most of the time this space serves as a porn studio, but that’s not why you’re here—unless you want to try it out. Just a matter of making sure the studio gets used to its fullest.”
The dungeonesque set made a lot more sense with the explanation. “Porn?” I shivered a little. The thought had occurred before—it seemed like easy money, and I loved sex, but I didn’t want to expose my sexual being to millions of people on the internet and never have control over it ever again. “No thanks. I’m just a model, and porn is strictly off-limits for me.”
“Not to worry, not to worry.” Anton smiled and gestured toward the set he was standing beside. “We have clothes for you to put on and you’ll pose around here while I take pictures. Easy peasy for someone with your looks, and then you’ll be on your way with a big cheque in your pocket. How’s that sound?”
I smiled. It was hard not to for Anton, he was like a blustery uncle. “That sounds more like it. Where are these pictures going?”
“Oh, just in a couple magazines in Russia, you wouldn’t have heard about them. As much as America loves to ignore it most of the time, it’s a big market over there that isn’t being satisfied, and you can make a lot of money if you play your cards right. Now, let’s get you into your first outfit and we’ll get started.”
The stolid Russian who had called me and led me into the warehouse had disappeared, and Anton showed me over to a change room set up off to the side of the big space.
When I saw the clothing he’d left me, my heart dropped. With his pleasant manner and easy attitude, I’d hoped the job would be to model actual outfits. There was no mistaking the small slips of fabric for anything other than underwear.
I wavered. I could still pull out and leave, it wasn’t too late—it’s not like I’d signed anything.
What did you think you would model? You can’t just give up because they want you to pose in lingerie. Hell, you’ve already done that with Stephen and now thousands of people have seen that advertising campaign. It’s a little late to be ashamed of your body.
Still,
it had been different with Stephen. I hadn’t been modeling the lingerie so much as posing for him. Trying my hardest to get him turned on, make him break so he could no longer control himself.
This will be what your life as a model is like. Wearing underwear, bikinis, dresses that show off your body. That’s the whole point.
I took a deep breath. This was what I wanted, and what I wanted to do.
It didn’t take long to change into the skimpy outfit. It was even more revealing than what Denise had designed—it was a challenge to keep my nipples from busting out of the bra Anton had left me.
“There you are!” Anton said as I walked back to the set. “Don’t you look just magnificent.”
His manner hadn’t changed, which relieved one worry I’d had. Once a woman was barely wearing anything in front of them, even the nicest guys had a tendency to turn into animals.
I took the first pose Anton requested, and we got to work. The nerves refused to leave, and my stomach fought me the entire time. I tried to imagine it was Stephen behind the lens, beyond the bright lights, but it was hard to keep up the fiction.
The worst part was knowing the nervousness would show up in the shots. I felt unnatural, like my limbs wouldn’t sit the way they should.
“Let’s take a break,” Anton suggested after a few dozen shots. “Why don’t you have a drink, take the edge off?”
The glass he handed me smelled potent, but I needed the fortification so I knocked it back.
“Isn’t that better?” he asked.
I shook my head and tried to clear my throat—there was a cloying aftertaste I didn’t expect. The liquor did its job. I could feel lightheadedness start in behind my temples.
“Ugh. What was in that? It went straight to my head.”
“Just a house concoction. It always does the trick.”
The sensation intensified and turned into dizziness so rapidly I had to sit down on the edge of the stage so I wouldn’t fall over. Grayness rushed in from the edges of my vision, enveloping my sight.
That wasn’t alcohol.
Blackness followed the gray and then there was nothing.
Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel) Page 25