“Nice glasses,” I said. “Are you a part-time model and a part-time accountant? Do you get changed in a phone booth?”
Keith leaned back against the food truck, his abdominal muscles gleaming like six tiny little glazed hams. “Sure. Give me your number, and I’ll do your taxes.” He took a bite of his wrap and chewed slowly. “What are you doing after the shoot?”
“Hands off, Mr. Greedyfingers,” Mitchell said with sharp authority. “She’s Dalton Deangelo’s girlfriend, and if anything of yours touches her inappropriately this afternoon, I’ll use my taser on the offending appendage.”
Keith held his hands up, chuckling. “Easy, Mitch.”
“Mitchell.”
Keith turned to me, his dazzling, rich mahogany brown eyes gently removing the zip-up hoodie I was wearing over my fancy-pants bra.
“So,” he said. “This your first shoot working with another model. Don’t be scared. I’m big and strong. Find something you like and grab on.”
Mitchell rolled his eyes. “Peaches, just ignore him. He’s disgusting. They’re all disgusting.”
My eyes wandered over to Keith’s ni**les and skipped around those pink circles like they were merry-go-rounds at the Model Keith Amusement Park. My brain dug up something I’d read somewhere about male models: they ice the ni**les during the photo shoot, so they aren’t puffy. Keith’s nips looked great exactly how they were.
“Come on,” Mitchell said, tugging my hand.
I wanted to stay and gaze at the scenery, but Mitchell led us back to the crosswalk to return to the photo studio.
Once we’d left the cute model boy behind, I asked, “What makes you say that cute guy is disgusting?”
“I don’t like how they flirt with the girl models. But if I’m being perfectly honest, it works. He’s going to be a big star soon.”
“He’s kind of a big deal?”
“Keith Raven? Oh, I guess you wouldn’t have heard of him, since you’re new to the business.” We stood for a few minutes in silence, waiting for the light to change and stop the endless flow of LA cars. “Keith Raven is up and coming. Today’s shoot can make or break a modeling career, for both of you.”
“No pressure,” I said with a snort.
“He likes you.”
“Sure, he does,” I said sarcastically. “All the hottest guys just can’t get enough of my peaches. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”
“Sweetie.” Mitchell reached out to grab my hand in his to give it a squeeze. “You’ve got something people want. You have a spark. You know who you are. People will always be attracted to that.”
“Plus there’s my awesome personality.”
“Mmm.” He looked down at the pavement, then we both cracked up laughing.
“Flirt with Keith Raven,” Mitchell said. “Let him think he’s getting somewhere with you. The magic will come out on the film. Don’t worry, because you’re in a safe space. I won’t let things get too far on the set.”
“You mean suck in my gut, take all the complicated posing directions, and grope some hot male model, all at the same time?”
“It’s like you’ve done this before!”
We got back into the studio, where they touched up my hair and makeup again. They actually put makeup on way more than my face and neck. The makeup girl went through a full tube. My pale Washington skin had never looked better.*
*There was one time I’d gotten into self-tanning products, but the change had been too transfixing. I was working in a clothing store at the time, and the manager pulled me aside to have an intervention about the amount of time I was spending admiring myself in the shop’s many mirrors. I was so humiliated, I never self-tanned again.
Because my skin looked so radiant once more, I thought to myself, Hey, maybe this underwear photo shoot with flirty Keith Raven won’t be so bad.
Never before has someone tempted fate so flagrantly.
My round bits got shoveled/nestled into a sky-blue bra and panties set, and I was under the hot lights on set once again. I think I know why movie stars are called stars. The constant bright lights are so intense, the rays burrow their way into your skin and make you glow in the dark.
Mitchell put on the music, which wasn’t so much music as it was a curious soundscape, from wind chimes to people whispering, plus what sounded like hair being cut—that shirr-shirr sound. The sounds rolled up into my brain and set off little starbursts of pleasure, making me feel calm and relaxed for the shots.
The photographer, a scrawny, bearded fellow who had a weird name I can neither pronounce nor spell, said, “Like this, yes. Just like this. Yes. Gaze down. Gently up. Softness. Softness. Gaze up. Softness. Stargaze. Like this, yes.”
It had taken me all morning to figure out when he said “Like this” he didn’t mean for me to stop and stare dumbly at him for an example of what to do. What he meant was “Like that,” and someone needed to correct his grammar, but he was the professional and I was the amateur, so I didn’t say shit. Being in LA had shushed me, in a way.
Keith walked onto the set wearing nothing but a shiny pair of sky-blue pocket briefs, slung extremely low—so low I could see curly-yet-trimmed pubes popping out.
He gave me a toss of his hair as greeting and said, “Hey Peaches, how do you like these apples?” He twirled around to reveal round, tanned butt cle**age. Then he made his butt cle**age dance with a series of muscle pulses.
Mitchell leaped into action, jumping between us with a towel held up to cover the dancing butt cle**age.
“Too late,” I said, giggling. “That image will never scrub out of my brain.”
The photographer smiled for the first time that day, and the half-dozen other people on the set also perked up. Keith brought an earthy, feel-good energy with him. Even the air had a zing to it, like a summer night right before lightning strikes.
Keith adjusted the only things he could, his black-rimmed accountant glasses and his underwear, pulling them up to the nearly-decent level, and we got started.
“Just relax,” he murmured to me as he moved in closer.
“I’m totally relaxed.”
He looked down, his gaze licking all over my bare skin like a giant tongue. “Then why are your knuckles white?”
I unclenched my hands and shook them out. “Just practicing my grip for when I grab onto you. You did invite me to grab onto whatever I like, right?”