Keith Raven, sexy and mildly-dehydrated underwear model with a bad reputation, walked onto the set in a pair of red pouch briefs. The most notable thing about the briefs was that they were not… shall we say… opaque.
I could see right through the taut fabric. Peen and peen’s best friends, the round lads. Stick and berries.
As discreetly as is possible for a big-mouthed, free-spirited gal such as myself, I surreptitiously alerted Keith to his nudity.
“Dude, I can see your mancandy.”
“Really?”
“That banana hammock does not conceal your banana.”
He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “That’s why I’m getting paid triple my rate.”
He’d whispered to me plenty during the shoot, mostly posing instructions, but this time, his lips touched my ear. His whisper spiraled into my ear like a swirling whistle, and set off fireworks in my brain. Before he pulled his face away, he let out one hot exhalation across my ear. My woowoo did a happy dance.
Mitchell clapped his hands, breaking the spell.
“One last shot, everyone,” Mitchell announced. “It’s going great, people, so let’s jump up and knock this last one out of the ballpark. Let’s knock the old pigskin. Wait, is that a football?”
The photographer scowled at Mitchell. “I’ve asked you not to mangle sports metaphors.”
Mitchell shook his fists in a pretend cheer. “Rah, rah, go Tigers! Spank the competition!”
Everyone giggled, and the photographer called for a wooden chair to be brought in to the otherwise-plain set. He called Mitchell to him, then Mitchell ran to the quiet lady who was there on behalf of the underwear line, then she came up to me and pulled me aside.
She said, “We’d like to take a few shots of you pretending to get spanked, but only if you feel comfortable with that.”
“I should call my dad,” I said. “He’s sort of my manager. Wait, that might be an awkward conversation. ‘Hey, Dad, do you mind if a sexy male model in see-through underpants pretends to spank me? It’s just pretend spanking, not real spanking. Oh, it’s for the photo session, not recreation. Hello? Dad?’”
She looked pointedly at the big clock on the wall.
Part of me knew I ought to say no. Time pressure is a classic manipulation technique, and I knew that.
“You don’t need to call him,” she said. “We probably won’t even use the shots, but they’d be good to have.”
I’d barely slept the night before, and it had been such a long day, but the photographer seemed more excited than ever. He and Keith were talking over the shot, and they both looked so stoked.
“What the hell,” I said with a shrug as I walked back to the camera. “Let’s do this. Spank me, baby. I’ve been a bad girl.”
“I like this side of you,” Keith said, giving me an admiring look.
With my hand on my hip, I said, “You like all the sides of me, especially the front side.”
“I don’t know. Your front side’s got some serious competition from your back side.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
Everyone else returned to their positions for some lighting discussion, leaving us to talk in semi-private.
“You’re a big flirt,” I said. “Is that why they hired you?”
“Nah. I’m just lucky I look enough like your boyfriend, Dalton Deangelo. I’m the cheap knock-off version of him, but I don’t mind. My contract just expired for another line, and I worried I wasn’t going to get picked up. Then I’d be back to doing headless shots for smaller lines, and that’s no fun.”
“Wait, you got picked for this because you look like Dalton?”
“Peaches, I’m good, but I’m not that good. Of course it’s because I look like him.” He tilted his head to the side and gave me a dramatic look. “See it now?”
I did see the resemblance, and I got an unsettled feeling, like I was in the midst of doing something wrong. Was I? This whole underwear modeling thing had only happened because of a chain of events that began with me dating Dalton Deangelo while he was in my hometown shooting a movie. Was I… riding his coattails? And was appearing in sexy magazine spreads being spanked by someone who resembled him… taking advantage of that connection?
Someone was giving instructions, and I shuffled around aimlessly, hoping I was getting closer to where they wanted me.
WHACK!
Keith’s hand landed on my ass. I hadn’t been expecting it, so naturally my reflexes kicked in and I went to slap him.
This time, though, he dodged and caught my hand by the wrist.
More clicks. More photos were being taken, whether I was confused or not.
“You won’t fool me twice,” he growled playfully.
“Keith, I’m the fool.”
“That’s not sexy talk,” he whispered, his eyes on the photographer.
“I don’t feel sexy.”
“Bend over my knee. I’ll make you feel sexy.”
I looked into his warm, gold-brown eyes, searching for guidance, or strength, or wisdom. What the hell was I doing? Everything was wrong.
Keith took my hand and leaned in so his face was close to mine, my palm on his chest. The world kept spinning around me, my thoughts and fears swirling. The clicking had stopped, and now assistants were buzzing all around us as the photographer changed his lens.
Keith’s eyes were steady. He alone was the stillness amidst the storm. My palm rested on his chest.
“Can you feel my heart?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you ever meditate?”
“No.”
“Close your eyes.”
I swallowed hard and shut my eyes. Without my vision, I noticed what hadn’t been clear before. The weird whispering-chirping soundscape had stopped playing on the stereo, replaced by normal music. A piano. The song was beautiful, and hauntingly familiar. I couldn’t feel Keith’s heartbeat through the muscle of his chest, but I could feel his chest rising and falling with his breathing. I deepened my breaths to match his.
After a moment, I felt a rhythm, though I couldn’t tell if it was the pulse from my hand or from his chest. Either way, the beating soothed me. I could hear traffic on the other side of the studio’s windows, and it sounded almost like water. The air felt moister now, like rain was about to fall.
I opened my eyes to find Keith’s face in beautiful relaxation, his eyes closed. I could see thin red lines on his eyelids. He had the tiniest scar running through one eyebrow. You wouldn’t see it unless you were right up close, like this, and his dazzling eyes were closed.