Page 1 of Picture Perfect

PART ONE

This gig had started like any other…but it moved to awkward really fast. “Ivy, take off your bra, please.”

Long story short—I was a grad student and, even though I earned a little bit of money teaching classes, let me tell you there’s a reason why they call your earnings a stipend. It’s a mere pittance, rather than an actual salary for the work you do. And I get it. I really do. You have to have someone overseeing your work—or, at least, that’s the point of it all. The idea is that you’re also learning.

But it wasn’t enough to pay for housing and food and all the things I loved and wanted. Clothes were my thing, but cosmetics and toiletries, fragrances, hair care products, music, books, my car—those were also things I liked and believed I needed. Sure, I could have gotten by with less, but when you’re in school as long as I’d been and you just wanted to start adulting already, you did what you had to do. I already had two roommates to share the expenses, too, so that helped.

So I had my stipend and I also worked a few hours every morning at a nearby coffee shop. The tips were nice. Between my stipend and fifteen hours a week at the coffee shop, my basic needs were covered.

My fun money, though…that came from the local modeling gigs I did. It all started when I was still an undergrad. One of my friends opened a shop on Etsy to sell her jewelry, and she needed a hand model. She’d been selling a few things already, but she believed (and who was I to argue?) that having a human model increased her sales exponentially. At first, I was modeling bracelets, but soon I was covered in necklaces and earrings. She paid me more for my time than an hour at the coffee shop.

When her business took off, she moved back home with only one semester left to finish her degree. But my work as a local model didn’t dry up. She’d passed my name on to another friend with an Etsy shop. This lady made hand-knitted sweaters—and she told me I had a model’s body.

She also paid me a little better.

Unlike my first gig, this girl had done her homework. We signed a rudimentary contract and I signed a release, giving her permission to use my image and to not expect further compensation once I’d been paid for a shoot.

I saw the potential.

I’d just applied and been accepted for grad school by then, and so modeling was still just a side thing for me, but I saw it as a way to keep the money flowing. I started putting little free and low-cost ads in the student newspaper and the town’s weekly free shopping guide. I also started networking through social media and, before I knew it, I had two or three gigs a week. Had I wanted, I could have stopped working at the coffee shop altogether, but I instead forced myself to start socking money away. After all, I was going to have to pursue a PhD when all was said and done, and those student loans were going to kick my ass. A nest egg sounded like a great plan. I was modeling for all kinds of local businesses, from furniture stores to pizza places, eBay vintage sales and more Etsy shops—you name it—and word about me spread quickly. My face was selling local products and businesses, from the tractor/ farm store in town with pricy saddles to the local candy maker who had a huge fall sale on fudge. My face was getting recognized around town, so you could say I was even almost in demand.

So the first time a guy called and asked if I’d be interested in posing for a book cover, I jumped at the chance—especially since he offered more than my usual going rate. This guy’s name was Greg, and I didn’t know it at the time, but that was his thing. He was an indie photographer and he not only sold pictures online for other purposes, but his main source of income was selling photos for self-published authors’ book covers. The first time I worked with Greg, about eight months earlier, I’d had to get comfortable fairly quickly. I was clothed, but he had me try on some scantier clothing—lingerie—for a few of the shots. He took some photos of me by myself but he mainly took shots of me and a really cute guy—an undergrad, a senior who played football, who was in amazing shape and planned to coach the sport at whatever high school hired him in the near future. So it felt awkward at first but I realized fairly quickly that we were all professionals. We all wanted the pictures to look amazing because, after all, if someone bought an exclusive shot (which, Greg told me, could sell for anywhere from two to five hundred bucks a piece), he had a satisfied and, he hoped, returning customer, and the more pictures that showed up on covers, the more business he got. A good many book designers had begun working with him because Greg’s shots were different—and, I realized when I perused his website one evening, hotter than hell.

Even I looked hot.

But, after a while, it became second nature. It was easy enough to strip down to my underwear (yes, I bought expensive designer underwear especially for working with Greg after my first few outings) and gaze lustily into the “hero’s” eyes, placing my paws on his chest or back, draping myself on him. And it didn’t feel strange having his hands all over me, either. After all, it was only business.

I hadn’t thought much about it, but I learned along the way that I was considered pretty and Greg told me I had a great body and should consider modeling as a career.

Ummm…no.

While I had nothing against models, I preferred thinking over doing. In fact, during some of those gigs, I was plotting out essays in my head, doing all the hardest work while pretending to be enjoying a chicken fried steak at the local BBQ restaurant or acting lusty in the arms of some weight-lifting guy. But even though I didn’t see it as a permanent career, I did want to make the most of it. I bought a gym membership and worked out every other evening before sitting down to do homework. I dated on occasion but nothing serious—and I wasn’t ready. Even though I’d met some good guys in grad classes, none of them really flipped a switch. Neither did the guys I modeled with or any of the men in suits who came in for lattes every morning during my shift.

I really had become all work and no play.

But I was happy enough. I went out once in a while with my roommates, too, so it wasn’t like my social life suffered. Besides, there’d be more time for it once I was teaching college as a profession. For now, I had a lot of irons in the fire and I was actually having fun—and making enough money by this point that I was comfortable.

Life was good, as they say.

It was early April when Greg called me for another shoot. Greg’s book cover business had continued to grow and he had super successful indie authors requesting specific models and images. He had a new male model, a guy whose day job was in business. I found that odd and couldn’t wait to hear his story, but Greg had had a request to have the two of us together in a very specific pose. “I’ll pay you more than the usual,” he’d promised, asking for two hours of my time.

I would have done it for the usual fee, but for a bonus? “Just tell me when.”

* * *

I arrived at Greg’s studio a few minutes early. He had an old garage on the end of town, one I suspected had housed a car dealership long before I was born. The front end had huge windows, one on the front that he left free and clear with no ornamentation. In fact, the only place his info was found was on the door itself, just above the bar that served as a handle. In gold script, it said Greg Smithey, Photographer, Entrepreneur, Artiste. Very Greg. Underneath had the words Available via appointment, followed by his phone number. There was no Open sign or hours of operation, but I knew from years of working with him that the door would be unlocked until our shooting session began, so I pushed on the door and entered.

In the front, it looked like a small business. There was a door off to the side that housed a tiny office but I was standing in a snug lobby area. When I’d first met Greg, there had been movable partitions separating the waiting area from the one where the work happened, but he’d recently had walls built and painted an off-white color. There were a couple of chairs and a tall plant beside them, but I couldn’t tell if the plant was real or fake. It was a strange looking tree and every time I stood in that space, I pondered its state. This time, I was moving over to touch the soil it was potted in to try to find out once and for all when Greg appeared in the doorway. “Ivy. Come on back. Shane’s already here.”

Apparently, I wasn’t the only early bird.

I followed him into the back where all the magic happened. The front section was a variety of screens and props and lights on poles. The back area—where the garage door still hung but had since been drywalled over (visible from the outside, though)—had bigger “set pieces,” for lack of a better word. There was a bed, two sofas, a variety of chairs, a motorcycle, and all sorts of other large props, half of which I’d posed with or on, as well as a shelving unit crammed full of smaller props, like handcuffs, masks, and other items I was sure had been used for at least one book cover, but nothing I’d seen. There was also a small area in the corner with a mirror and makeup table as well as a screen for changing outfits. Greg had already told me that, after we finished the requested shoot, we were going to do some other shots as well. He usually made more money off the extra shots that were available on his website than he did from the ones done on demand and, since we models were paid by the hour, he might as well get his money’s worth.

I was wearing a denim jacket, red camisole underneath, jeans, and black boots, per his shooting request, with my makeup and hair done to perfection. He said, “I told you we’ll be shooting outside first, right?”

“No.”

He grinned and shrugged, pushing his glasses up his nose like he often did. “Eh. Sorry. We’re just gonna do it on the east side of the building.” Where the garage door was? Okay. “There are several places we can do it but the light right now is perfect, so I want to get started. Oh, by the way,” he said as I felt my mouth filling with saliva while my eyes took in the hot guy standing nearby, “this is Shane.”

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