Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel) (30 page)

“
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.