by Lucia Jordan
He took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m not mad at you about the fitting or about running late,” he said as he finally started to look calmed down. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks,” I said. I wasn’t really sure what to make of this.
Not only was Arlo not mad at me for being irresponsibly late to an important meeting with the models, but he had driven all the way from Manhattan to Astoria in order to check on me when I didn’t answer my phone. I mean, I knew that he was a good friend and all...but to leave his office in the middle of a work morning and leave the models standing there waiting on him, just in order to push through traffic to make sure I was okay in person? That sounded like something your boyfriend would do, not your boss or your buddy. Again, I told myself that I was entirely overthinking things. Of course, it was something a buddy would do, or even a well-meaning and decent boss. I was just stupid.
“I’ll get dressed, and I’ll be at your office as fast as I can,” I said as I went to go open the door back up for him so that I could hurry to get ready and not delay the meeting any longer.
“I’ll wait,” he said as he went to go sit down on my narrow sofa. “I’ll drive you in since I’m already here anyway.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Don’t you need to hurry to get back to the models before all hell breaks loose?”
He laughed. “Trust me, hell is already loose. Take your time; we’ll leave when you’re ready.”
“Okay,” I said as I shrugged and smiled.
Nice, now I got a ride into the city as well. Maybe I should be late more often—kidding, of course.
I hurried to put on clothes and brush my hair and teeth. I didn’t really ever wear much makeup anyway, so at least there wouldn’t be more time wasted on that.
“Hey, do you have any coffee?” Arlo called from the kitchen.
“Uh, kind of. It’s not made yet, but there’s a bag of coffee in the cupboard above the coffee pot.”
After a couple of minutes, I could hear the sound of coffee percolating from inside my bedroom. How funny that he was taking the time to make coffee while he waited on me. Surely, he had already had several cups of a much better brew than the crappy beans I had. When I walked out of the bedroom, ready to go, he handed me one of my travel mugs that he must have found in a cabinet somewhere. He had one in his other hand for himself, too.
“I promise I’ll wash it and give it back,” he said.
“After costing you a few hours of work time today, I think the least I can do is let you have my coffee cup,” I joked.
He laughed and then helped me carry the portable clothing rack and all the garment bags filled with incredible pieces out to his car.
“How in the world did you get all this done so fast?” he asked in amazement.
“I work fast when I’m inspired,” I answered.
“You must be pretty damn inspired,” Arlo said under his breath.
After we had gotten everything into the car, I slid into the passenger seat, and Arlo stopped to look at me before starting up the car.
“What?” I asked when I saw that he clearly wanted to ask me something.
“How were you going to get all that stuff into Manhattan on the subway?” he asked. He was looking at me as if I were some sort of alien with my nose in the wrong spot on my face.
“How do you think I got it all back to my apartment to begin with?” I said. “I drove the garment rack carrying all the clothes in garment bags straight onto the train. Trust me, it wasn’t the strangest thing most people have seen on the New York City subway.”
Arlo laughed as he started the car and then glanced at me with a look of astonishment. “You really are a lot more ingenious than even I gave you credit for,” he said. “Or crazy.”
4
Chapter Four (Arlo)
Driving to work with Hensley was more of a treat than an inconvenience. Now that I knew she was all right, my stress level had knocked down several notches, and I was able to relax. I didn’t know why I had flown into such a panic when I hadn’t heard from her. It was just so unlike Hensley to not show up at work, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything at all until I knew that she was okay. I wasn’t at all upset about the fitting running late. Honestly, it would probably be good for those models to have to wait on someone besides themselves for a change. They could all use for their egos to get knocked down a few notches, too.
During the drive into Manhattan, Hensley and I talked about the runway show for a while, and then our conversation got sidetracked into a million other random whims, as it frequently did between the two of us. The drive over the bridge was my favorite part of the commute because she stared out at the water for a bit and then had a musing about the “wide-open world.”
“Wouldn’t it be cool,” she said as she looked out at the reflection of the city buildings onto the water, “if one of these designs ended up reaching someone way on the other side of the world? Like if someone saw it and was so inspired that it caused them to then create something else that might not have even had the idea to exist before?”
“That’s a super deep thing to say,” I commented.
“Yeah,” Hensley mused. “Sometimes, I think my head is just screwed on differently than most people. I’m not always sure if that’s a good thing, to be honest.”
I glancedooked over at her, and she had a faraway look in her eyes. “Hensley, anyone who values their craft more than they value money or fame, is a true artist. That is way more important than any of the rest of it. I think your head is screwed on perfectly. It’s the rest of the world that needs some adjusting.”
She looked over at me and smiled.
When we got into the office, my secretary already looked frazzled enough to quit on the spot.
“You have to get in there,” she said as she raced up to meet me at the door. “They’re all acting as if they’re going to faint, or quit, or both.”
I rolled my eyes and sucked in my cheeks as I braced for an afternoon of dealing with these self-absorbed supermodels. Honestly, this group of models gave their entire profession a bad name. There were plenty of beautiful models that were genuinely nice and down-to-earth people. I needed to reevaluate who I put under contract after this show was over. It just wasn’t worth the negative energy that they brought to the brand. No face was pretty enough for that.
Hensley walked alongside me, pulling the garment rack with her as we went into the large design room that I used for the model fittings. My secretary had been right; the models were dramatically draped over the tops of the tables as if they had been waiting for a century instead of a couple of hours.
“Oh my God, you’re finally back,” Kerynne whined as she poked Cai to get him to sit up from his sprawled out position lying on top of one of the tables. “It’s not like we haven’t been waiting for hours or anything.”
“Yeah,” Cai added on to her sentiment. “I normally don’t agree with Kerynne, and I normally don’t complain—”
“You complain all of the time,” Kerynne interrupted him.
“But,” he continued, “these outfits better be fabulous after I’ve wasted my morning in this corporate box of a building.”
My building didn’t feel like a corporate box at all. In fact, it was one of the most innovatively designed buildings on the block. These guys just wanted something to whine about since they had to sit here for a bit without being entertained. I saw my secretary standing in the doorway, waiting for instructions about how to handle them, so I sent her to fetch sparkling waters and some imported dark chocolates as compensation for making them wait.
“All right, everyone, well, we’re here now, and Hensley has some amazing things for you to try on. Spread out a bit, and she’ll get you all dressed and fitted. Two costume changes each, starting with Kerynne and Cai.” I then took a step back and handed things over to Hensley. I was more than a little curious to see how she was going to handle this crew. I almost felt a bit bad to throw her to t
he wolves, but she would need to be able to handle the models on her own at the runway show, so this was a good test.
I was impressed by how quickly she had things ready to go and was already running from model to model, trying to dress them all. She didn’t seem to balk at the obvious lack of modesty the models had or how they acted like spoiled children in need of constant attention. She had both Kerynne and Cai dressed within a matter of seconds of each other. She was going to be a natural with the quick changes on the runway.
“This is poking me,” Kerynne said as she flicked a section of dark-green tulle that was lying against her breast. “What is this supposed to be, like moss or something?”
“Here,” Hensley said as she set down the headpiece that she was trying to adjust for Cai in order to go tend to Kerynne’s emergency.
Kerynne acted as if the lightly touching tulle to her skin was akin to the end of a match that was burning her flesh. She was by far the most dramatic of any of the models that I had ever worked with. If she hadn’t been so beautiful, I would never have hired her. Plus, this group was a bit of a package deal. They were all friends socially as well as colleagues in the modeling business. They traveled like a pack, a bit like the clicks of popular kids in high school. They tended to accept jobs together and walk out of jobs together. If I lost one of them, I would lose them all.
“Ow!” Kerynne hollered at Hensley as Hensley was carefully trying to tac down some of the fabric's overreaching ends.
“I didn’t even touch you yet,” Hensley said.
Kerynne slapped her hand away. “You did. And my skin is worth more than your entire brain, so you’d better be more careful.”
The other models started to whine, too, following Kerynne’s lead and getting snarky about various bit and pieces of their clothing. I had let Hensley handle it for long enough to know that she was amazing and adept at this, but I didn’t need to stand by and let the models abuse my designer.
“Knock it off, Kerynne,” I said to her as I shot her a stern look of warning. “I’ll remind you that there are terms on your end of the contract to abide by, too. Harassing my designer is in violation of at least three of them.”
Hensley tried to hide a small smile when Kerynne huffed at me and then became silent. She let Hensley fix the tulle without another word. Then, Hensley went back to affixing a small headpiece of horns onto the top of Cai’s head. The outfit he was wearing was incredible. It was a deep-red satin suit that fit like a bodysuit with peasant sleeves. He looked every bit the part of some sort of woodland prince headed to an indulgent revelry.
“The crotch is too tight,” Cai said to her as he wriggled his pelvis toward her. “Can you fix it, please? I know that my massively bulging size is a visual delight, but I’d still like to be able to use it and would prefer this outfit not to damage my goods.”
Hensley finished making sure the headpiece was attached tightly and then put her hands on the stitching at the inner part of Cai’s thighs to loosen it and mark it for a wider restitch later. But when she was working along the seam so closely to his groin, Cai moved and rubbed himself against her hands. Hensley looked startled but didn’t move her hands away from his now-swelling cock because she still had the open seam between her fingers and didn’t want the fabric to pull. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to let him get away with what he was doing.
“Cai!” I said as I walked right up to him and pulled Hensley’s hand away.
She made a little shriek when she saw the thread begin to unwind at the seam.
“If you want to rub your dick on someone, I suggest you ask first next time. Otherwise, it will be my pleasure to ask Hensley to sew both of your balls together.” I was angry, and Cai could tell.
“Lighten up, Arlo,” he said. “We’re in a fantasy here, remember?” He shook the horns on his head at me as if they were bells and then looked over at Hensley. “Besides,” he smirked, “she enjoyed it, too.”
Before I could say anything else to him—which honestly, I probably would have ended up regretting because I could feel myself getting ready to lay into him with some choice words—Cai turned and walked away.
I always felt the need to protect Hensley. She was frequently hit on by guys with less-than-sincere motives, and she had trouble setting boundaries with guys in general. It was like she went through life just hoping that all the creeps would steer clear of her, but instead, she seemed to be a magnet for them.
“He’s going to tear it,” Hensley said, not even seeming to notice how completely inappropriate Cai’s overly flirtatious move was.
“Take it off, Cai,” I shouted across the room at him as he swaggered around, trying to show off the giant hole in his pants, which was now becoming an enlarged peephole to see his genitalia.
“Fine,” he moaned theatrically. He turned to face us and slid the entire bodysuit off, then stood there naked, smiling at Hensley with his semi-aroused penis hanging between his legs.
Hensley stood gawking at him in shock, which only proceeded to make Cai more aroused.
I swear if I could do the show without models, I would.
Overall, the day was a success. All of the designs were incredible, and the models were pleased with how they looked in them. There were only a few small adjustments that Hensley needed to make—Cai’s crotch-fix being one of them—and aside from that and a few final touches, everything was ready to go. As the models were finishing up with getting undressed, some of them lingered and walked naked around the room, pretending to be searching for a lost shoe or earring, when it was very obvious that they were just seeking attention by parading their perfect figures in front of everyone. Hensley was zipping up garment bags and getting things put back onto the rack when one of the models came over to me and ran her hand along my chest as she stood in front of me in the nude.
“Mr. Pratt,” she said in an officially melodic voice. “Have you seen my panties anywhere around here?”
“No,” I answered flatly and started to walk around her.
“Are you sure?” she asked as her hand trailed quickly from my chest to the waist of my pants. “Maybe they’re in there?” she asked as she flashed her eyes down to my pants. “You work out, don’t you? I can feel how cut your muscles are beneath my hand.”
“Not interested,” I said as I pulled her hand off me and reached down onto the floor to pick up something black and lacy. “Here are your panties.” I tossed them at her, and when she caught them, she looked up at me with disgust.
“These aren’t mine,” she said as she dropped them back onto the floor.
“I’m sure it doesn’t matter,” I said.
These girls were a dime a dozen. All of them just wanted to land some hot, rich guy who would satisfy them sexually and financially. They didn’t care at all about whether the guy loved them or was interested in what they had to say. When I first started in the business, I felt sorry for them. I had thought they were somehow getting used or fooled. And although I am sure some models are the victims of such treatment, these girls were not. They knew exactly what they were doing and exactly how to get what they wanted. I walked toward Hensley and saw that she had stopped zipping up the bags in order to watch my interaction with the model.
“They’re all over you, aren’t they?” she asked as I helped her to get the wheels on the rack unlocked so she could roll it out. “Do you ever take any of them up on their offer?”
“What offer?” I asked.
“She wants to have sex with you, doesn’t she? I mean, that’s what it looked like from here.”
“Oh,” I said as I chuckled. “Yeah, probably so. Most of them do.”
“Do you ever take them up on it?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” I answered honestly, without thinking about what an ass that made me sound like. “But I haven’t in a long time.”
Hensley looked hurt, which confused me. Why would she care if I slept with the models? It didn’t affect her work on the project at all. I tried to make it
into a joking matter and change the mood to be a bit lighter.
“Honestly, it’s been at least a few months since I’ve even had sex,” I laughed. “I’ve been way too busy. I’m sure you’re getting more action than me.” Part of me found myself wanting Hensley to actually answer that as if it was a question that I was asking her.
“You’d be surprised,” she mumbled as she started to wheel the rack out of the room.
“Let me drive you home,” I offered.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll take the subway. Sometimes the commute on the train helps me work some things out in my head.”
“Are you actually going to wheel that rack through the city and down into the subway with all those clothes and accessories on it?”
“Yep,” she said.
“But what if someone steals something from the rack? What if one of the homeless people on the street or a thief in the subway grabs one of the bags and takes off with it?” I asked. It didn’t seem like what she was doing was the smartest idea to me.
“Then I guess they’ll be the best-dressed homeless people in New York City,” she smiled.
5
Chapter Five (Hensley)
The promo shoot for the runway show was just a day away, and I had several small adjustments to make on the clothing. After the model fitting, my head had been spinning with a bunch of random thoughts, some of which were awesome and some of which were slightly disturbing. I should have been giving more thought to the fact that Kerynne would most likely rip her outfit to shreds if she kept prodding and pulling at it so much. Or I should have thought about Cai and how completely over-the-top he was during the fitting.
But instead, all I could think about was what Arlo said, and I wondered how many of those models he had actually slept with at one time or another. Not that anyone could blame him, the girls were beautiful; they were all beautiful. And Arlo could get any woman he wanted. Why shouldn’t he indulge in relationships that were fun and tempting, even if they were impermanent? I had no place to talk in the arena of dating. My life was void of any meaningful kind of relationship at all, except for my friendship with Arlo, of course. I had to remind myself that it was a friendship, nothing more. I couldn’t go getting jealous and bent out of shape over who he chose to sleep with or how many beds he had been in. That was his life to control, not mine.
