“I sorry,” Svetlana pouts her blonde hair falling over her face. “My hands not too big, right?”
She’s teetering from side to side as she holds up her bear paws.
“Nah, they’re just right,” I lie. Taylor’s gone. With Damian. And Svetlana’s willing, able, and right in front of me. “You look good tonight.”
I cock my head and give her a sideways smirk. This is my Cheeky-Playboy-on-a-Boat look, and I realize I must be hammered—I’m not even on a boat. When Svetlana narrows her eyes at me, I know the look has worked and I’m cursing that I didn’t use it on Taylor instead of wasting it on this vodka-saturated mess.
“You looking good too,” Svetlana gushes, teetering forward before losing her balance completely and falling against me. “Oops!”
She giggles, gazing drunkenly at me. Her dark eyeliner is starting to smear under her right eye as she whispers in my ear, “Let’s go somewhere.”
“Why not?” I take her hand and lead her stumbling into one of the suite’s four bedrooms.
Svetlana straddles me and the alcohol-numbed pain in my groin reminds me that part of boring sex means not letting the girl grind against my crotch with enough force to grate cheese. I pull Svetlana forward where she grinds my bellybutton. She doesn’t seem to notice the difference, and I’m hoping I’ve bought myself some time to figure out how this gentle sex with a broken penis is going to work.
I should get on top, but instead I lay back on the bed trying to enjoy an inebriated Russian dry humping my stomach as the alcohol starts the room into a slow spin.
“You like it like this, right baby?” she says, pressing her palms hard against my chest.
“Oh yeah,” I say as the room-spinning gets worse. “Just like that.” We’re both completely clothed, and in our current state of drunken incapacity dry-humping is the best we can muster. Getting naked right now seems as doable as summiting Everest.
Svetlana works her hips back and forth in a rhythmic rocking that makes me feel like I’m on a fishing boat during a typhoon. I shut my eyes hoping to stop the spinning and begin drifting toward passing out. My head is swimming as I picture Taylor on top of me, arching her head back, her mouth slightly open, her lips glistening red. Then I picture her at the counter of a Value Mart, smiling as Damian forks over the cash for KY Jelly and Trojans.
I open my eyes. Svetlana has stopped rocking and is resting her bony ass on my abs like they’re a chaise lounge.
“What is it?” I say. Her face has gone pale and her eyes are wide and glassy. It looks like I wasn’t the only one feeling like I was on a boat. “Move. Get off me!”
A split second before Svetlana showers vomit down on my face, in what is a surprisingly even and sustained flow, I manage to clamp my eyes and mouth shut. Though I wish I had the presence of mind to plug my nose.
CHAPTER 6
Colin Bryce Hamilton
Passed out in the bathtub.
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WHEN I PRY my eyes open, every inch of me is wet and aching. In my pants, the inches that matter most, feel raw as a freshly stitched wound. Cupping my groin, I realize I’ve slept in Sheldon’s bathtub and my mouth tastes like I’d been sucking alcohol out of a toilet sponge. When I manage to creak my way to my feet in front of the mirror, it looks like I crawled out of a toilet sponge too.
“The hell-?” I squint in the mirror at the Value Mart decaled t-shirt I’m wearing. It’s too small for me, and makes my gym built pecs look like B-cup tits. Before I can ask why I’m dressed like Farrah Fawcett in Charlie’s Angels, it all comes screaming back in a series of humiliating and fuzzy flashbacks. I want to crawl back into the bathtub.
“Decided to get up, eh sleepy head?” Sheldon stands in the toilet doorway, cupping a bowl of cereal. He’s dressed completely in white linen, his damp hair neatly combed to the side. Even his acne seems to have taken a break from pulsating. He’s making me feel like the dumpy one.
“What time is it?” I stand straight and my head feels like it’s trying to rip itself apart.
“Noon.” He chews a spoonful of corn flakes and laughs. This makes him snort milk out of his nose. He wipes it with the back of his hand and goes back to breakfast. I’m definitely not dumpier than him. “What happened anyway? Lucky, I had that extra shirt. I found you passed out and shirtless in the shower. It was still running, but you had your pants on.”
“My pants!” I say, patting my pockets. “My wallet, my iPhone. Shit.”
“I found them on the bed.” Sheldon pulls them out of his linen pants. “I took the liberty of updating your Facebook status. I think there’s puke on your iPhone though. Did you puke last night?”
“No, I didn’t puke.” The sooner I put last night behind me and move forward with getting an agency in Milano the better, but Sheldon seems bent on reliving every fucking second. “Wait, you did what to my profile?”
“Check it out.” He grins, handing me my stuff. He’s right, there is puke on my iPhone. I wipe it on my Value Mart shirt before reading Sheldon’s masterful fake me post. “You see what I did there? It’s funny cause how could you write it if you were passed out in the tub, right?”
“Hilarious,” I say, deleting the post. “I gotta go. Have you seen my shirt—my real shirt?”
“Nah, housekeeping came in and took a bunch of trash out,” Sheldon chews his corn flakes in a disturbing open-mouthed sideways fashion like a cow chomping grass. “I stopped them from coming in here. Didn’t want them to throw you out with the trash.”
He grins, and I watch as a blistering pimple on his cheek pops in seemingly slow motion. I want to vomit.
“Is it under that rag?” He points at a crumpled piece of cloth that looks like it was marinated in pumpkin soup.
“That is my shirt,” I pick it up between two fingers and then let it slop back to the floor. “Forget it. Just chuck it out. It’s from DSquared too. Shit.”
“Hey, why don’t we go out and get you a new shirt, mate,” Sheldon says. “My treat! My Dad just partnered with Gucci for one of his other ventures, and I’ve gotten pretty tight with the managing director. We could go to the head office and pick whatever we want…”
Why do rich people always have the connections to get shit for free? The rich have money, it’s the rest of us poor assholes that need freebies.
“Come on, it’ll be payback for your help throwing an awesome party! You know that blonde I was talking too, Valina? We’re supposed to meet later. She’s smoking hot, mate. Maybe you could come with us. I’d feel a lot better if you were there.”
While I do want a new shirt, and Gucci is quite an upgrade from Dsquared, the last thing I want to do right now is hold Sheldon’s hand while he tries to woo some bitch that would fuck him anyway, if he just told her how insanely rich his is. She probably already knows, it doesn’t take Sherlock to figure that out. Besides, the only hot girl that would give him any sort of time has got to be a fucking gold-digger. He should screw the poetry and flower bullshit and drop his family’s net value the first chance he gets. When your face looks like a double pepperoni pizza, you’ve got to play to your strengths.
I haven’t got time to play matchmaker with Sheldon and some chick from post-Soviet Russia.
“Sorry, bro. I’ve got four castings this afternoon,” I lie, and push past him.
“You know, I’ll go to DSquared and replace your shirt anyway,” Sheldon says. “Thanks for hooking everything up last night. It was epic.”
My head is pounding and my stomach is trying to crawl up my throat and out my mouth, but I pause to slap Sheldon’s bony outstretched hand.
“Thanks,” I say, and he smiles. Despite Sheldon’s hygiene, his insecurities, and overall geekiness, this is why we’re still friends—he knows how to show appreciation. That’s rare nowadays.
“But there’s no way you can come with me to meet Valina?” Sheldon’s eyes grow wide.
“Nope,” I say, bumping the doorframe on my way out. “But good luck
, bro!”
Soon I’m squinting at the overhead directory sign in Elements mall looking like a contestant from a wet t-shirt contest gone bad.
This huge luxury shopping center is connected to The W. Its designer store lined corridors curve gently into the distance giving it a futuristic aesthetic but also eliminating discernible intersections and making it fucking impossible to find an exit. I’m so lost, and so don’t want to be.
My iPhone buzzes. I fumble it out of my pants as financial types with flamboyant pocket squares exploding out of their suits and women with big designer sunglasses take exaggeratedly circuitous routes to avoid me. I answer the phone, hoping it’s somebody who knows the way out of this hole.
“Colin! Thank God you’re alive!” Shit. It’s Jasmine.
“Of course, I’m alive,” I say, stumbling away from the sign and careening off the glass storefront of a Prada shop. “Just been busy.”
“Being busy and alive is awesome!” Jasmine says. “Did you talk to One Models?”
“Yeah,” I blurt, trying to think up a lie as to why the agency doesn’t want to take her. Maybe one of her legs is shorter than the other and she’ll walk circles on the runway or something. My stomach trying to jettison itself out of my mouth isn’t very conducive to creativity. “I mean, no, I didn’t talk to them. Not really.”
When you’re searching for a lie, never fall back on the truth.
“What?” She says. “School is over in a couple of weeks, Colin. I could be there really soon! I don’t understand. It’s like you don’t want me to go or something.”
“Jas, maybe modelling isn’t for you. It’s a tough industry,” I say, the residual alcohol in my veins helping me tell the truth. “People can be mean, and you’re—you know—soft. You should rethink the whole fashion thing.”
There’s silence as I zig-zag through the mall to the next sign.
“Colin… you really think that?” she says, her voice a whisper. Suddenly, my headache and nausea are nothing compared to how shitty I feel now, hearing the hurt in my little sister’s voice. “Or are you just saying this because you don’t want to tell me that One Models said I wasn’t good enough?”
The sound of someone pre-cry, that lip quivering, watery eyed moment, I never thought you could hear that over the phone but that’s what I’m hearing right now.
“You can tell me,” Jasmine plugs on. “If that’s what it is, just tell me and I’ll stop bugging you about modelling. I’ll forget this whole stupid thing.” I’m under the next sign searching for the means of my escape, while my sister sniffles on the line. The stupid mall arcs into three directions from where I’m standing and though I scan the sign twice, I find no hint of an exit to this horrible, meandering, luxury-good-peddling dump. On the other side of the world my sister starts to cry, and I want to put my hands around the throat of whoever planned the signage at Elements and squeeze.
“Jas…”
I can tell her One Models gave her a no and be done with it. My sister will be sad—shattered is probably a better word—but she’ll move on. It’ll hurt her but it’s for the best.
“…yes?” Jasmine says, trying to shut off the tears and gather whatever strength she’s got left to brace for what I have to say.
She can take it. But I can’t.
“I never spoke to One Models.” Whether it’s my lack of sleep, my alcohol saturated liver, or the puke in my hair, something’s making me say the opposite of what I need to say. “And if I had, they wouldn’t have turned you down. Professionally speaking, you have potential.”
“Really?” Jasmine’s sniffling fades. “You’re not just telling me that?”
“No,” I say, wandering to the next sign and staring blankly at it. “I was really too busy to talk to One Models. That’s all.”
“Then why did you tell me you thought modelling isn’t for me?”
“I dunno. Look, fashion can be shitty sometimes,” I say. “It’s not all puppy dogs and ice cream. No one’s going to hand you anything in this industry.”
“II get it,” she says. “I understand.”
There’s silence. Perhaps in some strange way, telling the truth has gotten the response I’ve wanted from my sister all along.
“And I know you’re working hard to get back to Milano,” she continues. “I won’t bother you about this anymore, Colin.”
For a moment, the ache in my head and the nauseous feeling in my gut subside, I’ve finally broken through to her.
“Yeah,” Jasmine says. “I’ll handle it from here.”
Somewhere in my addled brain, I realize that she has a plan. Plans that get my sister modelling are no good. But before I can ask, she hangs up. The countdown timer on the four kilos of plastic explosives that is my sister’s inevitable modelling career beeps to four, then three—and I’m still hung over and lost in Elements.
CHAPTER 7
Colin Bryce Hamilton
Getting decked out in Hugo Boss for the runway tonight!
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Damian Bruckman
Me too! See you there, bru.
Colin Bryce Hamilton likes this.
THERE ARE FEW problems in modelling that can’t be solved by a body fat percentage below five. This is why I’m hitting the gym even harder than usual but I’m not at Physique, where I have a model pass. This time I’m at Volume Fitness, where I got sales pitched into a trial three month membership.
I could just go to Physique because Volume, located in Sheung Wan, is a little out of the way, and it’s well-known as a predominantly gay gym. But I’m trying to minimize my exposure to Damian.
Facing the mirror, I pick up two fifteen kilo dumbbells to do some shoulder lifts—segmentation in the shoulders is key to making your arms look diesel. I’m going to combine this with some forehead training—a deeply wrinkled brow increases my look of sophistication and is key to transitioning to more mature high-fashion suit campaigns. As I raise the weights, I exhale wrinkling up my forehead like I’m straining but really I’m building more character in my face. This is the holistic workout routine I need.
When I finish my set, I’m sweating and relax my forehead, as a couple guys in bright little tights walk by glancing at me and whisper approvingly. This makes me feel a little better. Hot is hot, it doesn’t matter who is doing the admiring.
“Bro,” I turn and Marek is standing there in a tight tank top and basketball shorts. “Thought you went to Physique with the rest of the One Models and Origin Models crowd.”
“Yeah, I did. I mean, I do.” I say. “But it’s too busy there. Too many distractions, you know?”
“Tell me about it, bro.” Marek grins. “All those model girls in their little shorts… bent over the reverse hamstring machine… that shit kills me.”
Marek stares at a spot on the wall like he’s found his happy place.
“Not like here,” he frowns over his shoulder. “The only girls in here are trannies.”
I nod like I’m equally repulsed, but earlier, as I was coming out of the change room, a transvestite winked at me. I didn’t mind.
“Kerries can’t get you a membership somewhere else?”
“Bro, seriously?” He scoffs at the mention of Kerries, his agency and what is at best a third-tier modelling outfit. “They don’t have any connects for that shit. They can’t even get me a casting with Maxwell Chen.”
I’m getting ready to do another set as Marek piles weights onto a bar preparing to do squats.
“They didn’t send you to cast for Maxwell? That doesn’t make any sense.” I say, but it makes complete sense. Marek has been stalled in Hong Kong for a year because no other market wants him. He’s gained at least five kilos since he got here and became the PR of Asylum, his modelling days are numbered. His plight makes me feel slightly better.
I start on my second set of shoulders, and he bends into a sitting position with the weighted bar across his shoulder blades.
“Maxwell’s a degenerate freak
anyway,” he says, straining under the weight as he returns to standing doing this weird cockeyed thing with his eyebrows that makes me think he’s working on his modelling looks too. “I know a chick that did a shoot with him and it was really fucked up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like at one point he whipped out his testicles,” Marek frowns like he hates that he even had to mention another man’s genitalia. “Not even his cock, dude, just his fucking nut sack.”
That seems rather inappropriate.
“Dude is all about nude shoots, so busting out his sack is supposed to relax the girls,” He says exhaling, and I doubt the calming effect of a strange pair of testicles on unsuspecting female models. “Yeah, this girl said things got really fucked up. Like he made her cup his sack or some shit, and his dirt-bag assistant was taking pictures the whole time. She wouldn’t tell me exactly what went down, but I think Maxwell ended up peeing on her or something.”
Marek drops into a squat and again strains to straighten his legs under the weight and his eyebrows alternately move up and down like something is burrowing into his brain. If this is one of his model faces, no wonder no one will rep him but Kerries. And if this is his work out face, he needs to reduce the weight immediately.
“I am fucking telling you, dude,” Marek says, standing straight and pausing on his squats. “This chick, she was fucked up after. She quit modelling, went back to Brisbane, shaved her head and joined a monastery. Like she turned into a monk.”
“A nun?”
“Yeah, like a Bishop or something.” He probably means nun.
Marek drops into a squat and straightens his legs again, and though I’m concentrating on my forehead wrinkling, the lure of watching another bizarre eyebrow display is too tempting to pass up. As his eyebrows go crooked, then straight, and one of them even seems to get thicker, a group of guys in body hugging neon Lycra outfits walks by and whistles at us.
I like it here.
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