Like Me

by Hayley Phelan

  Andy stepped back and looked at my body. He wet his ring finger with the tip of his tongue and dabbed at something on my collarbone. He yanked at an errant thread frayed at the bottom of the tank top, his breath hot in my face. He squatted on his knees and ran his hands gently and efficiently along my crotch, smoothing the silk. Still on his haunches, he turned me around and slid two fingers under the waistband of my underwear, straightening it. He moved one side of the underwear up, so that it was slightly higher on my butt cheek.

  “There,” he said finally, and stepped away.

  I felt the equilibrium in the room shift, and looked towards the door. Benoit emerged, looking calm and self-possessed. I held my breath, waiting for the moment when his eyes would fall upon me, and when they did, a jolt of electricity ran through my body.

  “Wow,” he breathed. “Fantastic.”

  I got that up-high feeling again, like I might fall over. I realized I was grinning and, remembering about the teeth, forced myself back into a tight, close-lipped smile.

  Kiki walked over and looked at me with her hands on her hips. “It looks good.”

  Benoit touched me delicately on the cheeks and shook his head, grinning. “I love it!” Gently he turned me so that we were facing the mirror and he was standing behind me with his hands on my shoulders.

  “Doesn’t she look just like a child?” he gushed. “This innocence! Barely sweet sixteen.”

  I didn’t feel like a child, and I knew I wasn’t innocent, but I liked that Benoit was excited about how I looked. My desire to please him was so persuasive that I felt myself ease, almost seamlessly, into someone who was younger and more innocent than I really was.

  “Dear, do you not love it?” he asked.

  I nodded yes, slightly embarrassed by how stupidly happy I looked in the mirror.

  “That makes me happy. That makes me happy, because when you’re happy the camera is happy.”

  “We want you to be comfortable,” added Kiki, in a maternal voice.

  “Comfort is the most important thing. If you aren’t comfortable, you can’t be vulnerable for the camera.”

  Kiki asked if I’d ever seen Lolita.

  “That’s a key inspiration for us,” explained Benoit.

  “A modern-day Lolita, a teen girl in her bedroom,” elucidated Kiki.

  “Virginal and pure and sensual. A child-woman, the object of obsession—but totally unawares, totally innocent.”

  I smiled. Benoit kept talking: “So you’re lounging around in your bedroom, totally unawares. Natural. We want very natural. None of this posturing that we have today. None of this Kardashian bullshit.” Though he himself had said it, he was viscerally upset by the suggestion. “What kills me is that that is what passes for sexy today, that kind of plastic blow-up doll. Who wants to go to bed with a blow-up doll? How fucked up is that?”

  I wasn’t sure it was any less fucked up to want to go to bed with a sixteen-year-old, but I remained silent. He went on: “You know what the plastic surgeons are saying? They’re saying that people are coming in and asking for fake tits that actually look fake. They’re saying, ‘Doctor, I paid good money for these, I don’t want people thinking I just got them for free!’ ”

  Benoit, I was beginning to learn, didn’t necessarily require a response in order to have a conversation with someone. Before I could open my mouth, he had begun again: “It’s ironic, no? Women are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to look like sex dolls, but if you so much as hug them without written consent, it’s a criminal offense. The most basic, most pure form of affection is demonized, criminalized, and yet—”

  “Hans.” Kiki interrupted, shooting him a warning look.

  “I am merely pointing the irony,” he said. When she continued to glare at him, he laughed helplessly. He looked me in the eyes in the mirror and said, in a conspiratorial voice: “Kiki’s afraid I’ll get myself in trouble. But she doesn’t have to worry, does she? You and I understand each other.”

  “Perfectly,” I said.

  “Ah, beautiful!” He clapped me lightly on the shoulder. “Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. I thought so.”

  Kiki eyed us both, and I knew she was sizing me up, though I wasn’t sure if it was a disapproving look or if she only pitied me. Either way, I didn’t like it. “We should get started,” she said finally. “We’re behind.”

  Benoit nodded. He placed both hands on my shoulders and fixed me with a caring, paternal look. “You’re going to do wonderfully, my dear. Just relax, and be natural. Be yourself.”

  And because I knew I looked like Gemma, I thought I actually could.

  * * *

  —

  The set had been styled to look like a quaint New York City apartment, some cool girl’s bedroom. I actually thought it looked familiar. Or maybe it was just that everything had started to look the same, an algorithmically optimized aesthetic that lacked any border or definition so you could move through spaces as frictionlessly as you could scroll through Instagram, and you could never really tell whether you were in a certain place, or in a place that looked like a certain place, or in a place that looked like a picture of that certain place. Like how it was getting difficult to remember someone’s face without accidentally starting to picture a photo of them.

  The bed was unmade, with a fluffy white duvet and white linen sheets piled up in an inviting dollop. It was pushed up against the windows, which were hung with light, filmy curtains and crisscrossed with unlit multicolored Christmas lights. A stack of books served as a bedside table, on which rested a coffee mug, a vintage lamp, a tattered journal, and more books. On one of the windowsills was a mason jar filled with wildflowers. Kiki bent over the duvet and fussed with it. She fluffed the pillows. Benoit was fiddling with his iPhone. I understood, now, why he was dressed so unseasonably. The air conditioning was blasting and the room was like a refrigerator. I shivered, resisting the urge to cover my bare arms.

  “What do you like to listen to?” he asked, causing the name of every song or band I’d ever heard to flee my brain. I made an indeterminate noise with my mouth.

  “C’mon, what’re you listening to right now? What’s your go-to?”

  “Snake Oil,” I said, even though I didn’t really like them and had only listened to them on Gemma’s Instagram.

  Benoit smiled at me a little weirdly, and I was worried that maybe he knew why I’d said it, but all he said was “Excellent choice.” Then he clapped his hands together and began looking through the lens on his camera, setting the flash off while Kiki held a light tester. Even though I’d done dozens of shoots before, I’d never done one that was supposed to look natural, and I realized I didn’t know how to act that way. I looked at the bed stupidly, like it might give me some sort of direction.

  “Go on,” said Benoit. “Get on.”

  I clambered on awkwardly, aware of every inch of my exposed skin, the pebbled texture of my upper thighs, the crease formed at my waist when I twisted my legs around. Even though I hadn’t eaten all day, I wished I’d somehow eaten less. I leaned back on my hands to try to elongate my body, like I’d seen Gemma do in some of her shoots.

  “Yes, that’s it, relax, get comfortable.”

  “Holler if you need anything,” Kiki said to Benoit, closing the door behind her. I knew from the interviews I’d read with him online that Benoit almost always required a closed set. I can have more intimacy that way. The camera does not like crowds.

  I surveyed the room. I noticed that one of the books at the bedside was Bukowski’s Hot Water Music. The coffee mug was made by a Brooklyn ceramicist that Gemma was friends with. She owned a full set of them.

  Now I knew why the apartment looked so familiar.

  “So just pretend you’re at home, hanging out. Zoning out. Unhunch your shoulders, please. This is your bedroom. Stretch the leg a little. You strung up those Christm
as lights last year with your best friend Chloe. That’s your diary, over there. You hide it under your mattress when you go out so your mom won’t read it.”

  After a few minutes of that, Benoit paused and called for Kiki. She came in immediately—she must have been waiting by the door—and with one quick gesture from Benoit, she came over and placed the covers haphazardly across my body. Gently but firmly she pushed me back so that I was lying, half-upright, against the pillows. She peeled back the top of the covers to display my torso, and disappeared out the door again.

  “That’s it, yes. You’re just waking up, you came home past curfew last night and your stepdad is pissed.” I tried to look like a girl worthy of being kidnapped. I looked at the ceiling and imagined Gemma lying in her own bed, looking at the ceiling. “Yes, exactly. You’re sulking. You don’t want to face him at the breakfast table. You’re dreaming of the boy you have a crush on.”

  That was more difficult to approximate. I never had crushes in high school. I thought the whole point of dating was to get the other person to care more than you cared, so I always picked someone I knew I’d never actually like.

  “Come on, think about a boy you like. Tell me about him.”

  I tried to imagine a theoretical boy I might have a crush on, but could only see the faces of actors in various movie roles.

  “Ryan,” I said finally. “He’s got blond hair. And, um…”

  “Do you want to kiss him?”

  I nodded slowly.

  “It doesn’t look like you want to kiss him. I don’t see anything in your face at all. Feeling. Remember? Real feeling. Just act how you would act when you were at home, fantasizing about someone.”

  Gemma. I stretched out luxuriously across the bed, pointing the toe of one foot, an arm reaching above me while the other slid down the length of my body.

  “Yes! That’s it!”

  I felt a pulse of desire between my legs. I was picturing myself through the camera’s lens, imagining that Benoit’s cock was stiffening beneath his sweatpants while he looked at me.

  “There we go,” said Benoit. “I want you to touch yourself, there, yes.”

  I stroked the smooth silk of my panties and imagined I was watching myself from across the room, and was moved with such exquisite egotism—She is so sexy! She is so perfect!—that I noticed, with some apprehension, I was genuinely becoming aroused.

  “Exactly! Yes!” Benoit had moved closer to the bed, and I imagined myself in his place, walking towards this girl, who was no longer me, exactly, but someone else. I saw the girl on Gemma’s bed fondle herself and I imagined climbing on top of her and splitting her open.

  “There we go. Now under the panties, yes, come on. No, under the panties, yes, there.”

  I hesitated at the waistband, then slid my hand under. My fingers were like ice, and the flesh beneath them felt foreign and vaguely sinister, like a dead jellyfish. I shivered.

  Benoit climbed on top of the bed and stood on it in his shoes, looming over me.

  “Don’t look at me!” he hissed. “Keep going. Yes.”

  I tried to get back into it. I closed my eyes and tried to bring up an image of myself from very far away.

  “Come on,” said Benoit. “Give me something.”

  I bit my lip, trying to be seductive, letting my eyes roll back slightly. I wanted to go back to being a sex object. To a time when nothing else inside me was relevant.

  “Stop it,” snapped Benoit. “You’re performing.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t! Don’t apologize. Just act natural. Do it like how you’d do it if I weren’t here.”

  Usually, I watched porn when I masturbated, but guys didn’t like to imagine that. They liked to think girls just closed their eyes and came, swept away on some romantic fantasy, not that we watched the same kind of twisted BDSM shit as they did.

  “Well?”

  I removed my hand from underneath my panties and turned on my side, pressing my wrist hard into my crotch and squeezing my thighs together so it hurt.

  “Okay,” said Benoit. He crouched on the bed and took a few photos of me from behind like that. Then he walked out in front of me and took a few more pictures, though it was obvious he was less excited about it. Deflated, I closed my eyes. Gently, Benoit pushed my shoulder so I was lying on my back. I opened my eyes.

  “Keep them closed,” he said. “You’re asleep. You’re dreaming sweetly.”

  He tore the covers completely off the bed. He picked up one of my ankles and moved it so that my legs were spread and one ankle hung off the bed. He pulled my tank top down, so that one nipple was exposed. Then he stepped back and I watched the flash spasm from behind my eyes, as it created sharp red shapes against my closed lids. I pretended I was dead.

  * * *

  —

  Eventually, they had me change into a second outfit: little silk shorts and a matching camisole in shell pink (both Araks). I looked at myself in the mirror as Andy put them on my body, and since nobody was looking at my face, I cycled through expressions, trying to mimic the things I’d seen Gemma do with hers, the far-off stare she would sometimes give, the impish smile. Not bad, I thought, and that little bell rang inside me again, and I felt happy and lucky, and a little more sure of myself.

  For the next several hours, and in various states of undress, I played the part of the captive teen. I rolled around in bed. I plucked the petals off the dead flowers in the mason jars. I looked at myself in the mirror and pretended to apply lip gloss I wasn’t actually wearing. Benoit called me Gemma once, while I was lying on the floor reading Hot Water Music, and I thought it was a little weird but then I also thought that it was just because he’d shot her so much, and hadn’t I accidentally called Julia Mom that one time, after I’d been home for a week? Besides, it was normal for an editorial to directly riff on the model of the moment, because the model of the moment embodies the look of the moment, and yes, this one was taking it a little literally, and it was possibly a little derivative, but then wasn’t everything derivative nowadays?

  For the last shot, Benoit had me get back on the bed and jump up and down. I was wearing a thin cotton tank dress with scalloping and a little bow along the top (Calvin Klein), and patterned cotton underwear (Baserange).

  “You’re doing this to bother your stepdad,” he said. “To get back at him. You don’t want him to come up, but you actually kind of do.”

  I tried to imagine what it would be like to be an innocent sixteen-year-old about to be raped by her stepdad.

  “Beautiful, beautiful. Give me joy. You’re a kid, remember, you have access to joy.”

  I heard a laugh bounce out of my mouth.

  Benoit climbed onto the bed, and crouched near my feet. He shot me like that, from below, with me looking down on him. I felt powerful, like he was someone I could destroy if I wanted to. I thought about kicking the camera into his face and bringing my foot down hard upon him.

  “Yes, that’s it, wow,” he said.

  I smiled. I was picturing his face after I’d done it, blood pouring from his nose. It wasn’t his pain that would please me but his shock, his disbelief. Imagine if he knew what I was thinking about right now, I thought, and laughed a little. That made me feel doubly powerful, to know I had an interiority no one could guess at. I often had violent ideations like this, I didn’t know why, though my therapist now says that it probably helped me feel a kind of control in situations where I had none. I’m not so sure. I think I just found them entertaining.

  Benoit lay back on the bed, and had me stand over him with my feet on either side of his head. He took upskirt photos, like the kind pervs post on Reddit. He told me to hop a little and I did, my feet landing close to his head. Then he reached around with his free hand and cupped my calf and held it there so I was still. His hand was warm, and it made my calf seem small, lik
e a child’s, which I liked. I looked down at him, at his mouth, which was parted slightly in concentration. I imagined him kissing Gemma. I knew they had met at the cheese shop and that he’d made her take out all the cheese in the whole store just so that he could keep talking to her. Later, he’d invited her to a party at his house, only when she arrived, no one was there; it was just him with all the cheese laid out and two bottles of good wine on the table. I thought that was romantic, pretending there was a party so that she would come over when really all he ever wanted was her. Thinking about that, I felt a lurch of jealousy in my stomach, though I couldn’t quite work out who I was jealous of. Benoit’s fingers slid beneath my cotton panties, and he squeezed my ass gently, his thumb pressing against my cunt. It was oddly unsexual, though I felt something like titillation, an impersonal curiosity to see how it might play out, like when you watch a line of ants struggle and drown against a sweep of hose water. I smiled at him through the camera, part of me wishing he would press harder into me, remove my panties altogether, just to get it over with. The other half still wanted to kick him. I was constantly oscillating between desperately wanting his admiration and hating him for making me want it. His thumb slid underneath the cotton, and I felt the edge of his nail glide roughly against my skin. He thumbed the folds of my vagina gently. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he stuck a finger inside me. I might have been a little more shocked if it weren’t for the expression on his face, which was entirely blasé. The shutter didn’t stop. He kept saying yes, perfect, that’s it, yes, like that, feel that, and my body moved unthinkingly in tandem with his directives. Sometimes it seemed to move even before he’d said anything. I stepped back and straddled him. He wanted me to pretend to be giving him a blow job, and I did, thinking about how strangely familiar it all felt and how performative sex always is, like I’m just following some choreographed skit. It was weird because the whole thing felt incredibly fake and stupid, but then I could feel him getting hard beneath the thin cotton of his sweatpants. I felt embarrassed and flustered—not because I was grossed out or anything, only because I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do. Normally, I’d take the thing out—get the deed over with. But I wasn’t sure if he’d think that was unprofessional. He reached down and readjusted his erection so that it was less obtrusive. Then he lowered the band on his sweatpants further—it occurs to me now that’s why he wore them. He put a hand on the back of my head and pushed my face down so that my lips were pressed into his skin just above the waistband, and I went to that empty-inside place, like I do in castings, and only my body and nothing else remained. He flipped my hair so that it hid the lower half of my face, so it would look like I was sucking his dick from the camera’s obscured angle. I had given plenty of head I didn’t want to give in my day, plenty of head I didn’t enjoy and only performed out of a sense of duty and obligation, so I didn’t really think anything of it. I was nineteen years old, after all. A real adult. I would have gone down on everyone on set if it meant I was one step closer to being famous, loved, revered. It never occurred to me that within those breezy transactions, which I’d been trained to think of as nothing, an act no more consequential than slapping someone across the face, I might also be giving away a tiny, intangible part of my soul.