by Lexi Archer
"Great! I'll see you tomorrow night!" he said, and the line went dead. Almost as though he didn't hear what I'd just asked him. I pulled my phone away and looked at it. I cocked my eyebrow. That was weird. I was sure I'd asked him before he hung up. He kind of talked over me at the end, but still.
I went back over to the crappy mobile version of the model website. I thought I'd seen his agency name before, but as I looked I remembered it was just his first name and then the word "Agent." There was nothing about what agency he actually worked for, or any of the deals he'd made.
I clicked over to his profile and it was more of the same. Talking about all of the great deals he'd done, even a couple of models talking about the great opportunities he provided for them. I clicked over to some of their profiles. They looked legitimate enough, and there were some really gorgeous girls.
Whatever. I figured if he was being secretive then maybe he had a reason. Maybe there was some Hollywood business reason for him to keep quiet. Again, I didn't know anything about how the business was run. That was why people got representation in the first place!
At the very least there was that feedback from models that seemed a positive. I figured that was reason enough to keep interested. To figure there was at least a chance of him being legitimate. Besides, he'd had a profile on the site for a while. If somebody was causing trouble then usually they got chased off of the site pretty damn quick by the admins.
I figured he had to be legitimate, and I hoped that wasn't just wishful thinking talking. The question was whether it was worth it or if he could actually do what he bragged about being able to do on his profile.
Still, I couldn't help but feel a little excited. An actual agent, an agent who seemed to be able to get models deals if some of the feedback on his profile was to be believed, was interested in me. He'd picked me out of the blue. I was so excited! I never imagined something like that could've happened when I first allowed Jeremy to take those pictures!
I thought about calling the guy back and asking who he actually represented, but I hesitated with my thumb over the call button. I didn't want to piss him off, after all. And so I decided that I would just wait and see what there was to see tomorrow. See if I could figure out what was going on then. There would be plenty of time for questions when I was actually there in person.
No, instead I called Nathan. I couldn't wait to tell him about this! We were going to have to celebrate tonight, even if the interview tomorrow probably wouldn't come to anything.
2: Out of the Bag
"Are you ready for your celebration dinner baby?" I asked.
"I'm ready!"
I moved into the living room with the pizza in hand. I set it down in front of her. Half cheese and half pepperoni so we could both have something we enjoyed. She smiled and clapped, but to my surprise she didn't reach out to grab a slice.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "You love cheese pizza!"
She sighed and smiled. "I think you need to have a seat for this. I might not be able to enjoy pizza if this pans out."
I dutifully took a seat next to her on the couch, wondering what the hell was going on here. Wondering what could possibly have her thinking she couldn't enjoy pizza anymore. To say that my curiosity was piqued at this point would be an understatement.
"So what's up babe?"
She grinned, and her grin was infectious. "I got an offer from an agency!"
I cocked an eyebrow. "An agency? What are you talking about?"
"Well it's a modeling agency, or an acting agency, either way they saw my pictures online and they gave me a call. Said they represent some big movie companies and they want to talk to me tomorrow night!" she said.
I sat back. I was definitely interested now. What the hell was she talking about? Best to start at the beginning.
"Modeling? Acting? You've never acted like you were interested in modeling before…"
She looked down and I saw a blush creeping on her face. Interesting.
"Well I've always sort of been interested in trying it. People are always going on about how attractive I am even though I don't believe it," she said.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. We'd been over this plenty of times before, but I wasn't in the mood to go over it again. Vanessa had an unassuming beauty. The sort of beauty where she could stun everyone just by walking into the room but be completely oblivious to what she was doing at the same time. In short, she had no idea how hot she was even though guys were always hitting on her and girls were always acting catty around her, the first to my constant consternation and maybe just a little bit of arousal at seeing them chasing her and knowing she was all mine, and the second to my great amusement.
"And so Jeremy got a new camera and he wanted to test it out by taking some pictures so I agreed to it…"
Immediately I felt a chill that went straight to my heart. Jeremy. That snake in the grass. A "best friend" who'd been anything but over the past couple of years but I'd known him forever so it was hard to dislodge him from my life and my social group. Especially when he was cool when he wasn't trying to get in between me and Vanessa, but that was one hell of a monkey wrench in the works!
Usually he was a lot more subtle about hitting on my girl, but it was still annoying when he tried it. Annoying to the point that I was starting to seriously reconsider whether I even wanted him to be the best man at my wedding. That choice had more or less been made for me by Vanessa who was doing most of the wedding planning and didn't realize I wasn't as cozy with Jeremy as I'd been growing up.
Yeah, things were complicated when it came to Jeremy, but there was one thing I was sure of. I didn't like it when he went sniffing around Vanessa. That was one of the big reasons why our once close friendship, like brothers almost, was so strained these days.
"What does Jeremy have to do with this?" I asked. I tried to sound as calm as possible, but it was hard. She knew how I felt about how he acted around her, and she had to know that I wasn't going to react well to hearing that she let him do a whole photo shoot!
Vanessa sighed. "Are we really going to go over this again? He's your best friend!"
"I'm not so sure about that!" I growled.
Maybe that came out a little more angry than I'd originally intended. It's not like I could help it, though. The guy drove me crazy when he started hitting on Vanessa, even if he was still more or less cool otherwise. Hell, he'd been my best friend since grade school, it was only when we got to college and he had that stupid thing about calling dibs that we started to have trouble. Trouble that had now lasted for years and made me glad I was about to be out of college and hopefully away from him for good.
"So what happened at this photo session then?"
Vanessa rolled her eyes. I could tell she was irritated. She usually got irritated when the subject of Jeremy came up, but I wasn't going to let it go. She should know by how much I got irritated, how annoyed I got, when she encouraged him like that. That it wasn't a good idea to go off and do something like let him take pictures of her and probably perv on her the entire time. He was just so obvious about hitting on her, and she always acted like it was harmless.
It drove me nuts!
The real rub of it was she didn't even really like the guy. No, I knew from talking to her that he creeped her out sometimes, and yet she still insisted on being nice. Still acted like she should be cool with him just because I'd known him for so long. Talk about annoying.
It was convoluted and fucked up and led to fucked up situations. Like him being my best man. That was another situation where Vanessa had just brought it up, and I felt like I was trapped into it even if it did sort of make sense. Even if we had been friends long enough that it wasn't out of the ordinary on the surface. It's just when you dug deeper into how fucked up our relationship had become in recent years that the idea got really weird.
Vanessa was talking. I should probably listen to her. Figure out how she was trying to justify her side of the argument, which was really no side a
t all as far as I was concerned.
"He just took some pictures of me out in a field," she said. "Nothing risqué."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Oh really? What do you consider to be "not that risqué?" Hm?"
Vanessa looked down again. I could tell from the way she was blushing that there was probably something in there that I wouldn't approve of. I sighed. Damn it. Why did we keep going over this? Why did it seem like both of us were repeatedly slamming against a brick wall when it came to my sort-of best friend?
It's not like I was being unreasonably jealous at this point. He'd made it clear to me on numerous occasions that he felt like he should be with her. Even if he had been joking, I knew there was some seriousness there. He never shut up about how he called dibs on her at the party where we first saw her freshman year, never mind that she'd been interested in me and not him. Never mind that he never had a prayer of a chance with her.
No, all that mattered to him was that he saw her first, and in his estimation I'd swooped in and poached "his" girl. Never mind that we'd been together for four years now and were engaged to be married. Never mind that he agreed to be in our wedding.
Damn it. This was just getting me annoyed again. I was just getting pissed off again. I took a deep breath. What I hoped was a deep, calming breath, though it didn't help a whole lot.
"He just took some pictures of me in a sundress," she said. "And then I did some bathing suit shots for my profile."
My eyes went wide. "You did what?"
"Don't act like such an ogre!" she said. "Lots of models have bikini shots on their profiles!"
"But you aren't a model!" I said. "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here! You've never acted interested in doing modeling before in your life. Why are you suddenly acting so interested in it now?"
She sniffed. She got the pissed off look on her face like she was annoyed. I was annoyed too though. Really annoyed. I couldn't believe she let him sucker her into that.
I sighed. Here we were coming into the potentially negative part of her being so damn naïve. "It wasn't obvious to you because this was Jeremy asking you to do this? That didn't raise a red flag for you?"
She was getting more defensive. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd react like this."
"Are you sure? Are you sure that maybe you didn't tell me because you were worried about how I might react, or because you knew I was right?"
She looked down and she blushed again. That blush could only mean one thing. There was still more that she wasn't telling me. More that I didn't know. I leaned forward, intending to get to the bottom of exactly what happened at this photo shoot. To exactly how far things had gone.
And suddenly I felt a strange reaction. Something that hadn't happened before. I felt my cock getting hard. I felt it starting to stir in my pants and started to throb. It was one hell of a hard on.
I found myself thinking about what had happened. At least what probably happened. I found myself thinking about her standing in a bikini completely exposed to him outdoors somewhere while he snapped away with a camera. While he thought about his dumb luck being able to sucker her into going out into the wilderness like that. I thought about how hot she must've looked. I thought about him worshiping her.
Okay, so maybe it was kind of hot when other guys thought my girl was hot, but I'd never gotten a hard on while I was thinking about it. Not exactly.
Sure there were times when we were making out, when we were getting hot and heavy, when she was on top of me grinding against me and I was so close to the fucking edge because grinding against her like that was as close as I was going to get to her pussy before our wedding night much to my endless frustration, when I imagined that I was another guy getting to grind against her like that. It was just a passing fantasy though, wasn't it? Just the sort of crazy thing that popped into my head when I was in the zone. When I was really turned on.
It had never really popped into my head when I wasn't in the throes of passion and about to pop, and yet here those thoughts were. Unwelcome, but fucking hot.
Okay, so this was new. This was different. I shook my head to clear it. What the hell was going on in there? I shouldn't be getting hard thinking about another guy with Vanessa, but it was like it just popped in there unbidden. It was like there was nothing I could do about it.
Damn it.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
Yeah, something was wrong. My mind was suddenly flooded with visions of her getting her pictures taken with Jeremy and it was turning me on. Not that I was going to tell her about that. She could already be a little weird when it came to sex, see the whole waiting for marriage thing, and I didn't want to rock the boat any more than I had to.
"Tell me more about this photo shoot," I said.
Vanessa looked at me. She searched my eyes. Her own eyes going back and forth in that thing she did where she was trying to look into both of mine at the same time but not able to do it because that's really not how our anatomy worked. She always did that when she was trying to figure out if I was telling the truth, like staring into my eyes was some sort of foolproof lie detector test that only she could administer. Not that I was going to admit the times she failed to catch me in a lie and ruin the whole thing. She sighed.
Meanwhile inside I was jumping for joy. I wasn't about to tell her that the reason I wanted to hear about what she'd done with Jeremy was because I was getting turned on, but at the same time I couldn't wait to hear whatever it was she had to say.
"It was pretty innocent," she said. "He was just taking pictures of me down at the Botanical Garden on campus. It was pretty deserted, so that's probably why I agreed to the bathing suit thing in the first place…"
"What sort of pictures did he take of you in your bikini?"
She looked at me again, hesitated as though she wasn't sure she wanted to proceed, but then she sighed. "You can just look at them. Do you have your laptop?"
I jumped for joy. She was actually going to show me some of the pictures! Sure I was still pissed off that she'd even let Jeremy take them in the first place, but at the same time I wasn't going to turn down the idea of getting a look at them.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I scrambled to grab my laptop. I pulled it up and handed it over to Vanessa who dutifully pulled up her modeling profile on some site I didn't even recognize. Judging from some of the pictures I saw flashing by it seemed like a place for wannabes to get their amateur modeling on, but I wasn't sure how professional someone could really be if they were trolling this place looking for models. I would never say that to Vanessa, but that she was up on this site after taking one photo shoot seemed to be testament enough to how serious the place was.
I forgot all about that when she actually started pulling up some of her modeling photos though. I had to admit they looked pretty damn good. Jeremy was a photography nerd, after all, had been ever since high school when he insisted on using film instead of digital cameras like God intended.
He'd since switched back to digital, and he still took pretty damn good pictures. Especially the ones he took of my fiancée. Damn was she gorgeous!
"These are pretty good babe," I said.
As I was flipping through the pictures my cock was still rock hard. I was throbbing. It was uncomfortable. It was as though all the blood from my body was going straight down to my dick as I stared at those pictures. And it wasn't just because I was looking at sexy poses from my fiancée.
No, a large part of it had to do with knowing who was behind the camera while those pictures were being taken. Knowing that he must've been looking at her with his cock just as rock hard as mine was right now. Knowing that he had to be staring at my fiancée and thinking about all of the things he'd like to do to her. That he was probably zooming in and taking shots that never made it onto her profile for him to enjoy later.
And for some reason that was turning me on? Talk about fucked up.
"You really like them?" she asked.
I kept flippin
g through the pictures. I didn't say anything. No, I was in a weird headspace where I was projecting myself into Jeremy's mind. Where I was imagining him snapping pictures of my future wife. I imagined what he must've done as he looked at some of these bathing suit pictures later. As he went through and processed them, or whatever the hell it was people did with pictures before they were ready to go. I knew development wasn't a thing anymore, at least, but I'm sure he did something or other with Photoshop.
"Damn baby," I said. These really were pretty good. A testament to how goddamn hot she was, and to how good Jeremy was with the camera. "These really are good."
I guess with pictures like this I could understand why some agency might contact her out of the blue. Still, it seemed a little odd. Especially that somebody scouting for movie companies would be looking through a model website. You'd think that if somebody was going to be in the movies they might need something more than just good looks, though I guess based on some of the stuff that had come out recently it was entirely possible that wasn't the case anymore.
I looked up at her. "So spill."
She blinked. She did her best to look innocent. "What are you talking about?"
"You were blushing earlier when I asked you what else you did with him. So what happened? Why were you blushing?"
And sure enough she gave it up again. She blushed and looked away from me. And she refused to turn back to me. Yeah, I was a definitely curious. She thought she could tell when I was telling a lie by looking in my eyes, but I knew exactly when she was telling a lie because she blushed and gave it away. Not that I was about to tell her how I knew when she wasn't being entirely truthful with me.
"Vanessa?"
"Do you promise not to be mad?"
I thought about that for a moment. I guess the only way to get it out of her would be to promise not to be mad, though I couldn't necessarily guarantee that I wasn't going to be upset. It all depended on exactly what she'd done.
"I promise," I said. I hoped that wasn't a lie.
"He said he really wanted a picture of me… You know…"
