Make or break. This was the kind of off season,
off setting shot that had built her career all those year ago. They
were doing a late autumn set, and she was supposed to spend a chilly
day by the beach with one or more out of numerous boyfriends or love
interests. It all tied in perfectly with the last years' fad with a
gaijin prize, in this case with her being the exotic foreigner
claimed by a Japanese man.
She didn't care. Successful fashion was
reading fads expertly in the first place, and she had built her
empire that way. She did care about this August being even
hotter than anything she could remember from Japan.
Christina threw on a horrible flimsiness
pretending to be an overcoat and made certain to wear it just a
little bit wrong to bring out her legs underneath it. Then she willed
herself to early November and walked along the waterline. The guy
holding her hand, a tall and drop dead gorgeous man in his early
twenties, lacked her experience and they had to retake the shots. It
was about that time she found out that he was drop dead gorgeous only
until he opened his mouth and spoke.
Shit, he's a moron on top of being an amateur!
She frantically wished Ulf had been there. He'd have been a
guaranteed first timer and would have done exactly what she told him.
Not this idiot who believed he was a professional model just because
someone equally incompetent paid him to be one.
It took them five tries to get the initial shots
right, and by that time the camera crew smiled apologetically at her.
One of the executives, probably the brain-dead agent of her partner,
was breaking down and making an absolute arse of herself when she
started screaming demands to the producer.
Christina's agent made a point of sitting at a
distance, drinking tea and let her unexpected superstar rookie do the
job.
Further down the beach an assembly of middle aged
men in swimming trunks gathered, and Christina felt her face
splitting into a wide grin. Let's see what the kid will do with
this.
She saw Ryu waving at her from a distance and
waved back. Some of the management droids were bound to know the
advertising firm that had raked in a contract with Uniclo. Top tier
material wouldn't have cared, but most of these were second rate
executives with unrealistic dreams of one day becoming corporate
management. Worst case they didn't even dream any longer.
Then there was that hungry looking mid thirties
guy. He was dangerous, and she had misgivings about how Ryu would
handle him. Still, he wasn't alone. He had his sister and Yukio and
Kyoko to share his burden with. They
are trying to their
job, and I have to do
mine. For a moment
loneliness crept upon her, but she waved away that thought as a sign
of weakness she couldn't afford now.
She quickly changed for the second set and came
out of the bus in a body hugging cardigan that was ludicrously hot in
the morning sun. Closer to noon they'd pay respect to the weather and
do some more normal bikini shots for a late summer campaign, even
though she harboured a suspicion that it was mostly a ploy to make
her take off her clothes. A test of her audacity rather than any want
for nudity. They needed to see if she would balk at the thought or
not.
Ryu led the business drones helped by Kyoko and
Yukio. Christina saw Noriko walk from one group of middle aged men to
the next. She's clarifying the concepts, just like in class.
Strange, what is he up to now? She saw Ryu leading the groups up
the walkway and into the small town on the other side of the road.
They had time to finish the second set without any
major mishaps and Christina slipped into a decently designed party
outfit. She could have made use of it herself but for the all too
reddish tinge where hints of earthen colours should have been. When
she came out of the bus again she saw Kyoko hanging over the railings
to a bluff overlooking the beach. They waved to each other and after
that Christina walked to the beach for the third set of shots this
morning.
She slapped away the first two hands sliding up
her trousers and the owner of the third received a hard glare from
her together with the slap. “Enough of that. I have a boyfriend.”
That means go burn in hell, but that's beyond your tiny brain.
“Let's get the shots finished, shall we? Christina conjured up what
she hoped was a shy but determined smile. Playing the diva this early
in her career would have her popularity stocks plunge.
Back on the beach she noticed that Ryu had taken
everyone down the hill road to the stony part close to the waterline
and led them over a stretch of rock walking. She knew it emptied on a
narrow stretch of sand a bit south, and from there group after group
of men in swimming trunks came onto the main beach. They talked
excitedly, each group converging on the tablet Yukio or Kyoko must
have equipped them with.
You cunning bastard, Christina smiled. She
hooked arms with the model who had been last in turn to try to grope
her, pretended she had been dating him for a few weeks and ran
laughing over the sand with him trying to catch her. It made for a
few good shots.
Behind her she heard the voices from the groups of
businessmen as their discipline evaporated. It was soon followed by
Noriko's admonitions. Ryu, you really planned to have them walking
in on us. I bet you're going to give them a water break now as well. Whatever he was, he wasn't nearly as stupid as his little sister
believed.
It was well played. More so than she hoped
he had truly envisioned, because at his age that kind of human
knowledge would make him callous rather than just bright.
Christina decided to make the most of it. She
moved so the camera crew would have the crowd throwing envious stares
at the male models in the background. One of the camera guys grinned
at her. So there's at least one full bloodied pro here. She
gave him a discreet thumbs up to let him know she had noticed and
pranced for the cameras again. I want the pros speaking well of
me. They were the best to work with as well, and they carried a
lot more clout than people in the business gave them credit for. A
crew could make or break a shot, so when a good one wanted a specific
model they tended to get what they asked for.
Giving the camera crews and her fellow models the
best she had she played along, sliding from pose to pose without
making it look like she did so. She could feel ten years' of
experience mix with the nervous freshness from restarting her career.
And all the time her thoughts went not to Ulf, but to Yukio and
Kyoko who had the thankless task of being errand boys.
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