“So, we all want Leon.” Vive had summed it up.
The answer was yes. Although I couldn’t figure out if Leon was shy or arrogant. From my vantage point, both traits appeared the same.
Why did I even care? Leon was cute, I’ll give him that. But that hunk of muscle hasn’t said more than two words to me on this entire trip.
I’ve been tempted on many nights at dinner to get up, go sit on Leon’s lap, kiss his face, and let him know if he can’t talk to me with words, we can communicate with our bodies.
That’s how strong my sexual attraction to all of them had been, to the point where I was ready to pounce at any minute. These feelings had shocked the crap outta me. Hello, I’m a young lady. Couldn’t I save the pouncing for my cougar days after husband number two or three has died leaving me his vast fortunes? Wink!
Scared I might do something stupid getting all Demi Moore in the movie Disclosure on their asses, I had to put all of this Gustave-Fabian-Leon-sex appeal aside and focus.
Therefore I’d told my agent Minnie Hightower, “Please don’t book me on another photo-shoot with these Parisian photographers again. I don’t care how much money Claire La Femme is paying me to wear couture. I’m done.”
In Miami, Minnie had sneered over the phone when we’d talked. She’d ever so elegantly condescended, “Miss Brill, you can take the bus back to Manhattan, might take you a few days. Or you can jet over to Martinique, dress expensively with a smile and get your picture taken. You decide. I have a hundred other girls waiting to take your spot. I’ll give you two seconds to make up your mind. One…two…”
And here I was, on this plane, ready for another round of the fashion extravaganza, and not the bus back to the Big Apple.
Puh-lease! Minnie didn’t understand the sexual urges looming over me. She had herself a Wall Street husband and Brooklyn lover on the side. From what Lex’s mother Birdie had told me, there was also a special cattle call for her male models held every season. Apparently it took place in Minnie’s bed with her husband, and the lover.
Can you imagine?
Minnie is lucky she didn’t get hurt or poke her eye out. No wonder she pranced around the modeling agency’s office like she had something stuck up her bum. She probably was too sore to walk from the night before.
Speaking of nakedness…in our downtime, at Sobe, the men were nearly in their birthday suits all week long. Hot right? Not! Again, they ignored us. They’d acted like they didn’t speak English. I presume so they wouldn’t have to entertain us when we weren’t working. I hated that.
Three days ago, while Lex, Vive, and I were getting sunscreen at the same place I’d bought my flip-flops, Blake had asked, “Have you girls noticed whenever the sun comes up their shirts come off?” He handed the SPF over to Vive.
“Forget that. What about when the sun goes down?” Vive had sprayed one full coat of the aerosol can all over her legs before adding, “So do their pants.”
Lex had grabbed the can from Vive and said, “Well, it is like a hundred degrees outside, guys.”
“One hundred and two degrees, to be exact,” I’d corrected. Miami during the month of August was such a bad idea. The magazine shot their January winter resort holiday issue now. Who knew they worked so far in advance?
“How else do ‘ya expect them to stay cool?” Lex had admired the view from the hotel gift shop. It was of the Frenchmen in the pool.
They’d worn skimpy, European-cut bathing suits, which made their dicks stand out like diving boards.
“I swear, I’ve never been so sick and tired of staring at three men’s perfectly sculpted bodies and well-hung cocks in my entire life.” Lying through my teeth, I grabbed the lotion and exerted my frustration on the bottle.
Damn. It was empty.
“Why are you in a snit?” Lex had asked, innocently.
“Temptation and I do not work well together. You know I have no self control. Nada. Zilch. I see something I want, I take it.”
“I’m like that about dessert,” Lex had tried to make a joke about her weight. I didn’t like it when she put herself down.
“Taddy, that’s in all aspects of your life, girlie,” Vive had reminded.
“Except when it comes to men. No one can behave that way with the opposite sex.”
“Why not?” Blake had asked.
“I’ll get labeled a slut or a whore. I am neither of the two.”
“That’s sexist and unfair, nevertheless stinkin’ true.” Vive had eyed Blake up and down as if it were his fault, “Men!”
Hopefully they’d come for me. Right? That was my fantasy, being taken by all three of them. If Fabian didn’t have to pick which sex he slept with, why should I have to choose one over the other?
Luckily I’d brought my three besties with me so I wouldn’t feel outnumbered, or lonely—especially since in the eyes of Gustave, Fabian and Leon—I didn’t exist. Only with the lights on, my face made-up, and the camera snapping pics did they notice me.
WTF!
I’m not an object. I’m a girl with needs and desires. Can’t they see that? Don’t they notice how they make my pulses spin and legs shake every time I work with them?
That’s why I’d said to Minnie, “Working alongside these guys is sheer, utter torture. I’ll go to Martinique but this will be my last trip with them. I can’t do it again.”
Let’s get real, I needed the money. This gig paid a small fortune, enough to cover my entire first year of classes at Columbia and living expenses with Vive at the Sherry Netherland. Then I wouldn’t have to resort to dancing on a pole or serving chicken wings while wearing a see-through wife-beater. Not that the two jobs hadn’t crossed my mind.
The chicken joint, while loving my boobs in their uniform, had rejected my resume. No experience! The pole place had told me I wasn’t a good enough dancer to work for them. I’d cried, just a little. Being turned down for a job that you perceived as being the lowest of lows when you went to apply is, in fact, the lowest of all lows one can ever feel. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. Except for maybe this airline!
Alright, onto the “c” word which rhymes with trash. Get that Imodium handy. Here’s the absolute shitter of shits, and I’m not joking here people….
Oh yes, if someone, anyone, maybe even you, would’ve told me that while working as a model, jetting over the Bermuda Triangle to my next location with three of the sexiest French photography crew in the world, along with my BFF, GBF, and VBF, that all seven of us, along with the fifty or so other passengers on board were going to crash…I would’ve knocked your teeth out. But we are. Any second now, Caribba Airways Flight 1728 will nosedive into the Atlantic Ocean.