MANIC: Rook and Ronin, #2 Read online

  "OK, daydreamer. You can put your arms down and relax for a few minutes. I gotta mix up some colors and then we'll get started on the zippers and make the whole thing slutty as hell."

  I surprise him with a laugh. "Gee, Spence, I can't wait." When I turn around the first thing I see is Ford. He's sitting in a chair not five feet from me. It's a bit of a shock, but the nosy camera guys take my mind off Ford. They are zooming in on my tits. I roll my eyes. "You boys are so predictable." The camera pans up to my face and I decide to tell the audience a thing or two. "I mean, am I right, girls? All these assholes think about are tits."

  I chance a glance at Ford and he shoots me a thumbs-up. I get a little tingle of satisfaction from that to be honest. I guess talking shit to the audience isn't out of bounds. Which is sorta cool. That means as long as I'm not being a bitch to Ford or the crew, I can take all my frustration and fear out on the viewers.

  Spencer comes back after a few more minutes and begins to paint a zipper on my new outfit. His paintbrush is minuscule, like that thing has two hairs attached to it, that's how thin it is. And Spencer knows just what to do with it. I watch as he loads it up with a silver paint, then he strokes it back and forth between my breasts.

  He stops and dabs on more paint every now and then, but he's pretty efficient because that silver line down my front is looking like a zipper in about thirty minutes. He cleans the brush and adds some more color to his palette, then mixes it in with the silver, making a darker gray.

  He dabs this color on, little pinpricks of dark in between the silver, and I'm so fascinated with his technique, watching him create a lifelike zipper from color, that I jump a little when Ford speaks next to me. "Wow, Spencer, I've seen the pictures, but I had no idea." Spencer is glaring at him because my little jump made him screw up. "Sorry," Ford says, looking at me apologetically.

  Everyone is entranced by Spencer's skill and we all just stand there watching him paint for hours. After he finishes up the main zipper he paints on some zippered pockets. One on each breast, one on each hip, and then some zippers running down the side of my legs, from knee to ankle. He even adds glare to certain strategic places with a bright white color, making the entire outfit look like shiny latex instead of flat paint. When I look in the mirror I realize he's added a sharp collar around my neck, and he used solvent to remove some paint and make the outfit more revealing around my breasts. There are even realistic wrinkles in the zipper as it goes down my front.

  The next time I look up at the clock it's after two and not only am I hungry and exhausted, but I have to pee as well. It took us almost eight hours to do this 'outfit'. I cannot imagine doing more than one in a day.

  "OK," Spence says, swishing his brush in the paint cleaner. "We're ready for makeup. You need a restroom break, Rook?"

  "Yes," I say emphatically.

  "OK, no sitting down, squatting only and aim accurately. It won't come off easily, but be careful just the same, got it?"

  I blush, but nod out a yes.

  "Use the restrooms upstairs, then meet Josie in makeup."

  "OK," I say, making my escape. I'm amazed at how not naked I feel. Team Rook follows me as I walk past all the crews and Ford like it's nothing. Then I bounce upstairs and fail to get even a second glance from anyone who happens to be working, not even Billy. He looks at me, lifts his head in a greeting and gives me a little wave.

  He has no idea I'm naked.

  I secretly grin as I make my way into the dressing room and find the bathrooms. Squatting isn't the easiest thing to do, especially when I'm all anxious about messing up Spencer's art, but it all works out. I almost forget and try to pull up my panties, then have to laugh at that.

  Even I forgot I was naked.

  I meet Josie in makeup and she oohs and ahhs at me so much everyone comes over to take a look. This time the fact that I'm naked is not lost on Billy and he grins. "Finally, I get to see Rook naked!"

  "Shut up, Billy. Besides, if you remember, you groped my goods that first shoot we did."

  "Oh yeah," he says thoughtfully. "Forgot about that. Sorry. I really didn't know you were that new, Rook, or I would've never been so aggressive."

  Every girl in the makeup cubby groans and rolls her eyes, but I think it's cute that he apologized.

  Hair and makeup is quick because I have Josie all to myself. She's now my personal makeup artist, no one else is allowed to use her until this contract is over. That means no leaving me sitting in the chair while she goes to attend to something else.

  She pulls my hair back so tight I almost look bald when she's done. She leaves the ends in a long ponytail and then goes to work on my face. Mostly it's just your basic toner stuff and some bitchin' long eyelashes. I can barely see past them, they're so long.

  She tops me off with a dark plum lipstick then adds some shine to it.

  And I'm ready for Antoine. When Josie spins me around he's standing just outside Elise's salon, smiling. "You look beautiful, Rook, should we send Ronin a picture?"

  I nod, embarrassed at his compliment. He's never said anything about how I look before, which sounds funny since that's pretty much the only thing he's concerned about around here—how we all look through the lens of his camera. It's almost like he's got a sort of professional detachment from us girls.

  I like it.

  But I also like his compliment, because he'd never say that to me unless it was true.

  He takes my hand when I approach and leads me over to the bike under the afternoon light shining through the massive two-story windows. There's a bunch of studio lights as well, and about ten people to help him get what he needs. But I ignore all that. He lets go of my hand when we reach the bike and then asks me softly in a mixture of French and English that I only half understand to do things.

  And the shoot begins.

  Chapter Nine - ROOK

  At first it's just Antoine telling me what to do, but everyone else is there as well. Since Spencer plays many roles in this contract, he's not only the artist, but the director of the catalog photo shoots, and it doesn't take long to figure out he and Antoine have very different visions about what these shots should look like.

  Antoine is not happy about this and I can see his point. People usually hire him for his artistic interpretation. But Spencer is an artist too, so there's a whole lot of polite disagreement going on.

  "Hey," I interrupt Spencer telling Antoine how he wants my body to hug the line of the seat and the tank. "Spencer, I think you should take five. Let Antoine do his job. Because I'm really tired here, and you guys just wasted like forty-five minutes with this bullshit vision stuff."

  Ford snuffs out a laugh in the corner.

  I might have stepped over the line. "I mean," I say, walking up to Spencer and putting on a pouty face, "he's famous, Spencer. His talent is the whole reason you guys chose Chaput Studios, right?"

  Spencer shrugs.

  "Just let him do it his way today, it's just one bike. We've got plenty more for you guys to make adjustments."

  "Yeah, OK, but make sure you get the details of her body, Antoine, don't hide the sexy parts, man. We want guys zooming in on her, ya know? We want them to zoom in for tits and see the details on the gas tank, or the chrome on the tailpipe when they look at her legs."

  Antoine responds angrily in French but Billy is the only one who appears to understands what he's saying, and he throws his hands up and says, "Leave me out of it."

  But whatever Antoine said, Spencer walks out and Antoine refuses to speak English after that. He uses Billy and this time Billy does get involved, because even I know the French word for dollars.

  "OK, Rook," Billy says after Antoine whispers something and then starts messing with his camera crap. "Sit on the seat backwards, then lie back on the tank." I do what he says and this makes my back arch and my tits stick way up. "Now turn your upper body slightly, so we get the"—Antoine says something here—"tank shot."

  Right, I sneer to myself. The tank shot. I
t's got nothing to do with my nipples.

  I just stop thinking and do what I'm told—that is the secret to being a good model. Billy moves me around like a mannequin, Antoine stays in French, and Spencer never comes back. Team Rook keeps far back from Antoine, maybe guessing he's about to morph into super-asshole at any moment over this shoot, and Ford, to his credit, says absolutely nothing. He just sits in a director's chair far off to the side, almost in another set, in fact.

  Antoine finishes up pretty quick and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but either way, Spencer returns, like he was standing outside the studio door just waiting for it to be over, and walks up to me. "Come with me, Rook, I'll wash the paint off you and then we're all going out to dinner."

  I do not want to go out to dinner, but I'm too tired to argue at the moment. He puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me back down to the third floor, but this time we don't go back to the art room, we go through a set of double doors at the end of the hallway.

  It's a shower room and there's already a bucket and a large sponge waiting next to one of the shower stations.

  He turns the water on and waves over to the stream coming down from the shower head. "Rinse off and then I'll scrub you down with this paint remover. Sorry it's so personal, but it was either me or Billy and Antoine said me. So…"

  He looks guilty.

  "Doesn't anyone ever ask me about these things? I mean, maybe I can, you know, shower all by myself?"

  He sighs. "You can't reach the back, Rook." He points to the bucket. "That's the paint thinner we use for this special body paint. It needs to be scrubbed."

  I go stand under the shower and wet myself down and Spencer enters the room with me, staying out of the water blast as best as he can, and begins to scrub the paint off. It runs down my body in long ribbons of inky black streams.

  "All that work, gone. It's sorta sad, huh, Spence?" I look over my shoulder at him and he's smiling.

  "Yeah, this part sucks, but that's why we have Antoine. You were right earlier, I should butt out. I know this is hard work for you, believe me, I understand how hard models actually work. So I'm grateful you were so patient today and you did real well, for it being your first time."

  "It wasn't bad. I think the outfit helped, you were right, I never felt naked." But now that the paint is being stripped away and there's no black buffer between Spencer's wandering eyes and my body, it does make me squirm a bit.

  "And just so you know," Spencer says, interrupting my thoughts, "I'm not taking advantage of you, OK? It's just that we get one chance to capture this artwork, ya know?"

  "Yeah, I know. Wait, who said you were taking advantage of me?"

  "Antoine, that's what he said when he was speaking French back there because I want all your sexy parts in the photos and he was going out of his way to cover those bits up. It's just, I get it, he's making art. But I'm selling bikes to horny guys, so I need those shots, Rook. I'm not trying to take advantage."

  Now that my back has been scrubbed clean, he bends down to scrub my butt and the back of my legs. I turn around and look at him because, yeah, that's a bit personal.

  Spencer ignores me, either he doesn't care that it's personal, or he's trying to pretend it's not. The sponge is rubbing all over my ass when it dips between my legs a little making me gasp.

  Spencer stands up. "OK, you can do the rest." He plops the sponge down in the bucket and walks out of the shower room, leaving me there to manage on my own.

  These people get more and more confusing with every job. How am I supposed to process this? Spencer gets to paint me up then wash me down. All of me, my entire body. He gets to touch my ass and put his brush between my breasts. And Billy gets to manipulate my body into weird contortions so my nipples are standing at attention in every shot, even for the fucking fender—that was some feat, but that Billy is resourceful—and Antoine gets to take pictures of all this, while Ford and the crew stand around and record every facial expression on each of us as we do these things and try to remain professional.

  I'm pretty sure my relationship with Ronin is over. Because no man, I don't care what kind of Catholic saint he is, would ever put up with this arrangement. Elise was right, I'm paying the price for this STURGIS contract, and I'm paying up front, because this is day fucking one and I have to do this shit all summer long.

  I pick up the sponge, soak it with the remover solution, and scrub as fast as I can. All I want is to go back up to Ronin's apartment and take a real shower, but I can't do that until the paint's all gone. And Ford can go fuck himself, because I need that shower. It's not a luxury or a way to hide, my shower just isn't adequate enough to deal with the amount of cleaning my body will require at the end of these shoots.

  Luckily Spencer left me a nice soft towel, so I wrap myself up in that and head back to the studio to make a break for the Beast. No one is around when I slip in, so I tiptoe as best as I can with my wet feet, and head upstairs. As soon as I turn the corner towards Ronin's apartment, I see Ford.

  He wags his finger at me and smiles. "I knew already, Rook. Nice try, but the crew is waiting on the terrace, go shower in your own place."

  I punch in Ronin's code as I ignore him.

  "You can do this, I can't stop you, but I will fine you, Rook. The deal is that you live at your apartment, not here."

  I sigh and run through my options. Ford is a control guy, even if I was wrong about Ronin, I know for a fact I'm not wrong about Ford. He thinks he's Mister Dominant. I turn around and smile at him. "Ford, I swear, I'll shower in my own place on days that have no body paint, OK? It's just my shower isn't really a shower, it's a claw-foot tub with this pathetic sprayer system and I can't…" I stop to pout and open my eyes a little wider as I stare up at his face. "I just can't relax in that thing. And now that I have all this crap on my body, I can't even get clean in it!"

  I'm not sure what I expected, I don't know him that well, but "Nice try, sweet cheeks," definitely wasn't it.

  "Fine, I'll pay you to use the shower, bill me for it."

  "People watch reality shows because they think they'll get to see something personal, the whole shower setup is part of that. It's a big part of that, in fact."

  "How much?"

  "How much what?"

  "How much do you want to let me take showers at Ronin's place? Just give me a number."

  Ford actually covers his mouth with his hand to hide his smile. "You're trying to pay me off?"

  "Just tell me how much the fine is, asshole. This job will probably ruin my life, so I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend one more second worrying about getting a decent fucking shower."

  "OK, would you like to make a deal, Rook? How about you go to breakfast with me tomorrow morning. Five AM. If you do that, I'll look past the shower this time. But only this time."

  "Breakfast? You want to buy me breakfast?"

  He shrugs like he's playing innocent, but he's got a devious gleam in his eye.

  "Whatever." I push the door open and then quickly close it behind me.

  I wash off the paint thinner in the Beast, and I tell you what, I'd have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Ford to keep using this thing. I figured out how to make the steam come out from the ceiling and it makes the whole experience feel like a tropical island. It's only after I'm all done that I realize I have no clothes.

  I don't keep clothes at Ronin's place because that would imply that our relationship was more than just dating, and now I regret that. I search through his closet—which is spectacular—and find a pair of old jeans and a dark green t-shirt. The pants are way too loose, but there's plenty of belts, so I grab one of those too. I have no bra, but I can change just as soon as I get back to my place.

  Dinner is not something I'm really up for but they are all waiting for me down in front of Antoine's office. I try to sneak by, but Team Rook is waiting just off to the side of the stairs, like they were trying to ambush me. I hustle out to the terrace, they follow, but I smi
le in satisfaction when I go inside my apartment and they have to wait outside. I grab some clothes and then pull on some shorts and a tank top and complete my outfit with my old Converse sneakers. I don't care how many pairs of expensive shoes I get, nothing beats a well-worn pair of Converse.

  When I go back out the crew follows me again. I huff out an annoyed breath, but they ignore me like a good crew.

  "Rook!" Antoine barks as I enter the studio again. "Good, we're starving. I sent Ronin a picture, he said he's tried calling you, but you never pick up."

  "Oh, duh. I don't have my phone on me. I'm not used to carrying it around in here."

  "You can call later."

  "How's everything, did he say?"

  Antoine gets a worried look on his face as Ford and Spencer join us and we walk down the stairs. "Clare is OK, Ronin is the only one she's ever listened to, she's always been difficult. I'm just glad he's there."

  "Yeah, I'm glad too," I say, but I catch Ford's smug look out of the corner of my eye.

  We walk over to Cookie's then take our booth in back like normal. Antoine scoots in and then Spencer takes the seat next to him, so I'm stuck near the window with Ford on the other side of me. The waitress, not one that I recognize, brings us drinks and I order the Big Breakfast Special instead of dinner. Antoine and Spencer get the diner version of steaks, and Ford orders an egg-white omelet.

  I sigh as we sit. I'm tired of these guys already and it's the first day, but I do notice one thing. "Hey, where's our camera crews?"

  Ford points up to the ceiling. "We paid Cookie's to let us tap into their security cameras and we have a microphone hidden nearby. So as long as you come in here, no crew will follow."

  "Good to know," I say dryly. "Anywhere without a camera crew is good."

  "OK, I'm just going to go ahead and ask, Rook. Because I don't understand. Why the hell did you take this contract if you didn't want to be on camera?"

  I look over at Spencer and he's wincing, but Antoine's the one who answers. "Spencer left that part out when he explained the terms to her. She didn't know, Ford."