Picture Perfect Read online

  “For fifteen hundred dollars, you can fake it,” I told him. “Don’t blow this for me, Kurt. That’s Lisa McKenzie. I may never get a chance like this again. No, I know I’ll never get a chance like this again.”

  “She’s that famous, huh?” He looked at the back of Lisa’s messy ponytail with grudging respect.

  “She’s a genius,” I said. “Most models would give their left arm to work with her.”

  “Fine.” He sighed. “But she better not ask me to wear anything weird.”

  “Don’t worry; I’m sure she’ll ask you nicely if they want you to take off your clothes,” I said, laughing at the worried look on his face. Before he had a chance to reply, a tech was handing us both some paperwork and pens.

  “Now here are the contracts ‑‑ pretty standard, really,” Lisa said briskly. “Just sign in triplicate and initial at the bottom, and we’ll get you to wardrobe.”

  Kurt wanted to read over the whole damn thing, but I could see that Lisa was in a hurry so I nudged him impatiently. “Hurry up and let’s get going ‑‑ I’ve signed a hundred of these, and they’re all the same.”

  “Fine. Don’t blame me if we’re signing our lives away,” he growled. With a sigh of irritation, he initialed and handed the paperwork to the waiting tech.

  Lisa nodded and smiled. “Come with me.”

  We followed her behind the folding screens where two fluffy terrycloth robes hung from a coat rack. I looked around, wondering where the costumes they wanted us to wear were, but there was nothing but the robes to be seen.

  “All right, Kurt, Melanie,” Lisa said, smiling at us both. “I want you out of your clothes, into the robes, and out on the set in five. We’re going to start with some more general placement shots, but we have a lot to get through today and I’m hoping to get some close-up work done too.”

  Kurt and I looked at each other. “Uh, out of our clothes?” he asked uncertainly. “As in, all of our clothes?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  He shifted uneasily. “Well, but don’t you have something else you want us to put on instead? Some kind of costume?”

  Lisa began to look annoyed. “No ‑‑ just the robes. Put them on and come out as I asked, please.” The last please sounded forced, and it was obvious that she was getting irritated.

  “We’ll be there,” I chirped, giving her my most winning smile. Kurt opened his mouth to protest, and I shook my head at him. The minute she left, though, he had plenty to say.

  “Mel, what the hell is this about? You said it was just an exercise book.”

  “It is ‑‑ I think.”

  “You think?” He frowned. “Well, what if you think wrong? And why do they want us naked except for those robes?”

  “I don’t know,” I said coolly, frowning at him. “I guess we’ll find out when we get out there. Just remember, you promised not to mess this up.” Turning my back on him, I began stripping down as casually as if I got naked in front of him every day. In fact, my stomach was churning with anxiety, but I wasn’t about to let him see that. Behind me, I heard Kurt growl impatiently, but I knew he would take my implied dare. If I was brave enough to go out on the set in only a robe, he had to be too. From the rustling sound behind me, I knew he was getting out of his T-shirt and jeans.

  I was only naked for a minute, but I have to admit I felt relieved when I got the plush robe belted around me. There was a little feeling of excitement stirring inside me, though. It looked like there was going to be some nude work after all. I expected that I would be the model for the women’s exercise part of the book, and Kurt would be the model for the male part. This was exactly the kind of situation I’d been hoping for ‑‑ better, in fact, because not only was I going to pose nude, Kurt was going to have to as well. It would teach him a lesson about letting me pick my own assignments and at the same time give him a little taste of my world.

  Lisa was waiting impatiently when we made our way back out to the set. I began to feel a little nervous when I noticed something that had escaped my attention earlier. The set had a black velvet drop cloth suspended on a large frame as its background, but the foreground contained only one prop ‑‑ a large double bed.

  My hand crept to my throat. What was this? Where was the exercise equipment or failing that, the yoga mats? What kind of exercise book advocated exercising in bed? Obviously, Kurt was thinking the same thing.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” he murmured in a tense voice. “What the hell kind of exercises can you do in bed?” He kept his voice pitched low, but Lisa heard him anyway.

  “Erotic exercise, of course,” she said. “That’s the name of the book ‑‑ The Art of Erotic Exercise: A Modern Kama Sutra.” She frowned at us when we stared at her blankly. “You did know that, right? Why else would you have come?”

  Chapter Three

  “Okay, if you two are ready, let’s get rolling.” Lisa clapped her hands, apparently not noticing the silent tension between Kurt and me. “Now, Kurt, Melanie, if you’d just drop your robes and get on the bed together ‑‑”

  “Wait a minute.” I held up a hand like a kid in class asking a question. Beside me, I could feel Kurt about to blow he was so angry.

  “Yes, Melanie?” Lisa frowned at being interrupted.

  “I just… I wasn’t aware that this was…this kind of book,” I said, stumbling a little over the words. “I mean, what exactly is involved here?”

  Lisa straightened her thick glasses, still frowning. “Well, we’re looking to take pictures of the different sexual positions. The author of the book has actually worked out how many calories you can burn with each one, the different health benefits, how flexible you have to be… There’s a whole chart, but I don’t seem to have it on me at present.” She patted anxiously at the many pockets on her shorts, shirt, and vest as she spoke. Finally, she gave up and shook her head. “Never mind. The point is we’re just doing a few basic positions today, so don’t worry about your flexibility ‑‑ I’m actually flying in a couple who do a contortionist act to pose for some of the harder ones, like the Rainbow of Bliss.”

  “Oh, well, that’s a relief,” Kurt muttered beside me. “Nice that we don’t have to do the hard stuff.” But I was still stuck at the first part of her explanation.

  “Uh, you said sexual positions?” I asked weakly. “As in, have sex in front of the camera?” I felt like about a thousand butterflies had taken off in my stomach. Get naked and do the nasty with my hot stepbrother on film? It was unthinkable ‑‑ unbearable ‑‑ impossible. My pussy was suddenly sensitive and swollen beneath my robe, and my nipples were so hard they hurt.

  Lisa waved a hand at me. “Simulated sex only, my dear. The penetration shots are purely optional.”

  Kurt and I looked at each other. “Penetration shots?” we said at the same time.

  She frowned. “Certainly. Remember I told you I wanted to do the close work in color? Some of these positions are more complicated than you’d think, and the reader has to know exactly what to do in order to achieve them.”

  “I am not doing this.” Kurt glared at me, looking like an angry abominable snowman in the vast white terrycloth robe. “And neither are you.”

  Despite the butterflies now doing loop-the-loops in my stomach, I bristled at his domineering tone. “I beg your pardon? I told you I have a right to choose my own shoots.”

  “Not in this case, I’ll drag you home over my shoulder if I have to,” he threatened.

  “Why, you ‑‑”

  “Ahem.” Lisa cleared her throat loudly, cutting off our argument before it could really get into full swing. “May I remind you both that you signed a contract?” she said in a steely voice. “And I promise, if you don’t follow through, I will see that neither of you works in this town or this industry again.”

  I knew she had the clout to back up her threat, and I further knew that word tends to spread fast when a model is difficult. Get a bad rep and it’s hard to get assignments ‑‑ e