Slayer Behavior

Chapter One: Models

Copyright © 2017 Sonia Bartlett

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Chapter One

At some point between the age of ten and fourteen, girls stop wanting to be models. Something in the pink feather boas, blue eye shadow and prancing down paint-chipped hallways lined with unshaded lamps begins to pall. It's not hard to find a reason. Maybe it's when the unrealistic body standards start to sink in. Maybe it's when girls start to notice how the boys look at – and talk about the girls in magazines. Maybe it's when they start to realize that models are synonymous with clotheshorse and not much else. That the industry is all about the glitz, the glam and the superficial beauty.

Alysha Stone was all about the glitz, the glam and the superficiality. As a matter of fact, she was the personification of just about every negative stereotype society has about the industry. At 5'10" and 112lbs soaking wet she was every photo editor's dream. Despite eight years in front of a camera, at twenty-three there was hardly a wrinkle, stretch mark or trace of cellulite for Photoshop to find. And if she occasionally came late to a shoot with scattered bruising and baggy eyes, who were her makeup team to question it? She was Tiffany Gable. Ice Queen extraordinaire.

Rumors got around pretty quickly in the modelling world. She acted the cool Untouchable in public, but it was a well-known fact she liked her lovers rough. She was hesitant to open up about it, but after a few old flames began spreading word around she laughed it off. "Everyone has their thing," she told her photographer, Rob, one night. "Some people liked costumes, others like to be watched. I get enough of both of those during the day. I like something a little...darker...at night." Rob had shaken his head, and asked if she was being safe and setting good boundaries. Alysha had just laughed.

The truth was, Alysha hated modeling. She hated being the center of attention, but sometimes that was the best place to be. She didn't know what she would have done without it. Modeling allowed her to travel frequently, and in style, while being paid an enormous salary to do so. As the face that launched a thousand campaigns, she'd been to every major city and exotic getaway shoot her agent could book for her. There weren't many places her work hadn't brought her.

Travel on such a frequent and extensive scale wasn't an easy feat to accomplish with another career choice, and it afforded Alysha the autonomy she craved. In the last five years, her Tiffany Gable Ice Queen look had become so wildly popular that she'd been able to pick and choose her assignments at a moment's notice – which came in extremely useful when chasing a creature known for his flighty indecisions and the bloody trails he left in his wake.

***

"Tiffany, dammit!"

Alysha jumped.

"Pay attention! You know I need you to stay still!"

Rob was only one of three photographers Alysha would work with for private shoots. One of the reasons was his efficiency. He knew her body like his own, and he was extremely adept at getting that perfect shot because he went into every shoot with her knowing exactly what it would look like in his mind's eye. He was also one of the few people who knew her as anything other than Tiffany Gable. And right now, judging by the irritation brewing like sweat on his top lip, Tiffany Gable was not doing her job.