Our day at the movies left me so refreshed, I nearly felt like a different person. Jessie telling me that she was okay and everything was fine did ease my mind a bit. I didn’t think that she would lie to me at this stage so I was trusting that I really didn’t have to worry so much. That didn’t mean I still wasn’t keeping my eye on her though. I trusted her but Brad was a completely different story.
We ended up going out to dinner after the movie which was both amazing and painful. Lydia, of course, made a shit load of jokes at my expense and obviously Jessie found them hilarious. Needless to say, I was ready to choke Lyd by the end of the night.
Anyway, it was now the next morning and I was actually looking forward to work today. I was ready to give this my all and prove that I was strong enough to stay here. My mind was clear and I felt ready for anything that was thrown at me today.
I quickly ran a brush through my hair and threw on the first clothes I could find seeing as my look would just be completely changed when I got to the studio. I grabbed my phone on the way out of my room to see that I already had a text from Jessie which I read on the way out to my car. I was surprised she’d texted me already today. It was pretty early.
‘Hey, lovely. I was wondering if it would be okay if I swung by to visit you at work? I’ve got a pretty long break in between meetings x’
Is it bad that her calling me ‘lovely’ was enough to possibly make my entire day? Probably.
‘You can come see me anytime :) I’ll be working until noon and then I’ll have to get back to it by one. We can have lunch in my dressing room as lame as that sounds?’
I got Jessie’s answering text as I was driving which simply confirmed that she would be there. Truth be told, I loved when Jessie came to see me at work. It made me feel special I guess. That and I may like to show off a little. Just a little.
So I got to the studio as normal and approached the team I would be working with today. My manager was standing there along with a male photographer I’d never met before but hey I was flexible. I turned to one of the assistants first thing.
“Hey, I have a friend coming to watch today so if you guys see her go ahead and let her in, okay?”
“I-um. Are you sure?” she asked, looking a bit dumbfounded by my request. I’d made this request a million times before and I didn’t understand the hesitation now.
“Yes. I’m sure,” I said slowly. She simply nodded and scurried away to go adjust the lighting on set. Can I also just say that it was fucking hot in here today? Like honestly, it felt like someone had turned up the thermostat to fucking surface of the sun level.
I followed my manager back to my dressing room where we were met by my usual styling team. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“Okay, Juliana,” my manager started. “Today you’ll be doing some nude shots, both partial and fully.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I was hoping I’d heard wrong.
“You’re doing a nude shoot,” she repeated again, annoyed at me already.
“Oh. Great,” I said in a monotone voice as I walked into the room. I’d done nude shoots before. Always the tasteful kind, of course. It wasn’t even a big deal to me. I was comfortable with my body and I really didn’t give a shit. The only difference is that Jessie would be here to watch. Wonderful. I guess I would be doing a lot of ‘showing off’ today then. A lot more than I bargained for that’s for sure.
I ended up with my hair in these unruly waves which I thought looked nice. Obviously I was going to be pretty well naked besides the little nude colored patches that barely covered my nipples and one that barely covered my crotch. Right, so obviously this was going to be one of those mysterious shots with a ton of shadow work and shit. I could work with that.
Before I left the room I draped a satin sheet over my shoulders to wrap myself up until I got onto the actual set. My nerves were high even though I’d done this a million fucking times and I didn’t even get to cover up this much most of those times. I just wasn’t so sure if I wanted Jessie to see me mostly naked or not. Too late now.
“Okay, Juliana this shoot is gonna be pretty standard,” The photographer started as I took my place under the lights. “Everything happening here will be tasteful of course. Nothing explicit. We just want to capture that femininity of your body.”
“All right,” I nodded. That didn’t sound bad at all. I happened to glance past the bright lights to see Jessie sitting there speaking to my manager. Fuck me, I didn’t think she’d be here this early. Her attention wasn’t on me at the moment so luckily she didn’t notice that I saw her. Maybe I could just pretend she wasn’t here.
“Okay, sweetheart, we’re ready,” the photographer called. That was my queue to drop my sheet which I did. I tossed it over to the side and got ready for my first instruction. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jessie’s attention was now fully on me and I almost wanted to laugh.
“First I want your back toward the camera. I want all the focus on your back,” I heard. I turned and moved my hair so that it was over my shoulder and out of the way. I looked over my shoulder at the camera as I heard the shutter. My position would change slightly. Sometimes I’d look away and sometimes my hair would cascade down my back. I made sure my back kept a curved appearance to accent the light.
I was basically given every position in the book. Yeah, things started to get a bit…sexy but I thought I pulled everything off amazingly. I even managed to forget Jessie was here watching me for most of the shoot. Most of it. Every time I remembered she was here a slight blush would warm my cheeks so I had to make sure I kept my mind off her. I ended up on the floor with my legs slightly crossed and my upper body held up by my elbow, my hand curled under my cheek. My free arm was sort of thrown over my chest as the photographer snapped pictures from every angle. I just had to keep up with the seductive stare which I’m fairly sure I have perfected if I do say so myself. I will admit. This guy was good and he made me feel comfortable. Always a plus.
“All right, we’re done,” he said. The shoot ended up being around three or so hours long which wasn’t so bad but I was starting to feel really warm after being under these lights. Plus the heat had been turned up because of the whole nude thing. No wonder I felt like I’d entered the gates of Hell when I came in this morning. I grabbed my sheet and pulled it around me just as Jessie came walking over with the biggest smirk on her face.
“Well, you definitely looked hot out there,” she said shamelessly.
“You think so?” I laughed as we started walking down the hall to my dressing room. “They didn’t even tell me I’d be doing a nude shoot until I got here. I usually don’t invite people to those,” I told her, shaking my head.
“Oh, well I feel privileged,” she chuckled.
“Yeah, you should be.”
When we got back to my dressing room I simply told Jessie to make herself comfortable while I put on some clothes. My clothes being a tank top and short shorts seeing as it was the temperature of Satan’s ass crack in here. I threw my hair up into a pony tail as I sat down at the little table with Jess. She’d already set out some food she’d brought for both of us.
“So how’ve you been?” I asked as I ate a mouthful of the pasta Jessie had packed up in a container.
“You know I brought plates for a reason,” she scoffed. “Anyway, you just saw me yesterday,” she smiled as she dug into the same container I was picking at. So much for the plates then?
“I know but we didn’t get a chance to actually talk last night what with Lydia and her crude jokes,” I said.
“I love her jokes,” Jessie laughed which resulted in me rolling my eyes. Of course she did.
“Yeah, yeah,” I waved it off. “Seriously though. Is everything going okay?” She knew full well what I meant.
“Yeah, I think so,” she answered slowly. She thinks so? “Brad and I spoke and, erm, made up that next day. Basically, he spent the next forever begging for forgiveness and promised he would make more of an effort to treat me right.”
“More of an effort, hmm? All right,” I said, trying my best to hold back the skepticism in my tone.
“Yeah. Well, I mean we haven’t argued since then,” she shrugged.
“I see. Well, you know if you need me you just call me,” I said seriously. “I don’t care if it’s during the day or middle of the night.”
“I know, Julie,” Jessie smiled. “Thank you. Seriously, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Your life would be a lot less fun and exciting,” I replied jokingly. That definitely got Jessie laughing again.
“I couldn’t agree more. Speaking of fun and exciting there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she proposed.
“What’s that?” I asked curiously.
“I was just wondering how you and Lydia ended up living together. I know you came here for your job. Did she just tag along with you?” Jessie asked. “I was just curious.”
“More or less she just tagged along,” I nodded. “We’ve been best friends since we were around five. She didn’t have the greatest home life so my parents liked to invite her over to our house to have sleepovers with me. We sort of, I guess, adopted her in a way. She was a foster kid so she didn’t really have any family.”
“That’s so sad,” Jessie frowned. Yeah, it was sad if you think about it. “I never would have thought she’d been brought up like that.”
“Yeah, she doesn’t show it. Never really did,” I said as I started to remember back. “She was always the type to make people laugh all the time. She acted out a lot in school but that’s just how she was,” I chuckled.
“So you guys just stuck together all these years? That’s adorable,” Jessie gushed.
“Yeah, we did,” I smiled. “She got kicked out of her foster home as soon as she turned eighteen. She had nowhere to go and I didn’t even know she was homeless for weeks. She was too proud to ask for help, I think. She ended up living with me and I just took her with me wherever I was. Except when I went to college. She stayed with my parents then.”
“I didn’t know you went to college,” Jessie remarked, surprised.
“Yeah I was in law school,” I laughed. “I was in my second year until I was offered this modeling contract. I decided to take the money and run, being the young, naïve woman I was.”
“You must be a genius to have been in law school.”
“I guess,” I shrugged. I wasn’t going to go into detail about my perfect grades and genius rating IQ. Honestly, that just felt like bragging. Then speaking about it would just make me feel even more stupid about dropping everything and leaving to live in a strange country.
“Well, either way I’m glad you moved here,” Jessie said sincerely.
“Yeah? I think I’m glad I moved here too.”
And for once, I think I was telling the truth.
A/N What do you think is going to happen next? Hmmmm?