Model Release (The Art of Domination #1) (5 page)

The upright Miss Moreau
opened her mouth, but I wouldn’t give her the chance to deny my charges.
Instead, I continued, “But the really uncomfortable part, the really hard part,
is having to pretend you’re so far above this hedonistic artist’s lifestyle, so
offended by it, when you are obvious so intimately familiar with it.”

Now Iva’s mouth hung
open with a gape. I struck while she was still formulating a response—maybe one
of feigned ignorance and innocence or a distracting display of outrage at the
suggestion. With my head bent over hers, my lips almost brushing the bridge of
her nose, I asked, “Or is that reaction just your fascination with photos of
women being dominated sexually? Because I’d happily help you explore the
attraction.”

The next moment
stretched out for several hard heartbeats, while I lingered so close I could
have sworn I felt the flutter of her eyelashes, and while I let myself fully
experience the groin-deep hunger to kiss this woman. Then Stan snickered, and
the moment popped like a soap bubble in a bath suddenly turned lukewarm. Iva
turned to glare at him while I aimed my grimace over the top of her head.

Stan made a show of
sniffling. “Oh, sorry. Allergies. Don’t mind me.” He shook his head and put a finger
up to his lips.

When Iva turned back to
face me, her expression was stricken. “Just tell me what you want for Cheri’s
release.”

I took a step back. It
was only fair to give her the space to think, considering the way I’d just
rattled her. Considering what I was about to say.

“I want you to model
for me.”

Both Iva and Stan
blurted out, “What?”

“Model for me, and I’ll
hand over Cheri’s release. You can tear it up in front of me, if you like.”

Stan stepped forward,
hands held up to stop me. “Whoa there. No, no. That can’t happen. Nolan, we
need Cheri’s shots for the Odyssey exhibition. Those are some of your main
showpieces. Without them, that makes for a pretty anemic offering in a one-man
exhibit.”

For her part, Iva
argued, talking over Stan, “You think I’m going to be part of your show? I
wouldn’t sign a model release if you held a gun to my head.”

I felt the briefest
twinge of guilt knowing I was fairly close to figuratively holding a gun to
Cheri’s head, as far as Iva was concerned. But I also knew what I knew. That
right now, Iva Moreau’s pulse was racing with excitement, fluttering madly at
the base of her throat. That she was exhilarated by the energy of the studio.
That she was no stranger to that energy. That a very basic, true part of her
craved it. I wondered, not so absently, if that yearning also involved a taste
for a strong hand pulling her hair and forcing her legs apart. The possibility
tightened my jaw, my stomach, my groin. If these jeans had been fitted at all,
the ridge of my growing
curiosity
would have been obvious to everyone.

“You don’t have to sign
a release.”

Again, in unison, Iva
and Stan chirped, “What?”

Without looking at my
assistant, I held my hand up to silence Stan’s questions in favor of Iva’s.

“So you will give me
Cheri’s release form,” she asked, “and all I have to do is model for you? You
won’t be able to use the photos of
either
of us, because you won’t have model releases for us? Right?”

“Exactly, but we’re
talking a full photo session, not a few test shots. Makeup, costuming, a real
effort at posing. My offer will be as sincere as your performance.”

Iva hesitated, then
shook her head no and folded her arms. “I’m not posing nude or even topless. I
work at a university. If anyone saw me—”

“Nothing more revealing
than a swimsuit would be,” I promised. “Besides, you’re not going to sign a
model release, right? So I can’t use them. No one else will ever see them.”

“What, you want
private….?”

I’d have bet she meant
to say “wanking material”, before she restrained herself, and I let a little
smile flash briefly along my lips, one brow perking before dipping down
seriously again. If that’s what she wanted to think, needed to think to help
her preserve her dislike of me, I could let her have that for a bit longer.
Plus, that might have made it all the easier to take her off guard later.

Shrugging, I said,
“That’s the deal. You model for me, one session, no model release required. At
the end, I hand over Cheri’s release to you. But heaven help you when she finds
out.”

“Nolan,” Stan groaned.
“Why do you have to make life hard?”

“When?” Iva whispered,
her hands twisting the newspaper tight.

“Tonight.”

Stan threw up his hands
and spun away from Iva and me. “Unbelievable.”

“I’m not signing a
model release,” Iva stated again, each word issued clearly and forcefully.

I nodded. “You said
that already. I’ll call you when I’m ready for you.”

It seemed to take a
second for the whole conversation, the weight of it, to sink in for Iva. Then
it took a couple seconds more for her to realize the bargain was set, done, end
of discussion, business concluded. She could leave, shuffling back two steps
before pivoting toward the door in her polished Oxford heels, while I watched.
Stan opened the door, letting the thumping beat of the music in and Iva out.
All the while, he was giving me that Oliver Hardy “look what you’ve done now”
stare.

Iva wasn’t quite gone
yet when I called out to her, “But you will sign the release.”

IVA

I must have spent ten
minutes standing at the end of the concrete walk that neatly divided the
perfectly trimmed square hedges in front of my townhouse. Today it seemed a
prosaically tidy little box. My boring, sensible shoulder bag dangled from the
curled fingertips of one hand, the other knotted in a weak fist. My clothes, my
hair, my attitude all just hung on me, feeling lank and dirty and damp. I had
no energy left, not even any anger.

The day had been
nothing but a downhill slide from the moment The VV had landed on my desk.
Worrying all day about Cheri, pretending not to notice
Mitsy’s
non-stop glaring, suffering pushy or whiny students on the phone and cursing
through paper cuts while sneezing convulsively after Old Owl Eyes sent me to
the musty dusty basement for files she didn’t really need.

Next door, past another
hedge border, the screen smacking on the frame made me look up. Pop stood at
the top of the concrete steps, motioning me over with the curl of his tanned
fingers. Only my grandfather tanned in winter, with his combination of Gallic
and Mediterranean blood. His complexion set a deep contrast to the gray sweats
he wore on his barrel-chested, eighty-three-year-old frame.

“The coffee is on, Iva.
You’ve been standing there long enough. Come talk to Pop,” he said in a voice
that was softening with age but still bore the appealing warmth of a French
accent even after more than fifty years living in the United States. Then he
disappeared inside without waiting to see if I’d accept the offer. None of his
granddaughters ever turned down coffee with Ancel “Pop” Moreau, no matter how
busy or tired we might have been.

Inside, his townhouse
was uncluttered and clean-smelling, oddly lemony for this time of year. That
was a sure sign my older sister, Darcie, had been around without me seeing her
in the last day or two. She scrubbed and vacuumed and dusted Pop’s place so
often that I’d have thought cleaning was her hobby, which was a depressing
thought for a number of reasons I didn’t want to entertain just then. Darcie
should
have had something better to do
at least half that time.

Past the living room,
on the polished dining table, two coffee cups sat next to Pop’s afternoon
bagel—which was Cheri’s usual contribution to our granddad’s daily comfort.
Meaning she was well within cell phone service. If she was ducking my calls,
she must have known or at least expected I’d seen the infamous page seventeen
ad.

Pop, his cropped gray
hair only a shade darker than his sweat suit, sat in his usual place at the
dark wood dining table, where he could play cards and watch the living room
television and keep an eye out the picture window. The retired engineer
motioned to the chair across from him. “Have your coffee,
ma petite
, and tell me why you’re standing out on the sidewalk like
an orphan.”

I should have known
better than to think Pop would miss that kind of behavior, I said to myself as
I took my seat and slumped over the waiting coffee cup. Admittedly, no matter
how bad I felt, Pop’s coffee always smelled like…. Like I thought his native
French countryside would smell, rich and earthy and vibrant. Like the feeling
of being warm on a winter morning.

My grandfather pushed
up his sleeves as he stirred milk into his own coffee. He had much stronger,
beefier arms than someone would expect of a man in his eighties. Robust. Yes,
that was Pop—and his coffee. My gaze sought out the familiar shapes of his
tattoos, one on each forearm, fading military symbols from his time in the
French navy. These days, with his skin so dark and the ink so old, he had to
tell people what the lines were. Those tattoos and his rough, dark hands with
their thick fingers were what I always thought of first when trying to describe
Pop.

He saw me staring at
them, as I so often did. “You going to come back over this weekend and draw
with me again, Iva?” He didn’t actually draw
with
me, but he modeled for me. I must have drawn his hands more
than a dozen times. They said a lot about a man, a lot about this man.

Sighing, I shook my
head, curls drooping from my hairband to drape over one eye. “No, Pop. I’d like
to, but I’m still working on my portfolio for Gamble &
Drey
.”

Pop tilted his head to
and fro and frowned in the way that was a smile for a Frenchman, or maybe just
this Frenchman. It said,
yeah, makes
sense
. “It’s a lot of work putting together something entirely new, so
different from what you usually do.”

“Yeah,” I whispered
half-heartedly, picturing all the books on graphic design strewn around the
computer desk in my bedroom. In school, my focus had been drawing and painting,
not graphics or digital art. But that was where the jobs were, especially in
marketing, with ad companies like G&D. “An advertising firm that size sees
so many graphic art portfolios. Mine really has to stand out if I’m going to
have the slightest chance.” My chest fell a little thinking about the long odds
on that one. Companies larger than G&D—as well as smaller and less
prestigious—had already turned their noses up at my resume and samples. “Maybe
I should look at some less… established firms. If I did some freelance work on
the side, I could get by on the salary until a promotion came along.”

“You could,” Pop
agreed, as he looked down at my untouched coffee cup, then poured milk into it.
He knew I took it black, but if I let it sit too long he always “doctored” it
for me to make it taste better (in his approximation) so I’d drink it. “But
stay on those guys at the big one. They’ll recognize talent when they see it.”

When I didn’t nod or
cheer up, he asked, “How is it looking at the university? That faculty advisor
who comes around to see you…. Is he thinking there will be any junior teaching
positions coming up in the Art Department?”

This question had me
shifting in my chair. “Nothing right now,” I admitted cautiously, evading Pop’s
gaze.

Todd wasn’t just coming
around to see me to talk about the possibility of me becoming real faculty,
teaching art at an undergrad level or manning art labs at least instead of
working admin to pay my student loans. Eight years my senior and a student
advisor—
my
old student advisor—he had
developed a much less professional interest in me lately.

Last time he’d visited,
it had been like playing a cross between twister and keep away. A person
wouldn’t think it to look at him, with his boy-next-door brown hair always in
need of a trim and slightly mussed and his tweed patches on the elbows of his
comfortably threadbare corduroy blazer and with his genteel wine-drinking
liberal (junior) professor mystique, but he was relentless when he was
attracted to a woman. He hadn’t been above pursuing students, from what I’d
heard, before he’d gone from adjunct assistant to a junior professor and
supposedly sloughed off his Peter Pan syndrome. I guessed I was as close as he
came these days to chasing coeds: one of his former students, a secretary in
his department, in need of a mentor (so he seemed to think) to help me navigate
office politics. Peter Pan to Svengali.

The fact that part of
me, a very small and disheartened part of me, had actually considered sleeping
with Todd to improve my chances at getting a recommendation the next time a faculty
position came open…. Well, that was the reason I couldn’t stand to talk about
the subject with Pop. The thought of my grandfather knowing I’d stoop like that
made me gag a little on the bile in the back of my throat. That wasn’t the sort
of person I was trying to be, for my family as well as myself.

New start. New me. No
partying. No clubs. No flopping into bed at five or six in the morning and
waking up to start again well past noon. No long painting jags while I ignored
the responsibilities of life and subsisted on wine straight from the bottle and
wild flings with pretty, creative, trust fund boys pretending to be the modern
interpretation of Byron or Hemingway, the new Dylan or another bad boy
Caravaggio in jeans instead of tights.