Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 80699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“But—” I started.
Mary interrupted again.
“I don’t care what you’re wearing, sweetie. Do you remember what kind of pictures we’re taking this morning?”
I felt the heat flash into my cheeks. The woman’s brusque tone of voice and the frank way she looked at me through the screen, as if she could see me as well as I could see her, made my heart quail.
“I… I guess I’ll just cancel… I mean…”
“Leah,” the photographer said, “you don’t want to do that. You’ll be out on your butt in a few days if you don’t fulfill the qualifications for this place. Go ahead and let me in.”
I swallowed hard. Then I reached for the door handle and opened it.
Mary looked me up and down with such assessing eyes that I wanted to put my hands up to cover myself: my t-shirt’s fabric, I knew, was thin enough that she could see my nipples, which had to my dismay gotten inexplicably stiff. It simply didn’t help that I had agreed to this ‘intimate’ photoshoot: something about the photographer’s gaze and what it said about Selecta Arrangements’ platinum level made me feel I had gotten myself in over my head.
“We’ll start in the living room,” Mary told me. “Go ahead in there and take your clothes off.”
CHAPTER 4
Christian
Leah R, the platinum email had told me, would have her nude photoshoot at ten.
Here’s a New Modesty dropout you won’t want to miss! the anonymous, relentlessly cheerful author of Selecta’s marketing communications announced.
The novelty of getting to tune in live to girls’ sessions with the Selecta photographer had worn off on me within the first week of bumping my SA subscription up to platinum level. I couldn’t deny that the girls they chose (or, as the anonymous author usually put it, ‘curated’) for platinum represented some of the hottest young women I’d ever had a chance to date, or that getting to see them that way could very quickly make me very horny—rock hard and ready to spend a good deal of money on a glamorous date with a lovely lady.
The fact that putting me into that state constituted, quite clearly, the intention of the platinum-level curators, though, helped the charm wear off after a few days and a few dates. As a guy whose own job involved trying to get people excited enough about a product—movie projects, in my case—I could see through Selecta’s marketing strategies very easily. I admired them, but I’ve never enjoyed feeling manipulated, despite my skill at manipulating others.
Not that I blamed them, any more than I felt bad about my work: like me, Selecta had a product very much worth selling.
I’d never felt that more strongly than I did with Leah R. Something about her smile in her profile picture, a photo obviously taken from her old New Modesty profile—how her green eyes somehow conveyed both innocence and confidence—drew me in immediately. I hadn’t had time over the past week even to open the marketing emails, but my morning meeting had just canceled and I had frankly gotten progressively hornier throughout the last few days.
Out of sheer lack of time I had just ended my arrangement with Dawn, a lovely girl from Oregon, the previous week. She, the first girl I had sponsored at platinum level, had taken it well—Dawn had been new to the kind of submission I asked for, but she had quickly admitted she liked the way I took the lead.
For my part I had felt very comfortable dominating her and training her a little, but we had been honest with one another from the beginning: neither of us felt really romantically toward the other. That happened to represent the way both of us liked it: expensive dates, satisfying ‘intimacy’ in the style that turned both of us on, minimal feelings beyond a basic enjoyment of each other’s company.
But last month there simply hadn’t existed enough time in my day to enjoy Dawn’s company, and I had let her know she could explore other connections though I would still pay her allowance that month. I had worked, and made an exorbitant amount of money from the work, and I hadn’t opened the Selecta Arrangements emails.
Now, though. Things had gotten slightly less busy, and my ten a.m. had canceled.
And Leah R’s eyes looked out at me from my screen.
Underneath, the caption said, Tune into Leah R’s intimate photo session.
I clicked.
Leah
I stood facing the blackout curtain, remembering the moderately stunning view of the Pacific I had seen out that window the previous night.
Moderately. Right. For a girl who had never seen any ocean before you looked out that window, you sure sound blasé, at least to yourself.
How was I supposed to sound? I should at least try not to let myself get overwhelmed, right?
Especially when the woman I had just let into my new apartment had come to take nude pictures of me, so that I could attract a billionaire. Or at least a guy with comfortable enough income to pay me well for my company.