Model Guy (2 page)

It's been fun, I must admit. I've earned quite a lot of money
for doing very little. I've travelled, often business class. Stayed in nice hotels.
I've met some fun people and quite often thought to myself 'What a ridiculous way
to make a living,' which is probably the best attitude you can have towards any
job. I've stopped crowds in the City modelling suits - secretaries shouting risqué
comments, men looking on, contemptuous but intrigued, wondering what I've got that
they haven't - and I've entertained picnickers in Battersea Park while doing a fashion
shoot.

 
I've travelled across
Kenyan game reserves (aftershave) and I've curled up on settees with girls in soft
sweaters holding mugs of coffee (empty of course) in loft apartments to sell life
insurance. I've cruised the Caribbean and been paid for it - the only drawback being
that we weren't allowed in the pool or the top deck and in some of the lounges because
technically we were suppliers to the cruise company or something.

 
I've been married countless
times and sometimes in really beautiful churches. Should it ever happen for real
I'll be well prepared and able to offer my intended advice on all the best venues
in which to get hitched in central London. I think my favourite would be Farm Street,
Mayfair. That was lovely wedding. A sunny afternoon in May. The groom wore a Jasper
Conran suit and the bride, a tall Irish lesbian, called Fennoula or something, looked
stunning in an ivory satin dress with a train. Two of the bridesmaids were lovely
but the third, whose mother was having a row with her agency about travel expenses,
was not such a sweetie.

I get home to my flat in Chiswick and let myself in to find my
gorgeous girlfriend on the phone. Sitting on the kitchen unit she is saying "Uh,
huh," and stretching out a smooth, tanned, never ending leg and letting her
shoe hang off her toes. I throw my keys down on the surface next to her, get down
on one knee and look up at her. She smiles down at me, half anxious, half thrilled.

 
Lauren's legs have been
photographed protruding elegantly from the door of a quarter of a million pounds
sports car, slightly soaped in a shower cubicle and with a scarf sliding down them
to prove that a certain hair removal cream lasts longer than shaving or waxing.
If any commercial or any press advertisement requires a classy blonde girl with
long, beautiful legs, Lauren's the one they go for. She was in that advert for aftershave
with the swarthy bloke sniffing the underside of her knee and the hair mousse commercial
where the girl walks into the restaurant in a shimmering red dress and causes havoc
with waiters dropping their trays and male customers being rebuked by their girlfriends
as they ogle her.

 
I touch her skin with
my lips, enjoying the unperfumed, unselfconscious, natural smell of her for a moment.
Then I slip off her shoe and kiss around her foot. I hear her gasp and tell the
person at the other end "Nothing." I run my hand round the gentle curve
of her calf and then move my lips up her shin, hovering over the skin, stopping
occasionally to kiss her. She gasps again. "Yep. Look, I'll have to go."
I bite her knee gently and then move my mouth round behind it. "No, of course.
Don't worry. Ah, listen, gotta go." I kiss around to the front of her thigh
and squeeze it a little more aggressively as I push her skirt up. "Oh, erm.
Yes, I'm fine. I think Charlie's coming that's all." I look up again and give
her a wide eyed goofy look of 'You bet.' I begin to bite her inner thigh gently.
"He's down here, I mean he's here. Okay, okay, bye mum." She clicks off
and puts down the portable.

 
I look up again quickly.

 
"That was your mum!
Oh, shit, why didn't you say?"

 
"What could I say?"
she laughs. "Gotta go mum, Charlie's slowly bringing me to orgasm?"

 
I smile then stand up
and pull her against me roughly.

 
"She'd know what
a good prospective son-in-law she's got."

 
"You could put it
in your speech," Lauren suggests. Then she smiles and begins to kiss me. Our
lips still touching, I lift her up and carry her to the bedroom.

"Do think you got it then?” She says, curled up, nestling
her back into me in bed after we've made love.

 
"What?" I say
sleepily to the back of her head.

 
"The Sunseekers thing."

 
"No, I mean, I don't
know. They didn't say anything obviously. Actually I think I probably buggered it
up. The agency didn't tell me they wanted to do body shots so I was wearing some
horrible old undies."

 
"Oh, Charlie, you
must check these things, I told you," says Lauren, turning round. "Always
ask if there are any special clothing requirements and always wear good underwear
in any case. You've got tons of pants."

 
"But you haven't
washed them." I explain sweetly.

 
She gives me an admonishing
tap on the nose.

 
"It was pretty obvious
that they wanted to see bodies if it was for a holiday brochure."

 
"I suppose so, I
just wasn't thinking. Anyway, why do you ask whether I've got it or not? Can't a
man come home and make love to his woman, just because he feels like it, whether
he's had a successful day or a crap one?"

 
"I'm not your woman.
I just wondered if that's why you're in such a good mood, that's all."

 
"I just am I suppose.
I shouldn't be - the casting was pretty bloody embarrassing."

 
She looks at me and then
says:

 
"Why do you always
go into these things with such a negative frame of mind?"

 
"I don't."

 
"You do - it's always
'Why have they put me up for this one? It's not me' or 'God, I made such a fool
of myself'. You should walk into every casting thinking to yourself 'I'm the one
they're looking for', 'I'm the perfect person for this job'. Then you'll get it.
It's all about positive thinking."

 
"Is that what you
do?"

 
"Yeah, of course
I do".

 
"Why don't you always
get it then?"

 
"Because....oh, shut
up." She squeezes my cheek hard and then kisses me again. Then she gets up
to have a shower. I look at my watch. Nearly five o'clock. Time for a drink? Or
a cup of tea? Big decisions. Drink? Tea? Drink? Tea? I find a cool place for my
feet across Lauren's side of the bed and lie back with my hands behind my head.
I can still smell her on me. Drink? Tea? Tea? Drink?

 
"Lauren?"

 
"What?" she
calls from the shower.

 
"Shall I have a drink
or a cuppa tea?"

 
"Whaaaat?" The
water stops for a moment.

 
"I said shall I have
a drink or a cup of tea?"

 
"Have a cup of tea
- it's too early to start drinking. And make me one too, will you?" The water
starts again.

 
Well, that's that decided.
Now all I have to do is get up and do it. I turn over and see myself in the mirrors
on the wardrobe. Do I look too old to call myself a model still? Course not. One
of the few advantages of being a bloke in this business is that you can go on for
years. More character. The downside is that people either think you're gay or stupid
or both but at least you can go on working and getting decent paying jobs for longer
than women can.

 
Except that they're probably
adverts for incontinence pants.

We've got mirrors along our built-in wardrobe doors. They were
there when we first moved in and we immediately decided to remove them because they're
so naff but somehow we never got round to it. My mates had a good laugh when they
first saw them. "Bit more subtle than putting them on the ceiling, I suppose,"
said Mike, giving me a leering smile. "You can tell he's a bloody model,"
said Becky. "Vain or what, Charles?" Laughing, I explained that we really
were going to get rid of them.

 
What would Mike and Becky
and others say if they saw we still had them? They haven't been round here for ages.

 
When we first moved in,
sometimes as we were making love, I would catch Lauren looking across at these mirrors,
at the images of the two of us entwined. Her long legs around me or her perfect
breasts cupped in my hands as she straddled me. At first I wasn't sure whether to
be embarrassed or annoyed. Was she looking at me or at herself? Was it because the
sex was so good? Or was it because it was so boring that she needed some sort of
extra stimulation? Was she enjoying it or being subtly critical - making a note
to work her thighs a bit more at the gym or advise me to keep off the beer and chips
for a while.

 
Now sometimes I glance
across too. There I am with my girlfriend, almost like a stranger kissing her stomach
as I move down her long, honey-tanned body, holding myself above her on my elbows
as I push my way into her, slowly, conscientiously kissing her breasts. My own,
private version of those articles you find in men's health and fitness magazines
called things like 'How to achieve the ultimate climax' or 'How to give your woman
the best time ever in bed'. Or just a home-made porn movie with me starring and
directing.

 
Sometimes I look over
at the same time Lauren does and our eyes meet. We exchange a glance of love, lust,
intimacy through the glass.

 
Our whole home is beautiful
I must say. It's Lauren's work, of course. A ground floor flat in a large Victorian
house off Chiswick High Road, it has scrubbed pine floors, white washed walls, big
Roy Lichtenstein-style prints plus little things she has picked up from antique
shops and from a visit a few years ago to Morocco, especially arranged for the purpose.
She did all the research about freighting the things home. Spoke to couriers, checked
up on the paper work, got a good deal. Bullied, begged, and bribed her way through
it. People love our flat as soon as they walk in. I tell them "It's all down
to Lauren" and they say "Yeah, I can believe that."

The sound of my mobile ringing shakes me out of my reverie.

 
"Ye-e-e-llow"
I say.

 
"Charlie?"

 
"Speaking. Karyn.
How are you?"

 
"Good, darling. You?"

 
"Pretty good."

 
"How did the Sunseekers
casting go?"

 
"Oh, pretty crap,
actually."

 
"Really? Why?"

 
"I was wearing these
really disgusting old undies..."

 
"Oh, how lovely -
I'm just visualising them. Anyway, you knew it was for a body shot, didn't you?"

 
"No."

 
"Oh, Charlie, you
did."

 
"Penny gave me the
details."

 
"Oh, I see."

 
Penny might be Karyn's
boss at the agency and a frighteningly tough business woman who can screw every
penny out of a client for a model - and every penny out of a model for her agency
- but her ability to pass on the simplest bits of information for any casting or
job is negligible.

 
"I think she was
probably too pissed again," I explain.

 
Karyn giggles.

 
"Very possibly. Anyway,
this is me giving you a casting so you know it will be totally correct in every
detail."

 
"If you say so."

 
"I do say so. Now,
got a pen?"

 
"Hang on, let me
get of bed."

 
"What?"

 
"Sorry, just exhausted
after that casting."

 
"Tough job being
a model isn't it?" snaps Karyn. "Come on, I've got other people to talk
to before six."

 
"Ooh, 'scuse me.
Right. Here we go. Shoot."

 
"OK. It's to go to
11a Kenworth Mews, W11 to see a guy called Dave Howland. It's advertising for a
new dotcom company - "

 
"I thought they'd
all gone under."

 
"Fortunately for
you matey, they haven't. This one is just launching and they need some advertising
and some images for their homepage which is where we come in."

 
"Jolly good."

 
"So it's anytime
between 10 and 12 tomorrow. Go smart-casual, you know, like a young entrepreneur."

 
"I'm going to get
this job." I tell her, remembering Lauren's sensible words.

 
"'Course you are
dear," says Karyn with exaggerated condescension, “just make sure you're wearing
clean pants."

Chapter Two

I am the face of Lord James cigarettes.

 
In Uruguay, that is. Laughing,
talking to my friends, getting the girl, sipping a cocktail, elegantly smoking a
cigarette - my picture appears in magazines and bill boards from Montevideo to Punte
de l'Este. I'm on the side of the buses as they snort and push their way through
the swirling exhaust fumes and jostling traffic on stiflingly hot days in the palm-filled
squares, past crumbling former colonial mansions and along newly-built express ways.
Peasant women from the outlying regions and girls from Spanish Catholic schools
in stripy uniforms get on these buses and they must sometimes look up at my face
smiling down at them.