The Rock Star Next Door #1 (7 page)

She took in one more deep breath and moved the needle toward the obvious blue line bulging inside Jennifer’s elbow.

“Angle in!” the nurse snapped. “You can’t take it straight down!”

Syria tried to adjust, but a bead of blood welled up, and she could see she had already caused a bruise to form. She pulled the needle out again, tears pricking her eyes.

“I think we’re done here.” Nurse Calhoun unwrapped the rubber tie from Jennifer’s arm and stepped back to let her out of the chair. “Perhaps your next choice of study should be outside the field of medicine.”

Syria bit her lip as she dropped the sharp into the biohazard container. Her mother was a 911 operator and had been so pleased when Syria enrolled in junior college to be a medical assistant.

But classes hadn’t worked out so she’d switched to phlebotomy, hoping the simpler focus would mean she could finish her twelve hours of coursework, pass her clinicals and start a real job. Everyone else she knew was halfway through four-year degrees, but Syria couldn’t afford that, and her grades hadn’t been good enough for scholarships. Learning a trade had seemed her only hope to avoid waitressing until she was too old to hold a tray.

Jennifer taped a cotton ball over her own arm and squeezed Syria’s hand. “I’m sorry, Syria. You’ll figure out something. Let’s go out later, okay? Burn off some steam.”

Nurse Calhoun led the smattering of students out of the clinic space and back to the classroom. Syria picked up her bag and headed the other way to the parking lot. More money wasted on a program she couldn’t finish. She didn’t want to face her mom yet, so instead of going home, she drove over to the park. The day was breezy and cool, a perfect spring afternoon, and she might as well go sit in the grass before the Oklahoma summer came along and fried it all into a dead brown carpet.

She parked near the picnic tables and tucked her purse under her seat, carrying only her keys and an old blanket she used to cover the cracking seats of the ancient Pontiac her mother had given her when she graduated high school. With classes still in session, the main fields were deserted. Only mothers with small children were about, and they were all across the lot near the playground.

Syria topped a small rolling hill, planning to spread her blanket on the other side, facing a line of trees, but stopped short when she saw a photographer shooting a woman wearing only her underwear not twenty feet away.

She couldn’t suppress her, “Oh!”

The man with the camera looked up, and Syria could see he wasn’t so old, maybe early twenties. The woman was closer to forty.

“Sorry,” Syria said and whirled away.

“Hey!” the man said. “Can I get your help for a second?”

Syria turned back around, trying to avoid looking at the woman splayed out in a lacy black bra and matching thong. “Me?”

The man held up a large flat silver disc. “My assistant couldn’t make it, and it’s too breezy to put this reflector on a stand. Would you mind holding it for a minute?”

Syria hesitated. She’d never had a professional picture taken other than at school. The man had a ton of equipment spread out. Lenses, a tripod, two big cases, and a flash on a stand weighted down with sand bags. She set her keys and blanket in the grass. “Okay.”

The man held out his hand to shake hers, his arm tan and lean in the rolled-up sleeve of his button-down shirt, pale blue, a near-perfect match for his eyes. “I’m Anthony.” His grip was firm. “I do boudoir photography.”

Syria glanced back at the woman, who was adjusting the strap of a black stiletto heel, nonplussed that she was showing so much skin. “You often shoot out here?”

“I insisted,” the woman said. “I was tired of all the chaise lounge shots and cheesy backdrops.”

Anthony shrugged. “I do what my clients ask.” He handed Syria the disc.

“What do I do?”

“See where the sun is?” He pointed into the sky. “Your job is to reflect that light onto her face, so we get a little extra sparkle.” He moved the disc around. “Can you see the light as I move it?”

Syria couldn’t see anything. “I don’t think so.”

“Look at her belly.”

Syria blushed as she stared at the women’s pale flat midsection. She hoped she looked half as good when she got to that age.

“Do you see the bright spot?” Anthony asked.

“Yes.”

“Now watch it move.” He tilted the disc and the light moved up the woman’s body to her face.

“I get it now.”

He handed her the reflector, and she angled it like he had, starting on the belly, and moving up to her face.

“Perfect,” he said. “Much better light. You learn fast.”

Syria warmed over with the compliment. It was the first nice thing anyone had said to her that day, thanks to Nurse Calhoun.

Anthony picked up his camera. “Sharon, draw that knee forward. Perfect. Now shoulder back.” The woman adjusted, and Syria could instantly see the improvement. Her thigh was leaner, not that it needed to be, and her boob popped out more prominently, creating a shadow of cleavage.

“The trick,” Anthony said, taking a few steps toward Sharon’s head. “Is to make sure we emphasize the best parts.” He snapped a few shots. “And de-emphasize anything we don’t want to draw attention to.” He glanced down at the woman. “Not that anything on you isn’t perfect.”

The woman laughed. “Photoshop those stretch marks or I’ll torch your studio.”

Anthony smiled. “Threats will get you everywhere.” He took a few more images. “Chin up, eyes closed.”

He knew what he was doing. The rapport kept the woman relaxed, and the new position switched the focus from her body to her face. He circled her, taking shots from several angles. Without moving the woman, Anthony was getting a number of completely different looks. Syria wished she could see his display to know how he was cropping her.

“So when do I get naked?” she asked.

Syria almost dropped the reflector. Couldn’t they get arrested for that? She looked around frantically to see if anyone was watching.

“Whenever you like,” Anthony said.

“Here in the grass?” Sharon looked thoughtful. “That sounds delicious.”

“Let me get a few more of these,” Anthony said. “Lay flat now.”

The woman moved to her back. He reached down and fluffed out her mid-length blond hair, perfectly processed with even, balanced highlights. Syria did very little to her own wild black mane, unable to afford much more than a SuperCut to trim the ends every few months.

Anthony moved down the woman’s body, suggesting changes to her position, but was careful never to actually touch her other than her hair or her shoe. Interesting. Despite her crazy show of skin and extremely sexy look, he was completely professional, complimenting her regularly, but not in a skeezy way. Just simple little phrases, like, “That looks perfect.” Or “Let’s showcase those amazing legs.”

He stood over her, shooting down. Syria assessed the light she was reflecting and felt like it was over-emphasizing the size of the woman’s nose by adding an extra shadow. She shifted over and held the reflector higher.

Anthony glanced over at her. “Excellent change. You have an eye for it. Have you done this before? Or maybe you’re an artist?”

Syria shook her head. Anthony clicked a few more shots, then stepped aside. “Okay, Sharon, let’s do this thing.” He picked up a silky white robe.

Sharon sat up and slipped the robe on, then worked beneath it, tugging off her bra and thong to toss them in the grass a few feet away. Syria held the disc close to her body, resting her arms, and hoped her flaming face wasn’t too obvious.

“Shoes or not?” Sharon asked.

Anthony turned to Syria. “What do you think?”

She glanced back at the woman. “Shoes make it more formal, like a photo shoot in a magazine. No shoes make it like you stumbled upon her, something natural and spontaneous.”

“Nice observations. What do you think, Sharon?”

“I want to look like a centerfold,” Sharon said.

“So shoes it is.” Anthony led her closer to a tree. “We’ll start here.” He looked around. A man was
 
walking across the top of the hill, a backpack on his shoulder. “We’ll wait this guy out.”

He and Sharon chatted amicably about when he’d show her the proofs. Syria watched the other man anxiously, wondering if he might stop to watch and if they’d go on anyway. Obviously Syria hadn’t stopped them by her arrival.

But he moved on and the valley was theirs again.

“Let me set up the shot first so I can work swiftly,” Anthony said. “Hug the tree, knee cocked out, look over your shoulder.”

“Still on the face?” Syria asked. The new position would make it hard to reflect the right direction.

He glanced at the sun. “Not possible here. Let’s rim light her.”

“What’s that?”

“Kick a little light from behind her onto the curve of her back so we get a highlight.”

Syria moved around Sharon, watching the sun, and angling the disc while Anthony moved his flash and tripod. “Here?”

“Perfect, but switch to the gold side.”

Syria glanced down. Sure enough, the disc was silver on the front and gold on the back. She flipped it over. The light had a different color on the white robe, warmer toned.

“That’s it. Okay, Sharon, we’re ready. Take it down slowly, then toss the robe so it’s out of the shot.”

Syria’s heart sped up as the woman slipped the satin off her shoulders, letting it fall to her elbows, caught on her ample breasts. She glanced at the crest of the hill again, but no one was around. Her heart was beating in strange places, her throat, and between her legs. Sharon shook her head, letting her hair fall down her back, and when she looked at Anthony again, it was pure lust.

But Anthony was completely unaffected, snapping shots as though she were a part of the tree. “Chin up a little. That’s it. Now let it go.”

Sharon shrugged again and the robe slipped to her wrists. She took it in one hand, held it out for a couple shots, and tossed it Syria’s direction.

Syria inhaled sharply. The woman was beautiful, her body curved and toned, perfectly tan with no lines. Her breasts were still high and firm, her legs slender and shapely. Keeping the shoes had been a good decision, as it made her calves stay taut and as her knee came up and around the trunk, the shiny smooth leather was a killer juxtaposition against the roughness of the bark.

Syria wondered what it would feel like to have your naked skin against a tree, out in an open park. She couldn’t hold a candle to a woman like that. She wasn’t beautiful whatsoever, her mixed heritage of Oklahoma mother and a father from India made her skin a strange watery coffee color, and her hair dark but not thick and lustrous like Indian girls, just curly and unmanageable.

She didn’t belong in this town. Her absent father, who turned out to have lied and was married, seducing her mother at an ashram on a trip to India twenty years ago, was a constant source of gossip. Her mother hadn’t dated, and the two of them kept to themselves on a little lot surrounded by wheat fields out on the highway as Syria went through school.

Watching Anthony close in on the woman, taking tighter shots of her face and parts of her body, set Syria on fire. He was so comfortable with it, like he did it every day. Maybe he did. She imagined herself in Sharon’s place, breasts exposed, thighs rubbing a tree, out in public, pictures forever capturing the moment.

“I think we’ve got it,” Anthony said and turned to Syria. “Can you hand Sharon the robe?”

He turned away to pick up equipment, but Syria couldn’t take her eyes off the woman now, her skin rosy where it had made contact with the tree. She handed her the robe, but Sharon didn’t put it on, kicking off her shoes and walking over to her underwear, passing close to Anthony.

Syria clutched the disc, wondering what the woman was up to. Anthony was kneeling low, packing his camera in a bag, and Sharon stood over him, her breasts just above his head, the bare mound right where his face would be if he turned. “So do you think we have some good stuff?”

Anthony was stuck, and while he didn’t seem upset by it, he also didn’t want to turn right into the woman’s naked body. Syria felt sorry for him. Did many of these women proposition him after shoots, either boldly or subtly? He was extraordinarily cute, his short brownish gold hair spiking straight up, those happy blue eyes, and the lean frame. She could see the appeal.

Anthony kept busy with the bag. “Absolutely, Sharon. You are a rare treat to photograph.”

This mollified the woman, and she stepped back to retrieve the black lace. When she looked down to step into the thong, Syria could see Anthony visibly relax. She began to wonder if he’d needed the reflector at all, or if he had wanted Syria as a buffer.

She walked over to them as Sharon finally hooked the bra back on and headed toward a bag that hopefully held more clothes. “That was fun,” Syria said, passing him the disc.

He stood up and twisted it, collapsing it down into a quarter of its previous size.

“Wow!” she said. “Can I do that?”

He handed it back to her. She opened the disc, and it popped out suddenly. She lost her grip and it smacked her in the nose.

“You okay?” Anthony took her arm and shoved the reflector out of the way. “It opens quick!”

Syria rubbed her face. “I’m fine. Just embarrassed.” She passed the reflector back. “Perhaps I need safety training before operating heavy machinery.”

He laughed, a ringing sound that bubbled through Syria’s already warmed-up body. “You’re funny AND useful. I’d love to work with you again.”

Syria blushed. She’d just failed to do a basic task, but still, he was being nicer to her than pretty much any boy she’d ever talked to.

Sharon interrupted them, seeming a bit miffed. She tore a check off her pad. “I expect I’ll see these soon?” She looked from Anthony to Syria.

He accepted the check. “Absolutely. You’re my highest priority.”

Sharon watched him a moment. “You are a sweet talker, Anthony. If only I was ten years younger.” She pinched his cheek and sent a scathing look over at Syria. “Ta ta!”

When she had disappeared over the hill crest, Anthony exhaled in a long slow rush. “I am so glad you came along. That woman is a tiger.”