Free Touch of the Camera by Anais Morgan

Chapter One
    If the best things come in small packages, that statement was obviously made by a man. And a horny one at that. I looked down at my newly ample cleavage as June, the wardrobe assistant, laced the corset up my back. And June didn’t leave any room for breathing. Wow, I’d never thought I would have been this much of a woman at eighteen. I hadn’t even known I had breasts. Nuggets, yes, but not womanly breasts. Turning a bit to the side, I saw how the corset shaped my upper torso into that desirable ‘V’, my lower half completing the hourglass shape. My hips were decorated with cut-out pieces of lace, making the hourglass that much more apparent. The red and black accents made me feel like a devil, or a bad girl at least. Dante had named his collection well—at least, I guessed that was why he’d called his new collection Underworldly .
    As the stylist finished lacing me up, I tried to take a good, deep breath. This wasn’t my first modelling campaign. I’d actually worked on a number of well-known ones. Those were my ‘baby’ campaigns. Since my eighteenth birthday, I’d signed up to be the face of the hottest designer to rival Victoria’s Secret, Dante. I was the face, the main girl to be featured on all of his campaigns. It made me nervous to think of myself on the boxes and in magazines for Demon , the cologne for men and Fallen , the women’s perfume.
    The corset was finished and the stylist tapped me on the back, signifying I was ready for hair and makeup. I tried to shift a bit, but the lingerie was beyond tight and there probably wasn’t even enough room for me to properly inhale. Oh, well, Luna. This is your dream. Shut up and let that camera love you.
    Heading over to the hair station, I saw extensions—like, Chewbacca’s worth of extensions. My stomach began to flutter like a strobe light was going off inside me. Extensions! Sure, almost every girl in New York had them, but me? I sat in the chair and the hairdresser got to work. I closed my eyes as she took a handful of hair at my crown and began knotting it. Fuck, she was relentless when it came to getting it tight—whoever invented hair teasing needed to get slapped. Big hair was beautiful, but damn, getting it hurts like hell. In the end, I always wondered how many strands I’d lost in the process. A hollow sound interrupted my thoughts and I froze—almost literally—as a massive coating of hairspray covered me. When the sound stopped I opened my eyes to a cloud of foggy spray and a nose filled with grime. The stylist handed me a Kleenex and I walked over to makeup, washing my face of the film the spray had created.
    A good makeup artist always had moist towelettes and this one was no different. She handed me a couple to cleanse my chest of the film while she worked on my face. She wasn’t gentle either. Are you going to leave any flesh to powder? She spun the chair around so fast I thought whiplash was in my future. Her hand slammed down on the back and I stopped, watching as she pulled out thick and long black eyelashes.
    “Oh, there’s my beautiful little flower,” a high-pitched male voice sounded throughout the room. Strong hands came down on my shoulders. “Luna, you’re trembling, stem. There is no breeze.” Jacque, the art director, coaxed me like a new-born baby. I loved him and his ways. We’d worked together before and he knew exactly how to make a girl feel better.
    I exhaled. “Yeah, sorry. I’m just nervous.”
    “Don’t worry. I’ll be here with you. We make beautiful photos today.”
    I could imagine Jacque, with all his French glory, swinging his arms as he spoke. He made me smile with how grandly he acted.
    “Luna, you must remember you’re not the only new one here today.”
    That was right. The photographer, Shang Lee, was also new to the world of people, so to speak. He used to do portraits for National Geographic . I was anxious to meet him. I had seen his work and the way he captured shadows