Free Model Guy by Simon Brooke

live the scrubbed pine, neutral coloured, elegantly understated, sun
lit lifestyle we spend so much of our time advertising. Sometimes even I'm not quite
sure where our work ends and our real lives begin.
      I push my face into her
breasts, kissing and biting them gently.
      "Charlieeeee",
she says pushing me away. "Stop it. Aren't you interested?"
      "Of course I am.
I told you, I'm so pleased for you babe, honestly. What's the show again - sort
of a dating thing?"
      "Well, each week
we take an ordinary person and the idea is that a group of experts - psychologists,
agony aunts and other people - assess who would be the right boy or girl to go out
with that person and then I have to find one with the help of their friends - on
the street, at a club, at work."
      "That's great. How
many are up for it?"
      "There are just three
of us - I got through the first two rounds just on the strength of my audition tape
alone."
      "You're a star. I
told you."
      "How was your day?"
she asks rearranging her hair and sniffing it for some reason. Must be a girlie
thing. I sniff my armpit in reply and tell her: "Pretty busy. I had lunch with
this journo who's going to write something about the site."
      "That's good. Did
you fix that up?"
      "Well, no, Piers
did. She was bloody weird. Dressed like a tramp - bizarre clothes that sort of didn't
match - wouldn't match anything really." I can see her now, sitting opposite
me at the table. Intense and provocative. Totally unselfconscious. I've never felt
quite so closely observed. Even casting directors don't look at you that deeply
- they just check out your face but she seemed to be going further. Probing, penetrating.
Was she taking the piss throughout the whole meal? Or is that how she is with everyone?
She must be clever. When I asked her about her career she told me she went to Vasser
and Columbia journalism school. Perhaps if you're as bright as her it's tempting
to take the piss out of everyone else - the less bright of this world. Especially
a former male model who's trying to persuade you that he works for the planet's
coolest website.
      "And?"
      "Erm," I'm shaken
out of my unexpected reverie. "Erm, oh God, and then, when were leaving she
crashed into this waiter," I laugh. "Just smashed into him. Plates flying.
Food everywhere." I tell her about the weather presenter. "It was so funny,
Nora, this journalist, was like 'Hey, ho! These things happen."
      Lauren says: "God,
how embarrassing. I'd have died. That woman, what's her name, should have sued for
the dry cleaning or costs, or even the whole jacket. You'd have loads of witnesses."
      "It was funny."
I say. I suppose you had to be there. With Nora, still intent on carrying on her
conversation, oblivious to the chaos she had just caused.
      "Sounds more dangerous
than funny."
      "You know me, I've
just got a strange sense of humour." I begin to kiss her breasts, tasting the
slight salty sweat on them, feeling myself get hard again.
      "Oh, well,"
says Lauren looking down at me and squeezing my ear which she knows I like. "Makes
a change from you throwing food all over the woman you're having lunch with."
      I smile sarcastically.
      "You still think
that was an accident."
      She makes a face and pushes
me away.
      "I think we should
celebrate our successful weeks - do something fun on Saturday," I say. "Let's
hire one of those £30-a-day cars and drive into the country, it's going to be lovely
this weekend. We could go to -"
      "I can't hon, I've
got to practice for this next audition," she says, getting up and putting her
bra back on.
      "Oh, OK." I
look at her, looking at herself in the one reflective spot of mirror. Is this how
it's going to be with the new career? Weekends spent practising for auditions? What
shall I do? I used to spend Saturday afternoons playing football with some old mates
from University, a couple of other models and a guy called James who everyone thought
was a friend of everyone