My brief career as a smoking model

"Okay. Let's do it!" I said with smoke passing between my lips as I spoke.

"Great, Sara. This will be good."

"What's next on the agenda?"

Dieter looked at his wristwatch:

"Well... It's almost twelve. Are you hungry, Sara?"

"Twelve already? No. I'm not hungry."

Normally I'd need to eat something at noon. But I didn't feel hungry at all.

"Good. The sun has come out and we should use the light to take some pictures when it's not raining. And maybe pictures on the beach and the promenade now that it's a bit crowded."

We'd come to an empty café but now all the tables around us were taken and the promenade was covered with clusters of moving pedestrians. Dieter kept talking:

"Afterwards you can go shopping here in Westerland if you like. Without me taking pictures I mean. Just to give you some time on your own. Or we can go back to the house and relax. And tonight we'll find another nice restaurant. I'll let you choose."

"Sounds nice."

I bent down to buckle my sandals, lit another Camel to smoke on the go, and together we left the café for another stroll along the promenade. Modelling work seemed so simple and lucrative, I concluded while contemplating, accompanied by the sound of the constant clicking from Dieter's Nikon, the 6000 € that I'd make so easily.

We got back to Wenningstedt by mid-afternoon. I sunbathed topless behind the tall hedge that surrounded the house while reading a book and practicing to smoke convincingly.

At a quarter to seven in the BMW next to Dieter I lit up to show off my smoking.

"So... Is this convincing?" I asked with a smile as I rolled down my window to feel the wind from the ocean.

"Considering the fact that you've been a smoker for less than 24 hours..."

"I'm not a smoker," I interrupted him.

"You're smoking a lot for a non-smoker," he pointed out.

"That's what you or your mysterious client is paying me for. I won't touch another cigarette the moment we're done here."

"So you don't want the rest of the carton I bought for you."

"No. Of course not."

"And you don't like it the least little bit?"

"Well... It's not as discusting as it was yesterday. I'll admit that."

"You look like you enjoy it."

"Oh... Make no mistake... That's just for the camera."

"And now? I'm not taking pictures? You still look like you enjoy it."

"I've got to practice," I said.

"I admire your commitment and your discipline, Sara. In doing your job."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Not at all. You don't like smoking and you manage to seem to really enjoy it. Yesterday you smoked your first cigarette and today you inhale like an experienced nicotine addict. You should become an actress."

"Maybe I will," I said and exhaled smoke out the window toward the North Sea.

We chose a nice Italian restaurant and ate at the terrace where I could smoke while Dieter took pictures with his small camera. The white wine was at least as good as the one we'd had on Monday evening and somehow went very well with my cigarettes.

Dieter talked about people he'd met and photographed from Hamburg's high society, actors, politicians, business people. We were back at the house at 10:30, where I did another thorough job of brushing my teeth before going to bed.

Wednesday, July 14^th, 2004. Wenningstedt, Sylt.

I looked at the display of my phone when I awoke on Wednesday morning.

7:47.

I sat up in bed and coughed a couple of times. Again I had this bitter taste and slimy sensation in my mouth and throat and the burning in my lungs. I took the empty glass on my night stand and the Togal pill pack and went to the bathroom where I peed, dissolved two tablets in water, drank it and brushed my teeth for quite some time.

Back in the bedroom I started coughing again. I sat down on my bed, found my handbag with my cigarettes and lit a Camel, the last in the pack. I hadn't smoked in the bedroom before, so I went to the window and opened it wide to blow out the smoke.

Somehow the coughing reflexes went away and my organism calmed down as I smoked my cigarette. I decided to get downstairs to see if Dieter was awake.

Of course he was.

"Smoking before breakfast, are we now?" he greeted me as I came down the stairs in T-shirt, jeans and bare feet.

I returned his smile, exhaling smoke:

"Yeah. I've got to practice for the assignment."

"I know. It's a tough job. But you've got to do it."

Breakfast was ready and quite as luxurious as the previous day. Dieter got up to pour me a cup of coffee as I sat down. I sipped the hot coffee and admitted to myself it went very well with my Camel.

"So today's the day when I'll be walking naked around Westerland?"

"Well more or less. You get to wear your panties and your stilettos. And a lot of paint."

"Great. I can't wait," I said and butted out my cigarette in the ashtray Dieter hat put next to my soft boiled egg.

"People will look at you. Get used to it. You're a model now."

"Am I?"

"You're making 6000 € for one week of not so hard work. And just let people look. Nobody knows you here."

"They don't? I have a feeling half of Hamburg is here on vacation. Have you noticed all the HH license plates?"

"Sure. But if somebody knows you, they won't recognize you once you've been painted anyway. Relax and have your breakfast. And then another cigarette. For practice I mean."

I smiled at Dieter as I decapitated my egg.

"By the way...," he went on, "are your panties white?"

"What?"

"I mean... if they're white, it'll be easier to paint on them. The bodypaint guy told me that."

"I have a pair of white underpants, yes. I'll make sure to wear them."

"Good... and... do you shave?"

"What do you mean? I shave my legs and armpits regularly if you must know. I did it on Monday morning before I left Hamburg."

"Yes, fine. But I mean your... do you... shave between your legs?"

"Oh!"

I blushed and my first thought was to tell Dieter to mind his own business. Instead I managed a more diplomatic:

"Why?"

"Well the bodypaint guy told me that you have to shave your... you know... because he is going to paint on your panties and that works best if he can work on an even surface and not on top of a lot of... you know... pubic hair."

"I see!"

"Did you bring your razor?"

I thought for a moment.

"No. It's in Hamburg."

"Okay. You can borrow mine."

"Borrow yours?"

"Yes. With a new blade of course."

"Okay. That would be nice."

"And my shaving cream."

"Thanks! And could we not discuss my pubic hair?"

"Of course. Enjoy your breakfast!"

I ate, realizing that my new profession as a model lead to new kinds of rather transgressive conversations about things I wasn't used to debate with strangers. In the meantime Dieter went about the house, getting his equipment together.

"I guess I don't need to dress too fancy today. I'm going to take most of it off anyway," I remarked as I had finished eating.

"Right. But I want you to wear your high heels."

"Sure. White panties, high heels, a lot of paint and a clean-shaven pussy."

"Exactly. That's all you need," Dieter smiled.

I poured myself a final cup of coffee.

"Could I have another pack of cigarettes please?"

"You've run dry already, Sara? You're really practicing, arent you?"

He picked up the carton from the shelf and put it on the table in front of me.

"Here. Take all of them."

"I just need a pack. I'm not going to smoke all of them."

"You can take them home when we're done. I don't need them."

"But I'm not going to smoke when I get home. It's just for this assignment," I insisted as I picked a cigarette from the opened pack in the carton.

"If you say so, Sara!" Dieter said, smiling while lighting my cigarette.

He went to the downstairs bathroom and came back with shaving foam and a razor. I smoked the rest of my cigarette while I was carefully shaving my pussy hair with Dieter's shaving gear. Then I took a long shower and dressed in clean, white panties, jeans and the loose, over-sized Sylt tourist T-shirt with a seagull that I had bought the day before. At 9:15 I came down the stairs carrying stilettos, handbag and Dieter's shaving gear.

He was already waiting at the door with his camera bag:

"Ready, Sara?"

"Yeah. Let's go!" I smiled at him and put down his shaving kit.

"By the way, I left the 2000 € on the table. You might as well get the money now. Later in the day you wont have a lot of places to put it."

"Right," I said and counted the 20 green 100 € bills Dieter had laid out for me.

"Is it all there?" he asked.

"Yeah. Thanks," I said an hurried upstairs to put the money in my bag where I kept my first 4000 €.

Dieter was waiting in the car when I came out barefoot in T-shirt and jeans. I locked the door with the key that was left in the keyhole and gave it to Dieter before I entered the BMW, ready to meet the Sylt Schickeria in nothing but panties and high heels.

As we arrived at the bodypaint canopy on the promenade a few minutes later, the artist was just getting ready. He looked up from his small bowls with paint on a folding table an greeted me:

"Hi! I'm Dirk!"

"Hello Dirk! Sara!"

We shook hands and he looked at me from head to toe, clearly judging my appearance.

"Nice!" he concluded. "Really nice!"

"Thank you! I'm so honoured that you like my body," I said sarcastically.

"Oh, sorry. But it's nice to get a whole body to work on when you're used to six-year-olds who get their faces painted as tigers."

Dieter jumped in:

"Sara and I have agreed that you start with her breasts. Because I'm going to take pictures while you work on Sara. But not before her breasts are covered."

"Fair enough. I can do that," Dirk replied.

"And I hope the smoke won't bother you. Because Sara is going to smoke all the time while you work on her."

"More or less," I interjected.

"No problem. Did you discuss the design?"

"No," I said.

"We would like something that make people turn their heads," Dieter suggested.

"Don't worry. I'm sure Sara will attract a lot of attention when she walks down the promenade in bodypaint and nothing much else. Are you together? I mean as a couple?"

"No!" I hurry to explain. "I'm a model, and Dieter is a professional photographer."

"Oh! And what are the pictures for if I may ask?"

There was a silence as Dirk looked at me, then at Dieter.

"It's for a client. I can't tell you who," Dieter said.

"We said 300 yesterday, didn't we? I'm afraid the fee is 500 if it's for commercial use."

"Okay," Dieter said and pulled the wallet from his back pocket. "Would you like the money up front?"

"That'd be nice. Then it's out of the way."

Dieter put down five 100 € bills on the folding table and Dirk pocketed them.

"So... where were we... Yes, we have different designs."

He picked up a binder from a box:

"Now. It's all more or less abstract. And it's not going to be exactly like this. But you have to choose one of these designs. They're different when it comes to colours, patterns and symbols."

He opened the binder and held it up in front of us:

"Now this is Berlin with the harsh contrasts and the lights of the city. A lot of people like that."

We looked at pictures of a young female model who had chosen Berlin.

"And here's the Côte d'Azur with a lot of sun and palms and blue water."

"Looks nice," I commented.

"And here's one of my own personal favourites, the Ruhrgebiet, kept in grey and black with large chimneys and lots of pollution?"

"Excellent. As Dieter said I'll be smoking like a chimney. So that's just right for me," I smiled encouragingly at Dieter who killed it with an:

"I don't think so!"

"No," Dirk continued. "I didn't either. Not very many choose that. Despite the fact that we have a lot of visitors from that region."

We went through New York, Hamburg, Nordfriesland, Rio, Kapstadt and other creative designs but ended up with Sylt which was kept in a lot of white, grey and dark blue with a few red and green spots here and there.

"I like that!" I said. "I want that!"

Dieter thought about it for a moment.

"Okay. Why not go with the local concept..."

"Good choice. I'm sure you won't regret that," Dirk said and put his binder back in the box.

We stood around for some seconds.

"Well..." Dirk said, looking at me. "Should we...?"

"Oh...," I began. "This is the time when I undress in front of everybody on the crowded promenade of Westerland, right?"

Dirk shrugged:

"Yes. If you want some kind of service for your 500 €, I need you to undress. And if you think this is crowded, you should se the promenade in an hour. That's crowded."

I felt extremely self-concious as I pulled my oversized T-shirt over my head and took off my jeans to leave them in a pile with my handbag next to one of the camping chairs where I sat down.

"Now I need you to pull your hair together in a tight knot on the top of your head. Did you bring a rubber band?"

I bent down to find one in my bag and also picked up my cigarettes and lighter which I installed next to me in the chair. When I had finished the hair knot I lit a cigarette and leant back.

"Let's roll!" I said, exhaling smoke.

Dirk started by painting my boobs white and accentuating my nipples in red while Dieter got his Nikon ready. He started shooting from all angles as soon as Dirk had painted my tits.

It was still before ten o'clock but small groups of, mainly male, tourists started gathering around the canopy, soon beating the scarce crowd that had surrounded the working artist on a child 24 hours earlier. Curious children were, on the other hand, pulled away by their mothers who eagerly hurried them toward the beach while daddy tended to linger for a moment or longer at the canopy.

After doing a nice paintjob on most of my front and arms, Dirk asked me to stand up so he could work on my back. I did my best to ignore the crowd and their cameras and work on my smoking style instead. I tried to sneak in breaks between the cigarettes but after a minute or two without a cigarette between my fingers Dieter would signal with two fingers at his lips that it was time for another.

"I need something to drink," I appealed to him after my third Camel while Dirk was painting something that could be interpreted as a large seagull on my left thigh.

Dieter looked up from his camera display:

"Coca-Cola?" he asked.

I nodded. Minutes later he was back with an ice-cold Coke which I managed to gulp down before Dieter repeated his two-finger gesture to make it clear to me that it was time for another Camel Blue. I lit up and Dieter resumed his photography.

Dirk was an extremely dedicated artist and it took almost two hours before I was totally covered in his Sylt design. I turned in front of his big mirror, admiring his work with a newly lit Camel in my hand -- my fifth during the painting session. Dirk asked Dieter to send him some pictures for his binder and gave him his card.

"Put your sandals on, Sara. I'll bring this to the car," said Dieter who had picked up my handbag and clothes.

"What about these?" I asked, holding up my Camel pack and lighter.

"I'll take them in my pocket. Do you need anything else from your bag?"

"I guess not. Put this in the bag."

I put the cigarette between my lips and took the hair band out and shook my head. Then I put the band into the open handbag Dieter was holding. He went to the car and I sat down to buckle my stiletto sandals.

People kept taking pictures of me while I was waiting for Dieter in front of the canopy. In the beginning they took pictures from a distance without asking. Then a guy came up close and asked me to smile. For a little while I posed alone in front of the cameras.

A young guy came up to me and asked if his friend could take a picture of us.

"Sure!" I said, and we posed with our arms around each other.

More men in the crowd lost their natural shyness and others came asking for pictures. When Dieter came back, I was posing with a young boy around my own age. Dieter immediately started taking pictures and shouted:

"Kiss him!"

"What do you mean?" I asked, not completely ready to exchange passionately wet kisses with total strangers.

"Come on! Just a peck on the cheek, Sara."

I planted a light kiss on the boy's cheek, leaving a white and blue print while cameras were clicking all around us. He left with a broad smile.

We Germans have a long-standing tradition for orderly queue culture so within a minute a line of men of all ages was forming down the promenade -- all waiting for me to kiss them on the cheek while their pals were taking pictures and cheering.

After kissing around 10 men I had smoked my cigarette down to the filter. I threw it on the pavement and butted it out with the sole of my sandal. Dieter stepped in with a replacement and a light so I could continue smoking without interruption the way he clearly wanted me to.

Number 15 or 16 or thereabouts was a fat guy in his thirties. I took a drag from my Camel and leaned forward to kiss him superficially on the cheek. In a sudden move he turned his head, kissed me on the mouth and tried to force his tongue through my lips, while his friends and others in the crowd were laughing and clapping.

Taken by surprise, I moved back a few centimeters and blew a cloud of cigarette smoke onto his face while reflexively kicking his balls real hard with my knee. I watched him bend over, moaning in pain, as the laughs and applause around us intensified.

I took another hit from my cigarette and smiled innocently as I exhaled smoke in the direction where he was limping away with his friends and a remarkable blue splotch on the crotch of his off-white chinos.

"Let's take a walk!" I said to Dieter who immediately accommodated me and started moving as we left behind a long queue of dissapointed men who, I'll give them that, had awaited their turn in a very disciplined and German way.

A part of the queue chose to follow my new bodypainted persona with great interest down the promenade, and despite the fact that some were occasionally drifting off to the beach or into town, the crowd tended to grow with time. Particularly irritating were a group of young men who shouted silly and rather private questions at me. I tried to suffocate their efforts. At first by smiling broadly, then by ignoring them.

Men kept asking about getting photographed with me. I must have hugged or cheek-kissed well over a hundred men within two hours. A few put their sweatty hands on my tits or my ass but my aggressively violent reactions made it clear to them and others that this brief delight was not really worth the effort.

I posed on the promenade, on the beach, in front of shops in the pedestrian area on Friedrichstraße and remembered to smile a lot. Dieter must have taken thousands of pictures. I saw him change his memory card several times.

"Can we go somewhere else, please?" I asked as I butted out what must have been, at least, my tenth cigarette of the day. A clock in front of a shop told me it was almost one in the afternoon.

"Sure. You want to grab some lunch, Sara?"

"I'm not hungry. I just want to get out of here. Can we go?"

"Ehh... yeah... I'll just get a sandwich from over there." He pointed at a convenience shop across the street. "Are you sure you don't want anything to eat?"

"No. Just get me... a large Coke. And some lozenges for my throat please!" I said with a voice that had developed a new, hoarse quality from chain-smoking all morning.

Back at Dieter's car we took down the top.

"You drive, Sara!" Dieter said and threw me the key.

"Can I?"