RoseAnn Discovers Dominance Pt. 29

The first photo shoot for Harley was the week before classes resumed. I had no idea what to expect. Harley Moss called me on the Friday evening to tell me a car would be picking me up at nine a.m. the next morning. I was pleased and puzzled at the same time. How big a deal was a photo shoot?

"Are you coming?" I said to Craig.

He shook his head. "Harley never lets outsiders into a photo shoot, even me. He says too many people make the models self-conscious."

I got up at six and bathed and fussed with my hair, even though Harley had told me not to get my hair done or put on any makeup. Craig had a light breakfast ready for me. I was nervously sipping a cup of coffee when a knock came at the apartment door. It was exactly nine o'clock. I kissed Craig, who was naked, and shooed him into the bedroom. A liveried chauffeur took me out to a shiny black Continental and held the door as I settled into the rich leather.

He was a pale-skinned black man with short white hair. He looked at me through the rear-view mirror. "Ma'am, my name is Nigel. I'm to leave you at a salon on North Clark. I'll pick you up at noon. Mr. Moss said don't eat lunch. He'll have food."

Riding smoothly through the streets of the Near North Side in the gleaming limousine, I felt like a visiting celebrity. I wanted to wave in dignified style to the adoring people on the curb, rotating my wrist like Queen Elizabeth. But of course, no one paid any attention to my carriage or its royal passenger.

Nigel held the door for me again in front of the salon, and handed an envelope to a harried woman with iron-gray hair and an accent that sounded German. Her name was Greta and she was the owner. Although there were customers waiting, she led me to a vacant chair and went to work on me personally. She drew a photograph from the envelope, a woman who looked vaguely similar to me. The photo was covered with cryptic notes in black pen, with arrows pointing to places in my hair.

"These are Mr. Moss' instructions." She set the paper down and picked up her comb and scissors.

There was more to this modeling business than I thought. By agreeing to Harley Moss' terms, I was going to have my hairstyle altered and God knows what else. I mentally shrugged. I could tolerate that, but I'd heard that models always shaved their pubic hair. I worried about this for a moment, and vowed that if he wanted my pubic hair shaved or even trimmed, I'd break off our handshake agreement on the spot. At the age of thirteen, they'd shaved me for my appendix operation. I'd felt violated then, and I hadn't cut it or even trimmed it since.

But I was pretty sure that no one would ask me to shear my pride and joy--and Craig's altar of worship. I certainly wasn't going to let it be destroyed just to borrow a few dresses.

"What were you smiling at?" asked Greta.

"Oh, I just thought of something amusing."

"I can see why Mr. Moss wanted to use you. You have all the features he likes. He says he wants to make dresses for real women, not those skinny girls like Twiggy. During the war, I saw enough women that were all skin and bones, and it wasn't their fault. They were starving. But now those faggots in high fashion want to make women skinny like 14-year old boys."

"That will end my career before it starts," I said, grinning. "That's one fad I hope never catches on."

"That's New York and Paris. Here in Chicago we do things our way. Mr. Moss loves women who look like real women, the taller the better."

After nearly two hours of her chatter, she started to get on my nerves. But she finished by noon, as promised. I was astonished at what she'd done to my hair. It seemed even blacker and glossier than before, and curled in just the right places. When I moved my head, the hair bounced as if on springs.

"That is such a nice job. Do I tip you?" I only had twelve dollars with me.

She shook her head. "No. Mr. Moss has taken care of everything." She pointed to the door. "Your colored man is here for you."

Nigel's magic carpet swept me away to Fabulous Fabrics, on Wabash Street in the Loop. We double-parked just as an El train roared by overhead and made speech impossible. Inside, Harley thanked him and put some folded bills in his hand.

Harley led me to the back of the shop. "I like to get models to the shop relaxed and in a good mood, but don't be disappointed if I send you home in a taxi afterward. Paid for, of course."

Classical music drifted down a flight of stairs. Moss led me up to a large loft with rows of sewing machines and cutting tables. It was Saturday and the machines were deserted, but one end of the barnlike space was cleared and set up as a photographer's studio. A camera perched on a sturdy tripod, and a large frame held backdrops that pulled down like roller blinds. Six lights were arranged in a semicircle, focusing a brilliant field of light on the plain ivory surface.

In front of the seamless backdrop posed a woman with brilliant red hair and a spray of freckles across her cheeks and shoulders. She wore a low-cut, emerald green dress and matching heels. The photographer directed her in a crooning voice. I listened, but didn't understand the jargon he used. She was obviously a professional model and did this every day. But I was going to look like the amateur I was, with the photographer having to help me on every shot, pushing and pulling until he'd wrestled me into the right position.

The photographer clicked the shutter over and over, stopping to change film every couple of minutes. I watched nervously until Harley touched my elbow. "Eat some lunch, RoseAnn. You're going to find the afternoon pretty grueling, and you'll need your strength." He showed me to a table with a tray of sandwiches, some cut fruit, and urns of coffee, tea and lemonade.

I picked up a paper plate. "This is real luxury," I said, choosing an egg salad sandwich and several sticks of celery.

He shrugged. "I can't afford to do this every day, maybe once every three months. How did you like the hairdresser?"

"She talks a lot, but she works miracles," I said. "See?" I shook my head to demonstrate, enjoying the feel of hair flowing over my shoulders like a silken fluid.

"Good. It costs me thousands of dollars to put ads in the tribune and the magazines. It's worth investing whatever it takes to get the photography right."

I hadn't noticed the brunette nursing a teacup at a round table until she stood and came over to us. She was tall and lean, only an inch shorter than me. Up close, she showed the slight hardening of features that comes to women in their mid-30s, but her light gray eyes and aura of aristocratic elegance overwhelmed the minor tracks of time.

"Is this the new girl?" she asked Harley.

"Yes, dear. This is RoseAnn Perez. Don't you think she'll do well?" He turned to me. "RoseAnn, meet my wife, Rachel."

I shook her hand. "This is a great opportunity," I said, smiling.

Rachel Moss didn't smile. "Perez? You don't look like your surname."

"My ex-husband was half Puerto Rican. I come from Irish people."

"No matter. Harley's enthusiastic about using you in Chicago magazine. You can tell by looking at me, he has a thing for tall women. I can see his point. You have a look of strength and assertiveness that some men love. But the ads are aimed at women, not men, and women are such a fickle market. These days, with women's liberation and all, you never know whether the readers want to see the helpless, submissive maiden or the take-no-shit ball-breaker."

Her language took me by surprise, but a trace of a smile had appeared on her face. "It's a new age," she said, "and the days of the female doormat are over. I keep things under control in my house just by being myself."

She waved me over to the table and we sat down. "And what do you do when you're not modeling."

I thought about her comment on women's libbers. "Um, I'm an engineering student at Circle Campus. Hard hat and steel boots. High fashion hard hat and boots, that is."

She laughed at last, briefly. "Engineering, eh? How many women are studying engineering at Circle?"

I shrugged. "I seem to be the only one."

"Well, this is what the new age is supposed to do for you. You can follow your dream. My dream is to let other people do the work of the world. I just lean back and control things with the tools Nature gave me, if you get my meaning."

"I think I do," I said.

"Harley said you were living with Craig Warburton. He's a nice man. I dated him in high school when the three of us were all students together. I hope he's good to you."

I nodded, feeling my face redden. "Craig is the best man ever."

She leaned in and spoke in a low, intimate voice. "Does he still have that submissive streak in him? I'm curious. It turned me off him. But I was just a silly teenager at the time."

I tried to keep my face expressionless.

"Later on," she continued, "I was sorry I'd dropped him. Mainly because of him, I became fascinated with the idea of turning a man into my personal servant. But he'd gone off to the University of Michigan by then, so I had to take my frustrations out on his best friend, poor Harley."

"Mr. Moss seems like a happy man to me."

She smiled again. "I make his life a living hell. Sometimes I think I'm too rough with him, but when I ease up, he gets unhappy and starts to lose interest. He even had a girlfriend for a while. That stopped after his first whipping."

"Whipping?" I exclaimed aloud. Rachel and I both froze and looked around, but Harley was across the room, and no one else seemed to notice.

She leaned in close again and rested her chin on her hands. "Only one thing keeps a man in line better than a whipping, and that's not being allowed to come. And I'm happy to be strict with him and get my breakfast in bed and all the chores done for me."

I was in a quandary. Should I play innocent, or reveal what I'd learned about Craig? Best be safe. Sure, both Rachel and Harley knew Craig, but I didn't know her well enough to trust her, not yet.

"Really?" I said.

"Come now. Unless he's changed a lot, Craig must have revealed his secret perversion to you by now. He needs a woman to take charge of him, and that includes the bedroom. Especially the bedroom."

I said nothing, but I felt my face flush. I tried not to break eye contact with her, but I soon had to look down at the table.

She chuckled in the back of her throat. "I can tell from your face that you know what I'm talking about."

"It's private," I said.

I was rescued by the makeup lady, who sat in the chair next to me and went to work on my face. Rachel refilled her coffee cup and added some amber liquid from a silvery metal flask she took from her purse.

The redheaded model came over to the table, dabbing her face with a towel. The photographer poured two cups of lemonade and brought one to her. She was in a short, royal blue dress now, having changed a half dozen times since I'd arrived. She sat primly on the edge of the chair and held the towel to her chin as she sipped, leaning forward to protect the dress.

"You look as fresh as you did when I got here," I said, trying to open a conversation.

She raised her eyebrows. "Whatever. I'm soaked with sweat under this dress. Look." She lifted her arm to show the faint sweat stains in her armpit. "Even with antiperspirant. Harley hates it when I get his dresses all stained, but those lights are hot." She wiped again at the beads of sweat that were still forming on her forehead. "So you're Harley's new heartthrob?"

I laughed in surprise. "Heartthrob? I think not, but he's giving me a chance to model for him."

"You ever modeled before?"

I shook my head. "This is my first time."

"You got a union card?"

"Union card? There's a union?"

"This is Chicago, girlie. Everyone's in a union. You're going to have to join before Harley can use any of your shots. You shouldn't even be here without a card."

"Well, I'm here now and Harley wants to use my picture." I was irritated more than dismayed. I hated paperwork and bureaucracy, but was beginning to discover that they were an inevitable part of city life. Things had been so simple in Bitumen.

Harley must have overheard, and came over to investigate. "Suzie, RoseAnn, what's the matter?"

The redhead repeated her complaint to Harley. "You gotta promise me she'll sign up with the guild."

Harley stuttered and flailed his hands helplessly, until Rachel stood up. "We'll have RoseAnn signed up Monday morning.," she said. "Now calm down and don't get her flustered. She's got a long, hot afternoon ahead of her."

"Be sure to take care of it, or I'll make sure your name goes on the blacklist." She jerked a thumb at the photographer. "Jimmy's, too."

She went to the draped area to change into her street clothes, leaving me with a boiling stomach and a jaw clenched and stiff.

Rachel chuckled and whispered, "That Suzie's a ball of fire. She's been in a shitty humor since her boyfriend left. She knows how bossy she is, but she doesn't care. She says if a man wants her badly enough, he'll put up with her no matter what she demands. The trouble is, she hasn't found one with the patience to put up with her."

"Sounds like a girl after your own heart," I said.

"Don't pay any attention to her threats. She's a good friend of ours. I've made it my personal mission to find her a man that she can train to be her slave. Then we'll have our happy Suzie back again. But you've come along and stolen Craig. He was my best candidate."

The redhead came out of the dressing area with her canvas bag and waved goodbye to Rachel. I imagined her with Craig, and realized how lucky I'd been to get him first.

The makeup lady took me to the draped area and helped me change into a short blue dress, a sibling of the one Suzie had worn, but fitted to my size. When I was ready, Jimmy came over and guided me to the backdrop, which he'd changed to a pale blue color.

Jimmy was an expert, and spoke soothingly, almost hypnotically, while he shot what he called 'a few practice rolls'. He guided me with his voice, explaining the jargon to accommodate my inexperience. "Bring your hand up to your ear and look as though you're listening for your boyfriend's knock on the door. Bend forward at the waist and exaggerate the facial expression." "Turn half away from the camera and look over your shoulder at the camera. Be seductive." "Kick off your shoes and leap as high as you can with your arms spread. Look surprised." I jumped until I was exhausted and he'd shot four rolls of film on that alone.

I forgot all about Suzie.

* * *

Craig had dinner waiting when I got home. I wasn't that hungry, but I was more than ready for the extended foot rub he offered after we'd eaten.

He knelt at my feet, gently cradling my left foot in one hand, and rubbing the sole and toes with the other. "I guess you're pretty tired?"

I nodded. "Modeling's harder work than I imagined. I wore twelve different dresses and they must have taken a thousand pictures. His camera worked like a machine gun--clack, clack, clack, like that, taking a new picture every click." I took a sip of wine and stretched. "I think I'm going to need a back massage, too, but not just yet."

He moved to my other foot, kissing the toes before rubbing a drop of massage oil into the sole.

"I met Harley's wife. She told me you and she dated once, back in high school."

"For a little while. I really liked her. Then she broke it off. Funny she ended up with my best friend. But it worked out for her. Harley's made himself rich and I'm an assistant professor making barely enough to live on."

"Do you still think about her?"

"Sometimes, when I visit them. But since you've come into my life, I've been able to put her behind me."

"She wants me to come and visit her on Wednesday evening. She gets together with some girlfriends from time to time, and she invited me to join them."

"I know," he said, fixing his gaze on my foot. "Harley wanted to get together with me for the evening. She throws him out of the house when she's having her girls' nights. But I told him I had to wait and get your permission."

I still marveled at the power I held over this man. "You did the right thing to check with me. But you should call him now and tell him it's okay."