The Mix-Up Ch. 04

Shimmying amongst the packed restaurant in Chicago's Eastside, a waiter scooped three glasses off a table, careful not to bump the several remaining. Mr. Redding tucked his napkin into his shirt, doing his best to stare ahead at the slouched man in front of him. Ernesto Cattarossi sipped on a daiquiri, stirring its tiny umbrella slowly as he flipped through the model portfolio Redding brought.

"Of all the restaurants, why Eggy's, Redding? You getting cheap on me? And these girls are all wrong. Too short... too many freckles... too thin..."

Mr. Redding grimaced, the irony not lost on him that the 55-year-old hunchback seated across from him was critiquing some of the prettiest women on the planet. He stopped himself - Ernesto technically had kyphosis, a severely curved spine, but any layperson saw Ernesto's resemblance to Quasimodo. Or as another modeling rep said, "He's not just Quasi-Modo, but Full-Modo."

His left eye even bugged out the same way. His swollen, uneven face rarely smiled, and when he did, it sent a deeply unsettling feeling down the Brit's spine. Drops of pink liquid oozed down Ernesto's chin onto his chest hair that popped out from his formerly white leisure suit. How the hell did he even get a suit fitted? It didn't hurt he owned the Cattarrossi brand, one of Italy's premier luxury clothing brands.

Ernesto threw his hands up and nearly ripped a page out. "Come on, come on, what is this? This girl, I saw her at last year's Milan, she almost fell. What would my rivals think of me, if the new Cattarossi head showed their new line on a stumbling idiot? Huh? You think I'm going to put my brand on just anybody?"

He certainly wasn't his father, who'd built the Cattarossi empire and insisted on being buried in a pure silk suit. But then again, the senior Cattarossi wasn't an angel. Ernesto's disfigurement was rumored to be a result of narrow mixing of the family tree.

"Our newest models are in the back--"

The slumping brute flagged down the waiter. "Another of these," he said. "The industry's changing, you know. This ain't the '90s anymore. Used to be you'd put a pretty girl out there, and it'd move clothes. Now you got to worry about their social media, what politics and shit they're into, and you can't photoshop shit without legal getting emails up their ass about creating dangerous and unreachable beauty standards." He licked his finger and turned the page toward Redding.

"This one for example, you can't tell me you signed her for her looks. Cut through the crap and be real with me." A flash of short red hair shone on the glossy pages. Redding had found her at a casting in LA. Not quite stick thin, but her catwalk hypnotized.

"Our clients have different campaigns, Ernesto."

"KFC is your client?"

Mr. Redding sat higher in his seat. "And what exactly are you looking for?" The waiter returned with another drink and plucked 3 glasses from the table.

"Confident, tall, needs a bit of swagger, and I'm not into these new, weird looks people pretend to be hot. Half of 'em look like aliens these days. A girl that turns heads. I've still only seen one like her in my life. When Gisele entered a room, men turned to putty, well... most of their body parts, anyway." He stopped flipping through the portfolio and accepted the drink from the waiter.

He slammed a finger against the pages, sloshing liquid onto the table. "Redding, why the hell did you sign this girl? If you need Italian girls, I'll find you ten better looking ones at my estate in Verona, and I'm talking just the maids. Just a call away. You'll be paying ME."

Mr. Redding stared out at the faint white whitecaps of Lake Michigan. Jumping into the frigid water seemed like a preferable alternative to the current conversation.

Ernesto took a long sip. "Geez, she'd almost be it, if she had any tits... shame she's so flat. I'm not a brand like Valentino, Redding. I can hire a girl over 90 pounds. Lighten up, I swear."

Only a few more pages of the portfolio remained, much to Redding's relief. He imagined the conversation with his boss when he showed off the night's tab. He waved back to the waiter. Ernesto could go to Elite or IMG, for all he cared. The slob making fun of his models was too much to bear.

"Check please--"

Ernesto slammed his fist on the table. "Bingo! Right when I about to pack it up and call Stan at Elite..." he pushed his bulging eyeball close to the glossy paper. "The body on her... they don't make 'em like this anymore." Redding knew the girl without even looking at the page.

"Finally, a girl who's stacked, look at 'em. Sweet Jesus. You can't look away from her. You must have blown your budget against Elite getting her," he said, raising his eyebrow. "Or IMG? God, my dad would have loved her."

The British man smiled politely. "She's from Arkansas - a wonderful young woman. I'm quite fond of Taryn."

"Why'd you put her at the back of this, then?" Ernesto said, peering closer at her pictures. "It would've saved all my bitching. You can learn a thing or two about presentation," the hunchback said, swigging his drink. "She's perfect."

Silence ensued between the two men in the bustling restaurant, as Ernesto's big crusty eye winked at her pictures. His hand trailed under the table.

"Who's she wearing right now?" he asked, nodding to Mr. Redding's briefcase. "Has she done any work yet?"

Redding handed over a few more shots reluctantly. "She's looking for her first client contract."

The hunchback's eyes leaned down to peer at the picture Redding himself had called Taryn about days before. The teen looked over her shoulder in sheer purple underwear, with her curled blonde hair falling to her lower back. Her perfectly formed cheeks filled out the panties in a mouthwatering way no other Ford girl could. It was soon in Ernesto's pocket. Drops of his pinkish drool oozed from his mouth in lines that swayed with every oscillation of the fan. As far as Mr. Redding was concerned, she was too pretty, too pure, too good of a girl to have to work with the crude hunchback, and judging by his reaction, he wanted her.

~~~~~

Sweat dripped down Taryn's face as she darted on the treadmill. Her lungs burned. She contemplated stepping off but had another tenth of a mile to go to finish her run, to get the Starbucks she'd promised herself if she finished.

She'd felt twitchy the whole morning. She'd spent the last 40 minutes running, trying to wrest her mind off the previous night. Her fluctuating hormones drove her crazy! She'd smile one moment and sullenly laying down the next, and occasionally trailing her hands down her body, thinking of being bent over the sink in her thigh highs...

Gazing out of the gym window, the bubbling froth of the hot tub sent her back to that night with Lester. No longer an opportunity for a fun night, its depths hinted sinister, the place where her control faltered for the first time. Every bit of her mind recoiled thinking of the monstrous ball of flab, yet she couldn't deny her body had yearned for him that night, needed him to inject her with every drop of his fluids, which he had...

The gall of that fat fuck who surely sat around all day eating, that he could touch her exquisite body that she worked so hard for! Her indignation was the narrative she chose to believe, needed to hold onto. The alternative made her shudder. There was no defensible reason, hormones or not, to explain why Taryn Addington, the newest Ford fashion model and it girl, sought out rough sex with a gelatinous creep like Lester. It was too far-fetched to believe.

The salt and pepper haired man who'd yelled at Lester days before climbed onto the neighboring treadmill, his head still wrapped in a bandage. There was a pause. His mouth searched for bravery.

"I- I heard they hired a new handyman. That useless slug got fired."

The blonde turned. Why did fate intervene to always remind her of Lester Burns? She nodded. His eyes roamed down her body, her running shorts showing off her fine legs.

He stuck his hand out. He said his name, but she instantly forgot it, a bad habit of hers. His shaking, sweaty grip didn't match the forced confident facade on his face. "Nice to meet you. I've had to take it easy," he said, pointing to his bandaged head. "I haven't seen you here as much..."

She sipped water and dabbed her brow with a towel. "I didn't realize you were keeping track."

"Well, it's hard not to, you're just... you know, stunning." She cringed, putting her AirPods back in. He pointed at his ring finger, which had the pale line of a ring, undoubtedly hidden in his pocket again.

"Got a lot of my time on my own now... always love the chance to meet someone new..."

She input the speed on the treadmill. "I think your son was in my grade."

"Oh yeah, his mother lost her mind... so did he." She wondered in what world he thought trashing his own family was supposed to attract her. She pointed to her AirPods, causing his face to fall. As she resumed running, her phone rang. Her heart jumped - this wasn't a regularly scheduled call from Mr. Redding.

"You're not going to believe this. I was working with a new girl, giving her the patience, patience, patience speech. And Cattarossi called - we had a lunch--"

She slammed the red emergency stop. "No way! About me?"

"You're making it hard on the other girls. Pretty soon they'll expect a major label offer the first two weeks and think it's normal."

Her jaw dropped. "What! No! You're kidding. Come on, stop it!"

"I'm not! It's a big label, Taryn. Ernesto Cattarossi. He's a bit, rougher around the edges, shall we say, than his father."

"Ugh, I can't believe this," she said, putting her hand to her forehead. "Even so, I mean - I really should meet him, don't you think?"

Redding coughed. "Excuse me, there's an opera here tomorrow. I'll talk to wardrobe, so you have something to wear. Maybe impress him with some of his collection that we got for the cancelled show earlier this year. Does that work?"

Her eyes wandered back to the bubbling hot tub. Luckily, her trip with Amy in Fayetteville was the upcoming weekend and wouldn't conflict with the opera, but who was she kidding, she'd be a fool to miss these chances with the lure of big money. That reminded her.

"So, like, what kind of pay are we talking?"

Redding laughed. "Always the businesswoman. It's been what, 3 or 4 years since Cattarossi signed with us. Ernesto's father was in a mood that day, a good one, you could never really tell with him - at the opera - and that contract was around $500,000, if I recall."

She wiped her forehead. "So there's a gameplan - charm a Cattarossi at an opera and get paid."

"Hence my suggestion." Redding hashed out travel instructions for the next day as a smile beamed on Taryn's face. After she tossed her phone into her bag, the bandaged older man leaned forward.

"I couldn't help but overhear. You're a model? I mean - it wasn't hard to guess."

"Sorry, I'm here to work out," she said. She quickened to a jog, her steps pounding the treadmill. The red block numbers of the machine eased higher every few strides, and especially her heart rate, which raced at her big news.

Holy shit. Amy's going to lose it hearing this. Her face soon ached from smiling so hard.

A tap on the shoulder and he was back. "Listen - I have a boat and no one to share it with. You see--"

She rolled her eyes, hitting the emergency stop button again and snatching her bag. If she couldn't get her workout here, she'd do it somewhere else.

"I'm not interested, dude. Jesus. Like take a hint."

"Oh, come on - for crying out loud, don't be like that," he said, reaching for her arm. She was too quick and slipped past him. Her blonde mane bounced as she strode off. His eyes followed her until she disappeared out the door. He pulled his ring out of his pocket.

"Bitch."

Taryn dialed Amy, and the two chatted breathlessly - Amy about the easy smiling college men all too eager to help her move her things and Taryn about her upcoming meeting with Cattarossi. Before she knew it, Taryn had walked beyond the apartment complex and was about to turn back when she spotted metal gleaming through the trees. Curious, she squinted and approached it.

Flapping material like a flag sounded nearby, and her eyes readjusted to see a huge, tattered uniform on a clothesline no more than twenty feet away, fluttering in the breeze. She'd seen it somewhere before. In blue cursive letters, the nametag read Lester. A chill ran up her spine. Even in the late summer heat, goosebumps dotted her arms.

Amy continued. "And actually, this weekend is going to be perfect - I already need a break from Tara. Like the very first moment I got here, she--"

"Hey, can I call you back?"

"Everything okay, T?"

As if she could tell Amy about Lester Burns... After agreeing to text her later, Taryn walked into the small clearing of the clothesline. Further ahead, a rusting RV sat half hidden amongst a deluge of thick, twisting weeds. She couldn't have imagined it ever sitting new on a dealer's lot, as it seemed content with this being its final resting place. Its door creaked open in the wind. Her heel twitched, ready to sprint away at any moment. She remembered Lester's strange comments the previous night.

Going to the studio was 'an errand for a friend,' he'd said. So the big lard didn't actually live in that little apartment where her hormones had surged and she'd done the unspeakable with him. She'd figured so much. His unfamiliarity with the place was too apparent by how he slammed to the floor after missing the step the real occupant would've been well accustomed to. In any case, his car wasn't here, but he must live here.

She wiped her forehead, acutely aware of her isolation and the possibility of Lester being nearby.

"Hello?" Her voice was smaller than usual.

She peeked inside. The shag carpeting, once a pure white, was splotched in an array of brown and green stains. Intrigue getting the better of her, Taryn stepped into the RV, careful not to touch anything. A whiff of rotten food crinkled her nose. The small refrigerator in the corner was ajar, with soda cans and half-eaten Hot Pockets spilling out in an avalanche of unhealthy food.

Ripped-up cardboard from pizza boxes made a staggered walkway of sorts above heaps of souring food and dirty clothes to the bed, which was two mismatched threadbare couches facing each other. A towel that had been new during the Jimmy Carter administration existed in its fourth decade the color of mottled algae. Blankets and towels sprawled over the holes in the 'bed,' although squinting hard in the darkness, she could see the floor through parts of it. Judging by the crusty food stains on them, they served as both cleaning rags and bedding. The randomly thrown together mess looked more like an animal den than a human living space.

Spilled buckets of chicken bones ringed the grungy toilet, and dozens of waterlogged stuffed animals lay in the shower, like victims of an unfortunate flood.

"What the fuck..." she whispered, realizing they were Beanie Babies, their yellowed tags dissolving into nothingness. The smell of mildew urged her back to the exit, where a hastily torn package rested on top of heavily creased porn magazines.

She gasped. Inside was a picture of her, clad in fresh white stockings and garters. Weeks ago, Mr. Redding had talked to her about making a portfolio to send to potential clients like Cattarossi. Lester must have stolen it when he snuck into her apartment, freshly fired, claiming to work on her apartment's gas. It'd been the first time she'd ever worn that type of lingerie. The only reason she even remembered was because connecting the stocking tops to her garters had taken several minutes of watching a YouTube video to figure out.

So that's what he was frantically jerking off to when Amy and I showed up...

She picked it up. Her bright red nails smeared the ink, distorting her features on the formerly glossy paper. That's odd, it's a professional print. The realization hit her - the warped picture had been doused in load after load of Lester's cum.

Jesus Christ! Was any part of his fucking RV not covered in cum? She tossed her defiled visage to the floor, now able to see the crinkled magazines it'd covered. Each was creased open to pictures of blondes bent over offering themselves in nylon stockings. Their rippled paper had met the same fate as her picture.

Her stomach twisted. She had no doubt Lester had been thinking of her in the same positions. But was this before or after she had done the same pose and offered herself to him in Gary's apartment? Had his brain nearly exploded as his fantasy became reality or was this the aftermath - of him trying to relive his memory?

A passing car's blaring radio froze her. Once its tunes faded in the distance, she briskly walked to the swinging door, which had a piece of paper duct taped to it. In choppy handwriting, it read 'Be Better.' A black and white picture showed a much younger (and lighter) Lester in his military uniform hugging what she took to be his brother. Sure enough, on the bottom of the picture in clean cursive was written 'Lester and Leon, 1982.' One other name was included on the page. 'Garth' was scribbled through and replaced by 'Gary.'

For a moment, her heart softened. Sure, Lester was a disgusting slob who took zero care of himself and was coarse around the edges, but he existed within his world as true as he could be. Whatever decisions had led his life to this point, he was trying to change. That, in and of itself, was noble.

Another whiff of rotten crabcakes ended her contemplations of Lester's depth and sent her gratefully into the fresh air of the clearing.

~~~~~

Lester snorted and jolted awake in Gary's apartment. His eyelids fluttered open. Biscuit mush drooled down his chin in clumps. The bland white ceilings took him back to his prison cell all those years ago, the cracked paint then and now morphing to faces when he stared at them long enough. Five seconds of rubbing his eyes hardened the lines of a mattress and the fish tank around him. Sometime during the night, he must have fallen off the bed, dragging the sheets into a tangled heap around him.

The burbling of the fish tank cut through the otherwise silent apartment. He checked his huge wristwatch, a recent Goodwill buy, now secured with hay rope because the original band split trying to fit around his wrist. It blinked 10:23 AM in unsympathetic red numbers.

"Ah hell!" He dialed his boss and explained that he had no car for the job whose sole responsibility was to have a car. He sprinkled in fish food toward the lazily swimming fish.

"Hoss, I understand, but I got no car." He studied the fish food container.

"Gru - ten free? The hell is this." Cramming his hands in his pockets, he found a few KFC crumbs and dropped them in the tank, admiring how the fattest fish fought off the others for the largest piece.

"Uh-huh. But I still get paid today, right?"

As his boss responded, his face reddened and slipped into a frown. "Fine! Damn!"

He stomped his foot and tossed his phone on the mess of covers. Every movement reminded him of his age. His joints creaked. If he'd been told he'd been run over by a truck the day before, he'd believed it and just asked what type. The truth was he wasn't used to so much physical exercise. Like a lightbulb, his mind flashed to the night before. That was exercise with the blonde teen. His cock throbbed, half in lust, the rest in pain from how hard he'd slammed into her unceasingly until she coaxed him of his cum. Her red lipstick still covered his tool in splotchy patches. He decided not to wash it off ever if he could help it.