A Casanova Meets Calypso

Her eyes were music. A melancholic minor key. She’d dated heartbreak, kept its memory. The unkindness of the world rested there, clouding the way she looked at me. Her armour was intact. When she moved her body was thunder. Power lived in the softness of her skin, in the illicit geometry of her curves, in the quiet abundance of her breasts. They told any onlooker what she would never say aloud. Do not touch. Only admire the peitho you see. There is a monster waiting behind it.

Her exterior was irreproachable, but her speech was heavy. Her tongue carried the wicked and the wise. She spoke politely, yet there was always the feeling that somewhere inside the sentence lived the words fuck you disguised as excuse me. In her line of work three things mattered. Skin. Teeth. Personality. The business was not about her brain, yet she made sure it translated in her walk. Tigress and on the prowl. It lived in her smile, knowing and teasing. It lived in her gaze, haunting and expository. In ten seconds, that’s what I got. That was all they got, ten seconds. Everyone like her in the line. Ten seconds to make me want her. 

"You with the sad eyes." I picked her from the line. "Let us take a photo of her." I nudged my assistant while selecting another ten or fifteen girls like her so she would not fear my interest.

Most models' careers were over by twenty-five or twenty six. The industry valued youth and demanded adults in children's bodies. As I studied the faces I guessed she was twenty-three. She moved like someone who had history in this world we both played in. It was there in the way she watched the room. Clearly, she’d been in many rooms like this where I was the parasite and she was the prey. If she only knew. If she’d believe me, I thought to myself. My admiration for her was curiosity more than predation. I wished we’d met before her disappointments. I wondered what her picture would have said then. I imagined her spirit feral with freedom instead of fighting against it. That is what happens when life lets you down. Everybody else becomes an enemy until proven otherwise. My charm was worthless currency to her.

"Straight. Shoulders back," my assistant instructed them as I raised the camera and began taking photographs. "Embody your own clothes. We want to see how you play with them." She snapped at one girl for ignoring the pockets of her garment. She’d probably worn it to every casting to care, I imagined.  Some models projected confidence. Some projected beauty. Some projected attitude. She was the real thing. No fantasy. No performance. No fairy tale. When she walked she awakened the hunter. She was going to make me hers. The wind seemed to whisper it in her favour. I would not even know how. Was that a smirk? I almost missed it. When I looked up she was stone again. Sullen and controlled. Yet her ability to manipulate modesty made everything permissible. I was not the only one transfixed. I rewound the film quickly. Yes. There it was. That smirk. It invited innocence and hinted at hope. It suggested that somewhere inside her there was still space for someone to enter, but in the curve of that smile another message lived. If you dare.

It was time for measurements. They had to fit the clothes. For the first time her defences were not hidden. I’d heard the stories before. The endless struggle to maintain the perfect ratio of hip, waist and chest. Many of them turned to cigarettes and coffee to silence hunger.                                      "We do not want you sick for fashion," my assistant repeated as interns surrounded the girls with measuring tapes and notebooks. "But the clothes must fit." They treated them like products. I caught one more look at her before she disappeared into the changing room. Was it nerves or caution? I could not tell. But it felt as though everything had been leading to this moment. This booking. Fashion week was expensive, and she needed the work.

I waited for her outside the building. She saw me and sighed, the sigh of someone who had met my kind before. She was preparing for combat, the quiet calculation between dignity or money for survival. Which one wins today?                                                                                                          "My agent says there are photographers that will pay thousands of euros if I go out with them," she said flatly. "Is that something you do?"                                                                                                 My cheeks flushed. If I expected embarrassment or apology I was wrong. Her guard was up. She wanted me to make the offer quickly and leave her alone. Her bluntness made her answer obvious. Hard. Absolute. No. Respect was her survival. Even if it cost her bread.