“Perfect,” he muttered and stepped back. A flash blinded me, and within seconds, a Polaroid photo emerged. He waved it in the air until the white space turned into a colored image of my face. He wrote my fake name on the picture and attached it to the questionnaire with a clip.
“We’re done. You can sit down.” With the file in his hand, he walked over to his desk and slumped into his seat.
“Will you give me a chance?” I asked after a pause.
He began to tap his pen against his lips. I tried to read his expression, but his eyes remained expressionless. Eventually he said, “It depends.” He leaned back with an expression I couldn’t decipher. “Will you go nude?”
I stared at him, perplexed. All the positive thoughts I had harbored about him, were now gone, disappearing like bubbles in the air.
“Thalia said I wouldn’t have to take off my clothes.”
“That’s true.” He nodded, and for the first time, he genuinely smiled as though something amused him. “But there’s this thing with your height.”
What the heck was wrong with my height—or the lack thereof?
I frowned, unsure where the conversation was heading.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“I’ll be honest with you, Jenna. You have good proportions, though not model perfect, and a good face, which I’m sure will appeal to some of my clients,” Grayson continued, “but you’re a few inches too short to work as a model.”
My temper flared.
“I’m as tall as Thalia.” I jutted my chin out.
He smiled again, then moved over to me and leaned against the desk again, regarding me coolly. “That might be true, but Thalia’s exotic. Her heritage, part Creole/American and Indian/Italian, is very popular with my clients, so she’s in high demand. You, in turn...I don’t know how to put this nicely...you’re common.”
Ouch.
Enough insults for a day. It had been a bad idea to come. Obviously, I was wasting my time.
“You might as well have told me straight away that I’m not fit for the job before you wasted my time and yours with all those questions,” I said.
Holding my head high, I stood up and headed for the door. Grayson’s fingers curled around my upper arm, stopping me in my tracks. “I’m not finished.”
I snapped my head back in annoyance, and Grayson let go of my arm. As he caught my glance, his smile vanished, and he returned to his previous reserved self.
“I never said you aren’t a good fit,” he said quietly. “The job is yours, as long as you’re willing to go along with my clients’ demands, and go nude.”
I would never pose nude. Never. The thought was absurd. “What if I don’t agree with something they want?”
He shrugged. “Then you won’t get the job. Given your situation, if you want to earn good money, nude shoots are exactly what you need. Flexibility and the willingness to go nude is how I secure a working contract with a client, not just for a single job but for future work as well. If a client likes working with a particular model, they’ll want to book her again.”
“I work with clients, and am aware of the importance of customer satisfaction,” I remarked dryly. I certainly didn’t need a lecture on that. Sighing, I leaned back and crossed my arms.
He wet his lips carefully in thought, his glance moving from my eyes to my lips, and for an instant, I felt another pang of shame burning through me.
“Look, all I’m saying is that I need you to be flexible.” He spread his hands out. “Your options are limited, not least because you’re not exactly the right height. So, the only option is to offer them more, including a great personality and a little bit of skin.” He paused to take in my reaction. When I remained quiet, he continued. ”I’m not saying you absolutely have to go nude. I’m also not saying you’ll have to go nude for every single work contract. All I’m saying is that you should keep the option open rather than being so judgmental about it, because I have many different clients with many different needs.”
He was probably right, but I wasn’t convinced just yet. “How do you define nude?” I asked.
He leaned forward, so close I could see the little flecks in his blue iris. “Nude can mean a lot of things, Jenna. It can be topless, bikini, or panty. It can even be implied nude, where you cover certain body parts. Many of my clients want that. In this kind of job, as long as you are willing to go nude, you can choose the limit, what you are comfortable with, but some of my clients want to see skin.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to be topless, even if I can cover up,” I explained.