I met his eyes and saw understanding. “You’re a tease.”
“No,” I countered. “I just want it to last.”
But neither of us could hold out, and soon he took my hips and guided my motions. “I thought I was in charge,” I gasped.
“To hell with that,” he said. “I want to feel you explode.”
Harder and harder, deeper and deeper. I impaled myself over and over on him, taking everything, wanting everything. His touch, his passion, the explosion that was about to ricochet through both of us.
And when it did—when my whole body clenched around his cock and the world spun full of color and light—I screamed his name, just as he’d said I would.
“I don’t think I’ll ever move again,” I whispered as I fell forward against him, my arms around his neck.
“You will.” He shifted us both, then picked me up and carried me naked to the bedroom. And he was right. When he slid on top of me—when he kissed and caressed me—when he made love to me softly and sweetly, I moved again just fine.
And then I snuggled close and thought that maybe, just maybe, I’d actually won.
But that wasn’t true.
I hadn’t won at all.
And when the dark gray fingers came to me in dreams, I realized for the first time how much I’d truly lost, and how much my past had cost me.
seven
I stare at the gray stucco building with the gray steel door, then cringe as it pulses red.
I turn in the car to look at my father, sure that he has seen it, too. Certain that he won’t make me go in there again. Because it’s bad, like a horror movie. And I don’t want to be the girl in the horror movie who walks right into the scary place.
“Daddy …”
“Go on, Elle,” he says. “You’re going to be late.”
“It’s Sylvia now.” I am Eleanor Sylvia Brooks, and I’ve gone by Elle for all of my life. Until Bob started calling me that. Now, at fourteen, I hate my name. Now, I go by Sylvia.
“I know,” my dad says. “I know everything that goes on in there. I’m the one who arranged this, after all.”
“You know?” My brow creases. “You really know?”
“He told you so, didn’t he?”
I think about what Bob had said last week when he had his fingers in my panties. About how he’d made this arrangement with my dad. About how we were getting good money. A lot more than a silly picture is worth, especially when he doesn’t even sell all of the pictures he takes. “You’re pretty, Elle, but do you really think you’ll grow up to be a model?”
I shake my head.
“So ask yourself what it is I’m paying your dad for.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” I say, but maybe he would. Because we need this money.
Suddenly, my brother, Ethan, is in the backseat of the car. “It’s okay because you love me. And if you stop and I die, it’ll be all your fault.”
My mother appears beside him. “What teenager wouldn’t want to be a model? You’re so, so lucky. And already you’re in an ad!”
She holds up the back-to-school ad for a local store. I’m confused for a moment because we haven’t shot that ad yet, but then I remember that this is a dream, and when I remember that, my mom and my brother disappear.
“Time to go in,” my dad says, and now I’m inside the building, leaning against a wall. Across the room, I see myself.
The other me is leaning against a fake Roman column. Bob is in front of me. He’s a photographer who does a lot of stock photo work that he sells to advertisers, graphic designers, and the like. His name is Cabot, but I’m supposed to call him Bob.
I have no idea how old he is, but I think probably in his early thirties. He’s clean shaven with silky dark hair that brushes his shoulders, and which he ties back with a leather band sometimes when he’s working. When I first met him, I thought he was cute. Now, seeing him makes me want to throw up.
I glance around the studio to see if anyone else is here. Bob has interns and a few assistants. Even a woman who comes in with a wardrobe rack. But there is no one today.
And I know why.
“Okay, Elle,” he says. “That’s good, but not quite there.”
He moves in front of me and turns on a fan. My hair—still long, still wavy—starts to flutter in the soft wind.
“Oh, yeah. That’s awesome. Seriously perfect for this shot.”
My stomach clenches.
“The dress, though …”
He moves to me, and even though I am standing in the shadows of the far side of the room, I can feel the brush of his fingers as he adjusts the other me’s dress. It’s pale blue and short, with buttons down the front and a fitted waist. The material is thin enough to have been caught by the manufactured breeze, and it flutters against my thighs.