Chapter 2

I started to say something along the lines of “Whose agent?” or maybe “What agent?” but the absolute ridiculousness of it made me think there was some joke going on. I had heard of freshman hazing, and that’s where my mind went, first.

Meanwhile, Uncle Bob was shooting questions at the hard-looking woman about what kind of modeling and a sort of who, what, where, when kind of thing. I could see she was surprised, and he seemed so serious about it, that I just stood back and watched.

It was so amazing, because I got a glimpse of this whole side of Uncle Bob I’d never seen before. He said I was majoring in mass communication and media studies, with an eye towards broadcasting, and any side deal I made, concerning modeling, couldn’t interfere with that. Julia - her name was Julia Turnbull - said that the modeling thing was designed like a scholarship, rather than a job, so it would work with me instead of distracting me from my studies.

Here were these two adults, one of whom I thought I knew intimately, but who now acted like somebody I’d never met, discussing my future in very serious terms. I kept expecting Uncle Bob to grin and introduce me to this woman who he knew from somewhere, and hadn’t seen for years. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that they were talking about scheduling a preliminary test shoot. I perked up when Uncle Bob said, “No porn. She won’t do porn.”

Julia stopped, and tilted her head.

“I need to see her portfolio before we go any further,” she said.

“Uh ... we don’t have it with us,” said Uncle Bob. “I didn’t expect her to be scouted this soon.”

“Bullshit,” said Julia, firmly. “You’re not actually her agent at all, are you?”

“Of course I am,” he said. “My entire focus is to protect her interests, and future.”

“It’s clear to me that you aren’t familiar with industry terms,” said Julia. “And agents don’t go with their clients to freshman orientation.”

“But scouts do?” he said.

“Of course,” she said. “The best time to sign a good prospect is before she has an agent.” She looked at me again, and then back at him. “She doesn’t even have a portfolio, does she?”

“We have your card,” said Uncle Bob, stiffly. “Maybe we’ll be in touch.”

“Calm down,” said Julia, putting a hand on his arm. “Don’t get your feathers all ruffled. She’s got things to do today. Why don’t you and I go get some coffee or something and discuss this. I’m not trying to scam her. She’s gorgeous, and I really do want to sign her before somebody else does. You and I can talk about that and I’ll answer all your questions. The fact that I’m willing to stop looking for a while should convince you how serious I am. You can even research what we talk about. All I’m trying to do is be at the head of the line.”

“There isn’t any line,” I said, finally speaking.

“Oh my,” she sighed. “And she has the voice of an angel, too.” She stared at me a lot like Uncle Bob liked to stare at me. I got tingles, in fact. I knew about lesbianism, of course, but I’d never thought it could be even a distant part of my life. “What’s your name?” she asked, staring into my eyes.

“Chrissy,” I said.

“Well, Chrissy. There is a line and you, my dear, are miles ahead of the rest of the pack. You’re not even wearing makeup are you?”

“A little,” I said.

She looked at Uncle Bob.

“An idiot can be taught to walk and pose and all that, but the very best models have a look that’s ethereal. You can’t put your finger on it, and it can’t be taught or created. It just has to be there and Chrissy has it. We’ll have to change her name, of course. A cutesie name like Chrissy causes people not to take her seriously.”

“We’re not changing her name,” growled Uncle Bob.

“We can talk about that while she’s doing her freshman introduction stuff,” said Julia. “Please. Come have coffee with me. I have to have this girl!”

I almost giggled. I also almost said, “You can’t have me, because he gets me every night.”

Thankfully I remained silent.

Something about her attitude, or behavior or whatever made Uncle Bob decide to listen to her. It was just talk, after all. She made me promise not to sign anything related to a modeling gig unless she saw it first. Then she said not to talk to any boys until she and Uncle Bob found me again.

“Why not?” I asked.

She looked at Uncle Bob.

“She has to ask?”

He shrugged.

“She’s had a sheltered life.”

Julia took my hand.

“Sweetheart, right now all boys represent is a distraction from what you need to pay attention to. Do you have a boyfriend?”

I shook my head. I didn’t need a boyfriend, but I didn’t tell her that.

“Good. Let’s keep it that way. Every boy you see is going to want to be your boyfriend, but you just say no, for now. You have plenty of time to line them up and knock them down.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I’m about to pee my pants!” gasped Julia. “This is amazing, incredible!”

“I think maybe you escaped from a hospital somewhere,” I said.

She laughed, and the hard lines on her face relaxed. She was almost pretty, for a few seconds.

I looked at Uncle Bob.

“Don’t let her snow you, Uncle Bob. You are my agent, as far as I’m concerned. I know you will take care of my interests.”

“Uncle,” said Julia. “Hah! I would have guessed father, except you don’t look at him like a dad.”

“Her parents are dead,” said Uncle Bob. “I’ve been seeing to her interests since she was a baby.”

“Please!” begged Julia. “Let’s talk. I’m serious. Chrissy has a very bright future in the modeling industry and I have the contacts to make it happen.”

“You just want a piece of the pie,” he said.

“Of course. So will everybody else you meet. It’s how business is done, Bob. It is Bob, right?”

“Yes, and I’m not changing my name, either,” he said.

I went and listened to a bunch of boring speeches, all talking about how wonderful the future would be for all us freshmen. Julia was right about one thing. As soon as Uncle Bob wasn’t around, boys started talking to me like I was the only other person on campus. I smiled a lot, and turned down a dozen offers to be shown around campus. I got asked at least twenty times if I had a boyfriend.

I noticed something else. Back in high school, if a boy was giving a girl a hard time, her friends would gather around her to sort of protect her. Humans are a herd animal, and being in a big herd represents protection. But now the girls all looked at me like I had tried to steal their boyfriend. A few even sneered at me! Finally, a girl wearing thick, white-rimmed glasses, and who had braces on her teeth, came and sat down beside me. She had on a bright yellow back pack and tennis shoes. Her hair was purple.

“You look like you need a friend,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. “I think maybe I do.”

“I’m Danielle,” she said. “Danielle Olson.”

“Glad to meet you,” I said. “Chrissy Grant.”

“Well, Chrissy Grant, you’re not from around here, are you?”

“Of course not. This is college. Nobody is from around here.”

“I mean, you’re not used to guys hitting on you.”

That was true. The boys I knew in high school all knew I didn’t date because “college was my priority”. That story had helped a lot, back, in high school. I began to realize that by restricting myself only to Uncle Bob, I might have missed out on learning some things I probably needed to know, now.

“I had a serious boyfriend,” I said. “All the guys knew not to hit on me.”

“Is he here, with you?”

I shook my head.

“No matter. I’ll be your guard dog. I have sharp teeth.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“You’re the hottest girl in the whole room. Boys don’t pay any attention to me at all.” She patted the denim vest she was wearing. “I got no boobs, my glasses make me look retarded, and I’m nineteen and still have braces. If I hang around with you, at least I’ll get to talk to some boys, even if all I do is snarl at them and tell them to keep their distance.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” I said. Uncle Bob had always taught me to look for the good in everybody.

“And now I’m in love with you, myself,” said Danielle. “I bet you’ve left a trail of broken hearts behind you a mile wide.”

I snorted, and had to dig in my purse for a tissue to make sure I didn’t have snot on my lip.

Uncle Bob had taken a couple of days off from work to get me settled in at college. He had a motel room and of course I had stayed in it with him, the night before.

After the orientation speeches we talked to counselors and got signed up for classes. The dining facility provided lunch and, that afternoon, I got my dorm assignment, but all my stuff was in his car so I hadn’t moved in, yet. I presumed that while I was doing all this, Uncle Bob and Julia were talking. Dani, as Danielle told me to call her, left me to go move into her room, but by then everybody had things to do and hitting on girls seemed to have been put on hold.

Suddenly, I had nothing to do, so I called Uncle Bob. He picked up immediately and asked me where I was. He said he’d find it on the map they’d given us and pick me up.

Julia wasn’t with him when he drove slowly by the bus stop I was sitting at and stopped. I got in and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I said.

“Of course you can,” he replied.

“I mean without you,” I groaned. “When I move into the dorm, I’m going to be sleeping alone.”

I had no idea that I had just jabbed a sharp object into him. He would be sleeping alone, too.

“We’ll get by,” he said. “We have to.”

“What did you and that woman talk about?” I asked.

“Actually, what we talked about may involve you and I seeing each other more often than we planned.”

“Then I vote yes,” I said.

“Chrissy, what she’s talking about is a whole other world that neither of us knows anything about,” he said. “It has the potential to be a good thing, but it could also go badly.”

“This sounds like all those lectures you gave me when I wanted you to make love to me without a condom,” I said.

“I didn’t think of it like that, “ he said, “but it’s not a bad comparison.”

“What does she really want?” I asked.

“For now, just to arrange for you to be photographed, to create a portfolio. She says it’s required in the industry.”

“And how much will that cost?”

“Nothing. She’s going to have somebody from her company come do it.”

“And you believe her?”

“Honey, nothing is going to happen unless I’m right there with you.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “I’m starving, and then I want to take a shower.”

“You got it,” he said. “What do you want to eat?”

They had all manner of exotic eating places in a sort of shopping area off campus. It was called “The Ville” and there was this whole history surrounding it that involved Korean War veterans and the GI Bill. That had been back in the fifties, but the name had never changed. We ate at a place called “The Lonely Cow”, which turned out to have a vegetarian menu. Graphics on the walls explained that if we got rid of herds of cattle (creating lonely cows) the environment and our health would get better. Cows, it appears, are polluting the environment with methane farts.

Back at the motel, Uncle Bob found out that the shower I wanted to take involved him. It was just a bathtub with a curtain and a shower head on the wall, but we could still hug and grind. I sucked him nice and stiff and he gave me a nice little orgasm with his finger in me.

Then I lay under him on the queen bed in the room and loved it as he rolled around on top of me. It was sad at the same time, because I knew that the lovely feeling of his prick moving deep inside me was something I was going to miss. A lot.

I suddenly realized he wasn’t wearing a condom.

It was his gift to me, as our relationship began to change.

The next morning we moved my stuff into my room. I met my roommate, a girl named Fran who was there on a volleyball scholarship. She was taller than me, but only by three inches. She towered above most of the other kids.

Fran had a meeting with the coach, so we didn’t get to talk too much. She’d said, “Hi” to Uncle Bob, but hadn’t talked to him as he ferried some of my stuff in from the car.

Finally, everything was in. I looked at the single bed along one wall that was now mine. It looked like my feet might hang off. I knew Fran’s would, on her side of the room.

“I’d better get going,” said Uncle Bob.

“I don’t want you to leave,” I whined.

“I know,” he said, hugging me.

“We could try out my new bed,” I whispered in his ear.

A new voice disturbed us.

“I’m Jordan, the RA for this floor,” said a guy who looked like the lifeguards back home. He looked me up and down.

“Hi, Jordan,” said Uncle Bob. “I’m the guy who’s going to find you and tear you limb from limb if my daughter’s dormitory experience goes pear shaped.” He smiled.

“No problem, sir,” said Jordan. “I run a tight ship. She’ll do fine. You have my word.”

“Your word isn’t the issue,” said Uncle Bob. “It’s your balls you need to be concerned with.”

“I’ll make sure she’s okay,” croaked the young man, looking and sounding nervous. “I promise.”

Uncle Bob ignored him and turned back to me. I almost laughed.

“Call me every night,” he said.

“I promise,” I said.

I felt tears filling my eyes and kissed him on the cheek before I pushed him away.

“I’ll be in touch about your portfolio shoot,” he said. “Julia knows she has to go through me for everything.”

“Okay,” I said.

Then my lover turned and walked out, leaving me alone.

Or at least with a bunch of people I was only barely prepared to deal with.

College was not what I expected it to be like.

The classes were fine. I knew I’d do okay in them. It was the social interactions that I wasn’t prepared to be involved with.

Part of that was because, for as long as I could remember, it had been Uncle Bob and me. Sure, I had friends at school, but I didn’t hang out with them all that much. I didn’t enter into the kinds of relationships with others that resulted in “best friends” and boyfriends. I didn’t go to prom, but I didn’t care, because prom didn’t matter to me. What mattered to me was the physical and emotional love that Uncle Bob lavished on me.

I still felt that connection, of course, but there were all these other people who wanted part of my time, and had agendas that they wanted me to play a role in. I’m not talking about boys hitting on me, though that happened a lot. I got used to that. I’m talking about people in the dorm who wanted me to be their friend, or join a club they were interested in. There were lots of political action groups, and groups that championed causes of one kind or another. It was possible to get so involved with other people at college that you would have no time for yourself.

I was used to peace and quiet at night. I was used to doing a little reading, or watching something on TV. I was used to lying on Uncle Bob’s lap and spending a whole hour making his penis produce the pudding I loved to slurp down and swallow. By contrast, the pace just in my own dorm room was almost frantic!

Fran was one of those very active girls, who couldn’t sit still. Within days she had a boyfriend who was taller than she was (I think he was on the basketball team) and she wasn’t shy about what they did at all. I knew about hanging a sock or tie on the door handle of a dorm room, and I actually saw that happen, but Fran didn’t care if I walked in while she was writhing on top of Jerry. She was on the pill, so she could fuck just as much as she wanted to. Apparently, this was the first time there had been boys around who were tall enough that they would pay attention to her.

I spent a lot of time in Dani’s room. Her roommate was majoring in biology and had a job already in some lab on campus. I guess it was work study stuff, but she wasn’t there a lot. I had brought my favorite robe and I wore it every night, if for no other reason than to remind me of the love I had wallowed in back home. I also had calf-high thick socks, with little dots on the bottom that kept me from sliding on slick floors. I kept my hair up in a loose bun most of the time. I didn’t look out of place at all, moving around in the halls in my robe. The dorms were coed, and I saw girls running around in bras and panties, and guys walking down the hall to the bathroom in just their underwear all the time. Nudity was forbidden, but people streaked sometimes. If anything, my robe made me look conservative.

Two weeks after school started Uncle Bob came up on a Saturday and took me to a photography studio that Julia had rented out for the day. Her photographer was there, as well as the photographer who owned the place. They used his lights and backdrops as I got put through my paces in front of the camera. It wasn’t bad. George, Julia’s photographer, said I was “a natural” and all he did was tell me what to think about as he took pictures of me.

I didn’t have to get all dressed up, and I only put on heavy makeup for the last few shots, which were artsy poses, with me looking angry, or serious. When I saw the shots, it didn’t even look like me. They were taken in monochrome, which is fancy photographer talk for black and white. There were shadows over half my face in one of them that made me look mysterious. George was good with his camera. That’s for sure.

He did want me to be topless for a few shots, but he didn’t take pictures of my breasts. Uncle Bob had prepared me for this, so when it was time, I just took off my top and bra. He shot me looking over my shoulder, with my hair covering half my back. There was another one where I covered my nipples with my hands and stared into the camera. For another one I was sideways to the camera, so my bare side was visible, but my hair covered my breasts.

“This will do for starters,” said George, four hours after we began.

“I gotta get into your business,” said the owner of the studio. I took that as a compliment.

“Julia will be in touch,” said George to ‘my agent’ (Uncle Bob). “I think this is going to work out really well. She has the look, and she’s not a bitch.” He smiled.

Uncle Bob took me out to eat, and then back to his motel.

I threw his box of condoms in the trash and then commenced to wear him out.

“We can’t do this bareback every time I come see you,” he said.

He was lying there on his side, looking at me. My breasts were still heaving and I knew his pearly goo was leaking out of my pussy. I loved knowing that.

“I’ll go to the dispensary and get a prescription for the pill,” I said.

“I tried to get you to go on the pill all during high school,” he said. “You wouldn’t do it.”

“I know,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I read up on them and decided I was too young to flood my body with those chemicals,” I said.

“And now that you’re two months older, it’s magically fine?”

“Before this, if I’d gotten pregnant, I was sure I could just live with you and raise the baby and it would work out. Now I realize how much I have to lose if I have your baby too soon.”

“Chrissy, you’re lying there with my sperm oozing out of you,” he groaned.

“Yes, but this isn’t a dangerous time for that to happen,” I said. “I’m taking things more seriously. You should be proud of me.”

“I would be except for one, little thing,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“You said you didn’t want to have my baby too soon. That suggests you think that, some day, you will have my baby. That’s both ridiculous and out of the question. That is not taking things more seriously.”

“Of course it is,” I said. “Family planning is one of the most serious things a woman can do.”

“We can’t be that kind of family, Chrissy,” he sighed.