Chapter 10

Hermès had hired someone to cook and clean up for the week so after a nice dinner Andrew went back out onto the patio. Dinner had been fun but also strange. There was no sign of the local model yet, she would arrive the next day. Her name was Marissa apparently. So that night it was him and the other four models. Andrew initially thought there were too many subtexts going on, maybe it was as simple as he wasn’t used to having four women flirt with him, all at once. Now he knew Mathilde was just toying with him, and he supposed Heloise was as well. But it flustered him. He knew that he was going to be pretending to ravish them over the course of the week, he would see them naked during the week, but he was playing a role then. Andrew didn’t know why he was flustered but he was. Looking back on it later the best he could describe it was he had no practice. Just as all those years earlier he had asked Nikki how to deal with the banter from Mike and Gord at the Food Bank warehouse, so he needed someone to help him then. It was pathetic to watch, hilarious but pathetic. The four of them toyed with him, each taking turns in making him blush.

But it was also another gender reversal. If four men had sat around the table and spoken to a woman the way the four of them were speaking to him it would have felt wrong, at least to Andrew. The dynamic, the reality of a man’s physical strength, made such a situation awkward, at least potentially. But as he sat there being teased, and teased quite explicitly, he didn’t feel threatened. He might have been a blushing fool but he didn’t feel threatened. The dynamics of power always caught his mind at the oddest moments. That was another prime example. They were all tired, the jet lag was catching up to them but it didn’t stop Eve asking if he would take them out to a nightclub.

“The last time I took Heloise out was in Courcheval in January. Some drunks ended up having a fight in the bar over.”

Andrew turned to Heloise.

“I don’t remember why the fight started. Do you?”

“They were trying to buy Chiara a drink, weren’t they?”

“Oh, that is right. She wouldn’t accept a drink and they went from being fans to being belligerent in the blink of an eye. Anyway, everyone hid behind me and I got hit by a smashed bottle on the hand.”

He showed her the small scar on his pinkie finger. But then he stopped and looked at Veronique.

“Are we working in the morning?”

“No, maybe some shots up here on the patio. Why?”

“A couple dressed up at the end of the night, walking along the beach as the sun rises, hand in hand holding their shoes so they are barefoot in the sand.”

Veronique’s gaze stared off as she imagined the shot.

“We could use the evening wear, and then shoot the setups tomorrow night. Good idea. To bed everyone, up at 4.30 to do your hair, Andrew you can have a lie in until 5.30 and then we will head down to the beach. Great idea.”

As a revenge for the teasing getting everyone up at 4.30 in the morning would take some topping. With much grumbling they all headed to bed. Renee came to his room once she had changed and slipped into bed.

“4.30, you horrible man.”

She leaned up and kissed him, looking pensive.

“I don’t know how to ask this in any way that is not awkward or blunt. Sorry. Is there a rota?”

Laughing out loud when she seemed so worried was not the most considerate of reactions but it just caught him by surprise.

“No, despite my reputation there is no rota. It is just you. Heloise may get lonely but it is companionship not sexual.”

Renee seemed to completely relax beside him, a tension Andrew had not noticed in her falling away. He could feel tears on his arm as she snuggled in beside him. Despite being achingly hard with her naked in his arms he just held her and jet-lagged sleep caught up to them both. In the morning Renee seemed embarrassed about the previous evening but 4.30 was far too early for conversations like that. And everyone was awake without a problem. The jet-lagged sleep patterns had them all awake early anyway.

Andrew had completed no paperwork for driving a jeep on the island but Veronique had him driving one with Myriam, Renee and Mathilde down to the beach. Eve drove Michel and the camera gear and Noel drove Veronique and Heloise. The villa was on the hill above an undeveloped area near Cap Ferré. The beach was not wide but it was reasonably long and not easily accessible. That last point was key for what they were trying to shoot. Andrew followed Noel down paths he was not sure they should be driving on but they got to a small clearing with a clearly visible path down to the shore. It was quite the parade of people all dressed up but in running shoes, carrying their heels, or his case his dress shoes. Veronique kept them all off the sand and they walked on the grass to the north end of the beach.

But the shots were simple and straightforward in the extreme. Michel positioned himself 20 metres down the beach and Andrew and the model walked towards him and he zoomed in before panning round catching the glowing orb of the sun as it came up over the horizon and then let them walk past him for 20 metres. Each model had a different scarf and as they got close to Michel Andrew would take the scarf and drape it over his companion’s shoulders. Then he stopped and another model joined him, Michel went further down the beach and they repeated the shot. It barely took them 25 minutes to get all four models shot. In one of the shots Andrew had his jacket off, in another his tie was undone, small details like that. But Veronique got 40 or 50 metres of the two of them walking arm in arm alone on the beach, as if at the end of dancing the night away. Amazingly they were all back at the villa by 7.30. It had been painless. There would be a series of staging shots that evening as Andrew and each of the models went out for the evening. His main memory of the evening shoots was the reaction of the taxi driver as he got to do the departure five times. Veronique filmed Marissa as well and they would do a sunrise shot as part of their morning shoot. While everyone was in their room Andrew spent 15 minutes doing his exercises, without a gallery luckily, then rooted around in the kitchen to make some coffee. He was sitting on a chair staring unseeingly down to the Atlantic when Eve sat down beside him.

“I asked Veronique back in July if you chose the shots and she told me no. After this morning I am not sure that is true. Why did you suggest getting up so early this morning?”

He shrugged, always a helpful response.

“It was when you were all joking about going out clubbing. Last year when I was in Cyprus I would sometimes meet couples coming home at the end of the night when I was out running on the beach in the morning. It just made me think and then I mentioned it.”

Eve considered what he had said.

“But it makes it a long day, a long week.”

“It was always going to be a long week. What else is there to do? All of you will get a day or two off, to be able to relax and enjoy the island. I will work every day, same as when we worked together in September.”

“I am surprised, given what you say, that you would volunteer for more work.”

Just like in West Berlin over the summer he was a keener, there was no other excuse. Andrew then had to try and explain what a keener was. It took a moment or two. If there was a French slang word for it he was never told. He thought about what Eve had said but other than his own nature he didn’t really know why he volunteered for more work. Another symptom of not being very good at doing nothing. Later in the morning he and Renee went for a walk. Well it started as a walk but they found a log to sit on. Trying to have a conversation between the two of them was difficult as Andrew had to stoop so much.

“I am sorry about last night. This is likely to be the last time we work together and I am going to miss you.”

“When I graduate you can come and visit in London, or Edinburgh.”

She looked at him hopefully.

“Really?”

“You are one of only three models that know my real name. You and I write more than either Heloise or Chiara. Heloise and I write regularly but not as much as we do. And Chiara and I have stopped writing, it just faded away. Why do you think that I would not see you after I finish modelling, after you finish modelling?”

There was no explanation, at least none she shared with him. His guess was she thought of him as part of her modelling world and as that faded away then so would their friendship. But she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, articulate that. But the change in her demeanour was noticeable. They carried on down towards the shore. They stayed up on a headland looking out over the swirling waters below. The beach still looked deserted.

“It is strange this trip. We are all waiting for our turn with you. Do you think there will be more shoots like this morning where we all just swap in and out?”

A good question.

“I don’t know. My guess will be that for shots where we are clothed, or at least semi-clothed, things like the sailing or these water motorcycles that Veronique was talking about, then it makes sense. It keeps everyone involved and I think the energy, the catcalls, the showing off, will all be good. Where I think it does not make sense is when it is intimate. I don’t think I want to be rolling around, being very free with my hands, on one of you with the other three, sorry four, all standing around watching. I think it will make us all very self-conscious. Plus I don’t want to deal with any comments about why I did something with one woman but not with another or others. But I am not in charge.”

Renee nodded in agreement.

“Come on let’s go back to the villa. I want to thank you for being so nice, both last night and again today. In fact I think you need to be thanked repeatedly.”

It was good to see her mischievous spirit returning, although when he stood up he was lightheaded for some reason!

Renee swallowed her first thanks and then screamed her second into a pillow. Andrew didn’t know how successful they were in fooling anyone but at least she didn’t howl at the moon. He could pretend that he was only pleased that Renee was feeling better but who was he kidding? She was still tight and trim and just had a sexual energy that he totally got off on. Renee needed to be six or seven inches taller so that he could kiss her while fucking, other than that she was just a perfect, fizzing ball of sexiness. That morning she pulled her legs wide, even wider than if she was doing the splits. It was obscenely sexy and Andrew knew he was going to last mere minutes when he looked down at her. But she knew what she was doing, her devilish smile teasing him as she stretched her legs as wide as possible. It took him mercilessly tormenting her clit to swipe the smirk off her face. And they both came almost at the same time, an honorable draw. They lay beside each other on the bed catching their breath.

“I really need to send your gymnastics coach a thank you card.”

She giggled and pulled herself onto him, kissing him for a while.

“I have told you that all of these moves, these stretches, when we were in camp we always giggled about doing them with boyfriends or husbands. It has been seven years but finally.”

She smiled shyly.

“I have been practicing for several weeks, getting the flexibility back into my hips and pelvis.”

Andrew leaned down and kissed her. It was a more intimate moment than any of their sexual gymnastics that morning.

“Thank you. It was amazing to watch, to see your impish smile, to see you think about all those gymnastics camps.”

Amazingly it did not appear that they had been caught or heard and so they sat and enjoyed lunch with everyone else. Just as lunch was finishing Marissa arrived. It is almost redundant to say that she was beautiful, she was a standard beautiful model. But she had flawless dark coffee-coloured skin. When Andrew was introduced to her he stood behind her and placed his arm alongside her own. The stark contrast to his own pasty whiteness had Veronique smiling widely. She just wandered off thinking about different shots. Marissa came and sat with the rest of them and it was like the start of university all over again. Marissa’s French was thickly accented and so Andrew had to concentrate to understand her. But he watched and listened more than he spoke and saw how the women acted to Marissa. There was a veneer to it. He could see how it must be tough for friendships to survive in that industry, in any industry where there is a conveyor belt of younger, hungrier people coming along behind. But Andrew had the seen the impact of rejection on Renee’s psyche and it just brought home to him the absurd luck of his position. He really was just a blundering amateur.

The warmth, the humidity of the afternoon sent everyone to their room for a siesta and Andrew relaxed on the patio staying in the shade. Marissa had been unpacking and came back through. Their chat was slow and stilted at first but they persevered. She talked about Martinique which he learned was a full part of France; life in the Caribbean, apparently warm and sunny the whole time but with a rainy season; and what it was like to grow up there, live there.

“Life on the island is good Andrew but for me, for a lot of young people, I will have to move to mainland France to have any kind of career. This is a great opportunity, one that would not have happened for me without the shoot coming to Martinique. If it is successful then I will get noticed and may have a chance. I will see.”

Every conversation with a female model seemed to be about fighting the odds. Andrew thought Heloise instinctively knew that and was working hard to gain additional skills or talents to increase the range of possibilities for herself. He caught himself wondering whether any of the people he worked with resented the way his career was so easy, almost effortless, and the way he didn’t focus on it. When he worked he took it seriously but the rest of the time it was a source of stories for his friends. After the sun set they shot the scenes of everyone leaving for a night out, each of them taking turns to get into the cab. All filler, all fluff, nothing more than a second or two of the final commercial but setting the stage, visually laying out the story for the audience. Marissa drew the early morning straw the next day so everyone else got to have a lie in. She had been shown the Cyprus shoots and so knew what to expect. Andrew had to get back into the mindset of Cyprus.

Andrew knew nothing about filming making, cinematography, really anything to do with the film and television industry. He was an animatronic mannequin half the time. What he had come to realise was that Veronique was brilliant. Inter-personally she was a real joy to work with, not full of herself, not a diva, not prone to screaming fits. But that was her studio or location presence. What had started to catch his eye was the way that she shot the commercials and the way that she edited them. She had captured the fun, the joy, from the very first shoots. But she was also artistic, she had a vision. And that morning Andrew saw it more than any other time. The whole morning was skin contrast, but highlighted and backlit by the rising sun. He was in the water with a sparkling white shirt and long dark shorts before the rim of the sun had even risen. Veronique was lying on the grass beside Michel giving Marissa directions as they shot him coming out of the water. They had Andrew approach Marissa, but not touch her and get her wet yet, first while she was wearing a bikini, then a bikini top and a pareo, then just the pareo, then just the bikini bottom, before finally with her naked. Now all of this was just her back and bum but Marissa was in at the deep end in terms of what the shoot would be like. Finally Veronique let him approach Marissa who was only wearing a pareo with nothing underneath. His arms came around her, trying to show the contrast of his arms on her back, before the pareo was dropped onto the sand and his arms again caressed Marissa’s back and the top of her bum. It wasn’t a full on fondle but it was definitely starting to stray south. The next 75 minutes was a complete blur of Andrew constantly coming out of the water towards Marissa, both of them in varying and ever decreasing amounts of clothes. But the one constant was that the sun was behind him every time. His features were obscured as they were almost dark with the brightness of the sun directly behind him. At one point Marissa was wearing a white pareo around her hips and another draped over her shoulders. Andrew came out of the sea looking dark but as the contrast resolved, his features became visible, Marissa untied the pareo round her hips before finally, just as Andrew got to her, she let the pareo fall from her shoulders. She went from white to brown and he went from a dark outline to pasty white. Veronique won an award for that commercial. But with all of these there was a relentlessness to them. They gradually shuffled down the beach so as to walk over pristine sand each time but other than that Michel and Veronique stayed behind Marissa and Andrew appeared out of the sea, wet white shirt to the fore.

Finally after two hours they were given towels, told to dry off and then dress in their glad rags from the night before. Andrew’s short hair was the only thing that made that even possible. The formal wear part after that was painless, all they had to do was walk down the beach hand in hand and wrap Marissa in a scarf. The biggest issue had been getting the sand off them, at least the visible parts.

Just as they were wrapping up a buzzing filled the air and two jet skis came into view with a speedboat towing a tiny catamaran behind them. When Andrew first saw a jet ski there was a sense of ‘oh I get it’. Veronique’s description of a motorbike on the water seemed to make sense. The four luckiest guys in Martinique, other than Andrew, arrived with the boats. The speedboat was for Veronique and Michel for the filming, one of the jet skis was the safety boat and would focus on them on the little catamaran and the other jet ski was there to collect the guy who was going to get them moving and then literally jump overboard. There had been a lot of planning done for this shoot, or these days of shooting.

Concurrent to the boats arriving the other models all arrived, dropped off by Noel and Myriam. Marissa got to return to the villa and didn’t need to be back until after lunch; no such time off for Andrew. He sat in the shade of a couple of big umbrellas and reapplied sunscreen over his legs from the knees down, all round his face and on his hands, wrists and forearms. Even though he was going to be wearing a shirt, suitably tight and ripped, Andrew also reapplied it to his lower back. The rest of the day was a riot; it was a beach holiday with some crazy sailing thrown in.

Mathilde was first, and as she and her husband Pierre sailed, she actually knew what she was doing. To such an extent that they didn’t need to throw anyone overboard. The thing that was amazingly easy with a Hobie Cat was that you could get it up on one pontoon with very little difficulty. As Mathilde knew what she was doing they managed this without very much fuss. As this was the first time he had ever been sailing Andrew didn’t have a clue what was going on. In fact he wasn’t paying attention at points as he tried to work out the forces and the physics of why certain things were happening. After getting hit on the head with the boom because he wasn’t paying attention he left that until later. Mathilde had one of the hulls off the water with relative ease and Michel was getting lots of shots. They were side by side while she was doing this. Veronique then wanted them to spoon, Mathilde leaning back into him, a romantic moment as they raced through Atlantic swells! With her it was not too much of a problem. She seemed to recognise when the hull was starting to get too high and would tweak the steering and keep them at an angle that looked good for the camera but didn’t involve them capsizing. Neither of them were wearing lifejackets so that more of their bodies could be seen. For the final runs they were topless, first side by side and then with Mathilde spooned into him.