Chapter 9

The next two weeks went by in a blink. The routine consumed Andrew. He made several breakthroughs in his project and worked long and late into the night figuring out what was useful to his project and what was not. He let it consume him, his balance was skewed but he was happy, he could see progress. The OTC weekend came and went without much incident. He didn’t know whether it was just in his own mind but Andrew got the sense that the permanent staff viewed students differently if they indicated they were going to join the Forces, be it as a Regular or the TA. Stanford was busy as usual, cold as usual and that is about the best he could tell anyone about a training weekend in January. He and Catherine were now much more passionate in their fucking. Now that didn’t mean it had been crap in term one but they were both more into it. Andrew was feeding off the renewed energy that she was bringing to every encounter. Catherine knew she liked sex and now that she could admit it to him, and to herself, was indulging. She was gaining a lot of sexual calories. And yet he conversely was on a diet. He was often tired when she came over and they were out of sync.

The reason, other than his nature, for this push on his project was that Manon had let Andrew know that Paris would be the third weekend of the term, the weekend after the training weekend. So after a full day at class and the library he headed off to Heathrow, a chore if ever there was one. It was close to midnight when he checked into his hotel, the Monsart as usual. There was a note requiring Andrew to be at the studio the following morning at 7.00. It was going to be a long weekend.

He had worked with five models when in Martinique; Heloise, Renee, Mathilde, Eve and Marissa. Given that the last was a new model who lived in Martinique Andrew presumed that it would only be the four models who lived in Metropolitan France that would be there for the weekend shoot. But he was wrong, Marissa was there as well. Nearly every time he had been in this city centre studio it had been dressed like a city centre apartment. It was elegant and projected the view of high end living. That weekend they had changed the set completely. They had created a beach hut set, or more accurately a beach villa set, and it was light and airy, it really did transport you to a Caribbean beach. That it was cold and wet outside on the Paris streets? Not a trace.

What set the tone for the day? Working with Heloise first thing. Andrew was sad that he didn’t have longer to chat to her but they were still very regular correspondents. Apparently Heloise was horny, she decided it was all his fault, and her goal for the morning was to tease him, and herself, to distraction. Andrew had to reapply tape to his postiche twice to keep Mr. Happy under control. The two of them still had outstanding chemistry and it was fun. But it was also relentless. All the different swimsuits, bikinis and pareos were cycled through, dressed and discarded. Other than being more respectful in their treatment of the pareos, there was more of a lusty, sexual, frantic vibe to a lot of the different shots. What they didn’t realise at the time was Veronique had an unmanned camera running in the corner of the set so that she caught some of their ‘off-camera’ goofing about. By the time lunch was called Andrew’s arms were tired from throwing Heloise onto the bed. Mathilde was already there so he only had a few minutes to chat with Heloise.

“That was hard work but a lot of fun. It is good to see you Andrew.”

“You too Heloise. I wish we had even a few minutes to chat. How is your career going? How was the first commercial with lines received?”

“Okay, not fabulous but okay. It is baby steps. My agent is looking for lots of different roles for me. I am as busy as ever. I have even been trying to date as well.”

That fact had not been in her letters.

“That’s great, no?”

“Mixed. So many short men. I did go out with one of the French basketball team, more than 2 metres.”

That made him north of 6’7”.

“But he was dull, tall but dull. So I keep kissing tall frogs and one day I will find a tall prince.”

“This is too rushed but I am back for my final shoot in July. Hopefully we can talk with some clothes on then.”

With a laugh and a kiss she left to shower and change.

The shoot with Mathilde was a tale of two halves. The first half of the shoot Mathilde was the aggressive older woman, the classic cougar. Andrew was not aware of the term at the time, but frankly he didn’t care. There was more than an hour of Mathilde pushing him back onto the bed, him heavily taped down, before she blatantly straddled him; fade out ravishing ensues. Andrew was very much the young stallion being led by the nose, well led by something. And despite the number of people in the studio it was getting to him. Mathilde knew it and was relentless in her teasing. When Veronique called a momentary halt he actually went and had a cold shower. He needed to reset.

“Will you forgive me Andrew?”

Mathilde did not appear to be contrite, eyes sparkling and her robe casually tied challenging him to continue to look her in the eyes.

“Bad Mathilde, you should know better especially at your age.”

Rather than be offended she just laughed.

“Everything is better at my age. Just ask Pierre.”

Andrew don’t have much game at the best of time but had none when it came to flirting with a married woman, whose husband he had met. He shook his head in defeat and went to see Veronique.

“What is the plan?”

Veronique saw the look in his eye.

“Do you have one?”

“Payback.”

He quickly explained and Veronique said go for it. For two hours Andrew felt up another man’s wife. A pareo was placed on the bed and then Mathilde, naked, lay on top of it. Initially it was tied round her waist, covering her bum. Andrew straddled Mathilde’s legs and just as he was about to pour the oil Veronique yelled cut. The scene was then reshot three further times with three different pareos. He then oiled her shoulders and the middle of her back but again had to pause as there were the four continuity shots of his hands heading to the different pareos, all swapped out. Then Andrew’s hands were carefully cleaned and the four pareos were untied and left to fall back onto the bed. Finally he oiled and massaged Mathilde’s arse for 20 minutes while stopping and starting to show the different pareos. It was very bitty, very stop start, but Veronique got lots of shots, lots of combinations. He was sure it was Mathilde’s turn for a cold shower.

Her front was starting to push the boundaries. Veronique had a second, thin mattress brought in and put on the bed. But she had it pulled 18 inches down the bed from the one underneath. So when Mathilde lay back down, her head was just slightly lower than normal. When Michel crouched at the top of the bed, he had a view right down her body, her head wasn’t blocking the view as it would normally. Andrew knelt at the other end of the bed, oiled up his hands and disappeared under the pareo. By the time they had shot this four times it was clear it was starting to get to Mathilde. The final shots were with Michel behind Andrew, using his body as a shield for Mathilde, pareos again untied. Fade to black, ravishing ensues. But the final shot, just before Veronique called cut, was when Mathilde pushed Andrew back onto his haunches. She sat up, carefully spun Andrew round, Michel still behind them, and for the final time that day pushed him back onto the bed and jumped on him. Ravishing was definitely going to ensue. Three minutes later they were sitting in their robes at the end of the bed.

“You have no idea how jealous my friends are about you. And this is not going to help. I am 37 Andrew, not 20, and yet. Thank you.”

With kisses on both cheeks she left. Pierre better have taken his vitamins.

But after another quick shower, more to clean the oil off himself than anything else, Andrew had his third and final session of the day. At first he wasn’t sure who he was working with, as Marissa and Renee were standing talking but Renee was the following morning. Once they had a moment of privacy she shyly asked if she could stay with him that night so Andrew gave her the room key. She pulled him down for a peck on the cheek. He was going to be really tired when he got back to Cambridge!

But the tone and the mood of the third shoot was different again. The vibe of the shoot was tender, not tentative, but more loving than lustful. Marissa had the most amazing skin tone, a rich, dark brown colour that just popped out against Andrew’s pasty whiteness. They couldn’t shoot with white sheets as it just made him look all washed out but after a couple of experiments they used a medium gray set of bedding. Marissa’s skin colour meant it was a very distinct and different set of pareos were used as well. The bikinis were silver and white, the pareos lighter in tone than any used so far that day. Veronique ramped up the passion as the evening progressed. But she had also thought about these shots more than any other. She produced this amazing blanket that had very wide blocky stripes, white and brown. It wasn’t a perfect match for Marissa but it was close. They spent a long time positioning themselves, white on white and brown on brown, then Marissa throwing her leg over Andrew’s, his hand resting on her bum. Then Andrew was on the brown stripe and she was on the white one. Veronique and Michel just shot endless combinations of the two of them on this blanket. At 10.10 they were done for the day. He could tell Marissa was pleased and they shared a big hug before she headed off. She was a nice young lady but he didn’t know her. Veronique sat with him once he had some trousers on.

“Long day for you Andrew, are you okay?”

“I am fine. The sandwiches after Mathilde was finished helped. And I was able to sneak another couple when you were moving stuff. If you feed me I am normally okay.”

“I am pleased with what we got today. Three very different shoots. But there are kilometres of footage for me to work with, as usual I can create multiple versions of the commercial.”

She let him go and Andrew headed the four blocks back over to the hotel. Renee was lying in bed when he got there. She had been down, almost mopey, back in December but six weeks later she was fine.

“December was tough Andrew. But I got a couple of jobs when I got back to Paris and so I am doing better. I also know that it is coming to an end for me. I have applied for teaching jobs, starting in September. If I do any modelling it will be holidays and weekends but there may be nothing.”

“You seem calm about it. You were upset in December.”

“What can I do? When the phone doesn’t ring you can’t just turn up at a studio. So the worst of my pity is over. I will have a grumpy day every so often but what is the point. So I promise to be as bouncy and sexy as possible tomorrow.”

They didn’t fuck so much as make love that night, and again in the morning. But it was not sad, it was an expression of their closeness, their friendship. It was the coda to their time together. Without saying anything they both knew that sex between them was tied to modelling. Andrew wasn’t going to fly to Paris just to fuck Renee like he had gone to Helsinki to see Lilja. Once he had graduated then he would invite her to London and just enjoy time with the exuberant young woman.

The morning of modelling with Renee was laugh out loud funny. Because Veronique decided to completely own the ridiculous disparity in their heights. Renee had been given two stools. One was 17 inches tall which put them almost exactly eye to eye. She also had a stool that was 22 inches high which had Renee towering over him. The close-ups and then the pan back were light hearted. At one point he wrapped a pareo round Renee’s waist, Michel filming from the back. Then Renee did the same to Andrew, but she tied it round the point on his body that was level with her waist. It looked like he was wearing a pareo mini-skirt. When she did the same shot with the even taller stool half his arse was hanging out. It was fun and silly with lots of kissing and cuddling.

Veronique had done an excellent job of creating four very visual, distinct and thematically different commercials. The shoot with Eve was closest to Mathilde’s. Going back to the summer when he had chased her round the studio after turning up from a run, and then through the hot shoot out at the equestrian centre, Eve and Andrew had chemistry. He didn’t really know her, she was 31 and a tall, beautiful model. But there was something between them that worked. He didn’t know for sure but the fact that they had never done anything off camera contributed. It was blatant, it was shameless, and it was borderline masochistic. When Andrew picked Eve up rather than take her to the bed and throw her down he would crush her against the wall hands and mouth roaming. The whole shoot could be summed up as ‘they can’t keep their hands off each other’. Veronique did not give them that instruction but that is what they portrayed all afternoon. There had been no sign of Marilyn, Manon or Beatrice over the weekend, just Veronique and her usual crew. Once Andrew had showered and dressed she told him that she was going to come in the taxi to the airport so that they could chat. Andrew shrugged, guessing what this was about.

“Thank you for these two days. You have given me lots to work with as usual. These shots will let us have a nice batch of summer beach commercials ready for April. They will run for most of the spring and summer. I have to ask. Have you thought any more about continuing to work?”

“I have thought about it. I find it hard to believe that there is no one else that Hermès can use. It is flattering but seems as if they have not tried very hard to find someone else.”

“It is the older women Andrew. Your paleness works with Marissa but she could have shot with anyone. Heloise and Renee are both your friends, that comes through in all your shoots with them. But we have auditioned a lot of men and we have not found anyone who is as good as you with people like Chiara and Eve. I don’t think you realise it is the simple little touches. When you jumped off the horse that day with Eve, you were hot and sweaty, the shirt already stuck to your body. That is all fine but it was the way you grabbed the towel off the rail, wiped your face, and then flung it aside, all without breaking stride. That is the moment. I had a camera on Eve and she was standing there looking imperious and when you did that she gulped and just for a moment it was ‘oh my god what is he going to do with me’. And then she smiled a greedy smile. I have made five commercials out of that one shoot. In the end they decided it was just a little too much for Hermès but they seriously thought about using the first take. You can’t fake that. Maybe there is an actor or model that can fake that but we have not found him.

“And the one shot with Capucine was great, although we all wish we looked that good at 39. But your shoots with Mathilde are. I don’t know what the right word is. I don’t think there is one word. It is many things combined. It is respectful, but you have this whole air of struggling to be restrained. Here is a woman of 37, softer, riper than all these other models. Marissa could be her daughter. But with Marissa you were tender, with Mathilde you were caged. There was this delicious sense of danger, good danger, sweeping her off her feet danger. But it was there lurking. And again when you were oiling her up, your face was so expressive. I would watch you start to get into it and then I would call cut to change clothes or position and just for a moment you would look annoyed, disappointed.”