Skin in the Game
Copyright© 2025 by Danielle Stories
Chapter 8: The New World
Milan was a symphony of old stone and new glass. The air smelled different, like espresso, diesel, and a thousand years of history. Our car moved through narrow, winding streets, then burst out into a grand piazza. People moved with a different rhythm here, more theatrical, more aware of being seen.
They saw me.
Sitting in the open-top car beside Angelica, my skin bathed in the Italian sun, the collar stark against my throat, I was the most seen I had ever been. The stares here weren’t like the ones in America. There was less shock, more ... appraisal. As if I were a piece of provocative public art. A man on a Vespa slowed, his eyes widening, then he grinned and shouted something in Italian that sounded more impressive than insulting. A woman selling flowers gave me a long, thoughtful look, then a slow, respectful nod.
They didn’t see a victim. They saw a statement, and in the city of high fashion, a statement was understood.
The car pulled up in front of a grand, old building with a discreet, modern plaque: Dolce & Gabbana. A team of people, all dressed in severe black, was waiting for us. A woman with silver hair and sharp glasses stepped forward.
“Angelica! Benvenuta!” She air-kissed Angelica on both cheeks, then her eyes, magnified by her glasses, turned to me. They didn’t flicker. They were absorbed. “this is a masterpiece. La Silhouette.” She didn’t call me by my name. She called me The Silhouette. It was a title.
“Denise,” Angelica said, her voice cool. “This is Signora Rossi, the creative director.”
Signora Rossi’s gaze was like a laser, scanning every line of my body, the way the light hit my skin, the contrast of the dark leather collar. “Perfetto,” she whispered. “The raw canvas. The absolute truth. Come. We begin.”
We were ushered inside, through a hushed, carpeted hall, into a vast, white studio. Lights, cameras, and racks of clothes were everywhere. But in the center of the chaos was a single, stark white platform.
Signora Rossi clapped her hands. “Places! We start with the core concept. The Silhouette. Just her. Nothing else.”
A makeup artist approached me, then hesitated, looking at my bare face.
“No,” Signora Rossi said. “Nothing. She is perfect as she is.”
I was led to the platform. The lights were hot, brighter than any I had felt before. I turned to face the camera, instinctively assuming my posture, shoulders back, chin level, gaze calm and direct.
“Si! Just like that!” Signora Rossi called out. “You are not a model. You are a fact! You are the truth!”
The camera began to click, a rapid, mechanical heartbeat. I didn’t move. I didn’t smile. I was The Silhouette. Angelica’s creation. Now, I was about to become art for the world.
The shoot lasted for two days. They draped me in jewels so heavy I felt their weight like anchors. They painted my skin with liquid gold that dried into a second, shimmering skin. They placed me next to models wearing suits that cost more than my family’s old apartment.
Through it all, I was the constant. The naked form. The collared shadow. The “raw canvas.” The photographers and stylists buzzed around me, their Italian rapid and passionate. They would adjust a light, then step back and murmur, “Bellissima.”
They weren’t looking at me with lust or pity. They were looking at me with the same focused intensity a sculptor gives to a block of marble. I was a medium for their art.
During a break, Signora Rossi brought me a glass of water herself. “You have a quality,” she said, her English precise. “You do not ask for permission. You do not seek approval. You simply are. In a world of fakes, that is the most valuable currency.”
Angelica, who had been watching from a chair in the corner, gave a slight, proud smile. She had cultivated this. She had known this potential was inside me, buried under layers of fear and poverty.
On the final day, they did a shot with just me and Angelica. She stood behind me, fully dressed in a sharp black pantsuit, her hands resting on my bare shoulders. A possessive, protective gesture. The camera captured it all: her power, my surrender, the unbreakable bond between us.
It was the image that would end up on the cover of magazines.
That night, in our Milan hotel suite, Angelica scrolled through the digital contact sheets on her tablet. “They are exceptional,” she said, a rare note of genuine awe in her voice. “You have transcended the role, Denise. You are no longer just my assistant. You are my partner in this image. My equal in the narrative.”
She looked at me, and for the first time, I saw something in her eyes beyond ownership. I saw respect. Acknowledgment.
“You have built this with me,” she said. “Your discipline. Your silence. Your strength. You have built this empire of influence, brick by brick.”
I looked at the images on the screen. The golden girl. The collared shadow. The powerful duo. It was a world I had helped create.
I wasn’t just her possession anymore. I was her collaborator. That was a power I had never dreamed of.
A week after the shoot, the first images leaked. Not the polished campaign, but a grainy, behind-the-scenes shot from a phone. It was me on the white platform, bathed in light, the collar clear around my neck.
The internet exploded.
But it wasn’t the explosion I expected. The comments weren’t just about shock or outrage. A new word started trending: #SkinGoals.
Articles popped up. “The Rise of the Corporate Nude: Empowerment or Exploitation?” “Denise Holt: The Silent Power Behind the Howell Empire.” “How a Collar Became the Ultimate Symbol of Commitment.”
I was no longer a scandal. I was a phenomenon.
Angelica called me into her office, the temporary one in our Milan suite. She had three tablets going at once, monitoring the global reaction.
“They’re missing the point,” she said, but she didn’t sound angry. She sounded triumphant. “They’re debating nudity. They’re debating the collar. They don’t understand that it’s not about any of those things individually. It’s about the totality of control. The aesthetic of absolute dedication.”
She turned one of the tablets toward me. It showed a post from a popular influencer. She had posted a picture of herself in a minimalist outfit with the caption: “Trying to channel my inner Denise Holt today. Less noise, more truth. #SkinGoals #Authenticity”
People were copying me. Not the nudity, but the idea. The severity. The silence.
“You’ve started a movement,” Angelica said, her voice low and intense. “A movement toward a new kind of aesthetic power. One based on radical honesty and unbreakable loyalty. They can’t replicate the core of it, they aren’t you, and they don’t have me, but they want a piece of the philosophy.”
I looked at the screen, at the thousands of posts. They were using my name. They were dissecting my posture, my calm gaze. I was a symbol. A benchmark.
The power shift I felt in the photo shoot solidified. I wasn’t just a tool in Angelica’s hand anymore. I was the spark that had ignited the fire. The fire she controlled, but that I had fueled with my own skin and bone.
I looked at her. “What does this mean?”