Chapter 1

Andrew was in a fabulous mood that Sunday. He was up early and swam for an hour, enjoying the physical pleasure and not worrying about anything. The library was quiet at that early hour as he found his usual corner and worked away. There were only a week and a half of classes left, Cambridge weeks end on a Wednesday, and Andrew was in good shape across his courses. He was pleased as this had been an Electrical heavy term and it was his least favourite part of engineering. Next term was similarly heavily concentrated on Civil and he was looking forward to it. Andrew flipped between three tasks that afternoon. Reviewing his notes and getting ready for the following week were the constant, but he was also reviewing a bunch of proposals and reports that Morag had sent down to him. With the modelling news the previous weekend on top of the OTC he was a week behind in his reading but having things in manageable tranches was helping him not feel overwhelmed by the business. The reports on existing investments were straightforward. Leslie attached a one page summary and most were doing okay or it was too early to tell. She attached the relevant reports but Andrew did not bother reading them. What was the point in second guessing her? The proposals that made it to him were getting to be of a higher quality and most did not have any of the obvious flaws of the ones from a year earlier. He could see the challenge being to decide which they chose to invest in, given that they were all better written and with clear and measurable objectives, compared to some of their early investments. Something to talk to Leslie and Julian about on his upcoming weekend in Edinburgh. The final task was catching up on his letters. The letters to his mother were becoming less and less frequent. And when he did write the letter was often nothing but mindless waffle. What to do about Christmas was looming large. Andrew also wrote to Suzanne reminding her that he would be back up in Edinburgh the following weekend and that he missed her and wanted to see her. Her silence was baffling, there had been no letters, but she wanted to live her life, and have the freedom from Andrew to do it, and so he had to accept and respect that. Given his activities the previous night and probably that coming night Andrew was in no position to judge, but she was his friend first and he wondered what was going on. The next two notes were to Pete reminding him about the coming Friday and to Jim and Freya confirming he would be at the flat round about lunchtime on the Saturday after term finished for the weekend. The OTC winter formal event was on the Friday night so it would not be an early start the next morning. It was the drunkest Andrew had been in 1^st year but at least this year it was not back to back with the hockey team event.

Finally Andrew wrote to Heloise confirming he was going to shoot the commercial with her. What he really wanted to do was sit down and have a chat with her, talk through the whole process, lean on her experience. But as always in these times it was easier said than done. Andrew sent a letter to her, not knowing if she was even at her flat or was away somewhere, explaining that late afternoon Sunday was the best time to try and coordinate a call. After that it was a painful iterative process of trying to align schedules to get to the point where they could talk on the phone. Oh, and on top of all that, it was extremely expensive to call long distance and especially internationally. But his letter was off to Heloise and he would have to wait to see what happened.

The call to his Grandma was short and sweet, just a two minute ‘how are you?’ call. He told her he would see her the following Sunday and was informed that he was to accompany her to church not ‘loiter outside’. That was him told. She might have been physically more frail but her mind and tongue were as sharp as ever. The call to Maggie and Tony was equally short, he would call them at some point and go and see them. But until he got to Edinburgh and had a chance to spend time with Suzanne he didn’t know exactly when. His last call was to Manon. Phillippe, who answered the phone, quickly wrote the number of the payphone at the library down and then called Andrew back. They had two or three minutes of catching up, he was a serious bloke but he and Manon together worked well. The conversation between the two of them ended to the sounds of whacks being administered to him by his fiancé and his laughter as he handed the phone to her.

“Awful man, I don’t know why I love him.”

Someone had been keen to get to the phone and talk about this upcoming venture.

“I bet he is sitting there looking all sad with puppy dog eyes. When you get off the phone you are going to have to make it up to him.”

“Andrew! Don’t give him any ideas. You are worse than he is!”

Some people you just click with and Manon and Phillippe firmly fell into that category. They were nice and all that sort of thing but over the years Andrew have seen it so many times. There are people where it was effortless, people such as Manon and Phillippe who he only saw occasionally, where there were no awkward pauses or painful idle chat. And then there are others, sadly much more prevalent, where it was by rote, it was a chore and how ever hard you tried it never got past being superficial. Maybe it is the nature of human interaction and the differences between people, but when you fall back into a comfortable rhythm with someone it starkly highlights how rare those circumstances were. That day was going to be an expensive phone bill for Manon. She wanted to talk even more than Andrew and filled him in on a lot of the background that they hadn’t covered the previous Sunday.

“Perfume and cologne are very recent additions for Hermès Andrew. They want to define them as Hermès, while at the same time make them different than the fashion lines. That is why they are going to try this. That Heloise has agreed to this is the key. She is a fixture in the fashion pages but this is something new for her. We decided to use Camille and Joelle again too.”

They were the other two models from the shoot in March.

“Joelle will be fine but we will have to see how you and Camille look together on film. She is small and they may want someone taller. So, when can you do this?”

“The week of December 3^rd is free, I can’t do the week of the 10^th and I suppose I could do the week before Christmas but would prefer not to. I can also do the week of January 7^th but that is the last until Easter, classes start the following week.”

“Good, I know that the first week of December works with Heloise, well at least the end of the week. You would be okay working over the weekend?”

Shrugging is not an effect method of communication on the phone.

“Sure. But I need to be in London on the Monday, the 10^th.”

“Andrew, do you think you will be able to cope, to do it?”

“I have thought about that a lot Manon, it is a risk. Heloise is the star and I presume she will go first in all the shooting, but remember the photoshoot, they were about to scrap the whole thing. It was the chemistry between Heloise and I that saved it. I think we have to shoot her commercial first, once I am surer of what is expected then I think I should be okay. But I am not a professional model, and definitely not an actor. The production company, and especially whoever is directing this, need to remember that. There was an awful lot of ‘non, non, non’ last time. I will be trying my best but someone being an arse is not going to work.”

The silence at the other end of the line was telling. And unnerving.

“Okay.”

Long, drawn out, conveying the exact opposite of the word.

“It is the risk of using someone as unskilled as me Manon.”

A sigh.

“Yes, we know. But it was the only way to get Heloise to participate.”

Well wasn’t that an interesting titbit?

“I don’t mean that to sound so negative Andrew, but even although there is no dialogue it would make sense to have someone more experienced. No matter, you are the chosen male model and we will work with you to make this a great shoot.”

There was nothing really to say to that. It was the truth. Andrew might have the body they were after but he was hardly alone in the world of modelling. Even his height was not unique. In the end it came back to the chemistry between Heloise and him. Andrew told Manon he would call her the following Sunday to see if there were any updates.

His bright mood from earlier in the day had dissipated and Andrew was pensive for the rest of the day, he was glad that his studying was done because he was distracted by the thought of the commercial shoot. Andrew really hoped he would at least be adequate enough for the commercial to work. The previous week he had been sufficiently self-absorbed to completely miss the fact that he was the amateur in this production and was perceived as the weak link. It was a sobering thought.

Fortunately Abi was not worried about such angst. Abi had fallen in a vat of filth and was rolling around in it. She was just a bundle of turned on sexiness and it was fascinating to see the change that one week had brought about. There was a level of desire and frankly a level of engagement that was new. Andrew just lapped it up, literally. Their first fuck was a race to the finish, barely one step up from frantic rutting. Once the condom was disposed of and Abi was resting along him he let her talk it out.

“Andrew, even if they don’t let me watch the shoot will you let me come to Paris with you? I can’t explain it, I really can’t. The last three nights I have lain in bed just thinking about being one of the models. It is such an intoxicating fantasy.”

She lifted her head and smiled at him.

“I wish I had the nerve like you do, to go through with it. But it is my head versus my heart.”

She giggled.

“Well probably lower than my heart but I know that I won’t do it. I am my mother’s daughter and she only modelled in swimsuits, not like you are going to.”

A big sigh.

“I am glad that I can talk about this fantasy with you, that just being with you stokes that desire to show myself off.”

It was a night of alternating between sighs and giggles. It was time for a giggle.

“Listen to me. I have moaned about being so pretty, get fed up with boys sniffing around all the time and yet here is me dreaming of walking around at a photoshoot with nothing on. You are a bad influence Andrew McLeod.”

This last was punctuated with a long slow passionate kiss.

“Close your eyes for me Abi. Let me transport you to Paris.”

Andrew slid Abi off him so that she was lying on her stomach. She had closed her eyes.

“We are lying in bed on the set. There are more than 20 people walking about, make-up, cameras, lighting, various hangers on. Then it is all quiet and they are all watching us. I am lying beside you, a single sheet pulled up, hiding us.”

Andrew pulled the sheet so that Abi could feel it on her legs and back.

“You can feel your heart beating faster. You can’t wait for the moment yet you dread it at the same time. I am kissing your shoulder, your neck. My hands caressing and desiring your body, feeling the soft, feminine curves of your arse. The camera catches sight of my hand as it so obviously caresses you beneath the sheet. There is nothing faked, this is capturing desire, sexual attraction.”

Andrew let his hand and lips do as his words said.

“Suddenly I am slipping out of the bed, totally naked, just like you are under the sheet. I walk confidently over to the counter and stand there, looking in the mirror. The camera is catching both the reflection of my face in the mirror as well as the full length of my naked body standing in front of the counter.”

Andrew had slipped out of the bed and was now at the little sink in his room.

“You know you have to look at me, there is a camera looking past me back to the bed, to capture my lover’s reaction. You look up, your heart is going to burst out of your chest it is beating so fast yet you can feel your desire leaking from you, you are so turned on.”

Andrew went off script for a second and put a new condom on his straining dick.

“It is now or never. Your lover stands at the counter waiting for you, his new intoxicating cologne freshly applied. What will you do? Slide out from under the sheet and walk across the room to jump into his arms? Remain frozen, unable to move? Or will you throw back the sheet and run across the room, your beautiful, full breasts bouncing around, before devouring him in a passionate embrace.”

The silence and stillness was only for a second or two but they stretched out across the room. But then Andrew’s friend, his lover, she made it her own. Abi threw the sheet back, rolled onto her back and stretched, before climbing from the bed. But halfway to him she stopped and looked over her shoulder before advancing upon him.

The fantasy shattered as Abi hauled him back to bed and demanded that he fuck her. And that is all she said for the next few minutes. ‘Fuck me’ over and over again. Again this kind of fantasy as foreplay is not conducive to a long, controlled fuck. When Andrew came the world swam for a second and he struggled to hold himself off Abi. Flopping onto his back, he managed to get the condom off but dropped it onto the floor to be dealt with later. They lay side by side for a long time, letting heart rates settle and giving their minds time to process what they had just played out.

“Helena said you were the devil and now I finally understand what she meant. I had my eyes closed and I could imagine it exactly as you said, having my arse felt with everyone watching, I could imagine you at the counter, brazen and showing off, that long lean body just waiting for me.”

She shook her head.

“And then you called me out. Would I chicken or would I show the world my body? Come on, sit up with your back against the wall.”

As Andrew levered himself into a sitting position, Abi had him in hand and shortly thereafter he was safely covered. As Abi lowered herself onto Andrew she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Hold me Andrew please, just hold me.”

They fucked enough that he stayed erect and they remained joined but not really actively doing anything. This was about closeness. In the end neither of them came and after a brief bathroom routine, always an adventure when you share facilities, they were lying back in bed. There was no further talk, not that night, but Andrew knew that it was merely postponed. Unusually Abi was draped over him as if she was trying to get as much skin to skin contact as possible. His last memory before sleep claimed him was of her blonde hair on his shoulder, her arm flung across him as if pinning him down.

Unlike the previous day Andrew thought a lot about Abi as he swam. They didn’t have time for a long chat until Wednesday but he was surprised at her strong reaction to the modelling fantasy. She was about as different to Elspeth or Stacey as it was possible to be, and yet had demonstrated that the fantasy of being a model was much more common than Andrew had guessed. After his usual quick bowl of soup at the café he was back at his room just before 8.00. Abi was ready to go to Hall for breakfast, she must have gone back to her room to shower and change but was back sitting there in his room ready. She really must want to talk.