It's All About the Attitude
Aaron Michaels
Published by Thunder Valley Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 by Aaron Michaels
www.aaron-michaels.com
Cover image licensed by Depositphotos.com/dimmushka
Cover layout by Thunder Valley Press
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It's All About the Attitude
Aaron Michaels
The photographer stepped away from his camera, hands on his hips, and glared at Jesse. "We're aiming for drop dead, fuck me six ways to Sunday, if I buy the same clothes he's wearing I'm gonna get laid gorgeous here. What's so difficult to understand about that?"
Jesse crossed his arms in front of himself and kept his mouth shut. The photographer's assistant, a mousey young woman somewhere in her twenties, busied herself making notes on a clipboard, her back to Jesse and her boss. Trying to make herself invisible, no doubt. Standing alone against a silver-gray studio backdrop and illuminated by all sorts of megawatt light umbrellas, Jesse didn't have that option.
"They assured me they'd found a wonderful model for me this time. An actor, they said. Easy to work with." The photographer wasn't yelling -- yet -- but the vein running across his forehead was definitely more prominent than it had been when Jesse started posing a half hour ago. If the guy wasn't careful, he'd give himself a heart attack. "If this is what you call acting, my friend, don't quit your day job."
Okay, that really hurt. And to think, Jesse'd been looking forward to working with this guy. Sure, Tefford Saks (no relation to the store) had a reputation for ranting up a storm when he wasn't getting the exact shot he had in mind, but everyone still wanted to work with him because he was damn brilliant with a camera.
That's why Jesse agreed to audition for this job in the first place. He didn't really care about being the "Face of Fortunadi Fashions," an upstart, high-end men's clothing line, but he was in desperate need of some publicity. What better way to advertise himself than on a thirty-foot high billboard in Times Square? Especially a thirty-foot high billboard he didn't have to pay for.
So far Jesse Chance's acting career had consisted of a few B horror movies (where he'd been the pretty boy first to die shortly after having sex with the film's blonde teenage bimbo) and a couple of forgettable movies-of-the-week on the Syfy channel. Jesse's agent was about to drop him, the only call-back he had was for a soap opera so bad not even his mom would watch it, and if he screwed up this gig, Saks would make sure the only modeling job Jesse ever got again was Poster Boy for the Disease of the Week handouts at the free clinic in West Hollywood.
The sole bright spot in Jesse's world at the moment was the new man in his life. Tall, dark, and smoldering, Greg Simmons was a personal trainer at the gym where Jesse had a thirty-day free trial membership.
Jesse was pretty sure all Greg wanted was a pretty boy to fuck every now and then, which was fine with Jesse. Actors who "had ambitions," as Jesse's agent liked to say, didn't "have relationships" with other men. Jesse had heard the speech from her so often that he almost saw the air quotes hovering over her frizzy red-haired head.
"You can't be Neil Patrick Harris unless you are Neil Patrick Harris," she liked to say. "Not in this town."
Okay, fine. But it wasn't like TMZ was following him around anyway.
And they never would, not if he couldn't even nail the emotions required for a simple photo shoot.
Jesse took a deep breath. If Saks wanted Fuck Me Six Ways to Sunday emotion, Jesse knew one quick way to get it.
"I need five minutes," he said.
The photographer's eyes widened in surprise. "What? You fuck up my shooting schedule 'cause you can't do your damn job, and now you want five minutes?" The vein in Saks' forehead had actually started to throb. Maybe the guy was such a jerk because he had a constant migraine.
"Yeah," Jesse said. If he couldn't pretend to be sexy, at least he could pretend he had enough balls to stand up for himself like he didn't need this job to survive. "Five minutes, then you'll get your shots."
Saks grabbed his assistant's clipboard and threw it on the floor. His assistant never made a sound, even when the plastic shattered on the bare concrete.