clearly.
Coming down the staircase was a lithe, black haired girl in some kind of luxurious-looking kimono. A week ago, I would have laughed if someone had told me that this is what my dream magazine job would be paying me to do on a Wednesday evening, but by this point, I was getting used to the feeling that everything associated with Tom Hood had a sheen of unreality to it, a strange glint of power that he seemed to wear so well.
He was still a dick, though, obviously.
The black haired girl smiled broadly at me, slinking down the last few of the steps and gliding over to me as though she had been expecting me all her life. This, I thought, was some weird Stepford Wife nonsense right here. I made a mental note to take in every detail about her, knowing I’d find a place for her in my article, whatever it turned out to be.
“Are you Miss Katie Mack? Oh, welcome! It’s very nice to meet you,” she said with just a distant waft of an exotic accent, and then extended her slender hand.
I followed her all the way back up the staircase, eerie music seeming to come and go in pockets of air as we passed by rooms and corridors, finally reaching a wide conservatory style room at the end, and the source of the music.
The jaded part of me saw only the ill-gotten gains in the glittery tiles and disgusting privilege dripping in every giant mirror and painting we passed …but another, smaller part of me was quietly amazed.
Tom Hood was barely 30 years old. This was success, and there was no denying it. I was so used to seeing him surrounded by shocking red and yellow tabloid headlines that this neutral, expensive taste unfolding all around me was quite striking. He really was very wealthy.
By the time my black haired escort flung open the conservatory doors, I hadn’t yet decided if I was brimming with judgment or with secret admiration for all this opulence.
The black haired girl kept her kimono-ed arms spread open and floated over on her tiptoes to join Tom, who was seated on a cushion like a Buddha, bent over a carved chess board.
It occurred to me all at once that I should have prepared far more thoroughly for this interview than I had. I had spent too much time on my outfit, too little time on …well, I wasn’t sure yet. But I felt unprepared, already off-kilter.
A pair of small muscles was working in his bare, upper arms as he moved the pieces round before looking up and smiling cordially at me.
Great. He had decided not to wear a shirt.
The black haired girl had turned the music down and was flitting about with something in the periphery of my vision.
“Miss Mack! Welcome to my humble abode,” he said, and the girl giggled in appreciation.
She was busy fixing me a drink. Not Kool-Aid , I thought, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the story took that turn.
Again, there was something startling in how different he seemed in real life. How three-dimensional. He had that kind of vestigial dusty blonde-brown hair that some men seem to carry over from childhood, even though every other part of them had grown and matured. I guess I had always just written off male bodies of this exact kind: the predictable Calvin Klein physique in expensive lounge wear, the kind of deliberate all-American healthy tan, the boringly tight abs.
I had always shirked away from this kind of thing the same way I did from infomercials and ads – and for the same reason, too. I had had my beginnings in the advertising industry, and in my current job, I stared all day at men just like this. I was numb to this kind of beauty. I was just being pandered to, right? Just being sold something. Nothing sexy about it. Rampant objectification may work on men, sure, but I liked to think I personally was made of stronger stuff.
And yet… here was this body, this real-life flesh, and there was something immediately and obviously different in it. This body wasn’t an image, it wasn’t fake and forced and cheesy. The ease with which he held
Coming down the staircase was a lithe, black haired girl in some kind of luxurious-looking kimono. A week ago, I would have laughed if someone had told me that this is what my dream magazine job would be paying me to do on a Wednesday evening, but by this point, I was getting used to the feeling that everything associated with Tom Hood had a sheen of unreality to it, a strange glint of power that he seemed to wear so well.
He was still a dick, though, obviously.
The black haired girl smiled broadly at me, slinking down the last few of the steps and gliding over to me as though she had been expecting me all her life. This, I thought, was some weird Stepford Wife nonsense right here. I made a mental note to take in every detail about her, knowing I’d find a place for her in my article, whatever it turned out to be.
“Are you Miss Katie Mack? Oh, welcome! It’s very nice to meet you,” she said with just a distant waft of an exotic accent, and then extended her slender hand.
I followed her all the way back up the staircase, eerie music seeming to come and go in pockets of air as we passed by rooms and corridors, finally reaching a wide conservatory style room at the end, and the source of the music.
The jaded part of me saw only the ill-gotten gains in the glittery tiles and disgusting privilege dripping in every giant mirror and painting we passed …but another, smaller part of me was quietly amazed.
Tom Hood was barely 30 years old. This was success, and there was no denying it. I was so used to seeing him surrounded by shocking red and yellow tabloid headlines that this neutral, expensive taste unfolding all around me was quite striking. He really was very wealthy.
By the time my black haired escort flung open the conservatory doors, I hadn’t yet decided if I was brimming with judgment or with secret admiration for all this opulence.
The black haired girl kept her kimono-ed arms spread open and floated over on her tiptoes to join Tom, who was seated on a cushion like a Buddha, bent over a carved chess board.
It occurred to me all at once that I should have prepared far more thoroughly for this interview than I had. I had spent too much time on my outfit, too little time on …well, I wasn’t sure yet. But I felt unprepared, already off-kilter.
A pair of small muscles was working in his bare, upper arms as he moved the pieces round before looking up and smiling cordially at me.
Great. He had decided not to wear a shirt.
The black haired girl had turned the music down and was flitting about with something in the periphery of my vision.
“Miss Mack! Welcome to my humble abode,” he said, and the girl giggled in appreciation.
She was busy fixing me a drink. Not Kool-Aid , I thought, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the story took that turn.
Again, there was something startling in how different he seemed in real life. How three-dimensional. He had that kind of vestigial dusty blonde-brown hair that some men seem to carry over from childhood, even though every other part of them had grown and matured. I guess I had always just written off male bodies of this exact kind: the predictable Calvin Klein physique in expensive lounge wear, the kind of deliberate all-American healthy tan, the boringly tight abs.
I had always shirked away from this kind of thing the same way I did from infomercials and ads – and for the same reason, too. I had had my beginnings in the advertising industry, and in my current job, I stared all day at men just like this. I was numb to this kind of beauty. I was just being pandered to, right? Just being sold something. Nothing sexy about it. Rampant objectification may work on men, sure, but I liked to think I personally was made of stronger stuff.
And yet… here was this body, this real-life flesh, and there was something immediately and obviously different in it. This body wasn’t an image, it wasn’t fake and forced and cheesy. The ease with which he held
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