Home for the Holidays Read Free Page B

made it difficult for people not to recognize me when they were showing, if they knew me. I had stars and a long, beautiful white dragon outlined and shaded in blacks and grays on my right arm, it popped against my fair skin, white ink hadn’t even needed to be used. Ian knew me, even if I’d been introduced by my model name. The chiffon dress I wore came down to my knees, so my twin dream catcher tattoos on the backs of my thighs weren’t showing, as they usually did for any of my shoots, they were my signature tattoos. On the fronts of my thighs I had red bows that were sitting on top of garters, which faded down into my natural skin color. Those came almost to the tops of my knees so they only showed when I sat and crossed my legs. I wore my hair swept to the side, pinned into waves with bobby pins, my makeup was flawless, winged liner, red lipstick and a touch of rouge.
    “So, what is the name of your new studio, what kind of movies do you do?” I asked, sipping my drink. He laughed at me a little, and smiled at Jerry, who stepped away from us.
    “I’ve been liv ing in LA for eight years, Chase… My studio has been here for five.” He winked.
    “Please, call me Chaste.” I smiled at him.
    As the night went on Ian and I couldn’t stop talking, both pretending as if it were the first time we’d ever met for the sake of the people around us. After countless drinks, chats with friends and toasts to health and the birthday girl; we ended up on the couch talking about college, his experience with a failed attempt to not move to LA and just be a lawyer, follow his father into Politics. But he hadn’t wanted to be a politician, he like many of us in LA were just meant to be here. We fit here, this was our lifestyle, and we were drawn to it like moths to a flame. He stared at me over his glass of scotch, his silver tie loosened, his jacket unbuttoned, his crystal blue eyes were dazzling. He was so confident, so sure of himself, he had an edge to him that I couldn’t pinpoint; it was as if I were meeting this man for the first time. He was quick to laugh, he was intelligent and charming, and he was flirtatious.
    “Where did you come from?” I asked him, I was drunk and had no filter between what I thought and what I said.
    “We never mention those sorts of things in LA do we? Chaste…” He added, running his finger along my thigh.
    “No. I guess we don’t.”
    “Your last name isn’t really Meridian is it?” He asked, his eyes gleaming wickedly.
    “No.”
    “Did you graduate college?” He asked suddenly.
    “I did, I have my degree in art history.”
    “When did you decide to be a model?” He asked.
    “After I graduated.” I wanted this conversation to end. Was it any business of his?
    “Tell me, what type of photo shoots do you do Miss Meridian?” He sipped his scotch smoothly.
    “I do work for a lot of places, Kinxxx, Lipservice…”
    “ Kinkxxx?”
    I swallowed hard. Why was he asking this? “Yes.”
    “But you only do photos?” He asked.
    “Yes .”
    “Would you consider movies?” He asked seriously.
    “I guess so… I don’t really know.”
    “I’ve done movies.” He said, directly.
    “You have?”
    “Yes, in the beginning, when I started out here, I chock it up to experience; I know what the actors I work with experience.” He sipped his scotch again, I watched it slide into his mouth, and watched his Adams apple rise and fall when he swallowed it.
    “I’ve done photo shoots with male models before, it isn’t bad, I enjoy working with them.” I said, honestly.
    “Why is that?” He asked.
    “They make me feel… confident, and sexy. They can get more personal while we are posing, and say things to me that the photographers can’t. It just makes it so much easier to get in that mindset to be this sex symbol.” I laughed nervously, not sure why’d I’d told him all of that.
    I unnecessarily sipped my drink; I could barely feel the straw on my lips, I did not need any