Pupil: Inspired By a True Story
Pupil
(Inspired by a True Story)
Zoey Long
Copyright 2016 © Enamored Ink
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Chapter 1: Adam
This woman is a real natural. She hardly has to work at refining her poses at all. She’s tall with lean, sinewy limbs and a blond choppy haircut with textured angles. I have her standing in front of a simple, black curtain backdrop in my one bedroom apartment in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, poised to be photographed like a pinup girl.
At least, that’s what my broker calls this apartment, East Williamsburg. Everyone who isn’t selling something knows I live in a studio in Bushwick. I don’t mind. My clients don’t seem to mind very much either. Most days, I have women lined up to come to my apartment, most in tee shirts and jeans, begging to be transformed into luscious screen sirens and pinups from the past. I like to dress up for the job in a pair of dark wash jeans, a simple button down shirt, and a lightweight vest. Women are more inclined to take it all off for a gentleman.
Today I’m working on a birthday gift. This client is having a set of lingerie photos taken for her boyfriend as a thirtieth birthday present. I hope she wears some lingerie at home sometimes, too. Maybe after this pictorial is done she will. I stand back, narrow my eyes, take in the entirety of her. Her cream-colored limbs pop most pleasingly against the curtain, her poses effortless.
Click click click click click.
Her eyes narrow only slightly at the flash. Red lips. Simple eye makeup. That’s what she wanted and that’s what we gave her. Her figure isn’t boyish, she’s just fit. Her stomach is taut with hardly any curve to it, her hips round out slightly to reveal a round ass beneath them. We dressed her in a black lace bra and panty set with a matching garter belt. She needed a little help with the old-fashioned stockings. Attaching them to the metal clips can be a pain. Lana, my stylist/assistant/ex-girlfriend/best friend/makeup artist didn’t have to do that much work on her at all. I’m sure she used to be a dancer, probably ballet judging by her long feet, perpetually arched and pointing.
“That’s great, now hold that and turn your face a little more towards me.”
Click click click click
My client follows my directions seamlessly. I take another shot before she breaks the pose to ask, “Are you sure this is all right?” She furrows her brow and her lips pout out slightly. I take another shot.
“It’s perfect,” I say. “Hold still.”
She has no idea how gorgeous she is.
Lana walks over to the client, her four-inch black heels clap-clapping against the hardwood floor. The back seams of her Cuban heel stockings are perfectly centered in the middle of her engaged calves. Lana is the kind of woman who wears four-inch heels for every day. Her vintage red dress hugs her figure just so. She looks at me with an expression that asks permission to interrupt.
“Sure, go ahead,” I nod.
I put my camera down at my side for a moment. The client is still holding the twisting pose, looking at both of us nervously.
“No, darling. You’re fine. Lovely.” Lana reassures her. Her voice is like red velvet. “I just want to fix one...”
Lana adjusts the client’s choppy blond crop with her hand, taking the strands in her fingers and rubbing vigorously left and right for a moment before letting go. She now has that messy, just got out of bed look that appears in magazine editorial campaigns and ads for handbags. Lana stands back to admire her handiwork.
Lana is magical like that. She has an eye for aesthetics that both matches my own and inspires me to no end. We met when I first came to New York, while she was a young model with a few makeup artist clients and I was a dork with a camera. Together we became the dynamic pinup-making team we are today.
“Stunning.”
Lana walks back to her vanity, back arched, poised like none other. Her heels are black, slightly platform, smooth leather. She likes to dress up for the shoots to make the clients feel more comfortable. Her red dress has black buttons running all the way down the front, and her black garters peek out when she crosses her legs. Her jet black hair is tied back in a rockabilly style with big pincurls in the front.
My client, the ballet dancer named Jodie, is standing straight up now, looking directly into the camera lens. I love to see this transformation happen in the span of one photoshoot. She looks like a tiger ready to pounce, but when she came in, her face was unsure. Forty minutes in and she never wants to stop shooting with me. I take a final shot and know we’ve got it. A smile forms on my lips behind the lens.
“Great,” I say.
“We got it?” Jodie asks, a slight gap showing between her front two teeth as she smiles. I’m more likely to get dates out of this job than consistent cash.
I nod.
Lana steps forward with a black satin robe in hand. Jodie slips into it and ties it around her waist.
“So how long before I can see some...”
“I do all of the editing myself, so four to six weeks is standard.”
Jodie nods.
“I am sure Adam will send you a preview or two ahead of time, he’s been known to do that,” Lana says with a saucy smile.
It’s true. I do like sending previews. Every pinup shoot I’ve ever done is exciting in its own way.
“You can change back into your clothes in the bathroom, please leave any props in this corner. It was a real pleasure working with you today. You looked absolutely beautiful. We got some really exciting images there.”
Lana extends her hand and Jodie shakes it before she turns to change her clothes. She’s so comfortable with us now that she just unclips the stockings from the garter belt, standing in the middle of the studio. My eyes dart to her thighs as she rolls the translucent hose down her leg, pointing her toe forward.
“You used to dance, right?”
Jodie laughs. “Yes! Ballet. How did you know? That was years ago!”
“You hold yourself like a dancer,” I admit. Great poise. Core strength.
She bites her lip, her large eyes looking up in my direction.
“You sure are charming, Mr. Clark. I’m sure you have no problem getting lots of women to take their clothes off for you.”
Lana stifles a guffaw.
After the client leaves, I look over at Lana, who is adjusting her own garters. She sits poised in her cream-colored vanity chair, the light from her makeup station dancing over the planes of her gorgeously symmetrical features. Large, dark eyes. Black hair. Alabaster skin.
“Want to take some shots?” I ask her.
She looks up at me, cleavage revealed, still leaning over her leg.
“Well, it has been a while. And you’re all set up.” She grabs a stool and a book and places them in front of the backdrop. She sits on the dark lacquered stool, crosses her legs so the top of her stockings peek out just so, and holds a huge hardcover copy of Finnegan’s Wake fanned out in front of her chest.
I laugh. “This is the most hipster thing I’ve seen... maybe ever in my life.”
“That’s the point. I’m making fun.”
Lana’s red cherry lips part to reveal her luminous smile. I start shooting furiously. She knows just how to angle her face, not lose her neck, arch her back. She was my very first client, and my first serious girlfriend after I moved to the city. Shooting with her is all muscle memory.
“Have you ever even read Finnegan’s Wake?”
“No!” she laughs.
My lens closes over this joyous capture of Lana, and I imagine it as part of a calendar of sexy Brooklyn pinups.
Later, she attempts to make us both a coffee in my sorry excuse for a kitchen. I’m not sure two people could fit in the little closet-sized thing at one time. I don’t really cook, so I’ve never tried to find out.
“Where is your... never mind,” she calls from the kitchen. Her heels are still clicking against the tile floor, cabinets are clanking open and shut. I let her do her thing. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed since there’s not really anywhere else in the apartment to sit. The nutty smell of fresh brewing coffee makes its way to my nostrils.
“Where did you even find coffee?” I call out.
“The kona I bought you for Christmas is still in the cabinet, jerk.”
“You know I don’t make my own coffee, but I love kona. I was saving it.”
“Darling, you’d love it even more if you actually brewed the stuff.”
She serves us piping hot coffee in ceramic mugs. I don’t have any milk so we’re drinking it black, and anyone who puts milk in kona is an idiot anyway so it works out well.
Lana’s eyes are sparkling when she looks at me, coffee in hand. She only looks at me like this when she has an idea about something. Her cheeks are flushed pink, their muted rosy shade illuminating the rest of her face.
“What? What’s up?” I ask.
“You’re really struggling right now, Adam. Don’t lie to me. I know you never want me to say it, but how long can you go on like this?”
Only Lana can be this blunt without my taking offense. We’ve been friends for too long. It’s the truth. I’m behind on my credit card bills, I’m just barely managing my rent. I do enough consistent photo shoots a month for the basic necessities, but I really need to make a change. She must have seen the stack of neatly placed, unopened bills on my kitchen counter.
I sigh, narrowing my eyes at her. “What is that supposed to mean, how can I go on? You’re right. I should just pack up and move home to Long Island.”
“Ugh. No. I didn’t say move home! Ew. No. Adam, please.” Lana makes a face.
At least she understands that much. It’s been seven years since I graduated college and I’ve never moved home. It’s a point of pride for me. The day I graduated, I packed my Saab full of everything from my dorm room and drove to New York City. I stayed with friends whose parents had money and paid their rent until I found a place of my own. And I did, eventually. Of course, my older brother is a lawyer who never left the island and his wife is expecting their third kid, so he’s the real source of pride for the whole family.
“No no. I have a specific idea for you.” Lana places her coffee cup down on the end table near my bed. It lands with a sophisticated clink. “Now, before you shoot me down, I really do have an opportunity I think you might like. Have you ever thought about teaching?”
I roll my eyes. “Darling. Yes, of course I’ve thought about teaching. Do you know how difficult it is to find a higher ed job in this city? You remember when I applied to work reception at Columbia and they interviewed me four times?”
“You have an MFA,” she offers.
Yes. My MFA. The useless degree in photography that’s gotten me into more debt than I’d like to think about. My ‘Masters of Fucking Around’ as my father likes to call it.”
“I don’t want you to get too excited, but I have an in at Earnsley College. My aunt works in the administration office.”
“I know where Nancy works. We’ve been through this, remember? Their photography department is infinitesimal and that one teacher has been there for forty years…no thanks, I’ll be okay.”
“He died.”
“Oh.” I put my cup down next to hers.
“Right. See, you never let me finish.” There’s her big smile again. “The guy died, they hired some big wig from Vassar who wants to revamp the entire visual arts department. I slipped him your portfolio…”
“You did what?”
“I know. I should have asked. But he wants you to come in for an interview if you’re interested. The job has benefits. You could commute to Earnsley easily.”
“You’ve got my life all figured out, don’t you?”
Lana sips her coffee, her eyes watching me over her cup, buzzing with excitement.
Chapter 2
It’s been awhile since I’ve been up this early in the morning. I have a seat on the Metro North next to other daily commuters. The man directly across from me is asleep and very large, probably in his late fifties. His white button down shirt is ill fitting, as are the rest of his clothes. He’s exhausted and has probably been doing this commute for as long as I’ve been alive. There are a few perks to freelance work. I yawn.
My sesame bagel from Zarro’s is well done and crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. I’m balancing my breakfast with a large coffee in the other hand, trying not to get sesame seeds on my suit. The one suit I own is bespoke, a three-piece charcoal shadow stripe from a tailor in Brooklyn who comes to your house and takes every measurement imaginable. If you’re going to do it, do it right. I bought this after my first lucrative photoshoot. I didn’t know then that they’d be few and far between.
I’m familiar with Earnsley College. I didn’t go there, but I have friends who did. In the nineties, it was basically a drug den for the children of rich hippies, touting events like “Naked Day” where students refused to wear clothes on campus. Naked Day also made a reappearance during finals week, usually in the libraries, full of students who were hopped up on recreational ADD meds shedding their clothes out of stress, much to the chagrin of the staff. About ten years ago, they acquired a more conservative president. Their enrollment slipped considerably after that, and from what Lana told me, the pendulum seems to be swinging back in the other direction.
My portfolio of pinups is in my black leather messenger bag. I must have about one hundred-fifty portraits in there, along with some of my personal work. If they want edge, I’ve got that. It’s filled with women in satin and lace, wearing dramatic corsets and victory rolls in their hair, their old-fashioned stockings clipped to garters. There’s nothing sexier than a woman in a garter belt and stockings.
Earnsley is a small liberal arts college on a gorgeous campus with Tudor style buildings. It’s situated just forty minutes outside of the city, on the edge of a conservative town filled with old money. Lana told me she did a semester there back in the day, and she learned a lot about lesbian Chilean poets and where to get amazing weed.
The campus has a lot of hills. My calves are engaged as I climb my way to the main building. Most students are dressed in black jeans and combat boots. I see more gorgeous young women than I care to count. Some are smoking cigarettes outside of what I assume is the theatre building, wearing thick rimmed glasses and sporting buttons on their bags that say things like “Meat is murder” and “FRACK” with a slash through it. I think the female/male ratio is seventy/thirty. God help me.
Walking through this prime example of American academia in my three-piece suit, I feel very accomplished. My brother, David Clark, Esq., is no match for me. My phone buzzes in my pocket with a text from my mother.
“Yay! Get the job, honey!”
Unfortunately, she’s recently discovered the joy of emojis, and she has sent me three smiley faces, two dollar signs and four hearts. When I told my parents over the Christmas holiday that I was interviewing for a teaching position at Earnsley College, my father said, “It’s about time you use your fancy art degrees for something! Are you gonna stop taking dirty pictures now?”
“I don’t take dirty pictures, Dad,” I defended myself.
“You take photos of women in their underwear. That’s what you do for a living. If you made more money, I wouldn’t care...”
Such was my holiday on Long Island. My brother’s wife Lisa sweated her ass off opening gift after gift with my little nephews, while I sat on the couch in my suit pants and a button down listening to my parents bitch at me about making more money. I’m the only one in my famil
y that didn’t stay on the island.
“How come I can’t see any of your pictures?” my aunt piped up, shoving a cracker smothered in spinach dip into her mouth.
“Don’t hit your brother, Tommy,” Lisa said, exasperated. She took some kind of plastic toy out of her child’s hands that he’d been using to bludgeon his brother. I have no idea where her husband is.
My father lets out a booming laugh and takes a drink. “You don’t wanna see those.”
“Whadda you mean? He’s a real photographer in New York! It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Right. Real photographer. A real photographer in debt up to his ears,” my father muttered under his breath.
The main building at Earnsley looks like the library of my dreams. It’s a huge mansion with floor to ceiling windows, dark built-in bookcases filled with works on every topic you can imagine. Warm light from the ceiling chandeliers makes me feel like I’m at an Ivy League school. And actually, I basically am. Earnsley is like the red-headed stepchild of the Ivy League.
“Welcome, Mr. Clark.”
The woman who runs the front desk is wearing wide-rimmed tortoise shell glasses. Her hair falls in soft curls around her shoulders, and her skirt suit looks like it’s straight out of 1974. Her cream-colored blouse has tiny little buttons done all the way up to the neck—it’s struggling to stay shut over her huge chest—and has a bow that’s neatly tied, punctuating the hollow of her neck. Her jacket must be tweed, emerald with some kind of tan stitching at the wrists and border of the collar.
“Good morning,” I say, offering my hand.
She doesn’t take it, but straightens her glasses and goes back to typing on her iMac. The light from the screen shines brightly on her face;the computer looks very incongruous with the rest of the environment.
“You’re meeting with Joe.”
“Joe?” I repeat.
“Yeah. The new head of the visual arts department. Sorry. Sterling. Joe Sterling. We just tend to go by first names around here.”
“Interesting,” I say.