I shriek before practically jumping out of my skin. “It’s not cold, it’s freezing!”
“I keep it in the refrigerator,” she says, like that’s the obvious place to keep baby oil. “It’s cold on purpose.”
“What’s the purpose?” I’m shivering like I’ve been thrown in a snowdrift. Naked.
Finley starts to make circles with her pointer fingers around my chest region. “It’s to, you know … perk things up.”
“Perk things up?” Her meaning is suddenly clear. “Ah, I see.”
“Thank goodness. I didn’t want to have to say the words.”
“You didn’t want to say that you were trying to make my nipples erect?” I challenge her with my eyes.
She blushes like a maiden aunt from the turn of the eighteenth century. “Correct.”
“You’re the one who takes these pictures,” I accuse. “Not me.”
“I take tasteful romantic photos. There’s nothing dirty about them.” She lifts her nose in the air like I’ve somehow offended her. “I enhance people’s personal lives by letting them live out their fantasies,tastefully.” She repeats the last word, like just by saying it, she’s making it so.
“Are you going to rub this oil in, or not?” I ask with more than a hint of challenge in my tone.
She stares at my skin like performing that task is on the top of her list of things she wants to do before she dies. But insteadof finishing what she started, she averts her gaze and demurely tells me, “You can go ahead and do it yourself. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
If that was her intention, she failed. I have never been more disconcerted in my entire life. Having said that, Iamready to start having a little fun.
Once I’m sufficiently shimmering, Finley hands me a billowy white shirt to put on, which I do in record speed. Then she leads me toward a backdrop of a tumultuous seascape. Smacking at my hands to get me to release the death grip I have on my shirt, she orders, “Let your arms hang at your sides. Then turn and face the wind.”
I gaze stage left to find an industrial-sized fan facing me. Finley hurries over and turns it on. She starts it on low and I’m immediately chilled again. “Any chance you can turn the heater on?”
She shakes her head. “We want you perky, remember?”How could I forget?She cranks the fan two more times before my hair starts to blow. Finley turns on the lights illuminating the set and declares, “It’s go time!” Then she picks up her camera.
I do my best impersonation of Ben Stiller inZoolander. I unleash his trademark “blue steel” smolder while puckering my lips like I’m blowing kisses. Then I furrow my brow and force my eyes to open so wide I can feel my IQ falling.
Finley lets her camera dangle from the strap around her neck. “What are you doing?”
“Modeling?” As I’m still in character, I sound as dumb as I look.
“Don’t try so hard,” she orders. “Just channel your inner pirate.” She prompts, “You’re a rugged man of the sea. You’re an adventurous outlaw searching for buried treasure. You’re …”
I interrupt, “Going to hang at dawn for kidnapping the governor’s daughter.” Her look of confusion has me explaining, “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“Ah, okay then. If that’s your motivation, let me have it.” She’s nothing if not a consistent cheerleader. Which I suppose most of her clientele must respond to. Just not me.
“Ahoy, matey!” I shout while waving my arms mightily like I’m trying to hail a taxi in Times Square.
Finley once again stops taking pictures. “Ahoy, matey?”
“Isn’t that something pirates say?” This is going to be more fun than I thought.
“Not sexy pirates,” she assures me. “They say things like, ‘Come over here, wench, and kiss the lips off of me.’”
“Seriously? Where do you get your information?”
“My client, Margaret, reads historical romance novels,” she says like any idiot should have known.
“I’ve never read one,” I assure her.
Her pointer finger shoots straight up. “Wait here,” she says like she senses my greatest desire is to make a run for it.
