Dreamy. Wet and dreamy, baby. Want it. It's all in the eyes, darling. All in the eyes. Show them that you want it.
But Velvet didn't want any of it; the barely fitting swimsuit chafing her flanks and the scent of burnt metal lamps on her naked skin, the ache in her back after throwing her chest out for the hundredth time so that the harsh studio lights could accentuate the volume of her breasts, and the parading of her kickboxer's thighs in front of a soulless camera lens that turned her body into visual junk food to satisfy the virulent appetites of the faceless voyeurs on the other side of the camera.
Her audience wanted her photos as a substitute for their lust; Velvet wanted her photos sold to pay the bills; only a masochist would want such a life.
The photographer walked over to Velvet's dressing table when the ordeal ended. There, she was wiping off her sweat and resisting the urge to sniff her underarms.
"Fantastic pictures, Darling! Absolutely delicious! I'd like to know if you'd mind staying longer because I have fabulous ideas for a photo set with you and Coco Adel.
The photographer abruptly stopped speaking. Velvet turned to see why, and she flinched when she found out her boyfriend had arrived to pick her up.
"Cardin, you're early. Let me change, and we can go get dinner."
Cardin's response was to fling his leather jacket at Velvet before he yanked his girlfriend out of her chair. Velvet only had time to sling her handbag over her shoulder and grab her heels before Cardin bundled her out of the studio.
"Cardin, wait! My clothes!" Velvet said as she hopped helplessly after Cardin down two flights of stairs in her bare feet and was dragged towards the studio's front door.
"Oh my god, Cardin! I'm fucking naked! Don't you fucking dare, please!"
There was a chill on Velvet's skin before the Cardin threw her into the street with sheer brute force. It was rush hour, and the pavement outside the studio choked on the feet that pounded the concrete as the pedestrians made their way home. These journeys for these commuters were routine until Cardin and Velvet burst out of a doorway, and the abrupt obstruction forced them to look up from their phones and daydreams.
On the street, Velvet was exposed to a thousand ferret-quick glances and prolonged double-takes without the benefit of a camera's anonymity. The disgust at her presence and the hunger for her body were a palpable wave of collective emotion that almost drowned her in a torrent of self-conscious shame and hyperventilation.
"Well?" Cardin abruptly growled into Velvet's ear, "Was this what you wanted, you slut?"
At that moment, Cardin's voice, his woodsmoke-and-whiskey cologne, the unyielding pressure of his chest against Velvet's back, and the heat of his desire for Velvet burning a hole into the small of her back cut away the buzzing weight that had built up intolerably in her head. Cardin's outrage and jealousy at Velvet's indecent manner in the studio had served as a life buoy, allowing Velvet to breathe through her panic. At the same time, Cardin's palpable lust inflamed Velvet's desires and severed any of her shame and restraint.
With her eyes glazed and lips moist and pouty, Velvet moaned and tore Cardin's jacket off her naked shoulders.
"Yes! This is what I wanted."
Velvet then turned to stare longingly up at Cardin.
"You are all that I wanted!"