3. Levi
THREE
Levi
“You scared me,” I gasp as Ethan emerges from the shadows.
“You should take more care.” His tone is sharp, like he’s angry with me.
I don’t know what to say, so I shrug. “I’m just heading home.”
“On the subway?”
“Yeah.”
“No. I’ll take you.”
I stare at him, too stunned to form a response. With his features smudged by the dimness, I can’t read his expression, but his body language is stern and intimidating.
“Walk with me first,” he says. “I want to talk to you.”
I follow him to the mouth of the alley and onto the sidewalk. Despite his words, he doesn’t actually talk to me.
He’s angry. I’m sure of it.
“I thought you left,” I say because the silence is uncomfortable. At least, I think that’s why I say it, but it comes out like I’m upset about it. It makes me feel dumb, so I quickly add, “I mean, you’re still wearing your tux.”
He replies coldly, “I did leave.”
I keep my hands in my jacket pockets and hunch my shoulders. I lower my eyes to the pavement in front of my worn-out Converse.
I hear a heavy exhalation. Then he says, “I came back.”
I nod because that’s apparent.
He adds, “For you.”
“For me?”
“Why do you think I was lurking in the alley?”
His choice of words surprises me. “It didn’t feel like you were—”
“Oh, Levi,” he cuts in. “You can’t be that beautiful and that naive.”
Heat floods my face. “I… um…” Did he just say what I think he said?
“I want you to model for me. Figure sketches mostly. Possibly paintings. I would pay well.”
At first, I don’t hear him because I’m still trying to figure out whether he really did just call me beautiful. But then his words catch up to me. I stop dead. “Wait, what? You want me to what?”
Ethan stops as well and turns to face me. “I want you to model for me. For my art.”
I stare at him, waiting for him to say something that makes sense. Or maybe to laugh at me and say, Haha, you should see your face. But he just stands there.
I try to get some words out. “I’m not… I don’t… But why? I mean, why me?”
“Why not you?”
For some reason, my chest gets tight. It’s hard to breathe. I’m panicking, and I don’t know why.
Ethan slowly closes the distance between us. He still looks intense but no longer angry. I startle when he lightly grips my jaw. I’m not sure anyone has ever touched my face before. When his thumb strokes my cheek, I shiver. I don’t know why he’s touching me. I don’t know why I’m letting him.
“It’ll be simple.” His tone is dark, not gentle, but something about it makes me calm down.
“All you have to do,” he says as he tilts my head back and to the side, “is obey.” He lets go of my face and steps back.
I’m frozen in place until he murmurs, “Mmm, perfect,” then I shudder, breaking the pose.
A black car pulls up at the curb. Ethan walks to it, opens the rear door, and motions to me. Like I’m in a dream, I go to him. I get in. He closes the door.
I only ever take the train, so it’s weird to me to be in a car. It smells like leather. The man in the driver’s seat doesn’t say anything or even look at me in the rearview. All I can see is that he’s big and he’s wearing a suit.
The other rear door opens, and Ethan gets in, asking, “What’s your address?”
“It’s a long way. You can just drop me off at—”
He interrupts, “You’ll be dropped off at home.
I don’t see any point in arguing, so I relay the address.
As the car pulls away from the curb, Ethan says, “It would be two thousand a week.”
“What would be two thousand a week?”
“Your pay. For posing.”
I blink. Dollars? is all I think, but I manage to not say it.
Ethan seems unbothered by my obvious shock. In the light bleeding in from the streets, I see flashes of his handsome face. It’s unmoved. Unamused. He’s serious.
I still can’t muster a sensible response. I’ve never made that kind of money in my life. There is no reality in which I’m worth that much.
When it’s clear that I’m not going to respond, Ethan says, “These would be nudes.”
That doesn’t hit me like maybe it should. I’m still stuck on the number. I do need the money, but that number is so far outside my comprehension for a week of work that I simply can’t process it.
Ethan adds, “But I don’t display or share my work, and the NDA we’d sign would protect you too. No one would see the images but us.”
Us. My skin prickles at the word, like a hand brushes lightly over it.
“Do you know what an NDA is?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“It stands for nondisclosure agreement. It’s a legally binding document that would prohibit you from discussing or recording our work in any way, and it would prohibit me from sharing it without your consent. My artwork is personal only.”
My mind starts catching up. “So I’d be posing. And you’d draw me.”
“Yes.”
“And I’d be…”
“Nude,” he confirms when I can’t seem to say the word. “Does that make you nervous?”
“I’ve never done anything like that,” I reply, not really answering his question. I can’t imagine it enough to have a real feeling about it. I’m more stuck on the fact that he wants me, me specifically, to do this. “Are you being serious? Like, really?”
“Levi.”
I can’t see Ethan’s face fully in the car’s dim interior, but light from the street limns the edge of his strong jaw.
He says, “I’m being entirely serious. And it’s fine that it’s new. That’s part of what I want to capture. I want your expressions and responses. I want your honesty. I want you.”
My scalp prickles. My body feels strange. I don’t know how to understand something like that. I don’t know how to respond. “I… can I have a second to think?”
“Of course.”
I stare out the window, letting my vision blur as the buildings roll by. I’m supposed to be thinking, but I find that I can’t. My mind is too full but also, somehow, utterly blank.
We travel in silence, and the ride ends up being too short in the light, late-night traffic. The car stops in front of my building. Ethan gets out. I’m slow, so I’m still fumbling with my door when he opens it for me.
I know I’m supposed to say something, to answer, but my mind is still blank as I climb out to stand beside him.
Ethan says, “Tomorrow at four p.m., my driver, Patrick, will be here with this car. He’ll wait for fifteen minutes.”
I nod mutely.
“Go to bed, Levi. You’ve had a long night.”
Numbly, I get moving. I climb the steps to my building’s front door. As I open it, I look back. Ethan is still standing on the sidewalk in his tux, watching me.
He’s dangerous.
It’s the first clear thought that forms in the haze of my mind. With goosebumps all over my body, I go inside.