These men, perhaps, wanted to train me as a model. Yet I suspected this was not their true purpose. I was not particular as to what might be their true purpose, incidentally. They obviously possessed the means to pay me well.
"Now smile, Tiffany," said the man. "Good. Now crouch down in the sand, your hands on your knees. Good. Now put your left knee in the sand. Have your hands on your hips.
Put your shoulders back. Good. Smile. Good."
"Good," said one of the other men too. I could see they were pleased with me. This pleased Vie, too. I now felt more confident that they might hire me. For whatever object they wanted me I could sense that my beauty was not irrelevant to it. This pleased me, as I am vain of my beauty. Why should a girl not use her beauty to serve her ends, and to get ahead?
"Now face the camera directly, with your, left hand on your thigh and your right hand on your knee," said the man, "and assume an expression of wounded feelings. Good."
"She is good," said one of the other men.
"Yes," agreed another.
"Now assume an expression of apprehension," said the first man.
"Good," said the second man.
I normally worked at the perfume and notions counter in a large department store on Long Island. It was there that I had been discovered, so to speak. I had become aware, suddenly, that I was the object of the attention of the man who was now directing this photography session. "It is incredible," he had said, as though to himself. He seemed unable to take his eyes from me. I was used to men looking at me, of course, usually pretending not to, usually furtively. I had been chosen to work at that counter because I was pretty, much like pretty girls often being selected to sell lingerie.
Such employee placements are often a portion of a store's merchandising strategies. But this man was not looking at me in the same way that I was accustomed to being looked at He was not looking at me furtively, pretending to be interested in something else, or even frankly, like some men of Earth, rare men, who look honestly upon a female, seeing her as what she is, a female. Rather he was looking at me as though he could scarcely believe what he was seeing, as though I might be someone else, someone he perhaps knew from somewhere, someone be would not have expected to have found in such a place. He approached the counter. He regarded me, intently.
I think I had never been so closely regarded. I was uneasy.
"May I help you?" I asked.
He said something to me in a language I did not understand. I regarded him, puzzled.
"May I help you?" I asked.
"This is incredibly fortunate," he said, softly.
"Sir?" I asked.
"You bear a striking resemblance to someone else," he said. "It is remarkable." I did not speak. I had thought he might have begun by asking if he did not know me from somewhere. That stratagem, the pretext of a possible earlier acquaintance, hackneyed and familiar though it might be, still affords a societal acceptable approach to a female. If she is unreceptive, he may, of course, courteously withdraw. It was merely a case of mistaken identity. "It was almost as though it was she," he said.
I did not encourage him. I did not, for example, ask who this other person might be.
"I do not think I know you," I said.
"No," he smiled. "I would not think that you would."
"I am also sure that I am not this other person," I said.
"No," he said. "I can see now, clearly, that you are not. Too, I can sense that you lack her incisive intellect, her ferocity, her hardness, her cruelty." "I am busy," I said.
"No," he said, his eyes suddenly bard. "You are not."
I shrugged, as though irritated. But I was frightened, and I think be knew it. I was then terribly conscious of his maleness and power. He was not the sort of man to whom a woman might speak in such a manner. He was rather the sort of man whom a woman must obey.
"May I help you?" I asked.
"Show me your most expensive perfume," he said.
I showed it to him.
"Sell it to me," he said. "Interest me in it."
"Please," I said.
"Display it," be said. "Am I not a customer?"
I looked at him.
"Spray some of it upon your wrist," he said. "I shall see if it interests me." I did so.
"Extend your wrist," be said. I did so, with the palm upward. This is an extremely erotically charged gesture, of course, extending the delicate wrist, perfumed, to the male, with the tender, vulnerable palm upward.
He took my wrist in both his hands. I shivered. I knew I could never break that grip.
He put down his face, over my wrist, and inhaled, deeply, intimately, sensuously.
I shuddered.
"It is acceptable," he said, lifting his bead.
"It is our most expensive perfume," I said. He had not yet released my wrist. "Do you like it?" he asked.
"I cannot afford it," I said.
"Do you like it?" he asked.
"Of course," I said.
He released my wrist. "I shall take it," he said. "Wrap it," he said, "as a gift."
"It is seven hundred dollars an ounce," I said.
"It is overpriced for its quality," he said.
"It is our best," I said.
He -drew a wallet from his jacket and withdrew several hundred-dollar bills from itg recesses. I could see that it held many more hills.
Trembling, I wrapped the perfume. When I had finished I took the money.
"There is a thousand dollars here," I said, moving as though to return the extra bills.
"Keep what you do not need for the price and tax," he said.
"Keep it?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"It is over two hundred dollars," I said.
"Keep it," he said.
While I busied myself with the register he wrote something on a small card. "Thank you," I said, uncertainly, sliding the tiny package toward him with the tips of my fingers.
He pushed it back towards me. "it is for you," he said, "of course." "For me?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "When is your day off?"
"Wednesday," I said.
"Come to this address," he said, "at ten o'clock in the morning, this coming Wednesday." He placed the small white card before me.
I looked at the address. It was in Manhattan.
"We shall be expecting you," he said.
"I do not understand," I said.
"It is the studio of a friend of mine," he said, "a photographer. He does a great deal of work for certain advertising agencies."
"Oh," I said. I sensed that this might be the opening to a career, of great interest to me, one in which I might be able to capitalize, and significantly, on my beauty.
"I see that you are interested," he said.
I shrugged. "Not really," I said. I would play hard to get.
"We do not accept prevarication in a female," he said.
"A female?" I said. I felt for a moment Iliad been reduced to my radical essentials.
"Yes," he said.
I felt angry and, admittedly, not a little bit aroused by his handling of me. "I hardly know you. I can't accept this money, or this perfume," I said. "But you will accept it, won't you?" he said.
I put down my bead. "Yes," I said.
"We shall see you Wednesday," he said.
"I shan't be coming," I said.
"We recognize that your time, as of now," he said, "is valuable." I did not understand what he meant by the expression "as of now.' He then pressed into my band the round, heavy, yellowish object which I had later taken to the shop of a numismatist, and then, later, on the advice of the numismatist, to the office of a specialist in the authentication of coins. "This is valuable," he said, "more so elsewhere than here."
Again I did not understand the nuances of his speech. I looked down at the object in m~ band. I assumed, from its shape and appearance, it might be some kind of coin. If so, however, I certainly did not recognize it. It seemed alien to me, totally unfamiliar. I clutched it, then, however, for he had told me that it was valuable.