Chaoter 37: Two Hundred!

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"I'm so sorry for embarrassing you," she said as she turned towards me, reading the reason for my redness wrong. 

"It's my fault, I should have reminded her that you were going to arrive today. My oldest is a bit absentminded."

….

"Not a problem," I answered, but my mind was already on the next issue, trying come up with a nice way of asking. 

When she had first mentioned having a daughter, I assumed she would be a small child, considering my landlady didn't look a year over thirty, and even that was a stretch. 

But the girl who called her mother was clearly in her twenties.

She spoke before I could verbalize the question. "She is one of the daughters my late husband had from his first marriage," she explained, resolving the minor mystery. 

"But the lack of direct blood bond doesn't make her my daughter any less," she added, complete with the threatening gesture. 

The message was clear. They were under her full protection.

"Understood," I said with a placid smile. She was off-limits, if there was a risk of my landlady being aware, of course. Otherwise, it was the free season. 

"Is the basement ready? Sooner I set-up there, the better. I already have a shoot that I need to clear until tomorrow, and the model I arranged is going to be here in a couple hours."

She nodded, and I grabbed my luggage once more, trying to ignore their crushing weight. 

A few minutes later, I was looking at the room that was going to double as my workplace and my residence for the foreseeable future. 

On the one hand, all of my personal effects were piled over a small bed, not that there were many, as I had to sell a lot of my belongings just to raise some capital for the tools of my trade.

I looked proudly at the items that rested on the left side of the room, and an early model camera that was perched over a worn-out tripod, the reflectors with more than one patch to repair the holes left by the careless smoking of the previous owner. 

Lenses rested in a beaten box, dirty with scratches. Still, I looked at them lovingly, knowing just how lucky I was to get them for less than two grand. 

They would have cost well above ten thousand if I tried to buy them brand-new.

I left my clothes as a pile, and turned my attention to my studio instead. I wanted everything to be perfect for my first shoot…

….

I was trying to contain my annoyance as I climbed the stairs, but it was a difficult task when an uppity slut had screwed up most of my plans, just because she remembered that she was supposed to attend a party at the last minute.

It wasn't that she was a unique beauty that was hard to replace. On the contrary, she was sub-par, both in attitude and in beauty. 

But there was one advantage that was hard to beat, that she was willing to work below the industry standards. It was important, because the job itself wasn't very lucrative. 

I tried to call a couple other cheap models that I occasionally worked with, but none of them were available for the day, which left me in a bind. I was supposed to finish the three dresses I had today.

Of course, I could always reach for an agency for a model, but their rates were much higher, high enough that I might actually lose money if the process if the shoot was delayed for any reason and I had to keep her for an extra hour.

"You look distracted," I heard my landlady saying. I turned, and saw her in the living room, watching TV.

"A bit," I answered. "My model just canceled on me. I'm trying to arrange a replacement, but with the time crunch, I'm not having much luck." 

Then, I noticed something important, one I might not have noticed if I wasn't under such a big pressure. 

Her sizes looked very similar to the model that was supposed to come. I wasn't completely sure with the loose clothing she was wearing, but I was sure enough to risk it. 

I let her continue talking, trying to come up with a delicate way to breach the topic, one that wouldn't leave me on the curb on the first day of my tenancy.

"Too bad that you couldn't use me as your model, right?" she said with a soft laugh. From her expression, it was obvious to see that it was a self-deprecating joke that wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

But I wasn't an idiot, so I pushed forward. I took a step forward, and let my gaze browse through her body in an obvious manner until she shifted in discomfort. 

"Actually, I'm not sure about that," I added, using the most professional and calm voice I could muster.

"What do you mean?" she asked, her discomfort taking the backseat for a moment as her curiosity asserted itself.

"You are a tall, beautiful young woman with a well-cared body. I fail to see why you can't be a model."

A blush much thicker than I have expected spread on her face. "But, I can't… It's not proper. And I'm not exactly young anymore"

"It's a job like any other," I said, a bit of passion infecting my voice despite my best effort. "There is no shame involved in modeling."

"I don't know…" she murmured once more, looking like she was about to reject the proposition.

I decided to change the tracks, focusing on the most important detail. She needed money enough to rent her basement to a man she didn't know, for a sum of a few thousand, indicating that she was having severe financial issues. 

"The pay is two hundred dollars per session," I said.

Her expression changed immediately. "Two hundred for a days' work?"

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Hey guys if u like the fanfic and want to read ahead by 10+ chapters or just want to support take a visit on my patreon.

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