The Orchestra of Beauty and the Beast

“Now is the time to decide. You know how I feel about you, how you bring me joy in my life. But this isn’t about me, its about you.”

It was about me. Could I see myself with this man, as I grew old? Could I see myself with him tomorrow, introducing him to my friends? Could I see myself baring his children?

I opened my mouth to answer, but closed it. I ran through our entire relationship in my mind.

It was a short four months ago when I met him. I was in the middle of a photo shoot with the legendary photographer Pierre LaMont. Being photographed by him meant that I was set up for the big time. I didn’t mind that it was a nude shoot. I have always known that I was beautiful, and had the body that women hated me for and men lusted after. I made sure that they never photographed my ugly toes, nor in those positions hunched over where my shoulder blades poked through my back.

People didn’t see those moments where I cried about these imperfections, or told myself that once I made it, I would fix them. The men in my life told me that I was being dramatic, but once they saw these malformations, they always left. My latest, Andre, had left the night before, telling me, “Veronica, you are such a bitch. You should have told him that you had a boyfriend.”

I never even noticed whoever he was talking about. Some man on set who stared at me when Andre watched. I think that men think I’m going to leave them for the first man to undress me with his eyes. I have never cheated. Never. Even on that girls trip to Cabo, the other models spent time hooking up with other guys and getting drunk. Men hit on me, but I would never lower myself to that. Plus, most of them aren’t worthy to date a model like myself.

“They would be back!” Cried Natalie, as she hugged me, “Andre can’t do better than you. You are such a hottie.” Natalie is my best friend, and fellow model. We go everywhere together, and live in the same apartment. “Did you hear that Vincent Andrews is here?”

I had not. It wasn’t surprising that Natalie would mention him. Vincent Andrews wrote a series of books, The Orchestra of the Damned, and had signed a giant contract with Sahara to make it into a television series. People think that models don’t read, but that’s not true. Everyone had read his books, and everyone wanted to be in his new show. Natalie was always on the prowl to snag a rich and powerful man, or at least fuck him.

Natalie’s problem would be that nobody knew what Vincent looked like. He wasn’t pictured in his books, and did very little media, with the exception of a few radio spots. On social media, he was a ghost. “Well, once I complete this series of photos, I’ll help you find him. Somebody here has to know what he looks like.”

Natalie’s face lit up, “That would be great! It will help take your mind of Andre. Maybe you can get yourself some too, make Andre a little jealous. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” and she hugged me once more before running off to makeup. I needed to get out of my clothes, so I headed to wardrobe.

I was tired, and sweaty when Pierre finished his last shot. Even with the room cold, I was hot by the end. I headed to the large walk in closet to go and get dressed. I found my clothes, and started to putting my clothes on, when the lights went out, and I slipped on something, and hit my head.

“Are you alright?” a deep voice in the darkness emerged.

I must have made some noise when I hit my head. “No, I’m hurt.”

“Don’t panic, I’m going to help you.” Strong arms picked me up, and I could feel myself moving.

“What happened?”

“The power has gone out. It affected a large part of the city. There is no light outside.” My rescuer’s hand was on my breast when he picked me up, and he hadn’t moved it as he carried me. He sounded so forceful, and part of me knew I shouldn’t. But, I was single, and this stranger came to save me.

I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear his breathing, so I knew where his face was. I moved in to kiss him, hitting right below his ear. I licked his earlobe, which caused him to stop, “You don’t know me, its not really appropriate.”

In for a penny, in for a pound, “I want you to. Please. I want to feel a real man right now.”

He grunted, and lowered me gently to the ground.

I have a few men in my life, or at least I thought I had. What my rescuer did to me I cannot even describe to this day. He knew my body better that I ever did, and did it without even seeing me. I couldn’t move or even speak when he finished, as we lay on the carpeted floor. He held me with one arm, my head resting on his powerful chest, completely fulfilled.

He had to look like one of those statues you see in Europe, cut from marble. I pictured sandy blond hair, a chiseled beard and a towering 6’5”. Andre who? I ran my fingers across his chest, they only felt soft skin, and hair. I didn’t understand. Maybe he didn’t have a six-pack, I could live with that.

Then the power came back on. I sat up, and there he was. Red hair in a ponytail, a scraggly beard, and chunky face. Not the arms of a bodybuilder, no. A barrel of fat for a gut, and hairy legs that bore splotchy marks. His feet were even uglier than mine. He smiled at me, and reached out to caress my breast. I wanted to recoil, but I held it together. “Just as beautiful in the light.”

I weakly smiled. He stood up, and reached down to help me up as well. I took his hand, and stood. My horror was complete. He was shorter than I was, by a full inch. “Thank you for helping me.”

He kissed the back of my hand, “It was my pleasure. I heard you yelp when you fell down, and figured you needed help.”

We were in some room, empty except for the two of us and a few chairs against the wall. “I need to get dressed.”

“So do I. I don’t think people would mind if you were naked around here, but nobody wants to see me in the nude. My name is Andrew by the way.”

I started to head for the door and my knee gave way. Andrew caught me, his powerful arms stopping me from falling to the floor. “I am Veronica.”

“Veronica, how about you rest for a moment, and I get your clothes.” I couldn’t argue about that, and I watched him get dressed and then he left the room. The shock of seeing him was starting to wear off, and it appeared that no one had noticed our interaction. But I could never be seen with a man like that. His clothes said he had little money, jeans and a dirty t-shirt.

Andrew came back with some clothing, “Do you need any help getting dressed?”

I shook my head, and he stepped back to a respectful distance. He watched, which felt natural, not odd. When I finished, he walked towards me, a piece of paper in his hand. “Here, this is my number. I would love to see you again. I’m glad I got to see your eyes. Just beautiful hazel eyes.”

My eyes were ordinary. Men complimented me on my smile, my cheekbones, my bosom, my ass, or my legs. They never even looked at my eyes. I blushed, for some reason, “Thank you.”

He moved in to embrace me. My body, a traitor, hugged him back. He felt warm, and safe. He wrapped his arms around my back, a squeezed just enough. He smelled of a pine forest, and sex. He let go, and smiled at me, caressing my face with his hand. Somehow I had that piece of paper in my right hand.

After he left, I walked out into the hall, where Natalie ran up to me, “Oh, Veronica, are you alright? How messed up was that? Where were you? One of the girls swore that she heard someone having mind-blowing sex shortly after the light went out. Did you hear it?”

Did I really make that much noise? “No, I was stuck in the closet. I couldn’t find my way out, so I just waited.”

Natalie put on a pouty face. “That's too bad. Lets go find Vincent. If someone is getting lucky around here, I need to be as well.”

We didn’t find Vincent. After such an exciting evening, I collapsed in my bed when I got home. The next week was busy, working every day. It was an entire week before I got back into that purse, and found that slip of paper. I wanted to throw it away, but I called the number instead.

He was staying at Huminga, a three star hotel in town. I told myself as I was going up to his room that I wanted no part of this, that he wasn’t good enough for me. But when that door opened, I was on him like a wild animal. I couldn’t stop myself.

If I thought our first time was mind blowing, it was transcendent the second time. His touch electrified my skin, the sensations exploding out of me in a way I never thought possible. And when that ended, he held me.

I had never been held by a man before. Some would let me lay next to them after, but most just got up, got a drink, or shower, or just left. Not Andrew. He wrapped his arms around me after we both were spent, and let me breathe him in. We lay in silence, then we talked.

We talked about anything, and everything. He had a passion for storytelling, and for art. He wanted children, but hadn’t found a woman who wanted those things, with him. He gazed into my eyes when I spoke, not ogling my naked body which I would not have minded. But he listened.

He kissed my feet when I told him that they were ugly. He rubbed my shoulders when they poked out, caressing them with his lips and his fingers. When he told me that even these parts of me were beautiful, there was no lie in his eyes.

After that night, I couldn’t stop seeing him. He told me he didn’t live here, but would be there for business for sometime, and to call him any time. When he wasn’t in town, we spoke for hours on the phone. When he was, I was in his bed. The magic of our beginning didn’t lose its luster, but I couldn’t tell Natalie.

I kept it hidden from her, from everyone. When I asked, I said I didn’t have a boyfriend. I snuck out when Natalie was home, which fortunately wasn’t often since she had a man or two she was with. Andre came back to the set, professing his affection for me. He was a man that I could be seen with, a chiseled god of stone, but that was all he was, marble. Rock. I burned for Andrew, but my old self was still in there, judging me.

She couldn’t say much, until about three months into our relationship. Andrew’s current hotel room had mirrors along the walls. I caught out of the corner of my eye as he was on top of me, his fat body crushing my delicate one as he thrust into me. In that moment, the magic lessened, the ecstasy that I felt as we made love started to rot. If anyone ever pictured or saw us together, that image would haunt them.

It haunted me. There were girls with ugly boyfriends. Some of them even loved those men. But they weren’t girls with bright futures. They were girls who settled. I wasn’t going to settle. And so that image of Andrew’s corpulent body violating my aesthetic lines made me sick to my stomach.

I couldn’t stop seeing him though. At first, I closed my eyes, trying to drive that grotesque image out of my mind. And sometimes I could, reveling in the waves of pleasure being with him gave me. But then there were moments that I couldn’t just shut my eyes. In those moments that sick feeling crept back in.

He must have known something was wrong. It was nearing our four month anniversary, when we finished, he sat up against the headboard. “Veronica, we need to talk.”

I sat up with him, and pulled the sheets up to my throat. It was the first time that we were going to talk when his arms weren’t around me. “Okay, what about?”

Andrew cleared his throat, “We have been seeing each other for four months now. And, I am extremely happy that I helped you in the night of the blackout. Every time has been fun, and I feel that we have a great connection.”

He reached out to grab my hand with his, holding it between them. “I agree.”

“Good. Because I want to say this to you. I love you. I haven’t been with another women since we started, and I don’t want to be with anyone else. You are for me.”

I leaned back, if for nothing else for shock. Many men have told me that they loved me, but not after sex. “You don’t have to say that to fuck me.”

He shook his head. “No, Veronica, I mean it. I love you. My life is better with you in it. I want you to stay in it.”

I pulled my hand out from between his. “I don’t know Andrew. That's an easy thing for men to say, especially to a woman like me.”

His face fell. “You think I am saying this just because you are gorgeous? Or that I just want to continue to be able to sleep with you?” A hard edge creeped into his voice, “I’m not like that, are you?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. I thought maybe I could get past out physical differences, but maybe not. You aren’t what most women think of as a dream.”

I nearly cried after saying that. The hurt in his eyes came out of an abyss deep with in them. “That's something I have known my entire life. I thought maybe we were connecting on a level where that stuff didn’t matter.” He swallowed that pain, breathed out, and resumed. “Now is the time to decide. You know how I feel about you, how you bring me joy in my life. But this isn’t about me, its about you.”

It was about me. Could I change my dream to Andrew? Could I not be revolted looking at him making love with me? Could I cut out the decay in our magic?

He grabbed my hand, and intertwined his fingers with mine. “But once you decide, that’s it. Because once I know if you are in with me, then I am all in with you. If you aren’t, then I’m not.”

I opened my mouth to answer.

******

“You look depressed Veronica, have you tried the melon?”

Natalie looked at me over her phone, my breakfast at Mallory’s untouched. I had come out to eat without much prep, hoping that my bloodshot eyes and puffiness would have gone down. Sometimes Natalie wasn’t the most perceptive. “I had a rough night.”

“You did? I’ve been meaning to ask, you’ve been out a bit over that last few weeks. But you seemed happy when you came back. Now you are sad. Guy trouble?”

“You could say that.”

“Andre being an asshole again. I told you that he would be back. Throwing out your back is he?” she giggled.

I exhaled, “Yeah, Andre. Just being a prick.”

Natalie started scrolling through her phone. “You should forget him. Did you see that they are starting casting for Orchestra of the Damned next week? We should go. Ooh, lets see, there is a picture of Vincent Andrews here…ick, what a disgusting looking guy. I would have to close my eyes, but just think of the money.” She turned her phone so I could see.

Andrew stared back at me. A tear rolled down my face. Had I made the right choice? Could I go back?

“Geez, I didn’t want to upset you. We don’t have to go the casting to be ogled by this guy. Forget I mentioned it. Try the melon.”