Iris Blaire - Dark Frame

We’re all sitting down and halfway through our delectable meal when Evan enters the dining hall.

The room, like it is fine tuned to dramatics, drops silent, and Evan says, “What is this? Are we at fucking Hogwarts or something?”

Suddenly, all of the awkward tension has evaporated. Some of the guys give Evan a standing ovation (including Jaime. Of course he would). And Evan smiles sweetly, strutting to my end of the table. She wears a long-sleeved, loose dress that drops to her thigh. It shimmers black and red in the light of the candles.

She takes a seat next to me, and I mutter, “You just had to make an entrance, didn’t you?”

“Duh,” she replies. “Ok, I’m about to eat a horse. Point me to the vegan shit.”

Half-way through dinner, one of the staff members hands everyone at the table a schedule for tomorrow. The AA assistants are taking a red-eye tonight and will be in Boston tomorrow morning, and that’s when we’ll start to shoot. Even though I’m completely capable of photographing without them, but whatever.

“So we have no idea what the shoots will consist of until tomorrow?” Evan asks.

I turn the volume all of the way down on the iPad and show Evan the creepy sketch video beneath the table. By the end of it, she’s horrified.

“Wrangle your emotions, dude,” I mutter. “People are starting to look at you funny.”

“We can’t do that shit! I’m not going to actually fuck anybody!” she hisses.

“Take a chill-pill, okay? Hopefully these are concept images and EPE isn’t actually going hardcore.”

“And all that weird bondage stuff?”

“Evan.” I take her face between my hands and force her to look at me. “I promise you, I am going to do my best to make this shoot as classy as I possibly can… given the circumstances. Think of your student-professor shoots with Dallas. I’ll go that route.”

Evan winces.

“For real? You need to get over him. Like now. Aren’t there decent looking guys at Harvard?”

Evan rolls her eyes.

My phone starts buzzing on my lap. I look down.

Dallas.

Speak of the devil. I forgot to call him back. Whoops.

“I gotta take this,” I say, standing up.

“Who is it?” Evan asks, but I don’t respond. Of course I don’t respond, because if I told her, she’d be right over my shoulder, listening to my every word.

I duck into a nearby hallway and put the phone to my ear, “Whattup.”

“Britain. You didn’t call me back.”

“Sorry, sorry. It’s been kind of a circus trying to direct everyone. All the guys are dipshits, you know? You were the only one who wasn’t a special snowflake.”

“Whip them into shape. I believe in you,” he says.

I smile. Damn him and Evan for breaking up.

“Listen,” he says. “I called you earlier because I had just gotten off the phone with A.J. Harrison.”

And then he tells me his news.

“Britain? You there?”

I finally gather myself just enough to respond.

“No fucking way.”

Evan

Britain wants to take a few sample shots of me to see how the lighting is in the manor. Also, it gives us both a chance to explore the place.

She’s been acting strange since she got off her call. She told me it was just an AA assistant letting her know their flight was on time so far, but I have a really hard time believing her.

Whatever it was, she doesn’t want to talk about it.

“How’s your underwear?” she asks as we duck out of dinner early and make our way up the stairs.

“Black lace and matching. Come on, Brit. I always wear nice underwear every time I’m doing anything for EPE.”

I’m about to mention that I know she likes to pull stunts on me like when she made Dallas and I shoot in the back of her car, but even thinking about it sparks way too many emotions.

Walking through the second floor hallway, I see my name on one of the doors. Too bad I won’t actually have time to use my room. I’d love to spend time in this weird place simply for the sake of curiosity.

“Whoa, whoa!” Britain says, stopping me and turning toward a portrait on the wall. She starts giggling like a school girl. “Apparently I was too distracted to see this when I came up earlier.”

I feel bile rise in my throat. “Oh my god, is that—bestiality?”

“That is way too weird for my tastes.”

“You think?” I hiss, a shiver running down my spine. A Halloween launch issue and now this—EPE is getting a bit too fetishy under the reigns of Amora Acquisitions.

Thank God I am ducking out now.

We make our way to the third floor, trying our best to not stop at any more creepy photos. The chandeliers above give off just enough light to allow us to see where we’re going but not enough to relieve us of all the creepy, shadowy corners.

I moan and shake out my hands.

“Dude, chill out,” Britain hisses, but even she is whispering, like she’s afraid some ghoul is going to overhear us.

Britain breaks the eerie silence by telling me about EPE’s newest male model, Jaime, and how he’s from her past.

“Wait. Jaime. The Jaime?”

“God,” she says. “You and Delilah have really good memories.”

“Oh my God, Brit.” I place both of my hands on her shoulders to stop her. “Screw with him!”

She looks at me like I’m from Mars. “What the hell are you talking about?”

I sigh, thinking of a way to explain. Britain’s the kind of girl that never toyed with power. She simply demanded it—at least, for as long as I’ve known her. I pinch the bridge of my nose and shut my eyes, trying to think of everything Britain told me about Jaime. “This is the guy that embarrassed the shit out of you when he tried to kiss you in front of everyone at that party…”

“Because he wanted to prove to an entire group of people that I had never been kissed before….”

“And if you rejected him, the hottest guy in town, then everyone would know that you were afraid of men, yada yada, okay okay, I remember this now.” I push my finger against her chest. “You need to hit on him.”

She gapes at me. “Excuse me?”

“Once you show that he no longer has control over timid little Britain, he’ll back off.”

“Unless he takes the bait the wrong way!”

I shrug. “Then you have a sexy affair. So what? You’re the one who told me all those fantasies.”

“Shh!”

I laugh because no one is on this level to hear us. It’s funny to see something actually get to brazen, ballsy Britain.

This guy must have had a serious effect on her.

A small wrought-iron staircase leads up to the fourth floor. “How big is this place?” I ask, changing the subject.

Britain only shrugs as our feet clink against the wobbly metal. “Have no idea. Haven’t been up this far.”

“Great.”

“You’re such a pussy.”

“Shut up.”

Above us is a trap door. Have we reached the attic already? Britain pushes up and the door gives in with a loud groan.

“Wow, it’s dark up here.”

“Maybe we should go back,” I suggest.

“Not in your life. There’s a switch on the floor right next to my hand… here we go.”

Two seconds later, she says, “What the fuck?”

I’m pretty sure what the fuck is going to be the phrase of the week.

Britain steps up into the room, and I follow her.

It looks like we’ve stepped into a lounge from the twenties.

A lounge from the twenties with some serious kink attributes.

There’s a sleek bar, some cocktail tables, a stage, and a piano. There are also cages that line the walls, big enough for people.

“What the—″

“Fuck,” I finish.

Hanging from two steel beams at the center of the dance floor are long strands of crimson silk. They remind me of the support used in aerial yoga.

“This is… wow…” Britain removes the lens cap to the camera hanging around her neck and snaps a few photos. She looks through them. “We’ll need better light, but this is definitely where I’ll be shooting tomorrow.”

“What about me?” I ask, feeling nervous for a reason I can’t place my thumb on.

The glint in Britain’s eye is unsettling. “Ever climb silk before?”

* * *

After a good hour of attempting to climb the silk scarves in my underwear (and lots of rope burn), Britain finally lets me go for the night. I take the train back to Cambridge, shivering the entire way. I exhale deeply into my coat.

This cold is going to take some getting used to. And it’s still September.

In the hallway, I catch Miles wiggling his door handle and cursing.

“That’s what happens when you’re out late and you’re supposed to be studying Shakespeare or some shit,” I tell him. “Your room turns on you and makes you sleep out in the hallway for the night.”

“Hardy har,” he says when he sees that it’s me. “Maybe you should speak for yourself.”

“I was at my job,” I say as he struggles a bit more.

“And I was at a reading.”

“Oooh, a reading. Sounds important.”

He finally gives up on the door, his shoulders sagging. “Do you always give your new neighbors shit?”

I smirk, gripping his doorknob, twisting, and shoving the door forward. “Only when they can’t figure out how to work a lock.”

He sighs in relief. “Okay, okay. Tease me all you want. As long as you stick around your dorm often enough to help me when I’m too stupid to figure out how to get into my own room.”

I grin. “Don’t count on it.”