My uncle Heinrich is in town.
Before meeting him for dinner, I had scheduled a personal photo session with Adriana Kroes, one of the main models Hilda recently hired to promote her fall/winter campaign. Adriana is one of the most charismatic models I’ve ever shot. She knows the drill perfectly and doesn’t like to waste any time. What makes my job even easier is the fact it’s almost impossible to take a bad or unflattering picture of her. She’s not necessarily breathtakingly beautiful, but the camera seems to love her. She looks good from all angles. Her remarkable facial features are her full lips, the bulbous tip at the end of her nose, her nice, long and muscular legs and her slightly dark skin which makes her ethnically ambiguous. It’s hard to tell where she’s from or how old she is. I find that very compelling.
Adriana started off as a stripper before moving her way up to fashion modeling. She’s so captivating to look at that I asked Hilda to bring her back next year for the spring/summer campaign. After the photo shoot, we looked at some of the photos and picked a few she wanted me to send her. We then walked around the office area and got to know each other more. When she opened up about her past and revealed to me she used to be a prostitute, I reciprocated since we were both discussing prostitution and how it was to engage in something taboo. When she revealed to me the name she used in her double life (Cherry Vans), I told her mine was Trevor Domvik. At some point, things between us got a bit too intense. The admiration I’ve been showing her and the compliments I’ve given her led her to get the wrong impression; that I had a crush on her and used the photoshoot as an excuse to bed her.
She got really furious at me for rejecting her advances and asked me to delete the photos I’ve taken of her. I asked her to relax but she wouldn’t have it. She made me log into my computer, delete the folder that had her pictures, then made me erase everything on my SD card. Her sudden change of behavior was extremely alarming that my hands wouldn’t stop shaking throughout the whole thing. I didn’t see that coming at all. After she made sure I did everything she asked me to, she grabbed her bag and left without saying a single word.
The whole incident raised a lot of questions. Did I somehow mislead her to believe that the whole point behind the photoshoot was to have sex with her? As far as I know, I haven’t sent even the smallest signals that I wanted to sleep with her. What the hell is wrong with her?
I made my way to my uncle’s hotel and waited for him in the lobby. He came soon after I had taken a seat and he was thrilled to see me. I wish I was able to show him the same amount of enthusiasm, but I couldn’t get what had happened earlier out of my mind, so I feigned it, forcing a smile on and off throughout. When we got to the restaurant and sat down for dinner, our conversation immediately drifted from me to the importance of family. He reminisced on the good, old days when the whole family was close and expressed his desire for a reunion. He then slowly narrowed the talk down to my own family, telling me how much they care and love me, making me feel like I haven’t been a good son because of the disconnection that happened between us; he doesn’t get to talk about my family because he doesn’t know what they’re really like. I remained calm throughout our conversation and went along with it. At the end of the night, he asked me if I’d do him the favor of calling and checking up on them. I nodded, hugged him and left. I now know the real reason behind his visit. My parents had sent him to investigate my current life. Well, it worked. However, I’m still not calling them.
On the way home, I spotted Eric and some random stranger enjoying a nice dinner date outside on a restaurant’s patio. Somehow, that didn’t affect me. I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t until I got inside my apartment, jumped into bed and saw my phone go off. I reached for it and there it was: a text from Eric asking if he had just seen me. I freaked out for a bit then put my phone away and went to sleep.
I’ve now realized I’ve become a Venus flytrap for unreliable men and emotional cripples. However, I’m totally capable of making choices. In this case, it’s not letting those creeps into my life. I’ve thought about responding to Eric’s message. However, my gut feeling was urging me not to. I finally had the upper hand, and there was no way I was going to fall in his trap. I can’t just forget about the weeks I’ve spent healing from him. I was devastated. I have taken what we had very seriously, but he didn’t. He didn’t because he left hanging for a month without making any attempts to get in touch with me until he saw me. And I don’t think he would’ve gotten back in contact had he not seen me walk by. It’s like passing by reminded him that I existed. What a moron. I won’t give him the pleasure of having me back so he can mess up my life some more and then dump me for good.
Felix Eberstark 