PE: Free: Perfect Snapshots: Episode One

Episode Two

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Episode One

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“Abena, explain to me why I wanna do this?” I asked into the phone in annoyance as I tried to edit some visuals. This was the third time she had called me in a week about this goddamn Vaudevillian thing, and I was sick of hearing about it.

She shot back, “You wanna be big-time or not?”

Sarcastically, I demanded, “And how is being in one big-time, exactly? Aren’t magazines dead?”

“This is different. This is the magazine. The one directors read. And the producers and studios read. This is snobby shit that matters. You have to be in it! This Disney thing needs to be thrown out there. You’re quality, and we need to be promoting you that way.”

“Don’t you think I’m promoting myself enough on my own? I happen to prefer controlling what I put out.” 

She knew this. She didn’t like it. And she didn’t care. That was not part of her job. 

“You still get to be in control. And you’re getting your way on the photographer. They’ve finally agreed, and it’s already been arranged. He’ll be there on the fourteenth of October. And they’re staying at your house,” my manager firmly replied. “I want you to appear as open and welcoming as possible.” 

I took a long swig of my beer. “That sounds terrible.”

“It makes you seem more trustworthy to the Disney folks if you’re an open book. Jules, you said you’d do it if you got to pick. You did. Now you have to go through with it. Stop being a pain in my ass. It’ll be fine.”

I tapped the bottom of the bottle on my desk. “What if this dude is a fucking weirdo?”

“Then you’ll have something in common,” she returned, making me click my tongue in exasperation. “If he is, then I’ll drive him to a hotel myself. Just be nice. Get it over with, and you’ll get more work than you’ll know what to do with. Be charming. I know you can be,” she scolded me properly.

“But a week is so long,” I whined like a child. 

“No, it’s not. Alright- Look... You’re not getting out of this now. It’s done. Anyway, I’m sending over three manuscripts I want you to read. And I’ve got a couple of offers from Blue Box I need you to glance at, but no scripts yet. They involve some motion capture stuff.” 

I rubbed my fingers over my forehead, a headache forming in the back of my skull. “Alright, sounds good. Send them my way.” Sighing, I already felt exhausted. I wasn’t sleeping well. “October fourteenth. What time?” I brought the calendar up on my computer. It was a Sunday, my day off. 

Great. 

“The flight should arrive around six pm.” Abena quickly added, “Check your emails.”

I typed in the information she gave me. Trying to keep the sourness out of my tone but failing, I said, “Yes, ma’am. I’ve got to get back to work. Have a good evening.” Ignoring it, she wished me a pleasant night. 

I attempted to push it out of my head until the day of. Luckily, I was always busy, so that made it easier.

The night before, I didn’t sleep at all, no matter how much I tried. I smoked to relax, but my anxiety consumed me as I thought about the invader coming into my home. At least I finished two videos and started on a third. I was annoyingly productive when I didn’t rest, making it a harder habit to break. 

As time got closer to when the photographer was supposed to arrive, I moved into my living room to listen for him. I looked at zero of the information I had been sent about it, wanting to avoid the anxiety. I had a script to read for some animated project I would rather throw my attention at, even if I wasn’t sure I was feeling it. But I might have just disliked it because I was in a foul mood.  

My phone vibrated, distracting me from my reading. “I am so bloody bored.” Spencer asked, “What are you doing?”

“Waiting for this wanker to show up. Should be here at any moment. Then I’m going to order dinner,” I typed back. “It’s making me anxious.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like strangers in my house.”

“It’ll be fine,” he tried to reassure me. “Why don’t you do one of your videos?”

He was referring to my diary. One of the few people who knew about it, my best mate understood it made me feel better to talk out my feelings. He was the only person I was almost completely unguarded with. I had been making a lot of journal entries lately. Being alone in America had been rough. 

“Yeah,” I replied. “Not a terrible idea.”

I tossed the script to the side and brought up my smartphone, turning on the front-facing camera. Grimacing, I pushed my hair away from my forehead. I needed to shave. And probably brush my teeth. I showered the night before, but I had done nothing all day. 

“So, it’s October fourteenth, and it is...” I looked at my watch. “Just after seven in the evening. And I am waiting for this complete stranger to come into my house, and I fucking hate it. I already feel so uncomfortable around the media because I don’t know how to handle myself, but to have them in my home? Fuck. I realize Abena wants me to seem as welcoming as possible, but damn. It’s... I’m not entirely sure I can do it. God, I hope they’re normal,” I said into the camera. I winced again when I heard a car pull into my driveway. “And here they are.”

I walked to the door, leaning to look through the curtain-covered front windows beside it. I could see an older man pulling a suitcase out of the boot of the vehicle, but not the person next to them.  

“I wonder if it’s the old guy,” I mumbled. 

Then he handed the luggage over to perhaps the tiniest woman I had ever seen. First, all I could make out was her general form, short but heavily curved in all the right ways. Her wild, black curly hair fell all the way down past her shoulders to the center of her back. She was dressed casually in a long-sleeved v-neck t-shirt and tight blue jeans. There was a flannel coat tied around her waist. Not that she needed it. It was quite warm.

I realized I didn’t know the name of the photographer. Didn’t Abena say he? There was no gender mentioned at all on their website when I researched before. They just had their gorgeous bright pictures for sale. 

“It’s not a man,” I murmured stupidly into the camera because that was what my brain was stuck on. She came more into view as she strode up the pathway. She was lightly tanned and maybe mixed race, but I wasn’t sure how. The feature I noticed first was her nose. It was very strong in the middle of her symmetrical face, just above her plush pink lips. “Oh, she’s gorgeous. I think I might be in love,” I said in a soft whisper to the screen before I realized something. “Fuck, fuck, fuck... I haven’t showered,” I cursed as I turned off my phone and put it back in my pocket. 

She brought the side of her thumb up to her mouth, biting into it before she lifted her other hand to ring the bell. She looked so nervous. I opened the door before the dinging sound even happened, my heart in my throat already. She gazed up at me in surprise, her lips parted slightly as she took a step back. 

In the porch light, I noticed her eyes were different colors. Shockingly so. One was a pale, almost too bright blue, and the other was a solid dark chocolate brown. I had seen nothing like them before. My heart thumped against my ribs. Her hand popped up to her chest because I surprised her. Her tiny fingers rested just above her breast, holding her own racing heart in place. 

Great start. Let’s scare her.  

“Hello! Hi! Come in!” I said too loudly, my face stretched with a nervous smile. She grinned as I took a step back so she could. She couldn’t have been over five feet tall. At least one of my nieces was taller than her, even though she was clearly all woman. Very well-endowed, her full hips filled out her jeans in a pleasing way.  

“Hi. Um, I’m Asa. From Vaudevillian Magazine.” Her voice was tiny and a little frightened, but I didn’t want her to be. How scary was it for her to stay in a stranger’s home alone? Especially a large man’s? I had to try to not be a creep. Or an asshole. My anxiety at having a stranger in my space melted away and was replaced with a new sort of nervousness.

“Yes! I’ve been expecting you. I’m so excited to meet you. I’m Julian. Of course, you know that already.” My heart crawled up my throat as I spoke. I could do this. I was good at talking to people. But I had to control my voice. “You can call me that or Jules, though. I don’t mind either. Here, let me take that,” I told her when I realized I was being rude for not getting her bags. My fingers moved across hers for a moment, sending tingles up my arm. I didn’t know what to do next, so my mouth automatically took over. “I’ll show you where you’ll be staying real quick, and we can put this away. Then I was going to order take-away if you’re hungry.” 

“Great,” she breathed. “Yeah. I am. I could use a restroom, too.” Her accent wasn’t what I was expecting. She had flown in from New York, but she sounded more southern. There was a slight twang to it.  

“Right. There’s one in your room.” I hurried towards my spare bedroom. I had only been in it twice since I moved in. My maid came the day before to make sure it was prepared. “This is yours.” I had to feel for the light before finding it. The view was better than I realized, catching me off guard for just a second. When I turned back to look at her, she was gazing in wonder at the space. Then her mouth opened in a surprised smile. Her eyes were so bright and beautiful, her thick eyelashes fluttering as she took it in. 

My hands were shaking. 

Why were they trembling? What the hell was wrong with me? I had just met her. 

Dizzy, I needed to get out of there. “I’ll give you some privacy so you can freshen up. I’ll be in the living room whenever you’re ready,” I tried to say calmly. 

“Thanks,” Asa replied in a sweet voice, smiling back slightly. My lips curled automatically in a grin to match hers. 

My panic attack started as soon as I shut the door. Pulling my phone out, I texted Spencer again. “Fuck, I think I just met the person I’m going to marry.”

“You are such a dramatic bitch,” he responded. “What the fuck are you on about?”

“The photographer is here, and she’s the hottest woman I’ve ever seen,” I admitted, trying to take a deep breath through my nose. I wasn’t good at talking to women I wasn’t working with professionally. My ex used to complain about it. She said I was a real sarcastic asshole half the time. Actually, most of the time.

“I thought it was a guy.”

“I did, too.”

The message popped up quickly. “Obvo not, tho.”

I frowned at my mobile. That wasn’t helpful. “Yes, obviously.”

“So, how hot are we talking here? Can I have pics, pls?” He was trying to be funny. “I’m so lonely.”

“No, she’s getting settled in, and I’m not a creepy fucking bastard. She’s the tiniest thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t scare her,” I informed him, pulling my computer onto my lap when I got onto the couch. I needed to find out more about her. Clearly, my research had not been adequate. 

I typed in her name and New York photographer. Her website was Asa Kind Photography. I found a private Facebook page with her image, and the next search result was for her store, where I had ordered prints for my family the month before. I did like her photos, even if I hadn’t wanted her in my home. But I was certainly feeling differently about that now, and I hated not knowing more about her.  

Fuck, why hadn’t I showered? I was a fucking slob.

“Well, a decent description, at least. I need to know what she looks like if you’re so infatuated already. You’re picky af. She must be hottt.”

I thought about arguing, but he wasn’t wrong. “Probably less than five feet. So, as I said, tiny af. So much curly black hair, and it’s long, too. All the way down her back. Light tan. Olive skinned? Is that the right term? I’m going to guess… maybe Latino or Asian. Or Greek? IDK. But I’m assuming she’s mainly white. Nice lips. But it’s her eyes. Holy shit. One is legit blue, and the other is brown, and they’re perfect.” 

Next, he questioned, “How are her tits?” I smirked to myself. 

“Perfection. Bloody huge. And so is her arse, in the best way possible. Like damn. I’ve never wanted to grab a bum more in my entire life,” I joked. 

He replied, “I bet that’s not the only thing you want to do to it.”

“I’m not a creeper!”

“I don’t fucking believe you! Send pictures, you twat,” he responded, making me laugh. “So lonely.” Three crying emojis popped up less than a second later.

“I’ll try. She’s been in the bathroom for a few minutes. Hopefully, I haven’t scared her off with my freakishly massive Frankenstein body.”

Instantly, he sassed, “Frankenstein was the doctor.”

“Fuck off, cunt.”

He sent several middle fingers. 

The door closed down the hall, so I exited my search on the computer and brought up a food delivery page. Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I pretended to be normal.  

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Episode two