Chapter 5

The ad for Turtledove Perfume took a whole day, and Melanie was overjoyed at the money she was earning. Ivor Goodson told her he would be in touch with her agent when he wanted her for the porno movie he would be shooting in the future.

In the meantime, Marty had lined up two more small modeling jobs for her. True, they only paid seventy-five dollars an hour, but she was working steadily now, and she was putting money into a bank account.

Marty was bringing her along slowly, knowing if he didn't splash her all over the place at once, she was more likely to get better paying jobs and stay in business longer. With Sheree and Valencia he didn't have to worry since their reputations were well-established, and even though Ivor Goodson had passed the word around to keep them from getting good work, Marty was able to speak directly to the heads of certain corporations who, in turn, spoke to some of the fashion photographers, and as a result the two known models were working as steadily as ever.

"I hear you handle Sheree Edwins now," Melanie said one day, about three weeks after her losing her own virginity. She had been to bed with no man since Goodson, and her body was telling her it wanted more.

"So what?" Marty asked.

"Well you're giving her far better assignments than you're getting for me," Melanie told him.

"She's a lot better known than you," Marty reminded her. "Relax, honey. If your face is splashed all over the place at seventy-five an hour, that's what the admen will be expecting to pay you from now on. I have big plans for you, but you have to come along slowly."

"What kind of plans?" Melanie asked.

"TV ads," he told her, making the brunette's heart leap. "For that kind of exposure you don't get paid by the hour, you get paid by the ad. I'm already working on a ten-thousand dollar deal for you, but you stay calm and let me handle the whole thing. I'm not in the mood for a snippy young kid coming along and telling me how to run a business I've spent years building up."

"All right, all right, I'm sorry," Melanie said, now more determined than ever to withhold her body from him. Though he had never come right out and admitted he wanted her, she was able to tell from the look in his eye just how hungry he was for her cunt.

The following day, Marty told her it was all set. But instead of going to a TV studio to do the shooting, they were going to upstate New York where they had a lot of eerie old mansions. It was supposed to be an ad that brought male ghosts to life with desire for her when she used a new soap called Spirit.

At ten in the morning, she and the cameramen, in addition to the three male actors who were playing the ghosts, and the director all met in front of the Brooklyn TV studio, and from there, in two rented cars and a truck, they went up into the Catskill Mountains.

Melanie chatted with the male actors who, it turned out, were male models rather than actors, although one of them did occasionally work in a soap opera. The director was a veteran to TV commercials, though he also did some Porn work, and it was obvious from the moment he looked at Melanie that he had seen the nude photos Ivor Goodson had taken of her.

Dick Buller was a heavy man with a balding head. He wore glasses, and he had more stories than anyone else Melanie had ever met. He dominated the conversation in the car on the way up, telling more tales than anyone was willing to believe. He had a broad nose and thick lips, and he spoke with a sibilance Melanie disliked, and yet she knew she had to be "nice" to him since he was the director. He was about five-feet-ten-inches in height, though it was difficult to determine when they were sitting in the car.

They had sandwiches in the car so they didn't have to stop to eat, and arrived at the mansion at about three-thirty.

"The cameramen and I will be spending the day setting up shots," Dick told Melanie and the three men. "You go ahead and watch TV or find some other way to amuse yourselves until everything is set. Chances are we won't start shooting until tomorrow."

For the rest of the day, Melanie wandered through the mansion, poking into all the different rooms, noting almost all of them were out of use for the longest time. In fact, the mansion had been closed until the advertising crew had come up there.

That evening, they sent out for supper at a nearby restaurant, and then relaxed until about nine-thirty in front of a dead fireplace in the main hall where most of the shots were going to take place.

"Everybody turn in early," Dick told them, finally. "We'll start shooting about eight-o'clock in the morning, right after breakfast. If we work fast, we might be able to get out of here by lunch time."

The electricity in the house wasn't working, but the water was, and Melanie took a shower by candlelight. Afterward, she dried herself off, then padded nakedly from the private bathroom she was using to the large bed in the room that had been assigned to her.

Ten minutes after she was under the covers, she heard the sound of her door opening and closing.

"Who's there?" she asked.

"Just your friendly neighborhood director," Buller said, coming into the room, carrying a candelabrum with four candles in it.

Melanie wanted to shout at him to get the hell out of her room, but she knew damn well if she did, this would be her last TV modeling job. By now, she realized pretty faces, even talented pretty faces, were not a scarce commodity in the modeling field. Dick Buller might not have been her ideal lover. In fact, he was far from it, not even as attractive as Ivor Goodson, who at least had a handsome face and, if not a lean body, at least not a fat body.

Dick put the candelabrum down on the night table to her left and let the candlelight shine directly into her beautifully sculptured face. She began stirring, the intensity of the little candle flames cutting relentlessly through the shadows of the night.