Raincoating Ch. 01

On the other side of Chappie was Klaus Dreher, a guest in our country from Munich. I loved Klaus, we were in Algebra class together and he had a motor mouth and a weird sense of humor. He was one of the guys on the website I actually knew well—I can't really describe my shock the first time I went to the website and realized this guy I had eaten lunch with in the student center was just hanging out there. Except Klaus wasn't quite hanging. What a monster he had, I mean it was scary, the biggest of the five, uncircumcised—I had never seen one like that in real life. Klaus had flirted with me when I was a freshman, but I shut him down because things were picking up with Conner then. It was kind of crazy thinking that cock could have been literally in my hands. Two hands. Given all that had happened with Conner, I felt all the more like I might have missed out. I remember having trouble looking Klaus in the eye the first time I ran into him after seeing him on the Raincoating website.

I could scarcely believe Rachel wanted to be one of these folks. But then, I supposed she had every intention of being Freddy Watts, the one who walked out and kept his raincoat on.

Unlike Bobby Arnold, standing there naked and staring at the camera like he planned to fuck it after the picture was taken. His hands lay flat on his belly like he had finished a big meal; it was a funny look, but he pulled it off. Speaking of pulling things off... his cock was fat, like three cigars wrapped together in a fleshy brown casing, very long, half-hard and dragged down by its down weight to mid-thigh. Bobby had a football player's body, which worked out well for him as a football player. I loved his deep brown skin, considerably darker than Rachel's biracial complexion, shining with sweat. He had nothing to be embarrassed about in losing the contest, even if Bobby wasn't a natural nudist like Klaus.

"Umph. What a treat it would be to be the girl taking that picture. I bet she did something right."

"I'm pretty sure Jack took the picture."

"Boys get all the fun," said Rachel with a snorting laugh. Hardly the sound a future supermodel should make, I thought with a grin. She picked up her iced tea and sipped it through a straw. I had hoped we were done with the rum when she brought us two glasses of tea, but she apparently only wanted to slow down the shots. "I'm telling you... one day Jack is going to get himself the Nobel Prize."

"Nobel Prize for... cockshowing," I said, and we both laughed in an embarrassing way.

It wasn't the first time she had gotten me to look at the website with her, she was more than a little obsessed with it, but it was no doubt the first time she had gotten me so drunk as to tell her my favorites. I had already answered her question about who I would do, then I just kept talking. I told her I had never been with a black man, although I dated Keith Wallace when I was 14, our own 8th grade Denzel Washington, I just never went that far with him. I even ranked each of those five dicks in the order I'd take them—I had to shut myself up with the straw of my ice tea when I started to describe exactly how I'd suck off Chappie. I thought Rachel's howling laugh would wake up her neighbors, who must have been asleep by well after midnight.

"I can't believe you want to be one of those guys," I said. Rachel told me she would prefer to borrow a dick, not own one, which made me laugh all the harder. "Seriously. You got to realize you might not win... if Jack does decide to go with the ladies' version of Raincoating..."

"He better. You promised it was going to happen."

I argued with her a little bit, stressed that Rory had said it was very likely, but not guaranteed. Jack was expected to announce it sometime that week, since he'd have to start taking applications quick to get them ready for Oct. 30th.

"Why, Rachel? Look at you, girl... you're destined to have some very important and expensive pictures of you taken. I don't know why you'd want to jeopardize your career by being on that website..."

"Hey now," said Rachel, almost sounding sober again. "First off... no model ever damaged her image by having a naked picture taken of her. Second... if I got the body, I certainly got nothing to be ashamed of by putting it out there. Third... I don't know if I have a third, actually..."

"A thousand dollars!" I mocked, and she agreed with a laugh.

For a rising model, Rachel didn't run the risk of being a third-round draft pick, if I'm getting the sports parlance correct—she was an absolute knockout. I was a high school cutie, a beautiful girlfriend, I had been told by guys who weren't dating me, but I wasn't in Rachel's league. She had a face like a diamond, with insane cheekbones, pillowy lips, a cleft chin, an unusual nose just big enough to bring some unique character to her face, and her secret weapon, emerald eyes that would probably keep her from ever appearing in a black-and-white photo. Her reddish-brown hair was usually very curly and she did a thousand different things with it, but for her last shoot she had had it straightened and the blonde streaks were still in it. She made a joke that it brought out all of the whiteness in her and some of the guys who didn't go for "exotic" were tripping over themselves around her as of late. I thought she looked beautiful no matter how she was dressed or made-up.

"Tell you a secret?" I looked to Rachel with embellished interest; the booze was making me more than a little loopy. She glanced back at the monitor and confessed to me, "I don't want to win the Raincoating thing."

I misunderstood. "I thought as much," I said. "You just wanted to raise an equality flap. Jack doesn't even think he's going to find all the women he needs for the contest, and I doubt any die-hard feminists are going to come out—"

"No, no... I'm still planning on competing. If they have it." Rachel looked at me again, eyebrows raised, and said, "I plan on losing."

I actually started to warn her that if she lost, she would end up a picture on somebody's website—then I realized that was exactly what she meant. I covered my mouth and just stared at her as she nodded along.

"Um... wow. Can I ask... why?"

Rachel shivered before telling me, "I just... it's something I need to do. I guess. I've always been good with my modeling work. I like having my picture taken. It's not like I went into it with my eyes shut, I know what they expect of me. Sooner or later I'll be asked to do something... maybe topless photos, sheer bikinis, lingerie... fully nude shots? I keep waiting for someone to ask. I've only been working about four years. I keep waiting for it to come up, but believe it or not, it hasn't. Kerri pointed out this website to me and... ever since then... I just keep thinking this is the answer to that problem."

"That's nuts," I told her, then snorted out a laugh. "You're a beautiful girl, Rach. Finding someone willing to take naked pictures of you shouldn't be a chore..."

"I know that. It's not just about having someone see me naked. Or take pictures of me," she said. A laugh bubbled up out of her, then she added, "But I do like thinking of it as pretty kinky. No... what's nice about the Raincoating thing... I have a perfect excuse to just... let it happen. I get the pictures taken. I get the experience—it's fucked up, I won't argue against that, but then... those pictures are out there. I don't ever have to worry about what I do in front of a camera again. And I can always say I just needed the thousand bucks for glamour shots and everything. Right?"

I had to give her it made some kind of sense. I should say, if you really want to have naked pictures taken of you, she had come up with a good way to do it.

"The idea doesn't turn you on? Not in the least?" she asked, smiling wide at me. Her teeth were as beautiful as the rest of her.

"Not in the slightest." Yeah. A tiny bit—that I would never be drunk enough to admit to her.

I slept on Rachel's couch and woke up twenty minutes after my first class started. I chewed my tongue and wished it didn't taste like a sock. I was staring at the wall above the TV for several seconds before I realized I had my eyes locked on a fantastic picture of Rachel in a thick white sweater, her arms crossed above her head and her hair bursting all around her in that wild fashion I so liked. I guess, I thought to myself, if you love the way you look as much as she does, it's probably natural to enjoy going au natural. It reminded me for a second that I had actually considered some boudoir shots for Conner back when the two of us were an item—nothing too risqué, but some lingerie pictures, me rolling around on a bed like a girl out of an '80s hair metal video. The fact I never went through with it is proof there is a god.

Stupid fucking Conner. I did so many things with him I thought were kinky at the time. I'm a little slow, sexually, I shift into third gear when other girls are ready to go into fifth. That's not news to me. But I really did try to be more adventurous with him. He wasn't my first blowjob, but he was the first guy to cum in my mouth. I even swallowed it, though I had to go to the bathroom to throw up right afterward. I was proud the first time I kept it down, though a lot of vodka and O.J. helped. I tried every position he wanted, at least if it was something I could physically do. I refused him three things: No video—sorry, I'm a participant, not a performer; no anal—I might have come around on that one, but he was pushing too hard and too fast, thank god not literally; and no one but him and me. That had been the end of us. The night he invited Luis over, thinking I'd just "go along" with a threesome, that was the last time I ever wanted to be in the same room with him. Worse yet, when I said no, he wouldn't accept my answer. He held me down. He started to strip my clothes off. If Luis hadn't been more of a gentleman, and broken Conner's nose in the process, I dread to think what might have happened.

Well, if Luis had been that much of a gentleman, he would have told everybody that I wasn't gangbanged like Conner told all of his friends. I didn't want to show my face anywhere in the whole fucking college till the end of the year. I seriously considered not coming back.

Even thinking about it left me wanting to cry or kill someone. I pulled my phone out of my purse to check the time and I saw I had missed Rory's calls. I was already late for one class, I probably wouldn't make the next one on time, considering I had to get home and get into new clothes. I called Rory as I stood up and tried to fold the blanket Rachel had thrown over me while keeping the phone between my ear and shoulder.

"I waited outside your class in Brixton Hall. You get there late?"

"Didn't get there at all. I'm sorry we missed breakfast."

"No problem. Did you get my messages? I know, it's nuts—"

"I didn't check them. Why? What's the news?"

I could hear him take a prep breath, like warm-up for jumping a big pit. I never liked warm-up breaths.

"Jack is doing it. He'll host a women's version of Raincoating. Since people are really into the idea. Conditionally—"

"That's great! I'll tell Rachel... did you say...?"

"Yeah, he has a condition," said Rory. He took another long break before going on. I knew the idea wasn't to torture me on purpose, but c'mon. "This was, uh... it was Conner's idea. Jack bought it. He said... Jack said... he'll only do the Raincoating thing if both you and Rachel sign up for it."

I wiggled my lips back and forth like the old witch on the black-and-white show. "Uh... okay. He knows Rachel wants to do this, right? No conditions needed there. She's into it. I'm not."

"Believe me, I already had this talk with him," sighed Rory. "Conner got him to agree with it. He won't do it unless you're both on board."

I admit—I wasn't forced into it, exactly. They could only open the door. I had to make the choice to walk through it or not.

* * *

Why did I agree to do it? It was the last thing I would have expected.

I went to see Jack and had it in mind to chew him out for his ridiculous demand on me, even though we didn't know each other all that well. Being friends with his friend, I thought, would give me a little privilege. Plus, he was putting crazy pressure on me to enter his naked girl game.

Jack dressed like a slob, looked kind of like a slob, unshaven and with greasy hair, a little tubby, but not obese or even unattractive. Not that I expected a flaming, mincing lisper, but he wasn't as gay as I thought he would be. Some of his gestures were effeminate, and his voice was maybe a little gay, but it could have been I was just looking and listening for something. He was pretty nice, actually, and he could have been a jerk about it. After I told him he already had Rachel on board, and that should be enough, he was a little more honest about it.

"I agree with you. I do," he told me, slapping his hands against his chest. "Conner made this whole argument about how it was going to be hell to sign girls up for this. Maybe it will be. I thought he had a point. But I was like, 'Rachel's going to do it? Fantastic!' She's a doll. Everyone loves her. If she's crazy enough to... but Conner wouldn't talk about anything but you doing it. He insisted on it—"

"Oh, Conner just had to have... who's in charge here, Jack?"

"I'm the boss. I pay the bills. It's not always easy to do," he said, swiveling his chair a little this way before turning it back, keeping it going in an annoying fashion. "That's why Conner wins. He cut his website-building fee in half."

"You mean... you're not paying him to redesign the website for this?"

Jack said, "I am paying him. Paying him half. All because he's got a hard-on to see you naked. Or whatever. Wow, the whole 'he has a hard-on to...' thing sounds funnier when it involves someone being naked." I gave him an angry stare. "Sorry, Erica. You're a sweetheart. But I can't refuse Conner. Not a deal like that. It's a lot of money. He must really want to fuck you."

"Oh, shut-up," I griped. I tried to explain our history, but Jack only gave me sad sympathetic faces and didn't change his mind in the least. I offered to pay the website fees myself, even though I couldn't afford it, believing Rory would rather do that than have me publicly embarrassed. Jack told me he was sorry, but no—if he pissed off Conner, the first website disaster that occurred, revenge would be his.

"Look... I'm not promising you that you'll win or anything," Jack said, giving me a weird expression. "But... if it convinces you to do it... if it makes both you and Conner happy..."

"I'm not doing it!"

"...There is a trick," said Jack. Then he gave me a wink. "If it happened that you knew this trick and no one else did... maybe there wouldn't be so much risk."

Not long after that, I left. But there was no way I was going to do it. My mind turned entirely to how I was going to let Rachel down. Almost entirely. Even though I told Jack I refused, he said he would give me until Monday morning to change my mind. Of course he was hoping I'd do it, he would save a lot of money on his web design bill—even if I cheated my way to preserving my modesty.

I sat on my couch, socked feet up on the arm, and tried to construct the letdown before dialing Rachel's number. I wasn't sure I should tell her the whole truth, about the fact she had gotten so close to it happening. That naturally led to me remembering what she told me, wondering if maybe she was bullshitting me. She might be more than a little an exhibitionist. Maybe all models are exhibitionists, at least the good ones. Rachel always said she had gigs lined up that I would be great for. I've always believed her to be kidding me or trying to make me feel better. I had a model's body, she told me a couple of times, but mine was slimmer and not as shapely as hers. Although my ass did have some pretty nice roundness to it. Maybe my lean frame made it look good.

That's when I first caught myself thinking about the Raincoating offer without being offended. It scared me a little.

I didn't call Rachel. I hadn't decided what to say. Rory and I went out for a Friday night date. He asked me what Jack had told me, and I related the story. Rory gave me his best "Ugh, men!" looks and kept shaking his head. He volunteered to talk to Conner about it, but I wouldn't have it. I believed things would just get worse. Also, something about sending my new boyfriend to butt heads with my ex made me feel nauseous. I had a worry that Conner would learn that we hadn't had sex yet, how I could only imagine, but then that would leave him wearing a self-satisfied grin.

"That's a hell of a lot of money to turn down," Rory said. My eyes widened and I gave him an aghast expression. He laughed and hurried to calm me down. "Not you, not you, I meant... Conner. You should feel good about that. He's willing to spend a lot of money just to embarrass you. Not that you've got anything to be embarrassed about, you know. But that's... think about it. He's the one who should be embarrassed. Really petty of him."

Rory was right. I thought about it while we ate dinner at China Palace. Conner was pretty greedy. He always bragged about squeezing people for more and more money whenever he had a business deal on the table. I'd seen him walk away from a few deals, thinking he would get called with bigger offers later, and when he didn't, he cried like a baby. Not his finest hours. At first I thought I should take it as a compliment—but then the truth of it dawned on me. Conner would rather eat his own head than give up that kind of money. He couldn't be in it to see me naked. Could he? No. No disrespect to my ego, but he could probably find a cheaper way to do that. He had to know I wouldn't do it.

I refuse the offer, he doesn't have to lose any money. Rachel turns on me. If it got out, if some unscrupulous asshole told the whole college why there wasn't a lady Raincoating this year, everyone would probably blame me. People would understand, wouldn't they? Maybe, if the truth was what they were told. I doubted it would be.

There was a lot to be furious about in that scenario, and I did feel like I had it all figured out right. The intentional sabotage should have bothered me more than the rest of it, but I was surprisingly pissed off that all of Conner's plan hinged on me saying no. He had that much right. Yet Conner's prediction had nothing to do with the fact it was insane to expose myself in public, to end up on the internet naked—in his book, my saying no was because I was a frigid bitch. The same reason I wouldn't let him record us, I refused something as "normal" as anal sex, and I raised a stink when he invited a friend over. God, Conner was so abnormal he couldn't even recognize I was normal.

The whole thing left me outraged, but I had no clue what I could do about it.

I went home with Rory again, determined to finish what we had started the last couple of times. This thing with Conner was getting inside my head, I was letting it, but I thought letting Rory reap the reward would be good for both of us. It shouldn't be a big deal, I told myself. I could go through with it. We got to his place and I leapt on top of him. Our kissing was electric.

"What would you think—mmm. What if I told you... I would do the thing? The—mmm—Raincoating thing?"

Just when he thought he couldn't be more surprised, I licked his lips. I couldn't restrain my smile. I thought I had broke his face.

"If you did the...?"

"You don't think I would do it, do you?" I didn't mean to sound as disappointed in him as I was. He squinted his eyes at me. "I'm a pretty boring girl, I guess—"

"I don't think you're boring, Erica. God no," he said with a laugh. "Those jackasses have messed with your head. I know that. They're still messing with your head. Why should you feel bad if you don't want to be naked in front of everyone? Some people have nightmares about that. Jack asked me to do the Raincoating this year. To apply. But I wouldn't do—"