Some quick admin before we start: This story comes in at a little over 30K words; the sexy stuff is spread throughout, but as usual, it's definitely more in the back half than the front. Furthermore, my apologies to anyone who speaks Hindi for my use of Google Translate; I've never had much luck soliciting help through the forums, and asking my Indian friends for help with my jerkoff stories is...a little awkward. But please, feel free to drag me in the comments if you deem it necessary.
Other than that, I hope you enjoy!
= = = = =
Devika Singh didn't move out to Los Angeles to be "discovered."
One day, it occurred to her that there was a whole subculture of humanity that was obsessed with celebrity, emotionally invested in Brad Pitt's relationships with Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie or Marion Cotillard or whomever he was going to cheat on Marion Cotillard with. She wondered what that had to be like, to have every aspect of your private life speculated on by vain teenagers and bored housewives as if it was their favorite TV show, to have every last piece of shitty, smoky gossip scrutinized as fire. She asked herself how one would stay sane under such suffocating circumstances; she couldn't come up with a good answer. So while some of her friends entertained wild pipe dreams of red carpets and glamour, Devika set her sights lower: A menial job with good pay, a small house in a friendly neighborhood. If she could find that in her life and hold onto it, she'd be happy.
Still, when she was staring down the barrel of college and the next phase of her life, her knack for coding and yearning for sunshine led her to California. She expected to move to the Bay Area after graduating magna cum laude from USC and land a Silicon Valley gig. Instead, she got a competitive offer from Umbrla, an LA-based startup that would save her the trouble of a move upstate.
It was work, no matter how much they tried to gin it up with casual language, yoga classes, and an arcade and fro-yo machine in the break room. In fact, it was work that never seemed to end; Devika went from 8 to 8 Mondays through Fridays and every other Saturday and was on call 24/7. But maybe that was the point, she thought: To find life in the spaces between the gears. She thought she did a pretty good job with what little she had to work with. She moved into a Marina Del Rey apartment with a couple of other friends, did her morning jogs out on Venice Beach, and kept trying new and curious spots for her dates (which, to her chagrin, were always first or second dates). Work sucked, but it was part of the ebb of life that made its flow more satisfying. Right?
She slept in on the Saturdays she had off; she needed it. Usually, she was out cold until 10 or 11, but that particular Saturday she barely got any sleep because she was told she had a performance review when she came back on Monday—a "check-in hang," they called it. These were usually excuses to subtly berate her for not being devoted to Umbrla's "mission." The culture there was mostly white, mostly male, and scarcely private, both physically ("Walls are, like,
bad
, brah. Why should we put them between you guys?") and emotionally (she hadn't heard this much catty, gossipy bullshit from and about her peers even in high school). She could tolerate it, and she still did good work, but she didn't
slide into it
, and all she could think about from the cold comfort of her bed was how her management team always seemed to turn her lack of devotion to The Mission into a liability.
That, and how it wasn't her fault that every time they talked about "Umbrla's mission," her mind went to the zombie apocalypse. The question she always wanted to ask in these "check-in hangs" was "Seriously? You've never played a
Resident Evil
game? Watched any of the movies?"
She thought about these things while watching the sky brighten into dawn through her tiny bedroom window. She used to welcome the sight, but she was running on four-maybe-five hours of sleep and her leg kept shaking and her mind kept screaming until finally, she realized she wasn't going to make herself feel any better by staying still.
It was a Saturday in June, not even 7 AM when she got to the beach and already 84 degrees, so Devika dressed a little skimpier than she usually did for a morning run: white sports bra, powder blue nylon shorts, her dark, frizzy hair tied back in a tight ponytail. She had already gone about a mile by the time she reached Groundwork Coffee; normally around this time, she'd consider turning back. But there was the matter of all that nothing waiting back at the apartment, and despite the temperature, there was a nice breeze coming off the Pacific and the sky was a beautiful shade of crystal blue, accented by the occasional wisp of a cloud. So she figured she'd push herself a little farther before relaxing on the beach for an hour or so, maybe with a breakfast smoothie. With all the stress she was under, a peaceful-ish change of scenery could only do her good.
Being discovered was the last thing on Devika's mind.
But during that jog, just past Groundwork Coffee, discovered she was.
A voice called out to her, barely above Adam Levine's hook on "Stereo Hearts": "Excuse me, ma'am? Ma'am?"
She pulled out her earbuds and came face to face with a trim dude in a dark green Hawaiian shirt and board shorts, with wavy golden hair under a trilby hat that screamed: "I am a big, big fan of that band you never heard of." Yet it somehow worked for him; his vibe was an odd mix of "cute surfer boy" and "artsy hipster type," the appeal bolstered by the narrow yet sculpted arms that hinted at a toned figure underneath his clothes.
Anyway, he didn't seem to be holding anything she might have dropped. Devika connected her inquisitive brown eyes to his friendly blues.
"Hi, I'm sorry to bother you," he said, taking out his phone, opening the back of its case with a click. "I normally don't do this because it's super rude, but I'm in a bad spot and you might be able to help." Off Devika's cocked eyebrow, the man handed Devika an off-white business card he fished from the compartment of his phone case. "My name's Levi Fisher," he introduced himself; his card had his name, phone number, e-mail, Twitter handle, and website printed on durable, textured stock. "I'm a photographer," he continued, "and I was hoping you could model for me."
Devika blushed, taken aback by the unexpected, roundabout compliment. She did have a damn good shape about her; a soft, petite hourglass figure with hips that were slightly wider than her bust, and dark cinnamon skin that shimmered like bronze whenever she worked up a sweat. "Wow," she giggled. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, I know," said Levi. "It sounds like a line, but I'm dead serious. Listen, have you eaten? Can I at least buy you some breakfast while I tell you what's up?"
* * * * *
If it was a line, it worked; stuck in the thick of a year-long dry spell, Devika was more than happy to be plied with free food by a cute guy. After she introduced herself, Levi took her back to Groundwork Coffee. While she tucked into her breakfast burrito, he laid out the situation as plainly as he could: He had come here to meet up with a model he was doing a test shoot with, only for her to call and tell him she'd been throwing up all night. "Test shoots being what they are, it's hard to find a last-minute replacement; you normally just reschedule. But I've got a way bigger shoot happening Monday, and I'd really like to put my new camera through its paces before then."
"So I'm assuming that's where I come in?"
Levi nodded.
"You know, Levi, I think we've both seen a few movies on the internet that started just like this."
He laughed and ultimately nodded in acknowledgment. "Here's what I'll tell you," he said. "One, this won't make you a star. It's a test shoot, it's bullshit. I'm not going to show the pictures I take to all the 'talent agents' that I 'rub shoulders' with. So now that I've dashed any hopes you might have had for fame and fortune, I can't hold them over your head."
"For what it's worth, I don't give a shit about fame."
"Really?" Levi seemed genuinely, pleasantly thrown by this.
"I mean, I still love money," said Devika. "Don't start thinking I'm all Zen Buddhist just because of the color of my skin."
"Ah, this is LA," shrugged Levi. "We all need to love money to live out here."
"Very true. But yeah, I know enough about celebrity culture to know I'd rather not be one."
"I get that," said Levi. "I meet a lot of people chasing stardom in my line of work, and...well, look, I shouldn't judge, but it's cool that you're not like that."
"You seem like a decent fella, Levi," Devika admitted after swallowing a bite of her burrito. "Even if you are a big perv."
