NOVEL WEB 13 – Matthew 5:28
Matthew 5:28
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
"We're running late. My time is limited dahling." she says. He wasn't sure to whom she was talking, but James' mom followed after her moments later.
When her eyes fall on James suddenly a bright fire is lit within them.
"My god. You're perfect!" she exclaims running up to his chair to start inspecting him.
"Wait. He looks different..." she says in confusion.
"Well. The original model cancelled on us the last moment. This is my son. He'll be replacing the model." James' mother commented from the side.
"I was afraid my clothes were going to be ruined, but now I think I'm falling short...soo many ideas. I had already given up on regular models, but you are getting me excited dahling." she says to James. The boredom has long slipped from her face being replaced with excitement instead. You could practically see the gears turning.
He would be worried if it was some other older lady telling him she got him excited, but he could tell there was no lust behind it and she was purely appreciating that he was aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Something that was getting rarer now that he was starting to look like he was close to his teens.
"Oh I almost forgot. The name's Edna, Edna Mode. You have to work with me from now on dahling. You can't be wearing those awful clothes by other designers." she states with determination.
"I'm James ma'am. I'm looking forward to working with you." he said with a smile. Although he had gotten used to the formality inherent to Japanese culture, being able to be a little more casual since they were foreigners was nice.
"Of course you are dahling. Who wouldn't be?" she responds confidently before pulling him out of his chair and starting to push and pull him around to check various aspects of his physique. Lifting his arms, making him turn, grabbing his face and holding it at different angles.
"Yes... lots to work with." she mumbled then dragged him to the wardrobe where she started to pick out combinations from the new collection that worked best with his appearance.
She had him try multiple combinations until she had decided on the final ones for the shoot.
"Ok... my job is done. Now you need to do yours." Edna tells him with a satisfied smile.
After settling on his outfit and the hair and make-up ladies doing the last touchup to restore their previous work after all the wardrobe switches.
"Ok sweetie. Time for the shoot." his mom says grabbing his hand to drag him to the photoshoot.
The shoot is already prepared and the photographer has been waiting. She was practically the opposite of Edna. Where Edna was short and frail she was tall and statuesque. Where he didn't think Edna had ever seen the inside of a gym, he wouldn't be surprised if the photographer spent many hours a day there. While he wasn't sure what Edna's age was, he was fairly certain it was old. Meanwhile the photographer was young. She looked like she was only just out of college if that. The only thing that seemed to match was both had black hair.
"Hello missis Busujima, thank you for giving Aurora Photo Studios a shot. We usually don't work outside of the States, but we don't often get a chance to work with Edna." she says respectfully to James' mom. She has a clear American accent. Thankfully all the important people here can speak English.
"We're more than happy to be working with you miss Troy." she says giving her a polite smile.
"And you cutie, can call me Donna." she says crouching down with a wide smile to be on James' eye level. Although he appreciates the care of her doing this as it's what you would want to do with kids being an adult on the inside it feels rather patronising making him want to mess with her.
"Let's work up a sweat together." he says making sure it's only loud enough for her who is at eye level with him to hear.
"W-what?" she says with a confused blush.
"The lights." he says pointing at the bright photography lights that are causing the room to heat up with an "innocent" look on his face.
"Right...of course... what are you thinking Donna he is just a kid. Of course that's what he means." she mumbled to herself before clearing her throat trying to also clear her embarrassment.
"Since this is your first time we'll go over what to expect." she says regaining her regular smile though her cheeks are still a little red from embarrassment.
Edna and Donna together with him discuss some information regarding the shoot and posing and what they are looking for from the photoshoot. Edna ended up leaving after everything had been discussed as she had lots of things going on.
It turned out he takes to the modelling like a fish to water. His natural instinct for appearing his best works like a charm for being a model as the knows how best to pose, the best angles and the best expressions to use for the desired effects.
Donna was more than impressed with his performance. It was rare for experienced models to perform this well. Usually it was hard to get a good picture, but with James it seemed like it would be a struggle to take a bad picture of him. He managed to get a good balance between cute and a touch of bad she was sure would even have girls older than him ready to eat him up.
"You did amazing for your first time." Donna says giving him a big hug.
"I was happy to give you my first... 'cutie'... " he whispers into her ear teasingly.
Donna turns beet red now quite sure she wasn't reading too much into his words. The first time she could excuse it as him not knowing how what he was saying could be interpreted, however this time that wasn't likely.
"Uh...r-right... I hope we can work together again." she says with a stutter still in a daze.
"I'll look forward to it." he responds with a wolfish smirk as he walks off confirming her suspicions.
On their way home his mother couldn't stop herself from gushing about how well it all went and how this was going to be their best campaign ever. He wasn't sure how much was bias from her being his mother and how much was her honest professional opinion.
As long as his time paid off he wouldn't mind doing this every so often to help his mom. If he could improve his public image while at it he definitely wouldn't be complaining. People liked celebrities after all and in this world part of being a pro hero is being a celebrity so he might as well get used to it and start early.
