Page 7 of On Your Knees

I keep my hands in my jacket pockets and hunch my shoulders. I lower my eyes to the pavement in front of my worn-out Converse.

I hear a heavy exhalation. Then he says, “I came back.”

I nod because that’s apparent.

He adds, “For you.”

“For me?”

“Why do you think I was lurking in the alley?”

His choice of words surprises me. “It didn’t feel like you were—”

“Oh, Levi,” he cuts in. “You can’t be that beautiful and that naive.”

Heat floods my face. “I… um…” Did he just say what I think he said?

“I want you to model for me. Figure sketches mostly. Possibly paintings. I would pay well.”

At first, I don’t hear him because I’m still trying to figure out whether he really did just call me beautiful. But then his words catch up to me. I stop dead. “Wait, what? You want me to what?”

Ethan stops as well and turns to face me. “I want you to model for me. For my art.”

I stare at him, waiting for him to say something that makes sense. Or maybe to laugh at me and say, Haha, you should see your face. But he just stands there.

I try to get some words out. “I’m not… I don’t… But why? I mean, why me?”

“Why not you?”

For some reason, my chest gets tight. It’s hard to breathe. I’m panicking, and I don’t know why.

Ethan slowly closes the distance between us. He still looks intense but no longer angry. I startle when he lightly grips my jaw. I’m not sure anyone has ever touched my face before. When his thumb strokes my cheek, I shiver. I don’t know why he’s touching me. I don’t know why I’m letting him.

“It’ll be simple.” His tone is dark, not gentle, but something about it makes me calm down. “All you have to do,” he says as he tilts my head back and to the side, “is obey.” He lets go of my face and steps back. I’m frozen in place until he murmurs, “Mmm, perfect,” then I shudder, breaking the pose.

A black car pulls up at the curb. Ethan walks to it, opens the rear door, and motions to me. Like I’m in a dream, I go to him. I get in. He closes the door.

I only ever take the train, so it’s weird to me to be in a car. It smells like leather. The man in the driver’s seat doesn’t say anything or even look at me in the rearview. All I can see is that he’s big and he’s wearing a suit.

The other rear door opens, and Ethan gets in, asking, “What’s your address?”

“It’s a long way. You can just drop me off at—”

He interrupts, “You’ll be dropped off at home.

I don’t see any point in arguing, so I relay the address.

As the car pulls away from the curb, Ethan says, “It would be two thousand a week.”

“What would be two thousand a week?”

“Your pay. For posing.”

I blink. Dollars? is all I think, but I manage to not say it.

Ethan seems unbothered by my obvious shock. In the light bleeding in from the streets, I see flashes of his handsome face. It’s unmoved. Unamused. He’s serious.

I still can’t muster a sensible response. I’ve never made that kind of money in my life. There is no reality in which I’m worth that much.