Fic: Fetish Model AU
Author: Emmuzka
Genre and pairing: FOB, Pete/Patrick
Raiting: PG
Disclaimer: Not true in any way.
Summary: According to Pete, everyone has something that is absolutely perfect for them. If they don't, they just haven't found it yet.
Notes: The poor fic doesn't have a proper name! So work name it is..
Fetish Model AU
Pete is the best there is. It’s not because he would be technically best or even particularly visually gifted, but because he can read minds. Fetishes are seldom your run of the mill, catering-for-everyone generic stuff, no. Everyone has their specific tastes. It's not only about boots, or lolita dresses. Maybe it's blondes wearing lolita dresses, or blond underweight girls wearing the dresses, or blond boys, or black-haired, tattooed boys wearing girls' dresses and sucking thumb. According to Pete, everyone has something that is absolutely perfect for them. If they don't, they just haven't found it yet.
Pete finds his new models like everyone finds new models in these circles: Through friends, word of mouth, private commissions and of course going through a shitload of amateur pictures send in or published in more dingy fetish publications.
Patrick, though, Patrick goes to him.
Pete gets a call from an unknown number, a dude named Patrick. He is not a customer, he is a model.
“Where are you from? Who gave you my name?” Pete prides himself of knowing almost everyone that matters in these circles, and not only in L.A., either.
“I’m from Chicago, but I’m done stuff in New York, too? I got a pretty good clientee in certain circles. Commissions mostly. And I got your name from Gabe.” Now the dude sounds more confident. He knows that Gabe is great for name dropping, and probably isn’t afraid of further inquires on how exactly they know each other.
“Sounds valid. So what you had in mind?”
“It would be a private commission. I have this long-time customer. He tells me what he wants and I'll set it up, from finding the photographer to a personal delivery. He is a good guy, pays well, too, so. I wouldn’t want to loose him even after I moved here.”
They set a date for a meet and a possible shoot a day after. It’s going to be a some kind of costume deal. The details are still vague, but Pete has a feeling that he will like working with this guy. Still, he has his personal rules; he always meets people in a different set before they start taking their clothes off and break out the chains.
Pete calls to Gabe as a part of his background routine. Gabe laughs and tells him that Pete is going to love Patrick. He also tells that Patrick does pictures only, no tapes and absolutely no personal calls. He isn’t very well known because he does this only on the side. Gabe has heard that he plays drums.
***
They meet at Starbucks, because nothing fuels talking about the mechanics of fetish photography like a triple espresso shot latte with extra syrup. To Pete, Patrick looks ordinary, but some of his best models are.
“Okay, I will be wearing a lolita dress, I’ll bring it with me. But that’s not the thing, that’s only because nakedness would be distracting in this. The thing is that I’ll get red raised lines crisscrossing my thighs and whatever. You know? Like whip marks?”
“Whip marks?” Pete doesn’t know what to say. He is a photographer, not a dominatrix for fucks sake. This is the reason Pete will always meet his models first. But if it were Patrick asking, would he really refuse?
“Not whip marks like in actual whipping, dude.”
Pete feels hot in the face. He doesn’t know if he is blushing or what.
“I’m thinking we make them with scratching? Like-.” Patrick draws his fingers along his left arm, digging his nails in. The lines turn quickly red and raised, contrasting with his pale white skin.
Pete has spent hours and hours at school in his youth drawing lines in his arms with mechanical pencils and butterfly knives to know how it works.
“Okay, sure we can do it like that. I’ll have to work pretty quickly, I think.”
It’s Pete’s best interest to get to know this dude as good as possible, right. Pete puts his polite smile on and leans forwards.
“So, what else do you do?”
Patrick drinks his boring black coffee and smiles back.
“I don't do animals, fire, feces or heavy pain. Everything else is a pretty much ago. Or, I do acupuncture needles but they don't actually hurt. And, if it's not a solo, I'll get a say in with whom I'm working with. And, uh, I'll get to approve all the toys used on me.”
This, Pete thinks, could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
***
The photo session, that’s pure work. Pete doesn’t let it be anything but work. This is a studio shoot, so Pete has all the needed equipment at hand. Ryan, his assistant, came to help uninvited, but Pete booted him out before Patrick even arrived. That’s okay, they both knew that Ryan only came to check out the new talent, anyway. Gossip fodder was a hot community especially in here of all of places.
Patrick takes the first try without the red lines for Pete to adjust the lights and decide on the shooting angles beforehand. He is dressed in a lolita dress, more romantic and wispy than fresh or preppy. No intricate posing this time, he kinda just lays on a bed. Pete can’t take his eyes off him. Patrick’s skirt bunches up towards his waist and show plain white girls’ knickers.
“Okay, ready when you are.” Pete raises the camera. It’s not supposed to be this intense. He is not taking pictures of his boyfriend or even a friend; this is a first time commission.
The tool that Patrick uses to draw the red welts on his skin looks like something he stole from a dentists’ office. There are actual toys for this, but Pete doesn’t keep a BDSM prop supply and Patrick doesn’t do pain, so they went creative. Patrick’s skin makes a stark contrast to the raised marks.
Pete starts shooting. “The commissioner of this... Do I want to know who it is?”
“I couldn't tell you, because then I would have to kill you.”
Pete smirks. “Really? Friends in high places?”
Patrick tries not to move, so his answer doesn’t come out very animated, but Pete can see that even as Patrick finds the question amusing, he isn’t actually joking. “Yes. Got me once out of a tricky situation already.”
“That’s why you moved here?”
“No, that was before this. I'm in a band. Someday we are going to make it, but right now it doesn't pay that good. We all moved here. Isn’t that what all us hopefuls are supposed to do? Move to L.A?”
“Better be careful, then. This city eats its own puppies.”
For a moment there is no other sound than the fake shutter sound from Pete’s digital camera. Then they take a break for Patrick to draw the lines again.
“I totally get you, but I got to ask. What will happen if your band makes it and then it comes out that their drummer used to model fetish porn?”
“Fetish pride, man. I just have to stay in music circles with a shit load of street cred, where it would just add to my charisma or whatever.
“Fetish pride!”
Patrick looks at his getup, not looking satisfied. As good as the idea of the shoot is, this might be too simple. Pete doesn’t say anything. Usually he is the one directing the model, but somehow Patrick directed this from the start.
“Hmm. Oh, hell, I’ll just add it to the bill. You got scissors?”
Pete has scissors. He watches as Patrick quickly cuts the dress open on the front left side. He chops the panties, too, but leaves the mess on so that the whole outfit only exposes a line of white soft skin from his thighs to his throat.
“This good?”
Pete’s mouth is dry. He is a professional. He raises his camera. “Yes, good pose, don’t have to change the lights.”
Patrick is still waiting for something.
“Um.” Pete’s camera is his shield of professionalism.
“The marks? I can’t make them myself if I’m supposed to lie here.”
“Yes, or course.”
Pete draws the marks on Patrick’s skin from his thigh to his collarbone. He is quick and efficient. He is supposed to be a damn professional in close handling, and if he fucks up now, Patrick could be as good as gone.
“So, what's your own thing?” Pete wants to slap himself on the face. This was the best small talk subject that he could come up with?
“I like them all fine.”
“I mean, what's your thing?”
“Oh. Nothing, really. I'm kinda vanilla.”
“Really?” No way can Patrick be in the inside the same as he looks on the outside. He just has to have a fetish.
“What's your thing, then?” Patrick sounds genuinely interested. Maybe this wasn’t a tad bad topic after all.
“I haven't found it yet.”
When the photo shoot is finally over, Pete leaves Patrick to change and goes straight to his computer to upload the pictures from the memory cards. He clicks one of the pictures in preview at random. These are perfect. Pete didn’t know that he had a thing for skin.
Patrick, in jeans and a t-shirt, moves on his back and peers to the screen. “Did it photograph well? Do the marks show good enough? Because if we have to re-shoot, I’m making losses here.”
“Better than I thought it would, actually. But you know your thing.”
“It’s still new to me, too, actually. And first time to this customer.
He likes weird things. I wanted to make it fresh, so I… kinda made it up for him?”
“You came up with this idea?”
“Is it bad?”
“No, it's not bad! I love it, just look at it!” Pete gestures to the screen like they wouldn’t be looking at it already, because doesn’t Patrick see it?
“These are fantastic. You know I have connections to the larger magazines. I'm sure that you could make a great deal with them. Let me shop these around.”
Patrick doesn’t look pleased with Pete’s suggestion. “These were commissioned and if I let you spread them, they'll as sure as hell end up somewhere, no matter how hard you would stress that they wouldn't have the rights. “
“Let me take another set, then! Or, I could make you a portfolio. For free!” That is a wet dream of any model, to get a full portfolio by a highly esteemed photographer, and for free even.
“I don’t think so. Commissions are enough for me.”
“You could make a career out of this!”
“Yeah.” That’s not a dreamy yeah. That’s a settled yeah, like I know I could but I won’t. Such a shame.
Pete begs for a coffee break before they’ll look through for the photos to choose the ones to get the Photoshop treatment. He measures grinds to his industrial-looking coffee machine and thinks about Patrick’s mystery client.
Patrick isn’t new to this, but Pete has been there longer, and he has actually studied the psychology behind fetishes. Patrick changes the kinks he models for so often that he must have forgotten that the people consuming the pictures don't just change their fetishes overnight. One might see both bondage and tattooing aesthetically pleasing, but no-one just changes their channels of sexuality from paddling the soles of feet to whole-body latex overnight. It doesn’t work that way.
Everyone has their specific needs. No one would commission just whatever, even when the whatever would be as magnificent as this.
“Your client, you ever met him in person?”
Patrick sits on a bar stool and swings his feet. “Yes, I said that I hand deliver the photographs.”
“He ever tried to know you better? Date you?”
“Ah, hardly. He is in a very powerful position and if anyone would ever find out about the pics... Mostly we just e-mail each other.”
“He orders pictures from anyone else?”
“Not that... I know of, no.”
“Your client,” Pete states with a flourish, “has a Patrick-fetish. It doesn't even matter what kind of pictures you sell him, as long as you sell them to him! Any simple objectification pics would do!”
“You really think so?” Patrick looks curious. Pete would like him to be worried or dismayed by his revelation, but no.
“Yeah. You better watch out, his Patrick-fetish might turn to Patrick-obsession any time, and then you’ll have a stalker with like, the FBI agents on his side.”
The coffee machine gurgles and Patrick hops from the stool to get his share. They take refills along with them to the computer room. Pete feels oddly subdued, but he has now things to think about. First thing, Patrick didn’t react at all to his FBI comment.
The second thing: Pete thinks that he found his fetish, finally. He thinks that he might have a Patrick-fetish, too.