My voice was tight, but my pulse thrummed with excitement. “I say it sounds like a plan.”
During the drive to Nina’s place, we chatted about mundane things. The movies we liked. The songs we didn’t. But still, I struggled to keep up with the conversation. I was nervous. How could I not be? When we got there, if I was willing, I’d sign a contract, take off my clothes, and fuck a stranger while she filmed.
It was ridiculously wild.
And exhilarating.
I felt like I was going to vibrate out of my skin.
As advertised in the online posting, the house wasn’t far from campus, but I hadn’t expected it to be in such a nice neighborhood. When she turned in to the subdivision with an elegant brick sign, I peered up at the houses with wide eyes.
Each seemed to have a garage big enough for three or more cars. Elaborate swimming pools in the backyards peeked out behind wrought-iron fences. The lawns were impeccably landscaped and maintained.
And a few of the houses were so large, I could have used the terms sprawling or mansion.
She turned in to a driveway that curved and sloped upward, and my gaze followed the path to the home nestled between mature trees. It seemed to be the biggest of the houses, looming over the rest of the neighborhood.
When one of the garage doors rolled back and Nina eased her luxury SUV into the spot, my heartbeat quickened. It wasn’t because she was still somewhat of a stranger—I felt safe. Plus, I’d told Jenn about my plans and shared my phone’s location with her.
No, my heart raced because it was settling in what was going to happen, and I was eager for it. The money, the opportunity, the experience . . .
All of it.
I climbed out of the passenger side and took in my surroundings. Since the house was built on the side of a hill, the garage had tall ceilings, and there was a wooden staircase the led up to what I assumed was the main floor. But we didn’t take the stairs. There was a door on the far wall, and Nina headed that direction.
Once we were through it, she flipped on a bank of light switches and set her purse down on one of the U-shaped desks tucked in the front corners. The room was small and L-shaped with a hallway running along the left wall, and I got the feeling it hadn’t been planned this way. Perhaps once it had been one large space, but now it was partitioned off to fit the homeowners’ needs.
“Welcome to the editing bay,” she said. “You can put your stuff here.”
There were several monitors arranged on the desk, and she wiggled the mouse, waking up the computer. I bit down on my bottom lip as multiple images appeared on one of the screens. It seemed to be different camera angles of the same empty bedroom.
There was camera and lighting equipment neatly stacked beside the desk, and a bank of batteries glowed green, having finished charging.
The phone vibrated in Nina’s purse. She retrieved it and glanced at the text message. “Awesome. Scott’s on his way back.” She opened one of the drawers of the desk and rifled through the papers until she found what she was looking for. “This is our standard contract for one-off shoots.”
She’d pulled multiple pages, but only handed half of them to me. The other half she set on the desk on the other side of the room, then tossed a hand toward the weird hallway.
“Let me show you the studio, and then you can look over the form. There’s more space in there.”
The “studio” was bigger than the editing area, and it was the same bedroom I’d seen on the monitors, which I found disorienting. You’d never know it was night outside or that we were in a basement. The room was bright and airy, with faux windows on either side of the bed, and diffused light streamed through the frosted glass.
The queen-sized bed was fitted with crisp white sheets, and the tables on either side were decorated with fake plants and muted artwork. It was the perfect background, interesting enough to look at without distracting from what the real show was supposed to be.
The wall opposite the bed had a large ring light on a tripod, and a camera mounted just in front of its center. And behind that, a flatscreen TV was perched high on the wall. All the same camera angles were visible in different boxes onscreen, and I saw myself and Nina in them at various angles.
She noticed my gaze on the TV and gave a soft laugh. “You don’t have to worry about that. When your guy gets here, I’ll explain to you both where your marks are, but it doesn’t matter that much. Everything in front of the lights has coverage. We mostly use the monitor for staging and practice.”