Psychological Control

Chapter 27

I woke up in a daze, to the ringing of my phone. I had worked late into the night again last night to complete the cv's for the Survivor section. I fumbled around and half propped myself up from the bed, a slight chill to my half-naked upper body from the gradually turning cooler weather.

The ringtone didn't seem to be the one I'd set as my wake up alarm, but instead it was the default ringtone of that phone. Who would be calling me early in the morning?

"Hi, Brian!"

I took the phone away from my ear and glanced again at the name displayed on the screen. Chris, yes, but why did the voice ringing out of the receiver belong to Jonathan?

"Jonathan? You're...filming for Chris?" I said as I pressed the phone back to my ear again, getting up from the bed sharply and walking to the bathroom as I did so.

"Yeah, and Chris said he hadn't spoken to you in a while and was afraid you wouldn't answer the phone." Jonathan's voice on the other end sounded excited. "That sultry look on his face, you dumped him?"

I didn't really like dealing with Jonathan, but his position in the fashion industry was one that I, a newcomer to the industry, couldn't afford to offend. So, if I could make friends with him and even get a job or two by making a faux pas, why not?

"No, we're not that kind of relationship either. It's just that school has just recently started and I'm a bit busy adjusting to it." I made it look like I didn't care what he was calling about and just politely replied.

Even if I had ulterior motives for the exchange with him, I didn't want to make them so obvious. The falsehood, the desire to capture, this approach is not limited to ambiguity between men and women, it is also a good tactic in the business world.

"Well, why are you so cold to everyone?" Jonathan didn't seem to care about the previous conversation, it was just a casual way of bringing it up. "You should know the final winner of America's Next Top Model by now, right?"

I was squeezing toothpaste on myself with my phone between my shoulders and raised an eyebrow at his question, "I didn't actually know, but I probably guessed it when I heard you ask. It's Alice, isn't it?"

"......" There was a half-hearted silence on the other end of the line before Chris's voice suddenly came through, "Do you have so little faith in me? Why didn't you guess it was me?"

I heard Chris's voice sigh with relief and replied, "Because I can guess that what GUESS needs these days is a female model, and of the top five posted on the website, she's the only one with the most power. You're working with Jonathan to end the America's Next Top Model contest?"

Chris had a moment of silence before saying, "Yes, the shoot ended a week ago. It just so happened that the magazine Jonathan was shooting creative design for had a fashion shoot to do, so they gave me a lift to do a backdrop." No sooner had his words fallen than his phone was snatched by Jonathan.

"What a backdrop, to put it so harshly. That's right! And we've just arrived in San Francisco and we're getting ready to shoot over here. Brian, aren't you coming to see your friend?" Jonathan said in a particularly positive way.

"Oh? Is there a spot for me to be a backdrop too then?" I said in a teasing tone, "After all, I've had a hard time getting in touch with our noble and charming creative director, so maybe he can give me my first magazine shoot?"

Jonathan on the other end of the line laughed at my words, and it seemed that he didn't mind a bit of just the right amount of banter for his preferred type. Maybe because it would give him the illusion of flirtatious flirting? Mike the Ice Cream Man, whom he had admired earlier, had been too serious in his face for him to lose interest after his elimination.