Hello, Privet! #1: Hello/Привет

Chapter 34

ANTON

After practice today, I go to a photo shoot for a magazine with only the devochka to go with me. She is talking to the stylist and studying the 'scenes' they want me to do and explaining them to me. When she is talking, she seems to be worried about my reaction about what they want me to do, but John already looked at everything and said yes to them when he met with the people from the magazine in New York. I have to do everything they agreed.

In the make-up room, where they are fixing my hair, I say to her, "What do they want me to wear?"

"Comme des Garcons Homme Plus, Agnes B, Marc Jacobs, Jean Paul Gaultier, Tom Ford, et cetera. Lots of military-inspired things with fur-lined hoodies and combat boots and cool hats. Look, it's set in a dystopian future. Sci-fi. Have you seen The Fifth Element? Bruce Willis? Milla Jovovich? I think that's what they're going for."

"I do not have to—take off anything?"

She looks at me for a moment and rolls her eyes. "Come on. You're Anton Alexandrovich Akhmerov. Of course you have to lose the clothes at some point."

She is making fun of me. I frown.

"I mean, if you don't do that, it's just like—I don't know—buying a cake and not eating it. You know?"

I struggle to look at her, but the stylist is combing my hair and keeps positioning my head to face the mirror. "I told John already—I will never be photographed in my underwear again. Once is enough." She probably knows about when I modeled for Calvin Klein in the year 2000, when I was still young and did not know it is a bad idea to pose in underwear.

"The female readers need eye-candy too. It only seems fair." She checks the planned scenes and shows her copy to me. "I think you have to take off just your shirt starting in this scene with the metal probes?" She whistles, shuffling the papers in her hands. She sort of laughs. "What a job."

I clench my jaw. "It is not funny."

"Oh, Anton. Come on, easiest job in the world. Just look pretty for the camera and you get a few million dollars. How hard could it be?"

The hairdresser goes to get the blow-dryer plugged. "It is okay in the magazines, but once they put my poster in the streets and billboards—"

"Who did you model for?"

I say nothing.

"Wait, let me guess." She smiles. "Calvin Klein?"

I shrug. "I was young when I did it."

She laughs. "Next you're going to tell me it's a drag to have legions of female fans in love with you. Poor Anton. How ever did you get through it all?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, after Ronaldo, you're probably the most well-known male European athlete, and women throw themselves at you. What more could a guy want?"

"It is not what I want," I say. "You know after Calvin Klein, I could not go anywhere without anyone looking at me, and bothering me. Taking my picture. I could not go out without anyone wanting to touch me and even the guys—they tease me."

"It sounds like you really had a terrible time..." she says, and I think she's still making fun of me.

"When they do it to a woman, it's bad. But when they do it to a man, it's funny?"

She looks at me for a moment, then she looks embarrassed. "Okay, you're right. I'm sorry," she says softly. "That was really sexist of me. I'm sorry that they're objectifying you, Anton, and I'm sorry for minimizing your experience. I really am. No one deserves that kind of treatment."