 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|||||
 |
|||||
|
Chapter 1: Brian's Initial Interview
“Aww, Mum, this is stupid. I don’t want to be a stupid model.” Bryan Wallace glanced at the fancy stencilling on the glass door as he followed his mother into the plush, second floor office. The stencilling had proclaimed that these were the offices of the “Boys On View Modelling Agency.”
“We’ve gone over and over this, Bryan,” the boy’s mother told him. The words were spoken softly, so as not to draw attention, but delivered in the stern, no-nonsense manner with which the thirteen-year-old was so familiar. “You show me up in here and you will be very sorry when we get home.”
Bryan clenched his teeth and fell silent. He knew that there was no point in arguing; his mother had made up her mind, and he had no choice at all but to go along for the ride. In any case, he was convinced that nothing would come of his mother’s wild idea. Even the mere suggestion that he could become a model was hysterically funny. Sure, people had told him that he was good-looking, and he had to admit that when he decided to make an effort with his appearance, people did tend to look at him. However, he didn’t consider himself to be anything special, and he certainly wasn’t ‘front-page’ material.
While his mother approached a desk to tell the receptionist that they had arrived for their appointment, the young teen held back and examined his surroundings. From what he could see, this “Boys On View” sure looked like an upmarket sort of outfit; everything was polished glass and chrome, and the carpet that he was standing on was so deep that he felt like he was sinking into it. This all went to further reassure him that they were definitely wasting their time and would be out of here in no time at all. He noticed that his mother had finished talking to the hot-looking receptionist and was beckoning him across to some comfortable looking chairs against the wall.
Sean Sanders put down the report that he had been reading and glanced at his computer screen, where a message was flashing insistently, indicating that his 3:30 appointment had arrived. He reached for his mouse and clicked on a button. This would tell his receptionist, Carol, that she should send in the prospective clients. Sean quickly straightened his tie and ran his hands over his hair, making sure that it wasn’t out of place. At just twenty-six years old, Sean was the founder and chief executive of “Boys On View”. He had started the company less than two years ago, and in that short time had watched it outgrow all of his dreams and expectations. Building the company had been hard work; the hours had been long and sometimes the pressure had been intense. But it had all been worth it. The particular rewards of this job made every moment worthwhile.
As the door to his office opened, Sean rose to his feet and stepped around his desk, putting on his most winning smile. He put out his hand, greeting the woman and her son and directing them to chairs as he quickly assessed them both. The woman was in her late thirties, slim and fairly attractive, if you liked that sort of thing. She looked a little nervous, but there was a flicker of ambition in her eyes that Sean had seen many times before. The boy, Bryan, was about average height for his thirteen years, with short, spiked, sandy coloured hair, blue eyes and an extremely cute face. He looked to have a nice build, though it was hard to tell for sure, given the baggy clothing that he was wearing.
“Welcome, Mrs. Wallace, Bryan. I’m Sean Sanders. I understand that Bryan is interested in enrolling with our agency.” Sean waved to the chairs in front of his desk, inviting the pair to sit before retaking his own seat.
“That’s right,” said the woman with a smile. Bryan scowled.
“Well, Bryan is certainly a good-looking young man,” said Sean. “My first impression is that he would make a very good model. Why don’t I tell you a little bit about our agency and answer any questions that you might have, then, if you are still interested, I’ll get one of our staff photographers in to take a few test shots of Bryan and we’ll take it from there?”
“That sounds good,” smiled the boy’s mother.
Bryan was still scowling, but this didn’t worry Sean. He’d seen this scenario many times before: the pushy mother, the reluctant teenager. He was fairly confident that when the time came, he would be able to find the right lever to win the boy around.
Sean went on to give his two visitors his usual opening speech. It sounded good, but in reality he said very little at all other than telling them how successful his agency was. The woman nodded her approval, while Bryan looked bored. “The advantage of joining our agency,” Sean explained, “Is that we are able to offer a much wider variety of work than most of our competitors. We specialise exclusively in boys between the ages of eleven and eighteen and we have considerable expertise and knowledge of the markets in this area. As such, we are able to guarantee a very high income for the right type of boy.” That was always the clincher. Mention of the money was always a sure way to grab their attention. Mrs. Wallace was now looking positively eager, and even Bryan had suddenly started to show some interest.
“What sort of money are we talking about?” the woman asked, trying to sound casual, but not able to hide the hungry look in her eyes.
Sean gave a shrug. It depends on the type of work. For the more straightforward jobs, such as are offered by other agencies, we are talking standard rates of between £50 and £100 per day. Many of our assignments pay £200 per day.
“£200 per day?” Bryan spoke for the first time since entering the office. He looked at Sean, his eyes wide.
“Yes. Sometimes much more than that for more specialised assignments.” Sean sat back in his chair and smiled, giving the woman and the boy a chance to digest this information.
“Is there much work available?” asked the mother.
“That depends on the boy,” Sean replied. “If he’s willing to work hard and do as he is told and accept any jobs that come along, then he can work as often as he likes. We have boys on our books, some no older than Bryan, who regularly earn in excess of £1000 in a week.”
“Really?” Bryan’s eyes were sparkling. To a thirteen-year-old, £1000 was an almost unbelievable amount of money.
“Yes, really,” Sean confirmed. “Though I should stress that it isn’t all fun and games; it’s often very hard work. You have to be willing to follow instructions, and even sometimes take jobs that you might not like. A lot of this business is based on reputation. You’ll have the reputation of the agency behind you, but you’ll also have to work at building a good reputation for yourself. Our clients talk to each other. As word gets around as to how good you are, more of them will be willing to offer you assignments.”
“So would you be willing to take Bryan onto your books?” Mrs. Wallace asked.
“Well, as I said right at the start, Bryan is a very good-looking boy. We’ll need to take some test shots to see how he comes out on those, but if they are satisfactory and Bryan is willing, we could give him some trial assignments, maybe just some in-house stuff, and see how he gets on. What do you think, Bryan?”
“Erm… Yeah!” Bryan gave a nervous smile. What thirteen-year-old in his right mind would turn down a chance to make £1000 in a week?
“OK.” Giving the boy a smile, Sean picked up his phone and asked for a photographer to be sent in, then turned his attention back to Bryan. “Assuming we do take you on, don’t expect to be earning huge amounts right from the start; you have to build up to that. Some boys decide it isn’t for them and some decide that they only want to accept certain kinds of jobs. To get into the really big money, you have to be willing to accept any job you are offered.”
“Can you give us some idea of the types of jobs that would be available?” asked Mrs. Wallace.
“Sure. There is the usual catalogue type stuff; modelling clothes and things like that. The pay for this type of work is not brilliant, but it is steady. There’s also a huge and growing market for what you might call boy-glamour. This is basically extended photosets of individual boys. These are marketed primarily on the Internet and this is the area that we mainly specialise in in-house.”
The woman looked at little concerned. “You put the pictures on the Internet?”
Sean gave a laugh. “It isn’t anything like as sinister as it sounds. People pay a monthly subscription to access our Internet sites and view photosets of our models. We also sell photosets to other websites. Here, let me show you an example.” He reached for his mouse, but before he could open up the sample pictures there was a tap on the door and a young man entered holding a camera. Sean broke off what he was doing. “I’ll show you in a minute,” he told the woman. “Let’s get these test shots done first. This is Damian, one of our photographers.”
“Hi,” said Damian, giving the woman and boy a smile. He looked at Bryan critically and then gave an approving nod.
“Damian, this is Bryan and his mother,” said Sean, completing his introductions. “Bryan is thinking of joining us, and I’d like you to take a few test shots to see how he gets on in front of the camera.”
“No problem,” said Damian. He crossed to where some lights stood on stands against the wall and, dragging them out into the room, he turned them on and adjusted their angles. “You want to come over here, Bryan?” he asked.
Bryan shot his mother a nervous look and she touched his arm reassuringly. Looking apprehensive, the boy walked over to Damian, who took hold of his elbow and showed him where to stand.
“Try to relax,” Damian smiled. “I’m only going to take your picture, not shoot you.”
Damian snapped off several pictures, all the time talking to Bryan, reassuring him and telling him how to move. After the first few shots, the young teen appeared to be relaxing into it and his smile became much less forced.
“He’s looking pretty good,” Sean observed. “Bryan, would you mind if we did a couple of you with your shirt off?”
“My shirt?” Bryan became immediately tense again. “You want me to get undressed?”
“Not undressed,” laughed Sean. “Just shirtless. If you’re going to be a model, you can’t afford to be shy. Many of our clients will require shirtless shots at some stage. Besides, it’s difficult to get a good idea of your shape and build while you’re wearing that baggy sweatshirt.”
“I don’t know…” Bryan began.
“Oh, for goodness sake, take your shirt off, Bryan,” the boy’s mother instructed her son, impatiently. “What’s the matter with you? You spend half the summer wandering around without it anyway, so don’t pretend to be all shy now.”
Giving his mother an unreadable glare, Bryan pulled his sweatshirt over his head, revealing his bare chest.
Sean stepped up to take the shirt, at the same time casting his eyes over the boy’s torso. He very much approved of what he saw. Bryan’s body was smooth and lightly tanned, and his physique was nicely developed for his age. There was some good definition around his pectoral muscles, and his stomach, whilst not exactly a six pack, appeared flat and tight. “You look pretty good, Bryan,” said the man. “You play a lot of sport?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“I thought so.” Sean tossed the sweatshirt over his own shoulder to free up his hands and, putting one hand behind Bryan’s back to hold him steady, he used the other to press lightly around the boy’s chest. “Nice and firm,” he said. He dropped his hand to Bryan’s stomach. “Tense it up for me. Yes, very nice.”
Bryan watched as Sean retook his seat behind the desk. The thirteen-year-old felt extremely self-conscious standing here with his shirt off while his mother and two strangers looked at him. He sometimes went shirtless whilst out with his friends, but this was different; he imagined that he could almost feel the eyes of the grown-ups on his bare skin. He could also still feel the firm touch of Sean’s fingers on his chest, probing his muscles; the man had had no right to touch him like that. The boy felt a strong urge to fold his arms across his chest and cover up as much of his body as he could. Then he saw Damian give him a wink and a smile and he automatically smiled back. Damian seemed pretty cool, and he looked quite young, not more than about twenty, Bryan guessed, so this made it easier for the boy to relate to him.
“You ready?” Damian asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Bryan replied. He tried to relax. It was difficult at first, but with Damian’s encouragement, he started to feel a little bit more at ease. He tried thinking about the money, but his mind refused to accept that he could earn over £1000 a week just for letting people take pictures of him. Sean must have been making that up, just as he’d also been exaggerating about how hard the job would be. How hard could it possibly be standing around having your picture taken?
“OK, thanks Bryan, you were terrific,” said Damian, giving the boy’s bare shoulder a squeeze as he passed on his way to the door. “I’ll go get these printed off. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
“Thanks, Damian,” said Sean. “Would you like to come back over and sit down, Bryan? I was about to show you an example photoset.”
Bryan retook his seat next to his mother. He was still shirtless. In fact he had no idea where his shirt had disappeared to, and Sean was now busy at the computer. This time the boy gave in to the impulse to fold his arms.
“Ah, here we are.” Sean turned the flat screen monitor on his desk so that it was visible to both Bryan and his mother.
As Bryan looked at the screen, it cycled through a series of pictures featuring a boy of around his own age. The boy had a slimmer build than Bryan and also appeared slightly taller. He was a good-looking kid, with mid-length, straight, brown hair and brown eyes. In most of the pictures he wore a relaxed, happy smile. The pictures showed the boy in a variety of cool looking clothing, and in a good number of pictures his shirt was either open or completely off.
“This is Jonathan,” said Sean. He’s thirteen, like Bryan, and joined us a couple of weeks ago. This was his first real shoot and it appeared on our website the day before yesterday. Jonathan is already proving to be a popular addition and I think he’s going to do very well.”
“You mean people pay to look at these pictures?” asked Bryan’s mother.
“Yes, we have several thousand subscribers to our website,” Sean replied. “It also acts as a shop window for our boys; most of the offers of work that they receive come in as a result of their appearances on the site.”
“What sort of money are we talking about for something like this?” the boy’s mother asked. Bryan’s ears pricked up; this was also something that he would like to know.
“For the actual shoot, Jonathan was paid £100. That may not sound like very much, but as a result of this shoot he’s already receiving offers of more work. Also, in addition to putting the pictures on the website, prints of the actual photographs are available for sale. The model receives a 15% commission from the sale of any prints. He can receive an extra £10 per print for adding his autograph.”
“£10 just for signing his name?” Bryan was impressed.
“Yes, and that’s just the start of it,” said Sean. “We also produce videos of some of our models, and some of our website clients commission personalised videos; the majority of the extra income from a personalised video goes directly to the model.”
“What does that involve?” Bryan heard his mother ask.
“It can be all sorts of things. It may be something as small as just saying hello to the client.”
“Isn’t that a little, well, strange?” asked Bryan’s mother.
“I suppose it could be seen as strange,” said Sean. “But that’s where the market is. If a boy can earn £10 for signing his name or simply speaking the words ‘Hello John’, then that doesn’t seem so bad to me.”
“No, I guess not.”
“Income from the website can be pretty good,” Sean continued, “But the serious money comes from private and corporate commissions for photographic and video work. Sometimes this is done here, in-house, and other times the model travels to the client’s studio. During any external visit, the model is always accompanied by a member of our own staff, for obvious reasons of safety.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” said Bryan’s mother.
“The care of our boys is our number one priority,” Sean explained, sincerely. “They are never pressured into any work that they are not happy with. It’s to our advantage to keep them safe and happy, and we try to develop a family type atmosphere. To try to promote this, we work a type of mentoring scheme. Each boy is assigned to a specific photographer and, where possible, that photographer will be responsible for all of that boy’s shoots; he’s a kind of friend, manager and chaperone, all rolled into one. He will normally be the one who will accompany the boy on outside assignments, even in cases where someone else will be taking the pictures. We usually find that our boys quickly develop a very close relationship with their mentor. If Bryan signs on with us, I will be assigning him to Damian. Damian is quite new himself; he’s been with us as a photographer for about six months, and he’s one of our rising stars. It was Damian who took the set of Jonathan that you’ve just been looking at.”
Bryan was pleased to hear this. He still had some mixed feelings about this whole business, but if he could make anything like the sort of money that Sean had suggested, then it was worth a go. And he’d already decided that he quite liked Damian.
As if the mention of his name had been a cue for his appearance, Damian re-entered the room. He was carrying a sheaf of photographs in his hand.
“These really are excellent,” the young photographer grinned. “I haven’t had time to do any work on them, so they’re raw, but I think Bryan has a huge amount of potential.” He gave the boy a wide smile.
Bryan was surprised by the warm glow of pride that spread through him. He returned Damian’s smile.
Sean flipped quickly through the pictures. “These certainly are good,” he agreed, handing them over to Bryan and his mother. “We use high definition digital cameras. The images are then corrected and touched up either by the photographer or by our technical team. These have had no correction, but are still excellent. Bryan is a natural and I would love to offer him a place with us.”
The boy looked at his mother, who returned his gaze.
“Well?” his mother asked. “Do you still think it’s a stupid idea?”
Bryan felt himself blushing. “I guess I could give it a try.”
“I should hope so,” she replied. “This is a real chance for you, Bryan. Make this work and get a bit of money behind you and it will give you an excellent start in life.”
“I’ll just print out the contract,” said Sean. He fiddled with the computer for a moment and then produced two documents from the printer below his desk. “One for you, Bryan, and one for your mother. Bryan’s contract has to be signed by you both. Basically, this sets out details of the standard fees and commissions for merchandise, such as the autographed prints I mentioned. It also says that Bryan is not allowed to accept any modelling assignments from anyone else whilst under contract to us. The contract can be terminated with one month’s written notice by either party.
“This second document is for you, Mrs. Wallace. It’s a standard release form giving your permission for us to photograph Bryan and for him to appear in video productions etc.”
“What’s this about me giving permission for him to be photographed unclothed?” Bryan’s mother asked. On hearing this, Bryan looked up from the picture that he had been studying.
“That’s nothing to worry about,” said Sean. “It allows us to take shirtless pictures and underwear shots, and things like that.”
“Underwear? I’ve not having my picture taken in my underwear.” Bryan’s glare took in all of the adults.
“A quick tip for you Bryan: never make up your mind about anything until you’ve seen the size of the fee,” Damian grinned. “There’s a fair amount of money in modelling underwear.”
“Bryan will be happy to accept any work that you put his way,” the boy’s mother said, giving her son a look that told him he would have very little choice in the matter. She signed both the release form and the contract.
As Bryan scribbled his signature on the bottom of the contract, he couldn’t help wondering what he was getting into.
“Welcome aboard, Bryan,” Sean smiled, as he accepted the signed documents and slid them into one of his desk drawers. “I’m sure that you are going to do very well with us. Oh, and you’d better have this.” He handed Bryan his sweatshirt.
The boy gratefully accepted the shirt and quickly stood to pull it over his head, while Sean and his mother discussed a few final points. As the young teen straightened his shirt, Damian approached him.
“It seems I’m going to be your mentor, Bryan,” said the photographer. “I’m fairly new at this myself, so we’ll pretty much be learning the job together. I just have one other boy at the moment; Jon. You saw pictures of him earlier. You’ll probably be meeting him soon. We’ll be working pretty closely together, and I’m looking forwards to seeing a lot more of you. Here, let me give you this.” He handed the boy a card with his name and telephone number on it. “If you have any questions or any problems you can either call the main office, or you can call me direct.”
“Thanks,” said Bryan.
“I’ll be in touch some time in the next couple of days to set up your first shoot,” said Damian.
“I can’t wait,” Bryan replied, trying to sound enthusiastic but only managing to sound uncertain.
Damian laughed. “Try not to worry. It’s all a bit scary at first, but you’ll soon settle into it. I promise that we’re going to have a lot of fun together.”
|
||||
