A Perfect Pose

1-3

“YOU WANT TO SEE ME,” Ellen said brusquely the moment she barged into the office.

If he was startled by the teen’s sudden entrance, or the fact that she had spoken before she was fully through the door, Eric Larsson gave no sign of it. Over the years he had become accustomed to the unpredictable behaviour of teenage girls, though he did often have cause to wonder why his daughters, both of whom were now teenagers, showed no such unpredictability.

“I do,” he said calmly; there was no visible sign of the tenseness he was feeling - he was sure the meeting was not going to go well - but he still found it necessary to glance over at his wife, who was sitting quietly in the corner, for reassurance. “Would you sit down, please.”

Curious, and feeling a strange sense of unease, Ellen sat across from the studio owner.

Ordinarily, she would have made sure her skirt rode up a little, so she was showing as much thigh as possible - it was a tactic that had worked well for her over the years; it either distracted the person who was supposed to tell her off and made them forget what they were going to say, or it made them so uncomfortable, and desperate to avoid getting into trouble themselves, that they ended the meeting as quickly as they could.

It was a tactic she knew wouldn’t work with Eric Larsson, though, she had tried and failed with it before, and one she definitely wasn’t stupid enough to try when his wife was in the office with him.

“I need to discuss something of a delicate nature with you, Ellen,” Eric said, picking his words carefully to avoid provoking an explosion, though he was sure one was inevitable. “It might be best if your father is here; would you like me to call Richard?”

“He’s not my father,” Ellen snapped, as she always did. “He’s just the man my mum married.”

“I take it that’s a no then.” Eric had never understood what Ellen had against her stepfather, it was none of his business, however, so he let it drop. “Since that’s the case, I’ll get right down to it.” He glanced over at his wife, and then back to the teen. “We have reason to believe that you are pregnant, are you?”

“What business is that of yours?” Ellen demanded defensively. “I’m sixteen.”

“I realise that, but if you are pregnant, it presents us with a problem.” Eric fixed her with a firm look. “Are you?”

“It’s none of your business,” Ellen insisted.

“It is our business.” Eric wished it was a problem that had never arisen, though he supposed he was lucky that in the decade he had been running the studio, this was the first time the issue of one of his models being pregnant had risen its head. “You are only six weeks past your sixteenth birthday.”

“Seven,” Ellen corrected, as if that extra week made all the difference in the world.

“Seven weeks then,” Eric said agreeably. “But if your pregnancy is becoming noticeable, then you must be at least three months along, and that means you became pregnant while still only fifteen.”

“So what. Come next week it won’t matter.”

“What do you mean by that?” Blossom Larsson asked in her gentle voice.

Ellen turned to the large woman in the corner of the room. “I mean, come next week the baby will be gone. I’ve got the appointment booked. Come Tuesday there won’t be a problem.”

Sadness showed on Blossom Larsson’s face, revealing how much it distressed her that Ellen could speak so casually about such a situation.

“Even if you have an abortion, it won’t eliminate the problem,” Eric told her. “You’ve been with us long enough to know the problems we have to deal with. We have to be very careful to ensure that nothing we do might be considered corrupting or endangering to our models, on any level. There are enough people who are against what we do; if they were to learn that you got pregnant while underage, they would blame us, and use it to force us to shut down.”

“How the hell are they going to find out?” Ellen wanted to know. “I’ve told no-one I’m pregnant, and come Tuesday I won’t be.”

“That’s as maybe, but it’s not a chance we can afford to take. I’m very sorry, but we need to protect the studio’s reputation.”

“What are you talking about?” Ellen felt a growing sense of disaster. She had been making plans for her post-school career as a model for some time now, but Eric’s words had her worried that they were all about to collapse around her ears - she didn’t like that thought.

“I’m very sorry,” Eric repeated, looking genuinely apologetic, and unhappy with the situation, “but we’re going to have to let you go.”

It was a few moments before Ellen responded to that. She had sensed something bad coming, but there had been no time for her to prepare for any of the possibilities - there hadn’t even been time for her to consider what those possibilities might be. “You can’t do that,” she protested finally. “We’ve got an agreement. You agreed that I’d continue modelling with you until the end of the school year, and then you’d help me get my own site set up and established.”

“I’m aware of our agreement. I’m afraid, however, that it’s no longer valid.”

“You can’t do that,” Ellen protested for a second time. “You can’t just cancel the agreement, we put it in writing.”

For almost a quarter of a minute Eric regarded the teen across from him. He could see that Ellen was vacillating between anger and distress at the danger to her dream, and could appreciate what she was feeling. He didn’t much like what he had to do, but he knew he had to think about more than just the young girl in front of him, no matter how popular and successful she had been over the years she had modelled for the studio.

“When you joined us,” he spoke quietly, his voice measured to try and avoid provoking Ellen, “you signed an agreement, like all our models do, to act responsibly, to avoid alcohol and drugs, to do nothing that would get you in trouble with the police, to maintain good grades at school, and to do nothing that would damage the reputation of this studio.

“Your pregnancy not only has repercussions for yourself, regardless of whether you abort it next week, it has the potential to seriously damage the reputation of this studio.”

Ellen flushed a similar shade of red to that which she had made Polly turn earlier. “You’ve been happy enough with all the money I’ve earned you over the last three and a half years, not to mention the attention I’ve brought your poxy little studio,” she said angrily. “But now I’ve made one little mistake, you want to just dump me and wash your hands.”

“This is more than a simple little mistake, Ellen,” Blossom Larsson told her. “It is something that will have an effect on everyone who works here. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

Briefly, Ellen considered arguing the matter, after all, she knew how much the studio stood to lose by getting rid of her - in her final two months she could do enough photoshoots for the studio to keep her website open and updated with fresh content for another six months, maybe even a year, and that amounted to over a hundred thousand pounds in subscriptions. She quickly decided it would be a waste of breath, though; the Larssons had made up their minds, and they had never shown a likelihood of being swayed in an argument by financial considerations. They always had the best interests of their models in mind when a decision had to be made.

“Fine!” she said finally, struggling to control her anger, with only minimal success. “You want to cancel our agreement, well fine! Just give me the unpublished photoshoots, and the videos I’ve done, and everything else you promised to give me. I’ve got lots of fans, as soon as they see I’ve moved to a new site, they’ll flock there, and I won’t have to share my money with you guys.

“I want all the outtakes from my past shoots as well.”

The unhappy look on Eric’s face became more pronounced as Ellen made her demands. “That won’t be possible,” he told her regretfully.

“What are you talking about? You agreed to give me all the unused stuff when I left so I could put it on my new site; you want me to leave now, so I want my stuff.” She held out her hand expectantly.

“Under the circumstances, it has been decided that it would be best for us to sever ties with your new website. We won’t be able to give you your unused material, nor will we be able to advertise your new site on any of ours, and we require...”

Before he could finish what he was saying, Eric found himself under attack by the enraged teen, who launched herself across the desk at him. Screaming obscenities, she reached for him with her nails, seeking to claw out his eyes. The attack came as such a surprise that he had no chance to defend himself; before he could react in any way, Ellen’s sharp nails raked across his face.