Chapter 5

I was looking out of the window as Sally and Jerry were talking. This was a whole new world for me. Every view was new and different. They continued and I listened with half an ear.

“There’s a lot of new things to learn. It’s pretty exciting.”

“I’m told that it gets more like work, the longer you do it.”

“As I said, Jerry. We’ve both worked in retail. We’re not afraid of work. All I hope is that others treat us well.”

“You’ll be all right. Mavis has put together a good crew. You’ll find that most of them will be wondering if you’ll fit in or be snooty bitches.”

“We’ll do our best to fit in, Jerry. What’s the plans for today?”

“You’ll be met by Carol, who will be your personal dresser. Not just today, but also on the shoot. She’ll do her best to outfit you. When I’ve driven other models, they’ve left with five or six suitcases. With two of you getting the treatment, I may need to put a trailer on the back.”

“Not us, Jerry. We’ll stop when we consider that we’re right. We’ll need to get it home over the weekend.”

“The hotel will store anything you want to leave. The rooms are on the agency card until you’ve finished, with our company getting charged. You could leave your things in the room. They won’t be touched. If the shoot is a success, Mavis will be taking you on a tour of store. Anyway, when we leave the store today, I’m to take you to the agency first. I’ll drop you off and park around the corner. Robin has a unit that will call me to come and get you.”

“It all seems so well sorted out, Jerry. We’ll put ourselves in your capable hands.”

When we got to the store, which took up a whole block, we had to wait as a door rolled up and we were driven into an underground garage that was huge. It was obviously also the receiving area, going by the trucks backed up to loading docks. Jerry parked next to what looked like a reception area, and through the window we could see a lady standing and smoothing her skirt. Jerry was out and opening the door my side, with the lady opening for Sally.

“Good morning, Harriette and Sally. I’m Carol and I’ll be taking you around and getting you kitted out. Thank you, Jerry, they’ll be in the executive dining room when you get the buzz to collect them.”

“Right, Carol. I’ll be waiting. See you later, girls.”

“See you, Jerry, have a nice day.”

Carol led us into the reception room and to some lift doors, which were already open.

“Come along, girls, I’ll take you up to the lingerie. I have seen the shoot at the agency, so I already know what will suit you, Harriette. We’ll have to use some trial and error with you, Sally. If you point out the sort of things you like, we’ll start from there.”

In the safety of the closed lift, she lowered her voice.

“Harriette, I’m fully aware of your particular, and very unusual normal appearance. This will be kept between us, so none of the others except Mavis have any idea that you’re not exactly the gorgeous model that you appear to be. Sally and I will do our best to make this little session as easy as we can make it.”

The lift stopped and the doors opened to a vista of female underwear. My tackle twitched and I willed it to be good. Over the next hour, we both ended up with enough top-line garments to last a month on a desert island without a washing machine. Things that were chosen were spirited away for collection later. Carol had taken each of us into a changing booth and carefully measured us, so no trying on was required.

That came next in the outer wear section, where we tried on a veritable warehouse load of dresses, skirts, slacks, jeans, blouses, tops, and other things too numerous to comprehend. Carol was taking careful note of those things that were chosen. We found out why in the shoe department, where she could tell the assistants what colour was needed. Carol had decided on our core colours. Mine was shades of blue to black, similar to pictures of Zoe that I had noticed were still on the walls. Sally was dark pink through to red, which really made her look good.

We spent a short time looking at coats, just picking out a neutral one each, and then a selection of handbags and purses. Then it was into the executive dining room for lunch with Mavis and the bosses. By this time, we were dressed to impress, with the H&M purchases whisked away with our new things.

I managed to get through the lunch without spilling anything and I think the executives were happy with what their money was getting, for now at least. Our last stops for the day was first the jewellery department for a small case of shiny gold things, a new watch, and then the cosmetic department. There, Sally told the girls what colours she had used on me, and what colours worked best for her, and two cosmetics cases were put together with the smaller jewellery cases installed in them as well.

Over the whole time, nothing was said about money. Nothing we tried on had a tag, so, if you had to ask the price, you were obviously shopping in the wrong place. Carol explained that we would be the faces of the campaign, which was to start two weeks before Christmas and run through into the spring, which is why we ended up with so much stuff. When it came to an end, I needed a good sit down and a cup of tea, which was how we found ourselves back in the executive dining room with me happy to be off my feet for a little while, as I had finished the shopping in heels to match the dress.

When Jerry collected us, he had changed the car for a bigger one to carry the cases. We had three each, all Samsonite roller cases. Sallys’ were light red, while mine were blue. The cosmetic cases were to be carried. Carol told us that she would see us in the morning and Jerry took us to the agency.

We didn’t say much during the trip. I think that we were both shell-shocked from the intense pace of the shopping. Actually, gifting would be a better phrase. I had more value than most women would spend in three lifetimes in my suitcases, and all done as if it was normal. We were really going to need to perform to justify their faith in us. I say ‘us’ because Sally was being treated the same as I was, so I expected that she wouldn’t be as far in that background as first suggested.

We got out at the agency and Jerry drove off. We went in and up in the lift. When we walked in, Robin stood to hug us both.

“My word, you both scrub up well. Yvonne said for you to go straight in.”

We went to her office and Sally knocked on the door. When we were told to enter, we went in. Yvonne also stood to hug us.

“I see that you’ve both been through the first test. It may have been just shopping, but Mavis now has a dossier on both of you with what you look good in and how quickly you can change outfits. This will help her at the shoot, as well as any runway shows.”

She got us to sit and opened up a folder on her desk.

“Here are the Equity cards for each of you in your own names. Without those there would be no work for you tomorrow. Here is your notification of a bank deposit. We didn’t discuss this before, but better models get a signing bonus when they sign a contract. As you would probably expect, it’s the client who foots the bill.”

I looked at my new union card, and then the deposit slip.

“Is this amount correct?”

“It is. The normal signing bonus is a months’ salary. The numbers must seem huge to you now, but you’ll get used to it. Anyway. I expect that you’ll want to go home over the weekend. Mavis has spoken to me, and there’s an apartment in Knightsbridge that you can use when you come back on Monday. If you pack everything and check out on Saturday, Jerry will take you to the station and take the unwanted bags to the apartment. He’ll give you his direct number so you can call him to tell him the train you’re on.”

We sat there and took it in. It seemed that now we were considered models, we had ‘people’ to attend to our every need. It was a strange feeling of being shepherded by a large silken pillow of kindness. Before we left, she had us fill out applications for the passports that neither of us had need for in our previous life, with mine in my own name. I supposed that Yvonne knew what she was doing. I signed as H.E. Sharpe. Then we went to the studio, where some passport photos were taken. I was told that they would use the original ‘before’ shot of me taken by Janice. Yvonne told us that ours would be delivered to the agency within two weeks, with our occupations being listed as fashion models.

Back outside, Jerry pulled up and we got in. He took us back to the hotel and tipped the lads who carried our cases up to our rooms. All we needed to carry were our handbags and the cosmetic cases. We stopped by the big mirror and take another picture to send to our folks. This time we looked like a pair of successful models in outfits that probably would have cost more than our entire wardrobes at home, including the wardrobe.

Sally left her cases in her room and followed me into mine.

“Can we stop for a little while, I’m getting dizzy?”

“We can get a few hours of rest, Sally, but I rather believe that the next two days will be full on. We can take a break before dinner, though.”

“Not before we sort out these cases. Today has been every girls dream. To go into that store and be treated like a princess was wonderful, but dreams don’t tell you how exhausting it would be.”

“What do you want to do about the cases?”

“If we’re going to an apartment after the weekend, we don’t unpack. We just need to get enough out for the trips to and from the shoots and to go home with. So, we’ll go through yours first and hang the things we need. We’ll use the first things we got for the train trip, so that we don’t stand out as girls with a lot of money. If we go into the Village on Saturday or Sunday, we can buy a few normal things for when we’re not on duty.”

“Agreed. What do you suggest for the shoot, then?”

“Slacks for the first day, with a top and a coat. They’ll have all the things we’ll need there, even underwear if it makes a difference with the intended picture. We’ll leave your old things in the case.”

I undressed carefully, so as not to mess anything up. After the full day of trying things on and being shown all the different ways you do things to preserve the clothing, I had got quite adept at this. We opened the three cases and found that they had been packed with a lot of methodical care. Sally reached into the one with all the underwear, pulling out a box.

“Before you put your nightie on, I’ve been told to put these on you. They’re false breasts. Not large ones, about an A or small B, I think. All the bras that were chosen were to be in the right size. It will mean that you’ll genuinely need to wear a bra, and Carol will have all the right things for the next couple of days, without you needing those loose fillers.”

“You’ll glue them?”

“Yes. I’ll need to take them off every couple of weeks to clean your chest, but it will save any chance of your secret being discovered.”

She reached back into the case and pulled out another closed box and opened it up.

“Here are some clean gaffes. They look a bit closer to your body colour than the pair I bought for you. But, there again, I hadn’t seen you in the flesh at that time.”

She lifted a pair of slacks from one of the other cases and hung them in the wardrobe, followed by a matching jacket.

“That will do for tomorrow and the trip back. A skirt for Friday, I think, seeing that there’ll be a party after.”

She also found four sets of bra and panties, putting them in a drawer.

“With what we had from H&M; we’ll have enough for the weekend. There’s a pair of jeans here. If you put them on with a top, we can be respectably casual for dinner. There’s boots somewhere, probably in a plastic bag.”

“Thank you, Sally. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Likewise, Harry. If I hadn’t come with you, I’d be working on my last client for the day. As it is, I’m standing here in I don’t know how many hundreds of pounds worth of dress, thinking about getting you ready for the shoot tomorrow, and likely, from what Carol has said, being in it as well. I’ll send our latest picture to your mother and the others when I’m changed, and then we’re going to go downstairs and relax.”

She gave me a kiss, which was odd, in that I was standing there in a bra and panties. She smiled and left me to sort myself out. I went into the ensuite to use the toilet and then looked in the mirror, seeing that I needed to rework my lipstick.

I went back into the bedroom and looked at the open cases, the things on the bed and the cosmetic case. There was lipstick in my handbag, so I got it and went back to the mirror, trying to remember how I’d seen Mum touch up her lips. After that, I found the jeans and the boots, and chose a top that looked all right. I closed the cases and stored them in and next to the wardrobe. The cosmetic case went in as well. I was wearing gold studs and a gold chain that I had been given, with a gold bracelet and just two rings. One was a plain band on the left hand for ‘protection’, and the other was quite intricate on the right. Nothing had been given to me that would snag, as Carol was being very careful with how I appeared.

My phone rang.

“Harry speaking.”

“Harry, darling. I just got another picture sent to me. My word! Don’t the two of you look grand. You look like you’re ready for a posh party.”

“With all the other things we saw today, Mum, that’s normal day wear with the crowd who shop there. Nothing has a price tag. It was amazing. Sally and I ended up with three suitcases full. We’re going down for a drink and dinner, and then getting an early night as we’re being picked up before dawn tomorrow.”

“That’s for the shoot, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. It will all be totally new for both of us. It looks like Sally will be in some of the pictures, as we’ve both been given a lot of things, including Equity cards and a signing bonus that made Uncles’ payment look like small change.”

“What! On top of the salary?”

“That’s right. We’re likely to be back home around ten or eleven on Saturday. I don’t know how much of a rush Sally will be in to see her family but plan a lunch for the two of us somewhere nice. My treat.”

“All right. I’ll make sure I don’t need to go to work. Are you going back to London on Sunday evening?”

“No. We’ll be catching a train on Monday morning. We’ll be picked up here, so we’ll either get a taxi or walk to Freeport if the weathers’ nice. I’ll just have a sports bag to carry.”

“All right, love. I’m looking forward to seeing the new you and finding out about this photo shoot. It just seems so wonderful. I’ll wait for your call on Saturday morning. Bye for now.”

“Bye Mum, love you.”

I sat there, thinking about things until Sally knocked on my door. When I opened it, I saw that she had chosen a similar outfit to mine. She was also carrying a nightie and dressing gown.

“I’ll leave these on the bed for later, darling. That was a good choice of top. You’re really embracing the new you and you’re picking things up so quickly!”

I grabbed my bag, and we went down to the small bar for a glass of wine or two before a good dinner. We didn’t have any company and went upstairs to my room after dinner, organising wake-up calls and light breakfasts to our rooms for the next two mornings. That night, she didn’t clean my face before kissing me. She didn’t remove the wig, either, so as I was over her, as connected as I could get, my hair hung down over her face as she dug her nails into my back. When we kissed, a few seconds later, we were inside a mass of curls which made it all the more sexual.

Sometime later, she cleansed my face and chest, and I laid on my back for her to position and glue the false breasts. Then we both put our nighties on. She added her gown, picked up her clothes, kissed me and went to her own room to get some sleep. I removed the wig and head cap, then got back into a rumpled bed and tried to settle.

The phone woke me in the early hours, and I was told that my breakfast would be delivered in thirty minutes. That gave me time to get to the ensuite, get showered and dressed. I had just fitted the wig when there was a knock on the door. It was a girl with my breakfast on a tray. I put the tray on the small table by the window and pulled the chair around so I could eat. After that, I put the tray outside the door, went and brushed my teeth and sat at the vanity.

Sally had said to keep it simple, as whatever we did would be reworked to suit the shoot, but I did try to add those highlights that made me look like Zoe. The small amount of mascara and eyeliner, the touch of blush on the cheeks, and, of course, the generous application of lipstick. When I let Sally in, she inspected me, made a few slight changes, and made sure that the wig was secure. Before we left the room, we hugged and wished each other a good day.

We only had to wait a few minutes before Jerry arrived. There weren’t any doormen, so we opened the car doors and got in.

“Good morning girls. Time to get real today. I’ll drop you off. Carol has my number to call me when you’re winding up.”

He respected our silence as he drove us. It wasn’t that far to Kenwood House in Hampstead. We entered through a pair of stone pillars and along a driveway to an imposing entry. There were several cars and three vans already there with people milling around.

“Looks like Carol has been waiting for you, girls. Good luck.”

“Thanks, Jerry. See you later.”

We got out of the car, and he left as Carol came over to us.

“Good morning, girls. Mavis is inside and I’ll take you to her. She wants to get everyone on the same page to start with. She’ll start when we have everyone assembled.”

She led us into the house, and then through elaborate rooms and corridors to what was normally used as a lunch area for visitors. Today, it was set up as a changing area and make-up station. We were seated at a big table to wait. I looked around. Being a public area, there were signs for toilets, a number of vending machines and a counter, behind which a couple of guys were unpacking boxes.

Mavis finished talking to a guy with a goatee beard and came over to sit with us.

“Good morning, girls. Sally, you’ll be helping Carol with the make-up to start with, and then she’ll work on you. We’ll be using only the cosmetics that we sell, which you have in your cosmetic cases. I’ll give out more detail when the others join us. There’ll be three other girls and four boys. They’ve worked with me before, so know what to expect. We have three camera teams, so will do a lot in a short time. Rest up, there’s a pile of coins on the table by the vending machines, help yourself.”

She left us to go off to manage some other detail, and we sat quietly as we were joined by the others. We introduced ourselves as they arrived. Sylvia, Anthea, and Veronica were every inch professional models, and were wary with us until we talked a bit. Charles, Brandon, Noel and Marcus were all as camp as a row of tents, but still manly enough to make ones’ heart race. Two of them had been in the pictures I had seen in the doctors’ waiting room. Mavis rejoined us.

“Right, kids. Today and tomorrow are straight forward. We will do all day wear and visitation wear. Tomorrow, we do party and ball gowns. If the light is right, we’ll do some outside work in front of the park façade in the afternoon. Carol has the schedules and will be starting up as soon as I’ve finished this. We have three teams, so you’ll all be working at once and changing as soon as your team is happy with what they’ve got. Sally will be assisting Carol with the initial dressing. As always, do the best you can, and we’ll be able to applaud the result tomorrow.”

Carol took Sally under her wing with Sylvia and Anthea in the chairs, sketches of the required look in front of them. Carol told me that the first outfits were on a rack, so Veronica and I went to get Sylvia One and Anthea One, hooking the garment bags on the screens. Then we went off to get Harriette One, Sally One and Veronica One. When the others had been worked on, they took their bags to other screens to change. While this was going on, the guys were across the room getting worked on and changed with their own make-up artist.

The first two went off with two of the guys, and I was worked on by Sally. While I was changing, Sally was being worked on by Carol. Veronica was taken away with one of the guys, and the two of us were eventually taken to where our team had set up with the last guy. Our setting was the library, with many nooks, crannies and chesterfields scattered around.

The three of us spent an hour being posed among the books, which was the reason that we were clad in casual but studious clothes. At one point, I was being shown something in a book, with Brandon with one arm around my shoulders and his other hand pointing something out. There were other pictures with Sally and I sitting on a chesterfield, with Brandon sitting on the armrest, books in our hands. It was one pose after another and then we were told that it was all good.

We went back to the lunchroom and found Sally Two and Harriette Two, changing and putting the first outfits into the garment bags. Then we were joined by both Noel and Marcus and taken to a lounge room. It was huge, with portraits around the walls. We were in similar skirt suits, me in a powder blue, and she in light red. The guys were in sports coats and cravats.

That session had us sitting as individuals, pairs, or as a whole group. At one point I was pictured looking out of the window with Noel standing close behind me with his arm around my waist. Sally had a similar picture with Marcus.

Our next session was longer, with me, Sally, and Anthea with three of the guys in the long walk, lined with portraits and porcelain. Our outfits for this was the start of the better clothes. The guys in suits and us girls in good dresses. Then, all us models were back into what we had arrived in, and another rack of better outfits replaced the first one.

After that we stopped for lunch, with it supplied by a caterer who arrived with his truck and served it in the lunchroom. All of us were seated, and there was a lot of chatter. Mavis went around to the different teams to see how they were getting on with what was scheduled.

So far, it had been pretty good. After lunch, we were reworked in the chairs and dressed in gorgeous outfits. All of us stayed together, moving from room to room, with all three teams working the room. There was a huge mix of poses, with one to all nine of us in front of the cameras. If these outfits were just for visitation, tomorrow was going to be interesting.

We spent the later part of daylight outside, in front of the lovely façade. It was a good job that they weren’t close-ups, as the goosebumps would have to be airbrushed out.

After that we were all back into normal clothes, and Mavis told us that it was going well. Jerry picked us up. On the way back, I asked him if he would join us for dinner, if he knew somewhere nice. He stopped at The Engineer. We had two of the share plates between the three of us and I paid with my card.

We were tired when we got to the hotel, so Sally kissed me and removed the wig, leaving me to do everything else.

“Goodnight, my love. We’ll have a lot to talk about on the train home. See you at first light.”

Marianne Gregory © 2026