“It is really him.”

“Oh, you didn’t…”

One of the women looked up from her phone, locking it with
her thumb as she chided her smaller companion.

“I just wanted to find out. You don’t often see celebrities
in here.”

“I don’t think a tacky perfume advert makes you a celebrity,
Sarah.”

The smaller of the two women clutched the magazine a little
bit tighter, twisting the rolled gloss without damaging it as convincingly as
she could manage. After a brief, embarrassed pause, Sarah took her seat again.

“He asked if I’d done any modelling-“

“God, look at him, he’s so arrogant-“

“And that I should-“

“Seriously, a transparent shirt, how pretentious-“

“And his agent would be in touch with-“

“Probably not even real Givenchy anyway.”

There was a fraught silence between the two. There was raucous
laughter across the room. Refined accents, the clinking of champagne flutes.

Sarah opened the magazine, the perfume advert opposite a review
of a luxury hotel in Dubai. She pretended to be interested in the hotel, but
inevitably her eyes returned to the perfume. A canine, posed between a tree and
a skyscraper, his toned muscles flexing as though he might topple the building.
Rain drizzled, wetting him, a lightning bolt illuminating his slightly bared
teeth, lips pursed with the apparent exertion.

Virile.

Sarah studied the word. The curvature of the r, the ink-splattered e that had taken a graphic designer
fifteen minutes into their lunch break. The bare chest and tight underwear. The
biro ink embedded in the page.

“Oh my God, he didn’t sign it!” The other woman’s hand
snatched at the magazine, seizing it for further inspection. “And his phone
number, the arrogant bastard.”

“His agent’s phone number.” Sarah felt her cheeks redden,
though she couldn’t say why, as she reached over to reclaim the magazine. It
was promptly tossed into her lap once again.

A fraught silence.

“You can’t call him, you know. People talk. You must’ve
heard-“

“Yeah, I’ve heard.” Sarah interrupted as late as possible.

“Him and those other upper-class weirdoes, there’s always
stories.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna call him.” It wasn’t a lie,
technically, it was his agent’s number after all.

“I mean look at him.”

“Yeah.” Sarah took the opportunity to turn her gaze across
the room, looking at the dog for the first time since being dismissed by him.

He really was pretentious, she thought, as she watched him gesture
at bar staff without looking at them, glasses on the bar next to him being
filled with champagne and distributed on aesthetic merit. A denim jacket,
costing more than her rent. An ear studded with stones that had barely had the blood
rinsed off.

He really was arrogant, she thought, his eyes rolling as he
turned to address one of the less attractive in the group that had formed by
him. He hadn’t spoken to her the way other men did, he hadn’t been polite or
complimentary, despite his offer of modelling work. There had been something
perfunctory about the way he addressed her, something routine about the way he
had looked at her body.

He really is attractive, she thought, his sharp, white
teeth, his eyes blue-and-grey pearlescent, his abdomen trim and defined, his
jeans tapering in at the crotch and-

“I heard they’re Corgis.” The woman with her arms folded
snapped Sarah back to reality.

“What?” Was the only reply she could get out.

“Corgis. I heard his family were all Corgis, some ancient
pedigree bloodline going back to…”

Sarah found herself inexplicably looking towards a heavy-set
bulldog lurking in the background, the black sunglasses matching the black suit
and black earpiece. The bulldog’s head shook. Sarah felt like she had been
warned off considering her friend’s words. He looked too tall to be a Corgi,
anyway. When Sarah went to look back at the perfume model- embrace nature conquer society- she found that he had moved away.

A throat cleared behind them. Both women turned to look.
There he stood, a cool, almost sculpted smile that lifted one corner of his
mouth further than the other, teeth bared so slightly as though he were pushing
against that skyscraper once again. Sarah could feel the rain and hear the thunder
as his eyes held hers.

“My agent looks forward to hearing from you, Sarah.”

He turned to address the other woman, his arm stretched
towards the bulldog, who promptly handed him a delicately assembled, lightly
perfumed gift bag, which he gave to the blushing woman sat next to Sarah.

“You left this on the hotel fire escape.”

Sarah looked at her friend incredulously, jaw dropping for
the second time. Her friend was staring ashamedly into the bag, slightly torn panties
returning the stare, closing her hands around the handle.