I’m tough. I’m ambitious. If that makes me a bitch, then okay
~ Madonna
Rosa
“This is the most exciting shoot I’ve had in a long time, honestly.” Octavia beams as I’m lying against a black backdrop on the studio floor, with different shades of red, white, and black roses surrounding my body. There are vines with thorns, knives, and guns as well, in addition to a few other props. “I’m so glad you came up with this concept, and God, I needed to shoot this.”
Octavia’s careful to only include my lips and below, and sometimes she snags a different angle of my nose and below, but never has she taken a full facial shot of me. I have reasons for not showing my face and considering she prides herself in the Vixens having their photographs taken in an artistic manner, it’s always worked well in my favor.
Octavia clicks the camera numerous times and the softboxes flash. I can’t wait to see how these look when she uploads them to her laptop, but before she can we need to get this entire set out. After giving me some instruction, she gives me two roses to put over my exposed breasts, then shuffles some of the thorns out of my way and tells me to roll on my side. I always hate poses like this because gravity pulls any sort of blubber downward, but no woman is perfect. We all have a little jiggly wiggly to hold onto, whether it’s our ass, muffin top, or love handles. For me, it’s love handles, but just like the name I’m learning to love them instead of hate them.
I’ve always loved photoshoots and I’m all about body positivity, but the one thing that would completely crush everything is if my face was ever shown, especially to the wrong person. When my father was alive, he was a very hated man. Hell, even I hated him at times. But at the end of the day, I did love him because he genuinely tried to prepare me for this shitshow we call life. He wasn’t a good man, and he certainly wasn’t a perfect one, but he was my father. We have to deal with the cards we’re dealt, right?
My thoughts drift to my father while doing the shoot and Octavia immediately stops. “I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but I think I have everything I need. You need me to help you get up, or do you got it?”
“No way in hell am I gonna make a pregnant lady help me get up,” I immediately respond, waving her off. “Go upload the photos, I’ll be there in a minute after I get decent.” I place the flowers down on the ground next to me and carefully rise, sure not to step on any thorns, knives, or anything else that might hurt me. For this month I wanted to upload some content throughout that would document me as a ‘dangerous woman’. The song by Ariana Grande ended up inspiring me a bit, and Octavia and I have shot so much over the past few days. This way I can upload something every three days or so, and still have additional content in case I want to upload something else at a later time.
I manage to get over to where we have some of my outfits hanging and slide on a silk robe I usually wear in between shooting sets, then walk over to the computer area and peer behind her. The color of the images always blows me away, especially when she’s in Lightroom and she’s doing her thing. I swear, without Octavia behind the lens I wouldn’t be anywhere. Right now, I have about five-hundred-thousand subscribers on the website who pay the company nine-ninety-five a month, and I get forty percent of that. Needless to say, I’m doing very well.
I’m the Vixen with the highest subscriber amount and a couple of the girls have a hundred thousand, but for some reason the subscribers like my content more than their own. Maybe it’s the mystery of who I am, or the way my photos are taken . . . I’m not sure, but Bambi is the second highest with almost two hundred thousand. The rest of the girls range from fifteen thousand to a hundred thousand.
We did just get a couple new girls, and while they only have a couple-hundred subscribers, it’s a culture shock going from not making any money to bringing in a thousand dollars a month easy. Octavia’s a godsend for some women and she knows how to make the photos marketable too.
“How are things going now that Inc’s here?” I ask Octavia for the first time. We’re good friends, aside from our business relationship but I’m never too pushy or go digging for information. I hope she realizes I’m not trying to dig, that I’m just wondering how she’s doing with such big changes happening in her life.
She smiles lightly, pausing from her work on the laptop and looks right at me. “It’s going great. I mean, not only is it amazing to have him here for Neo, but for Zane and I . . . this is the type of relationship we always wanted. You know? I’m just so thankful things worked out in the end.”
I give her a soft smile and Octavia grows a bit quiet, though I’m not sure why, I won’t dig. If it’s not my business then it’s none of my concern. Plus, if Octavia wants to talk to me about it then one day she will. It makes no sense for me to try and push her into doing anything.
“Natalie’s going to be in the hospital for a while,” Octavia says, clicking through photos and putting them into different folders on her laptop.
“Oh, did they say how long?” Natalie’s been in the hospital for a few days now and I don’t have all the information, but one thing I do know is how it’s never good for a woman to be in the hospital when they’re pregnant.
Octavia lightly frowns. “From what Zane said, Grim told him it could be until the baby’s born. They’re doing whatever they can to keep him inside until his lungs develop a bit more.”
I furrow my brows, seriously concerned. “How does stuff like this happen? I don’t understand.”
“Natalie was diagnosed with a placenta abruption, basically they’re doing everything in their power to keep the baby in and she’s under twenty-four-seven monitorization. I know Grim’s been at the hospital with her as much as possible, and Axel’s been watching the girls for them . . . but I can only imagine how damn scared they are,” Octavia murmurs, wetness forming in her own eyes.
This is exactly what makes her a good friend. Octavia empathizes with everyone, no matter what the situation is. She tries to understand it from someone else’s point of view and wants to help people as much as possible. “When I was texting with Natalie, she told me she’s taking steroids to help get his lungs to develop faster and they’re watching his heartbeat very closely. It just sounds so damn terrifying. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, you know?”
“Yeah, so, why don’t we do something fun and exciting for them then?” I suggest, already having thought of the perfect plan.
Octavia’s eyes sparkle with mischief. “What’re you thinking?”
“So, the baby shower’s supposed to be next weekend . . . right?” I question, already knowing the answer.
Octavia nods once. “Yeah, why?”
“I say we take the baby shower to her and let her know from her hospital room how important she is to us, and how much we love her.”
“Gosh, she’ll freaking love that.” Octavia beams, smiling widely. “As soon as I’m done editing your photos, I’ll go tell Ashley and we can get together and plan something special. Obviously, we’ll have to change some of the plans we had prepared for next weekend, but we’ll make it work.”