Thirst Trap

The photographer was painfully slow. To be honest, I would have declined the shoot but I needed something a little more wholesome than collagen injections to explain why my skin was looking so fabulous, and the offer was timely from that perspective. So there I was, trying to look serene while four snails left trails of slime across my face and a photographer, lighting technician and my assistant all fussed about positioning them at optimal angles to one another. Out of shot, my fists clenched and my toes curled in revulsion, but I’m great at giving good face, and my brow was as smooth as sleeping ten year old’s. It helped that my brow couldn’t actually move much, to be fair, but I take some credit for my mastery of my own face. I meditate. I’m quite good at it. I could probably have surgery without anaesthetic.

He finished, eventually, and promised to send over the best shots for me to choose from. Trust is a rarity with these publishers, so if you can build a relationship with a few good photographers, well, everybody wins, I think. You just need to let them know they are as important as you are, that together, you are a team. I showered and my stylist did my hair and such while I checked my socials. Its somebody else’s job, these days, but I can’t help myself. I love to see those likes. Devastatingly, I spotted that Miley had got a god damn semen facial. Fuck her, that’s a cheap look on her. Snails has to be classier, right? I mean, semen just seems like a cry for attention, doesn’t it?

My assistant suggested I leave by the back door, what with there being quite the crowd, but maybe there was something in the snails thing, I was looking amazing. I told her to have the car brought to the front. I love the thrill of that crowd, the fizz of excited pheromones like mass ejection of mushroom spores, the calls of my name, the eyes on my body, frankly it gets me wet. I’m very sensitive to energies and pheromones and that kind of thing. When I was in India, I stayed in a temple and this guru - I forget his name but he’s very famous in India, all the Buddhists and such know him – this guru came to see me and he said that I was a very spiritual person, which is true.

We went over the questions for the interview about my wellness brand in the car, but I wasn’t worried, I figured we could look at them on the plane. I spotted five of my perfume ads just on the way to the airport. I wasn’t going to point them out, of course, but my assistant isn’t as observant as I am, and it was probably useful for her to know where they were. She’s a sweet girl. I paid for her wedding reception last year, to help out with her not taking a honeymoon. I gave them a night in a gorgeous hotel as a gift, and they didn’t even have to leave town. I care about the welfare of the people I work with.

I think one of the air stewardesses must have pointed me out, because it turned out Hugh Jackman was seated near me and while he made quite a show of having reading to do, the pretence was thin, and he was very keen to talk to me. He was quite charming, but I’m not really interested in that kind of thing. To be gracious, I swapped seats with his assistant so he could speak with me more, but it meant that I didn’t go through the questions again.

I thought the interview went well anyway, but my assistant seemed disappointed. Apparently I was “evidently drunk”, which is ridiculous because there was no alcohol at all in the dressing room so the last drink I’d had must have been on the plane with Hugh, and I had “implied that all Muslim men secretly wanted to sleep with you because you represent something at once forbidden and divine”. Apparently those were my words. Forbidden and divine. I rather like it, if I did say it.

I really didn’t see that it had been such a catastrophe to be honest, but I am nothing if not humble, and I just needed a way to show everyone that reality about me. I didn't want to lose any subscribers over a misunderstanding. The photo shoot was my idea, I wanted people to resonate with my stance as a child of the world, as at home in the jungle as the desert, like a beautiful orchid transcending the bounds of narrow mindedness to flourish anywhere.

The setting was easy to find, I mean, there was desert everywhere. It was a very boring country, I don’t know why anyone lives there. The air was really not agreeing with my hair either, so we didn’t go far off the road, and I got the driver to keep the air conditioning ticking over. I do a lot of yoga, I have this amazing teacher who worked with Cher once, and said I could have been a dancer with my hips, so I can do an excellent lotus. It was a beautiful shot. I sat, topless of course, but you could only see my back, with the desert sunset before me, really channelling that vibration with the universe, that oneness, a relinquishment of self. I wanted the picture to demonstrate this moment and what it said about me. Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.