Candys continued training

Dan stood at the window and watched them until they disappeared around the corner of the street below — two extraordinary silhouettes, side by side, Candy's laugh carrying up through the glass one last time before they were gone.

He finished his cigarette down to the filter.

Candy, he thought, with the slow, methodical pleasure of a man drawing up a plan. Before I send her anywhere. Before the first client even gets a name and an address. He turned the thought over carefully. I'm going to make sure I'm the one that uses every hole she has. Personally. Thoroughly. At whatever pace I choose. He stubbed the cigarette out. Because the clients I have in mind for her — they will not be gentle. They will be brutal with her. And she needs to be able to handle that. A pause. That's just professional due diligence.

He believed this entirely.

He went to bed in a very good mood.

Down on the pavement, Candy and Tiffany walked shoulder to shoulder through the early evening, their bags swinging, both of them still radiating the specific warm energy of an afternoon that had gone extremely well.

"He is just so good," Candy said, for approximately the third time since the front door. "Like, I went in there knowing nothing — literally nothing — and I came out feeling like I actually have something? Like a real skill?"

"That's exactly how I felt after my first session," Tiffany said warmly. "That's just Dan. He sees what you have and he just — he builds it."

"And the sister scene," Candy continued, clutching her bag to her chest, "was like, genuinely so fun? Like, I know it was acting, but it felt so natural. Like we actually were sisters."

"We have the same chest," Tiffany said practically. "Of course it was convincing."

Candy laughed — her real laugh, bright and sudden. "I keep forgetting that's a casting reason and not just a coincidence." She looked at Tiffany sideways. "Do you think he'll do more scenes like that? With both of us?"

"Definitely," Tiffany said, with complete confidence. "Dan always builds on what works. Tomorrow is going to be even better, I can feel it."

Candy practically floated the rest of the way home.

She was up at seven.

She stood in front of her mirror for a long time. School was — she looked at her bag, looked at her reflection, looked at her bag again. Dan's flat was in the other direction. She had found her purpose. She left the bag on the floor.

The outfit took longer. She went through three options before she landed on it — a pink boob tube that was technically a tube top but covered, in practical terms, the same surface area as a wide belt, her massive breasts filling it to a degree that transformed it into something structural. And a short flowy miniskirt in white that ended right at the absolute limit of what could legally be described as covering anything. A tiny nude g-string underneath. She checked the back. The hem of the skirt sat a breath below the curve of her ass.

Dan will like this, she thought, with the simple, satisfied certainty of someone who has identified a clear objective and dressed for it.

She was there at eight forty-five.

Dan opened the door in his underwear — grey, tired, his gut visible, his thinning hair flattened on one side from sleep. He blinked at the figure on his doorstep.

He had somehow, in the twelve hours since he'd last seen her, allowed his memory to soften the reality of Candy into something more manageable. A general impression. An outline.

The actual Candy — standing in his doorway in the morning light, pink boob tube doing its magnificent impossible best, white miniskirt, a smile so open and young and happy it was almost its own light source — was significantly more than the outline.

She was eighteen. He knew she was eighteen. She was absolutely, certifiably eighteen.

She looked, standing there in the morning with her blonde hair loose and her freckles and her blue eyes and her entire presentation, considerably younger than eighteen. The kind of young that made the air feel different.

"Hi!" she said. "I'm early, sorry! I was just like, so excited I couldn't — is that okay? I can wait outside if—"

"Come in," Dan said.

She spun in the hallway, one full turn, arms out slightly. "Do you like it? I wanted to wear something that like, gave me range of movement for the scenes but also like, looked good?" The spin lifted the miniskirt's hem in a full, unambiguous arc that confirmed the g-string situation beyond any doubt whatsoever. "I wasn't sure about the pink but I thought it was like, fun?"

Dan was staring.

He became aware that he was staring and adjusted his expression to something directorial.

"It works," he said.

Candy beamed. Then she flung her arms around him.

She was an enthusiastic hugger — full commitment, her arms around his neck, her extraordinary chest pressing warmly against his torso. He was in his underwear and hadn't showered since yesterday and was acutely aware of both facts. Candy either didn't notice or had already filed it under Dan being Dan and moved on, because she held the hug for a full five warm seconds before releasing him and bouncing through into the living room.

She arranged herself on the famous couch, pulling her knees up, the miniskirt making this a geometrically interesting choice. Dan lowered himself beside her, his brain still recalibrating.

The morning light through the grimy blinds caught her freckles.

"I just want to say," Candy began, turning to him with her whole body, "like, before Tiffany gets here and everything starts — I just want to say that yesterday was like, genuinely one of the best days of my like, life? And I know that sounds dramatic but I mean it." She pressed both hands flat on her knees. "Like, I woke up this morning and for the first time in like, a really long time, I was excited? Like excited to get up and go somewhere and be something?" Her blue eyes were very earnest. "My mum was already asleep when I got home so I couldn't tell her but I was just like, lying in bed thinking about all the scenes we're gonna do and all the things I'm gonna learn and I just—" she shook her head, "—I feel like I found my purpose. Like, is that weird to say? That's probably weird."

"It's not weird," Dan said.

"It just feels like everything before yesterday was like, grey? And now it's like, colour?" She looked at him with those catastrophically trusting eyes. "You did that. In like, one afternoon."

Dan looked back at her.

He heard approximately one word in five of what she'd said. He was watching the pink boob tube move as she breathed — the extraordinary, impossible high fullness of her chest, the smooth pale skin above the fabric's edge — and thinking with the calm, unhurried patience of a man who has already decided exactly how a thing will go, and is simply waiting for the appropriate moment.

Today, he thought. Not her mouth. Not just practice scenes. Today we go further. Today I start making sure she can handle what's coming for her.

He would be gentle about it. He would frame it perfectly. She would not only accept it but thank him for it.

She was still talking.

"—and I've already been like, thinking about what kind of roles I want, like I think I'm naturally quite a physical actress? Like I don't mind doing really intense scenes, like yesterday proved that, and I think my body is like, an asset rather than a—"

"Candy," Dan said.

She stopped. Looked at him.

"Today," he said, "we work with your whole body. Not just your mouth like yesterday. Everything." He held her gaze. "That's where the real training starts."

Candy was still for a single breath.

Then she nodded, slow and serious, the way she had nodded when he'd told her she'd be sore — accepting it as a professional reality, filing it as the cost of the craft.

"Okay," she said.

"The full range," Dan said. "It'll be intense. But you said you're not afraid of intensity."

"I'm not," Candy said. And she meant it. "I'm really, genuinely not."

"Good."

She smiled at him — that full, open, trusting smile — and Dan thought about the bookings he was going to make and the calls he was going to have to put off for a few days yet, and he thought first me, then them, and the thought settled in him with the comfortable weight of a decision already made.

A knock at the door.

Candy was on her feet before Dan had moved, bouncing down the hallway on the balls of her feet, her miniskirt swishing, her blonde hair loose.

She swung the door open.

"Tiffany!" she said, and her whole face was the word joy rendered in freckles and blue eyes and a smile that had no business being that bright at nine in the morning.