Chapter Text
Break year student on off season spring at the family summer home looks for odd jobs, finds a new neighbour who wants to have extra pair of hands as well as a model for her activities.
//
Camille was enjoying the first month of his break year by doing resolutely nothing. It was September, just off season enough for the peninsula on Gorkhon river to be practically deserted, just in-season enough to laze about on a tuesday afternoon on the patio's hammock in shorts and t-shirt with a straw-hat for covering and think about gloriously no deadlines.
No homework. No projects. No appointments.
Glorious holidays, finally.
He was just reflecting on whether it was worth it to fetch ice cream when his attention got caught by the unusual sound of a vehicle pulling up almost to the front door. There were only two villas in this part of the strip, and he was the only inhabitant of his, which meant someone had actually pulled up off-season to the sister building.
He peered over the railing discreetly, and immediately blinked.
Out of a plain white auto came out a figure in red the like of which inhabited his wet dreams. Tall. Not so slender as what was all the rage these days by a smidge, already with a deep tan under what looked to be natural straw blonde hair. Pausing just long enough to beep the gate to open, she moved to pull open the trunk and began picking up luggage by herself.
Meanwhile, he almost tripped over himself on the way down the stairs to meet her, meeting a bemused gaze at his heavy breathing -Way to make a first impression, Camille!- as she waits for the portillo to fully open enough to enter.
When she spoke, her voice was a deep, rich contralto despite the voluminous crate she was hefting with one arm... And she towered over him by a good half a foot despite weating flats.
Up close, she was even more of a stunner than he'd thought from above. Leggy, fuck, those were legs long enough for two, even in the plain sandals she wore; he didn't even dare imagine her shod in heels to elongate them further. A quiet strength in how she easily crossed the distance separating them in quick smooth strides, a mechanical smoothness that had the pile of stuff she carried still as a the grave in her arms- which did nothing to hide just how incredible the body she had wrapped in the bold red sundress was.
She didn't have -the- curviest body he'd seen, no, but he was in love anyway. More of a volleyball player core, a quiet stability that undermined the slight hourglass shape she still underlined by cinching a plain cloth belt under her buts- and what a bust it was.
Heavy. Full. Weighty in a way that the light cloth obviously struggled to contain, a divine marshmallow shelf of cleavage about two buttons away from baring aureolas Camille was still almost sure he could intuit if he studied the fabric hard enough... only to be greeted by something even more extraordinary.
Twin protrusions. No way. But these shapes were unmistakable: nipple piercings, which either said very good thing about his prospects or very bad ones.
He wasn't sure when she finally broke the silence for him, and detourned his gaze back up, red from more than just the impromptu mad dash to her location.
"Hello neighbour, I presume?" she began, a coy little smile at what must have been an inappropriate amount of staring.
"Yeah," he gasped, straightening up. "Sorry about the st- the surprise. I'm Camille. I just saw you arrive alone from the patio, over here, and I thought I'd come say hi and offer to help."
"Very kind of you. I'm Alvi. You must be pretty lonely to rush, hm?"
"Nooot really." he drew out, before realizing what he'd just said. "But that looks like a pretty full trunk, so I figured, y'know..."
"You would do the Chivalrous" -and she emphasized her amused tone by rising on her tip toes, almost a foot taller like that, "thing and come to help?"
"If that's not too much of a bother."
"Not at all! It's wonderful of you to help, Camille. I've a feeling we'll get along just fine."
Unpacking then took place peppered by an easy back-and-forth of introductions, although Camille began to suspect he was actually slowing them down when he noticed how much slower her stride was and how easily she lifted loads that would have him bent over in half the distance to the door.
Up close, she was definitely more fit than soft, with deeply creased cheekbones from the amused smile that never seemed to leave her wide mouth. He was able to confirm his guess as correct, she was a natural blonde, although he had to revise his impression: She was in fact even taller than he'd initially estimated, placing her somewhere in the vicinity of 6 foot to his own diminutive 160 cm height, a fact that that most obvious every time he needed her help placing a given package atop the growing pile they arranged in the lobby under her direction... Which he was beginning to suspect she was doing on purpose as he stood on his tip toes again, trying helplessly to lift an accursed suitcase high enough to reach the shelf- only for Alvi to casually take it off his hands to his destination from behind, nudging something soft against his head as casually as she stepped back while he was stuck with the realization what she'd done.
"Alvi is a Finnish name, isn't it?" he began to break the silence.
"That is correct! And Camille is French, I believe."
"Yep. Explains how tall you are somewhat, at least."
"1 meter 82, she confirmed breezily."
"Geez. I'm only 1 meter 57 cm myself."
"Adorable."
"Hey! ...Anyway, what brings you to Florence, then? At this period of the year, people are mostly leaving instead of moving in."
"Oh, this and that. I'm a friend of the family, freelancer columnist, and amateur photograph, so my schedule lets me move about to places I'd like to try shooting."
"Wow. Uh-"
"Before you ask, yes I occasionally get shot sometimes. But you'll have to help me more if you want me to let you in on more."
He perked up at the lifeline, while simultaneously feeling hot that he'd been read so easily.
"Deal!"
Said help, as it turned out, started with just ferrying the boxes of stuff from the lobby throughout the building, mostly to her new bedroom which was at the moment the rather bare one of a vacation home but quickly evolved into a pandemonium of opened crates, shoes, dresses, and supplies in meticulously organised original packaging that made him gawk at the quality of it all.
He was no stranger to expenses, living himself in far too large a building by himself for a week now, but he still looked at the various modelling equipment with a dawning understanding.
"I thought you meant the paysages." he said as he opened another crate of stage backgrounds.
"I do both. Sometimes at once, when the circumstances align. Such as they might soon, if I'm not mistaken."
Camille wiped the sweat from his brow, feeling puzzled at this declaration. "But you're alone." he objected.
"So I am. Have you ever modelled before, Camille?"
"I- no."
"Would you like to?"
Modelling? He'd never tried.
"I never thought I had the build for it," he mumbled quietly, to which she rose an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Really? A cute thing like you?"
"Well that's it, isn't it? Most models are adonises, not nezhas."
"You'd be surprised how popular he is in certain circles."
"What do you mean?"
"If I tell you, are you gonna help me?"
"I'd help you even if you didn't."
"How disinterested, I'm sure." she added, flashing her smile again.
"You don't seem to mind," he shot back unperturbed."
"Not at all. It's nice when people are so earnest. But what are -you- doing with your time that you have so much free time on your hand?"
This time Camille paused and broke eye contact, uncertainty taking momentary control.
"I'm on a break year as of last week," he finally said. "Uncertain what to do with myself. I figure getting to work with my hands for once won't hurt me while I'm here."
"It won't," she replied gently. "Not unless you like it rough."
This time he blushed furiously.
"Alvi!"
"Feel better about your break, then?"
"You- I- ... Yes, actually," he blinked, seemingly puzzled by the turn of conversation. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it, you just said you're looking forward to being my servant for the miscellaneous tasks I'm gonna have around the house now that I'm here."
"So long as it's not exploitation." he mumbled.
"Oh, I am paying you. Especially if..."
"If what?" he asked, trained from an early age to listen for money.
But Alvi only looked back oddly at him, or rather through him, he realized, seemingly lost in thought.
"I... I'll tell you another time, okay? Sorry to let you down, but I think I want to sleep off the road now. Why don't you come over tomorrow and we can figure out where we'll start then?"
"Sure. Have a good sleep."
"Thanks. See you."
Contrary to his own expectations, Camille felt pretty good about being let go in such a way. He'd met his hot neighbour, and not only was she open to talking, she was actually inviting him over! He couldn't believe his good luck, honestly.
Well, okay, it might mostly be because she needed an extra pair of hands. But it still counted, right? And it felt easy, somehow, talking to Alvi; like she rounded down the corners for him where he'd usually get hung up on small things... or his indiscretion.
He scratched at a mosquito bite absent mindedly. She was a lot bigger than any other woman he'd met previously, sure, and a bit of a tease about his own looks, but he could get past that.
That night, when he took a shower, he paused in front of the mirror to try and read what had made her refer to his looks so favorably twice. He thought himself... well, not manly, to be honest.
Alvi probably had a stronger jaw, than him, he thought bitterly. If anything, her judgement was right on the money: cute, perhaps, although he'd never been able to see it in himself... But not manly.
Sitting at a meter 1.57 meters, Camille was nothing if not boyish in looks. A moderate appetite and lifelong preference for short burts of activities when any was required had left him a slender, petite frame that, paired with his naturally pretty, androgynous traits, and further aggravated by a serious case of long lasting youthful looks, had him firmly in the forever carded territory.
Or rather, would if he ever really went to adult only places or bought similar good in the real world. Truth be told, he'd long since adopted the convenience of online shopping for anything embarrassing.
The worst part for him, however, had to be an odd quirk of his genetics that left him with wide, gorgeous hips hat many girls would kill for -in fact, looking at himself, he could only despaire that, even naked, he was more of a pear-shape than Alvi was. It did nothing to help his androginity, that was for sure, growing up in an underpopulated and mostly male school area had had sawn an endless repeat of awkward crushes he unfortunately hadn't been able to reciprocated a single time.
As for his face? He realized his long raven locks probably did nothing to help, but hair was the one area he felt comfortable letting grow, even if he needed to tie it into a ponytail for most activities so as not to let it get in the way. It had nothing to do with being girly or manly, and simply in the realization that his facies, while flattering, looked significantly worse with short hair no matter the hair cut; due to his hair's irritating tendency to be unmanageable while short and silky smooth past a certain length.
Really, it had to be a conspiracy.
// Modelling shoot
For the first time in years, Camille felt strong trepidation in his stomach before what he was about to do so much as started being in sight.
"Show's your not dead inside yet, mister," he said to himself.
Today was the day they tried doing an amateur photo shoot with Alvi. But before he could count his lucky stars that his delicious neighbour read his mind so well as to offer something he'd only been dreaming off at the time, he had to remember the condition: "You get to pick outfits for me, and I get to pick outfits for you."
He'd jumped, leaped at the opportunity, of course. What kind of red blooded human being would have turned down the potential of playing dress-up with Alvi, ever?
Except, as often was the case, reason had slithered in after excitement to point out that, across the various times he'd visited and helped tidy up the -frankly, breath-taking- amount of clothing and accessories and shoes in Alvi's house, he'd found, at best, a few unisex garment.
Everything else was women's clothes, across a large variety of sizes, as though this wasn't Alvi's first time proposing something like this.
He wasn't sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, he'd often felt embarrassed at his own lack of manliness or even felt disappointed about it. On the other hand, it was clearly Alvi's taste, and judging by how often she referred to his looks, so was he.
It was a conflicted, swampy kind of thing to think about, and it kept rubberbanding him between excitement and aprehension at what COULD happen. Maybe it wouldn't, but who was to say?
"Calm down". He wished himself, internally, that his imagination wouldn't conjure catastrophes where opportunity awaited. Steeling himself, he rung the doorbell.
...
Alvi had cleaned up a pair bedroom by pushing the furniture to make room for the lights and the plain white backdrop for the shoot. As usual in her house, the smoothly worn floorboards and warm wallpaper gave it a soothing, relaxing atmosphere, which combined with the soft breeze blowing him from behind the pure white curtains helped Camille recenter his nervousness somewhat. Next door, meanwhile, had been improvised into a changing room, with rows of hangers and boxes all neatly labelled as to their content sitting next to a handful of mannequins wearing pre-picked outfits to mix and match.
"You seem excited," he remarked to Alvi as she began rattling off the various types of associations to guide him across women's clothes pairings.
"Aren't you? Or is that febrility just nerves?"
"...Yes to both. I still can't believe you offered us to pick one another's clothes."
"Oh come on. You know my alma matter, right?"
"Hm. No?"
"Wow. Really? You must be the first guy I met who didn't immediately look me up when he learned I did modelling. Well, suffice to say you won't be able to embarrass me much."
"I just thought it'd be... I don't know. Improper somehow."
"Aww, that's sweet. But, you know, reference can also be helpful if you'd like to do this another time. Tell you what- if you like today's, I can lend you an album, yes?"
"Hm. I'd like that."
"Okay-dokey~" she sung-songed. "Right, here's how it'll go: Knowing myself, I'll take ages dressing you up the first time. So how about I go first, and we can take care of you afterwards?"
"Okay." What the hell else did he say to that?
So next door they went, browsing the offerings and feeling frankly out of his depth while Alvi hummed something peppy behind him.