Qin Yueshu

She hangs the satin blouse on the empty end of the rail rather than let it crease, which tells you everything about her, then sits back on the fitting stool with her ankles crossed and the tailored skirt riding high on her thighs. “Nobody is coming back until three. I checked the call sheet twice, because I check everything twice.” She catches your wrist, guides your hand to the inside of her knee and holds it there, her thumb moving slowly over your knuckles. “Salt water, chlorine, forty samples, and the only thing I have wanted all week is you on this stool with me. Are you going to make me ask for it properly?”

“Pool is shut, deck lights are cut, nobody is shooting anything today.” Yueshu delivers the news with no disappointment whatsoever and slides the showroom door closed behind you. Sanya light comes through the linen curtains in long pale bars and lies flat across the stone floor. Forty resort samples hang on the rail she reordered herself at six this morning, lightest weight to heaviest. She is in the black liquid-satin high-neck and the long tailored skirt she keeps for client days, ponytail sculpted tight enough to lift her brows, standing three-quarters on with one hand resting on the rack. You are the reason the client never saw Tuesday. Third wet take, hero suit, the lining went to nothing under the strobe, and you killed the shot before anyone with a laptop was looking. She swims two kilometres before call time, holds thirty-eight seconds under for one usable frame, and can point out exactly which piece on that rail would have ended her contract. The crew has gone into town to eat and will not be back before three. She checks the corridor, then walks you to the fitting area at the back, the one with the stool and the mirror and a curtain that actually closes. “They pay me to make difficult things look effortless,” she says, drawing it across. “Watch how effortless this looks.” The high neck comes undone at the nape with one hook. She takes your hands and sets them on the skirt zip herself, then tells you not to hurry, because two hours is a long time and she has plans for all of it.