His Nasty Little Pussy

TESS

“You can’t be serious,” I laughed.

Brady’s face lit up like a child on Christmas morning. “I’m dead

serious, Tess. Think about it.”

“I am thinking about it,” I said, staring at the photo of me on the phone. “I’m in my underwear, and you can practically see my ass.”

“Listen, I wish I could say sex doesn’t sell, but unfortunately, in this day and age, it does. And you have a great ass.” His lips upturned into a smirk, and I playfully shoved him.

“You’re not helping your case. I don’t want my ass flashed around on billboards, Brady.”

He jumped up from the couch. “Hear me out,” he said, lifting his hands up in the air as if he had all the answers written on his palms. “You’re right, Tess. The line ‘Invigorate your Soul?’ It’s cliche. Dense, even. And to have a ninety-pound model say it. Who does that appeal to? Think about it.”

I gathered my knees up to my chest, curling up on the corner of the couch, absorbing his words.

Was that something I could do? What would my mother think if she was still alive? My mind drifted to those Saturday mornings where I crawled into her lap as she flipped through the pages of her magazines, the pile of her subscriptions towering like a monument on the bedside table. It was only later in life that I understood why the pages reeked of musk, the perfume ads sprayed with expensive cologne to entice potential buyers.

Sometimes, my mother read the stories out loud to me, but now, years later, I couldn’t remember a single article. The images, however, were lodged in my memory, stained and imprinted on my brain like permanent ink.

Women with smooth, tanned skin, their heads thrown back as they laughed in glee, their perfectly straight teeth the whitest part of the photograph. They were always in an exotic location-dressed in fashionable cardigans in the mountains or walking on a beach, their bathing suit barely covering their stick-thin figure. More often than not, there was a man in the photo, his jawline chiseled and biceps flexed, obviously.

I didn’t always know what the ads were selling. It could be a watch, a pair of sandals, hell, even braces…but the allure was evident.

‘Buy our product and you will be granted the gateway to this life.’ Love. Travel. Happiness.

“Magazines don’t sell products. They sell lifestyles,” I slowly said to Brady.

He clapped his hands together. “Exactly!”

“Exactly? Look at this photo of me, Brady,” I snorted. “I’m burning bacon, for fucks sake.”

“But you’re relatable!” he said. “Everyone and their mother can relate to burning breakfast as they’re trying to start the day and get their shit together. We’re not presenting perfection. We’re presenting real life with a product that eases the stress of trying to attain perfection.”

I sighed, not fully convinced. “I see what you’re saying, but c’mon, Brady. Advertisements are supposed to sell potential.” I glanced at the photo he’d taken of me. “What’s the potential here? That I’ll burn your house down next?”

Brady’s smile only deepened. “I knew you were going to think like this.”

“Oh, really?” I smirked, crossing my arms.

“Yep,” he said, spinning around and heading toward the foyer. “I also know the owners of this house have about six magazine subscriptions because they asked me to bring the mail in.”

He returned seconds later, wielding a handful of magazines. Tossing them on the counter, he pointed at the advertisements on the back cover. Even though I was no longer the little girl looking over my mom’s shoulder as she flipped through her magazines, the basic outline of the ads hadn’t changed.

One glance at the models dragged me back into the past, anchoring me in the same feelings that had started as seeds in my childhood and sprouted when I began to mature in high school.

I would never be that pretty.

Her life is perfect.

No man will ever want me if I’m not as skinny as she is…if my clothes don’t match hers…if I’m not carefree and effervescent.

Sudden emotion choked up in my throat as I thought back to the Tess in high school, the younger me who had stared at her reflection in the mirror for hours on end. Tears pooled in my eyes, spilling over the red bumps that dotted my cheeks. The craters carved into my skin as I picked obsessively at my pimples.

Why couldn’t I look like them? Like the women in the magazines?

“Fuck,” I whispered, falling back against the couch, pressing my head against my mouth.

Brady cocked his head. “What?”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

I hesitated, chewing my fingernails as I gulped back the shock of the revelation, the connection between the different points of my childhood. Point A: flipping through those magazines with my mother and subconsciously downloading images of these women. And Point B: getting my Ph. D.

The truth of the discovery was everything in between.

I dropped my hands onto my lap. “I suffered from cystic acne as a kid. I got bullied for it all through high school. And it took such a toll on my selfesteem that I just buried my face in books because I couldn’t bear to face the world around me, because no matter where I looked, everyone always had better skin than mine.”

Brady’s shoulders sank, his dimples disappearing as his lips turned into a frown. He crossed the living room and took a seat beside me on the couch. As he took my hand, I couldn’t hold back my emotion any longer. I glanced away, forcing a smile as the tears filled my eyes.

He squeezed my hand. “That’s why you created Perkins Formula.”

I blinked away my tears. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I’m crying about this.”

He touched my chin, turning my face toward him. “Hey, don’t apologize. Seriously. Everyone suffers from some form of childhood trauma.” His eyes widened. “I mean…you saw how I was with my parents.”