Obstruction

Paint it Black

- Rolling Stones, Paint it Black -

-September -

The lights overhead were bright. I was dressed in a very tight singlet and boys boxershorts, my face full of professionally applied make up. On a stage set in front of me was a bedroom set up, complete with an artfully messed up bed.

I felt sceptical.
The director had decided to cast me in some kind of seductress role for our music video.
I was going to have to act out a romantic storyline with all three of the guys and the bedroom setting was all about me and Simon.
Simon came out, also made up and with messed up hair to make him look as sexy as possible and in a nude-coloured pair of swimtrunks under a bathrobe.
They had even spray-tanned the poor man and put make up on his abs to make his muscles look more defined. He looked ridiculous.
Oddball started laughing.

"Nice underwear!" Odd chuckled.

Simon stopped next to me to await direction with a grin, wiggling his crotch in Oddball's direction.

"This should be fun!" He said eyeing my outfit.

I had refused to wear the bra and panties they had originally planned for me to wear.

"Don't you dare get all exited about this!" I threatened.

"Don't worry," Simon smirked as the director entered.

"Just bite him if he makes any funky moves," Selma grinned next to Oddball.
I envied her jeans and t-shirt.

The director motioned Simon towards the bed.

"You ready to play games, Izzy?" Simon asked.

"Nope," I said.

His eyes were all sparkly and playful. Mine were the opposite.

"Just pretend were on stage and we need to put on a show," he said as the director waved him to the bed.

Some assistant took his bathrobe and Simon was told to lay on his back while a stylist draped his hair artfully.
It all looked so strange that I had to laugh.
The look on Ethan's face was conflicted as Simon was directed in what to do with his hands in the scene.

"It's okay," Ethan smiled as he caught my questioning look.

"You sure?" I asked.

"Yeah. It's just acting," he nodded and leaned in to kiss the top of my head.

"It's just Simon," I mumbled, mostly to convince myself.

"But if he touches you, I'll kick his face in," Ethan smiled and winked.

I raised my eyebrow in doubt. He just smiled back at me. His grey eyes glittering with laughter at my discomfort.

I took a deep breath and stepped on the set, trying to ignore the awkwardness of the scene ahead of me.

The record company  had requested that Ethan and I were underplayed. Penny had called the two of us in for an exclusive meeting to make sure we understood that we had to be portrayed as single and available. Which meant that if I paid Ethan any special attention in public, I would have to balance it out with the other two. Oddball nicknamed it my three-for-one-deal. The music video was a demonstration of this principle. We had been told to think of the market interest and how our potential audience needed the physical contact.

My part with Oddball had been a flirty, joking, fully dressed scene running around playing tag in a forest to illustrate a first date. Oddball had gone all out, throwing me into the air and pinning me up against trees to make us look more like a couple. Flirting with Oddball was easy though. I just had to tap into that fun we'd always had.
In Ethan's scene we had been cooking together and feeding each other. All cute and romantic. We had both been so full up after that, and had fallen asleep on the hotel bed, fully dressed.
On the plus side, sitting on a kitchen counter, feeding Ethan tiny morsels of food and having him lick my fingers had given me ideas.
For some reason, they had decided to make Simon's scene raunchy.
They had done a bunch of audience surveys that revealed Simon was the sexy one and if all the photos and promo material they were already shipping out was anything to go by, they were maximising this.
There were a plethora of photos in circulation of the guys in varying degrees of nudity.
I'd gotten away with one staged shoot in a bikini and a few fake paparazzi photos from a "weekend on the beach" that Penelope insisted on getting done and release once we were famous.
And our sex appeal was to be abused in the next few hours.
That is... Simon's sex appeal.
I was supposed to seduce him.