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Patrick's agent had threatened to drop him if he wouldn't go, so here he was, in the industry's must party of the year, looking longingly the canapés that no-one dared to eat. He tried to estimate how long it would still take before he could leave, but there had been quite an amount of immaculate looking middle aged women that had noticed him when he arrived, and Korean Tom Cruise would kill him if he would hear that he had left without getting his cheeks pinched by every fucking one of them.
The band was so awful that they were almost cool. Patrick stood near the band with his sugar-free Red Bull. It was pretty entertaining, actually, like watching a car crash.
Someone poked him on his shoulder. "You are the Strawberry boy!"
Patrick turned his face to the stranger. "Yes, I am." What else could he answer for that, anyway?
Patrick started like this: A photographer spotted him on the street of Chicago and drafted him to a photo shoot without any previous experience. A very influential photographer, with the full artistic power over Strawberry.
The fucking Strawberry was the thing that got Patrick into modeling in the first place. Hot Topic had decided to go with the same way it had raped punk and Goth fashion, and change Japanese Lolita style for the American teens. That meant fifties dresses, aprons with ruffles, hoodies with ears, paw mittens and enough pink to make even Hello Kitty puke, but the name was problematic and had to be changed for the American audience. So Lolita was launched as Strawberry, a new line from Hot Topic. And what a launch it was. To brainwash the kids to think that bows were desirable and ruffled parasols were the "it" accessory, an ad campaign was launched.
The ads were basically simple; every picture had a girl, standing still, looking cute, and there was a boy kissing her cheek. To make the campaign more appealing, there were also girls kissing girls and boys kissing boys, of course modestly on the cheek (even when there was hardly any clothes for boys even offered).
Patrick was one of the boys in the ads. As the two boys had to look different, Patrick was chosen as the red-cheeked, aw, shucks! -cute boy to accompany the whip thin emo boy. Or not chosen, per se, since he was spotted from the street.
The campaign, and the clothing line, became a hit. The "Strawberry boys" picture, a specific one where the other boy kisses blushing Patrick, became iconic and was in its way becoming a part of Americana. The hoodies they wore in the picture, with Teddy bear-, and cup cake themes, became hit items, selling many times over the amount that the schoolgirl outfits and the pink aprons ever did.
For Patrick, the picture changed two things in his life. First, he continued modeling, because damn that thing made a shit load of money compared to McDonalds, and second, he might as well be stamped as The Strawberry Boy for the rest of his life.
Patrick liked to think himself as a professional in all he does, be it drumming or modeling, so he started to work out and learned to carry himself, and when it came clear that he wasn't growing any taller, he settled for posing as younger as he truly was. There is a steady niche for people who could pass as under age. Got to love those child labor laws, really. So, Patrick grew older; the Strawberry Boy stayed the same.
Patrick looked the new guy over, a half-a-second assessment. Everybody did that in this business, always. It's always about what you looked like. The guy was tanned and thin, older than him, and picture perfect. And Patrick knew how much that shirt and that belt buckle cost. He had to be a model, if a short one. What a surprise. He also had a full plate of food. Really, an actual surprise.
Pete started like this: A girl he dated wanted to be a model, more than anything else. She hung around a modeling agency all the time, and where she was, he was. He took portfolio pics of himself, only half serious, and lo and behold, people actually liked him, thought he was photogenic. At the time he came up with an idea for a clothing line and naively thought that modeling would bring him together with right people, so he went and never looked back. Now, years later, he knew that those people hadn't been interested in what they could do for him; they were only interested in what he could do for them, and preferably on his knees.
Pete did start his clothing line, and after years of hard work, Clandestine was taking wind and he was now seriously considering dropping all other modeling gigs than for his own line.
The girlfriend never made it.
The guy detached his fingers and used his now free hand to cram three canapés to his mouth. "You wouldn't want to start your own clothing line, would you?"
"What? No."
The guy kinda could see what he was looking. "You want?" He pushed his plate forward.
"No thanks. You know how it is."
The guy nodded earnestly, even when he obviously had no idea what Patrick was talking about. How odd. Patrick sipped his drink, feeling strangely honest towards the guy. "I'm waiting for the day when I can stop dragging my ass for a run every morning and eat, like, more than a bread crumb a day." He was also going towards hair plugs in a few years time, but there is sharing and then there is over-sharing.
The guy picked a cheese cube from his plate. "Nah, I never work out."
That was just not fair. "I think that I'm going to kill you in your sleep."
The guy looked around, he maybe noticed the women. The women had surely noticed that someone had stole his attention before they dared to form a line. "How old you are again?" Not that it would really matter because at this point, he just didn't care.
"Twenty. And if I would get a dollar every time someone asks that, I would be, well, I would have a nice handful of pocket money."
"Twenty, really?"
"Yes, really". Patrick turned his face slightly away. He was already bored with this topic. He had no interest in convincing the dude that he wasn't actually underage.
The guy didn't get the hint. "You got to be shitting me! You are the Strawberry boy!"
Yes, thank you, because Patrick needed to be reminded about that. "Whatever. And the strawberry thing was five years ago."
The guy wrapped his arm over Patrick's shoulder. "I loved that picture! And how can it be so long ago, you haven't aged a day!"
"Thanks, I guess. As long as you don't have it in your wall or anything, because that would be creepy."
"No, no!" The guy laughed straight to his ear. Then, "Or I might have, you want to come to check it out?"
Patrick looked back to the dude, interest piqued again. He had to admit, the guy was gorgeous. "You serious?"
The guy grinned at him like a Cheshire cat and nodded.
"Only pedos and kids hit on me, which one are you?"
The guy's smile haltered but didn't entirely disappear. "I'm just appreciating the nostalgic. And I'm totally serious." His eyes had gone dark. Patrick would really like to think that it was because of him and not because of some teenage jerk-off fantasy.
"Um." How eloquent. And he really, really wanted to go with the dude, what the hell was wrong with him?
The guy's grin was back. "I promise to totally respect you as a person."
And what was really stopping him? Nothing. "Oh. Okay."
The guy looked almost disturbingly overjoyed and started to drag Patrick off and away from the middle aged vultures that had been slowly approaching. They reached the door and stopped, looked each other and asked at the same time, "What was you name again?"