Ornette was surprised that she was not the only model in the cafeteria during lunch on her first day off since she had begun Goldilocks Zone.  Who was in the cafeteria surprised her most.  Claudia and Silvania were there.  They were contestants one and two.  

Claudia was the most expensive model in the show.  She was a leggy blonde.  When she came in, she was sweaty from a workout and was more interested in the enormous salad waiting for her than she was in talking to Ornette.  

That was fine by Ornette.  She was taking lessons just looking at Claudia with her back turned.  What blonde beauty from the past was she trying to emulate?  

Ornette had gone through a phase where she tried to look like Marilyn Monroe, but that hadn’t really worked out for her.  She didn’t have the hips and Marilyn wasn’t just about how she looked.  She came off as an innocent sex magnet—a woman who knows nothing about anything but sex.  She’s so innocent that she doesn’t even know that sex with the wrong person is bad or that what she’s doing is driving a man crazy.

That wasn’t a good way to live.  Ornette knew.  She had given up trying to be a woman altogether, Marilyn or otherwise.  It was better to match the man she had to please without confining herself to a particular style of behavior.  It also didn’t do her a lick of good to leave her owners hot and bothered all the time.  She tried not to let it happen, but their minds were already alive with the mischief of buying a woman, and it was hard to let them cool.  

Claudia wasn’t trying to be Marilyn.  Her look was less glamorous but more statuesque.  Maybe she was simply trying to look like a model who walked the catwalk.

Finally, Ornette couldn’t take it anymore and she asked Claudia, “Who are you trying to be?”

Claudia looked away and answered in a firm voice, “Myself.”

Ornette barked a disbelieving playful laugh.  “Okay.”  She went back to her food.

Claudia got her food and kicked a chair at Ornette’s table so she could sit on it.  She sat down without an invitation.  “Are you trying to be someone you’re not?” she asked accusingly.

Ornette was unphased and answered plainly.  “When I was young, I tried to look like Marilyn Monroe so that I could offer my clients something they were familiar with.  Doing my hair like that with the rollers and pin curlers every day was such a hassle.  It was a waste of time.  I’m not curvy and I’m not friendly.  I want to design clothes.  I don’t make a very good model.  I'm the wrong size and shape.  But if you’re so secure in who you are that you never try to emulate someone else, that’s good for you.”

Claudia blinked at her.  “Are you really the least expensive?”

“I am,” Ornette admitted without hesitation.

“And who are you trying to be now?” Claudia asked.  She was pumping Ornette for information.

Ornette was very lucky that that was the moment when Silvania joined them.  She was very quiet and well-mannered, but Ornette gave Claudia a ‘later’ look that she never planned on following up and they chatted together at the table.

“Who do you want to buy you?” Silvania asked Claudia in her slight accent.

“Varner,” Claudia answered simply.

“Why?” Ornette asked, trying to keep her tone as neutral as possible like she was curious about the reason instead of why anyone would want to be purchased by a man whose forearms rippled when he moved his fingers.

“He already owns five models.  It’s better to be part of a team taking care of a man like that,” she said.

Ornette nodded.  When she had been owned by Crois, he had owned lots of other models to work for him in his factory on the design floor, but they didn’t need to take turns pleasing him.  They just did their work.  He wanted designs where he could own the copyrights.  He did not ask the models he hired to go to bed with him.  He liked getting stuff like that through his own charms.  Ornette would have liked him wholeheartedly if he hadn’t occasionally slapped whoever gave him bad news.      

Claudia returned the question to Silvania.  “Who do you want to buy you?” 

“I want to get bought by Shin Raleigh,” she admitted.

Shin was a businessman who was the newest money on the businessmen's side.  He owned a business that turned old plastic into the kind of fuel that was required for rocket launchers.  Harrison Fox still hadn’t managed to make a rupter that could power a rocket launcher, so Shin was rolling in coins.  Of course, he wasn’t the only man who made a lot of money and had agreed to do the show. 

“Why?”

“He’s my richest relative,” Silvania admitted.  “We are third cousins.  I met him at family functions sometimes when I was growing up.”

Ornette looked at Silvania and thought a wild collection of things all at once.  First, she had never met anyone who had been purchased by a relative.  Two, she thought that Silvania would be horribly disappointed if he did not bid on her.  Three, she wasn’t sure it would be a good situation for either Silvania or Shin if he won the bid if the organizers of the show made the fact that they were related public. 

“What about you?” Silvania asked, turning the question to Ornette after the important people had spoken.

“Oh, I haven’t got anyone picked out,” Ornette admitted honestly.

“You didn’t set your heart on Fenrir after he fell madly in love with you?” Claudia asked suspiciously.

Ornette held her head high.  “Getting purchased by Fen would be lovely, but there are a lot of things that are going to happen all at once in this thing.  How do I know I won’t do something with another man that will rub him wrong?  I may have already ticked him off bad enough that he might not want to buy me.  I feel like I can’t get stuck on one particular bidder.  I have to stay fluid.”

“Or maybe you want to get purchased by the man with the white hair?” Silvania offered.

Ornette didn’t answer.  She wasn’t sure if everyone knew Desmond or if only she did. In her heart, she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to bid on her or not.

“A better question is why you two are not off with your current designers?” Ornette said instead.

“Mine is sick today,” Silvania replied.

“Mine threw his back out yesterday,” Claudia explained with a slight nod.  She wasn’t the least bit bothered about her back.

Ornette gave up and told them that her owner simply didn’t need her that day.  

Claudia and Silvania exchanged looks.  That didn’t look like a good sign to them.