CH 14

Friday. Today was not a challenge, but a hair makeover for the models that happens every season. The models have the choice of whether or not to receive the makeover, but they are not informed of what the makeover entails until they choose.

In previous seasons, there have never been many images of female models crying out in pain after their hair has been cut. But I don't think male models will have to worry too much about that.

As soon as Jonathan appeared on the set to announce that today was the day of the hair makeover, Chris began to speculate about his new haircut or hair colour, and naturally was curious to see if I would be getting my hair colour changed.

The rarity of red hair has led many models to deliberately dye their hair red just for the fashion look in the hard photos, so I didn't really think the designers would let me dye my hair any other colour. I ended up with a slight trim at this length and my hair was still semi-long and curly after blow-drying

Nina said to me with a saddened look on her face, "You're perfect, after all, and the rare hair colour is an added advantage as a model. After all, red hair is a guarantee of pure blood in England, and there aren't that many redheads in America. Unlike me, who has to dye it red on purpose! Just to distinguish it from Alison, who had a similar style to mine before."

Yes, to differentiate herself from the wide-eyed siren Alison from previous seasons, Nina cut out her fringes and her long hair was reduced to shoulder length. Her original pale blonde hair was dyed a deep red and she became like a tree elf in the jungle.

To make things ridiculous, Chris and Dan once again parted into the same hair colour, platinum blonde.

"Brian, why do you think I'm so unlucky!" As Chris and I sat in line to wash our hair, Chris had a sad face and kept muttering about his bad luck. "Not only was I forced to be in a group with that bastard Dan for the last hard photo shoot, but this time I'm even going to be in the same colour as him!"

"My face already looks like a bad boy, and dying my hair blonde makes it look even more of an asshole...obviously that douchebag Dan is the bigger asshole..."

In fact, Chris' platinum blonde hair colour just made his already stern eyebrows colder and more ruthless, not a bad change. At least now people would remember him in a nutshell when they saw him. The length of his hair had not changed, it had only been slightly trimmed.

In contrast, Dan's hair length was flat and nowadays he doesn't have extensions, and the result came out looking even more dowdy and gangly with his tattoos. Because of that conflict, I didn't rest my eyes on Dan too much.

But listening to the unlucky Chris rambling and crumbling in my ear, I'd better keep my mouth shut about it for humane reasons.

Apart from me, Marvin's black hair and Jamie's brown hair were retained. Mike's hair colour is an amber highlight with a slight trim. The male models had a much easier time with their hair than the female models with their long hair shortened, short hair extensions and various perms and dyes.

The male model who made the most radical change was Ashton, and I watched him almost cry when he saw his hair kicked out and turned into a bald head.

There was nothing wrong with Ashton's hairstyle, as his features shone through after losing all his hair, which was not a big deal among the male models. Even his bald head was a memorable factor, a feature in a fashion world where models are as plentiful as dogs.

Of the female models, apart from the bouncy Nina who was dyed from blonde to crimson, blonde Alyssa's hair was dyed chocolate brown. Taylor seems to be particularly fond of dyeing originally blonde hair to other colours and originally other colours to blonde hair.

"You know what? This stupid blonde makes me look like one of those busty blonde barbies!" Alice complained to me in a heavy tone. Even the ever-stable Alice couldn't help but show her little-girl posture when it came to her hair.

Rina's curly brown hair was also straightened and dyed black, Cheryl's black hair was dyed flaxen and given big wavy curls with extensions, Gianna's long black hair was cut off to create a bob that accentuated her jawline, and Corinne's long hair was cut short in a faux-boy style.

Today was arguably the easiest day of the show, with the models being bused back to the supermodel house after their hair makeovers. Tomorrow, Saturday, will be another elimination round, this time one person will be eliminated based on hard photos and social media voting scores.

Chris had showered before me, his blonde hair dripping wet on his head, and walked in wearing the sweatpants and short sleeves he'd worn to bed when I was nestled in my room flipping through the new book I'd just started.

I glanced up and frowned, "Didn't the hairdresser tell you not to wash your hair for the next three days? Bleaching and dyeing hurts your hair."

Chris paused as he walked in, then shrugged indifferently, "It's not like those girls, their hair is going to grow afterwards anyway, it's nothing to hurt it this short, it'll all be cut off in two months."

I shook my head helplessly and said, "Come here and I'll dry it for you, don't use the hairdryer later, it's a while before you go to bed anyway, let it dry naturally."

Chris didn't object again, he dutifully came over and sat on the edge of my bed allowing me to place the towel over his head for a ravaging session.

"Hey Nina made some fruit salad do you guys want to..." said Ashton pushing the door open without looking before the words stuttered out of his mouth.

Chris didn't notice anything wrong with Ashton's expression as he stood up and took the towel I handed him and casually rested it on the end of his bed, "I'll go get you some back, you go ahead and take a shower." He then walked around Ashton who was frozen in place and walked out, giving Ashton a disgusted look as he passed.

I lost my smile and ignored the way Ashton leaned over eagerly with a gossipy expression on his face, casually folding a corner of the book on my lap over the page number I saw before closing it and putting it under my pillow.

Watching me ignore him as he pulled out his bath towel and shorts, Ashton started to stand up and follow me around, asking insistently, "Ugh, ignore me! Say, are you two...Brian are you double?"

"No." I shook my head without hesitation.

"Liar! That atmosphere between you and Chris is obvious to anyone who isn't blind!" Ashton wouldn't relent.

I grabbed my own set of pajama trousers and pajamas and turned my head with a smile, "I'm not lying to you. Because I'm not double, I'm gay. Pure."

"What?!" Ashton jumped up as he blurted out, "Why didn't you tell me this all along? I always thought I was the only guy left in this house that was gay, it felt like high school all over again, it was so annoying."

"I thought you could tell," I teased with a shrug, "It doesn't look like your radar is too good."

Excited, Ashton grinned and asked, "So do you think Chris is? You and him..."

"No." I instantly denied it. I didn't actually think Chris was straight as steel, it's just that I didn't really want him bent in my hands. After all, you have to take responsibility when you're tamed, and I didn't want to let someone delve into my personal space.

"Well..." Ashton deflated again without his gossip, and I waved him out of the room, clutching my towel and clothes.

Ashton's gossip was infinitely powerful and the next day everyone knew that my sexual orientation was male. After that, people looked at me and Chris with increasingly strange expressions, Chris being the last to know about it.

I was forced to bring up the subject in a personal interview because of this. Purposely called by the staff to a special photo room in the supermodel house, I sat helplessly for the camera.

"I didn't mean to cover up my sexuality and I don't blame Ashton for telling everyone about it. It's just that at first I didn't think it was something that needed to be brought up, and they didn't see it, perhaps because of my not-so-feminine behavioural patterns."

Taking advantage of this interview, the staff asked multiple questions at once about the topic for use in later clips.

"Yes, prior to competing in America's Next Top Model, I had another job as a dancer in the Chippendale Commercial Dance Company. My job required me to be in the dance studio at least one day a week for rehearsals, so I knew all my angles to my advantage."

"I don't know why everyone thinks Chris likes me. I think he just sees me as the only friend in the supermodel house and you have to admit that sometimes the interaction between two straight best friends can be more like a couple than a gay couple."

I weighed my words so that nothing I said could be misinterpreted to mean something else. Many contestants' popularity plummeted after the show aired, and all because they couldn't control their mouths and were reckless during personal interviews.

Even if your original sentence didn't mean that, but the show's crew just need a small cut of the scissors for the show's effect, maybe your whole on-screen image will be stereotyped.

Saturday, the elimination round.

When Nina told Chris on the bus about the day's mega news, Chris' dumbfounded look was amusing. Still very unsure, he turned to me and asked, "Brian, is it true what they said?"

"True," I said as I turned the book in my hand back another page, "What?"

"You never told me that!" Chris said loudly. The sound of his voice made everyone else around us lean over to look curiously.

I made a shushing gesture in front of my mouth and looked at him, "So what if I knew? You're not going to avoid suspicion?"

"Of course not..." said Chris in a slightly mixed tone.

The official filming of the elimination match began and Taylor opened the show in the usual way. Because of the subject matter, the hard shot of Jamie and I got the highest score in the social media poll for this one.

Since the models wouldn't know what their final hard photo would look like until the elimination round, I took a closer look at myself in that photo while the judges were judging.

In the hard photo that was graded, my mouth was half open in the manner of a wildcat baring its teeth to scare off its enemies, and the height difference between the front and back half of my body showed the length and curve of my back, as well as the curve of Taylor's most important buttocks.

In the photo my eyes are staring straight into the camera, my body leaning slightly towards Jamie and a few inches behind him, my pose representing the language of the body that seems to tell the story between the two slaves.

Best result, I got the best hard shot of the round.

Jamie, however, despite being in good shape, seemed to be elbowed by the awkwardness of the set at the time, and his pose was heavily criticised for being too frontal to the camera, so it was difficult to see his waist in the photo, and the pose of his hands was called a gorilla by Norma.

Same picture, different result. Jamie unfortunately ended up in a shocking twelfth place.

Chris's hard shot was a mixed bag with the judges, as he was teamed with Gianna, who was pictured on top of her lying on the bar like a predator, with a cold, intimidating look in his eyes. While Norma questioned his expression as not being sexy enough, Taylor liked his body movements and called Chris' expression ugly beauty and he came fifth.

Mike, who like Jamie lacked modelling skills, took much more time than any other model with Jonathan's patience and finally came second with a photo that pleased the judges. He was joined by Alice and Rena, two of the strongest women, but both lost out in the poses.

Alice's pose showed off her length but missed the curve of her neck and her expression was too cold, finishing in fourth place. Rena, who did not interact with either Alice or Rob, looked stripped of the atmosphere of the scene in the photo, and her pose was unexciting, being pinned down by Alice in tenth place.

In this encounter between the two women and Mike, Mike seemed to have a slight edge, yet most people still wouldn't see him as a formidable opponent.

Because Mike's performance relied on Jonathan's patient coaching of his expressions, his modelling skills were far from those of Alice and Rena. This time he won by lying on the bed, with Alice and Rena in front of him blocking most of his body, and he didn't change his pose for the entire shoot.

In my opinion, Mike and Jamie are the two most likely to be brushed off if the next round of hard photos are taken in individual shots and no other models miss out.

Ashton was teamed with Nina. Ashton was his usual self, lacking the masculinity that has seen him criticised in every other way, and he finished in 8th place.

Nina was completely absorbed in the scene, or rather in Rob's charms, during the shoot with Ashton and Rob. Her entranced expression and her petite body nestled against Rob's strong chest earned her a contrasting beauty, finishing in fifth place.

Alyssa and Dan did not play well in this group, with Alyssa thankfully passing with mediocrity in seventh place. Dan, however, was completely overpowered by Rob, who was half a head taller than him in the shoot, and their types were so similar that they were one step short of being eliminated in thirteenth place. Becoming the last model to advance.

"Damn, he doesn't look like he deserves to stay at all!" Ashton couldn't help but mutter behind my ear when the camera wasn't shining through. "Compared to Rob, he looks like a roadie in the pictures! Even those neglected arm muscles look like fat..."

At Ashton's unsparing criticism, Chris nodded his head back and forth like I was going to take it out on you, and I couldn't help but laugh.

Yes, Marvin and Cheryl were in a group and the two were the first to be photographed, seemingly nervous and possibly overwhelmed by Alexandra. Marvin's body wasn't relaxed and his expression wasn't firm enough, and he ended up in eleventh place.

Cheryl's pose and expression were judged to be useless, and a malfunction in a hard photo shoot cost her the chance to continue, and Cheryl was eliminated from the competition.