SUED FOR PEACE (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 11) (5 page)

They all tried to keep their faces from showing anything, but finally, Darryl gave up and just smiled broadly. His grin was contagious, and soon they were all chuckling. “Bethany Anne,” Darryl said, “we are the Queen’s Bitches, of course, we are going to have fan clubs!” Eric turned and high-fived Darryl. Scott just laughed quietly.

John spoke while pointing to Eric and Darryl, “Those two ass-wipes have been having bets on who can get more fans. However, someone leaked pictures of Scott without a shirt on, and he got something like three thousand fans in twenty-four hours.”

“Unbelievable,” Bethany Anne murmured looking at the three, “So, you guys don’t have a problem with this?”

“Well, are we going to have to get rid of the chest hair?” Eric asked, “Because, I’m a hunk of burning love, and I’m not sure I can handle having a wax job. Scott and I watched the
Forty-Year-Old Virgin
Tuesday night. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be just as big a baby as that guy was.” He rubbed his chest in a circular motion, “I don’t think anyone can photoshop a bad wax job off all this!”
 

“Hell, just have a woman running her hands through that chest hair, a few girls will get jealous and perk up!” Scott tossed out.

“Hell yeah!” Eric’s eyes lit up, and he turned to Bethany Anne, “What’s our budget for this? Can I hire a model or two to pose with me?”

Bethany Anne stared at the man, dumbstruck, “Younatalie

 
want models in your beefcake pictures?” She turned to the men, “You do realize this is a calendar for women, right?”

“Well, The Fire Department of New York is doing one. Guys on one side, girls on the other.” John mentioned before realizing he might have given too much information away. He got a surreptitious glance from Scott.

“What?” Bethany Anne turned towards John as John watched Scott put up his fingers to his head and act like he shot himself as he rolled his eyes behind Bethany Anne.

“Well,” John ad-libbed, “I was looking into New York after our little episode there a few months ago, and I ended up on a website that was talking about the new addition of women from the Fire Department doing a calendar. And…Uh…” John faltered, trying his best for slightly embarrassed, “Well, for research purposes I went to go see what the pictures might look like for the women.” he shrugged as the guys all smiled at his discomfort.

Knowing full well if they didn’t pull this off, it would be hell to pay later.

“I’ll tell you what, how about you guys agree to the beefcake, but I’ll say there is a condition that the women have to do a few poses for a personal calendar that can only go to you guys. That way, they can put up or shut-up?”

Scott grinned, “Hell yeah!” Then Scott asked, “Do we get to choose?”

“Choose?” Bethany Anne turned to him, “and who would be on your list, Mr. English?”

Scott’s face went red, “Uh…Who is in the group again?”

“Uh huh…” She smiled, “Ok guys, I want you to think of who you would like in the calendar!” She clapped her hands twice, loudly, “Come on! You know who it is!”
 

The guys all looked at each other when she started laughing and stood up, “Oh my God. This is priceless!” She began walking towards the door, “Don’t forget your push-ups, Mr. Escabar, I’ll have Scott stand on your back in my place. He doesn’t have heels!” She waved over her shoulder to them and exited their rooms.

Once she was out of the room, the guys turned to face each other, confusion on their faces.

“Does she know we bugged the last meeting?” Eric asked.

John turned back to look at the door and his missing boss and admitted, “I don’t think so, this is much worse.”

“Worse?” Darryl asked, “How the hell could it be worse?”

John told the guys, while still watching the door, “I think she just got the names of every woman we like.”

The men all turned towards the door.

“Oh shit,” Darryl said.

—

“They want WHAT!” Cheryl Lynn gasped, her look of shock complete as her eyes darted among the three other women in Bethany Anne’s suite.

“Wait a fucking second,” Jean spoke up next, “This was about getting those guys to bare their bodies, not us expose ours!”
 

“Why are you worried?” Cheryl Lynn turned to Jean, “You have a gorgeous body. I’ve pushed two kids out, and if the girls aren’t a little less perky, I don’t know what is!”

Bethany Anne had told the ladies the request, modified for her personal reasons, and sat back to watch the fur fly.

Damn, she wished she had thought to pop some popcorn.

“And who is going to ask Natalia to join this?” Cheryl Lynn continued, “She didn’t even start this project, and someone is going to have to ask her to pose in a bathing suit?
 
She’s the XO on the Ad Aeternitatem for pete’s sake!”

“Hey, you guys are asking them to go shirtless with really tiny skivvies, all they want is a one-piece,” Patricia reminded them.

“That’s easy for you to say, your name didn’t get drawn out of the hat!” Cheryl Lynn hit back.

“Why are you having such a hissy-fit?” Jean asked Cheryl Lynn, “You’ve got a body to die for, if I had the extra three inches in height you have, I’d be dancing a pole somewhere.”

Cheryl Lynn turned back to Jean and pointed to her, “This is your fault, you hussy!” Cheryl Lynn kept going, even as Jean started laughing, “What the hell am I going to say to my kids?”

“Momma’s got back?” Patricia suggested.

Bethany Anne couldn’t stop the short laugh escaping from her lips. She quickly put her hand over her mouth as the arguing women turned towards her. She got out a ‘sorry’ before Cheryl Lynn continued the conversation looking to her, “Who is going to ask Gabrielle?”

“Oh hell, that’s easy,” Patricia said and pulled out a phone. She hit a couple of numbers before waiting for a second as the women watched, “Hey, Gabby baby, it’s Patricia. You know that favor you owe me? Yeah, that one. Hey, it’s time to pay me back for a good cause. What? No, you don’t have to off someone for me.” She paused for a moment before chuckling, “No, I can take care of him all by myself.”

Now, all three of the ladies were engrossed in Patricia’s side of the conversation. Jean looked over to Bethany Anne and mouthed ‘your dad?’ to her. Bethany Anne shrugged as they continued to listen.

“No, I want you to wear a hot bathing suit and get pictures taken with Jean, Cheryl Lynn and Natalia just for the guys. No, they didn’t ask,” Patricia glanced over at Bethany Anne, who returned her look with an innocent smile, “I guess someone ratted them out. No, I don’t know who asked for you. I could speculate, but so can you. Who knows, maybe it was John.”

“Oh, he can ask for Gabrielle when I yank his pecker off,” Jean muttered. Bethany Anne could hear Gabrielle’s laughing as she heard Jean's comment.

“That’s harsh, don’t you think?” Cheryl Lynn asked Jean.

Jean turned to Cheryl Lynn, “Ok, so how about it was Scott that asked for Gabrielle?”
 

Cheryl Lynn’s mouth pressed together before answering, “Well, I would have to accept that he had interests in someone else, not every person is going to return my interest.”

“Trust me, if you have their pecker, they will be focused on you, and you alone.” Jean told her, “I mean ... it doesn’t have to be in a bad way, a careful pull, then another careful pull, and you…”

“Enough!” Cheryl Lynn put up her hand, shaking her head, “How can you go from yanking their pecker off, to jerking it off in two seconds?”

“That’s not jerking it off, that’s called a ‘come along’ gesture,” Jean told the other woman, winking saucily at her as she used her hands to make a gesture as if she was pulling a rope. “Guaranteed to get their attention.”

“And a clean up on aisle twelve,” Patricia added, holding the phone away from her ear to reduce the pain she felt as Gabrielle laughed hard and loud on the other side of the line.

“Only if you are really, really good.” Jean agreed.

“Or, it’s been a while, so don’t get too full of yourself,” Cheryl Lynn retorted.

“Baby, when I get done with John, the only name he better remember is mine. If there is another name, I’ll just have to try harder.” She paused for a second, “Or get Gabrielle to off the other bitch.”

“I’m not even going there,” Cheryl Lynn admitted, “That would be too easy for you.”

“With what part?” Jean asked.

“Harder.”

“Oh, let’s talk about the …” Jean started talking before Bethany Anne put up a hand to stop Jean in mid-sentence.

“Would you ladies mind continuing this another time? We are on a schedule. Patricia can ask Natalia, and if she agrees, then Operation Beefcake is a go.”

Patricia pointed to her phone and nodded that Gabrielle was fine with doing the photo shoot.
 

Bethany Anne wasn’t worried about the five-hundred-year-old woman. A slinky bathing suit wouldn’t offend her at all. Hell, she would act concerned, but Bethany Anne doubted full nudity would bug her either. As you age, you tend to lose your inhibitions and five hundred years is a lot of time in which to lose them.

“Ok, next step is the photographer, who is going to take the pictures?” Bethany Anne asked.

“Why not get the same guy that did the shots of your cars?” Jean asked.

“What was his name?” Cheryl Lynn asked, “I can look it up if you don’t know it.”

“Mark Koeff, from California. I think he goes by another name as well for some of his work.” Bethany Anne said, “I’ll call him and ask. If he will do it, I’ll get a Pod over to pick him up later so he can work with the guys.”

“Do you think they will have problems in front of the camera?” Jean asked.

Bethany Anne eyed the shorter woman, “I think if I let you rub John down with the baby oil, he won’t be able to get in front of the camera.

Jean smiled mischievously, “Sure he would…eventually.”

Rancho Santa Margarita, California - USA

Mark Koeff had been surprised to get a phone call from Bethany Anne earlier that day. It took him about thirty-seven seconds to say ‘yes.'

He grabbed two bags of camera equipment to hand to the man who had landed a black Pod that night in his backyard. It was a good thing the vehicle could fly straight up and down, his yard was pretty small. Orange County had a lot of positive things going for it. However, large lot sizes weren't one of them.

Tanner, the guy helping him, grabbed the two heavy bags that contained the lighting equipment and walked out of Mark’s kitchen into the back yard. Mark watched him for a second as it sunk in that Tanner wasn’t struggling with the weight at all.

Kari, Mark’s wife, came and kissed him good-bye. He stepped over to the twenty-seven inch iMac he used for his business and shut it down. Mark had rescheduled some headshot work by a few days to do this gig, but only one person complained, He offered to do his pictures for free, just a week late, which seemed to please everyone.

“Come back safe, sweetheart,” Kari told him. They kissed another time, and the two walked out to see Tanner standing in front of the Pod.

“Ready?” he asked Mark.

Mark turned to Kari, “I’ll be safe. I’m going to be shooting pictures of heavy duty guards. I’ll just hide behind them if anything happens.” He chuckled as he sat down in the Pod and Tanner helped him strap in with the five-point harness.

Kari watched as the black Pod lifted into the darkness before disappearing from her eyes. She turned to go inside, hoping she didn’t hear about her husband in the news.

—

Mark was amused to be teaching four of the most famous guys in the protection business the ins and outs of his profession to calm their fears. While he often had to reduce anxiety for those he photographed, doing that for these four, who probably walked through walls rather than finding the door, was funny.

As long as he didn’t let them know he was laughing on the inside, he should be fine.

Mark had made it to the Pacific to land on the QBS Polarus with the famed Ad Aeternitatem a couple of hundred yards away, heading to the west at a slow pace.

His stuff was offloaded as he was shown to the meeting room on the huge ship. It was in here that he found the four guards waiting for him. Mark had kept a few things with him to help with the discussion. He shook everyone’s hand and exchanged names before opening his bags. Placing the contents on a table at the front of the room, he looked up to see that the four men had taken seats in the front row.

Mark held up a camera body. “This is a Canon 5D Mark III, I have the Mark IV pre-release version Canon provided me to review before release, but for this shoot, I’m going with my tried and true tools.” He looked at his attentive audience, “I’m sure you have preferred tools you use.” He got some nods of agreement.

Mark set the camera down and picked up a long cylinder, “This is a Canon 70-200 zoom lens, which gives me the flexibility to go slightly wider if I need, but primarily to take advantage of its 2.8 aperture at a 200% compression factor to obtain dappled, indistinct backgrounds. I also love the way it flattens the nose and brings out the eyes, making a deeper spiritual connection with the viewer. This lets the viewer catch a glimpse into the soul, which is eminently more appealing.”

He put down the lens and picked up the next piece of equipment, “For lighting, I’ll use the on-camera flash as a fill. It’s called this because it fills in shadows caused by the main lights. It also triggers slaved kicker strobes, which I’ll place one on each side to rim light your torso and your face. This will also create more detail, texture, and dimensionality, showing your muscles better.”

Mark put down the flash and leaned back against the table to speak to the guys. “Regardless of the site, I’ll want the positioning or pose not only to reflect the natural activity of the location but to possibly tell a story. That will create a feeling of catching you in action, unaware of being photographed.”

Scott put up a hand, and Mark paused, “Can you give us an example?”
 

Mark nodded, “Sure, for instance, suppose we choose to shoot at an animal shelter demonstrating your compassionate nature and love of animals. I’d have one of you comforting a small dog, wrapped in your shirt. Should we to go to a beach location, you might be standing in line for lunch at a quaint bistro in the noonday sun, needing no shirt, or walking away with your hands full with a small plate, sandwich, and drink. Should Cheryl Lynn’s goal be to capture you in work-related activity, like guarding, I’d have to consult with you and ask you what sort of scenario would either stop you from wearing a shirt or cause you to disrobe and then we’d recreate that scene. The idea is to create images that make women viewers feel a bit of the voyeur, catching you involved in real activities. This allows the ladies’ imaginations to run wild, engendering emotional connection and a sexier image.” He smiled to the guys who were all nodding in understanding.