Two huge Nikons with long lenses hang on off his shoulders, and a small Leica hangs on his chest.
“Claudio, give me one of the Nikons and an empty data card.”
Claudio looks like he wants to argue. He’s not going to, though. Reluctantly, he slips a data card out of one of the Nikons. Snaps in another one from his breast pocket, then hands over the camera.
“Thank you, Claudio,” and he passes the camera to me.
“Take my picture.” He instructs me.
The camera is scuffed, but it’s a top-of-the-line Nikon D780 with a 300-millimeter Carl Zeiss lens to die for. It weighs a ton, but the controls are easy and fall right under the fingers. This is a photographer’s wet dream.
I zoom the lens back as far as it will go. Leaned back, I turn the camera sideways to shoot a portrait of the man. Seeing him frame through the lens, he could be a movie star.
I move in to get him in the classic movie star cropped frame. I take a burst of six shots. Then I bracket the exposure, take three more either side—three lighter, three darker. Still holding the camera, I look over the top of it at him. His dark hint of a smile lights a charge in my pants. Damn him. My voice catches in my throat. “Just one portrait?”
“No.” He looks at two girls nearby. “Irina, Kasha, when are you on?”
Two girls rush eagerly to him. They stand on either side of him, taking the opportunity to put their hands on his chest. Blinking up into his face, one of them says, “Not for ten minutes, at least,” and she squeezes closer.
The other girl says, “That wouldn’t be nearly long enough for Konstantin.”
A strange stab, like a pang of jealousy, rips through my chest, all the way down.
Patting the two girls playfully, he tells me, “Take pictures of these two, while they getting ready.”
They both make disappointed faces. Then they hurry back to the mirror. I lean my shoulder against the wall, bracing the heavy lens with my hand and crouching low to shoot their faces as they fix their makeup.
The two girls shake their shoulders, wriggling into the wafts of sheer fabric that make up their dresses. They check each other in the mirrors. “How is this?” Irina looks from Kasha to the mirror and back.
As she does, she slips a shoulder strap off, and hitches the dress. With a pin, she fastens the skirt up at the waist on one side.
Kasha says, “Perfect, Irina you’ve really got the feel for that piece.” Then, “Do mine?”
“Yours,” Irina says, “You could wear it like a raincoat. Wide front. Hitched to the back.”
Kasha nods and tries it. “You should be designing this stuff.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start. I just know how to wear it.”
“You have an instinct. You know how to wear everything.”
“Shut up, so do you. You’re a genius at it. You see the style, you know the poses straight away.”
They go on like that, and I’m still getting my eye in. I’m feeling the framing, cropping in, focusing on how close the models are together. Catching their concentration and how tightly they work together.
He only gives me a few moments before he reaches out to me.
“Show me.” I bite my lip as I shoot off two more quick bursts.
Reluctantly, I hold out the camera and move close to him. My shoulder is against the heat of his hard chest. As I stab the button to cycle the pictures through the screen on the back of the camera, I feel the punch of his heartbeat.
His eyebrows lift. Only slightly, but enough to give me a tingling stir between my thighs.
“Okay,” his voice scrapes, “You’re a photographer.”
There’s a moment. I’m thinking, insanely, how his mouth would fit with mine. My heart skips as his top lip shapes, His eyes lock with mine. I’m certain he’s thinking the same thing. Only he’s thinking it with that animal curl in his lip.
Time stands still for that instant. My breath halts until his eye snaps away.
He calls out over his shoulder, “Claudio, you can do without this camera, can’t you?” His eye is still on me. Roaming over my tee-shirt. The back of my overalls. It feels like I’m on fire in my panties.
Back in the corner, Claudio’s face is resigned, “If you tell me to, Konstantin, yes. Of course I can.”
He’s already leading me to the back of the room. He opens the door, takes me through a short corridor, round to another short flight of metal stairs. Back up to the deck.
“Take pictures. Lots of pictures.” he tells me, “Get me great shots. Surprise me. I’ll let you have a copy of them for your portfolio.” As he’s turning, he says, “Meet me after the show. At the back of the reception room.”
When I’m sure he can’t see, I slip the data card out of my hip pocket and swap it with the one in the camera.
These pics are going to be mine. Not his.
Chapter 6
Him
NEXT TIME MY LOVING cousin Svetlana asks me why I don’t ever find time for love, I’ll show her a picture of the stowaway. I never met a woman who drove me mad the way she does.
She’s a great photographer, that’s for sure. I’ve hired and fired enough photographers. I know a great picture from one that’s just okay. She’s got the eye, and she has the instinct. But she would drive a man crazy.
I cover every part of the deck to watch the show, watching for potential catastrophes. I keep in contact with the whole of the team, making sure they’ve all got whatever they need, and everything goes to plan. Jean-Georges keeps the show’s breathtaking quick-fire pace running. He worked with DJ Akram to make the soundtrack beat quicken constantly.
Irina and Kasha are the next two models to strut down the runway. Dancers weave and dart around the slender models, moving so their sheer costumes sparkle while the models pose, chins pointed, hands on hips, shoulders out. Eyes gleaming. Lights play through the smoke and the background of the bay keeps the atmosphere crackling with drama.
The slinky bodies of the models and dancers glisten with our crystals as the lights play and shimmer over their curves. My pulse races and my cock thickens. The image unwinding and opening in my head is not of Irina’s body, or Kasha’s. It’s the more ample curves and the tough, sassy voice of the little stowaway.
When Kasha’s pelvis rolls, I’m imagining a shudder in the grip of that feisty American’s milky-soft thighs.
I shake my head. The images won’t go away. The swish of her ass, the bounce of her tits. That gleam in her eye. I want to hear her yelp and moan. To get my cock wet, deep inside her. Feel her grip and clench as I break her wide and fill her.
I have to move. My eyes sweep across all the guests. I’m keeping a regular watch for anyone who needs anything—nothing is more important at a fashion event than keeping all the guests permanently pampered. I have to watch for anyone who’s likely to cause trouble, too. Fashion people have fragile egos and hair-trigger tempers. They’re exciting to be around, but you can’t ever relax.
The bulky figure of a man slips away, moving furtively back inside Firebird. A head like a bullet and the glint of an over-sized earring. It can’t be. How could he be here? It must be someone else. I duck inside after him but he’s nowhere on board. Nowhere to be found, at least.
Chapter 7
Her
FIREWORKS BURST OVERHEAD AT the climax of the show. Zavarovski colors splash and bloom, reflected in the dark waters.
Through the whole of the performance, I ducked around, darting from place to place. So many great pictures jumped up right in front of me. It’s my first big-time show, though. I had to concentrate. Keep my feet on the floor. Never relax and think what I’ve got is good enough.
Always be looking for better. More. What have I missed? I watched the pros around the runway. I couldn’t get into the space with them. They’re all too good at using their bodies to block and keep the best views for themselves. That’s something I need to learn.
For now, I’m concentrating on getting the next great pi
cture. And I’m grateful that my pics won’t be competing with theirs.
After the show is finished, I make my way back into the ballroom. Still keeping as low a profile as I can, I slip around the edges. The volume and pitch of chatter has risen up an octave. The beats on the dance floor harder and about a dozen bpm faster, too.
Each time a server walks by, tempting everyone with trays of sparkle and fizz in the exotic cocktails on the tray, I have to resist the urge to grab one. Images of the security guard flash in my mind. The one who tells everyone what to do, who gave me the camera, who told me to meet him after the show. Thinking of meeting him sets a buzz like liquid electricity crackling through me.
Hyped and jumpy as I am, it’s tough not to lean on some liquid encouragement. But I can’t. I must stay clear and sharp.
If the big guy, Konstantin, comes to challenge me again, I don’t want to be thinking slow or missing any chances.
He makes me afraid. Thinking about him is setting embers of a fire crackling alight inside of me. My thighs tingle and my knees turn to water. I see him, on the far side of the ballroom. A head taller than everyone else, he’s coming. Headed toward the entrance. The same way that I’m going.
I don’t think he has seen me yet.
I can hardly catch my breath. Next thing I know, I’ve got a glass in my hand, tinkling with ice. It’s got fruit and pretty colored leaves. I don’t even know what it is. I asked the server.
“Mai Tai,” he says.
I’m so shaky, I have to stop myself from saying, “Might I what?”
I can’t decide whether that was the worst idea imaginable, or whether drinking it was the worst idea anyone ever had. But I don’t have to decide anymore. There’s nothing in the glass now but shards of splintered ice.
Another server passes and I put the glass back on the tray. I give myself mega-plus points for not picking up another glass straight away to take its place. I’m just at the edge of the room, by the door now.
The carpeted gangplank is just across the corridor. The lights of San Francisco twinkle behind.
He’s got his back to me now. He can’t have seen me.
A small crowd is making for the exit. The thought of him seeing me starts a panic in my gut. I have to get away. I hurry to burrow myself into the group. But I’ve still got the camera. I can’t return it now without meeting him. I’ll send it back in the morning. Or I’ll bring it. Anything. Anything so I can get way.
No. I’ll face him. What’s the big deal about that? Too late, I hear a familiar voice.
She says, “Oh, look It’s Ms. Oh-Naturale!”
My heart sags. I’m walking backwards but too late. I’m reunited with the cackling horde of Hades. Her redheaded friend chips in, “That’s what we decided we must call you.” She leans toward me. “Ms. Oh-Naturale.” They all laugh again. It’s like the sound a store window breaking. “You must tell us what you thought of the show.”
The girl with the razor cut turns and leans toward me, jabbing her pointy nose at my face like a weapon. “We must have your assessment of the iconography in the show.”
They’re all starting to giggle again.
“Yes,” the man jabs a finger at me. He stops short of actually prodding me, but probably only because he doesn’t want to risk his nail polish. I give him my best, withering eye look. Which, as far as I can see, has no effect whatever. He says, “We simply must hear your review, Ms. O-Naturale, we have to be the first. I’m dying to know.”
His voice is a little blurred, but if anything he sounds closer to the edge of hysteria than before.
“You guys,” I tell them, brightly, “You are so funny. You should do stand-up.” I was walking, “well, maybe stagger-up.”
“How the fuck you get in here?” The girl with the razor cut narrows her eyes and points her nose at me again.
“You know what,” I tell them, “I dress like this whenever I fly. That way, when I’m in first class, nobody’s going to think I’ve been bumped or upgraded.”
We’re at the gangplank. I turn in front of them and look back. I blow kisses, “Ciao, ragazzi.” And I turn. Then I run.
I trot and skip, all the way down the gangplank, back on dry land. Feeling like I’m home free. I’m walking quickly—too quickly, I know. I only have to get back to the MUNI stop. It’s not so far. But it’s only now that I realize that I’ve still got the camera. That’s good, because I’ve got the card with the shots from tonight, and my own most precious picture.
The camera also makes a huge, hefty target. It dawns on me as slow-moving figures emerge, out from the shadows. They start to surround me.
I’ll play it cool. It will be fine.
The weight of the camera bangs against my stomach. The lens alone is worth five or six thousand dollars. And it looks it, too. I tried to look around me slowly. Not to seem nervous.
A situation like this gets a whole lot worse if you show fear. I know that. I know that the best way not to show fear is not to be afraid. And there’s nothing like being in an obviously dangerous situation and trying not to feel afraid to make you absolutely terrified. My knees are almost ready to knock now.
“Hey, baby. Come over here.”
“Yeah. Yo, Missy. C’mere. Help me out with this.”
There are four of them. Moving closer. And I’m surrounded. Like an idiot, I don’t want to give up the camera. Holding onto it tight. It’s not even mine.
I know that’s the reason I don’t want to give it up. My car keys, my wallet, my phone, I would just hand them all over without question. I’m in urban California. I know stuff.
But the camera, it belongs to someone else. The camera that I’ve practically stolen, and almost by accident, I don’t want to give that up.
They’re near now. Closing in.
“What you got there, honey?”
“Looks heavy.”
Hands. Fingers. On my shoulders. Then my waist. A finger under my chin.
“Now,” a pair of hard, green eyes close to mine. Too close. Breath, sweet and hot. Too near.
“Come on, honey. We don’t have to hurt you. Hell, we can all have some fun, right?”
“Yeah,” a voice from behind. If I turn my head, they’ll attack. If I don’t, they’ll probably still attack.
Speak with a big voice, I tell myself. Sound cool and calm. Speak with authority.
“Back off.”
For a fraction of a second, they do. But then they crowd back, closer.
“Aww, honey,” the one behind, “Don’t you want to have a little fun? Everybody likes fun.”
The one in front, showing his teeth, “Yeah,” his voice thickens, “That’s why they call it ‘fun.’ Ain’t it.”
Then his head snapped back. I’m aware of another presence. A big man.
The man with his head yanked back shouts, “Who the fuck are you?”
The big man from the boat. Konstantin. I didn’t hear him come after me.
His arm swings wide and straight, like a country gate. It smashes into the nose of the attacker behind me.
He draws his arm back. The man whose head he grabbed, his fist slams hard into the man’s gut. The attacker doubles over, but at the same time, he springs back.
Leonid Unstoppable Page 3
