Ultrahuman 01 - Ugly

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘For a model, you seem to be doing a lot of the organising,’ Penny observed.

  ‘We do this on a low budget to maximise returns for the charity. I volunteered to handle the models, hiring, and making sure they are cared for on the shoot.’

  ‘Oh, well if you need some secretarial work done,’ June said, grinning, ‘we’re available at no extra charge.’

  ‘I will keep this in mind,’ Dom replied. She turned and opened the door. ‘Enjoy your afternoon, tomorrow the work begins.’

  ~~~

  The hotel they were staying in was not huge, but it was privately owned and on the northern end of Miami Beach. It had a pool, but the sand was a hundred yards away. It also had a spa with saunas and massage tables, and Dom had arranged access for her models.

  And that was why, after some persuasion from June, Penny found herself lying on her stomach wearing nothing but a towel draped over her buttocks, while a rather attractive woman named Stefanie, who had very strong hands, turned her muscles into soup.

  ‘I don’t think I can move,’ she drawled, the sound somewhat muffled by the pillow her face was half-pressed into.

  ‘That’s kind of the idea,’ June mumbled from the table beside hers.

  ‘I think it’s some sort of super power. It’d be great for incapacitating people.’

  ‘I think it’s too slow. Just relax.’

  ‘I am relaxed. If I get more relaxed I’ll fall asleep.’

  ‘If madam wishes, that won’t be a problem,’ Stefanie put in.

  ‘I’m enjoying it too much. You have really talented hands.’ As soon as she said it, Penny was wondering what she was thinking, but Stefanie seemed unfazed.

  ‘Madam has exceptionally fine muscle tone. It’s always a pleasure to work on a body like yours.’

  Penny was really not used to flirting and, taken at face value, the statement was just a compliment on a body which was, after all, enhanced by whatever power drove Ultrahumans. It was just that Cygnus was a far more libidinous woman than Penny, and she thought it was a come-on.

  Stefanie’s hands lifted from Penny’s back and the masseuse said, ‘If madam would turn over when she is ready? I’ll work on your front next.’

  Penny swallowed. Cygnus really wanted Stefanie to work on her front.

  ~~~

  ‘Stefanie was after giving you more than a rub down,’ June stated, her lips curled into a mischievous smirk.

  Stretched out on a bench in the women’s sauna with her eyes closed, Penny could not really tell whether she was blushing. She also could not see the smirk, but she could hear it. If the smirk had not been there, Penny might have gone for embarrassed surprise, but since June was being mean…

  ‘I wasn’t entirely sure about that until she started working on my thighs. I think I was actually vibrating.’

  ‘That’s mean. I want to make your thighs vibrate.’

  ‘We’ll be in bed together tonight…’

  There was a fraction of a second of silence while June tried to work out whether she was being serious or not. Then, ‘Don’t tease me like that.’

  ‘You’re pouting, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes I am.’

  Penny gave a weary-sounding giggle and turned to lie flat on the bench, one arm over her eyes.

  ‘Cygnus would take you to bed,’ Penny said after a minute of silence.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Penny’s straight… I think Cygnus will take it where she finds it. That joke about you keeping your hands to yourself? It applies to me too.’

  ‘Uh… Well…’

  ‘You’ve got Red, I’ve got Bobby, and we’re friends. Do you really want to change that? It could complicate things. A lot.’

  ‘I… You’re right. It would get very complicated. I think I’d rather have you as a friend than worry over what might happen if it became something else.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Penny was not quite certain that June sighed; it might have been the steam hissing in the pipes. She decided it was best to think it was.

  ~~~

  Not knowing what to wear for the first meeting of the shoot, and knowing that it was more of a meet-and-greet than a staff meeting, Penny and June went for mini-dresses and heels. They were in good company. Dom had finally given in to the warm, humid atmosphere of southern Florida in November, and was back in a strapless, very short dress and high-heeled slingbacks. Everyone else was similarly dressed, aside from the photographer; he was in shorts.

  Penny took stock as she walked across the restaurant floor toward the table Dom had arranged for the group. There were six girls at the table she did not recognise, as well as the lone man. Dom had all the bases covered, it seemed: blondes, brunettes, redheads, buxom, small, wide hips, and narrow ones. One of the women had to be Susan, the make-up artist, though they all looked attractive enough to be models.

  One of them was almost certainly Moon Coyote. She did not quite have the stereotypical Native American feature set, but there was definitely a lot of it there, and her skin was the classic reddish-brown. There were also tattoos on her left arm and chest, quite visible in the pale-cream tank-dress she was wearing. The arm one seemed to have a lot of feathers while the one on her chest looked like a dreamcatcher strung as a necklace.

  ‘Ah,’ Dom said as they walked up to the table, ‘now we are complete, aside from one other who has yet to confirm…’ She frowned and then smiled again. ‘But we will get to that. Introductions!’

  There were names; Penny hoped she would be able to match them with the faces in the morning. Susan the make-up girl, who was also handling costumes and dropping Dom’s name a lot to get permissions for sites to shoot in, was one of the blondes. She was attractive, but not as secure about herself as the other girls seemed to be. Well, less and more; Susan was not the kind of girl who took off her clothes and posed in front of a camera, but she also did not obsess about calorie intake and carbohydrates. The photographer was Jon, without an ‘h’; he made a point of that. He was pretty rather than handsome, young and cute rather than manly. If he was gay he was catering to the stereotypes too much, but he seemed too enamoured of Dom’s breasts for that. Moon Coyote told everyone to call her ‘Moon.’ She had given up her real name, she said, and ‘Moon’ was not a bad name anyway.

  Penny was introduced as Cygnus. Three of the girls had flown down with them from New Millennium, though one, Hanna, was from DC. They all recognised her from ACPN or other news channels. Shona, the girl from Los Angeles, recognised Cygnus from a cable show she watched on Ultrahuman fashion.

  ‘June designed my costume,’ Penny said. ‘She’s to blame.’ Which got some giggles.

  The chatter over dinner was mostly about modelling, which left Penny and Moon a bit out of things. Dom had selected models who were building their careers, so there were a lot of questions for the more senior woman to answer. She admitted up front that the reason for picking unknowns was financial; the more costs they could trim, the more money they could eventually hand over to charity. That it gave young models a chance to appear on a, hopefully, popular calendar and so get them more jobs was a plus.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Dom said as the coffee was served, ‘we start work. Susan and Jon will be taking most of you out to start getting solo shots done. All of you will have at least one solo picture published, so we will need to do a lot of shooting to find just the right one. Later in the week, we will set up some pairs, perhaps a group one. We will see how that goes.’

  ‘You won’t be with us?’ Hanna asked. She was the least confident of the group.

  ‘I’ll be going out with Moon, Cygnus, and June to meet our other model. Hopefully we can persuade her that the cause is a good one.’

  ‘Just try not to make her angry,’ Susan put in. She was a local girl and had been doing most of the work in trying to persuade Ever to join the team. ‘Seriously, you don’t ever want to see her when she’s pissed off.’

  New Millennium City, MD.

  ‘I’m gla
d you like the dress,’ Andrea purred.

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ Lena replied.

  Technically, the garment had been classed as a slip, but given the circumstances it counted as a dress. Black, very stretchy, strapless, with lace cups. Andrea had been a little embarrassed buying it, especially since the saleswoman had made some comment about her boyfriend being a lucky guy. The point was that Lena was enjoying pawing her through the thin fabric.

  ‘The guy on the door downstairs enjoyed it too,’ Andrea added.

  Lena grunted disapproval. ‘I’d mention that to Poppa, but then the guy might end up in the bay with his throat slit.’ Her hands worked the skirt up a couple of inches. Her fingers brushed the bare skin of Andrea’s behind.

  ‘Seems like the security is a little less heavy-handed. Just more groping.’

  ‘Poppa’s backed off the Cygnus woman,’ Lena replied. Her fingers starting to tease. ‘He’s just worried about Twilight sneaking in here.’ Andrea squirmed as Lena found a sensitive spot. Lena giggled. ‘There’s some guy out there hunting Cygnus. The guards say he’s killed Ultras before.’

  Andrea focussed on what the fingers were doing to avoid tensing. Someone was hunting Cygnus, someone who had killed Ultras in the past, and she was out of town and probably not being as careful as she should be.

  ‘If you don’t get serious with those fingers soon, I’ll pout.’

  Lena giggled again. ‘Don’t take the dress off; you look really sexy in it.’

  ‘Your wish is my command,’ Andrea replied. ‘All night.’

  10th November.

  Andrea opened her eyes and found herself looking at a mass of blonde hair. She was spooned against Lena’s naked back, in her big bed, and, for just a second, it felt remarkably good. The mobster’s daughter was warm, her skin was smooth, and she had genuine affection for the woman in bed with her. Andrea did not have anyone else in her life who actually felt that way about her…

  But it was a lie, and she knew it. She would leave this place feeling disgusted with herself, go home and shower until she felt less dirty, and then plot ways of killing Lena’s father. In a way, Andrea hoped that Lena never discovered that she was Twilight; the girl had not asked to be the daughter of the man Andrea blamed for her brother’s death, and the betrayal would hurt. Maybe it would hurt more than just Lena.

  Pushing the thought aside, Andrea turned from Lena’s back and sat up on the edge of the bed. Her slip was now a belt, but she was still wearing it, as requested. She pulled it up over her breasts and then stood to shimmy it back over her hips. There was a stirring behind her.

  ‘You’re going?’ Lena’s voice was sleepy, and plaintive.

  ‘I have to,’ Andrea replied, not turning around.

  ‘You could stay for breakfast…’

  ‘I can’t. Sorry.’ Fixing her face into a smile, she turned and kneeled on the edge of the bed to give Lena a kiss. It turned deeper than she had intended, lingering until Andrea pulled away, unaccountably embarrassed. ‘I… really need to go.’ Turning, she started for the bedroom door.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ Lena said; it was her way of not saying goodbye.

  ‘Please,’ Andrea replied. It was crazy, but she wanted that. In Lena’s room, where she had to be on her guard against giving herself away and she made love to a woman to get information, she felt more like Andrea than she ever did outside. Outside, Twilight was always there to push her onward.

  I’m really messed up, she thought as she found her shoes and coat.

  Miami, FL.

  Penny’s eyes fluttered open and she found herself looking at a mass of black hair. Sometime in the night she had ended up curled up against June’s back, cuddled against her as Bobby did to Penny some nights. There was a flicker of panic which subsided quickly. It was not like they were having sex; cuddling was okay, right? Friends could cuddle.

  After a few seconds, however, Penny decided that proprieties should be observed and rolled onto her back.

  ‘I was enjoying that,’ June mumbled. ‘It’s not like we’re naked.’

  That was true; they were both in cropped tops and panties having decided that nude was not a great way to proceed. It was not as much fabric as Penny had thought, when it came down to it.

  ‘Yeah, well… It’s time to get up.’

  ‘We’ve got an hour before breakfast.’

  ‘Oh… If I turn back I’ll… change things. I’m going to take a shower.’

  ‘Okay. Wake me when you come out if I nod off again.’

  ‘Sure.’ Penny slipped out from under the covers and padded around the carpet toward the bathroom.

  ‘This is going to be harder than I thought,’ June mumbled just before Penny opened the door.

  Pausing with her hand on the handle, Penny tried to think of an answer and finally decided there was not really a good one. She carried on going as though she had not heard her friend.

  The Everglades.

  Moon Coyote checked the GPS device she was using to navigate, looked down, and then pointed toward a small, wooden building perched on an island in the swamp.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Down there.’

  Dom checked where she was pointing and then started down. Moon was in her arms as they flew over the Everglades. Behind and slightly above, Penny was carrying June, and she followed Dom downward toward the small jetty beside the hut.

  ‘This is where we’re meeting her?’ June asked once all four of them were on the deck.

  ‘According to this,’ Moon replied, waving her GPS.

  ‘She can’t leave the Everglades for too long,’ Dom said, ‘finds it uncomfortable when she does, and we are trying to persuade her, so we meet her where she says.’

  Penny walked up to the hut, knocked on the door and got no answer, and then tried the door, finding it unlocked. Inside were a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs, a small table against one wall, a cupboard, and no sign of anyone.

  ‘Well,’ she told the others, ‘she’s not here yet.’

  Dom looked up, checking the position of the sun. ‘I think we’re a little early…’

  There was a sound: a rippling of water, or a rustling of leaves. It became more pronounced, like a sudden rush of waves, and they all turned toward the end of the jetty in time to see Ever emerging from the shallow water as though she were growing out of the mud beneath.

  She was, for want of a better word, beautiful; Penny could definitely see why Dom wanted her on the calendar. Her body was slim and long in the leg and she had very full, very pert breasts, but the first thing you noticed about her was her skin. It was green, the verdant green of healthy plant life. Her eyes were blank, green orbs, adding an exotic touch of unreality to her. Her hair, which was straight and fell to her waist, was a luscious blue-green colour, paler at the crown. And she was quite naked.

  Ever stepped up onto the wooden deck, her eyes scanning over the four women. There was no animosity there, but there was no real pleasure in seeing them either.

  ‘You are a little early,’ Ever said, her voice soft and sultry, ‘but I was watching the hut. I don’t keep time by watches and humans aren’t used to working from the sun and moon.’

  ‘Ever,’ Dom said, stepping forward and smiling. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am…’

  ‘Dominika Zuyev,’ Ever interrupted. ‘Your associate mentioned your name and I asked one of the Rangers about you. He showed me your picture on a magazine.’ She had a distant sort of tone, a little like she was above everything and everyone, or her mind was elsewhere.

  ‘Right. You asked to meet me and the other Ultras on the project. This is Moon Coyote…’

  Ever bowed her head to the Native American. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got on so well with the local Seminole since they began their gambling activities. Too much business, not enough nature.’

  ‘I’m Cahuilla,’ Moon replied, ‘though I try to be a representative of all our tribes as much as possible.’

  ‘And this is Cygn
us,’ Dom went on. ‘She’s quite a new Ultra, but she’s been making a name for herself in New Millennium.’

  ‘And she is very attractive,’ Ever said, smiling for the first time, ‘which cannot hurt sales.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  Penny blushed. ‘No more attractive than you, Ever.’

  Ever lifted a hand, looking at her long, green fingers. ‘Many prefer their women to be pink, or at least a shade normally found in humans.’

  ‘I doubt that’ll be a problem for our market,’ Dom replied. ‘We also brought along June here. She’s not an Ultra, but she’s a friend of Cygnus’ and I wanted you to meet one of our normal models.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am,’ June said, looking a little awed. If Penny were honest, she was feeling a little awed herself.

  ‘Ma’am?’ Ever said, the smile becoming a grin. ‘I don’t think I’m that old yet. Go in. I keep this place in case I have to meet people from outside. Most of them come by boat…’

  ‘Most probably can’t fly,’ Penny replied. As she turned toward the door again, it opened on its own. She glanced back at Ever and noted the mischievous quirk which had crept over her grin; among Ever’s extensive list of powers was the control of plants and wood.

  There were not enough chairs, but Ever settled herself on the floor as soon as she was inside, so Penny did the same. Moon actually looked more comfortable cross-legged on the floorboards, which left Dom and June to sit on the seats mainly because it would have looked rude not to use them.

  ‘Susan tells me that you are aiming to raise money for various ecological projects,’ Ever said, getting straight down to business.

  That was Dom’s domain. ‘Susan came up with the idea. There are four conservation projects in the Glades, and two around Chesapeake Bay which I thought deserved some extra funding.’

  The green woman nodded. ‘Susan told me of the four here. I’m aware of them. I approve. Your two… are outside of my domain. I am inclined to participate, but I am unused to posing for photographs.’

  ‘Well, neither am I,’ Moon told her. ‘I agreed to this because, well, it’s a good cause and my fee is going to a project I have helping young Cahuilla get to college.’