Brett makes an end run around Simone and Kuhn (Kat's POV)

You slip out of your room after hearing Simone's door slam shut. She sounded pissed, you think as you grab the cell off the coffee table. Bad news from Pornland? You shrug as you head back to your room. There's no way for you to understand what sort of weird things they talk about. Maybe there's an offer of some sort of freaky work like midget porn? You giggle as you imagine some of the bizarre stuff they might try and get her to do.

Checking your phone, you notice an email in the inbox. Opening the app, you see the message from Simone with another one attached. You read through it really quickly and frown at the appointment date. The end of the month is forever away. Hopefully Strawberry can speed it up some? You throw on some jeans, a tank top, and a jacket really quickly. After tying your hair up, you grab the purse and head downstairs. If you're going to fill out forms, you'll do it on the back lawn with some herbal help. Paperwork sucks.

You make your way down there and out the back door to the picnic area. It's a small plot with two wooden tables on the grass lawn under a couple of Ponderosa pines. About 20 feet back the grass gives way to a wooded area you know leads to a small creek. It'd be a pretty tranquil area if someone a few floors up weren't playing some loud metal. At least you have it all to yourself. Sighing, you light up and open the email app to fill out the form. To your surprise, there isn't much to it. It's mostly an employment quiz asking the normal things like name, social, and contact information.

You take off your jacket and pull your top down a bit to get some cleavage going. Can't hurt to advertise, you figure and snap a quick selfie from mid-chest up and attach it to the paperwork. At that point, it's just a matter of hitting the send button, easy stuff. You slip the jacket back on, sit on the bench and stare off into the woods. It's a bit on the cold side so getting covered up again feels good. A few minutes later as you extinguish your smoke, you hear the phone ringing. Checking the screen you see the Caller ID says it's from "Nightshore Modeling". You unlock the cell and answer.

"Kat speaking."

A chipper male voice replies to your greeting over some loud traffic noises in the background wherever they happen to be.

"Ms. Chiang? My name's Brett and I was looking over your questionnaire."

You toss the butt into the trash can and walk over towards the woods. It seems a good idea to put some distance between you and the music given all the noise on his end. Outside of a couple of stray mentions from Simone, all you know about him is from the casting video she shared with you. He seemed pretty into the blowjob he got in the scene so you figure the advantage here is yours if you handle him right.

"What a pleasant surprise! I never caught your last name so I hope you don't mind me calling you Brett. I guess I could go with sir too if you like."

You offer a playful giggle knowing from experience it tends to put guys at ease.

"Brett is fine, honey. When Simone sent me your picture I thought you looked familiar. The selfie you sent with the paperwork cinched it. You work downtown at The Pitstop don't you?"

Your eyes widen as he catches you off guard a bit. Where did he get that information? You didn't include it in the forms you filled out. Did Simone mention it at some point?

"Sometimes. I do a bunch of different things, to be honest. I waitress there and do some gig work among other things. I have to hustle to pay the bills, the cost of living here is a bear. It's all part-time and nothing that I'm too attached to. I want to make sure I'm talking to the right guy. You're the casting agent for FireBox right?"

"They pay me for twenty hours worth of casting most months. Otherwise, I spend the rest of my time on my modeling business."

"So why the question on that crappy bar I slum at?"

"I try to keep tabs on girls in town I might be able to do business with. A couple of months back a friend told me about this cute girl he bought some weed from at a bar. He said you'd hinted you might be up for some other stuff but he was in a hurry and wasn't able to explore it further. I'd been a bit too busy to follow up. Imagine my surprise when Simone was pushing you for a gig?"

As he explains, you grow more uneasy feeling your advantage in the conversation slip away. You expected to be more of a cipher to him and that's problematic. Best to push a bit and figure out what his angle is here, you figure.

"Ummmm Ok. I'm at a loss for what this has to do with the casting though," you offer as casually as you can manage. "Simone told me a lot about the work she does and it sounds fascinating. So I'd like to give it a shot."

"Well, I'm only contracted to provide a set amount of time for casting and that's booked up for a few weeks. That's all in the email you've got. As I mentioned, I do have my own modeling agency and I was thinking you might want to do a few jobs for me in the meantime. It isn't quite as lucrative as the FB stuff but it pays better than waitressing or probably what you make for the extras on the side."

"I'm not averse to doing a few photoshoots but I was hoping to get the prelims out of the way for the casting and stuff. The sooner I get on board the better I think."

"The problem there is I pitched a plan to your friend to speed this all up but got a pair of formal rejections back from her agent rather quickly. She doesn't seem in a big hurry to get that done if she has to lift a finger to help anyway. So when I saw your email, I figured maybe we could work something out here."

You stare off into the treeline thinking through your options. You have no clue what he and Simone had cooking but it sounds like that went badly. Better tread carefully here, you figure. If Simone's agent is warning her off this guy's stuff maybe it's bad news. Then again, it could have had something to do with her FireBox employment and that doesn't apply to you at the moment. They don't even know you exist yet, so one point to you.

"I'm willing to listen. I mean waiting until the end of the month won't kill me but speeding it up would be a plus."

"Sounds good. I'm not sure if she explained to you how casting works but normally it runs something like this. I take a bunch of sexy underwear pictures of you and submit it to FireBox. A rep looks them over and gives a thumbs up or down and tells me what they want for a casting video if they like you. We shoot the video and they evaluate from there. Make sense?"

"I think I get that. Normally we'd do that on the appointment I assume?"

"Normally the pictures get taken on the first appointment and if they like them, I schedule a second. Simone got lucky because they were really pushing for her type at the time and one of the bosses made a quick decision to pay me a rush fee to get it done right away. They aren't hard up for Asians at the moment though. Don't get me wrong, I think they'll pick you up pretty quick but they won't ask me to fast track you like they did with her I don't think."

"So? What do you propose?"

"Easy. You come down to my office and we'll take the pictures today. I'll send them right in and see what happens. I expect they'll make an offer fairly quickly. They don't get much traffic on weekdays so that works for you. Do keep in mind, I'm not getting paid for this. It's a free hour of my time. Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll put a rush on it. If that happens, I'll push all my appointments back, schedule a casting video for this weekend and you'll be in. The special fee makes all that trouble worth it to me."

"OK."

"But here is the truth. I expect an offer to come quick but I don't expect them to pay a speed fee to get it done right away. So we can either get the video done on your appointment at the end of the month or we can work something out and I'll get it done quicker. The picture shoot alone is worth $500 so you'll at least get that upfront even if you decide to wait until the scheduled casting time for the video. It's all a win for you however it works out."

"No strings attached?"

You're kinda surprised he isn't holding the photoshoot hostage too. $500 seems an awful big carrot to cede this early in a negotiation in your mind. You keep the thoughts to yourself though as he answers.

"The only things you are agreeing to here is the photo session to get this rolling and hearing me out on a few jobs afterward. I can promise you upfront none of it will cause you a problem where FB is concerned. So long as you aren't convicted of a major felony, they aren't picky when hiring a girl they like. They have lots of rules once you sign a contract with them though."

"Assuming I agree, when would you want to do this?"

"I'm on my way to the office now but I'm out of town so it'll take me about two hours to get there. So are you up for it, baby?"

You mute the phone and make him wait a few long seconds as you consider the offer. It'd probably be best to check with Simone, she knows this stuff better than you do. That said, she's already told you the photoshoot and casting are fine and that's all you'd be committing to except for hearing him out. It'd also speed stuff up a bit considering you'll be getting the photos done now instead of at the appointment.