Chapter 1
Clean-shaven apart from a sliver he'd missed, portrait photographer Rush Drum (34), moved his midriff appendage to a more comfortable position and sat.
His mind was running rampant again.
Work overflow, he called it.
He had so many things to do. Too many for his mother and a dumb-ass like himself to manage. Yet none concerned late payment of bills or official notification of non-payment of traffic fines or calls to answer in court always nothing more than minor charges of assault.
Rush (actually Ernie) always offered the court the same defence: people got angry with him when told to fuck off.
Inevitably, because of his wheedling charm (super-developed as a portrait photographer of many stoic clients) and apparent sincere expressions of remorse, together with eagerness to apologise to the 'ignorant fuddy-duddy complainant' (Rush's words outside of Court), successive judges invariably dismissed the charges as being too frivolous to proceed against a clearly remorseful defendant.
An impressive collection of film and singing stars, musicians, union bosses, business tycoons, famous sportspeople, politicians, sensational strippers, best-selling authors, funeral directors on the rise and Mayors losing popularity, knew Rush and most revered him.
That's because his reputation for creating magic in portraiture, even out of practically nothing of merit, and often his creative touch proved to be so beneficial for them.
Some of Ernie's best work hang internationally in art galleries.
Perhaps the best example of his proclaimed 'insanely creative artistic talent' is the portrait of Samuel Pearson, chairman of the world's leading company in designing the rebuild of failing sewerage systems in cities.
That sounds boring. But wait!
Chairman Pearson , dressed in a morning suit of the gentry. was photographed by Rush at a European city's official opening of the Stage One section of its rebuilt sewage processing facility.
Mr Pearson was posed (after two hours of preparatory rehearsals with his second hand covering his exposed penis), urinating on one of the stainless-steel sewage intake pipes with a beautiful smile on his face... eyes closed, mouth loosely opened.
Brilliant.
Incidentally, several male distinguished guests followed Sam's urinating example, watched by their lady-folk with a mix of horrified or envious expressions. That gave media photographers an unexpected bonanza of gaping women of interest as peeing male dignitaries would have failed to pass news editor's 'good taste' censorship.
The gaping women photo quickly electronically circulated around the world by a media agency, leaving it to the caption to delicately describe the reason for the mass of mixed expressions.
That chamber at the sewerage processing plant in that major German city is now its 7th most popular place visited, according to municipal statistics.
Photographs from the Stage 1, taken on opening day, hang on the plant room walls, and include a huge self-portrait of Rush shown wearing dirty jeans, a classy orange shirt, his face sporting a razor cut and his fly patently unzipped.
New York-based international pop singer 'Rubella Creek' (real name Sara Smith and she never has had measles) has her portrait by Rush hanging in the studio where she attends yoga classes.
The photo is adored by all. And it's revealing.
In layman (or laywoman terms), Rubella with pale skin and wearing a tight black top designed to have her modest breasts project freely, is artistically posed resting upright on her head and shoulders with hands on hips. Her centre-of-focus legs are bowed forward and circling inwards for the soles of her feet to touch, openly displaying her rather large and closely-cropped vulva skywards.
Breath-taking.
Rubella also has a copy of it on the wall at the end of her bed. A third hangs on the wall opposite her make-up mirror.
She says she loves her favourite photo to bits. As well as paying the agreed-price of $US8,000, made sure Rush had a piece of her, such was her appreciation,
Stuff like that keeps Rush busy and even busy-busy, like now.
His PA and mother Dolores, daughter of a West Indian cricketer and a Swiss master baker mother) came in with Rush's phone and said grimly, "It's that Australian bitch Nellie Rockman."
"Tell her to bugger off," Rush said wearily, having picked up that beloved Australian adjective from somewhere.
His mum said patiently, "I told Miss Rockman to stop bothering us and she replied you have two hours to complete the contract with her by fax, otherwise her father would be calling in his lawyers."
"Has the fax arrived?"
"Yes, it's a copy of the original you tossed it out twice and was recovered by me from your waste bin."
"Then burn it so never will it rise again. I don't have time to waste on demented Australians. Also, it is three days since I plugged either of those two women claiming to be my fiancée and I guess they'll hit on me again anytime soon."
"Can't help you there, sorry son," intoned his PA.
Then she squeaked, "Baby, she says to photograph her or else face a civil law suit for $US10 million."
Rush said indignantly, "How the fuck can that scatty nobody sue me for ten mil?"
"Apparently, in Australia her dad is someone. She says he owns 4.2 million acres comprising three super-big cattle stations in the Northern Territory. I guess that territory is in northern Australia in the tropics."
"Tell this Nellie, I'll photograph her father."
"Listen carefully, son. Your own father says let her sue as the case will make you even more famous and you could counter-sue for 100 mil in damages to your international reputation."
"Eh?"
"Ah, I've caught your ear son."
Rush growled to his mother to leave his ear alone and she smiled at being called an over-thinking busy-body.
* * *
The patiently waiting Australian telephone caller calmly told Dolores that she wanted to be photographed on Mad Man's Station, four hours' fast drive from Darwin Airport on the 28th of the month,
"Can't do, sorry. Our current appointment dates are closed until May next year."
"Then I'll definitely sue."
"Ah, Nellie, I see that the 28th is within the two weeks that Rush is taking his two alleged fiancées to Paris, giving them a week each to prove their real worth. I'll postponed that dual-booking for the meantime."
"Will he tolerate that decision?"
Dolores said sweetly, "I'm his mother."
"Ah, yes," the caller giggled. "My parents control my behaviour too."
"Thanks for that understanding. You sound smart. Um, how's the weather in northern climes today?"
"I have no idea. I live in Melbourne in the far south and my parents live in Sydney. We only go to our money pots once or twice a year or in the wake of yet another disastrous season or a horrendous incident. I get the bad news for us first-hand, being a TV presenter."
Dolores said, "How can you be a TV presenter? At minimum they have to be great-looking, oozing charm and... well my son thinks you probably look like that back of a bus with a missing tooth."
"You sound charming, educated and worldly, Dolores, whereas your son sounds like a village idiot. Fax me his pre-signed contract to counter-sign, priced below the threshold of financially screwing me."
"Advise him that I'll Host him for 10 days. It will do him good taking a decent break from over-working and over-screwing babes and I'll keep him safe, especially from charging buffalo and surviving enemies of Australia's legendary Crocodile Dundee."
Laughing, Dolores said, "You sound like fun, Nellie and that will catch the attention of my son more than you being half-decent looking with half-decent-sized boobs. Our fee will be $15,000 US dollars."
"Great," Nellie, said giggling. "I'll also take your son to meet my parents in Sydney as they are always shocked by the arseholes who confront them and they naïvely believe arseholes exists only in Aussie. Bye love."
Dolores went to the foodie bar at street-level below their apartment building. It was10.30 and she found her son at one of the three tables outside the bar on the pedestrian-busy street flossing his teeth. She sat and her regular order of coffee and chicken sandwich was delivered to her moments after her arrival.
"Did you tell her to cease harassing me?"
"Son, be prepared for the opposite You're going to Australia for a two-week break, leaving here on Tuesday week. She will host you for 10 days. Our demanded fee of $15,000 plus all reasonable expenses has been accepted and the counter-signed contract arrived back give minutes ago."
Rush's back arched and his face burnt red in rage. But rubbing his nose, and with his shaking subsiding, he sighed and nodded.
Rush knew not to confront his short-fused mother on her decisions made on his behalf without risking losing her as his aide. He'd lost seven PA predecessors dissatisfied with his flare ups before Dolores appointed herself to the position.
She'd upgraded her title to executive personal executive, increased her salary by $11,000 p.a. and had since proven she was almost a perfect fit in the position.
"Your hair looks nice today, mum."
Dolores smiled, knowing he didn't care a stuff about how her hair looked. It was simply her son's code to signal total capitulation. He admired her cleverness in handling people and that included himself. She was pleased that some of her flair had actually rubbed off on him.
For example, he'd told her that Canadian big shot in Europe had totally rejected the idea of publicly peeing over one of the huge, partly buried sewage intake pipelines at the plant.
Rush had battled verbally for 10 minutes before saying to the Canadian company chief, 'Mr Pearson, would you prefer to be remembered for perhaps no longer than10 minutes after cutting a ribbon, or would you prefer gaining the indignity of being publicly viewed peeing on gleaming stainless steel piping and thus be remembered for days, months even decades as the business tycoon who ingloriously carved his name sensationally in civic engineering history by urinating over part the multi-million section of plant that he was officially handing over to a client?'
"My unstoppable Ernie known, by all these days at Rush, was emerging as a clever little tyke before he was not yet five years of age," Dolores murmured affectionately.
Chapter 2
As the crowd of arrivals and greeters at Darwin International Airport was really thinning out, Rush noticed a truly fuckable female rushing toward him, and eyed her sensational mane of flowing flaxen hair.
He gaped.
She skidded to a halt and said breathlessly, "Mr Drum?"
"How the fuck did you know that?'
Her blue eyes flashed in startled confusion before she asked firmly was that the acceptable way to address her?
"Dunno."
"And what sort of vulgarness is that?"
"Words fail me," he said.
She glared at him and he gazed at her, err, bosom.
"What are you staring at?"
He almost carelessly said her udder but guessed her possibly violent reaction to that choice of word could initiate a full airport security alert.
"I'm a jerk."
