Disclaimer
: I do not own the legal rights to Lara Raith. Lara Raith is a character that was created by Jim Butcher for his stories about a fictional private investigator/wizard named Harry Dresden. I am merely borrowing Lara for a short time to bring a little fan-fiction entertainment into your lives.
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When I first met Lara Raith, it was at a party thrown by a movie producer. The producer had invited dozens of potential investors to the party in the hopes of getting us to invest in the production of his newest project. I had initially been reluctant. The title of the move;
Leather, Lesbian Biker Sluts;
didn't really inspire confidence.
I have nothing against the porn industry, however, Phil wanted me to invest twenty-five thousand in a move that had a puerile title. And the script was even more disappointing than the title. It read like it was written by a sixteen-year old boy with an extremely limited imagination and no firsthand knowledge of how lesbians really interacted with each other.
However, I accepted Phil's invitation to the party. Phil could be extraordinarily persistent when he wanted to be, and I was put into a position where I had to either accept the invitation to Phil's party or be overtly rude, and tell Phil that I thought his movie had all the appeal of a rabid dog that needed to be put down for the good of all humanity.
Phil was one of the first friends I made when I moved to Chicago. He wasn't exceptionally bright, however, he always tried to be polite, friendly and charming. He wasn't the stereotypical sleaze ball that people think of when they think of porn producers. He was a nice guy, with childlike enthusiasm and a puppylike desire to make friends and be adored by everyone in his circle of friends.
So, I attended Phil's party, not because I had any confidence in the movie's ability to make money, but more because I was worried about hurting Phil's feelings if I blew him off.
I made small talk with the other potential investors and took advantage of the open bar. Phil knew a wide variety of people in Chicago and some of them were quite engaging. About a dozen of them agreed with me that the screenplay was total crap, and one of them insisted that he wouldn't invest a dime in the project unless Phil allowed him to do a complete re-write of the entire script.
"I never even thought of that," I admitted.
"When you invest tens of thousands of dollars in a project," my new acquaintance said, "they usually offer you all sorts of favors as a token of gratitude. Why not offer the opportunity to make some script changes?"
My new friend was named Terry, and he was a published author. He had written a few novels that had
almost
made it to the best seller's list, and he had some ideas that would take Phil's train-wreck of a script and turn it into something salvageable.
"Have you discussed any of this with Phil yet?" I asked. I was suddenly becoming optimistic about this project. Terry's script ideas were quite clever and interesting. If Phil allowed the rewrites, I could see myself investing money in this thing.
"Not yet," Terry replied, motioning toward Phil and an attractive middle-aged woman in a skirt-suit, "Phil is currently trying to charm Nancy Griffin into investing in his project. She's already confided to me that she hates everything about the script. She's the wealthiest of all the people Phil invited here tonight. Once she turns him down, Phil's morale will be vulnerably low. Then, I shall swoop in and offer to make things better...if exchange for significant rewrite to his horrible script."
I had a great deal of respect for Terry's plan and gave him an approving nod.
And while Terry and I lingered and anticipated the moment where Nancy would dampen Phil's spirits, we were so engrossed in the interactions between Phil and his potential investor that we utterly failed to notice a tall, statuesque woman as she glided silently towards us with a crystal champagne flute in one hand.
Suddenly a delicious female voice demanded my attention. It was a smoldering purr of a voice, low and seductive. It was the sort of voice that made me think of when Kathleen Turner was a husky-voiced sex symbol, however, Kathleen Turner's voice was never able to bypass the logic sections of my brain and go straight to massaging my brain's limbic system.
This
woman's voice was able to do that.
"Terry," the voice said with a seductive purr, "I don't believe I've met your lovely friend. Please introduce us."
I turned to discover the owner of that smoldering purr of a voice.
She reminded me of a Patrick Nagel painting. She was tall, slender, graceful and was a beautiful study in color contrast. Her skin was almost as pale as milk, while her hair was as dark as a moonless night. She had eyes of dark grey and wore custom-tailored black leather. And the leather adhered to her body in ways that seemed designed to put her perfectly sculpted body on display, rather than conceal it.
I rapidly decided that if Nagel had used this woman as a model for his paintings, he failed to capture the total effect of her beauty. The woman in Nagel's paintings was incredibly beautiful, however, she was a pale imitation of the living goddess that had just asked Terry to introduce me.
"Lara," Terry said, as his eyes widened and drank in the beauty of the tall, slender, graceful goddess, "this is Hannah Higgins. Hannah, this is Lara Raith."
"Hannah," Lara purred, and when she said my name it sounded like the sound of silk caressing flawless, bare skin. I had never suspected that the human voice could contain such sexual potency.
"You are quite attractive, Hannah," Lara said, "Have you been cast as one of the actresses in Phil's movie?"
If anyone else had asked me if I had been cast in a train-wreck of a movie like Leather Lesbian Biker Sluts, I would have felt insulted, however, from Lara's magnificent lips, the question didn't seem insulting at all.
I shook my head gently in negation and replied, "I'm not an actress."
Terry then interjected himself into the conversation and added, "She was invited here because she has money and Phil is trying to get her to invest in his new project."