Brianna was surprised to see an email from Maureen Symonde in her inbox, one clearly addressed to her alone, not some company-wide directive. Maureen was several levels above Brianna on the food chain at Moment Media Solutions, in charge of all print media advertising accounts. Maureen was Brianna's boss's boss's boss's boss; up until that moment she wouldn't have bet Maureen even knew who she was. Whatever the reason for the summons to Maureen's office, Brianna wasted no time in making her way there, hoping to make a good impression.
Maureen's greeting was formal, almost cold; Brianna wondered if she was in some trouble or if this was just Maureen's normal tone. Maureen wasted no time telling Brianna she had been selected to work on an ad campaign for an Australian company, Holliman Intimates.
"What does Holliman sell," asked Brianna, "the name sounds like it might be a lingerie company."
"You're right; their main focus is on lingerie, the racy kind, not stuff for everyday wear." Maureen replied.
"I'm happy to help out; what do you need from me first, mockups of ads? Has any ad copy been started for me to work into sketches?"
"Actually," said Maureen, "This isn't a request for you to do graphic design on this campaign; assigning you to do that would have been done through the usual channels. The plan is for you to model their new line of merchandise in photos for ads to run in several magazines published in Australia and New Zealand."
"Model? Me? LINGERIE? Is this some kind of joke?" asked Brianna, "I've never worked as a model at all!"
"I assure you, this isn't the kind of thing I joke about. Our expectation is that you'll step up to help the firm satisfy our client's wishes. Of course, you'll be paid at a level appropriate for a high profile account like this one; your fee for a few photo sessions will be a fair amount more than your current yearly income."
"The pay isn't relevant, I'm just not interested in appearing practically naked in some magazine!" replied Brianna, her voice rising.
Looking grim, Maureen continued: "The problem we have is that Holliman's CEO, Roger Holliman saw a collection of photos of you during a visit to our office last week. Our IT security department head had left prints of several photos and screen captures from a video on my desk just before Roger came in to meet with me and Roger was quite taken with what he saw. He insisted that we use the woman in the photos for his ad campaign and wasn't interested in any substitutes."
"What photos of me could he have seen?" asked Brianna. She was absolutely certain she had wiped the memory card she had used to make nude photos here in the office for her husband and had also been thorough in deleting all traces of them and the emails she had sent Andy with the nudes from her computer.
Maureen actually seemed fairly sympathetic as she broke the news to Brianna about the automatic backup over the company's wi-fi network of all photos and videos taken with the company's cameras. The system was set up to copy any new files to a server immediately after they were recorded on the camera's memory card. She handed Brianna a large envelope with the photos Holliman had seen, featuring the full set of photos of a nude but masked Brianna and a few screen captures taken after she had removed the mask!
"So there it is, Brianna." said Maureen, "You can do a few days of modeling for publications which are only circulated halfway around the world and collect a pretty substantial fee before going back to your regular work here, or you can find yourself a new employer; if you don't help us with this you shouldn't expect any kind of reference. If you're concerned about your image here at our office, we can justify doing the shoots away from here and use freelancers instead of our in-house facilities and staff. I'll be supervising this project personally, but I can be the only person in the firm who knows about your new assignment."
Brianna was practically speechless; only moments ago she thought she had landed the most important assignment of her career. She asked Maureen for some time to think about the assignment, overcoming her instinct to just refuse and start hunting for a new job.
"Sure, think it over if you need to, just let me know what you decide by tomorrow morning." said Maureen.
Brianna spent half her day looking up Holliman online to get a sense of what sort of image they had, and what their products were like. There really wasn't a lot to go on, at least that she could find. What she did see seemed fairly tasteful. Maureen's description of their wares had Brianna expecting the worst, but what she found online was fairly elegant; she still felt a little chill seeing some of the more revealing items but thought even they were something she might wear for Andy's enjoyment. Being photographed for public consumption wearing them, that was a whole other story; just thinking about it gave her a more intense chill.
By quitting time Brianna had made up her mind to go ahead with Maureen's demand; she liked her job and didn't relish looking for a new one with a cloud over her abrupt departure from her current one. She thought she probably should talk it over with Andy, but since he had shared some of the nudes she sent him with his friends, even though accidentally, he wasn't in a position to object. Since these photos were only to be published about as far away on the planet as possible she thought he might not object too much anyway, especially given the big payday involved.
Maureen was pleased the next morning when Brianna told her she would take the modeling assignment, telling her: "We should be able to make all the arrangements in a few days; plan on being out of the office next Wednesday and Thursday."
Brianna was surprised at how fast this was happening, but thought it was probably just as well to get it over with sooner than later. A long wait and more time to think through what she was expected to do would thoroughly fray her nerves. She was having second and third thoughts every few hours as it was; now that she was committed she just wanted it to be done. She decided to keep Andy in the dark about her new gig for now, thinking it would be easier to get his forgiveness after the fact than his approval before, especially with a big fat check to ease the shock.
Wednesday morning Brianna drove to the studio Maureen had rented for the week. She parked her car and sat there a while, thinking briefly about calling Maureen with some excuse for bailing out. She reminded herself that nobody here but Maureen knew who she was and the only people to see the photos would be on the far side of the earth. All that and a little curiosity about what modeling this way would feel like got her out of the car and into the studio. Maureen greeted her at the door.
"She's probably been watching me since I drove up." thought Brianna.
Maureen introduced her to the crew, which was larger than she'd anticipated.
