They sat down with Honey-Milk and Lanie on either side of Andrea, making her smile. Her own little guardian angels in the flesh, she thought. Were she religious, she'd be inclined to think that in finding them her father was making sure she knew she always had someone in her life who had her back, just like he'd done when he was there.

She smiled to herself when Lanie reached over, gave her hand a supportive squeeze. 'You're going to look great, girl.'

'So will you, Lanie.'

The lights dimmed and the projector started up with Sloan manning the controls. The image of her studio's logo - the S of her first name in green forming half a curlicue heart half and the other half to form the M in red - came up before the logo for the exhibit as an instrumental Billy Joel came on.

'I shuffled the photos, so I have no idea what order they're going to go in,' Sloan started, but found herself shushed by the others.

'We wanna watch!' Lili hissed sweetly.

Andrea sipped her champagne, watched as the second photo came up was Lanie, sprawled on her tummy on the same bed that Andrea had done her pearls-and-high-heels photo on. She was looking over to her right, twisting so her bicep artfully covered the centre of her breast and laughing while she bumped her hair as she scratched her head. 'That's hot,' she murmured to her friend.'

'Sloan's assistant told me a dirty joke and I didn't realize Sloan had taken the picture until later. The original pose for that one we ended up not using in the exhibit shoot.'

'It's totally organic and natural, it's gorgeous.'

Right after Lanie's came Honey-Milk, this one of her sitting on a windowsill looking towards the camera was the majestic Empire State Building spired up in the window background. Her knees were tucked up towards her breasts but her cleavage was still visible, and Andrea even saw a little roll or two on her tummy. 'That's something I never thought I'd see,' she murmured.

'What?'

'You with the sit-down fat.'

'The what?' Honey-Milk asked laughingly.

'The sit-down fat, you know, that little bit of tummy when you sit down all of a sudden pops out.'

'Oh that,' she giggled. 'Yeah, any working woman who's had a baby or two will have that no matter how much she works out. I wanna see you soon.'

Andrea patted her friend's head as Honey-Milk leaned her temple on her shoulder. 'Don't worry you won't miss seeing Santa Claus, Jenny-dear.'

Lanie had to laugh; though Honey-Milk was easily four years older than Andrea and her boss to boot, whenever they were off the clock Andrea always took a maternal approach to her relationship with Honey-Milk. It was a fascinating dynamic and so uniquely theirs.

Then her eyes were transfixed on the screen as Andrea's first picture appeared. She leaned forward, putting her chin on her hand as she looked at the photo - Andrea was kneeling in the middle of the bed, in a pose reminiscent of Jaynes Mansfield, arms folded so they both covered and supported her impressive bosom. Her back was arched, her lips brushing her shoulder and she was once more giving the audience and camera those 'you know you want me' eyes.

'That is sexy,' she told Andrea, 'it's like a Greek statue of a siren or something come to life.'

'A siren?'

'Yeah, a siren,' Robina agreed, leaning past Honey-Milk, 'the women who tempted sailors with their beautiful songs, and then destroyed them. They evolved into what buccaneers called mermaids.'

Andrea felt a little silver shimmer go down her spine. 'Daniel occasionally calls me Ariel, because I scuba dive and have red hair.'

'There you go.'

They watched the rest of the exhibit photos go by and applauded Sloan, who gave a little bow; they took a break, stretched their legs to get a refill on the snacks and wine or hit the head, and when they returned the lights were dimmed once more. Only this time, instead of classy piano, there was bass and drums, hot and slow and throbbing, as the title screen of the show faded to black and then faded to the first of the nude shots; it was Alexis on the chaise lounge, hands delicately above her head and head turned towards the camera like she was saying 'hello there, I didn't hear you come in while I was daydreaming naked.'

'That's my little girl,' Beckett said, pretending to wipe away a tear of pride.

'Shane is going to love that one,' Alexis replied, thinking of how he'd taken a similar one right after the first time they'd made love at all in their relationship.

'You look amazing, Alexis,' Andrea told her earnestly, hoping it would cover her nerves. Though she knew they'd all done around eight to ten different poses, they were only sharing one and they'd selected it with Sloan's artistic eye for guidance. She couldn't wait to see how she looked against the other women, wondering if the one she'd picked was on par with them.

She kept waiting and waiting, watching as she saw all her friend's nude images go past until she realized that Sloan was saving her for the very end. She held her breath as Meredeth's photo faded to black and her own popped up: it was the one where she'd lain on her back, upside down in the bed with her high-heels propped against the head board, and the rope of pearls looped artfully so that the beads actually grazed the inside of her nipples. One hand lay against the inside of her thighs so it almost looked like she was pleasuring herself while she had the other lifted to her mouth, the tip of her index finger caught between her teeth.

Andrea looked around, noticing that no-one had said anything and were just staring at the picture. 'It's okay?' she asked hesitantly.

'Okay?' Lanie's eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling. 'Honey, I know I'm a one-hundred percent straight woman, minus a drunken makeout or two in college, and that picture makes me wanna do you.'

'Seriously?'

'Hell yeah, Andrea. Even more, it makes me wanna go home and do my Italian Stallion. Like, right now.'