The article that accompanied the pictures was short — less than a thousand words. It claimed that world-renowned photojournalist Paul Peterson had been on "sabbatical" at his favorite beach when — to his utter surprise — Jake Kingsley and Mindy Snow had shown up in a Porsche 911 convertible and set up camp less than fifty yards from him. Mr. Peterson stated for the record that the two "celebs" frolicked on the beach for more than three hours, eating a picnic lunch, rubbing oil on each other's body, and playing in the surf like two people who are intimately familiar with each other. They then "climbed back in Mr. Kingsley's sports car" (apparently they didn't realize it was Mindy's car — or if they did, they thought it sounded better if they didn't) and "headed off into the sunset, looking like they had further business to attend to". There was then a brief background about Jake in which the cocaine from the butt-crack allegations were rehashed (in case anyone had forgotten about that) and a notation that the two celebs had been seen talking together for an extended time during the premier of Thinner Than Water in Los Angeles (a story which had been printed in American Watcher the week after the premier but had been largely forgotten at this point). The official statements from Shaver and Georgette rounded out the story.
"Goddamn," Matt said that Friday morning as the band — having just arrived at the recording studio — looked at the pictures for the first time. "She really is a tasty piece of poontang."
"I used to masturbate to her on The Slow Lane," Bill added. "I can see now that I was justified and correct in doing such."
"Did she let you spooge on her tits, Jake?" Coop asked. "Tell me you did that at least once."
"Yeah," said Jake, who had shared the fact of his all night copulation with the band but not the details. "I did that at least once."
While they were all holding up their hands for high-fives at this revelation, Crow came in the room, his dark sunglasses hiding his expression. "Those fucking reporters are everywhere out there," he proclaimed. "You didn't say anything to them, did you, Jake?"
"Just the standard, 'no comment'."
"Good," Crow said. "Keep that up and hopefully this will blow over in a few weeks. The most important thing is for you to stay well away from that girl from here on out."
"Excuse me?" Jake said, his eyes starting to glare a little. He and Crow had already had a long and heartfelt discussion about the tap on his phone and the PI hired to tail him (Crow had assured him it was all Doolittle's idea and that it wouldn't happen again).
Crow looked at him strangely. "Well, obviously you can't take the risk of being seen with her anymore. The photos they got are damaging enough."
"If she wants to continue seeing me, then we will continue seeing each other," Jake told him. "You can't dictate who I do and do not socialize with. We've already been over this."
"Jake," Crow said. "Try to think of Matt and Bill and Coop and Darren. You may not care about your own career, but you're hurting the rest of the band too. Dating little Miss Sweet and Innocent will cause your fans to lose respect for the entire band."
"Whoa there," Matt spoke up. "Hold the fucking phone, dickweed. Don't go invoking my fuckin name in this shit and trying to claim that I have a problem with who Jake is slipping his salami to. If he wants to hose down Snow White with all the fuckin forest animals singing to the rhythm of his balls slapping, that's his business. It won't do shit for our image, either good or bad. Our music is what sells the albums and that ain't changing."
"Yeah," Darren said righteously. "What he fuckin said!"
"Goddamn right," said Coop. "I'm proud of Jake for scoring with her! Don't be telling me what I should and shouldn't mind him doing."
"I agree as well," Bill said. "Who Jake chooses to copulate with is his prerogative. I fail to see any intrinsic harm in our popular image secondary to his choice of companionship."
"Well said, Nerdly," Matt said.
"Thank you," Bill replied.
Crow next tried to play on Jake's sensitivities toward Mindy herself. "What about her career?" he asked. "Did you ever think of that? However badly this revelation harms your image, it's ten times worse for her. She's supposed to be a respectable girl-next-door. If a sexual relationship with you becomes confirmed her fans won't take her seriously anymore. Parents won't let their kids watch her movies."
This did pull on Jake's conscience the tiniest bit. After all, he had developed rather strong feelings for Mindy and did not like to think he was doing irreparable harm to her career. He did not let Crow know this however, nor did he let Crow's argument sway him.
"It's nice of you to think of Mindy's image," he said, "but how about we let Mindy be the one to worry about that? If she thinks its too much, she'll call me and tell me its over. If she does that, I'll respect her wishes. But until then, you can just keep your nose out of my business."
Crow wanted to argue further but he'd already learned enough about Jake's stubbornness to know it would be futile. "Will you at least try to be discrete?" he asked.
"Sure," Jake promised. "For Mindy's sake, I will be discrete. I'll be the epitome of discretion."
Chapter 10B: Exposures
Jake was actually quite concerned that Mindy would do just as he'd suggested and call an end to the relationship in the name of imagery. He knew, based on phone calls the two of them had shared, that Georgette was pressuring her to stay as far away from Jake as possible and to start repairing the damage the photos had inflicted.
"She's trying to set me up with Joseph Clark," Mindy told him during one such conversation. "Can you believe that?"
"Joseph Clark?" Jake asked, lying in bed in his underwear and smoking a cigarette, the phone pushed to his ear. "Are you serious?"
Joseph Clark was the young, fair-haired lead singer of a musical group called The Marchers — a group that performed Christian tunes. They were one of the most popular of the genre, which meant that their last album had sold almost two hundred thousand copies, and had been nominated for a Grammy the previous year in the "Best Gospel Performance" category.
"I'm dead serious," she said. "She even had the arrangements half made. She got in touch with Clark's agent and suggested we be seen together in public. She had this whole campaign mapped out where we would be America's sweethearts. There would be shots of us sitting in ice cream stores together or going to movies or where I would attend his concerts and clap for him. We'd release press statement saying that we were both virgins and were committed to remaining so until we were married. She was even suggesting we tour high schools and lecture kids on abstinence."
"Do you even know Joseph Clark?" he asked.
"Never met him in my life," she said. "From what I hear though, he's very fond of the young Christian girls who attend his concerts. Extremely fond, if you know what I mean. There have been quite a few abortions paid for by Savior Music two months after The Marchers did a concert."
In the end, however, Mindy had done what Jake had hoped she would do and had told Georgette to go pound sand. There would be no contrived romance with Joseph Clark. She would keep seeing Jake as long as she wished and she would not give in to pressure to discontinue the relationship. Georgette had threatened to quit being her agent, which was of course a bluff that Mindy called, and had eventually extracted from her the same promise Jake had given to Crow — the promise of discretion.