As Anna sat trying to pay attention in class, she began to wonder if some wicked wizard had squeezed some extra hours into the day, it was going that slowly, her dad had been mean all week, not telling them anything about the progress at the house. He said they could see it before supper if their homework was up to date, if not they would have to wait till Saturday. It's not as if they could sneak in to take a look with all the people working there, she was thankful it had been a busy week or the waiting would have been worse.

Finally came the sound of last bell, and she hurried off to meet Eve and Marta for the journey home, the subjects of their conversation limited until getting off the train, but then they caught up on how well the forum practice had been progressing. Eve also mentioned how pleased her father was with sales this week, as their father had placed orders for both his company, and for the house he was working on. Anna said they were expecting to visit the house a bit later, and said over the weekend if she wasn't busy Eve should come with them and see it for herself.

At home their mum said Igor was at the 'house site' already, and they could walk or cycle round there to join him, little ears catching that, were disappointed to find they could not go cycling with their sisters, as it meant going on the roads. Now seeing as almost all their clothes were new, they changed into their least fancy jeans, and each wore one of the spare MMC sweatshirts for their site visit. Anna was happy to get out on her bike, as she had not ridden hers as often as her sister, but the house was only a relatively short distance away. They pulled up short when they saw Marta's team were out washing a car in front of a nearby house, talking briefly before they went to catch up with their dad.

Even before they turned into the driveway the changes were apparent from the neatly trimmed hedges surrounding the property, and the gates that looked freshly painted, unlike most construction sites they had seen, this one was well laid out and tidy. The drive was now nicely edged with stones as a fringe to finely manicured lawns and shrubbery, the scene wouldn't look out of place in any of the property magazines they had looked at.

It wasn't only their environs that were smart, all the workers greeting them appeared to be wearing new work clothing and boots. The genuine warmth of their reception had been quite unexpected, until one of the men thanked them, saying he had overheard their father say that his daughters wanted to arrange suitable protective kit for all the staff. The sisters were overcome and a little embarrassed by the enthusiastic welcome, as if they were popular TV personalities, they tried insisting the idea was mostly down to their father.

When they saw him and tried remonstrating, he told them no good deed went unpunished, then gathered them under his arms asking if they had come to fetch him home for supper, or if they were there to see the first week's progress. After his little tease they first circled the outside of the house, from one corner viewpoint they could see there was only one face of the building left to paint, highlighting the stark contrast between old and new.

The broken panes now replaced, the windows sparkled, the woodwork of the frames now repaired and freshly painted, the architectural details of block-work around windows and on the corners of the house had been picked out in a lighter shade than the final colour of the walls, with the joints carefully outlined in a thin pencil line of a third colour, to add to the overall effect. That job had been done by one of the studio guys as it was more in the remit of an artist than a painter. It was apparent that work on the gardens was still ongoing, but if the areas completed so far were anything to go by, the finished result would be stunning.

Inside work was under-way, dust-sheets had been hung across a number of the doors due to the mess created as various surfaces were prepared for paint or varnish, with the aim to complete the majority of that process, and lay the dust first. At the three locations where they intended to employ their Trompe l'oeil effects, small clear plastic tents had been constructed to keep those areas clean for the artists to work in. That afternoon one of the painters had turned up with a photographer to take a few shots of parts of the gardens that had been restored to their former grandeur for use in their illusions, and he was eager to see the effect when they projected the images onto the walls.

Igor pointed out one bedroom that was currently used as a dormitory for the workers who had travelled to be there, and as work progressed the men would move on to another room. There were minor changes being made to plumbing and electrical services, but nothing to cause overall delays in the programme, the only major refit would be in the kitchen, and that would start the following week when better temporary cooking facilities had been set up to feed the workers. The girls were amused to see the women on site had claimed the toilet nearest the kitchen as their own, taping a gender label to the door, like the others in the house it was clean, but it had nicer smelling soap.

By now there were also nice smells coming from the kitchen, as preparations for serving the evening meal were well advanced, making the girls feel hungry to get home for their own meal. At supper most talk was about the house project, the sisters at one time saying how the men on site thought they were solely responsible for all their new clothing, their dad chipped in that it had been Marta's initial idea, he'd just widened the scope a little.

He said their altruism, whether inspired by empathy or a desire to spread the joy of their good fortune, was a noble deed that would help many people in the coming winter, but there was also a principle called philanthropic self interest, whereby you could benefit from the things you gave away. This started a whole new branch of philosophical discussion on the rights and wrongs of the society they lived in, broadening the girls hitherto simplistic views of the real world.

Returning from lofty subjects to the here and now, the boys wanted to know more about the house thing their older siblings and father were involved with, angling to visit the site.

"No boys you come and see the final result, you'll enjoy that more", Marta thought that was an odd thing for her father to say, sure that the boys would be fascinated by the the machinery, especially the articulated arms of the cherry pickers that enabled such quick and easy access up the outside walls, but assumed he was worried for the boys safety.

In truth Igor's thoughts were on his secondary project, the previous owner had been a fool, checking into the costs, it had not proved that expensive to divide the land into two plots, and as the results of most the legal necessities had been completed during the recent purchase, it had been relatively simple to perform the few additional steps required. As yet he had not even confided in Ella the final outcome of the scheme he had in mind, so far the only person aware of this bonus the project had thrown up was Melenki, who was rapidly becoming his right hand man.

Between them during the past week they had been alternating, so one of them had been at the site each day, he had also spoken to Stepan to arrange for Melenki to take unpaid additional leave from work, and paid by Igor to run his project, saying this would prove the point that the man was due a promotion to site foreman. Igor had also demonstrated his firm grasp and control of all the projects at work that he was running, showing Stepan the planning work he was able to do on and off site with his new laptop.

Many local industries were slow to catch up with the advances apparent in western Europe, and with the current climate capital expenditure on computer equipment was not seen by most businesses as a vital need at the time, so Stepan was impressed that Igor would fund this move off his own back.

The girls were conflicted as to how they should spend their weekend wishing they could be in two places at once, but having convinced themselves that the house project was going well they thought they would start by visiting the studio in the morning then play it by ear. The receptionist smiled at the girls saying how everyone wanted to see them, laughing at their expressions said that they should start with Ivan, then work their way down.

They received a warm welcome from Ivan, as he joked that his favourite geese had arrived to brighten up his day. He told them of the eighty-seven image set that John had made up from their Thursday shoot, the two girl set featuring Natasha with the new model 'Laura' had been loaded onto the web site the previous day.

Anna asked if he knew what had become of the feline set she had done back at the end of June, so Ivan checked through the calender of her release dates, after her third set, the super sized one, her cup cake video had come out about four weeks later, then the cheerleader try-out video two weeks after that, postponing the release of any photo sets.

They held out for a month before the feline set hit the site in the last week of September due to the clamour from members for more photos, it was felt yesterday by the sales department that the members were ready for another set from Natasha, so the two girl set featuring Natasha with the new model 'Laura' had been loaded onto the web site the previous day just twenty four days since her previous offering. He was in no doubt that Anna would easily exceed the usual set limit achieved by most models, averaging one set per month so far, with no sign of fade due to overexposure, and with two ground-breaking videos under her belt.

Marta hadn't been aware that her sister didn't know about the issue date of the feline set, but Anna rarely looked at the earnings statements, just living for the moment, happy with the fact that there were any earnings accruing in their account.

He asked the girls if they would like to be the ones to call Irisha with the good news, stating there would be a sixty-forty split in Anna's favour as she was the established model. In reality the differential would seem considerably more with Irisha's percentage worked out at the normal models starting rate, whereas Anna was now paid at the models highest scale percentage rate on all of her photo or video releases.

This reminded Marta of the cost of mobile phone calls which she asked Ivan about, he said he was pleased that she was mindful of the expense, but he had seen no evidence that the girls abused the benefit of having their own phones, in fact he was very surprised they didn't use them more often.

Both girls put their ears to Marta's phone as she made the call, they greeted the girl, asking how she was and enquiring about her mum, pleased to find they were well, but Irisha was a little troubled she hadn't had any feedback about her audition shoot. To placate the girl's fears Marta replied, "They liked it a lot, in fact that's what we're calling about, normally there is no fee for an audition shoot, whereas for set shoots you get a shoot fee, then you get sales payments. The good news is you're getting a set fee, as John put together a set from the pictures of you and Anna, that was uploaded yesterday."

They heard a yell, then calls as Irisha shouted for her mum to come to the phone, soon there was a four way conversation as they passed on the information as to what they could expect, and that if Irisha came in they could check together on how the sales were doing. Excited that her first set had been created from what she had believed to be a test shoot had been an amazing surprise, and they would both be coming in to the studio. Marta was relieved by the result, and seeing as they would no doubt see John later when Irisha showed up, they decided to call on Dmitri next, to see what he wanted to talk about.

He was keen to tell them of the progress on the 'model forum', they had done most of the debugging with Anna's help, now they had completed the multiple model and user phase of in house testing, if only on a small scale, and everything worked as planned. They now had eighteen girls who had trialled the system, with a few more who would be joining in as they became more proficient, so now they were starting to look at time issues.

The forum would be mainly about a real time experience, of the members interacting with the models who were on line at any particular moment. Whereas in Europe there was only a one or two hour time difference, their main customer base in the USA would prove problematical as they were spread across four time zones. Dmitri showed them a map of world time zones to illustrate the difficulty this posed, in Kiev they were at GMT plus two hours, but the US Eastern time zone was GMT minus five hours, making a seven hour differential, for the Pacific region it would be ten hours.

He told them that a majority of their members were active between 8pm and midnight by their own time zone, one o'clock through to seven am was the quietest time, and then it picked up over the course of the day. He showed them a chart he had made marked up using a 24 hour clock to show when they could best reach their audience.

Girls online between 06:00 to 08:00 in the Ukraine would have a New York audience between 23:00 to 01:00 and west coast members from 20:00 through to 22:00. They then looked down the chart, a time slot of 17:00 to 20:00 which would be convenient for many of the girls would catch the east coast from 15:00 to 18:00 but four hours earlier in the Pacific time zone, a second three hour time band had been pencilled in for those girls prepared to stay up late. This chart didn't take into account that there were also regional time shifts at differing times of the year.

Ever practical Marta pointed out some of their models who lived in rural farming areas might be used to rising really early in the morning, which for once would give them an advantage of having their own audience at a popular time with their members. Her thoughts were that it could raise their profile, and thereby increase demand for their work, which Dmitri agreed was a viable proposition, and worth pointing out to Ivan. The only downside was whether those girls would have access to the internet, though speed requirements would not be an issue for the purpose of using the forum, it being text based.

Now the girls could see the scheduling difficulties in black and white, they talked about how those taking part would need to have at least semi regular weekday and weekend time slots that they could tell the members about. Marta asked if they could have another page on the forum where the girls could post the times they expected to take part in the coming week, and where they could leave a few notes if they were going to miss their expected programme.

Anna joking, put on a 'newsreader' voice, "Your favourite TV soap, sorry I'll read that again, your favourite model Natasha will be appearing an hour later than normal on Saturday due to a shopping appointment with her sister." Despite Anna's jovial take on the situation, it was agreed that was precisely the type of solution they needed to inform their subscribers using this new service. The ring tone of Marta's phone halted the discussion, Irisha and her mum had arrived and the receptionist had called to locate where they were in the complex, Anna overhearing the conversation indicated to Marta that she would fetch them.

Anna found herself in a fierce hug when she greeted Irisha, looking past the girl, it looked as if her smiling mother was in emotional turmoil unable to express her feelings at that moment. When at last Irisha let go, Anna reminded them to put their badges on, then said they would go and see Marta and Dmitri, Yana excused herself saying she needed to see someone else in the building first about some paperwork, but to tell Marta she would pay back the money she had given them, as soon as they got paid by the studio.

Yana watched her daughter go off with the younger girl before turning back to the receptionist to ask the name of the catering manager, and directions to the canteen, she had been there on a previous visit but she had been too stunned at the time to take in any details. When Valya had called the woman on Thursday, the message had been to call in at the canteen next time she was passing, in all the attempts to find a job since loosing her place as a waitress, she had never even got close to an interview before.

Margarita was waiting when she entered the canteen, obviously called by the receptionist that Yana was coming. She was made welcome, given a tour of the kitchen facilities, and even introduced to the lady that would soon be leaving to have her first baby. The friendly unhurried and un-harassed atmosphere was in total contrast to her previous employment, where the owner looked at a toilet break as an infringement, as you were there to work.

Everything Valya told her was true, she didn't have to try for the job, it really was hers for the asking, she knew people where she lived who would give their soul for such a wonderful job, peeling some vegetables, plating up the cooked food, you even got free meals, and tea breaks whenever the canteen was quiet, it was unbelievable. She was so happy to accept the job she hadn't even asked about the pay, and that turned out to be much better than she had hoped for. With her wages alone it would be possible to think of moving to a better neighbourhood, more similar to the area where they had lived a few years ago when times hadn't been so bad.

With another chair pulled up at Dmitri's desk, they reviewed the points covered prior to Irisha's arrival, and thought about organising a rota, ideally they didn't want too many girls on at one time, say between two and four, so each could take part but not get too tired from answering questions and typing all the time. Obviously the morning shift before school had the best hit on their target audience, the afternoon shift that was most convenient for the girls, it caught their state-side members between breakfast time and lunch dependent on time zone, and their late shift would find mid morning to mid afternoon subscribers, again dependent on where they lived.

With three shifts a day over seven days, with three girls per shift, would be sixty-three turns at the forum divided by their current eighteen girls, meaning each would only have to join in three or four times a week. They each took apiece of scrap paper to work it out, using numbers one through to eighteen instead of all the girls names, but it proved harder than they expected. They didn't think it fair to keep the same days, as they would all want some free time at weekends, and a girl wouldn't want to do a late shift if she was doing an early one the day before or the day afterwards. Also it would be good for the girls to line up in different combinations, and on different shifts, so they could talk with more of their fans.

Eventually they had a workable pattern, though with just a few more girls the system would become less cumbersome, and it would be easier for the girls to trade spots if they needed to do other stuff, like a photo shoot, or if it clashed with their social lives. In all it wasn't a bad compromise, and they suspected it would take a while to shake down the system and have it running in a way that best suited the girls and the members.

They still hadn't got a start date, and Irisha needed some practice time, although she could use a typewriter, she had little experience of computers, so Marta suggested Irisha visit them at home for some practice sessions until she was given her own laptop.

That last comment got Marta a double take, Irisha couldn't believe she would be given a computer to take part in the forum, until it was pointed out how impractical it would be for girls to come in to the studio to take part. Now their focus was away from the desktop and their scribbled notes, Irisha noticed 'Natasha's' wall of fame, which was now back in it's original form, the bowdlerised version now stored in a filing cabinet.

As Alina was now at her desk Marta wanted to go and talk to her about some current research issues, so Anna took Irisha over to see the office she shared with her sister. She showed Irisha their book collection and the amusing awards that had been presented to them, going on to tell her how the sports shop Dmitri used was the place they had got the MMC shirts and caps for Marta's work crew. It was all just crazy, two schoolgirls, one of them younger than she was, with their own plush office space, a large desk for two with fancy computer stuff, another table set up with a beautiful chessboard, and enough spare cash to go round buying mansions!

Her head was still in a whirl when Marta came back to say that John was working in studio four, so they should go and get an early lunch, by which time he should be finished and able to show them Thursday's results.

They found Yana sitting at a table in the canteen sipping a coffee, joining her Irisha gabbed non stop about her interesting morning, before winding down to ask about if her mum had been in to see Ivan.

"No," she said with a wide grin, and holding up an envelope in one hand, "The girls in the canteen were busy preparing for the lunchtime rush, so I thought I would sit here out of the way, after all in two weeks time they will be my co-workers." Irisha's loud squeal turned a few heads, and brought a few of the women out from the kitchen, giving Yana a chance to introduce her daughter to her new colleagues.

When they sat back down, Irisha started to thank Marta, for getting her mum a job just as she'd promised, but when Marta denied responsibility, Yana told them of Valya's hand in the affair, so it had still been Marta that had introduced them. Over lunch Yana said her first priority now would be to think about moving, she just needed to earn enough for a security deposit for whatever place they moved to, after she had paid Marta back.

The sisters looked at one another both saying "Ivan" at the same time, then told the story of their move to the city, and the help they had received from the studio.

At Yana's protestations that the studio had already done enough, Anna explained how the studio was like family, and they were always helping the people who worked there, and also how they all tried to help one another.

In Ivan's office Marta told him of their earlier talk on relocation, and he agreed to help as both mother and daughter would now want to be closer to the studio, so he would get Tanya to call the property agent immediately, and as the studio would act as guarantors no deposit would be needed. Seeing the gleam in Anna's eye he warned her off, stating Valya had told him how mean she had been to the man. When Yana asked why they were being offered so much help, Ivan put his arm round Marta's shoulder in an avuncular way saying his golden goose had chosen them - and she was never wrong.

The group of four then went to the image editing suite to see John, who scrounged up a few more chairs for his guests, so they could all view 'Laura's' debut, first up was the audition portfolio. Irisha was wide eyed, it was different from seeing herself naked in the narrow blotchy mirror on the back of the wardrobe door, for a start she didn't need to crane her neck for an all round view. It was unreal seeing herself in the role of a model, who at school would ever believe that, not that she meant to tell them anyway.

She hadn't realised she had been staring, open mouth until Anna gave her a gentle shake, "Weird isn't it? Seeing yourself in a new way."

She had a moment of profound understanding regarding her two new friends, they both empathised with her, Marta in respect of what she herself might have become, and Anna for who she was now.

Her mouth felt dry.

John then slowly went through the set he had made with the both of them, listening to him and Marta doing a running appraisal, a study in 'compare and contrast' made it sound like a literary exam. She could follow the merit of their debate, in that the juxtaposition of images showing the progression of development made an interesting picture. Not all of the images featured both of them, they appeared individually in several photographs which John said made the set stronger.

They cycled through twice, and John said there were eighty-seven images in the set, he then asked if anyone was curious about sales figures, he quickly navigated to a new screen, apparently each girl had her own download data page, but this one was for work featuring more than one girl, and titled combined sets, this section had been added since Anna's cheer leader try-outs video, as it had been realised this might start a new trend.

The set number had their model names, followed by boxes that had slowly rising numbers, John explained the various parts, one box showed the number of different people who had visited the page, another showed how many times the page had been visited, so from those numbers they could see some people had looked at the page more than once. The percentage box was about how many of those visitors paid to download the set, it would make tracking a challenge with the set displayed on the home page of each girl.

John said he suspected now Anna had done both a two girl video and a photo set that they would become a popular addition on the site with others wanting a go. John and the sisters talked of site hits, conversion rates and so on leaving Irisha puzzled, she only wanted to know if people liked the photo set.

"You've done well" said John as he pointed to the total sales box which showed numbers moving in fits and starts, which Irisha couldn't read from her seat, so Anna checked the counter reading off, "twenty-six thousand six hundred and fifteen, - twenty one, thirty nine."

Anna looking at Irisha then turning to John said, "If you're going to invite young ladies up to your suite to see the download numbers, you will have to start keeping smelling salts in your desk drawer to revive them." They all laughed at her daft antics, then Marta started to figure out the model fee on a scrap of paper, passing it to Yana, saying it was her daughters download earnings so far today.

Yana did pass out!

When she had regained her senses, John raided the nearest fridge to get everyone a refreshing drink, after Irisha retrieved the paper from the floor she looked somewhat pale herself. "Are you sure all of this is my share? Shit, this is more than mum used to make in three months."

"Well no, there have been some more downloads since I worked that out, plus I forgot to add in your modelling fee for posing, but the best part is as you're sleeping tonight and dreaming about your new life - the downloads will mount up and you'll still keep earning more money!

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Thanks to those who made recent comments, I would appreciate feedback as to whether certain aspects of my writing work or not, you might get a better story as a result.

Not having my own 'on topic' blog, website, or e-mail address, I often visit the forum on this site to join the current subjects under debate, as there will be less posting for a while come and join in.