Living Two Lives - Book 25

Chapter 1

Friday July 10, 1987 was the start of a fascinating weekend for all five people involved. Andrew met Maggie and Tony without a problem at King’s Cross. They piled in the car, with a lot more luggage than Andrew expected for the weekend. Ara and Suzanne were up and casually dressed when they got back to the house. They both hugged Tony in greeting before leading Maggie away to show her the house. Tony looked at Andrew and they shrugged before heading to the kitchen and fresh coffee. The luggage could wait.

“This place is bigger than it looks like from the outside. Deep.”

The male version of the house tour was over. The two of them took their coffees out onto the little back patio.

“How are things?”

“Generally good. We had a photographer try and steal from the new studio, that was a real mess. Sheila challenged him on it and he made the mistake of getting aggressive with her. He shoved her out the way and tried to just leave. She stumbled and went down hard. Fortunately it looked a lot worse than it actually was but when the Police turned up it looked like he had done her over. So he got charged with GBH as well as theft. I don’t know that it will stick but we’ll see.”

“Is she all right? Did she quit?”

“Nah, she shook it off and was fine. She was annoyed that she tripped over the light stand. But as you can imagine it disrupted the studio for the week. But the actual businesses are doing really well. The shop is busy, it isn’t growing much, it seems to be steady. But we have captured a lot of the local market for serious amateurs. We have the three studios and the two darkrooms so that generates and drives a lot of sales through the store. We get tourist traffic and the usual Christmas rush but the day to day is serving the photography community in the city. Or a good chunk of it.”

Tony took a sip of coffee.

“I wondered if the three Edinburgh studios would be less busy with the new studio. But they are only off a tiny little bit, and are still making serious money for us. This time next year the two smaller studios will have paid off everything we spent, at least according to Alex.”

“She is obviously still there. Is she enjoying the job?”

“Loving it. All the different strands to the businesses keep her nice and busy, which she likes, but there is the flexibility of the part time work. She gets on with Maggie and Elspeth really well. In fact, she gets on with Leslie and Creighton as well. By the end of the summer we will have taken over more than a third of the ground floor at your offices. Elspeth, her three part time helpers, Maggie, Alex, plus the storeroom.”

Tony shook his head.

“We will come back to all that in a minute.”

“So the shop, studios and darkrooms are all making us money. I have two assistants now and I think this pair are going to last. I went through two or three of them in the first four months but these two might work. They are a father and son. Both serious amateurs, I see a lot of myself in the son. He got the photography bug from his dad and he listens. The father is a former miner, laid off over a year ago. But he has a good eye and despite being older than me has a good manner with the models. So the three of us are working away. If all three of us were working then it would be 15 days of shoots a week. We are probably running around eight at the moment. But we couldn’t shoot all day every day because of all the set up and preparation. Even four days is pushing it. But they are locals from Kirkcaldy and are there every day and we are making it work.”

Tony paused again for more coffee. Andrew sat listening carefully as Tony talked about the details of running the business not the high level sweep that he often got.

“Elspeth hired another assistant because she is driving a lot of the shoots now. We have done three shoots in the big studio already. Can you believe she had us shooting a coach in there? Most of the shots are normally just in a car park or a standard garage. That was a tough couple of days, fun but hard work. But the client was happy and we got well paid. It is funny, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have taken the shoot if I had spoken to them. But Elspeth just assumes I can shoot anything and thought nothing of it. I am sure we will come unstuck at some point but it did make me laugh that she had unquestioning faith in my abilities even if I was unsure. But she keeps us busy. And that is the key. The father is Fergus and the son is Joe. Fergus works with me all the time but Elspeth talked to loads of estate agents all the way from Dunfermline to St Andrews and so Joe is out a lot of the time taking photos for different estate agents, especially at the weekend. It is ideal for him, easy to shoot, but it gives him a sense of responsibility. It is all these little things that mean we are making good money. Elspeth is a bloody genius at all that stuff.”

Andrew smiled. The two sides of Elspeth Robertson could not be more different.

“What is the nature of the pictures? Are you doing much nude work?”

“One day every two weeks, sometimes not even that. You called it when you said there just weren’t going to be enough models. It is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about now that you are settled here.”

“Let’s save that until Maggie gets here as well. It is something that I have some thoughts and ideas about as well.”

“Good. Okay, what else. When Maggie starts she is going to look at expanding the business. Carefully so that we don’t blow a lot of money or make a stupid mistake but we are looking to try and duplicate some of what we have done in Edinburgh in other cities.”

“Where?”

“The three obvious ones are Glasgow, Newcastle and Leeds.”

The first two were obvious but Andrew was surprised at the third.

“Leeds?”

“Easy to get to on the train. There are two direct trains a day and if you switch at York there are more than half a dozen. But it is only three hours away and it is the largest city down there that is easy to get to. It is twice as big as Newcastle and not that much smaller than Glasgow. So we are going to look at the possibilities in each of those three. Maggie has a good idea about Glasgow already so we will see. She is going to spend a couple of days in each of Newcastle and Leeds, checking out all the shops and studios, just getting a sense of the local scene.”

Tony shrugged and Andrew smiled. Another empire being built.

“How about all the old photographs?”

“Ticking over nicely. Alex keeps a really close eye on that. But there is a steady stream of small sales. There has been nothing like the Marilyn Monroe pictures but just loads of £50 here and £100 here. Even with the extra costs we are still making silly money.”

“What do you mean the extra costs?”

“Remember Maggie is paying two students to categorise and file all the pictures. Both the current students are on the Library Studies course at Strathclyde University. It is like she is building a library of pictures.”

“I hadn’t realised we were still doing that.”

“I thought it was a bit OCD to be honest, you know how she can get. But it is incredibly helpful for Elspeth and Dolly and the other two in getting sales. Like I said Alex watches it like a hawk, more than any other part of the business but it is really profitable.”

“How many employees do you have now?”

“We Andrew, we. This is your business too.”

Tony thought for a moment.

“Four including me in Fife, four at the shop, Stu running the studios and darkrooms in Edinburgh, Elspeth and three more, Alex, Maggie, and five pensioners. What is that? 20 people. Although half of them are part time or less.”

“That is really impressive. Remember when it was you and Stacey and a part-timer?

Their reflections were interrupted by the belated arrival of the ladies.

“This place is really big. It can’t be much smaller than our place, or Leslie and Julian’s. Yet you would never guess it from the front.”

“It is pretty big. You were away for a while, there isn’t that much to see.”

“Oh we were chatting as much as looking at the house.”

Andrew looked at Ara and Suzanne. They had a mischievous air about them.

“You will never guess what Maggie and Tony brought with them?”

Andrew was afraid to speculate.

“They brought all your photos.”

He hadn’t expected that. In fact, the phrase ‘all your photos’ was not one he ever thought about.

“We talked, what, three weeks ago, about our history and how we ended up with our current arrangement. And although everyone was incredibly understanding and accepting of what we did I thought that I would make sure. There is talking about it and then there is seeing it.”

“Are you okay with showing the photos?”

Maggie laughed. Pityingly.

“Andrew, you are Tony and I’s closest friend. We have friends we have known for much longer but think about what the three of us have done for the last five or six years. I don’t want anything to come between you and Suzanne and Arabella. Plus you know what I am like, I am a complete show-off.”

“And we offered a trade. Maggie and Tony have heard all about your modelling shoots but I can’t believe you have never shown them any. So we have the tape we showed Nikki and Fran a couple of weeks ago.”

Suzanne giggled.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

They all laughed at the pre-pubescent phrase.

They made fresh coffee and then trooped upstairs to the living room. And once again got to see the difference between talking about something, even in detail, and then seeing it on the screen. All of the commercials, in total, ran to nearly an hour and so Maggie and Tony got to see more than 100 of them back to back to back, an endless procession. And other than the very first photo shoots, the two days that were the genesis of everything, they were all there. The very first commercial had Heloise smacking his arse back in December 1984 and the very last, Andrew making very free with his hands on Eve, was shot that previous February.

Seeing 100 commercials in a row was a deluge. And Maggie, even Tony to an extent, looked drowned by them. Andrew, Suzanne and Ara sat quietly for several moments while the two of them tried to make sense of it all. Maggie summed it up perfectly.

“Andrew must love you both very much. That is an absurd amount of temptation. Of beautiful, sexy, naked temptation.”

Interestingly she went over and hugged both women. She sat back down and just stared at Andrew.

“Part of the reason for my initial silence was I had so many thoughts going through my head. Snippets of conversations that we have had over the years. Why I modelled, why I didn’t want the photos published, why you were even photographing me. And although I had heard you talk about all these shoots it still didn’t register what it would actually look like. What did you think love?”

She looked over at Tony.

“The way you just said it is right. We heard you talk about all these shoots every break but Mags is right, it just didn’t register. There was a disconnect between what we heard and that. I mean I have never shot a male model so I can only personalise this, but bloody hell Andrew.”

He shook his head.

“This isn’t even stills, it is film or video. You got naked in what, 95% of all these shoots. I can’t even begin to imagine what that is like. I am perfectly happy to let a woman undress in front of me but I couldn’t do that in a million years.”

They all laughed at his honesty.

“Half of those women are older than I am Andrew. That might be the most disconcerting thing of all. You know I talk about your hungry eyes when we are shooting but it wasn’t just hungry eyes on some of the commercials it was a hungry mouth and hungry hands. Good lord.”

She sat back in her chair and took a sip of cold coffee.

“Do you think that knowing me contributed to you modelling?”

“Of course. It was nearly seven years between when I first met you and starting to model. But the key thing for my modelling, at least initially, was that the woman had seen me at the pool. Sure I was down to my swim trunks or underwear but she had already seen me like that in a perfectly normal, socially acceptable way. So that was key. But being blasé enough about the nudity to just go for it. Yeah, that is mostly you. What’s the big deal?”

“That is a good transition. As you know we brought down all the photographs Andrew took of me going all the way back to the first trial shoot. I even got to keep my clothes on for that one.”

Obligatory laughter. Ara interrupted.

“We have all day, nobody is in a rush, so can you tell us the background to how you modelled for Andrew?”

It was going to be a rare glimpse into Andrew’s life pre-cancer.

“It was the summer of 1977 when we first met. Tony had hired Andrew to help in the shop because he was on crutches. Remind me why love?”

“I fractured my ankle in a car crash. I was hit by a drunk driver, and I was lucky. He caught the engine block and the wheel arch. It was the wheel arch being stoved in that bust up my ankle. Half a second later he would have hit the door square. Like I said I was lucky. But I was on crutches for weeks, months.”

“So in 1977 I was 19, and had been modelling for about a year. I went into the store one day and met Andrew for the first time. Like all 12 year olds he had no idea what colour my eyes were.”

More laughter.

“And having had hundreds of teenage boys stare at the girls I busted him on it. He blushed scarlet, Tony and I laughed about it and I was on my way. No big deal. Except that clever clogs over there figured out how to develop colour film. It is a straightforward process with one huge catch. Everything has to be done at an insanely precise temperature. Andrew figured out the missing piece of the process and started developing film from my modelling sessions, all the modelling sessions. Remember he was 12.”

On cue Ara and Suzanne looked at Andrew, horrified. He managed not to smirk, although Tony wasn’t so discreet.

“Exactly. So I found this out and came barging into the store one day kicking up a fuss. It wasn’t right that a 12 year old was developing nude modelling sessions. Of course I then had to eat a whole ration of shit when Andrew showed me that he only developed the negatives. He didn’t print out the pictures from them. All I knew about the darkroom was the film went in and prints came out. That it was a two stage process was news to me. He showed me negatives from my shoot literally the night before. So I knew it was me and that I was naked. But on a tiny yellow tinged negative it was impossible to tell. Hubby over there had a bigger smirk on his face than he does right now when I came back out of the darkroom.”

She smiled and Tony smirked ever wider.

“The next nine months I would occasionally be in the store, but I didn’t see much of Andrew, once or twice maybe. But then he got cancer. My grandfather had died of cancer at the start of the year, what would that be, 1978?”

Andrew nodded.

“So when Tony told me that Andrew was in the Sick Kids fighting skin cancer it shook me. I would ask how he was doing every time I modelled but it was a tough six months. Andrew gave Tony an update when he was at the Sick Kids but we didn’t know anything about the chemo. You tell the next bit love, it was you that took the picture.”

“You heard me talk about it last month. Andrew turned up in February 1979 to let me know that his cancer had gone into remission. It was good to see him but at the same time it was a shock. It was February and he was wrapped up but when he took his hat, scarf and coat off there was nothing to him. And then he asked me to take a shot of his body.”

Tony stopped and shook his head. Then he stood up and left the room, returning a few moments later with the largest suitcase. When he opened it there was a large box, with only a few clothes as padding round the sides. He extracted the box and set it on the coffee table. And opened the box of Andrew’s photographic life. But the first picture was not one Andrew had taken. It was the photo from that day. Andrew had his copy in his wallet, visual representation for the patients at Addenbrooke’s of the before. But neither Suzanne nor Ara had ever seen it, had ever seen the impact of cancer and chemotherapy on the body of a 13 year old boy.

There were no words, just strangled gasps. They almost threw it back on the table.

“Exactly. Andrew took off all the layers of shirts and jumpers and I was left with that. Absolutely fucking freaked me out. The only thing I could think of was the Holocaust. That was different, these people were literally worked and starved to death but it made it very real. So anyway I took the photo for Andrew and printed it out for him. But I also made a copy for myself, and I don’t really know why. But when I told Maggie that Andrew had recovered she asked the perfectly obvious question of how was he. So I showed her.”

Tony shook his head.

“No warning, no heads-up, just handed her the photo. And her reaction was about the same as yours was just now. I thought she was going to slap my face, I deserved to be slapped in the face.”

The room was sombre for a moment. Maggie carried on

“I haven’t thought about that photo in years, and I don’t want to. Can you put it away please love, I don’t want to look at it. When I finally met Andrew it was about three months later so most of that horrible skeletal gauntness had gone. Lentil soup two or three times a day was working wonders on him. And then it was more than a year before I saw him again, he wasn’t at the shop or darkroom as much, so it was the start of his 4^th year at school before I saw him again, so he would have been 15 years old by then. It was the first time that I seriously teased him about a photo shoot with me. I called it his 16^th birthday present. You have to be 16 to model nude and although there is no age limit for the photographers it seemed like the appropriate milestone. So cheeky me started to tease him about the chance to see me naked.”

Maggie’s smile was matched by Ara and Suzanne.

“We are all smiling because what I didn’t know was that this shy blushing kid was moonlighting as a serious shagger.”

All of them laughed as Andrew obligingly blushed on cue.

“But one of the most important things happened the following winter, so January 1981. I think I mentioned the bare bones last month. Andrew didn’t know my name at the time. I modelled under the name Monica and so he only knew me as Monica the model. Well one day we ran into each other but I was with two people from work who knew me as Maggie Fife not Monica. Well I freaked out. I had never run into any of the photographers before, although looking back that was probably just sheer luck. But the 15 year old schoolboy realised that he shouldn’t talk to me so we just passed each other. About 10 minutes later I went back to his bus stop and we were able to go for a cup of coffee. And that was the start of our proper friendship. We would meet every two or three weeks all through the winter and spring. And in some ways completely captures the relationship we have. I thought I was this worldly woman, going to give this shy private school kid his first view at a set of tits. And of course it was no such thing. And I was also a secretary for the Edinburgh City Council, only recently promoted from the typing pool. I had left school at 17. Oh and I moonlighted as a nude model. And yet Andrew didn’t see me like that either. Despite my teasing he treated me perfectly normally. So in those five or six months we would meet occasionally and I had told him my real name. But we talked about why I modelled and why Andrew was going to attend a session with a nude model, me. These months of conversation were key to everything that followed. Because I had told Andrew why I liked to model. I was a show-off and that it excited me to be the focus of all that attention. So he knew that I loved it. And you know this I am sure, but he confessed that one of his big turn-ons with women was that they were enjoying sex with him. The legacy of that amazing talk with Leslie. Now we weren’t having sex but within the context of the way his brain is wired if I was enjoying it then he could enjoy it.”

Ara and Suzanne had been nodding and practicing their own smirks.

“So after all that, photo time. These are the first pictures that Andrew ever took of me.”

Tony pulled the box onto the floor and laid out all the prints on the coffee table, it was easier than passing them one at a time. Andrew stood behind the sofa looking over Suzanne and Ara’s shoulders.

“You haven’t changed, have you?”

Suzanne looked back at him.

“How do you mean?”

“Do you want to photograph every arse you see. Because there sure is a lot of Maggie filling those jeans very well.”

Everyone laughed. Tony helpfully chimed in.

“Even when you are modelling there was a lot of shots of you looking at and touching a whole lot of naked arses.”

Thanks pal. More laughter.

“Yes, as you can see, from the very beginning Andrew was happier shooting my back than my front.”

Maggie shook her head. Tony acted as her assistant and swept up the prints as she carried on.

“So that was the May. A month later we finally came to the big moment. And it was such a letdown. Show them.”

The photographic equivalent of cock-blocking was obvious.

“Yeah, those two clowns were pathetic. Now I didn’t know anything about Andrew’s computer career but the fruits of that came into play. He booked a second shoot, just the two of us. And this is the start.”

Tony laid out the prints. Ara and Suzanne looked at them all carefully.

“You seem so happy, you can tell you are enjoying it.”

“The key to Andrew as a photographer. He has only worked with two models more than once. Me and the lady who models as Ursula. Everyone else Andrew has only shot once. And some of those models do like their job, love it even. But Ursula and I are totally into it. Tony is a much better photographer with standard models, where there isn’t chemistry, where there isn’t history. He is a successful professional glamour photographer. But Andrew is world-class with the two of us.”

Suzanne, Ara and Andrew all looked at Tony to gauge his reaction.

“Relax. Mags and I have talked about this many times. Maggie is my wife and we love each other. Just as the real life couple behind Ursula and Gunther love each other. But both Maggie and Ursula love to model, for very different reasons, but they love it. And equally importantly both Gunther and I love to watch our wives posing. And it takes a very special person, a special photographer, to capture that. The two of them need an audience. Let’s not jump ahead. We will get to this part shortly.”

Tony looked at his watch.

“At the speed we are going at it might be after dinner.”

“So that was the first proper nude modelling session with the two of us. And I had loved it. I didn’t think about it at the time but Andrew wanted Maggie in the photos not Monica. Now that just gets into a whole verbal minefield if we start talking about me as two different people. Monica was the persona I presented to all the photographers. But Andrew was friends with Maggie, even although we maintained the fiction of working with Monica for the whole year. The next session he let me choose what to wear, so I went with the sexy secretary.”

Tony showed them the pictures, but the review was more cursory.

“Then at Christmas Andrew gave me some money and told me to go and buy what I wanted, he would shoot me in what I bought. I had already sussed that he liked shooting my legs and arse so the Christmas shoot was all stockings and.”

She stopped.

“Was that the first time you saw a thong?”

Andrew nodded. These photos were looked at more closely.

“We didn’t shoot for the next six months although we met for coffee and chats regularly. Just after term ended so early July that year Andrew called one night and asked to do a shoot.”

Maggie stopped and looked ruefully at both Ara and Suzanne.

“I don’t have some kind of photographic memory or anything so fancy. I kept a journal for years and when we were getting all the pictures together I looked at the entries for back then. And before you ask I have talked about all this with Tony, at the time and several times since, including last week. This unexpected shoot was because he wanted to chat to me. But rather than just meet in a café Andrew wanted to do a shoot at the same time. I will get to the personal stuff in a minute but it was the first time he talked about the two of you.”

“Really?”

Suzanne spun round to Andrew.

“I thought you never talked about women, other than to Leslie.”

Maggie interrupted.

“No, he didn’t mention any names but last week when I read what I had noted down in my journal at the time I realised he had been talking about the two of you. The friend in his class that he had been getting ever closer to and an English university student that he was seriously crushing on. Those were all the details he told me, but I had forgotten until I dug out the journal last week.”

Suzanne had gone from looking surprised to starting to laugh. She looked at Ara.

“He has been crazy about us for five years, possibly longer. All the angst we all went through.”

“Yes, but I was still 18 and the two of you were 17. I think the reactions of family and friends would not have been as supportive.”

They all laughed at the truth of the statement.

“But what was interesting was I had written a few comments about why Andrew wanted to see me. But I wrote pages about the evening. I was a mess that month. He had pretty well stopped growing so he was the size he is now so in the space of three and a half years he had gone from a skeleton to this monster.”

Maggie looked down for a moment before looking back at Suzanne and Ara.

“I thought about fucking him. Yes I was 24 and he was only 17 but look at him.”

Everyone waited for Maggie to continue.

“Like I said that was probably the height of my. Oh hell I don’t know what it was. 24 year olds are not meant to have crushes but let’s call it that. It was another important moment because I didn’t screw it up. Andrew talked about the Open Day down at Cambridge, he wanted and needed my help and answers dealing with you two and he was my friend. He actually understood me better than he understood himself. We had met at the studio because he knew I loved posing, and it had been six months for us. All those little things meant that I let it all go. It had been a confusing year for me in ways I didn’t realise. I was happier to chat to Andrew and try and help him understand teenage women while naked in a studio than I was sitting normally having a cup of coffee.”

Maggie stopped and sighed.

“That is all a bit incoherent which is how it reads in my journal as well. I knew he was going to be moving away for university, something that completely intimidated me, was already confused about lots of women, and he was my friend. Things changed from that July onwards. Andrew and I were never going to be anything other than platonic. And within weeks of mentally getting out of my own way, suddenly this incredibly interesting man that I had known for years started to flirt with me.”

Interestingly Tony didn’t deny it.

“Mags has it 100% right. She was so relaxed with Andrew, it was crystal clear in the photographs and I was jealous. So I got off my arse and upped my game.”

“There are a couple more shoots to show you then it is a good point to stop and grab some lunch. Andrew had talked about doing an outdoor shoot, several in fact. So in September of 1982 he had me up before dawn and we climbed Arthur’s Seat in the dark.”

Tony laid out Andrew’s first outdoor shoot with Maggie.

“Wow. These are really good.”

“I know. That one.”

Maggie indicated the picture.

“Andrew entered it in a photo competition in one of the magazines. You came third, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

“I have only ever had three photographs published and they were all taken by Andrew.”

Maggie waited while they finished looking at the shots out over Edinburgh.

“Then an hour later we took these.”

The Peatdraught Bay shots were also laid on the coffee table.

“Where is this Andrew?”

He explained about the path and beaches round the edge of the Earl of Roseberry’s estate.

“I never knew that it was there.”

“I know. It is this hidden gem so close to the city. But that was the start of my outdoor adventures. I had been unsure earlier in the summer but I loved it from the first day. But then as Tony said the two of us got serious. And here is the first shoot we did where the three of us were there. Andrew said he was photographing a romance blossoming in front of him. This is October November time.”

The photos were nothing out of the ordinary, it was the memories for Tony and Maggie that were important.

“And that was the last shoot I did for six months.”

 

Chapter 2

Since there were no pictures during that part of the story Maggie carried on chatting to Ara and Suzanne while Andrew and Tony prepared lunch.

“I didn’t shoot for anybody, other than Tony on our own, for about five months.      And it was only looking back on it later that I could make sense of it. Over the late summer we had started to spend a lot of time together and after that shoot with Andrew we became a couple. To ourselves as much as anyone else. We had probably been a couple for weeks, if not at least a month, before that shoot. But then I had an odd time thinking about being in a serious relationship but still modelling nude. The nude is unnecessary with me, I only every modelled nude. And for a time either side of Christmas I didn’t model because I thought that is what I should do. That is what ‘they’, whoever ‘they’ were, expected. I shouldn’t be letting other men see me naked. None of this was from Tony, and in fact that when it was just the two of us, be it in the bedroom or the studio, we still took lots of pictures. But I missed being a model. And so I had this internal conflict about these two things. It came to a head one Friday night, I had come over to the flat and Tony had nipped downstairs to get the camera club started. This was the camera club that I had posed for regularly for years. But it took several conversations and a lot of wine for me to tell Tony that I wanted to keep modelling. And of course he didn’t care. You tell your story love.”

Lunch was ready so everyone sat round the table tucking in, and after Tony had made a dent in his lunch he carried on the tale.

“I had gone out with models over the years and on the few occasions when I had gone out with a non-model, when she found out that I shot nudes on a Friday night she would dump me. I had never thought about getting married, I was just a typical man and assumed that I would get married one day, I never worried about the details. But after being dumped for photographing nude models I did wonder how it was going to happen. I don’t think I ever consciously thought that I would end up marrying a model. But at the same time I wasn’t prepared to stop photographing them for any of the women that I dated, even although it was just amateur stuff then.”

Tony shrugged.

“I wasn’t going out with Maggie because she was a model and she was not jealous, instead she was missing it. So as she said we had a few conversations and she told me all this.”

Tony smiled ruefully.

“When I was younger there was so much stupid bragging, showing off. I was ‘banging the model’. But now I had to deal with the reality that someone I was serious with, and serious about, was going to model again. And I had to be okay with her being nude in front of other men. But when I stopped and thought about the situation, it didn’t bother me. Rather than bragging out loud, now I had this internal voice, often saying the same thing but I was honest enough to realise that it wasn’t just that I was okay with it, putting up with it, I was pleased and excited by the whole idea. But as Maggie said it was months later before I understood it all.”

Suzanne grabbed a bottle of wine and three glasses and led everyone back up to the living room. Tony and Andrew grabbed fresh beers. Maggie took over the tale.

“So after all that I said to Andrew that I would model again for him. I explained why, I gave him the short version, and he understood. He was my friend, he knew that I loved to pose so he did his usual shrug of the shoulders and just asked if I wanted it to be outdoors or in the studio.”

Rather than say anything else Maggie watched as Tony laid out the Torphin Quarry shoot, the first one.

“Where is this Andrew?”

Suzanne was trying to place the location.

“Above the quarry at Torphin.”

She nodded but her and Ara were skimming over the pictures.

“We have taken our time telling you about how we got to this point but it was the start. Tony was there and although I had been much more explicit with Tony when we were on our own, that it was Andrew photographing me rather than Tony made an enormous difference. I remember going back to the flat and attacking him for hours. It freaked me out slightly how much it turned me on. I started modelling for other groups but it had nothing like the same intensity, even when Tony was there. All the best shoots were with Andrew. So from then on, we shot during the breaks between his terms. This shoot here was Easter 1983 and so we didn’t do any shoots until after Andrew had finished school.”

Tony laid out Cramond Island and Craigmillar Castle shoots, and then the shoot at Harry’s Farm.

“These are all outside. Did you stop shooting in the studio?”

“Yes, until right at the end of the year.”

“Why all the outside shoots?”

“I loved the thrill of it, the chance that we might be spotted, I might be spotted. I remember we were splashing out to Cramond before the tide was all the way out that morning at first light. We shot for more than an hour and only met another person when we got back to the car. Just for a second I thought that it would have been fun to have been caught, or for him to have seen me pulling on my top from a distance. Then at the end of the summer once he came back from a trip to Rome.”

Maggie stopped as Suzanne preened. Ara started tickling her.

“Yes, Andrew got distracted for a while.”

They all laughed.

“Then we did one of my favourite shoots. But again it was outside but right in the city.”

Tony laid out the Blackford Hill shoot.

“You look incredibly. I don’t know happy, passionate, you just seem to jump out of the photograph.”

“I know. Andrew had bought me the coat and boots. I didn’t know before that morning. So I stripped in the car park up beside the observatory and then walked like that to where we could shoot. But you see those shots? Well the main reason I am so into it was that Andrew had Tony positioned right behind me. Andrew is shooting me from the side but Tony was standing staring right at me. I knew Tony was there, what he could see, that was hardly a big deal given some of our personal shots but there was something about the mental aspect of it that just got to me. So again the three of us together was something incredible. And once again when Tony got me back to the flat I didn’t let him out of bed for hours. It was becoming a pattern. If anything Tony and I were feeling guilty. Andrew would get us all revved up and then it was ‘see yah’.”

Again everyone laughed on cue.

“But September 1983 was when things changed and we were all more honest with each other. We did this shoot down at a hidden little beach in East Lothian. It was practically deserted, and we were away from the few people that were there that day.”

Tony showed them the first set. But then he laid out the second set. Ara and Suzanne tennis-matched between the other three.

“Exactly. Do you know what Andrew’s instruction was? Don’t say anything but tell me what Tony is doing. That was all. The dirty old man over there cottoned on quicker than I did. Andrew is leaning back in the sand dunes, Tony and I are behind the windbreak and I was looking right down the beach, seeing all the people further away. And it was a wonderful moment. It all came together; public but not too public; my ever growing feelings for Tony; and a photographer that often seems to understand me better than I know myself. As you can see, it didn’t take long.”

“Wow.”

Ara didn’t need to say much else.

“So once I had calmed down we sat and chatted. Monica the model was canned forever that day. I had to be honest and accept that it was me Maggie that was there that day. After the shoot I remember I lay out on the sand chatting to the two of them and I didn’t bother putting any clothes back on. It suddenly seemed to be pointless. Andrew asked if I knew that everyone else would stay away from us would I have shot out in the open? And some of the thoughts and secret desires about being seen all made sense. I didn’t want to be recognised, to be known, but I did want to be seen. That was a significant breakthrough.”

It was Tony’s turn again.

“Then a week later at his party we found out about the previous four years of Andrew’s life. The secret life. And it just exploded our minds. There we were on the Sunday afternoon on Seacliff beach, photographing that. Then six days later we find out what he and Leslie and Julian had achieved. And on top of all that he was a millionaire. This was the scrawny 12 year old that started helping me in the shop because of my broken ankle. We have spent all morning talking about his journey as a photographer, as our friend, and then we had that thrown at us. It was interesting having our own prejudices and assumptions dissolve in front of us. It wasn’t like he made the money within the previous month. It was nearly a year earlier and he hadn’t changed. It really did force us to confront some of our own biases. But he was just Andrew. And it was hugely significant for us as individuals and as a couple. We had agreed to take him down to Cambridge and we chatted about most of it on the journey. It was a nice quiet time. And it just reinforced how he hadn’t changed. Then when we got to Cambridge he took us into the Great Court at Trinity College and happily showed us around. Again another myth debunked. We were only there for an hour or so but it was fascinating and daunting at the same time. In fact he got the most dangerous prop he ever bought there. Patience, we will show you the pictures.”

“On the car journey south when we were talking about future shoots Andrew suggested that Tony and I scout out locations beside train tracks. Standing beside the track the train will be past in mere seconds and although people might see a naked woman they would never be able to recognise me. That kept us busy all autumn.”

“You stood naked as a train went past?”

“You will see the pictures in a minute.”

Tony laid out the train photos from the spot at the end of the runway at Edinburgh Airport.

“So people saw you?”

“They must have done. But shortly after that we were on a train heading down to Newcastle and there was a family in the carriage and it was only then that I realised that kids might have seen me. So we stopped that. The train was going so fast it would have been nothing but a pink blur but it didn’t seem right.”

But then Maggie produced a couple of scraps of paper. Andrew realised it was the infamous list of shoots they discussed on the car journey north.

“What is this?”

“These are all the suggestions that Andrew made for shoots for the three of us.”

“All of these? How many have you done?”

“Three quarters of them, probably more.”

“Really?!”

Ara was looking at all the different shoots.

“Bloody hell.”

Suddenly she stopped and thought.

“I was thinking about all the places you have been naked, all the photographs that Andrew has taken of you. But then I realised that is probably the easy part. It is thinking about all those ideas in the first place.”

“Andrew is a good photographer, and clearly with just the three of us he is brilliant. But it is the ideas that he comes up with that are the difference. That pleated jacket that I wore on Blackford Hill, he saw a tourist wearing it and thought it would be a great piece of clothing for a shoot. If the two of you are going to model for Andrew that is going to be the best part. Wondering what he has thought of next.”

Rather than look embarrassed both Suzanne and Ara looked excited at the prospect.

“I know we are dragging out the story of us, and all these shoots, but it is only when you hear the story behind them and stop and look at them you realise how amazing so many of them are. I mean look at these.”

Ara and Suzanne slid off the couch and knelt down on the floor in front of the coffee table in stunned silence as Tony laid out the pictures from Camusdarach Beach.

“You shot on the beach where they filmed Local Hero?”

“Bloody freezing it was. December 14^th, 15^th, somewhere around there.”

“How did you find it?”

Maggie laughed.

“Tell them.”

“I had dinner one night at College and randomly there was a post grad marine biologist at the table. He told us all about it, and gave me reasonable directions. It was a risk, with both the weather and potentially people but we had a wonderful time.”

“These are totally amazing. You are walking exactly where the actors were, where it was shot. What was it like?”

Maggie thought for a second.

“Relaxing. There was no one there. But there were lots of other emotions. I was loving it. I had those a moment when I imagined the two actors walking on the beach, being filmed, and there I was in the background, spinning around at the edge of the water, completely naked. Again a lovely little fantasy but it was things like that. And I was grateful to both Tony and Andrew for doing all this for me. And my thoughts on that were all over the place. I could show Tony how grateful I was but Andrew, we often wondered what he got out of it.”

Maggie smiled with pursed lips. Tony cleared the first set of prints and then laid out the second set that taken when Maggie was in the rocks. The very first time she had been more explicit. Neither Suzanne or Ara said anything but did look at Maggie.

“That was part of my journey. I never posed like that when I was modelling, I wasn’t comfortable posing that explicitly. But I had a lot of suppressed fantasies. Andrew and his camera became proxies for an audience. Until this afternoon no one has ever seen these pictures and the ones I will show you shortly. I wanted to pose like that, but I was afraid of being judged. I knew that Andrew wouldn’t care or judge and so I let my fantasies start to leak out.”

“Were you nervous?”

“Not really, I wanted Andrew to take the shots and not make a big deal. His reaction was important.”

“What did you think?”

Ara turned to Andrew.

“Tony had given me a heads up so that I didn’t stand there, mouth agape. What we were doing was very odd, it has been for years. But at the same time my two friends were really happy and at some point I stopped trying to analyse it and just took the shots.”

Maggie and Tony nodded.

“Andrew shared a story he had heard at Cambridge. Do you remember? One of your friends told you about how his aunt and uncle were rumoured to be swingers.”

Andrew had forgotten about Justin’s story.

“It was a Sunday night and there had been some scandal on the front page of the News of the World about a swingers club. And Justin told the story of his aunt and uncle. Their children, his cousins, reckoned that the two of them were swingers. It was a nothing story but people behave very differently behind closed doors. On that spectrum, what we were doing was pretty tame. Not common, but as with so much of my life, ‘what’s the big deal?’.”

Given what Ara, Suzanne and Andrew got up to when it was just the three of them, it was a clinching argument.

“Did you pose that way as a thank you to Andrew?”

Maggie looked startled and glanced at Tony.

“I had never thought of it that way. Was that part of it?”

She was looking at Tony.

“No. How you posed was for you. Without being too crude Andrew never took the prints away.”

It took a second but they understood what he meant.

“He never took any of the prints. They were all his but they were all kept in a locked cabinet in the darkroom. And now a locked cabinet in our house. Andrew took all these pictures for the two of us not for himself. Do you have any photographs of Maggie here, or at the flat in Edinburgh?”

Andrew shook his head.

“No, we would review them all, look through them but I left them with you.”

“We haven’t told you, and shown you the highlight of the day.”

The photographs of the old man, Roddy Morrison, were placed on the table. Maggie explained how Andrew had challenged her and how they sent the evidence to the local hotel so that he could be the Local Hero.

“So you walked up the beach naked towards that old man?”

Maggie nodded.

“I had tried to be upset when Andrew first suggested it but again I just needed a little push. And he was perfect. A total stranger, over 80, Tony was there so I felt safe, it couldn’t get any better. So I went for it. And it was amazing. And it was the perfect endpoint for the day.”

She and Tony started to laugh.

“Actually the perfect endpoint to the day was Andrew telling us that he was going to sit at the beach until we were done. We didn’t stop and consider it for a second, we all but ran to the car.”

“I was 32, and I was in the back seat of my car again.”

Everyone laughed. Tony calmed down.

“And that is the other part of it. We will talk about some of the other shoots in a few minutes but that was the first time, but definitely not the last time, that Andrew sat and waited while Maggie and I relieved the tension of the shoot. An incredible friend.”

Suzanne and Ara looked at Andrew.

“What were you getting out of all this Andrew? You didn’t keep the photos, you sat on the beach as Maggie and Tony, well as Tony said relieved the tension. Why did you do it?”

“Two reasons. The first and by far the most important was that I had been the recipient of so much help and advice over the years. There is no way that any of the stuff that had happened over the previous four years, even further, the previous six years, would have been possible without lots of people helping me. Leslie’s dad, Doug Somers and Tony himself, all contributed to what I had achieved. In my mind this was giving a little back. And compared to what I got from other people it seems trivial. I believe in karma, it is probably the closest thing I have to a faith. So I did this for my friends. And the other way of looking at it was like I was a roadie for a band. The gig doesn’t happen without the roadies but they are the unsung people that make it happen. Now this had nothing to do with business or anything like that but I just decided to help. There is another point but I will tell you it when the time comes.”

“What you asked was exactly what Tony and I were asking. It didn’t seem fair. In fact do you know that the next shoot has been the only time Andrew ever touched me while I was modelling.”

Rather than draw the moment out Tony showed them the terrible oil set.

“Worst shoot we ever did, nothing else is even close. The tub was an absolute death trap and so Andrew wrapped a towel round my arm to help me out of the bathtub. Literally the only time he has touched me modelling. I only thought about that last week. He had inhuman control. And is the nicest man.”

Andrew blushed and Ara and Suzanne came over and gave him a quick snog. Maggie laughed.

“Delayed payment but worth it in the end, eh?”

Andrew smiled and nodded.

“When I looked at the pictures last week this next set is even worse than I remember. And not in a bad way.”

Tony had put away the few oil shots and laid out the gown photographs. Once again Suzanne and Ara were stunned into silence.

“That is what Andrew bought for me at Trinity College when we were there. So as you can see we did a shoot where I was the professor in my gown. This was immediately after the oil scene and it had taken us more than an hour to clean up. It had just been Andrew and I as Tony was in the shop. But once I had finished showering all the oil off me, and that took a long time, the shop was closed. So I came down to the studio and Tony was there. I am now dressed as you can see in the photographs. But Andrew had stripped off his jumper and shirt, it was just his tee-shirt.”

Maggie shook her head.

“During the shoot he started talking about all the students watching me strip. He had me imagining what it would be like to strip down in front of a class of guys looking like Andrew. And I could see his body. You know what he is like, normally it is covered up and mostly it was baggy. So I knew the general shape and size but it was right there. So I was getting turned on and feeling guilty at the same time but then I glanced at Tony and he just winked at me.”

Maggie stopped.

“Andrew had to literally run from the studio and finished dressing outside the studio, and I think it was Boxing Day, so it would have been bloody freezing. God, we were so turned on. We had left him a message on his answer machine before he even got back home.”

Ara and Suzanne looked at each other, huge smiles on their faces. They looked like they were getting more and more excited about modelling for him.

“We will pick up the pace a bit now. We don’t need to go through every set. But the last important piece happened that Easter, April 1984. I had been advertising for models during the winter and had received a few replies. But two of the replies had been older women, including the lady worked who worked in the shop with Tony. And so that is how we came up with the idea of the fantasy shoots. The very first shoot was Stacey. And because she worked with Tony every day she wanted Andrew to shoot it. Now we have none of those photos, all the negatives and prints go to the person that wants the shoot. But the friend that Stacey brought along with her was Ursula. Until that moment she had never thought about being a model. But that was the pebble in the pond, everything rippled out from that moment. Stacey lived out her fantasy and has never done it again. Ursula decided to do a fantasy shoot and it changed her life. That is later.

“So I have had three pictures published in all the years I have been modelling. I just wouldn’t sign the model releases. The only three pictures I had published were all shot by Andrew. The first one was one of the shots on Arthur’s Seat at dawn. The second was one of the shots on Blackford Hill. And the third shot was this one.”

Tony put the enlarged photograph on the coffee table. There was Maggie sitting on the little stool looking out over Loch Rannoch with Tony beside his easel in the foreground.

“I must have said wow ten times already today. Are you on the top of a mountain?”

“Yes. That is the summit of Schiehallion, with Loch Rannoch off in the distance. We hiked to the top of the mountain that April and it was deserted. There were two locals who were already on their way down when we passed them. So we had the summit to ourselves. Remember the list, pictures of me naked on the summits of all the Munros? Well that is the only one that we have managed. It is not really practical and between people and the weather it isn’t something that we are trying to do. But that morning it worked out perfectly. What Tony and I didn’t know is that Andrew hauled the two stools, the easel, the clothes, in his backpack to the top of the mountain. So six weeks ago, that photograph was published in a Swiss mountaineering magazine. I think I am going to help the Scottish tourist industry with visits from Switzerland.”

Tony butted in.

“You know that the three of us have a photography business together, yes?”

Ara and Suzanne nodded.

“Do you know what Andrew’s photography company is called?”

“No.”

“The Schiehallion Art Collective.”

Both of them burst into laughter.

“No way.”

“100% true. I went with Antonio Marrone Photography, which is just Tony Brown in Italian. This one.”

“That is what I mean with the creativity. Never mind carrying all the stuff to the top of the mountain he thought about it in advance, bought those props and then sprang it on us. That is what makes it so fun.”

Suzanne stepped over and whispered at Maggie who laughed and nodded. Andrew and Tony were led off to their bedrooms. As soon as Ara had the door closed she and Suzanne pounced on Andrew. Everyone stripped haphazardly before Suzanne knelt in front of him while Ara tickled the boys. As his hips started to twitch Suzanne pulled him tight and he pulsed right down her throat. Ara almost pushed her out the way and once Andrew was hard again dragged him over to the bed.

Bending her into the ‘el’ shape Andrew slipped into her with one thrust. Suzanne lay beside her, kissing her passionately while gently teasing her nipples. It was a superbly intimate, relaxing yet intense moment. Andrew felt so loved and happy and Ara and Suzanne radiated it as well.

“Fuck her hard Andrew. Come on. She wants it.”

Well that was him told. Andrew upped his game and Ara groaned into Suzanne’s mouth as they kissed. Suzanne looked over at Andrew and winked at him before moving down from Ara’s mouth to her nipples. There was only going to be one outcome for both Ara and Andrew and her orgasm triggered his own. Five minutes later Suzanne was lying on Andrew with Ara snuggled in tight to his shoulder. They all knew that their talk would revive him and Suzanne was ready for her ride.

“It has been a fascinating day. They are two very good friends.”

Andrew nodded, not saying anything, interested to hear how the two of them processed everything they had heard.

“Maggie moulded you in many ways but there were times when she was talking about her life but it could have been me, us, talking about our own.”

“When she talked about being judged, the idea of ‘what’s the big deal?’ while knowing that to most people it would be a big deal. That felt very personal.”

“But Maggie is right. You have a crazy creative streak in you. That list was all you?”

“Yes, it was.”

“We will hear about the rest later this afternoon but the beach from Local Hero? The top of a Scottish mountain? The gown shoot? I had to stop myself feeling jealous. She didn’t say the words but the gown shoot was all mental, wasn’t it?”

“Completely. I didn’t stray there again, it felt too close to her imagining fucking me as opposed to Tony. But yes it was all about the mental imagery.”

“That is what it is going to be with us isn’t it?”

“I think so, I would imagine that most of our shoots will have a lot of talking, a fair bit of goading, teasing. Again the dynamic of the three of us means that it isn’t always going to end up as the photographer fucking the model. I mean an easy one is Ara getting turned on by Suzanne being very naughty in the way she is posing but rather than Suzanne getting the reward she steals it away from her. In fact it should be the other way around. Ara is posing, making bedroom eyes at me, but then Suzanne is incredibly naughty and steals Ara’s fuck. Imagine doing that on a Saturday night and having to wait until Tuesday night to find out your punishment.”

Suzanne groaned at the imagery as well as from impaling herself on Andrew. Ara leaned over and kissed her fiercely.

“Andrew is going to be out on the shoot tomorrow. I think I should show you how upset even the idea of that naughtiness makes me.”

It was simple, almost formulaic, but it worked for the three of them. Andrew came for the third time in less than 30 minutes and lay there full of joy and love for these two incredible women. When Suzanne came back from the bathroom the three of them cuddled together. The strength of their love was getting stronger and stronger.

Chapter 3

“I thought that we would model for you and we would enjoy it. But it is going to be another facet of our lives. I want us to be as creative going forward as Andrew has been in the past.”

“I know what you mean. Maggie has told us that the photos are just going to get more explicit but I am not upset, I am excited to see them but within the context of our own lives. Nobody else is ever going to be in this room, I don’t want or need to have someone else photograph me before I drag Andrew off to bed. Well other than you but I was meaning someone outside the three of us. And neither of us are going to be in a porn magazine. But I am not disgusted by either Maggie or Ursula, it is the exact opposite. I think that hearing about these shoots, either directly from Maggie or through Andrew about Ursula, I find that fascinating.”

They contemplated Ara’s words.

“The life we are choosing to lead does not lend itself to passing judgement on others, does it?”

“No It doesn’t, and that is the key point. I couldn’t do, we couldn’t do, what Maggie and Ursula are doing. Especially Ursula. But I find I am interested to hear about it, see it.”

Ara leaned over and kissed Andrew hard.

“You are a good man. You have been a good friend to Maggie, and Tony, for years. And Maggie was right, you did exhibit inhuman control. But those days are over. When you finish shooting tomorrow you need to rush home as there will be a sore pink bottom waiting for you to fuck hard.”

Ara pulled herself onto Andrew as Suzanne groaned again.

“And once you have slaked your beastly lusts I will ride you until you are a drained husk.”

Given that Andrew had come three times already he was in no danger of coming. He flung Ara off him and hauled her down to the end of the bed. Ara’s smile of triumph made both him and Suzanne smile. Suzanne spread her legs and slid under Ara’s body so that her tongue could reach Suzanne’s dripping pussy. Andrew didn’t zone out but it was a hard relentless fuck, a workout fuck. Realising that he wasn’t close to coming he had Suzanne torment Ara’s nipples and when she exploded in front of them he stopped. There was no point in fucking themselves raw.

But that afternoon the odd relationship that Maggie and Tony had with Andrew was solidified. Maggie and Tony got turned on by the photography session and now Ara, Suzanne and Andrew did as well. It was unusual but everyone knew that the result was epic fucking, dialled all the way up to 11.

The smirks on the faces of Tony and Maggie when they finally left the bedroom were broad and knowing. There was no point in a dignified silence.

“You must visit regularly.”

Laughter all round at Ara’s words.

“I am glad that you find it as stimulating as Tony and I. Are we done, or do you want to see the rest of the pictures?”

“Are there a lot more?”

Maggie nodded.

“Quite a lot more. The story is mostly done but the shoots? Probably only halfway.”

“Wow.”

Suzanne looked at Ara who shrugged.

“It is a lovely summer’s day, let’s get some more wine and go through them. I think we should understand the nature of the current shoots, okay?”

“Sure. We are happy to show you them all. The next sets are from the first of three weekends in the Norfolk Broads.”

The initial sets were tame, just Maggie naked at the helm but as Tony endlessly swapped the sets the ever more explicit nature of Maggie’s posing was clear.

“Andrew went for a walk after that set. And drove the boat for us after that set. Oh and sat and stared off the back of the boat while Tony totally felt me up putting all that sunscreen on me. We really did take advantage of him when we were on the boat. And this is tame compared to the other years.”

Tony cleared away the last of the boating pictures.

“This was the summer that we started the business together, so a lot of the time we were chatting about that, rather than just doing shoots. We were all busy. The end of the summer was Ursula’s first shoot, that was probably the main thing. But we don’t have any pictures of it. But we made up for it with these two sessions.”

Both Suzanne and Ara had done yoga, Suzanne regularly while at university. Naked yoga made them both laugh and Maggie joined in.

“What you don’t see is Andrew understanding and embracing our strange relationship. He had Tony shifting my limbs, for no other reason than to let him feel me up. Tony was constantly stroking my arse or my thighs, it was absolutely fantastic, and torture at the same time. There is no such thing as modified camel but it didn’t stop Andrew from inventing it. Once again he packed up and put his coat on outside the studio.”

Maggie smiled and shook her head.

“He had a busy break as he shot Ursula for the second time. I am calling her that but at the time it was just her real name. Ursula is a more recent identity. But he did her second shoot. And then we were back in the hills.”

The photos from the shoot up in the Ochils were laid on the coffee table. Again it was clear that Maggie had embraced a more explicit posing style.

“This is beside a little reservoir up in the hills. They fish there in the summer but it was deserted. Again once the shoot was over Andrew just walked back to the car.”

Everyone smirked.

“Through all this time the business was getting up and running. We had converted Tony’s old flat into two smaller studios and had moved into Julian’s old place in Marchmont. So this had been the Christmas break and at Easter we talked about finding somewhere with a view for the first time. Andrew and Tony went looking for days and eventually found what is now our house. The only shoot was this one.”

The shoot at the Manse Club was laid out.

“These are very different, such a different light.”

“Yeah, Andrew did a lot of testing to get settings that would let the pictures be clear. He sat on the floor the whole time, and just let me be me. That was such a fun shoot because we were indoors, trapped in the corner and I was bottomless pretending to play snooker. Of course then Andrew got me to kneel down and take my top off as well.”

Maggie smiled and shook her head.

“I was seriously turned on. Hardly surprising.”

They looked at the photos of Maggie kneeling down directly in front of Tony. Ara and Suzanne glanced at each other and it was Suzanne that asked the question.

“Did you.”

She stopped.

“Are there some photos you have removed?”

Maggie laughed.

“No, everything is here. As to your question, hold that thought.”

Tony packed up the shots from the Manse Club.

“So that was Easter of ’85 and then in June we did our second weekend in the Broads.”

Tony laid out the first couple of sets of pictures. Ever more evident was Maggie’s blatant posing.

“I had driven the boat for at least an hour, and I was only allowed to wear that blouse if there was another boat coming towards us. The rest of the time I was completely naked. And Tony made sure I wasn’t going to get sunburned.”

Maggie shivered with the memories.

“After those shots Andrew was in charge of the driving for a while. He had to listen to us ‘relieve our tension’ for the next hour.”

She smiled over at Tony.

“These holidays in the Broads have always been about pushing my boundaries. Every shoot can’t be the most important or significant but that weekend there was a constant risk of being spotted. Which is my absolute sweet spot. I think I would love going through life, modelling and being spotted, but at the same time not being recognised.”

Maggie smiled at the thought.

“Yet when I read my journal there were a couple of sentences afterwards. We sat and planned out the big new studio for several hours. That was the first one and then the second was that we discussed our wedding with Andrew. He had suggested that we do like Leslie and Julian, small civil ceremony and then a big reception. Which is what we ultimately did.”

Maggie explained about the issues with her extended family. While she was doing this Tony laid out a sample of the pictures from the later shoots that weekend. There were lots where Andrew had been on the bank or dock and Maggie had posed on the boat, as well as several sets down in the main cabin. It looked like Maggie had posed naked all day. Ara asked.

“When I think back on it you are not far off the truth. Andrew took lots of pictures and then I dragged Tony off to our cabin. Every three hours we were back in the cabin like a pair of horny teenagers.”

Everyone laughed at her characterisation and the fact it was 100% true. The final sets of pictures were ones that Andrew had forgotten about, the skirt with the ‘bite’ out of the back. Suzanne and Ara were laughing as soon as they saw the first shot when Maggie turned round.

“That is amazing. Where on earth did you find something like that?”

“Oh, I had it made specially. June Wyatt, you know her Suzanne you went to school with her. She made it for me. Guess whose idea?”

Andrew briefly explained about supporting June’s fashion dream and how she designed clothes for the photography business as part of that. He could see Suzanne had more questions but they were shelved until later. Instead the focus was back on the pictures and the look of mischievous happiness on Maggie’s face.

“You look so happy, what were you thinking?”

“Lots of things. I was thinking about Tony and taking him back down to our cabin. We were standing there, laughing away, but his hand was wandering and I was getting hot and bothered. Then there was the whole ‘Andrew is photographing this’ dynamic as well. But there was a lot of devilment going through my head at the same time. A working class couple, me with my arse on display, if not to the world then Andrew and his camera. I remember thinking ‘if only they knew’ several times. It was all so middle class and civilised and there were the three of us flaunting convention, society, all that stuff. We were on the way back to the dock so that we could drive Andrew back down to Cambridge. So there was a lot of pretending to fit in, to being civilised, all the while acting completely the opposite.”

Tony interrupted the tale.

“We were looking at these photos last week in preparation for coming down here and it struck me that we had no idea if some of the people that we were chatting to as we motored past were dressed exactly the same way. When you look at Maggie and I now, the couple who model as Ursula and her husband Gunther, and the three of you, there is no indication of our secret lives. So how the hell could we be expected to know about a couple or a group of friends that we motor past in less than 20 seconds. It got me to thinking whether there were a lot more people like us than we had ever imagined.”

There was a considered silence. Ara broke it first.

“In thoughts yes; in deeds, I don’t think so. You have talked about it several times, the fantasy shoots. How lots more people express an interest than ever actually sign up. You have a real world example that you can use to back up your thoughts. I think there is also the issue you talk about of consequences, the whole ‘seen but not recognised’ concept that you have talked about. Even the other lady, Ursula, that allows her photographs to be published, she still disguises her appearance. It is acting on the thoughts that is the difference. Did that make sense?”

Tony nodded.

“I see what you are saying Ara. Consequences as I thought about them right now were all about laws and punishment. Going to prison if you break the law, that sort of thing. But the consequences from doing this are all about how you are perceived, how other people look at you, act with you, whether they will even talk to you.”

He paused and thought.

“We have structured all these shoots so that there is that thrill but that we don’t have to deal with the consequences, what you had to put up with at school.”

That last was said to Maggie who nodded.

“It was an unhappy experience at the time but looking back it probably saved me from myself in the years that have followed. Which ties it back to Andrew as the proxy for everyone else.”

Suzanne interrupted.

“Would you still pose for someone else if Andrew wasn’t able to photograph you anymore. If we had freaked out at what you were doing?”

Maggie and Tony looked at each other and both shook their heads.

“No. It comes down to trust, understanding of Andrew, and him of us. Neither of us would be relaxed with someone else. I suppose if we got to know someone really well over a number of years then maybe, but I doubt it. It is a unique set of circumstances. You heard me last weekend when I called, I was still worried that you were going to change your minds.”

Ara and Suzanne smiled at each other and at both Maggie and Tony.

“It comes back to the first word, trust. To be honest when it was explained to us how he photographs you, and Ursula, it excited me, it excited us. For both of us we have watched Andrew with this endless parade of beautiful women when he has modelled and yet he chose us. We see him with all these women but he lives with us. And we both know that we wouldn’t be sitting here today without the influence you had on him. So you can stop worrying about it. Frankly, Andrew’s sexual creativity with all these shoots is hugely exciting.”

When Suzanne finished speaking Ara leaned over and kissed her.

“So come on, that was the start of the summer what was the next shoot. This was the summer of Cyprus, yes?”

Andrew nodded. Tony swept up the last of the boat prints and then laid out the shaving sets. Nothing needed to be said but Ara and Suzanne both looked over their shoulders at Andrew. He smiled at the prospect but looked up as Maggie laughed.

“Every two weeks since that day.”

Suzanne and Ara giggled as Tony tried, and failed, not to smirk.

“Andrew has two of us, it will be every week, turn about.”

Everyone laughed at Suzanne’s earnest tone of voice. And yet every Sunday night…

“You asked me about things getting more explicit when we showed you the sets at the snooker club, and I asked you to hold that thought. This is why.”

Tony covered the coffee table with first the pictures of Maggie orgasming as she lay on the bed, but then the room was still as Ara and Suzanne got to see Maggie fucking herself with the dildo that Andrew bought her.

“Wow.”

“That was my Christmas present, those were shot on Christmas Eve. Andrew and I developed the shots on Boxing Day, just the two of us. Tony was working in the shop; Boxing Day is the busiest day of the year. Andrew asked me if Tony and I wanted him to film us fucking. We had talked about the possibility despite knowing that it was probably a bad idea. And so Andrew took the decision out of our hands. He said he didn’t want to do that. And as soon as he said it I knew it was the right decision. The three of us had just kept going, constantly pushing the boundaries and we had finally reached a limit. So yes, there are a lot of sets of me playing with myself and Lord Sutch but that is our limit.”

“Lord Sutch?”

Ara got there before Suzanne.

“My idiot husband’s name for it. There was a pop star in the 1960s called Screaming Lord Sutch.”

The rest was left unsaid. Andrew could tell the two of them were thinking about what they were going to call their own toys.

“Floyd.”

Suzanne’s one word had everyone confused.

“It goes in the pink.”

Suzanne really could channel a 14 year old boy at times but both Ara and Andrew were thinking about Suzanne and ‘Floyd’. At this rate there would be another stop for a trip to the bedroom.

“Purple.”

They all looked at Ara at her sudden announcement.

“It will go in deep.”

14 year olds at an all-boys school couldn’t have come up with cornier names. There were too many sets from the third trip to the Broads so Tony laid out some examples as Maggie talked about it.

“This was our wedding present from Andrew. We had spent the previous two weeks working with eight different nude models on the boat. So we had worked as glamour photographers for the whole time knowing that we were collecting Andrew on the Friday. I don’t need any help getting excited for posing but having watched an endless series of models cavort about naked on the boat I was like a volcano ready to go off.”

Maggie pointed to the set with her just in her bikini top.

“Not even 20 minutes after we were on the boat and that was how I was driving it. And every 10 shots or so Andrew had Tony make sure I hadn’t missed any spots when applying the sunscreen. We got to the end of the second roll of film and Andrew was left to make sure we didn’t crash. It was bloody fantastic.”

Maggie shook her head as she paused.

“We have talked about it endlessly. Andrew makes it different. Look at these ones, this is an hour later.”

Tony laid out the shots of Maggie lying in bed, clearly just having been fucked.

“Tony and I get into a kind of feedback loop, egging each other on. When I think back on weekends like that it is a combination of intense sexual excitement combined with languid relaxation.”

Tony laid out some more shots before they got to the first set with Maggie playing with her dildo.

“Tony made that bed up for me and then made sure I was covered in sunscreen. But then Andrew told me to wait until another boat was close before playing with myself. It felt like an hour between the second and third boat although they both swear it was only seven minutes. So I was all worked up, I have the dildo in my hand but I had to wait until a boat was close before I could use it. I just ignored them after the fourth boat. And again Tony got dragged off to the cabin. It is those little twists that get me. Most people would have had me play with the dildo when there was no one around, but be still and quiet when there were other boats about. But no, Andrew switched it round.”

The statuesque shots as the sun set were shown but it was the shots the following morning that had Ara and Suzanne’s attention. They finally got to see Maggie with her feet on Andrew’s shoulders. But their reaction was interest and curiosity.

“Andrew is as close as a gynaecologist.”

Ara looked at Tony unsure how to ask the question. Maggie just laughed.

“He handed me Lord Sutch.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Each of the three of us play our roles. Tony is not the passive third wheel in all this, are you love?”

“No. We are both kinky people. It is not just Maggie getting off on posing so explicitly for Andrew. It is me as well. I love watching her, pushing her. And truthfully it is very selfish of us. Maggie is staring down the lens of the camera, she can practically feel Andrew’s breath on her thighs. She put her feet on his shoulders and I knew that she was rabid. But just to amp it up even more I handed her the dildo. But Andrew wouldn’t let her piston it in and out of her like she wanted to. No, he had her slowly push it in and then pull it back out. You can’t get pictures like that otherwise.”

Tony pointed to the shot were there was a strand of pussy juice stretched between Maggie and the dildo.

“But then as soon as the roll of film was finished we bolted for our cabin and fucked ourselves into exhausted sleep. It was four hours later before we surfaced, yet Andrew had driven the boat south all that time. We get insane amounts of physical pleasure when Maggie is modelling for Andrew but we also get huge amounts of emotional closeness as well. It seems totally counter-intuitive but we are closer as a result of Maggie posing rather than despite it.”

Maggie jumped up and straddled her husband for a moment. Ara, Suzanne and Andrew looked at each other and smiled. Maggie climbed off Tony and smirked.

“I haven’t even started modelling and he is going to get so lucky. You two are a good influence.”

In comparison to the detailed reviews of some of the sets, they spent less time on the shoots from the last year. It wasn’t that Suzanne and Ara were less interested it was more that everyone was talked out. There was an understanding of the relationship and everyone’s concerns, such as they were, had been assuaged. It was time to think about the next day. The shots from the last year included the Scott Monument and posing in the carpark that was beside Edinburgh Castle, locations that anchored the shoot firmly in Edinburgh. Trying to do that in London was going to be very different; Andrew didn’t know the city nearly as well, and there were more than 15 times as many people.

It was 4.30 the following morning when Andrew slipped out of bed. Ara and Suzanne were sound asleep and neither moved. He dressed in the bathroom then padded upstairs and quietly banged on the guest bedroom door.

“We’re up.”

The timer function on the coffee maker had worked perfectly and Andrew had three flasks ready to go when Maggie and Tony came down the stairs. She was wearing one of her long coats, the inner one, as it was already warm even that early in the morning. The drive north to Stanmore station was painless, the traffic was non-existent and the carpark at their destination was empty. After buying three tickets they were the only people on the platform.

The first Tube on the Jubilee Line set off at 5.05 with a driver, guard and three passengers. Andrew had been thinking about things that were quintessentially London and figured that the Tube was a good start. Maggie was wearing grip top stockings and heels and immediately handed her coat to Tony. There were no particular poses that Andrew wanted to shoot, the important part had already been achieved, they were on the Tube. Both Maggie and Andrew worked hard and the first roll of 24 was shot quickly. As they approached Canons Park Maggie slipped her coat back on. There were only two passengers waiting on the platform and they boarded elsewhere on the train. Before the train had even pulled out of the station Maggie was naked again. The second roll was much more of her back and bum as she looked out of the door at the passing scenery, although it was the north London suburbs, there was not much to see. Only one person was at Queensberry Station and again she boarded elsewhere. The third, and as it turned out final, roll was Maggie lying back on the seats legs spread wide and looking seriously sexy for 5.20 in the morning. Tony claimed that there was a piece of lint on her upper thigh which did nothing to lower the heat of the shots. But as they approached Kingsbury, where Andrew alighted when he came to train with his Territorial Army regiment, they saw that the platform had more than a dozen people waiting as the train pulled in. The three of them sat so that Maggie’s appearance wasn’t obvious and Andrew discretely packed his camera away properly, having just stuffed it in the bag at first. A couple of stops further on, at Wembley, they left the train to wait for the first northbound train of the morning so that they could return and get the car. They were back in the house just after 6.30. Knowing that Maggie would need some time with Tony, Andrew changed into his running gear and went for his morning run. The whole thing had been ridiculously easy, although aided by the fact that there were only three other passengers on the train for the first three stops.

As Andrew ran round Green Park he took more note of his surroundings than normal. The park was quiet and at various points on his laps there were views of Wellington’s Arch at the junction of Hyde Park and Green Park; the Ritz Hotel where he entered the park; and most noticeably Buckingham Palace at the southern apex of the small park. Lots of views, lots of scenes clearly showing that they were in London, but what about being seen? It was 6.45 on a Saturday morning and there was hardly anyone else about. Thinking that they should approach this differently Andrew figured that dressing like they had the last time he shot in Edinburgh, wearing jeans but topless under the coat, was a good way to start. He had found a location for the following morning.

Returning to the house Andrew made fresh coffee and sat with an A-Z of London and his Lonely Planet Guide to London. There were lots of possibilities although most had to be dismissed immediately. But Maggie posing either topless or fully nude in various parks around central London seemed to be straightforward, especially early in the morning. One thing that he kept coming back to was a shoot on the river. He had noticed that there were a few personal boats out on the Thames when he had gone down to Greenwich, so he knew that it was possible. But pootling about at three or five knots on the Broads was significantly different than dealing with all the traffic on the Thames as it flowed through central London. But as he looked at the map he could see nearly a dozen easy locations for a shoot if they were on a boat. It was something to think about for later. Eventually he heard movement from upstairs and soon the other four were sitting sipping coffee with him.

“How did this morning go?”

Andrew let Maggie tell the story.

“An odd combination of fun, thrilling and yet too easy at the same time. We were the only people on the train when it left the station and then only three more people joined at the next two stations, and none of them sat in our carriage. So it was easy and straightforward. Yet as I say all this I would have been disappointed if there were 20 people on the train at the start, as it would have stopped the before it even happened. It felt more exciting sitting beside Tony when there were other people in the carriage. I was naked under the coat and there were people about. That frisson of danger, the thought that they might know or I might be discovered, that was more exciting than the actual shoot. And I don’t know what that means.”

Rather than be upset Andrew just smiled.

“It is about three quarters of a mile to the studio so you can walk through the centre of London, walk down Regent Street, in just your coat and heels. Okay?”

Maggie physically trembled with excitement in front of them. She and Tony went back upstairs to pack, and in Maggie’s case undress again, leaving Andrew with Ara and Suzanne. He pulled them to their feet and kissed first Suzanne and then Ara passionately.

“In between showing Suzanne how you plan to deal with her naughtiness you can reminisce about Amsterdam. Maybe plan for a similar escapade in Paris?”

Both he and Tony were in danger of being dragged straight back to bed but he left Ara to have fun with Suzanne and the three of them set off to the studio. Andrew wondered whether he and Tony would tease Maggie on the walk over but there was no need. Maggie was 29 but had lived all her life in Edinburgh. For the first time she was in a new city, a huge city, and Andrew could see the impact of walking the streets wearing only a coat was getting to her. She had a smile on her face but also had a strong grip on Tony’s hand. The contrast between all the glitzy retail emporiums on Regent Street and the small entrance less than two blocks away on Beak Street was stark and it was only when Andrew showed them into the makeshift studio that Maggie relaxed. For about a second.

“Get your camera ready Andrew. Quick now.”

That was him told. Tony switched on the lights as Maggie slipped off her coat. By the time Andrew had his camera loaded Maggie was leaning back on the chaise. Right before Andrew put the viewfinder to his eye what struck Andrew was Maggie’s face. He had seen the same look on Suzanne’s face when she had been tied up. She needed this, that sense of ‘at last!’, but it just reinforced that this was who Maggie was. It took her a couple of rolls of film to regain her equilibrium, she had been surprisingly quiet at first, but the chemistry between the three of them soon remerged. After the third roll of film Tony handed her Lord Sutch and Maggie was able to release the last of her tension, her eyes boring down the lens of the camera as she rode the dildo to a big orgasm. It wasn’t the most explosive Andrew had ever filmed but it was clear that Maggie needed it. She sat back with her eye’s sparkling, as if to say ‘okay, what’s next?’.

“Grab your coat.”

Without another word Andrew led them upstairs to the little terrace on the roof. In addition to preparing the makeshift studio he had also prepared the terrace. It was only overlooked by the building opposite; the other aspects were blocked by buttresses and chimney stacks. So Andrew had done a variation of what they had done both at the laundromat at Christmas and on the beach at Seacliff four years earlier. He had used a large windbreak although it was attached to light stands for extra height. When Maggie, and Tony, had stepped out onto the terrace they had instinctively reached out and held hands. Then they had turned to Andrew with huge smiles on their faces. Maggie sashayed over and kissed him soundly.

“You are never going to get us to leave.”

As soon as she was covered by the windbreak Maggie dropped her coat and started to pose. Andrew hadn’t even had the chance to tell Tony about the stool but he spotted it folded up off to the side. It was one of the stools they had used on Schiehallion and so he passed it over to Maggie as an additional prop. She never moved from a four foot square on the deck but Andrew got four rolls of film, 96 shots and every one of them was different. This was Maggie’s mental sweet spot, almost public, flouting convention but safely anonymous. Both Andrew and Tony could tell she was getting worked up so after the last shot rather than let them descend to the studio and fuck on the chaise, Andrew simply turned and left them on the terrace. He sat back down on the chaise himself and relaxed. The 4.30 start to the day caught up with him and he dozed off. He was startled when Tony shook him on the shoulder.

“I know I am a sex god but it wasn’t that long.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Up yours. Come back upstairs. We have calmed down, well for a wee while anyway.”

Andrew checked that the door to the studio was locked before leaving his camera bag on the chaise and following Tony back up to the terrace. When he stepped out Maggie, still naked other than her stockings and heels, pulled him into another big hug.

“This place is absolutely perfect Andrew. Here, get in the shade.”

They all settled down, Maggie sitting on the stool, Tony and Andrew on the ground, leaning against a wall.

“This little terrace is wonderful Andrew. Did you buy the building because of it?”

Andrew had to smile.

“I didn’t realise that there was a roof terrace. If it was in the particulars of the building I didn’t notice it. So no, it wasn’t a consideration. I bought the building a year and a half ago to use as my offices for an engineering company. It was let out until two weeks ago. Suzanne is going to use an office on the second floor for her company and we are going to convert the top floor into a studio.”

Tony looked at Maggie and laughed.

“It is these odd little snippets of your life that make me, make us, realise that you are stinking rich.”

He shook his head.

“And I don’t mean that in any kind of bad way. It is noticeable because it is so rare, at least that Maggie and I see. But it also is very like you in other ways. I bet that 90% of the people walking down Regent Street don’t even notice Beak Street. I saw that we passed the end of Carnaby Street less than half a block from the front door. But no one would notice this doorway, or have any idea of the place. It is two buzzers and that is it. It is the same with the house. Right behind Berkeley Square, right in heart of Mayfair, but it is an unprepossessing mews house that doesn’t look as if it would be anything like as big as it is. I don’t know, it is sort of hiding in plain sight.”

Andrew understood what Tony was saying.

“Are you sure about converting the whole top floor to a studio?”

This was Maggie. Andrew nodded.

“Yes, we are. There are three or four reasons why. The first is that both Ara and Suzanne are excited by the idea of posing. It is not something that we have done before but they want to try it. So we will be using the place ourselves. And I will be using it for shooting you and Ursula. What do you reckon, at least quarterly? Every couple of months?”

“We will find a balance. You being away every term was perfect, built up the anticipation and it never felt old. There is no point in worrying about it right now. You have to see how busy you all are. But every two or three months has worked for years so I don’t think it will change.”

“Okay. The other thing is that Tony can use the studio to work with different models down here. I know that there are lots more models here than anywhere else.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. It is going to sit empty otherwise.”

“Are you going to rent it out?”

“I don’t think so. Suzanne and Olivia are going to be establishing their business downstairs and I don’t want a whole collection of people that they don’t know traipsing past their office. That is why there are only two buzzers. The second and third floors were let to one business before. I will get you a key so that you can enter with the model but I am not going to rent it out to strangers.”

That was a preview of Living Two Lives - Book 25. To read the rest purchase the book.

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