Exposure

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Design by Nathan Everett

Cover photo by sakkmesterke, ID254610976, licensed from Shutterstock.com.

Title page photo by Ipatov, ID53175766, licensed from Shutterstock.com

First eBook Edition

ISBN 978-1-955874-63-2

Note: This is a work of historical fiction. As such, names of historical characters, places, products, events, movies, and music have been used to set the context and reality of the time. But the story and characters are fiction. While much of the action is based on actual events or experiences, ultimately, it is still all fiction. Perhaps it will entertain. Perhaps it will take you to a similar time in your own life. Perhaps in rare instances, it will enlighten.

Cast

ALERT: This book contains content of an adult nature.

This includes explicit sexual content and characters whose beliefs may be contrary to your religious, political, or world view. Scenes in this story may be triggers for Vietnam War era vets with PTSD.

The content is inappropriate and in some cases illegal for readers under the age of 18.

Characters Introduced in Full Frame and Shutter Speed who continue to have an important role in Exposure. Ages are as of mid-June 1968.

The Hart Family

• Nate Hart, 18-yo narrator of the story. 5’12” according to his driver’s license. Brown hair, blue eyes.
• Kat Hart, Nate’s 12-yo sister. About 4’10”. Brown hair, blue eyes.
• Rev. Joyce “Reverend Mother Superior” Hart, Nate’s 46-yo mother, the first female Methodist preacher in Illinois.
• Rich Hart, Nate’s 49-yo father, electrician for a local building project.
• Deborah Lindal, Nate’s 26-yo sister.
• Sergeant John Lindal, Deborah’s husband. In the army.
  • Cameron Lindal, Deborah and John’s 3-yo daughter.
• Lt. Naomi Hart, Nate’s 24-yo sister, studying to be an aircraft maintenance worker in the Air Force. Wants to be a pilot.
• Uncle Nate Mayer, Joyce’s 54-yo brother. Variously said to still suffer from shell-shock from WWII, and to have some kind of job with the Jewish mafia in Chicago.
• Aunt Grace Mayer, Uncle Nate’s wife.

Girlfriends and models

• Christine “Chris” Evans, 18-yo girlfriend of Nate. 5’5”, medium-to-light brown hair, growing it out. Headed to Peoria for Business School.
  • Christine’s family include parents Ray and Darlene, 13-yo brother Brian, 14-yo sister Julie.
• Ronda May, 18-yo girlfriend of Nate. 5’1”, honey blonde hair in a straight below-the-shoulder cut. Headed to Boston University.
  • Ronda’s family include parents Dr. Joseph and Ellen, 14-yo brother Danny.
• Anna Marx, 18-yo girlfriend and bookkeeper for Attic Allure (Nate’s business). 5’7”, brown hair about shoulder length. Headed to Rockford Technical College to study accounting.
  • Anna’s family includes parents Don and Nancy, brother Rick.
• Patricia Berg Kowalski, 18-yo first Attic Allure model for Nate and widow of Nate’s best friend, Tony Kowalski. 5’4” pale blonde straight hair below her shoulders. Scandinavian beauty who is eight months pregnant.
  • Patricia’s family includes parents Tor and Elise, inlaws Jim and El, sister-in-law Vanessa.
• Elizabeth (Beth) (Starr) Marsh, 18-yo one-time Attic Allure model who became Nate’s Chicago girlfriend. Studying to become a comedienne.
  • Elizabeth’s family includes parents Jordan and Nadia, who are collectors of photos, and sister Valerie, who is an international stewardess.
• Judy Delap, 18-yo member of the Attic Allure models. First photographed a week after Nate got to town. 5’5”, brown hair she’s letting grow out. Headed to college in St. Louis.
• Janice Graham, 18-yo member of the Attic Allure models. First photographed with Judy, her best friend, a week after Nate got to town. 5’2”, busty and round butt. Dark brown hair in a bob. Just married to Pete Adams.
• Pris Anson, 18-yo member of the Attic Allure models. A late addition with friend Debbie. 5’7”, medium brown hair in a beehive. Apprentice electrician in her family’s business.
• Debbie Faulkner, 18-yo member of the Attic Allure models. Joined with friend Pris and often has ‘ideas’ about what to shoot next. 5’6”, dark brown hair in a bob.

Friends and Associates

• Tony Kowalski, KIA in Vietnam. Nate’s best friend and Patricia’s husband.
• Andy Wright, 18-yo friend and member of Nate’s church. Nate’s first friend in Tenbrook.
• Karen Miller, 18-yo fiancé of Andy who is always wherever he is.
• Sandra Gottschalk. 15-yo getting Nate to do a recording of her growth through very intimate photos.
• Lori Reynolds, 19-yo former cheerleader and first Attic Allure model, now in Chicago working with the Law-Reims Agency.
• Miss Ludwig, local librarian who gets kids the books they are interested in or need.
• Billy Lamonte, 22-yo wounded veteran with leg and head damage. Takes care of the dogs at the Humane Society. Considered to be the town hero.
• Miss (Yvonne) Sullivan, business teacher at Tenbrook High School and sponsor of the yearbook. Secret model for Attic Allure.
• Jim “Stoney” Stoneburner, constable of the town and former army captain.
• Levi Levinson, owner of Camera Warehouse in Chicago. Nate’s supplier for photo materials and equipment. Has created an Attic Allure studio for Nate above the store.
• Hammer (Malcolm). Gang leader in South Chicago who is trying to keep his club non-violent and out of drugs, but is gradually losing the battle.
• Nancy Hargrove. Classmate and dance partner of Nate’s when he lived in Chicago. Hammer’s sister.
• Theresa Newman. Classmate of Nate’s in Chicago and his fantasy girl when they were developing adolescents. Also danced with Nate and Nancy.
• Officer Macalister. Good cop in Chicago who tries to keep peace with the gangs.
• Brittany Fleck. Model in Chicago working for Law-Reims Models.
• Abe Lawrence. Agent of Law-Reims Models.
• Gwyneth Dahl. Model in Chicago working for Law-Reims Models.

1
Chicago

August 28, 1968 is a day I don’t remember much about, but I’ll never forget. I sort of remember gaining consciousness and everything hurting. I was lying on a sidewalk gripping my smashed camera.

“Can you get up?”

I looked up to see a cop. He had a club, but it wasn’t raised to hit me. He grabbed hold of my shirt and dragged me to my feet.

“What the hell are you doing here? Your people are in jail.”

“My people?”

“I recognize you. The photographer back during the riots in April.”

“Officer Macalister? Oh, yeah. I was just trying to get home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Around the corner over there.”

“Get to it and get someone to clean you up. There might not be any ambulances available for a while.”

“I was just taking pictures. I wasn’t protesting or anything,” I said. I flinched as he tapped my chest with his club.

“You enter a war zone, you’re going to get shot at. Now get going.”

He gave me a shove and I stumbled around the corner and to the door of our building. I got inside and waited for the elevator. I didn’t think I could climb even one flight, let alone four floors.

I got the outer door of the suite open and just fell on the floor. All the individual room doors were closed. I didn’t know for sure if my roommates had even checked in or not. I hadn’t met any of them. I just couldn’t move any farther to get into my room.

I had a lot of fuzzy dreams that night. Weird. But here I’ve dumped you in the middle of the story again without even telling you who I am or how I ended up laid out on the street in Chicago. I should start back in June.

I’m Nate Hart. I’m eighteen years old and will start at Columbia College Chicago in September. I’m a photographer, but just looking at the class catalog at Columbia has shown me how much I have to learn about my art, even though I’ve got a pretty good business going in Tenbrook—a small town in northwestern Illinois—and a branch studio in Chicago.

I moved to Tenbrook two years ago when my mother became the first female Methodist minister in Illinois. Her name is Rev. Joyce Hart, but I call her Reverend Mother Superior. My dad, Rich Hart, is an electrician for a housing development in Huntertown. My younger sister, Kat, will be thirteen in August and is going into eighth grade this fall. I have two older sisters. Deborah is 26 and married to Sergeant John Lindal. He’s currently in Vietnam. They have a three-year-old daughter named Cameron. The next sister, Naomi, is 24. She’s a lieutenant in the Women’s Air Force. She’s just waiting for the day when they let women be pilots. I hope she’s still able to walk and see by then. Even when that day comes, I doubt they’ll let old women in the cockpit.

My mom’s brother, Uncle Nate Mayer, has always been a real champion for me and gave me my first camera for my twelfth birthday. I think it was all through his promotion of my work that I ended up with some wealthy patrons who have supplied me with a lot of photographic materials and equipment. And a lot of my models, too.

Probably the most notable thing about me is that I have five girlfriends. Christine is just the love of my life and a great partner in the studio. She is equally loved by my second girlfriend, Ronda. Ronda never intended to become my girlfriend when I suggested we share Christine instead of fight over her. It just sort of happened.

Anna was my first girlfriend when I moved to Tenbrook. Then she broke up with me, but continued to work on the yearbook photos with me. Then she became my bookkeeper—something I didn’t even know I needed, but she kept my taxes in a reasonable range. For taxes. After she started hanging out at the studio a lot, we just grew closer together and ended up boyfriend and girlfriend again. Then there’s Elizabeth. She was one of my first models in Chicago and by the end of the day, she’d convinced me that the darkroom wasn’t part of the studio, so we could have sex there, and her model persona was Starr and Starr wasn’t going to date me. Elizabeth was. And suddenly, I had a girlfriend in Chicago.

Finally, I have a wonderful, beautiful, and sad girlfriend named Patricia. Sad because she married her high school sweetheart, my best friend, in a rush before he was inducted into the army and sent to Vietnam. He died there without even knowing his young wife was pregnant. I know I’m just a substitute for Tony, but I care for Patricia as much as I can and she’s become my girlfriend, even though she’s eight months pregnant.

I guess I’ll just say that I claim to be a draft resister, though so far there’s nothing to resist, since I have a student deferment. I bought a VW microbus so I would have transportation with room for my gear and my girlfriends if I need to run to Canada. The draft board denied my application to become a Conscientious Objector because it’s not doctrine in the Methodist Church. The real reason is because the racist son of a bitch I helped get fired from his job as village constable somehow ended up serving on the draft board and made sure my application was denied. At least he didn’t get his way and have me classified I-A. I’m maintaining my student deferment as II-S.

The other thing is that I developed my own style of glamour photos, combining a glamour look with miscellaneous props we pull from the attic of an old general store. For some reason, models really dig it and will travel all the way across the state to take off their clothes and have me create some kind of dramatic scene with a piece of junk to photograph. And some of those photos have won prestigious awards.

Not all my models come from across the state. I have the singular honor of having seen twenty-two of the twenty-seven girls in my graduating class naked while I took their pictures. I have a copy of each of those pictures in a private album that I sometimes look at late at night.

I guess I should get to why I was laying on the sidewalk unconscious, but to do that, I’ll have to go back as far as my first trip into Chicago of the summer to take photos of several models I had appointments for. That would have been back in the middle of June.

The first thing I had to do when I got to Chicago was go to the registrar’s office at the college and get a Selective Service Student Certificate filled out. They were happy to do it and finalize my financial aid package, which was pretty good. There was a Methodist Church scholarship fund for preacher’s kids and it covered over half of my tuition and fees. I got an Illinois State Scholars Grant that covered most of the rest. The last thousand that I’d need to cover housing and meals was covered by my student loan. Damn! College was expensive.

Mr. Leonard, the registrar, gave me a copy of the form they would send to the Selective Service in Huntertown. It had my name and selective service number on it. The college had to have the selective service number on file for every male student. I didn’t even need to fish out my stupid draft card. The relevant part of the form said, “The student identified above [me] has been accepted for admission for a full-time course of instruction which will commence on or about September 3, 1968 and will end on or about May 16, 1969, and is expected to receive a degree on or about June 1972.”

It’s a good thing that the college registrar had to send the form to the Selective Service. Just holding my copy in my hands made me so mad I nearly tore it up.

I was spending the night with Beth at her house. We ate dinner in the kitchen—just the two of us—and then went to her room to make love. We sat and talked about all kinds of things until late. She read the Student Certificate and knew to just hold me in her arms. With the certificate, the countdown to when I would be eligible to be drafted started. It gave me a maximum four-year deferment, one year at a time, unless I quit school or graduated early. Fat chance of either of those happening.

“Put that aside for a while, lover. I’ve missed you and I want your attention now,” Beth said.

Well, that certainly put things in perspective. On one hand was a letter to the draft board that was already out of my hands and technically, I didn’t need to worry about for four years. On the other hand, my seriously cute and funny girlfriend, wearing almost nothing, was asking me to pay attention to her. What would you do?

I made love to her. Her parents had been kind enough to let me stay there for the week, while I worked in the studio. It would be rude of me not to take full advantage of their hospitality. Right?

Sliding into Beth’s hot pussy affirmed that I’d made the right choice.

I was up early and Elizabeth padded into the kitchen to get me some breakfast before I took off for the studio.

“Goodbye, honey. Have a good day at work,” she giggled as she gave me a kiss. I took my camera case and headed for the microbus.

I was looking forward to my first client. Nancy had grumbled a little about needing to show up at nine-thirty, but she was there at the appointed time and I ushered her into the studio.

“This place is full of junk!” she said when we reached the studio floor.

“Props,” I said. “I never know what will connect with a model when I’m working with her. We’ll find something that tells your story.”

“You’re going to take my picture with junk? I thought you was all legit and a famous newspaper photographer.”

It was obvious that she was not happy about how shabby my studio looked. I might need to create a little more separation between the storage area and the photo area. I led her over to the wall where my most recent Chicago work was displayed.

“I don’t photograph for newspapers most of the time. The Trib declined to publish my pictures after Martin’s death because I wasn’t ‘where the action was.’ But they were good pictures.”

“Hammer has the picture you took of him and that cop framed and shows it to everyone he can.”

“What I really do is take a kind of glamour photo that brings out the hidden aspects of a woman.”

“Like her titties, huh?”

“Well, that is often part of what happens. It’s not necessary if that makes you uncomfortable. The style is called Attic Allure and I’ve photographed nearly fifty models and have won the State Fair championship.”

“These are good pictures. Just not what I was expecting. I mean… We sort of left things hanging when you bugged out of town. If you just want to fuck, we could go to my place. As long as we’re careful and quiet.”

“Nancy, I don’t fuck in the studio and I don’t fuck models. I like you a lot and always have, but I’ve always just been the guy with the camera to you. There’s no reason to pretend any different. We’ve both changed a lot in the past two years. Why don’t we catch up while I take your portrait? No big production, just a great picture that shows what a beautiful girl you are.”

I led her to the stool and arranged the lights. I fussed with her hair a little and made sure there were no shiny spots on her face.

“You going with the full afro look?” I asked.

“I keep it tied up on top. Keepin’ it smooth is too damn much work. I’m thinking I might shave it all off like Hammer does,” she said.

“If you do, I want another session with you. I’ve never photographed a bald woman.”

“You cracker.”

I got behind the camera and took a couple of frames, then adjusted the lights again. Taking a picture of a black woman was a new experience for me in the studio. I’d gotten some good pictures of Nancy with my old 35 when we were out together as freshmen and sophomores, but I had never stopped to consider exactly how light affected her image in the studio.

“I did like you a lot,” Nancy said. “We sure had some fun dancing.”

“I want to thank you for that. It really helped with the girls when I moved.”

“You got a girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“That why you don’t want to mess around with me?”

“No. I think they’d be okay with it if we did something. I just am not in the market for more right now.”

“Whoa! They’d be okay? How many girls you got?”

“Um… Five, I guess. No telling what will happen this summer when we all scatter to go to college.”

“Hammer thought maybe you were queer and that was why you didn’t make moves on me. Either that or you really had your eye on Theresa.”

“Is Hammer your boyfriend now?” I asked.

“What? You really somethin’. Hammer’s my brother. We didn’t live together when we were in high school because of… lots of stuff. He just wants to make sure I don’t blow my chances to get an education like he did,” she answered.

“Damn! I did not know that.” I turned her position and tilted her head a little. “How’d Hammer blow his chances at college? The dude is super smart. I was surprised to find him leading the gang.”

“Ain’t just one gang, you know. Jeff and Eugene control the whole thing, but Hammer has worked to keep his boys in the neighborhood out of trouble most of the time. They agreed to be part of the Rangers to help protect them from other gangs. It ain’t like there’s a world of jobs waiting for smart black kids on the South Side. Then he got Alleeah pregnant and you know he wouldn’t turn his back on his responsibilities. He dropped out of college and started running protection for the locals. Got in trouble and served a couple months in jail. Just enough to keep him out of the army.”

“I always admired him, even though I never really knew him much.”

“He knew you. He started protection back in high school. He went down to Selma to march with Dr. King and found out about the peace movement within civil rights. He made sure the white kids in school didn’t get hassled by the black kids or the Puerto Ricans. He was gonna become a lawyer, but couldn’t keep his pants zipped.”

“He marry her?”

“No. But he takes care of her and his little boy means the world to him.”

“I think we got some nice portraits. Want to go for something more glamorous?”

“Is that how you talk a girl out of her clothes?”

“No. I told you nudity is not required.”

“Might want to.”

She looked up at me and stuck her tongue out a little. This was more the playful girl I’d gone out with as a freshman and sophomore than the more jaded version she’d been projecting. I moved up next to her and put an arm around her waist.

“We sure had fun dancing,” I said as I spun her under my arm and did a few steps around the clear area of the floor.

“Now I’m almost sure I might want to.”

“What do you have to change into? Anything light and danceable?”

“Yeah. Even though I’ve got bigger boobs, most of my dance clothes still fit.”

“Privacy screen over there,” I said as I started repositioning things for our shoot. I could really use one of the big backdrops in Tenbrook now. But I’d have to work with what I could find. I went rummaging around in the junk to see what was there.

I found an old bicycle, a school desk that was bolted to a rail with the bench seat, and an old victrola with the big horn on it, but no guts inside. There was an old leather suitcase, a sign for Coleman’s mustard, and a carpet sweeper. Finally, I found a brass bell suspended from a hook on a stand. I looked at the assortment I had and sighed. No single theme emerged. It was just a collection of junk.

Then Nancy emerged from behind the privacy screen and I just stopped to stare at her. I’d seen this outfit before. She wore a miniskirt and a blouse that was layers of chiffon. I was pretty sure, though, that when I’d seen her wear this before, she wore a bra under it. As the layers of chiffon shifted, I could see glimpses of her breasts wobbling and her nipples sticking out.

“Wow, Nancy. I wasn’t expecting this!”

“I figure you’re going to get me naked eventually. No sense in making it difficult.”

“You look sensational.”

“Anything like what you imagined all those times you were trying to look down my blouse?”

“No. A thousand times better.”

“You admitted it!” she laughed. “You were trying to look down my blouse. What am I supposed to do with all this junk?”

“That’s what I was trying to figure out. Usually, something just calls out to be included in the scene. Nothing is speaking to me.”

“Why don’t you just put this stuff aside and let me pose in front of the backdrop as if I’m dancing. Do some kind of Attic Allure magic with the lighting. If I see something there that inspires me, I’ll grab it.”

“I think you’ve got a good idea.”

She did have. She posed, then moved, and posed again. She always wanted me to take her picture when we went out, so she was used to striking poses. And she looked good doing it. I increased the backlight so I could see through the chiffon layers better. I moved in for closer shots. I was right beside her when she stopped and pulled off her top completely. Then she unzipped her miniskirt and let it drop to the floor. She wasn’t wearing anything else.

“I knew you’d get me out of my clothes,” she said.

“Nancy! I didn’t do a thing.”

“I know. I got tired of waiting.”

“Damn, you look good.”

“I bet I feel good, too,” she said moving up next to me. “What do you think?”

I thought that was an invitation and I hefted each of her substantial boobs and rubbed the nipples. They stiffened dramatically.

“It’s a good thing there’s no sex in the studio,” she reminded me. I moved away and looked at her beautiful black body against the white backdrop. That wasn’t going to do at all.

“I need to change backdrops,” I said. I switched over to the black backdrop and turned out all the ambient light.

“You going to make me disappear!” she said. “I close my eyes and shut my mouth, you won’t see me nohow.”

“Not so, honey. The contrast with the white backdrop was too much. People would be looking at the background instead of you. With this backdrop, I can light you so that you are all that’s seen, kind of glowing against the black.”

“If you say so. Um… I kind of liked it when you touched me, so you just move me around and put me where you want me. You know, touch me some more,” she said. I’d seen black kids blush before, so it wasn’t a complete surprise to me.

“You know what I remember? I remember that turn you did under my arm that always came back up against me.”

“This one?” she asked as she took my hand and turned under it, then spun tightly up against me. I held her there and raised her arm with one hand as I petted her bubble butt with the other.

“Can you hold this position right here while I step away to get the camera right?”

It took a few tries to get her positioned an optimum distance from the backdrop and have the right amount of light focused on her. Between each of the poses, I took her in my arms again and petted her luscious body as I moved her to a new position. I was getting closer and closer to the perfect pose. I stood behind her and pulled her hands so the left hand was on her right shoulder and the right hand held that arm. Her boobs were hidden in that position, but it was clear that she was naked. I looked through the lens and then had her turn slightly, leaning to her right. Just before I stepped back, I kissed her lightly on the lips. She looked a little startled and I rushed back to the camera to get the shot. I was sure that I had it.

My session with Nancy didn’t end with the last frame of film. I flopped in the easy chair and she put herself right on top of me. It was impossible not to respond and I thoroughly enjoyed her tits as we kissed.

“Hammer always said you’d be a good one to tie down, but you wouldn’t be interested in a black girl long term,” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s hard for me to guess what would have happened if I’d stayed in Chicago. Life out in the boonies has definitely changed me.”

“Yeah. You are completely comfortable holding a naked girl in your arms and playing with her titties and pussy. You must have some really good teachers for girlfriends.”

“One thing they taught me was to never think of anyone other than the girl in my arms,” I said.

“Then keep thinking of what you’re playing with, because this girl is going to come on your fingers. Kiss me some more, Nate. For old time’s sake and the possibilities of a future that never happened.”

I could well imagine having been with Nancy if we’d stayed in South Chicago. But she’d backed off when we started to get close. I tried to kiss her one night and that was all. She pushed me away and we never went anyplace alone again. Now I was thoroughly enjoying kissing her and playing in her wet pussy.

“You want me to give you a blowjob?” she asked. “I’m not very good at them because… I’ve only given one. Saved me from getting raped.”

“Oh, God, Nancy! That’s terrible. No, honey. I don’t want you to do anything for me. I just want to remember having held you in my arms, and touched your breasts, and made you come. I don’t need anything else.”

“You should have Theresa. You like those skinny white girls.”

“Theresa never wanted anything to do with me outside of dancing with you and me. She once held up a Mad Magazine with a picture of Alfred E. Newman on the cover and declared that it was my picture.”

“It was her way of getting your attention. She’d have been all yours if you hadn’t wised off and told her that since her last name was the same, Alfred had to be her brother or her husband.”

“I suppose that kind of cooled things if there was anything to cool. I should have apologized to her.”

“You’ll get your chance. Now, if we ain’t going to fuck, I need to put some clothes on and get out of here. If I got pregnant with your little white baby, Hammer would kill us both.”

“We’re not going there, Nance. Just make sure you keep your studies up and achieve what you’re setting out to.”

“I’m going to Thornton Junior College to become a legal assistant. If I do well there, I’ll try to get a scholarship to a full degree program and law school. That was always Hammer’s dream, but I can achieve it.”

“I know you can, Nancy. I’ll be cheering for you all the way.”

She took off and I went to work processing photos. It was a good session and I got some beautiful pictures of a beautiful young woman. And I lived a high school fantasy of making out with my girl Nancy.

When I got ‘home’ around nine that night, Elizabeth met me and wanted to know if I’d eaten. I did get a hoagie downtown and told her I was fine.

“As much as I love talking to the other girlfriends, especially Anna, I don’t know about playing secretary for you. Seems like this should have come to Camera Warehouse instead of to me.”

“What, honey? What happened?”

“Your model Judy needs to talk to you. It seems she needs to set up an emergency photo session with you and Anna couldn’t approve a Saturday session this weekend without your consent,” Elizabeth laughed. She kissed me. “I really didn’t mind taking the message and talking to Anna. She invited me to stay at her house if I come home with you in July.”

“That’s great. Well, I’ll call Judy from the Warehouse tomorrow,” I said.

“Dummy. Use my phone and call her now. Anna said the girl is so excited she can’t hold still.”

We went up to Elizabeth’s room and she proceeded to get me naked as I dialed Judy’s phone number.

“Judy, it’s Nate.”

“Nate! Nate! Can you take my pictures Saturday? I need a whole portfolio! I sent my birthday set of pictures to them and they want to see everything!”

“Geez, Judy, some of the photos we’ve taken show everything.”

“Not me. All my costumes!”

“Your costumes? Why so urgent?” I asked.

“Miss Ludwig. When she saw my photosets in your gallery exhibition, she called me to come to the library. She had a bunch of brochures and told me I needed to apply to college. Me! College! I never even considered it. There’s a school in St. Louis that offers a theatre degree with an emphasis in costume design! And when I sent the photo set and my letter of application, they called me! They called and said I looked like exactly the type of candidate they want. I have to send them my high school transcript and my complete portfolio, which they said they’d return to me, hopefully in person when I come to study in St. Louis!”

“Judy, that’s wonderful! Tell Anna to clear anyone else off my calendar for Saturday. I don’t think there is anyone, but make sure with her. Then get Anna and Janice and Patricia to come and help. Ask Chris and Ronda, too, but Chris might not feel good enough that day. Any other help you need, whether it’s getting you dressed or modeling your costumes, just arrange it. I know you’ve got a ton that we’ve never photographed. If Chris will help, have her get together with Miss Ludwig and research possible shows and characters your costumes could be for. I’m sure everyone will want to help.”

“Oh, I love you, Nate. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We’ll be all set and no fooling around. This will be serious work,” she said. “Um… If you want to fool around afterward, I’d probably be up for it.”

“Let’s focus on the photos. That’s the only part of my calendar Anna controls,” I laughed. “I’ll see you Saturday morning. We should probably start between nine and ten.”

“Okay! Talk to you then!”

Even though I was dog tired with a schedule during the week that was pretty much twelve hours a day, I enjoyed coming ‘home’ to Elizabeth at night. We made love Tuesday night as I told her all about my session with Nancy. She was quite amused. Wednesday night I was too beat to even make love to my girlfriend. I’d had two clients and they were exhausting. Nothing problematic, but it was just the sustained pressure to be creative. I got good pictures, but it was stressful.

Fortunately, I had just one client in the morning on Thursday. Then after getting film processed and proofs run, Elizabeth was meeting me at the warehouse to go out for dinner and pretend like we were on a real date before we went to her house to fuck ourselves silly before I left for Tenbrook on Friday morning.

Adele Peterson was my model Thursday. It was a morning I would not soon forget.

When she arrived at the studio, I welcomed her to Attic Allure and held out my hand to shake.

“Don’t touch me!” she said, backing up a step. “Don’t ever touch me.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Peterson. I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just trying to be friendly.”

“It’s bad enough that a man is going to see me. I don’t want to be touched by one.” She went immediately to the wall where my local display was. “You touched all these women,” she said flatly. There was neither question nor doubt in her statement.

“Often a model appreciates it when I just move her head or shift her angle. It’s not necessary. I’ll do my best to be very clear in my instructions and will work with you until we reach an understanding,” I said.

“I’ll do whatever you say. I like the look you get with these models. I want that for myself. I just… don’t much like men.”

“I see. And I understand. I have a girlfriend who’s like that. If you would, let’s just start with a nice standard portrait. I’ll try to make it so you can forget about me being a man.”

“You have a girlfriend who doesn’t like men? But she’s your girlfriend? How’s this?” She seated herself on the stool and held herself in an absolutely regal position, with her head held high and her shoulders back. She was very attractive and I was pretty sure any photographer could have turned out excellent pictures of her.

“It started out as kind of a competition,” I said. “We were both interested in the same girl.”

“And the girl?”

“Could you pivot a quarter turn to your left and fold your arms? Now soften it a little with a warmer expression. Not quite a broad smile, but a hint of one. That’s good.” I adjusted a light before I took the picture. “Christine, the girl in question, proved to be interested in both of us. I suggested to Ronda that instead of fighting me for her—which was her suggestion—that we share her. Christine was kind of excited about that possibility and after a few months’ time, I discovered that I had two girlfriends. It was quite a surprise.”

“And that still works for you?”

“We only just graduated from high school a month ago. So far, it’s good. Let’s work on your glamour pose. What about the pictures you see on the wall attracts you?”

“You mean besides all the women on the wall?” she laughed. Good, she was loosening up a little. “I like the oddities. That’s why I came here. I was complaining to… a friend who happened to know of your work and she showed me samples. She’s a bit of a collector, I guess. She’d never actually seen you work, but said she knew several of your models and they all raved about the experience. I guess that’s why I was a little overly defensive when I got here. She talked about how you touch the models.”

“There does often seem to be a bit of that,” I answered. “But like I said, it’s a convenience, not a requirement. I want my models to look as sexy as possible and I’ve found a part of how a woman feels about herself has to do with others finding her desirable. I try to let the model know that I find her desirable.”

“I guess you can tell me. Do you find me desirable?”

“That’s a tricky question with you,” I said. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“What do you mean?”

“I took photos of a homosexual man this spring. He wanted an Attic Allure photo. He became erect during our session and it finally dawned on me that it was because he was looking at me! It made me a little uncomfortable. Not seriously—we’re friends—but enough so that I wanted to make sure that my models were not discomforted by my arousal.”

“Yeah. Okay. So, with all that put aside, do you find me desirable?”

She began unbuttoning her blouse and I watched as it fell open. She undid the front clasp on her bra and that fell open as well. I was looking at truly stellar quality boobs. They were full and round. I could tell they weighed on her chest because the lower half was slightly rounder than the upper half, which sloped outward from her shoulders, but they didn’t sag. They were also full enough that her nipples and areola made the little cone shape that I’d witnessed on Sandra’s young breasts.

“Yes. You are very desirable. And I would wager my girlfriends would think so, too,” I said.

She looked at me with that regal bearing and smug expression. She knew very well that men found her desirable and probably was used to fending them off.

“So, what do you want to do with me, now that I’m getting naked?”

She left that open for me to interpret and I chose the high road. I walked around her as she dropped the blouse and bra and reached for the zipper in her skirt. She had a tattoo of a butterfly on her lower back, just at the waist of her panties. And her navel was pierced! I’d never seen either of those things on a woman.

“I think I need to photograph both your back and your front,” I said. “It would be a shame to know you have those body decorations and not show them. I need a setting for you. I think I’ll use the bare wall instead of a backdrop.” She dropped her panties to the floor as well and I saw she was completely shaved, like Ronda.

“Does your girlfriend shave her pussy?”

“I was just thinking about that. Yes.”

I rummaged around in the junk and found a space heater that looked like a radiator. I saw a dressing room mirror that had several scratches in the silver. I brought the stool over near the wall and went back to find a plastic plant in a large pot.

“Ronda says that it is courteous to shave if you want to be licked. And believe me, she wants to be licked. Okay, come have a seat on the stool. Let me get a clean towel to put on it first. I never expect a model to put her bare butt down on something that might not be clean.”

I moved lights around and adjusted the temperature, the direction of the spot, and the intensity of the fill. I took a test picture and moved the camera a little.

“Tell me, what do you want to use this picture for?” I asked.

“You’ll laugh,” she said.

“Does that make a difference? Really, even if you only want the photo for your own entertainment, that’s okay with me. I just want to make sure I give you what you want.”

I started to reach for her to adjust her position and snatched my hand back.

“I need you turned further right so I can get your tattoo in the mirror and not look straight up your crotch.” She moved as I said until I told her to stop. I still wasn’t happy with it.

“I want to use it to seduce a girl,” she whispered.

“Oh! Hmm. You want to show her what she’d get?”

“I want to hold it in front of her and tell her to kiss it. To kiss it exactly where I tell her to kiss it. I want to make her my slave.”

“Wow. I never quite got into that, but as Reverend Mother Superior says, I was called to minister, not to judge.”

“Who is Reverend Mother Superior?”

“My mother. She’s a preacher and I kind of gave her that nickname. Now all the ministers on the council call her that.”

“Fascinating. A preacher’s kid with multiple girlfriends—one of whom is a lesbian—and a kid who makes a living taking pictures of naked women. And at least one queer boy. Now make this lesbian dominatrix irresistible to her prey.”

“Hmm. Your prey is not underage, is she?”

“No! No, she’s older than I am.”

“Okay. Then she can make up her own mind as to whether she wants to walk into your web. Here’s what we need.”

I set about getting her into a new position. It was so tempting to just reach out and put her where I wanted her, but I resisted. I motioned and guided and spoke the instructions. I had her sit facing the mirror. The radiator was beside the mirror and the plant beside her. She was about three feet away from the mirror and one of my lights bounced from the mirror to highlight the sparkling navel ring dangling toward her pussy. She wasn’t spread open, so I felt fine being able to see up between her legs. She had her hands resting on her thighs and maintained that regal posture. I added just enough fill from the back to be able to see her tattoo and the crack of her butt.

“Give me that confident dominance that I’ve been seeing traces of all afternoon. You have your eye set on an unsuspecting beauty…” I saw more than heard her snort. “Oh, the beauty is completely aware that she is your prey and is presenting a challenge to you. You need to prove your dominance. In fact, I think you’d be okay being touched by a man if you knew he was submissive to you. You can’t tolerate that with me because I won’t submit. I’m telling you what to do. What do you think of that? Me telling you to spread your legs a little wider so I’m sure your prey will have an open target when you tell her to kiss your pussy in the photograph.”

Adele moaned. It was a mixture of thinking of what she would tell her prey and hearing me command her. She opened her legs a little wider.

“Don’t look at me. You don’t care about me. Look straight ahead at your reflection. Be what you want your prey to see.”

There was a definite guttural moan as she lifted her head slightly and commanded obedience from the image in the mirror. I got it. I bracketed the exposure and clicked three more times, but I got the photo.

“Beautiful. Beautiful, Adele. I can’t wait to get this processed.”

“Can I stay while you do?”

I contemplated for a moment and came up with a particularly evil idea.

“You can come into the darkroom and watch if you want to,” I said. “But you have to stay naked.”

“What?”

“I don’t mind being the entertainment for half an hour, but I think I deserve to be entertained as well. I won’t touch you, but I’d love to find out if your tits are as desirable under red light as they are out here.”

“You… I…”

It was a flat-out challenge and she knew it.

“It’s not fair for only me to be naked. I deserve to see your response. I’ll come into the darkroom naked if you do the processing naked as well.”

“You need to know I have a rule against sex in the studio,” I said. I wasn’t going to tell her that Beth had defined the darkroom as being out of the studio.

“I don’t want to have sex with you. I don’t want to touch you,” she said. “But… um… the darkroom is pretty small, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I guess we wouldn’t be able to avoid brushing against each other sometimes.”

“It would probably happen.”

“Leave your clothes out here.”

I stripped and took the rolls of film we’d shot into the darkroom and began setting up the chemicals and processing bath. When Adele entered the darkroom, her breasts immediately scraped across my arm. Accidentally, of course. Her nipples were harder than they’d been during the photoshoot.

No matter what being naked in the darkroom with a naked woman pretending to try not to touch each other sounds like, I had work to do. When I turned out the bright light and went to red light, I handed her the developer tank and told her how to keep slowly agitating the film as I set up the first proof sheet.

We chatted, and in the dark, we started to actually get along together, joking, and talking about our various conquests. She was fascinated that I had four girlfriends in Tenbrook and one in Chicago. When she found out one was pregnant, she wanted the whole story and I think she had tears in her eyes when I told her about Tony and Patricia and that he didn’t know he was going to be a father when he died.

Our touches became more frequent and of longer duration, as well. As I set up a proof sheet, she leaned over my shoulder to watch, with her breasts pressed against my back. When I turned to the sink to rinse a sheet, I found her between me and the sink so I had to reach around her. That brought my cock into solid contact with her thigh. I wasn’t poking her, but it was lying right up against her.

When I finished and showed her the proof sheet, she wanted a copy of that last photo immediately. So did I. I set it up to enlarge to 16x20, cropping a bit of the ceiling and floor. In fact, I cropped her head off so her face was only visible in the mirror. This time, when I rinsed the photo, she made sure my cock was more firmly in touch with her butt. I didn’t mind that at all.

When the photos were finished and I flipped the light back on, Adele took hold of my stiff cock and kind of jerked it up and down a little. Since she started that, I felt completely at ease putting my hand between her legs and dragging my fingers through her moistness. She gasped.

“I… suppose you want a blowjob now,” she said. Hmm. I believe the natural conclusion to being in the darkroom naked with my cock in her hand and my fingers in her pussy would be to assume I wanted to fuck. She was trying to move it down a notch. I had to give her credit. She was still offering relief for all the teasing she’d been doing.

“No,” I said flatly. “No sex in the studio.”

I went deep in her pussy and dragged a lot of her lube up around her clit a couple of times and then pulled my hand away. I brought it to my mouth and licked her juices off my fingers. “I’d have to say I think your prey is a lucky girl,” I said.

I turned away, pulling my cock out of her hand and opened the door of the darkroom. I grabbed my clothes, making it clear that playtime was over. She gave me an odd look and went to get her own clothes on. I got the photo dried and in an envelope so she could take her prize with her. In addition, she left an order for a dozen other pictures she wanted. It was a profitable session, even though I exceeded the size of 8x10 for her complimentary photo by four times. Still, she’d given me an immediate model release, so I could show this picture anywhere I wanted to.

Elizabeth and I had dinner at a pizza place just north of the river called Pizzeria Uno. All I can say is that the deep dish pizza was a long time getting to us but was worth every second of the wait. I was stuffed to overflowing and Elizabeth packaged up half the pizza to take home with us.

Then we went to the Davis Theater and saw a new movie with Julie Christie and George C. Scott called Petulia. Mostly we just used the movie as an excuse to hold each other and kiss. About halfway through, we decided that was silly and went to Elizabeth’s house, where we could get in bed and do far more than hold each other and kiss.

In the morning, after a night of just being with each other—and making love—we got up and I packed to head back to Tenbrook. I wasn’t in any huge hurry, so Elizabeth and I ate warmed up pizza for breakfast and then went for a walk before I loaded the van and headed west.

2
Fantasy

IT HAD GOTTEN so that I looked forward to every fourth Friday as much as for any day on the calendar. That was the night that I went to Christine’s house and sat on the couch with her, just holding her bare tummy in my hand. She confessed that she didn’t really need that any longer since the pill was helping to reduce her cramping, but we both liked it so much that I tried to never miss our special evening together.

“Has anything special happened this week while I was gone?” I asked.

“As if you didn’t know. The studio is full of costumes. We’ve all been called upon to model tomorrow. I’ve been sitting in the library with Miss Ludwig trying to match Judy’s costumes from the past ten years with possible plays, musicals, dances, or movies they could have been used in.”

“Ten years? She can’t possibly be going back that far, can she?”

“Not quite, but she even has one costume she convinced Kat to model. Kat is thrilled.”

“It’s really a big deal for her, isn’t it?”

“She’s going to St. Louis in two weeks to interview and needs her portfolio ready,” Chris giggled. “Oh, and we had visitors from Chicago on Wednesday. Anna handled most of the interaction, but your supplier from Chicago, Levi Levinson, came to tour the gallery and studio. He had three other men with him, but they declined to be introduced. Everyone was in the studio anyway, so we each got a chance to talk about what our experience had meant to us. We got to talk about our own photos in the gallery and what it was like to work with you. I have no idea who those other guys were, but one of them handed Anna a wad of hundred-dollar bills and told her to work it into her accounting a little at a time.”

“Holy shit! He must have been one of my patrons, but putting a wad of hundred-dollar bills in Anna’s hand was a little uncalled for.”

“Oh, don’t worry. He didn’t put it in her hand. He stuffed it in her bra.”

“What?” I practically screamed it and looked over my shoulder to see if Chris’s parents were coming to investigate.

“I’m kidding. She locked it in the file cabinet and said she’d discuss it with you.”

“I’m sure she has some ideas,” I sighed.

“I think you are going to sell some very expensive prints,” Chris giggled. She was pleased to have gotten me so thoroughly.

Saturday was definitely Judy’s day. She didn’t really need photos of every one of her and Janice’s costumes, but it wasn’t a bad idea either. We had a regular production line and as soon as I finished a roll of film, I’d set it up in developer and one of the girls would take it to the darkroom to agitate for eight minutes and then rinse. Each time we took a break, I went in and printed a proof sheet. If she needed her portfolio within two weeks, I needed to make sure we had selections made as quickly as possible.

Everyone was so exhausted by the time we finished that they begged off doing anything in the evening, so I decided to just stay in the darkroom and print more pictures.

With Judy.

She was so excited about seeing her collection come together that she didn’t want to leave. She helped with moving the prints from fixative to rinse when that time came. I turned around to ask her a question and found her completely naked in the red light. It was a nice vision.

“I’ve heard that some people consider the darkroom to not be part of the studio,” she whispered as she reached for me and started pulling my clothes off. “And I didn’t model today, so I’m not a model now.” My shirt was off and she was working on my belt and zipper. I couldn’t help because my hands were full of her boobs. “So, if your naked body happened to slip and fall right into my naked body, we wouldn’t be breaking any rules while you pump my pussy full with your cock.”

I couldn’t find a flaw with her reasoning. I still had to move things from one developer tray to another, but I quickly discovered that I could do that while still pumping Judy’s pussy from behind. It worked so well that we did it three times. When I wasn’t moving paper from tray to tray, I had my hands filled with her tits or her clit. Judy considered it a suitable climax to her day.

Patricia needed a little extra loving care the next week. I gave her almost daily massages to relieve her back pain. Miss Ludwig to the rescue again. She just happened to have a new book she got from Sweden on massage during pregnancy. It was written in English, interspersed with Swedish terms, but there were a lot of diagrams that showed how to relieve back strain while the mother was lying on her side. It also emphasized the importance of massaging the legs.

The big thing, though, was that Thursday was her first anniversary with Tony. I supported her, but stayed out of the way after she spread a blanket at Tony’s grave and sat there to talk to him about their coming child. I stayed back at the bus, but I put the 105mm lens on the Nikon and carefully steadied myself as I shot pictures of her. They might not be prize-winning photos, but one day, she’d want to show those pictures to Little Tony, just like the photos of her pregnancy.

“A month from now and I’ll be free!” Christine said beside me as we crossed the Mississippi into Dubuque to head north for our summer camping trip together. She sounded so gleeful that I had to wonder what she was going to be free of. Me? She was sitting close to me with the gearshift between her legs. She was wearing short shorts and when I wasn’t actively shifting, my hand was on her bare leg. I loved touching her skin.

“Um… What will you be free of?” I finally asked.

“All the expectations and preconceived notions of what a girl in Tenbrook will be like,” she said. “I’m moving down to Peoria August first. Student housing opens even though classes don’t start until the middle of the month. I won’t know a single soul there and it is so exciting. Can Chris Evans survive without all the expectations and support structure a small town girl is used to? Will she be disciplined enough to chart her own life? Will she fall to the wiles of a big city lothario? Oh, wait. She’s already done that!” she giggled and I had to smile at her declarations.

“Has everything been so bad in Tenbrook?” I asked.

“No! I’ve had a good life and excellent upbringing. I have a wonderful boyfriend and an incredibly beautiful and tasty girlfriend. When they’re mixed together, they’re really tasty! I got a good education and have a lot of friends. That’s not what it’s about at all.”

“Tell me, honey. Why are you so excited about being ‘free,’ as you say?”

“That’s what I want to find out,” she said. I shifted gears as we headed north out of Dubuque and ran my fingers up the inside of her leg, causing her to involuntarily thrust her hips forward. “I don’t know who I really am. I’ve never really taken the time or effort to find out. I’ve just been a good girl—most of the time—and I’ve done what I’m told. I studied hard, got good grades, got a boyfriend—and a girlfriend—and even being sexually active with them was pretty much part of the expectation for our community. The part where I foiled them was not getting pregnant. Did you know the doctor isn’t supposed to give birth control pills to an unmarried woman? Stupid! So, he prescribes them to relieve cramps and regulate menses. That’s how I got mine.”

“It’s expected that all the girls will get pregnant?”

“There are twenty-eight girls in our graduating class. We all know Patricia is pregnant and about to pop. Of course, she was married. Did you notice that Lauren has left town already? Probably not, because you’ve been busy and running to Chicago and all. She’s three months pregnant and managed to keep it a secret through the end of the school year. Her boyfriend nailed her during spring break and she’s gone off to be with him in Springfield. She’s been wearing the rock since Christmas and I’m sure they’ll be married before summer is over.”

“I had no idea, but Lauren was one of the girls who didn’t come to the studio for an Attic Allure photo.”

“Her boyfriend would have killed her. He’s very possessive. She didn’t even go out with other girls this year. And six other girls wore engagement rings at commencement. I know for sure two of them are trying to get pregnant and all but one will be married before Christmas.”

“Who won’t be?”

“Karen. She’s insisted that Andy go to college at Illinois State. No one expects him to last the semester before he’s back here, but she wants him to be sure she’s the one before they take the plunge. Speaking of which, I’d bet that as soon as he gets back, they will take the plunge and she’ll be married and pregnant by next summer. Then there’s Janice who received her engagement ring from Pete while you were in Chicago. They’re planning to wait until he finishes his tech school program in architectural drafting. I’m pretty sure they’ll get married at the same time he graduates and she’ll be pregnant right away. Of course, if Judy succeeds in heading off to St. Louis and Janice is alone here, she might just leave and move in with Pete this fall.”

“So, it sounds like there’s about a 20% expectation that girls in town will get married and/or have a baby within a year or two at most, right?”

“Yes. I defied that expectation by not getting pregnant and marrying you. We fuck like little bunnies but don’t make any,” she laughed.

“Since you aren’t following that path, you’re trying to figure out what path you should follow, right?”

“Right. I need to find out who I am. I have no idea!”

“I don’t think anyone really has an idea at our age, do they?”

“Says the guy with a thriving photography business and studios in Tenbrook and Chicago with a college education in the offing and a desire to have a long career behind a camera lens.”

“Well, yeah. I guess so.”

“And Ronda has known what she wanted to do forever. She’s been going to that college prep school in Colorado in the summer for four years. Anna has been raised to follow in her father’s footsteps as a tax accountant and is already handling the management of your business accounting and bookkeeping.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without her,” I admitted.

“Exactly. You need Anna. I have fun in the studio, but you don’t really need me. Ronda, Patricia, I’ll bet even Beth could do what I do without missing a step. Am I going to take a semester in business school and decide it’s all wrong and I should go to beauty school instead? The girls in our class who don’t have a college in mind to expand their hunting grounds for a husband are all looking at beauty school or jobs as secretaries.”

“Expand their hunting grounds?”

“You know very well that Donna is going up to Madison because there will be more men there with good prospects at a high-paying job and security than all the boys who are competing for jobs in the county as mechanics. Or the boys are looking for apprenticeships in carpentry and construction. None of them want to leave Tenbrook. They want to stay here and take over the farm or start a business selling insurance. There might be a dozen or fifteen boys in our class, out of twenty-eight, who are going to college. I’m guessing of the rest, five or more will be in the army by this time next year. A girl needs a richer hunting ground if she wants a husband who will keep her secure.”

“Wow. That all seems so mercenary.”

“Isn’t everything? Other than Ronda, Anna, Donna, and me, I think all the other girls who are going to college plan to become teachers or nurses. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s really just a path out of town. That’s why I’m excited to go to Peoria and find out who I really am. Am I going to be happy in business school? Will I want to become a librarian like Miss Ludwig? Is beauty school really the best option? Should I go into research of some kind? Maybe I should try to learn more about space travel and rockets. I could learn to program a Univac computer. Or I could be a data punch operator. Perhaps my little paragraphs on the back of your photos indicate a career in creative writing. I just don’t know who I really am. I need to be somewhere I can focus on me without being distracted by expectations and relationships and the status quo. I need to find me.”

We rode on in silence for a while. I wasn’t sure how this conversation was going to affect our week camping with each other at a state park overlooking the Mississippi. It suddenly seemed to have a lot more significance to me than just getting a week to fuck my girlfriend. Though I was still fairly certain it was going to include that.

“Remember prom a year ago?” I asked.

“Nate! How could I ever forget that night? I made love to you! I made love to Ronda! I had the happiest night of my entire life so far!”

“That’s really how I remember it, too. Waking up with two of the most beautiful and loving girls I’d ever known and making love to them again before we went to church and surprised my mother. And then the two of you even joined my family for Sunday dinner and I felt like I’d just brought the loves of my life home with me.”

“We were so brazen, just claiming you as our lover.”

“Later, Mom walked with me to the studio and had a talk with me. She didn’t want to know specifics about what we did. But I’ll never forget what she said to me. And it applies to the way I feel about you going to Peoria to find yourself. I’ll say to you what she said to me. You still have a ways to go before you’re an adult and independent, but you have matured more than I ever expected you to so soon. It makes me very proud of you, Christine. I’m very proud of you, and still so very sad.”

“Um… Chris? I’d like to take your picture this week. I mean… not just a picture, but a lot of pictures. I want to take pictures of you in every way I can. And not as a model. I want to take girlfriend pictures. Just for me. I just want to pick up my special album of Christine at any time while I’m in Chicago and we’re parted from each other and look through it at the girl I love. I guess I’m asking. May I take your picture this week?”

I managed to get that all out in one breath as soon as we got our camp set up, but before we just got naked or went for a hike or something.

“Anna warned me you’d want that,” Christine grinned.

“How did Anna know? Did I tell her?”

“Maybe. Or maybe she’s just psychic. She said you were taking each of us camping this summer and you were going to want pictures of us. She said she’d like some, too. So, in addition to hiking and sightseeing and making love, I came prepared to have my picture taken. You can take any picture of me you want, Nate. Any time you see a scene you want, clothed or naked, you can take all the pictures you want. Just one thing, though.”

“What? I’ll do anything you want.”

“Don’t let taking pictures interrupt us having fun. Or making love. And take pictures of the two of us together so I can have some, too. And let me take some pictures of you. I think I’d like my own special album.”

I waited.

“Anything else?” I finally asked.

“I guess that could have been considered more than one, huh. Is it okay? Can we take a lot of pictures of our big vacation together and not interrupt having fun?”

“I think we can make that work,” I said, pulling her into my arms and kissing her.

“Maybe we could start having fun right after we make love,” she whispered.

We did have fun, and a lot of the fun was in bed. Or in the tent. Or on a secluded part of the trail down to the river. Or under the stars in a meadow we found that no one was near. And I took pictures of her. I wasn’t carrying the Hasselblad. That was just too much to cart around when hiking and playing. The Nikon did fine and Chris could focus and shoot it, too, so she got pictures of me. I set the self-timer and propped the camera in a crook of a tree or on a rock, or on a picnic table, and took pictures of the two of us together. I used a small beanbag I carried in my pocket to level and steady it—a handy tip I’d gotten from Levi.

“Um… Nate? One more thing,” she said as I snapped a picture of her looking freshly fucked on our bed. “Try not to get pictures of come running down my legs, okay? I mean unless you’d really like a picture of that. Which is a little perverted, but I kind of like the idea. But if you want that picture, since it’s just for the two of us, you should get a really good angle between my legs and make sure you’ve left a big enough deposit that it really runs out and down around my asshole.”

I hadn’t really considered doing that, but once Chris mentioned it, the idea really appealed to me and obviously to her as well. I think I fulfilled all the criteria.

And she held the camera up over her head while she was lying on her back and I was pumping into her and took a picture down between us. We’d have to see how that came out.

She sucked me until I was about to come, and then jumped back to take a picture of my glistening cock. My girlfriend was definitely perverted.

By the end of our five-day camping trip, we’d explored all the park and all of each other. We were exhausted and more in love than ever as we drove back to Tenbrook.

I only had the weekend to make sure I got laundry done and loved Anna, Ronda, and Patricia. Monday morning, I was off to Chicago again. This would be my last trip for a few weeks—until I moved there at the end of August. In addition to clients, I had photo orders to print and Levi wanted a consultation.

“We can’t just keep moving junk in up here,” he said as he sprawled on a maroon mohair sofa that hadn’t been there three weeks ago. “Some of it needs to be circulated out to make room for other stuff.”

“I agree,” I said. “There are areas back there I haven’t even looked at yet. There’s so much I get confused by it.”

“I can’t believe you use as much as you do. On the other hand, having so many different things available is keeping your settings fresh. You aren’t getting a bunch of repeat scenes for your models. Each one is unique.”

“The biggest problem is working without an assistant. I love that couch you’re sitting on, but I bet it weighs a ton. How am I ever going to get it in front of a backdrop to use it?”

“Okay. So, we understand there’s a problem,” Levi said. “Back in Tenbrook you have a bunch of high school girls who will run around naked, move stuff, clean things, and model for you. There would be a different dynamic if you had boys doing this stuff… even the heavy lifting. And I have to tell you, we were impressed with your exhibition and with the girls who hosted us. We didn’t actually see them running around naked, but we saw the pictures and listened to their stories.”

“It all grew out of wandering around taking pictures. I went to school with all those girls. They just like me to take their pictures. I wouldn’t even know how to recruit help like that,” I said.

“Chicago has 10,000 times the number of crazy girls in that age bracket that Tenbrook has. All we need to do is invite them in and give them the kind of safe space your girls out there claim you’ve always provided,” Levi explained.

“There’s a dynamic out there that will take time to build in Chicago,” I sighed. “Maybe I’ll find some girls in college who want to be part of it all.”

“We’ve arranged a few candidates for you to photograph this week,” Levi continued. “Not all the models, but some of them have been chosen by your patrons because they think they would work well with you. And your girlfriend Starr has agreed to help a little, mostly in guiding the girls you choose. We’re not out there recruiting girlfriends or whores for you. The guys see this as a reasonable way for some girls who are low on prospects to improve their lives.”

“How much will I need to pay a crew like that?” I asked. “If you want to improve their prospects, they need to be earning something besides pictures of themselves. I intend to keep paying Anna to do my bookkeeping. I’ve always paid Chris when she assists on a shoot with models. The other girls have received a fee when I have a specific job I want to do, like the calendar girl in Henry’s garage. The budget doesn’t stretch very far, though. I’m not making millions.”

“This space is part of Camera Warehouse. Camera Warehouse needs to get it cleaned up and functioning to support a visiting artist. Camera Warehouse needs to hire half a dozen girls part time who will be available when the artist is in town and will make sure his operation flows smoothly.”

“Levi, are you saying you’ll pay for the girls to work here?”

“Oh, Camera Warehouse will pay with funds supplied by a few investors. It won’t affect our bottom line at all. And it won’t appear on yours. The girls are hired by the space, not by Attic Allure.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I said. “I mean, if it all works it would be great. I just want to know that I can work with the girls and not get caught up in a lot of… um… catfights. You know, that’s one of the things about the girls in Tenbrook. They all get along with each other. Girls we knew wouldn’t get along with the others were just never invited to join us.”

“Well, consider this week to be auditions. If we come out of the week with a no-go, we’ll consider it a good idea we couldn’t make happen. If you come out of it with even one or two girls who will work for the next month to get your studio in shape before you move out here, so much the better.”

“I guess I’m game for that. The girls in Tenbrook pretty much arranged and organized the props in the entire attic and now just walking through it will give me an inspiration sometimes.”

“Well, get inspired. Your first client is in twenty minutes. I’d suggest that with the number of people you have coming through this week, you only develop film and print proof sheets so we can get them out. You’ll have some weeks back home to print orders. Once we get the place cleaned up, we’ll consider putting in some more backdrops like you have at the western studio. I’d like to make it so you still keep that studio active for at least a little while. See how the transition to the city suits you. I’m sure there are still some cuties in Tenbrook who would like to have you around. Like that pregnant girl, Patricia. You need to set it up so you can record her baby the way you’ve recorded her pregnancy. That’s been very impressive.”

“I agree. My family will still be there for another couple of years.”

Leora Capel was my first client Monday afternoon. She was fun to work with. She had some ideas and after her portrait, she started losing her clothes. She was one of those girls who was just plain comfortable in her skin. She didn’t strut around trying to show me her body or tease me. She just worked as naturally nude as she did with clothes on.

“Oh, look what I found!” she called from a corner of the junk collection. It was an area I hadn’t really explored yet.

I turned to look at her and she was arranging a flat pillbox hat on her head with a strap under her chin. She had a big smile and held a hand to her face.

“Call for Philip Morris!” she said. If Philip Morris had shot that ad with this naked girl as the bellman, there would be no other cigarette in the country!

“I like that! We need white gloves and a pack of cigarettes,” I said. We started rummaging around and I came up with gloves and a Sam Browne belt. The old ads, if I remembered rightly didn’t show a belt like that, but I wasn’t going to cover those tits with a bellman’s jacket. We waded back to the stage area and she showed me a pack of cigarettes.

She stood patiently while I fastened the belt around her waist and made sure the shoulder strap rested comfortably between her breasts. I had to spend a minute making sure her breasts were comfortable. They were. I helped her into the white gloves and checked her makeup before handing her the pack of cigarettes.

“I feel like such an object in your hands,” she said. “You just hold me however you want and put your hands anywhere you want to touch me.”

“Leora, I’m sorry. I get carried away. I get started with an idea and then I get distracted by little things.”

“My breasts aren’t huge, but they aren’t little things.”

“Right. I mean. Aw, crap. I did not mean to assault you. Or insult you.”

“Oh, hey! Lighten up. I’m standing stark naked in front of you, having willingly shed my clothes. I really couldn’t complain if you bent me over and fucked me. Um… If you decide to do that, though, let me participate as more than a wet hole. Okay?”

“I don’t fuck in the studio, so you’re safe from that. I confess to being a little perverted when it comes to touching my models, though. I’ll back off.”

“I didn’t say to back off. In fact, how should I say this? I hate when men treat me like an object when I’m shopping or walking down the street. Girls put up with that shit all the time. It gets boring and disgusting. Most of the time guys we date treat us the same way. We’re supposed to look perfect so it reflects well on him. We’re supposed to have available breasts to grope, lips to kiss, and a pussy to fuck. I hate it. The next time a guy on the street pinches my butt, I’m going to cut his balls off with a rusty knife.”

“I try to treat everyone with respect when I meet them. Unless we had some kind of relationship that allowed petting and whatever, I’d never make lewd suggestions to a girl on the street like that.”

“That’s what I mean. We have that kind of relationship. We’ve had it since the moment I walked into the studio. I’m here to be an object you are photographing. If we’re lucky, one of those photos will be a work of art. If not, I’ll come here and strip again and let you handle my body any way you want to if it will help you find that work of art. So, touch my boobs if you want to. Maybe you take better pictures when you’re hard. Put my hand on your cock if that will help. Check my pussy to see if I’m getting turned on. It’s actually kind of refreshing to knowingly become an object for a few hours. Then I’ll get dressed, put a rusty knife in my hand, and go walking down the street, daring any guy to put his hand where it doesn’t belong.”

“Gosh, Leora. You do have a way with words. Just let me know if something makes you uncomfortable. Now let’s go over here in front of the red backdrop.” I put my hand on her back to guide her to where I wanted her and it sort of slid down to her butt.

“I’m working on a degree in creative writing. I’m supposed to be good with words.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Yeah. That and ten cents will get you a cup of coffee. That’s why I’m interested in this place.”

“Would you like to do more than model? This is looking good. Let’s try the pose with your hand up to your face to call out.” She complied and I looked through the lens and then hopped over to turn her shoulders slightly to the right. I took the next picture.

“That room full of junk attracts me. I have to say that with you pinching my nipples and pushing my ass around, your junk kind of attracts me, too. I know. No fucking in the studio. That’s not really why I’m here. I looked at your photos and you created artwork out of girls with junk. I think I can create stories out of the same stuff.”

“Let’s try something a little more dramatic and less tightly related to the cigarettes,” I said. “So far, we’ve just got a parody of the ad going.”

I changed film and moved the stepladder in front of the blue drop.

That was a preview of Exposure. To read the rest purchase the book.

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