Follow Focus
4
Demand Justice
“Monica” by DKai, ID1225217752 licensed from Shutterstock.com.
I SPENT A LOT of time over the next week before we headed to Tenbrook, working on my Fourth of July speech. It would be easy to get caught up in the whole bunch of crap that the draft board was putting me through, and how they were retaliating for my involvement in calling them to account for their sins. I was still pretty pissed at them, but I decided it might be better to praise Caesar than to bury him.
After I practiced it a couple of times before the family, they recommended that I sharpen my tone a little and let the sarcasm shine through. I guessed that was pretty good advice.
In the meantime, I had production photos for She Stoops to Conquer and Pinocchio. She Stoops was funny as hell. I took a ton of photos and would be spending a lot of time in the darkroom. I was still unsure if Pinocchio was really a children’s play or if it was a lesson for adults. I thought it was a little dark to take Toni to. We were discovering she comprehended much more than we thought she did.
Toni was almost four years old. She was especially observant and saw how we behaved toward each other. She knew there was a different relationship between the mommies and daddy than between any of us and Aunt Addi. I think she identified a little with Adrienne—not in a sexual way, but in knowing she wasn’t quite equal to the parents.
Wednesday was opening night of Orpheus. In a very unusual move, all my family elected to stay home and I went to the opening by myself. I wasn’t sure about the music and the acting. But the simple setting and characters were beautiful. And most of all, Monica was beautiful. Her voice, she claimed, was not big enough for full operatic productions. But it completely filled the small experimental theatre and I found myself transported far beyond understanding the words or the plot.
Friday at eleven, Monica came to the studio for another sitting. We worked pretty well together and before long, she was nude and I was posing her with many intimate touches, which she moved toward and not away from.
I’d talked to John about a lighting issue I had and he showed me a couple of good techniques, even giving me what he called a ‘gobo.’ It was a light stencil. I placed it in front of one of my ellipsoidals and got exactly the effect I wanted. I moved Monica in front of one of the neutral backgrounds and cut all the lights except the spotlight with the louvered pattern in front of it.
I loved the effect.
I moved her into different positions for nearly an hour as I experimented with the direction of the light and what showed her to the best advantage. When I finally finished, I carried her to the dressing room and sat on the couch with her as we made out.
“I felt I was being painted in light,” she said. “I believe I will be like the painted figures you have created before, but there is nothing to wash off.”
“There is a disadvantage to that,” I laughed. “I have no reason to bathe you and caress you for the next hour.”
“Oh, yes,” she said playfully, giving me another kiss. “You must caress every part of my body and make sure you have removed all the shadows. I would hate to carry them out of the studio with me.”
With that kind of invitation, I had no difficulty at all making sure I had caressed every place a shadow might be concealed on her body.
Saturday, I kissed the family goodbye for a week away. Patricia and I were taking Toni with us so she could see her grandparents. We planned to spend Saturday night with my folks in Sage and then would go up to Tenbrook Sunday afternoon. Toni would stay with Patricia’s parents and on Tuesday, we would go up to Huntertown for the parade and the rally afterward. I was depending on others to organize the rally. I was just supposed to speak to the crowd outside the courthouse—assuming a crowd even showed up.
One thing I decided was that I shouldn’t really bring up the last time I was in town to defend myself against Warren’s allusions. But there was no question that the rally was targeted at the County Attorney and judge to get off the fence about charging Warren and letting the civil suit go forward.
When I stood up to speak at the rally, there was a loud round of applause and a few cheers.
“Yes!” I started. “Yes! It’s time to cheer. We have won a small victory. Since victories in this fight are few and far between, we need to celebrate the small strides forward.” There was applause, but people were obviously wondering what I was talking about.
“What victory?” I asked. “Many of you know that my personal battle with the local draft board began soon after I turned eighteen and applied to become a conscientious objector. I declared myself opposed to all military service. But that was also when I discovered that the disgraced former constable of Tenbrook, Clyde Warren, had become the secretary of the Hunter County Selective Service Board. He took a special interest in my case, declaring that I was not eligible for alternative service and should be immediately classified as I-A. This was while I was still in high school!
“Through several appeals and disputes, during which time we discovered that this self-righteous ass had manipulated the draft call-up to be sure every young man of color in our county was called up to serve, my case was forwarded to the State Board, which reinstated my student deferment.
“But my file was forwarded back to the local board when I graduated this spring, and they finally acted! Years after my application. Before the ink was dry on my diploma, they acquiesced to my request to be classified as a conscientious objector and have informed me that I must report for alternative service on September first this year.
“Do you understand, my friends? The draft board admitted they were wrong to deny my request in 1969 when Clyde Warren attempted to have me reclassified I-A. Just like he issued other classifications of I-A to many of your sons. Why, I ask you, has the draft board not admitted its culpability in the racist call-up of every male of color in our county? Why have they not admitted their fault in not monitoring the mysteriously appointed new member of their club? Do they not know that every day they do nothing to have this man investigated, ties them more closely to the abuse of power that he exercised?
“Members of the Hunter County Selective Service Board, you have made a great stride forward in recognizing my status as a conscientious objector. I can only praise and thank you and encourage you to continue this forward progress. The very appointment of Clyde Warren to the board smacks of cronyism, just as the judge’s continued delay of the civil suit against Warren speaks of his collusion in the whole conspiracy to rid the county of young men of color. It is time to own up to the problem and correct it, rather than hiding behind walls of secrecy that cast the shadow of suspicion on each of you.
“People of Hunter County, hold fast to the mission of getting this suit heard and this disgrace brought to justice. God be with you all.”
Maybe I wouldn’t have been a bad preacher after all. If you discount me talking all the women in my congregation out of their clothes so I could photograph them.
Of course, I had to stick around for part of the afternoon to talk to people. Many were concerned about my being selected for alternative service and suspected it was really a retaliation from the board, but we maintained the victory. I talked to a reporter from the newspaper and he promised to step up the call for the board to openly investigate.
Then I turned to Patricia. I had an early flight to LA in the morning and we needed to get back to Chicago.
“Shall we just spend the night in the apartment?” I asked.
“Oh, we can’t!” Patricia exclaimed. “Our landlord sublet the unit for us starting July first. He said he thought the new tenants would re-up for the lease the first of September when ours expires.”
“That’s good news. Two less months of rent to pay before we have to find a new place to live.”
“And even a little pocket money in our account for the sublet. The landlord gave them the full rate for the apartment as of September first instead of the lower rate we were paying. It works well all the way around.”
“Want to stay at a hotel and watch the airplanes, Toni?” I asked.
“Let’s go!” she said. Then she went back to a new book Patricia’s parents had given her as an early birthday present. She’d be four in just three weeks.
The flight to LA Wednesday morning was pleasantly boring. I ate the food they brought me and drank the Bloody Mary they served, but beyond that, I just slept. The weekend and holiday had been exhausting. Worse, I had no idea if anything I did or said helped the situation.
Adrienne met me at the gate with a loving kiss that nearly set the terminal on fire. I think there were a lot of people who thought they were missing out on something when they arrived. Everyone seemed to be looking around to see where their beautiful woman was. Too bad. We headed to baggage claim to pick up my suitcase and the Zero Halliburton aluminum camera case Levi had insisted I needed. I unfolded the Commander and loaded everything on it, including my portfolio, which I’d carried on.
I was afraid I’d roast in my suit. It was July and I just assumed the temperature would be through the roof. It wasn’t as bad as I thought as I followed Adrienne to the parking lot, towing my luggage trolley. When we got to her car, though, I was in for a treat. No limousine this time. We stowed my bags in the back of a red Mercedes 350SL. As soon as they were in, Adrienne lowered the roof.
I folded my jacket in the back seat and slid into the sheepskin bucket passenger seat.
“This is a sweet ride,” I said. “I’m glad you picked me up instead of the limo.”
“In California, this is about the equivalent of a VW bug elsewhere in the US,” she laughed. “It might even come standard with any home you purchase.”
“Am I going to purchase a home?” I asked.
“You don’t have to, of course,” she said as we pulled out onto the freeway, “but I was instructed by our sponsor to show you a selection of properties that you might want to consider as a new residence now that you are out of college.”
“I trust there is no pressure to make that decision today. I wouldn’t make any decision like that without the rest of the family involved.”
“Of course. And your sponsor is completely in agreement. He thought a home in California might facilitate greater participation in the industry.”
“Do I want greater participation in the film industry?” I asked. It was a rhetorical question, but Adrienne considered it seriously.
“Of course, I can’t answer that for you,” she said. “I… and my sponsor… see a possible demise of the art photo industry that you are a leader in. One thing he has always been very good at, even in his isolation, is seeing trends in the industry.”
“One of my professors also predicted that the work I currently do might be obsolete in as soon as four years. He cited the changes in laws and customs, the rise of affordable personal photography, and a backlash to the free love of the sixties.”
“My loving master, even I may be obsolete in four years. I will be your loving pet, but will you be looking to be rid of an old woman when you have so many young women at your disposal?”
“You’ll be what? Thirty-five? Well, I’ll be twenty-six. We’ll all be four years older. Do you imagine that I will want to recycle you? My girlfriends? My daughter? Just because we get older? Don’t be ridiculous. When I look at you, I see the same beautiful young woman who walked into my studio two and a half years ago and convinced me that I wanted—even that I needed—a mistress. I was still a teenager and asked stupid questions because I couldn’t imagine that you, so beautiful and wealthy and incredible, could possibly want to be a young boy’s pet. And his family’s!”
“I will be heartbroken if you begin to think otherwise,” she laughed. “We have some studio sessions set up this week. First, additional pictures of our new cast. Second, a couple of recent additions to the talent pool here in Hollywood. One of the things that I have arranged is virtually unlimited access to the props in the studio. Since this is an older established studio in town, some of the props in their storage go back to the 1920s.”
“Wow! I could probably live in a props closet like that.”
“It’s a possibility. If you wanted to live and work in LA,” she laughed.
Okay. So maybe I should take the investigation seriously. She drove me around several neighborhoods. Some were way out of my range. I mean million-dollar mansions like what Frank lived in. But there were some newer neighborhoods that held potential. Still, I didn’t know where I’d ever get the money for a $100,000 house, no matter how much I liked it and liked the thought of seeing my girlfriends in bikinis around the pool.
“Nate, it’s good to see you again,” Bert said. “Brent and I are putting the finishing touches on the script for Double Exposure and want to go over it with you, just to make sure we’ve captured the right elements photographically. Frank and Reg will meet us for dinner, but until then, it’s just us guys. Um… and Miss Boudelaire.”
He glanced nervously at Adrienne, who merely sat back from the table a little with a hand on my shoulder.
“Right. No problem. Just please tell me this one won’t be as long as Gone With the Wind,” I said.
Bert gasped a little, but Brent started laughing.
“We were thinking of running the score of Wagner’s Ring Cycle behind it for timing,” he chuckled. “Okay. First note, cut an hour. Second note, no underage titties. Third note, action up front. Are we ready to begin?”
That set the tone for our afternoon. Thankfully, Adrienne had taken me through the In-N-Out burger place drive through and I had a very satisfying lunch. One of the secretaries came in with coffee and I was set for the afternoon. Bert was always a little more sensitive to any criticism. Brent seemed to think everything was funny. As odd as it sounds, they made a pretty good team, and I could see the script for the sequel was stronger than the script for Over Exposure had been. They weren’t depending quite so much on female nudity to make the show a success. Not that it was missing, but it didn’t seem as gratuitous—a word I learned in my Film as Literature class.
The setting is ten years after the first movie. I asked about getting the actors to age that much when they were only two years older than when the first film was shot. I was told it was always easy to make women look older. Not so easy to make them look younger. All they’d have to do with Lyle was let him act his age.
Over the ten years, Joe has apparently cleaned up his act. He’s an upstanding member of the community, a member of the local church, and on the village council. Temptation is just too much for him on one or two occasions and he falls back into his old patterns of seduction, but he doesn’t establish any long-term relationships with anyone but his family.
That is, until he happens on his oldest—now sixteen—son’s girlfriend in the house. What starts as a simple fatherly conversation soon turns to one of Joe’s preliminary seductions. We see the girl sizing him up as a possible conquest as well.
In the meantime, Jenny has not let her suspicions go entirely. She holds Joe to a fairly strict regime, in which Joe is making great strides in the community. Jenny is almost convinced that she has a happy home life until she has a long conversation with her son Bob’s girlfriend, Rose. After their conversation, Jenny decides to use Rose to trap Joe and get him sent to jail.
Joe discovers the trap and sets out for revenge. Jenny flees with Bob, Rose, and fourteen-year-old daughter Cora. She calls the police and asks for protection for herself and the children. The call is transferred to one of the officers who was unconvinced when the FBI pinned both murders on Rossi and let Joe go.
Suffice it to say, there are tense moments as Joe closes in on the family with intentions of killing all of them. There is a nod to Hitchcock’s Rear Window with the use of a flash to temporarily blind the pursuing police. Joe almost escapes, but the roads have become icy and he spins out, crashing into the sign post for the derelict restaurant once owned by Rossi. Joe is killed in the accident.
The final scene is an auction in which Joe’s equipment is sold by a stolid Jenny. She holds a photo she found in his studio of fourteen-year-old Sally Jane.
“It’s exciting,” I said. “Jenny and Rose survive. Joe is dead. Audience is happy.”
“Okay. Now, what are the criticisms?” Brent asked.
“You could have more things in the auction. Joe’s equipment isn’t enough. And in a general auction, like an estate auction, it wouldn’t draw anywhere near what it is worth. If Joe has been using my style and has collected a bunch of random props, a pan across a few things that the audience might recognize from other photos or the earlier movie would be cool. The bed, for example. Oh! How about discovering a rolling pin among his props? It would sow a seed of doubt still as to whether Joe actually killed Sally Jane, or maybe he found a rolling pin later when he is considering offing Jenny.”
“That gave me chills. Nice detail.”
We continued till dinnertime. Brent seemed a lot more interested in details about the photography than Bert had been two years earlier. Of course, Bert had spent a month watching me at work in Las Vegas, which was an experience Brent didn’t have. They’d also beefed up Jenny’s role and Fran was going to have a great showing. Chrystal showed up at six and brought a limo to take us all to dinner. We met Frank, Reg, and George there.
“Welcome back to the land of dreams,” Frank greeted me when Adrienne and I got to the restaurant with Chrystal, Bert, and Brent.
“That would be why the rest of the world knows it as LaLa Land,” I laughed, shaking hands around. Frank was the producer, Reg was the director, and George was the director of marketing.
We seated ourselves and a waitress took drink orders from Brent and Bert. The other three men already had drinks.
“Still not drinking, Nate? You’re twenty-one now, right?”
“Mmmhmm. Twenty-two. Now that I’m an adult, I can simply not drink because I choose not to,” I answered.
“That’s profound,” Brent said, pulling out a notepad.
“I hope you’re ready to do some real work rather than hang out with these writer guys,” George said. “We’ve got a packed schedule for you the next three days.”
“I guess that’s why I’m here. What’s cooking?” I asked.
Just then the waiter came to take our orders for food and we got situated with some appetizers the guys had already ordered.
“We’ve got you scheduled over at the scene shop where they are constructing and reconstructing our sets. Your union card will give you access to anything you need and you shouldn’t get yelled at for grabbing a prop or moving a chair. On the other hand, don’t touch any lighting. That’s a closed union and you don’t have an electrician’s card,” George said.
“We need new promo shots of everyone. Of course, when George says ‘new’ he’s referring mostly to Lyle and Fran. A couple other guys who have continuing roles, like Jack and George, the two cops from the original. Everyone is being aged ten years from the first film, so we’ve got makeup artists scheduled to work on them,” Frank said. “We’re going to try to get most of the production photography done before we start filming and some of the photos you take will be reference photos so the makeup artists know what to match when we enter production.”
“But we’ve got several new people in the show, too,” Reg said. “There’s the kids. You know they were four and six in the first film. Now they’re fourteen and sixteen. New actors.”
“And the various love interests of Joe to photograph in provocative poses with props of your choosing. Geraldine will be working with you to record what you use so we have it available for the film,” George said.
Our salads arrived and conversation shifted for a while during the meal.
“We think we solved the opening sequence,” Brent said. “Thanks to Nate’s input. We’ll open with a car chase through the streets of Otter Falls that ends in a flaming car crash.”
“What’s the tie-in?” Reg asked.
“The crash will be wrapping the car around the derelict sign for Rossi’s Tivoli Ristorante. It will be the end of Joe Price. But we won’t be showing who is being chased in the car during the opening sequence. And since there’s no trial, we never really get confirmation that Joe killed Sally Jane. But we know he was planning to kill Jenny,” Bert said.
“I like it. Let’s get the vehicles lined up and painted and clear a day of shooting in Tenbrook with the mayor. That scene needs to be bright summer,” Reg said.
“We’re looking at a sudden hailstorm that puts hailstones all over the road so it’s slippery. Midwest is known for freak weather during the summer. We could have just about anything except an earthquake and people would believe it,” Brent said.
“Well, we can’t wait around for a hailstorm to happen on the day of shooting. We’ll have to figure out how to show that,” Reg said. “But I like it. Since it doesn’t involve any of our actors, we can shoot it as soon as we get things arranged. We’ve already got a crew in Tenbrook, giving the town a facelift from the previous film. It will be one of the things we show Joe being involved in, like a good civic patron.”
“Keep coming up with good ideas, Nate,” Frank said. “Any new talent discoveries?”
“Most of the talent I’m working with are stage performers. There might be a couple who could make the shift to film, but I wouldn’t bet on most of them. I did submit a photo and resume last year of a great actress I photographed for a limited edition artwork. Renée Bach.”
“We got her!” Reg said. “It’s not a big role as one of Joe’s conquests, but the girl is golden. This will be a good step for her into the bigtime.”
“Glad to hear that. I’ll keep an eye out for anything else.”
We managed to get along toward dessert before I brought up the next issue.
“I probably won’t be available after the first of September until at least next summer,” I said.
“We… Really? We’ll pay premium if you have to miss something to come in for more consultations.”
“It’s nothing any of us can do anything about,” I said. “I’ve been drafted… sort of.”
“Sort of drafted? How does that work?”
“Upon graduation, my local selective asshole board immediately reclassified me as I-O and informed me that since all conscientious objectors must serve, I was to report for alternative service on September 1.”
“Fight it!”
“No. I’ve already declared it a victory as a way to continue to put pressure on the board to investigate their former secretary. The good thing is that I intended to go to work for the government the first of September anyway. The State Department bought my contract for alternative service. But that means that my time will no longer be my own.”
“But you said summer. Isn’t alternative service two years?” Frank asked.
“Yes, but I negotiated three months off each summer to keep my studio in Stratford operating. In exchange, though, I’ll have an extra six months tacked onto my service at the end.”
“Makes things difficult,” George said. “Keep us informed about any gaps in your schedule we might capitalize on, okay?”
“Sure.”
Adrienne and I bid goodnight. We were taken home in the limo, which would take us to the studio the next day. Adrienne’s car would be there for us to drive home at night.
My first clients on Thursday were Jack and George, the police detectives. In the first film, they were painted as pretty incompetent when the FBI agent was called in to investigate. In this film, though, they would be the principal investigators since they never really gave up on the idea that Joe was to blame. I got individual portraits and reference photos for the makeup department. There was a police station setting and I got photos at their desks and with an investigative board behind them.
Then Fran showed up.
“Hey, girl,” I said when she gave me a hug. I stood back a step and looked at her. She’d been twenty-four when we met and was playing the role of a thirtyish housewife. Now, ten years had passed for the current role and makeup had done a great job of aging her. “Hollywood’s been hard on you, hon,” I laughed.
“No kidding!” she said after giving me a deep and thorough kiss. “What really gripes me is that makeup didn’t need to do nearly enough to age me to fortyish.”
“I hope you’re being facetious,” I said. “Even with all the makeup, though, you look like a walking wet dream.”
“I’m glad you think so, but I notice you already managed to talk someone younger and cuter into joining our cast. I won’t forget that!”
“Renée’s a sweetheart. I hope you get along well.”
“Oh, we do. We haven’t had too much time to chat yet, but just finding out we were both talked out of our clothes by Nate Hart has created a bond,” Fran laughed.
“Well, we need to work with the cop scenes this afternoon and then I’ll get the reference photos for makeup,” I said.
We got busy. Jack and George were happy to have an opportunity to work with Fran. The dynamic seemed to be good among them and I could readily see they’d jump to Jenny’s aid as soon as she called.
After the cops were let go, I had Fran sit in front of the plain backdrop for reference photos to give to makeup for her next appearance. Then for kicks, she proceeded to pose in various provocative ways to show that she really hadn’t aged where it counted. They way I’d heard it, breasts done the way hers were never did age.
It was a long day and it wasn’t over yet. I’d taken color transparencies as well as black and whites, but the black and whites needed to be processed and printed so makeup would have the reference photos the next morning. Adrienne took me to the photo lab where I focused on getting the film processed, proofed, and select images printed in 8x10.
We got home about ten and I barely got a few kisses in on Adrienne before I fell asleep.
My first client in the morning was a welcome sight. Renée came directly to me and gave me a big hug and kiss.
“I can’t believe you managed to get me a part in this movie,” she gushed. “It’s so cool.”
“I love the way you look. Apparently, you aren’t one of the actors that needed to be aged.”
“No. I get to play my twenty-three-year-old self,” she giggled. “They’re going to shoot a couple of our scenes.”
“Really? Tell me about your part.”
“I’m Joe’s bit on the side who wants him all to herself. I’ll constantly be needling him about divorcing Jenny so we can be together openly.”
“And they’re going to put you in some of our poses?” I asked.
“If you approve. I told them I wasn’t sure we were allowed to do the same poses because of your contracts with the patrons. They have a piano for us to work with, though.”
“I think it will be fine as long as we don’t use a male at the keyboard or you with puppet strings. I can see some possibilities for you with just the piano, though.”
“As always, Nate. I’m in your hands.”
She punctuated the statement with a quick kiss and bringing my hands up to softly graze her breasts. It was going to be a good day.
I started with the usual portrait shots, both for makeup and for publicity. Objectively, I thought Renée was much prettier than Fran, and couldn’t blame Joe for falling for her. How much that would affect his decision to try to kill Jenny, though, was a little vague.
I started working with a few props, including a wine glass and jewelry. It wouldn’t hurt Renée to look a little older than the twenty-three that she was. She needed that combination of sweet young innocence and sexy predator. With different costumes, I got her onto the piano and took pictures of her there. And I coaxed her out of her clothes until she was gloriously nude. I loved her look and she responded to me like I’d been taking her photos for years. In reality it had been over a year since our last photoshoot before she graduated.
I loved her backside as much as her front and got some pretty sexy photos of her sitting on a chair with her back turned to me. When Lyle got to the studio, I started working with the two of them to create scenes. Joe was not a pianist, so I used the piano just as a prop to pose Renée on, or in the background. I could see Lyle practically panting to get his hands on her as I got her undressed and took photos of that glorious back as she faced Joe sitting with a drink.
Eventually, I dismissed Renée and got the necessary makeup reference shots for Joe. Then Adrienne and I headed back to the lab after a light dinner.
It didn’t take quite so long. When Adrienne and I got back to her apartment, we had both time and energy to make love. I didn’t, however, have the energy to make a scene of punishing her.
Saturday was the day I was working with the kids in the show. I’d had family portraits with Fran, Lyle, and the boy and girl playing their children. The girl was cute in a fourteen-year-old way. I wasn’t doing any suggestive posing of the kids, so I could appreciate her freshness without trying to get her into any sexy poses.
That was it for Fran when we were finished and she gave me a kiss before leaving the studio. Then I had photos of Joe’s son, Bob, with the kid’s girlfriend, Rose. Rose would be an underage girl who becomes Joe’s downfall when he tries to seduce her. I did a few shots of Joe with Rose and then Joe was finished for the day and I had my final session with Rose.
“What’s this?” I asked when the actress I was working with handed me a sheet of paper.
“This is the list of things you can and can’t do with me,” she said. Her name was Amber Gemheart, a name I immediately assumed was made up. “The key things are that you may accidentally touch me in the process of posing, but you must keep your hands away from my genitals. No part of your body may enter any orifice of mine. I’m sorry to say that means no French kissing, either. I may pose nude for you, but any photo showing my nipples or pubic area must be destroyed—as well as the negatives.”
“Not that I’m complaining, but why the need for all this? And a request for my signature? Couldn’t you just tell me what you don’t want?”
“It’s not about what I want or don’t want,” Amber sighed. “It’s a requirement for my work release. I’m only sixteen. Any violation of these rules would be considered statutory rape or child pornography. It’s for your protection as well as mine.”
“Oh, shit! You mean you aren’t of age? In the last movie, they had a twenty-four-year-old playing a fifteen-year-old. I assumed it’s the way they did things here.” I quickly scrawled my name on the form and handed it to Adrienne to make a copy. It was already signed by Amber.
“I really hate it when old women play parts I could perfectly well have played. I’ve been in the business since I was six years old and they were always trying to fake out the cameras with older kids playing younger ones. And believe me when I say, sometimes I wish these rules weren’t so rigid. I watched your session with Renée yesterday and couldn’t believe you let her go without fucking her.”
“That was difficult, but Renée and I go back a couple of years working together.”
“Well, if I was eighteen instead of sixteen, I’d tear this up and we’d have some real fun.”
“Stay nice and pure until you’re of age,” I laughed. “Everyone will be safer.”
“Oh, I’m not pure,” she laughed. “And I’m hoping you, like, do whatever touching is allowed. The form is to protect the studio more than me. What I do away from the studio is my business and I don’t really care what the law says about me being under age. So, if we happened to meet for dinner one night—you know, like, at your apartment—it could be a really nice night for both of us.”
“As fun as you make that sound, I’m afraid I have my own restrictions. I remind every model who sits for a picture that there is absolutely no sex allowed in the studio, and I don’t date models,” I said.
“Hmm. Somehow, I don’t quite believe that, but if that’s the way you want it, I just hope you’ll take advantage of what liberties are allowed. Then I’ll have to call Benny up and get him to finish the job.”
Benny was the kid playing Bob and I hoped he knew enough not to be manipulated by this teen vixen. I made sure I was never alone with her and that I always framed my shots in such a way that the sacred sex bits were hidden. Yes, I ‘accidentally’ squeezed her ripe little boobs a couple of times, but that was as intimate as we got.
Fortunately, she was really pretty nice and a good model. I could see pretty quickly why Reg chose her for the part of the young girlfriend that Joe would try to seduce. I had a feeling that the sheet of rules and regulations was written specifically for Lyle.
After the session was over Saturday, Adrienne and I sat with Geraldine for over an hour going over the list of props I’d used in the scenes. She had an assistant tag and label each one so they knew exactly where and when it was used.
I spent all day Sunday in the lab printing enlargements of every photo that used a prop. Then I had to make Cibachrome prints of all the transparencies George had chosen for marketing. All the negatives and transparencies were then packaged up and sent to him. They were property of Photosensitive Productions and I was happy to have them out of my hands.
At last, I had an evening to spend and enjoy with my Fifi. It included some of the things that we each enjoyed the most and was a satisfactory conclusion to the week. I couldn’t believe that I’d spent five days with this sexy creature and had only made love with her twice. She had to be wondering what was wrong with her master. I did my best to show that nothing was wrong and I’d been saving up all week for this one night.
Monday morning, I was on an early flight back to Chicago. I got in about noon and Ronda was there to meet me at the gate. What a wonderful sight. We gathered my bags and took off toward Stratford, only making it as far as the hotel in Windsor before we stopped for the night and spent the evening making love.
I petted and stroked Ronda in the big tub in our hotel room, just marveling at her beautiful body. Sometimes I just wanted to freeze a moment in time and relive it over and over again. That was pretty much any time Ronda and I were alone and enjoying each other.
We kissed and fondled. Eventually, we got out of the tub. It was big enough to do a lot of playing, but it wasn’t really that comfortable to try to make love in it. I dried my lover with one of the hotel’s big fluffy towels and carried her off to the bed.
“You… um… might need to prime my pump down there a little before we get your big penis in my little vagina,” she said as I began exploring with my fingers. “I love having a bath together, but the water kind of washes away the natural lubrication.”
“Well, it happens that I rather like restoring your lubrication with my tongue,” I said. “Ronda, I love licking you. Whenever I’m down here, just looking at you sends my heart racing. Even that time in the darkroom when you kissed me, I never imagined that I’d actually become your lover. I thought for sure that we’d just share Christine and maybe we’d kiss each other when we were both trying to kiss her. I’m so incredibly happy I can kiss you just because I love you.”
“She’s pregnant, you know.”
“What?”
“Christine. She’s pregnant.”
“God! She’s only been married…”
“Two years. I guess she made it to graduation with just a little bump, but she is definitely in a family way. And proud of it.”
“When did you find out?”
“When we were back in Tenbrook after graduation. I saw her. We didn’t speak or anything. I was coming out of the house to go to the hotel and meet you when she came out of her house and went to her car. She saw me and turned profile so I could see her bump. She smiled and rubbed her tummy while she looked at me. Then she got in her car and drove away.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry you went through that. You didn’t say a thing to me about it.”
“Nope. And don’t be sorry. I came to a very important realization as I continued walking to the hotel.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m glad she’s not with us. I mean, I’m really glad! Nate, I love you more than the whole world. I love Patricia and Anna and Toni like my life depends on it. If Chris was still in our lives, she’d have destroyed that. Destroyed it for all of us. I’m glad she broke up with us and went away. I’m glad in the same way I’m glad Elizabeth is gone. We are ten times happier than we could have been if either of them was still with us.”
“That puts it in perspective, doesn’t it?” I said. “I’m so full of love for you and our family that I haven’t even had thoughts to spare for Christine or Elizabeth in months. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad they’re gone, too.”
“I think I’m ready now, lover. Come and make love to me. I need you inside me to reconnect and affirm our love.”
I slid into Ronda like a welcoming home. We looked into each other’s eyes as we made love, building to a peak and then drifting to build again. When I didn’t think I could hold back any longer, the dam burst for Ronda and she clamped down on my cock as I began to spurt. The high-pitched whine of her orgasm carried us both further into the experience, and I could see the tears in my eyes reflected in hers. Yes, I was glad. I was glad my family was exactly the people who were in it. I would treasure this moment with my lover forever, no matter how many other moments there were.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
