Full Frame
10
The Goddess
“Christine” by Elena11, ID672996022 licensed from Shutterstock.com
I PROCESSED THE FILM from the photoshoot with Patricia. I could tell from the contact sheet that we had some great photos that deserved time for me to do test strips and make really good prints. But for tonight, I printed an 8x10 of her leaning back with her tits pointing toward the sky—the same shot I was sure Tony would want. It was just a basic print with no particular enhancements and it still looked incredible. I still made it home in time for ice cream and TV with the family. After everyone had gone to bed and the house was quiet, I pulled the print of Patricia’s tits out of my personal collection and started remembering what they’d looked like in the flesh. The memory was still fresh in my mind and it didn’t take long for me to start getting close to a major climax.
Then I started thinking about what she’d said. That she was going to ‘diddle the fiddle’ and ‘let her fingers do the walking.’ It suddenly dawned on me that she was masturbating, the same as I was. I’d read the facts of life book cover to cover. Those descriptions led to some of my first orgasms. It had diagrammed the parts of the anatomy, including the clitoris. In the text, the book had said simply that ‘some women derive pleasure from stimulating the clitoris.’ I’d never associated that statement with the idea that girls could masturbate. I wondered what Patricia felt with her fingers in that light brown thatch between her legs and what I’d feel if I put my fingers there.
The climax almost knocked me out. I thought about Patricia stimulating her clitoris while she was thinking about the lump in my pants. My cock! She was touching herself between the legs thinking about my cock! Just like I was thinking about touching her between her legs as my cock mounted to a second earthshaking come.
It was a moment of revelation to me. As I cleaned up the mess on my chest and stomach and searched around for glops that had spattered onto my sheets or pillow, I considered my new bit of information. Girls got pleasure from sex… at least if it was done right. I’d never considered anything beyond the idea that they had a place designed to make my cock feel great. I resolved to find out everything I could about how girls got pleasure from sex. I figured my chances would be a whole lot better if a girl was enjoying herself as much as I was.
I didn’t see Tony’s motorcycle Monday morning and then remembered that he and his gang were blowing off school Monday to apply for jobs at the new club in Wisconsin. In first period English, I found my place between Patricia and Chris—two of the women who had come to be very important in my mind.
“Well?” Patricia whispered when I sat down.
“Um… I didn’t get much more than proofs printed. We got some great shots.”
“Nothing more?”
“I printed one.”
“And?” She made a subtle gesture with her hand in an open fist.
“Bitchin’,” I whispered.
“Hey, did you guys take photos this weekend?” Chris asked. I nodded and class started. During class, while we were supposed to be reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Chris nudged me and handed me a note.
“I finished the costume. Sunday at 2:00?”
I looked at her and smiled. I nodded my agreement.
Anna met me at lunch and pulled me out into the hall in front of the mugshot board. A miserable-looking freshman girl was standing there holding a little chalkboard sign that said, “L. Monroe. Bad Hair Day.”
It sure was. It really looked like she’d gone to bed with it wet and hadn’t had time to brush it this morning. I laughed and took the mugshot. Then, my sweet Anna pulled out a brush and brushed out the girl’s hair. It really looked nice when she was done and I wondered if they’d just messed it up like that for fun. I had her stand back up in front of the sign and took another shot with her smiling broadly and showing a whole mouth full of braces.
School was pretty chaotic all week as people were coordinating their time to be in line for school pictures with their desire to dress in Halloween costumes. Anna and I got a free period when Miss Kellogg was out sick one day and we got permission to visit elementary school classrooms to take pictures. Anna was brilliant at posing the big classes and had her portable chalk board that she wrote the name of the teacher, grade, and date on. Sometimes the teacher held it, sometimes it was on the floor in front of the group, and sometimes one or more of the kids held it. Regardless, the pictures were cute.
In one fourth grade class, Anna moved a couple of desks so they were face to face and had two girls sit on top of them with their backs to each other and their arms folded. The rest of the class clustered around them looking variously like they were egging them on to fight or trying to get them to reconcile. I stood up on the teacher’s desk to take the photo and he was in the back of the kids scratching his head.
Fun stuff like that.
I saw Tony with Patricia Tuesday after school and he was steaming. I was afraid he was mad that I’d taken pictures of his girlfriend’s breasts. I hadn’t seen them this morning. It turned out it wasn’t about me at all.
“That bastard didn’t buy that I was out of town until I showed him a receipt from the café we ate at Monday morning,” Tony growled.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Somebody sprayed an obscene image on the old concrete railroad trestle over the river,” Patricia said. “Constable Warren took Tony in to his office this morning and questioned him about where he was Sunday night. And when Tony finally convinced him he was in Wisconsin, he started pressuring him for names of people in ‘his gang’ who might have done it.”
“Damn pig!” Tony spat. Then he turned his attitude around as if it had never happened. “Patricia says you got some really good photos Sunday. When can we see them?”
“It’s easiest if we do it on Saturday. That will give me an opportunity to print up a couple of the best ones. I’m going to talk to Mr. Grossman in Huntertown tomorrow to find out about some additional processing techniques I might use,” I said. Patricia looked alarmed. “Don’t worry. I’m not showing him any of the photos.”
She breathed a sigh of relief.
Wednesday after school, I borrowed the car and went to Huntertown to visit Mr. Grossman. I took a selection of photos, including a couple of the new ones with Patricia. It was a ghost photo that was pretty low contrast and as a result, her nipples and bush didn’t pop out too much in the print.
“Well, how are your projects coming?” he asked. I was pretty pleased with most and had taken several of my prints from the school bulletin board with me to show him. He laughed at the print of a guy in front of the mugshot frame and the FFA with their tractor and cow.
“I’m working on getting some more exciting pictures for the yearbook than what the school is used to.” I showed him a copy of the school yearbook I’d borrowed from Miss Sullivan. They called our yearbook the Oracle. I wasn’t sure anyone understood what Oracle stood for. It just sounded Trojan, I guess.
He looked at the rows of people staring at the camera and then back at the pictures I had taken.
“Your pictures are great. The whole concept will make for a far more interesting yearbook. I’d say that when you do the 5x7 prints to submit for the yearbook, you should probably filter as much as a four to increase the contrast. The printing process will cut the contrast in an image because of the halftone dot size. The printing company uses a 120-line screen for the photos, which yields pretty good results except when you get to the pages printed on colored paper. That really washes out the print. They could have cut it to a 75-line screen or even 60-line screen like they use in newsprint to get better image quality. The dot spread on this paper is really intense.”
I showed him the photos of Judy and Janice in their Dark Shadows costumes and he really liked them.
“Contrary to intuition, shooting this with lower speed film and a slower shutter speed might have added even more to the subtle shadows created by the candle. The light is a nice effect, but some of the drama is lost because it fades too quickly. These, however, are still fine photographs.”
Then I showed him my ghost picture of Patricia and explained I hadn’t really worked with the photo much because I wanted his advice. He looked at it and smiled.
“This is the other young woman you photographed on the motorcycle, isn’t it? You certainly got lucky with this model. She’s not only beautiful, she photographs naturally.”
“She’s a pleasure to work with. She always seems to know the right expression and posture to bring out what we want in the photo. What I really want to do with this one is somehow make her look more ghostly. Maybe transparent. Any advice?”
Mr. Grossman told me several things I could do with masks and filters. It was going to be a tricky process and I’d be in the darkroom for a long time to get just one print. We finally got down to my last question.
“My drapes make a decent backdrop for most of the sparse scenes I’m shooting at the moment, but I’m afraid everything I shoot in my studio is going to start looking the same. Is there anything I can do to change it up?”
“Oh, yes. You are finding the bane of the studio photographer. It’s why most only do portraits and the background is non-existent. I can help you a little here. I have a couple of older backdrops I’ve used and replaced. These are only six feet wide, but there are four different colors, including one white and one black. You can hang them in the background and as you get more lights, you’ll be able to control the look of the neutral backdrop you want. I have a catalog here for a company that does stock backdrops for studio photography. These might be a little out of your range at the moment, but if you check with them, sometimes they have some that are discontinued and they are trying to sell out. Many of them are paper, like the plain ones I’m giving you. Some of the better ones are hand painted on muslin. With enough of them, you can just about make your studio look like you are on location anywhere in the world.”
“That’s great! Thank you, Mr. Grossman.”
“Come back again and bring me more of both your school prints and your studio work. This glamour shot you did, for example, is almost a category of photograph in itself. I know some studio photographers who would envy the print, as well as the model.”
“I’m doing some more work with Chris Sunday afternoon. She’s been working on an ancient Greek costume and I’m trying to fix up a classical setting for her,” I said.
“I’ll look forward to seeing prints,” he said. I carried the four rolls of background paper out to the Falcon and headed home, happy that the wagon would accommodate the six-foot length of each roll.
I finally managed to walk hand-in-hand with Anna on Friday after school to Sweet Treats for a sundae. Then I walked her home and she told me to have fun at the party and she’d see me Monday.
She didn’t seem to be upset about it, but I’d asked Mom if there was anything weird between the churches.
“You know there is a Council of Churches,” Mom explained.
I knew because I’d been indoctrinated with the idea that the Methodists and EUB were planning to unite and it was part of an ecumenical movement that started after WWII. I guess Pope John XXIII was big into reform and reconciliation of Christians everywhere until he died in 1963.
“Well, not everyone believes Protestants and Catholics should be involved in an ecumenical movement together. The Lutheran Church in town was divided by the issue. It became so contentious that a group separated themselves and started a new church, right across the street.”
I’d seen the two Lutheran Churches on opposite sides of the highway when I was out riding my bike. I thought it was pretty strange, but there were lots of different kinds of Lutherans. Synods, I think they called them.
“If you went to either church on Sunday morning, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them. Same hymnal, same liturgy, same colors and vestments, same prayers. But the St. Thomas Lutheran Church on the north side of the street will have nothing at all to do with the Tenbrook Council of Churches or the Catholics in general. Trinity Lutheran on the South side of the street is a member of the council and their youth, for example, participate in all the joint events, like this Saturday’s party.”
What a strange place this was. So, because of that, Anna wouldn’t go to the party at Holy Family Catholic Church. And apparently, the St. Thomas Lutheran Church youth group was having a lock-in party for their kids that would last all night, including a prayer service at midnight.
Okay. I was going to the party and enjoy myself. Just like Anna said to.
Saturday afternoon, Tony and Patricia came to the studio to look at the prints I had. I was still a little nervous about Tony knowing that I’d seen his girlfriend naked here in the studio. It turned out that I didn’t need to worry. He was enthusiastic. Of course, I’d rightly guessed that he’d want the picture of Patricia leaning back with her tits up. I’d done what I considered was a fine job of enlarging it and getting just the right tone and texture. It looked almost like you could reach out and touch them.
“Aren’t these the most fantastic tits you’ve ever seen?” Tony asked. “This girl beside me is a work of art, I tell you. Oh, Babe, you are so beautiful. This picture could go straight into the magazine.” Patricia blushed and hugged him as he praised her. I was happy. Then they got to the photo of her ghost scene.
“How’d you do this?” Patricia asked. “You can see right through me! And my face looks like it’s glowing!”
“I took a couple pictures of the background before I started taking your picture. When I enlarged it, I started with a short exposure of the background with a mask for your face and head and arm with the candle. Then I lined up the image with you in it exactly the same as the one with the background. The longer exposure for that one made the set props and your face and arm really stand out, but the rest of you is over printed on the background.”
“This boy’s a genius with that camera and darkroom,” Tony said. “Babe, you should have this on a billboard or something. It should hang in a museum!”
“Tony, you know I can’t send these photos anyplace. I’m not eighteen. But I want you to enjoy them and know the girl in the picture is your girl. Everybody else in the world can look at her, but she’s all yours,” Patricia said. There was such an intense look in their eyes that I could see that they were really committed to each other. It went both ways. I’d take any pictures of Patricia she wanted.
And that brought me to the matter of a costume for the party. I had no idea what the typical costumes were like at a party out here. Clowns? Pirates? Hobos? What did kids dress up as for a teen youth group party?
The youth group included seventh through twelfth grade. Of course, Kat was upset that she wasn’t old enough for MYF yet, but Mom reminded her that she’d been invited to the home of a new friend for dinner and to go trick or treating. That seemed to please her. I was still getting dressed when Mom and Dad took Kat to her friend’s house.
The store room had come through for me again. Back in the very back, I found a suit hanging in a cleaning bag. It was really old fashioned looking. And way too big around for me. But it was about right in height. There was a bowler hat that I could wear and a cane. This stuff was apparently left over from the glory days of the store when it carried men’s clothes. When I took the stuff home and showed Mom, she said she thought it was from the twenties or maybe earlier.
I had to use one of my own shirts, but the big task was padding myself out to look like I weighed about fifty pounds more than I did. My dad had ties that he’d collected for years. I found one that was about six inches wide and covered with flowers.
When Mom and Dad got back, I showed them what I had, but the pants kept sliding down. Dad dug in a drawer and came up with a pair of red fireman’s suspenders and I found buttons on the trousers to fasten them to. No one would be able to see the suspenders under the vest and jacket. Mom got an eyebrow pencil and penciled on a thin little mustache. She even called it a ‘pencil-thin’ mustache and said I looked a little like William Powell in The Thin Man. Only I wasn’t thin.
I donned my hat and took off, stopping at the studio. I quickly set up my camera on the tripod and set the timer on it. Then I got in front of it and took my own photo in front of the plain white backdrop. I had no idea how it would look when I developed it, but it was worth a try. I took the camera and headed to the Catholic Church.
I was right about there being a selection of Pirates, Indians, and Hobos, but mostly among the junior high kids. There were about thirty of us all told, and it was pretty evenly split between junior and senior high. I guess kids start thinking church youth group and parties like this are for younger kids and quit going to events like this eventually. But the level of costuming among the high school kids was stellar. I think everyone knew Judy and Janice would be dressed in their stunning Dark Shadows costumes and felt they had to up their game a little, too.
Andy and Karen were dressed up like they were a farmer and his wife and actually looked like that painting called American Gothic or something like that. I took a picture of them and it was pretty cool. There were two kids dressed up like Wednesday and Pugsly from The Addams Family. It was really funny to find out their last name was Adams. There was a hand on Pugsly’s shoulder. Just the hand. He said it was Thing.
Judy and Janice were as stunning as when I photographed them. Of course, Father Emory had insisted that Janice wear an undergarment with the outfit. She’d kept the letter of the law but not the spirit by wearing a flesh-colored leotard under it. Really, from anywhere in the room, it looked like she was naked under it.
Then I saw Chris. She was wearing the Greek outfit and I went to talk to her.
“Hi! I told you I figured out how this thing was supposed to work. There were actually pictures in the encyclopedia at the library. Most of them are fastened on both shoulders like this, and the tunic was optional. Of course, as far as a church party goes, the tunic wasn’t optional tonight.”
“You did some cool things with that sheet! Did you embroider the border?”
“It’s a setting on one of the sewing machines in the Home Ec room. It has little things you insert in the wheel that do the entire pattern automatically. I thought it would dress it up a little.”
“It certainly does. And these pins. Great!”
“I got a bunch of my grandmother’s jewelry when we were out in Virginia. These are brooches that were in the box. You can take my picture now, too,” she said striking a very classical looking pose as if she were a Greek statue of a goddess or something. I thought I remembered a water pitcher and basin in the store room somewhere. I’d check that out. It seemed like the kind of thing that would be in a Greek scene. I don’t know why.
We played some typical games. The younger kids bobbed for apples. None of the high schoolers wanted to get wet and a lot of the costumes depended on makeup instead of masks. We all enjoyed games like passing an apple down a row of people without using our hands. Mostly, that involved holding the apple against your chest with your chin and trying to get it from there. Somehow, when it got to the girl next to me, she let it slip and had to bend over backwards to keep it from falling past her boobs as I tried to lift it from there with my chin. That was pretty fun.
“Now that we’re, like, married, I should introduce myself. I’m Maggie Smith.” She was wearing a kind of peasant dress that was off the shoulder with an elastic band that wrapped around her chest just high enough that it didn’t show her cleavage. It was abundant enough that the apple could be trapped there, though.
“Nice to meet you, Maggie. I’m Nate Hart,” I said. “Um… didn’t mean to get too personal.”
“I haven’t had that much fun since my last boyfriend put an ice cube down my cleavage.”
“When was that?”
“Four years ago, in junior high. I got these melons early. Now I live with a constant backache.”
“Wow! I never thought about that. Do you need to sit down? I’d like to take your picture.”
“I don’t need to sit, but you can still take a picture. Father Emory said he was going to get pictures to give everyone,” Maggie said.
“I was wondering how I was going to get prints to everyone. That will work great.” I spent a few minutes getting a good picture of her. Mostly, I took pictures of the younger kids. I’d print up the whole roll and just give them all to Father Emory. I hadn’t actually met the priest yet.
The party included Halloween candy, cider, donuts, and typical junk kids eat at this time of year. It was a good time, but about ten o’clock, things were definitely winding down. I collected my hat and cane and headed for the door.
“Hey, Nate,” Janice hissed at me. I turned to look at her, remembering what that dress had looked like with nothing under it. “Do you have any of that high speed film that lets you shoot in low light like you did with the candle?”
I knew I’d be shooting inside with natural light tonight, so I’d loaded 400 ASA.
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“Come out to the cemetery and get some shots of us around the gravestones.”
Well, that was weird as hell. It gave me the chills, but what the hell? Why not?
“Sure.”
We headed up the street from the church and in half a block, on the other side of what the Catholics called a rectory—which I gathered was about the same as the parsonage that the Methodist preacher lived in—was the entrance to the Catholic cemetery. It was getting cold out. For having seventy-degree weather on Friday, today hadn’t gotten above forty-five. And it was falling.
“You might have to keep us warm on the way home tonight,” Judy said, leaning against me.
“With one of you on each side of me, at least I should stay warm,” I laughed. “This is great light for some shots with the full moon. Go over by that big stone and let me get you in silhouette against the moon.” The girls ran over by the stone and I got a couple of silhouettes. Then we switched around. It wasn’t really a big cemetery and there weren’t that many supersized monuments in it. There were a lot of crosses, though. Almost every stone had a cross on it.
The girls were having a good time posing around old stones as if they were ancestors. Maybe they were. Then they told me to wait a minute and dove behind a kind of dilapidated monument that was broken. I couldn’t quite tell what they were doing, but I waited. I wasn’t disappointed. They soon arose from behind the stones with no dresses.
I thought they were naked at first by the way they shone in the moonlight. Then I realized both girls had been wearing beige leotards and tights under their dresses. Of course, I couldn’t really see a lot of detail, especially when their backs were turned toward me as they did a slow, languid dance around the stone. They looked like two naked spirits in the graveyard.
“That’s all the film I’ve got,” I whispered as I approached them.
“Good! I’m freezing,” Judy said. “Help us get our clothes on.”
I held her dress as she slipped under it and let it fall down to her shoulders. Then I turned and helped Janice into hers and zipped it up. Judy was waiting for me to zip her dress as Janice pulled her shoes on. I remembered the look of Judy’s bare back as I started pulling the zipper up from her butt and I made sure my fingers traced her spine as I zipped. I’d never really thought about how sexy a bare back was until I’d seen Judy’s. Of course, I’d seen Patricia’s since then, too.
The girls huddled on either side of me and I put my arms around them. I let the camera dangle, but still had the cane in my hand over Janice’s shoulders. She took the cane from me and pulled my hand down around her waist. Judy already had hold of my other hand and was holding it around her waist.
“We’re staying at Judy’s house tonight,” Janice said.
“So just walk us home and keep us warm, please,” Judy added.
There was a little giggling about what we’d just done in the graveyard, but mostly it was a quiet walk to Judy’s house with each girl holding my hand around her waist and cuddled as tightly against me as she could get and still walk.
“Thanks, Nate,” Judy said when we reached her house. “Sorry I can’t invite you in or anything. See you Monday.” Then in a surprise move, both girls spun in my arms and kissed me on the cheek.
“’Night!”
Sunday after church, I went to the studio to get ready for Christine. I swept the place thoroughly again and worked on setting up the roll of the backdrop paper. It was difficult to set up because I had to suspend it somehow. I finally managed to run a rope through the center of the tube and tie it to the curtain rods on either side. I unrolled about fifteen feet of it, so the six-foot wide paper came out onto the floor. Mr. Grossman had shown me how to use it to create a ‘suspended in space’ effect with no division between floor and wall.
Lighting it was really tricky. This called for lights that were tightly focused on Christine without casting shadows on the backdrop. I really needed to get more lights! And a dimmer. Controlling the intensity of the light would help a lot.
In one of the display cabinets that must have been used for jewelry or something, there was a plaster of Paris statue of Pegasus with one wing broken off. It was about a foot tall and a little sad, but I thought it could make an interesting object for Christine to focus on. I also found an old-fashioned wash basin and ewer, and a white towel.
I used the short Greek pillar as a stand. I wouldn’t have Chris sit on it this time. I arranged it on the white paper with the Pegasus on it. When I looked at the whole setting and imagined Christine in the Greek dress, I realized what a tricky setup I’d chosen. It was all white on white on white. I’d really need to use long exposures to get enough gradation in the shadows to make features distinguishable.
I finished getting ready about the same time Chris arrived.
“Wow! You’re getting more professional every time I visit. This is neat,” she said.
“I got some advice and supplies from Mr. Grossman in Huntertown. I’m glad you like it,” I said.
“You know, it tells me something,” Chris said.
“What’s that?”
“It tells me you really are serious about photography as your career. You know, I thought maybe it was just something you were doing to try to see naked girls. I guess that’s just a part of all of it.”
“Um… I don’t really…”
“Shh. Patricia showed me her picture yesterday afternoon. She came over to get me pinned into my costume.”
“I didn’t realize you were all that close,” I said. I could feel heat in my face because now Chris knew I’d taken pictures of Patricia’s breasts.
“We weren’t before. We compared photos a couple of weeks ago and then started talking about modeling. We were out this week with Judy and Janice. It’s like we are suddenly elite models.”
“That’s cool, I guess. But Chris, about the picture of Patricia. She has some pretty specific goals and I never touched her during all the time she was modeling. Please don’t think I’m inviting you up here to… um…”
“Relax, Nate. Did you see the cover picture of Sophia Loren on LIFE last month?”
“Yeah. Stunning.”
“Tiny little panties and a well-placed spider or something over her nipples. The rest of her ‘gown’ was completely transparent! I went to a store in Chicago last summer and the ‘flower child’ clothes they had were so lightweight you could see right through them. I think bras are a thing of the past. I hope so. I hate them. But that means people—just on the street—are going to see a lot more of girls than they ever do in so-called polite society. I figure I might as well get used to it and this is a good place.”
“Yeah, but, Christine, just don’t think like you have to get naked here. I really think you’re swell but… well, that kind of thing can create a strain on friendships.”
“You mean like with Judy? Don’t worry. She told me she got all embarrassed about posing for you and how nice you were about telling her she didn’t need to do things. I appreciate that, too. Are we going to talk all afternoon or take pictures?”
“Go ahead and get ready. I need to change film in the camera.”
She headed into the bathroom and I fiddled with the camera. A few minutes later, she came out of the bathroom with the sheet sort of wrapped around her.
“Nate, I’m going to need help pinning this. The pins are on the ledge in the bathroom. Can you help, please?”
I got the pins and returned to where she was holding the sheet up to her chin. It was folded over at the top edge about six inches with all the embroidery she’d done showing.
“You need to put a pin in it on each shoulder. Then we can tie the cord around my waist.”
I followed her instructions and pinned the fabric together. Then she let it down and stuck her arms out through the sides. She was able to gather it all together at her waist and I tied the cord, then we pulled the fabric up a bit until it bloused over the cord. The whole thing looked a hundred percent better than the way we’d pinned it together the first time we tried this.
“You look great!” I said. “I’m thinking we start with a pose that is kind of regal, standing straight up looking past the camera with one hand on the little statue.”
“Poor thing. It’s got a broken wing.”
“These exposures are going be a little longer in order to get all the subtle gradation in the shades. You’ll need to hold the pose.”
“I can do that. How’s this?”
I had to adjust the lights a little to get rid of the shadow on the backdrop and then took a couple of shots.
“Um… Chris, um… we forgot your bra straps. They’re visible.”
“Oh, crap. I intended to take that off.” She pulled her arms inside the dress, unfastened her bra, and tossed it over on the bench. I watched it land and thought it was a really pretty one. Then I focused again and stood up from the camera.
“Just a minute. You need something in your hair. Some kind of crown. Or maybe flowers. Let me go back in here. There’s a whole bunch of plastic greenery and flowers. I’ll see if something is usable.” I found some holly strands that were apparently part of the Christmas decorations. I thought it would work and tied it together in a circlet that I could put on her head. It fell off. “I guess you’ll have to hold really still,” I laughed. I positioned it again and it seemed to be stable. I reset the lights and got back to focusing while she stood in an elegant posture with a hand on the Pegasus. I took a couple of pictures and then looked up at her.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“Uh… sort of,” I squeaked. “I didn’t realize it, but with the lights the way they are, and the sheet as thin as it is, um… I can sort of see your breasts. I’m sorry. I won’t look.” I turned away as Chris looked down at her front.
“I should have known that if you could see my bra, you’d be able to see my nipples,” she said. “Nate. Um… I’ll need your help. Please stop hiding your face and come here.”
“I’m really sorry, Chris. I didn’t realize…”
“What were we just talking about, Nate? I’m really excited about these photos and not only do I want good pictures of me, I want you to improve as a photographer. That includes noticing things like this.” She gestured at her breasts. “Don’t be embarrassed about looking. I’m the one exposing myself. I can adjust this, but I can’t do it alone and… I’ll just think of you as being like a doctor. You’ll see parts of me that I wouldn’t expose to anyone else, but then we’ll get the costume right and you’ll take more photos. Okay?”
“Okay, Christine. Dr. Hart will help you get ready and I’ll pretend I don’t really see anything.”
“Right. Why don’t you pay attention and I’ll pretend you don’t really see anything?” She pulled the sides of the sheet back up so it was pretty much across at her shoulders. I unpinned it. “It looked like I need about six more inches in the part that’s folded over. You take this side and I’ll work on getting the right length over here. Then you can just move the fold down until it’s straight.”
We worked on increasing the amount of fabric that was folded over. As we kept moving the fold down, more and more of her breast was exposed. That was definitely a lot more cleavage than was allowed in school. When we got it even, she shifted her hands so she could lift it up to her shoulders again. In the process, the sheet slipped down to uncover her left nipple for just a minute. It was really pretty. A little darker than Patricia’s pale nipples. I didn’t think about all girls’ nipples being different shades of pink and brown. I pretended not to look and Chris pretended I didn’t see, even though she blushed. I pinned the sheet at her shoulders and then bloused it out around her belt again. The whole process shortened the dress to above her knees.
“Geez! It’s a good thing I’m short or I’d be worried about exposing the other end,” she said. She checked the length of the fabric covering her breasts and it seemed to be long enough. “Nate?” I looked at her as I got her holly wreath in place. “Thank you for being a gentleman. I was confident you were, but I really do appreciate it.”
“You’re really welcome, Chris. We don’t need to talk about it anymore and no one needs to be embarrassed,” I said. She nodded.
From then on, the scenes were really good and we managed one where she was seated as well as one holding the pitcher. She was really beautiful and I thought I’d gotten enough shots when she said she still wanted the bare shoulder shot like we’d tried the first time.
She turned away from me while she unfastened the pin on her left shoulder. I think she was checking to make sure she wasn’t exposing herself when the fabric fell from her shoulder to under her arm. She glanced back at me.
“Just hold there, Chris,” I said. “Your shoulder and back are incredibly beautiful. Look over your shoulder at me. Good. Little smile. Make it a sneaky smile. That’s it. Turn a little more to your left. Right there. Beautiful.”
“You’re so good at this, Nate. I feel like an haute couture model on a Paris runway!”
“Good! You’re so beautiful you could be. Ready to turn toward me? Let’s use the ewer and basin as props. And I think you can lose the wreath now. I really love this lock of hair when it curls forward and just touches your eye.”
I adjusted her hair and switched out the props.
“How about if I act like I’m pouring water?” she asked.
“Perfect. Go ahead and mime it all, but pause for me to take the snap.”
She was about three-quarter front and picked up the ewer. She used both hands on it and took two or three different poses.
“You know, I’m not a goddess in this scene,” she said, thoughtfully. “I’m just like a servant, bearing water for my lady’s bath.” I watched her as she turned carefully toward me and used both hands to raise the pitcher on her shoulder. I got a couple of really good shots.
And then she dropped her right hand.
And the fabric dropped from her left breast just as I snapped the next picture. We froze. Chris took a few deep breaths which just did wonderful things for her fully exposed left breast. I automatically snapped another picture, capturing the kind of startled expression on her face. She didn’t move. She licked her lips slightly, and then continued moving with the scene as if her left breast wasn’t hanging out of her dress.
The scene played out for another ten minutes as I continued to take pictures. She mimed pouring the water in the basin, and then, she lifted her right foot to the bench and bent forward as if she was washing the elegant leg that was exposed. Her face held a hint of a smile as if she was merely enjoying bathing herself. Her breast wasn’t always exposed, as her arm sometimes covered it, but I finished the roll of film as she looked up at me and smiled.
“Um… That was the end of the roll,” I said. “We should probably wrap things up.”
“Yeah. I suppose that would be a good idea.” She pulled the dress up to cover her exposed nipple and headed for the bathroom. I pulled the film and set it on my desk, ready to process, then I started putting away the props. I’d nearly finished rolling up the background paper when she finally emerged from the bathroom.
“I hung the dress on your rack here,” she said. “I guess except for the pins it belongs to you… or the studio. Maybe we’ll want to use it again sometime.”
“Thank you. I don’t really want to take anything away from here without asking Mr. Barkley’s permission. He got a kick out of me wearing that old suit for the party last night.”
“Well, you know now that you’ll still look good if you ever get… portly,” Chris said. “Um… Nate…” she moved right in front of me to face me. “It’s um… Well, like you’ve seen part of me I’ve never shown anyone else. And… I guess I didn’t mind that much. But… If you want… I think it would be okay to kiss me.”
I almost wrapped my arms around her to smash my lips against hers, but something restrained me. I took her hand to lead her over to the bench and sat beside her.
“Christine, I really like you. I mean really. I think you are one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever met, clothed or not. You really turn me on and I’d love to kiss you. But… um… I have a girlfriend. I don’t think I should just kiss another girl. And this space is my studio. Remember about expectations? I don’t want to expect, nor want you to expect that if we take certain sexy photos, it means we’re going to do stuff with each other. I’m going to hate myself for this about the second you walk out that door, but I don’t think we should kiss right now,” I said. I lied about hating myself when she left. I already hated myself for turning her down.
“You really are a gentleman,” she whispered. “I forgot you had a girlfriend. I really like Anna and wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt her and I’m not the kind of girl who’d try to steal another girl’s boyfriend. I guess, it’s kind of comforting to know that I can come back and pose again and it won’t mean we have to start making out or… more. Maybe some other day in some other circumstances, things will be different. Until then, just forget I ever mentioned it.”
“No, Chris. I’ll respect our boundaries and other people in our lives. But I’ll never forget your offer.”
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