Full Frame
36
Being an Adult
HERE’S A FUNNY EXPERIENCE. Babysit your younger sister with your girlfriend and her younger brother. That was how I spent Saturday evening. And it wasn’t that bad.
Brian and Kat were in the same grade and Brian was just at the stage of realizing girls were different and interesting. I think that at the age of 13, Ronda’s brother Danny and Chris’s sister Julie had already passed that point and were looking at each other with more than just interest. But at eleven—almost twelve—Brian and Kat were just at the point where they were thinking the opposite sex might not be quite as icky as they used to think.
Dad was in the house, too, but Mom was still at Annual Conference. Dad was watching the White Sox take it to the Yankees. Kat had proudly made her spaghetti and meatballs, ignoring Mom’s Saturday night rule about no garlic. Mom wasn’t preaching in the morning.
Chris, Kat, Brian and I played Yahtzee and Dominoes after dinner until 7:30 when Lawrence Welk came on. And-a-one, and-a-two… We watched the hour-and-a-half show and I worked on teaching both Chris and the younger kids some of the dances. Dad even joined for a dance each with Kat and Chris. After the show ended at nine, I walked Chris and Brian home and finally spent a few quality moments on the front porch kissing my lover.
A lay speaker from Huntertown Methodist Church spoke Sunday morning in Mom’s place. What people noticed most was that he didn’t have a children’s story.
In the afternoon, I took Kat to the studio and did a photo session with her. She loved to pose and wanted me take a picture she could give to her ‘friend.’
“I told Brian he can’t be my boyfriend until we’re sixteen,” she said. “Until then, he’ll just have to be my friend.”
“That’s very mature of you,” I said as I took a picture of her sitting on a giant polka-dot mushroom. “So, you want to give him your picture?”
“He asked for one of my school pictures, but it isn’t very good and I was just a little girl then.”
“You are definitely growing up to be a lovely woman. I really dug your painting of the ice cream sundae at Sweet Treats. You should enter it in the fair this year.”
“Do you think so? Do you think I could be a champion like you are?”
“There are a lot of factors to take into consideration when it comes to winning a competition. Remember, I didn’t win any competitions between the 4-H competition when I was twelve and last year’s fair. It all depends on how good other artists are and what the judges like. Remember the motorcycle picture of Patricia didn’t win at the Hunter County Fair, but it took best of class at the State Fair.”
“Yeah. I guess I’ll enter the competition. Will you help me get the right forms filled out?”
“You bet I will. I have to decide what to enter myself.”
“That one,” Kat said, immediately pointing to the photo of Avery in the lamplight.
“I guess that pretty much says it all,” I chuckled.
“Um… Nate? I was wondering. Is it okay to hold hands with a boy who is just your friend?”
My dear little sister.
Mom’s appointment was to return to Tenbrook for another year. We were all happy about that. Even Dad breathed a sigh of relief since he’d landed a good job at the construction company and didn’t want to quit immediately.
I processed the pictures of Kat and got a really good one with her sitting on the mushroom with her legs crossed and her chin leaning on her fist. She really looked like Alice in Wonderland. In fact, I thought I might exhibit it at the fair, too.
By Tuesday afternoon, I had the final prints of Sarah’s sitting made. The one art photo I took of her, I printed with a high contrast filter on archival paper. It looked like sunrise over the hills until you realized how symmetrical the hills were. Then you realized that you were looking down her body between her breasts and across the indentation of her pussy with her legs spread wide. I loved the effect of having to figure out what you were looking at in order to get the full effect. Unfortunately, I didn’t think it would do well at the County Fair, but I thought it was a real work of art. I hung it on my gallery wall.
Wednesday, Christine and I got on our bikes. I strapped the blanket and pillow as well as my 35 on my bike. Chris had a basket on the front of her bike and had it loaded with a picnic. It was a beautiful day with the temperature in the 80s. There was a bit of wind that played havoc with us, as we pedaled all the way out to the creek where we’d been with Ronda. We walked our bikes down where there was a little sandy stretch that we’d spread our blanket on before. It was beautiful and perfect for a mid-day date with my sweetheart.
We sat on the blanket as we opened up the picnic things Chris had prepared. I expected something like bologna sandwiches. Chris had gone a couple better than that. She’d fried chicken at home for dinner the night before and carefully put aside favorite pieces for each of us. She even had some potato salad. We really didn’t need anything else with the cans of pop I’d managed to fold into the blanket on my bike and not shake up so much that they sprayed all over.
It was dreamy and we just lay on the blanket together and talked. With an occasional kiss, you know.
“What would you do if you got drafted?” Chris whispered. “Would you ask me to marry you and then march off to war?”
“The marrying you part has a certain appeal,” I said. “But no. I’d ask you to come with me. Instead of a wedding ring, I’d withdraw all the money in my bank account and pack my camera for an extended vacation in Canada. Probably permanent.”
“You really wouldn’t serve, would you?”
“I’d consider alternate service. They have programs where you can help out in a medical facility or in the Forest Service and stuff. When I have to register this fall, I’ll register as a conscientious objector. I recognize the reality of wars coming to us whether we want them or not. But I am opposed to any act of war that is not a direct response to an attack on our country by an opposing military force. Once you go beyond that narrow definition, war is a political and economic strategy for dominance.”
“I admire your conviction, Nate. I don’t know if anything moves me as much as that does you. I think running off together is an incredibly romantic notion. I doubt that I’d come with you, though. Or marry you if you chose that route. I love you more than anything in the world, but I’m essentially a coward. I just couldn’t do that. Does that make me a bad person, Nate?”
“No. One of Reverend Mother Superior’s sayings—you know, I think I’ll start making posters of my mother and her sayings—but one of them is ‘I am a minister to the needs of God’s children and a witness to his love. I am not the judge he appointed over others.’ What that means to me is that I’m not going to judge individuals according to my personal standards. They can be judged by the law, but even Stoney showed that there is a range of interpretation of the law and there is room for human kindness in its enforcement. Don’t you think it’s cool that everyone is calling him Stoney now instead of Constable?”
“Or just Stones, according to a couple of teens I’ve heard. That’s a good philosophy to live by. Isn’t there a Bible verse about judge not that ye be not judged? Or is that Shakespeare? I get them confused.”
“I think that one’s in the Bible. But Shakespeare probably said it, too. I just want you to know, Christine, that I love you. I know that might not be enough to make a life commitment on, but right now, you are the most important person on earth to me.”
“Ronda was right. We really are becoming a couple, aren’t we? I wonder what will happen when she comes back.”
“I’m not going to borrow trouble from the future.”
“No. You’re going to have enough trouble Saturday night,” Chris giggled. I moaned.
“Why did I even agree to go out with her?” I asked. “I’m just thankful you and I have a date this afternoon. Otherwise, I’d consider it a waste of a perfectly good opportunity to be with my lover.”
“Oh, I won’t be available.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Weird thing, but Lori asked me to hang out with her Saturday night. I think she wants me to help her write her modeling resume and caption her photos. But it will be fun and it will keep me from thinking about you fucking Vicki.”
“I’m not going to do that. For one thing, Vicki doesn’t believe in birth control of any sort. No condoms. She equates having sex with making a baby. No way I’m going there.”
“Well, keep your other options open. You never can tell what might be in that devious little head of hers. Or in your little head,” she laughed.
“I don’t even know what we’ll do. I don’t want to take her anyplace that is special to us. That just seems… wrong.”
“Well, I don’t think anyone would complain about you going to the drive-in. That was fun, but next time we do that, it will be to watch the movie. It wasn’t all that comfortable making love in the back seat of the car.”
“Yeah. We could do one or the other, but trying to do both was really distracting. It wasn’t bad when we parked afterward.”
“It wouldn’t be bad now, either,” she whispered. Soon, I was lost in her kiss.
Christine and I made love by the babbling brook and just took our time exploring each other. I kissed her and worked my way down her body until I had my head between her legs. We lost our clothes a little at a time, and when I was kissing around her legs, I hooked her panties and pulled them down off her butt and over her pussy. They held there a little, stuck by the moisture that was already collecting.
I will never in my life tire of seeing a girl’s panties come off, as I pull them down her legs. That Christine was so unselfconscious about me exposing her was incredible. She said she considered letting me see her body to be an act of love that she gladly participated in. And I agreed. Pulling my shorts off and exposing my erection to her could be embarrassing with anyone else, I suppose. But with Chris, it was something she loved and so I didn’t mind her looking at me, stroking me, and sucking me.
She loved it when I parted her nether lips with my thumbs and stared into the opening of her pussy just before I licked from her hole up to her clit and circled it with my tongue. And Chris was a guide as well.
“That spot you just touched,” she whispered. “Right here.” She used her fingers to rub a spot right next to her clit. “That really felt good. Will you lick me there some more?”
Oh, yes. I will gladly lick her there some more. I adored her pussy and wanted to touch it and lick it all afternoon, within reason. And I loved putting my fingers in her hot channel, sliding them in and out.
“Hook your finger up toward the top and rub there,” she said. “That felt amazing.” I followed her instructions and we gradually educated each other. After I’d pleasured her and brought her to a couple of orgasms, she returned the favor and treated my cock the same way I treated her pussy. I tried to give her open and honest feedback like she gave me. It was hard to do.
“When you suck me, it doesn’t need to be a lot of suction. What really gets me is sliding in and out of your mouth,” I said as she worked me over. “When you take me in your mouth, it’s better when you have your tongue on the underside of my cock. I think all the nerves are on that side and up near the top.”
“I read about foreskin in one of Miss Ludwig’s books. You don’t have one, do you?” she asked.
“I’m circumcised. It wasn’t until I saw other guys in gym class that I realized not all boys were circumcised.”
“Is it because you’re Jewish?”
“No. I guess we have a Jewish heritage of some sort. Mom’s maiden name was Mayer. But we haven’t been considered Jews in a long time. I’m pretty sure Mom’s mother wasn’t Jewish. Maybe her father was. Anyway, when I asked Dad about it, he just said it was for health and cleanliness reasons. I guess that’s what I’ll go with. Oh! It sure is sensitive when you suck on the top and use your tongue around the underside of the head like that. Christine, I think I’m about to come.”
Chris held me in her mouth and continued to stroke up and down my cock with her hand as I let loose with a huge load.
“I feel like you haven’t really come in me when we make love and you wear a condom. When I give you a blowjob, I really feel like you came inside me. Your sperm is still in me. It makes me even wetter.”
We took a little time to go play in the water, naked, splashing each other and cooling off before we went back to lie on the blanket until we were ready to make love again.
I got a call from Sarah in Chicago to ask if she could pick up the rest of her prints on Sunday. She specifically wanted Chris to be there so they could work on her portfolio and the little paragraphs she wanted for each image. She offered to pay Chris for her time consulting.
Chris was thrilled when I called her to tell her and we went to the studio together to make sure we had everything ready for Sarah. We went over the complete selection of photos and made sure there was a good balance between her costumed shots and her nudes.
Saturday evening, I got to use Mom’s Galaxie instead of the Falcon. Dad was carrying a lot of tools and parts with him for the systems he was installing and the back seat was down so he’d have more room. He was concerned about having the car parked anywhere with all the things in the back.
I didn’t say so, but I was concerned about having to figure out how to give Vicki a good pussy licking in the front seat. Mom said that if I filled her tank with gas, I could use her car. It cost almost five dollars to fill the tank! I swung by the studio and got the blanket and pillow. I smoothed it out in the backseat to protect the seat. I didn’t want wet spots or sperm on the seat of Mom’s new car.
I picked up Vicki and we went into town for a burger before we went out to the drive-in. She was pretty quiet most of time and a little fidgety. I asked her what was up and she just said she was excited to be out with me. She was a seriously cute girl, and I was happy to be out with her, too. She’d never been to a drive-in movie. I’d only been to one. We got there early enough there was still a spot in the back row and I pulled into it, even though it was off to the side and there was a post almost in the middle of our view of the screen.
I thought the movies might have been more appropriate for Tony and Patricia and kind of chuckled when I thought of them going to a drive-in on a motorcycle. The double feature was Hells Angels on Wheels and The Wild Angels. There were a lot of revving motorcycles and fights. It was an easy movie to not watch and I turned the volume down on the sound box.
When we got in the back seat, it was like this was what she was waiting for and she wanted nothing more than to be kissed and loved and touched. Something I gladly gave her. Vicki had truly perky little titties I was sure would grow more now that she was almost seventeen. She dearly loved to have them touched and sucked.
I discovered pretty quickly that, true to form, she had no bra and no panties on. By the end of the first movie, I’d given her several orgasms and she’d sucked me off. I didn’t know who or what she’d been practicing on, but her blowjob techniques were getting better. I swear she had me all the way down her throat when I came.
“I’m ready,” she whispered. “I just need to put oil on your cock.”
“What? What kind of oil?”
“Just a little baby oil. You need to be really slippery because I don’t have any natural lubricant back there. I’ll push as much of it from my pussy back there, like you were doing with your finger. That felt so good!”
My cock responded rapidly to her stroking it with a little oil in her hand. I wasn’t at all averse to her giving me a hand job like this. In fact, I needed to get a bottle of this stuff to have in my room for late night entertainment.
“Melanie says that Vaseline works well, too. She says there are special lubricants you can buy just for making a guy slippery and a girl’s hole ready.”
“I didn’t know that. I’ll check the next time I go to Dubuque to get condoms.”
“You can’t use condoms with me. Every drop has to go inside me.”
“Then you’d better stop stroking or I’ll be spraying all over your face.”
She grabbed a tissue from her purse and wiped her hand, then got on her hands and knees.
“Go slow,” she panted. “I think you’re bigger than a carrot.”
“What exactly are we doing?” I asked. She’d been pretty clear that her pussy was for making babies and I wasn’t about to go there. It was also plenty wet and I didn’t think I’d need oil in order to slide into her.
“Put it in me,” she said.
“In your pussy?” I asked.
“No! In my bottom, silly. We can’t put your cock in my pussy. I’d get pregnant!”
In her bottom? Really? I’d stuck a finger in her while giving her oral. Both Chris and Ronda liked to have their bottoms played with when we made love. But stick my cock in it? That was a lot bigger around than my finger.
“Are you sure of this?”
“I’ve been practicing. I know I can do it. Melanie does it all the time. She helped me practice.”
I moved up behind her and pulled her skirt up above her bare bottom. Then I slid my cock through her crack. That felt good enough that I pulled back and slid up it again. The third time, I felt her bottom hole with the tip of my cock. She was quivering. I steadied my cock at her hole with my hand and began to push. There was a lot of resistance at first, but then there was a little pop and the head of my cock went into her.
“Oh! Wait!” she panted. “Stay there a minute. Don’t move. Wow! That’s intense. I can really feel you inside me. I just need a chance to relax a little. Um… Maybe you can’t go all the way in. But you could press in a little more. Okay?”
This was really okay. I pressed in and pulled back, then pressed in and pulled back again.
“Put a little more oil on your cock, okay?” she said.
I put a little oil in my hand and rubbed it on my cock, then pressed against her asshole again. It went in a lot easier this time and it felt incredible. I kind of wiped the excess off on her skirt when I grabbed her hips and started churning forward and back.
“Oh God, yes! We’re fucking. I’ve got you in me and you can come in me and I’m going to come, too!”
I could feel her fingers working at her pussy and assumed she was rubbing her clit. I decided I could just let her take care of that while I kept pumping in and out of her butt. Yes, I was in her. And I was in her without a condom. Even having come from her blowjob, I was not going to last with this amazing new feeling of my bare cock sawing in and out of her butt. Before long, my pubes were bumping right up against her round little ass.
“I’m in you. All the way,” I panted. “I can’t believe how good you feel, Vicki. This is amazing.”
“Yeah. Your finger was nice, but this is a trip! I’m gonna come. You can come in me anytime you want.”
I was definitely going to come in her. I bottomed out again and started jetting my sperm into her bottom. It was amazing. So, this was how Melanie had fucked seven guys and was still a virgin. For the first time, I believed Vicki might make it to graduation with her pussy uninvaded. She squealed and I kept pumping, emptying my balls in the tight confines of her butt.
When we’d both come, I just stayed there with my cock pushing in and out of her ass as long as I could. She handed me a fistful of tissues and as I shrank back out of her, I wiped my cock and her bottom with the tissues. She turned around and pulled her skirt down to sit on, then pulled a pair of panties out of her purse. When she’d pulled them up, she stuffed some more tissue in them.
“That was great!” she said as she kissed me.
“It sure was.”
“Now, when I have a real boyfriend, we can do this all the time. Oh, boy!”
“Got any prospects?”
“Yeah. There’s a summer concert up at Loras next weekend. I’m inviting Jon to take me. I think I can control myself now. Melanie insists that I not do it until the third date. She says otherwise guys will think I’m just an easy girl. But I’ll make sure Jon knows there’s a lot more coming after our first date.”
“I wish you luck. Has Melanie left for college yet? Is she still seeing Ron?”
“Why? You want to fuck her, too?” Vicki giggled.
“No. You just mentioned her and I thought of her with Ron.”
“They’re still seeing each other. She’s fighting with my parents, though.”
“Over what?”
“They want her to go to Clarke in Dubuque, but she thinks that’s too close to home. She got accepted to Saint Mary’s in South Bend and is determined not to budge.”
“I hope they work things out.”
“Oh, they will. Melanie plans to become an auto mechanic and Saint Mary’s is the only Catholic Women’s College that has an auto maintenance course. And besides, Loras is nice, but Notre Dame has richer prospective husbands.”
“You’ve opened a whole new world of understanding to me,” I laughed.
“As well as my butt. Look! The movie credits are playing and people are starting their cars.”
“I suppose that means our play time is about over.”
We got in the front and I remembered to put the sound box back on the pole before I started the car and joined the line to get out of the drive-in. Once we got back to Vicki’s house, we shared another long kiss with my hand under her blouse on those ripe little tits.
“Thank you for that incredible experience,” I said as I pinched her nipples.
“If you keep doing that, we’re going to end up fucking again right here in front of my house,” she giggled. “Thank you, Nate. It was a little scary at first. I almost chickened out until that last time you ate me. I just knew we could do it then. I won’t be so scared with Jon. Tell Chris thank you for the loan of her boyfriend, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “Good luck with Jon.”
I walked her to the door and kissed her one more time, then headed back to the car. When I got home, I carefully cleaned the back of the car, making sure there were no tissues left and that we hadn’t spilled any oil anywhere. I took my blanket back to the studio and then went to bed. I rubbed my cock to a very satisfying come as I relived sinking into Vicki’s bottom.
Mom was back in the pulpit Sunday morning and everyone liked having her call the children up to tell a story to. Her sermon was pretty nice, too. She talked a lot about the difference between restitution and retribution and wondered if we’d gotten it all wrong with God’s character threatening punishment for our sins. It was a brave sermon and I really liked it.
Chris got to the studio just a couple of minutes after I did Sunday afternoon. We kissed and started getting things ready to meet with Sarah.
“Did you have fun last night?” she asked.
“Yes. Um… Vicki said to thank you for the loan of your boyfriend. I don’t think she’ll need me again. She plans to seduce Jon Rhodes. How was your evening.”
“Well… Um… I hope you don’t mind that I kind of let Lori um… touch my pussy,” she said. “Um… with her tongue. I sort of returned the favor, you know.”
“Wow! I didn’t expect that, but I’m okay with it as long as you’re okay with me fucking Vicki in the butt,” I laughed.
“In her butt? Ow!”
“That was what she was wanting. She says it’s how Melanie has fucked seven guys and is still a virgin.”
“I didn’t think that was possible, but if that’s what she’s doing, I guess it would count. Was it okay?”
“It was… really good. Very intense for both of us.”
“Are you going to want to do that again? Um… With me?” she squeaked.
“I wouldn’t back away from it, but from what I understand, Melanie put Vicki through a pretty comprehensive training program. With a carrot,” I said.
“Oh, my God! It all makes my bottom twitchy. Maybe a little turned on, but definitely not something I’m willing to try. At least not yet. I do like your finger there,” Chris said. She kissed me again.
“So how did you end up with your face in Lori’s pussy?” I asked.
“It was kind of a challenge. We were going over her photos to decide what we thought she still needed for her portfolio. She might have been a little high. And since I was sitting right beside her, I might have gotten a little high, too. And maybe she kissed me and breathed smoke into my lungs.”
“She was smoking weed? In her room?”
“Yeah. Her parents are kind of beatniks. She thinks they were high when she was conceived and that influenced her. So, she was going on about how she just didn’t understand my boyfriend. She pointed at one of her photos and looked at me and said, ‘Wouldn’t you fuck that if it was offered?’ I said, ‘Hell, yes, I’d fuck that. I’d have that for a midnight snack.’”
“She has been hard to resist sometimes,” I laughed.
“She didn’t believe me and started pulling off her clothes. ‘If you’d fuck this, I’d fuck that,’ she said, pointing at me. I just started taking off my clothes. I said, ‘As long as it’s not in the studio, why wouldn’t I fuck you?’ And that’s about all I remember about the conversation because we spent the next hour or two proving our words.”
We kissed again. I didn’t feel any jealousy about Chris fucking around with Lori. She didn’t seem to have any problem with me dicking Vicki’s ass.
“I think I really miss Ronda,” she sighed. “Not just as a completion to our triple and a great friend, but as a lover.”
“I can’t believe she hasn’t written to us. It’s been three weeks.”
“Um… She did. I was going to tell you about it. I got a letter from her yesterday. I assumed you got one, too. If you didn’t check your mailbox yesterday, you might have one waiting.”
“What did she have to say?”
“Oh, lots of ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you’ kinds of things. But she also said she’d met up with this girl, Faith, who had been there last year and they were really good friends. Really good. But they hadn’t done anything. She says this year it’s different and they’re roommates. She said they often only use one bed. She didn’t actually say they were fucking each other, but it sounds like it.”
“Wow! You mean she’s fooling around with another girl at summer school?” Chris nodded and I started laughing. “So, we’re some triple, aren’t we? All three of us are out fooling around with someone who isn’t in our triple.”
“I know. But Nate, I’d rather it was you and Ronda,” she said. “Lori really knows her way around a pussy and I came like gangbusters, but I’d rather it was your cock in my pussy.”
“Believe me, I’d rather have had my cock in your pussy, even though Vicki’s ass was pretty exciting. I’d guess Ronda is probably thinking the same thing about now.”
Just then there was a knock at the door and we ran to let Sarah in. She wasn’t carrying as much this time since we didn’t really plan to take any more photos today. Today was all about assembling her portfolio and writing a little narration for it.
“Hi! Um… Nate, there are some boxes in my trunk. Mr. Mayer ‘asked’ me to deliver them since I was driving over here today. Of course, I would never say no to him. He set this all up for me. But, anyway, I think you should go get them out of the trunk and carry them up the stairs. Some of them are heavy. I can work with Chris for a while.”
“Okay. I guess that’s fine. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
I went down to the car and opened the massive trunk. There were several boxes, but the common theme was the name Beseler Photographic Equipment. That was a name I’d only seen in Popular Photography magazine. An envelope with my name on it was taped to the top box. Before I got anything out of the car, I opened the envelope and read the note from my uncle.
Nate,
The last batch of pictures Sarah brought to us was inspiring. And she told us about some of the new work that we are impatient to see. We showed the images to a manufacturer’s rep for darkroom equipment. He was quite excited about your work, especially the streetlight photo. He wanted to know if he could get a 16x20 print. Of course, we laughed. Levi told him what kind of enlarger and darkroom you have and the guy had to just sit down and recover himself for a minute.
The upshot was that he suggested an experimental program that hasn’t been rolled out anyplace officially. He said the company was always looking for true artwork created with their equipment and was interested in placing a specific enlarger with a photographer who could really test it in the creation of art prints. The result is the equipment you see in front of you. It’s been provided by a consortium of equipment, lens, and supply manufacturers and distributors, with a little help from your patrons.
Your accountant has been in touch with Levi to get values for your existing camera equipment for your P&L and insurance. I’m glad you are getting organized professionally. I’ve enclosed a rundown of the equipment we’ve sent today that you can give her.
The equipment is officially ‘on loan’ for the duration of a test (length not specified). So you don’t own it, but values have been given for insurance purposes. The materials and supplies, however, are something you have to account for. The papers your accountant will need have been included.
These people know photography. They are looking for a new Ansel Adams and you’ve entered their field of view. Use this well and send us more photos like the ones you’ve been sending. We will be sending more models all the rest of the summer. Expect a call from Janna Abrams this week.
With best wishes from your uncle,
Nate
I took the equipment up the stairs to the fourth floor. It took four trips. I opened boxes to see what was inside, but didn’t take anything out of the boxes. I didn’t have a place to put all this.
The new condenser enlarger would stand over four feet high. The baseboard was adequate for paper up to 16x25 inches. A full-size easel was included. There were two lenses for optimum coverage of 35mm and 120 film. And then there were paper, chemicals, drying plates, filters, tongs, and a paper cutter. I looked at the boxes surrounding me and at my little darkroom. I was going to need to build a bigger darkroom.
I was so overwhelmed that I just sat next to the boxes of equipment and supplies. According to the accounting sheet, there was more than $2,000 worth of stuff here. I could feel the tears running down my cheeks but there was nothing I could do about it. All this from a couple of county and state fair winning entries.
And the faith my uncle had in me. And Levi. And whoever was my unknown patron. And this manufacturer. And models who came to me to have their pictures taken in the Attic Allure style. It was just overwhelming.
Christine found me still sitting among the boxes with my uncle’s letter in my hand. I have no idea how long I’d been there.
“Honey? We’re almost done with the organization of the photos. Would you like to see it?” she asked tentatively. “What is all this stuff?”
“Have I been here so long that you’re all done already?” I asked.
“A little over an hour. But what is this?”
“My patrons and some other people decided I needed better equipment for my darkroom. It’s basically a whole new darkroom setup. I don’t even have room for it in my little space. I just can’t believe it.” Instead of explaining everything, I just handed her Uncle Nate’s letter with the attached accounting sheets. Her mouth fell open.
“This is wonderful! Nate, I’m so proud of you! Don’t worry, honey. You have the talent to use all this, and we’ll all help get you set up. Anyone you show this to will fall over to help get you set up. Oh, Nate! I’m so happy for you!” She dropped to the floor where I was sitting so she could hug me.
“It’s a little overwhelming,” I said.
“Well, put first things first. You have a client downstairs who needs your assessment and advice. Let’s go work with her.”
“Right. I need to pull myself together and act like an adult. People are kind of treating me like one.”
After Sarah left on Sunday, having given me an order for almost $300 worth of photos—she wanted thirty 8x10 headshots to distribute with her resume—Chris and I took our blanket and headed for one of the river sites where we could make love undisturbed. By the time Chris was finished with me, neither Vicki nor Ronda was more than a distant memory.
I missed ice cream and TV Sunday night. Everyone had gone to bed when I got home.
Monday morning, I told Mom and Dad about what I’d received and Uncle Nate’s letter. Mom called him immediately and he assured her that everything was on the up and up. I finally got to talk to him and thank him. He said to get ready, because he expected to book several models who had just been waiting to see Sarah’s photos before they drove to Tenbrook.
Dad said he’d help me expand the darkroom, and when his friend, Tony’s father, heard what I needed, he offered to help. That afternoon, I talked to Mr. Barkley about needing to remodel my darkroom for the new equipment. He came up to see what I had and read Uncle Nate’s letter. We went back down to the studio and Mr. Barkley suggested that I leave the upstairs room like it was so I could still use that enlarger for some projects. We agreed to build the new darkroom on the third floor where the studio was, and would even wire and plumb it correctly so I’d have a rinsing station and plenty of power. We’d get started on that later in the week.
I started drawing up a plan for the new darkroom.
I got a call that evening from Janna Adams. We set a time on Friday to start her photoset. She said she could spend the night and would get a room at the Hills Motel. She specifically wanted a portrait and some art shots as she didn’t intend to do a whole portfolio. She’d bring a lot of favorite clothes and props.
I sat in the studio Tuesday afternoon, just absorbing all that was around me. Anna was at the desk going over the inventory of new equipment and exclaiming about how well I was doing. Chris was wiping down all the furniture and props in anticipation of our new client on Friday afternoon. I leaned against a wall, kind of absently cleaning the Hasselblad and making sure it was dust-free. Dust was the great enemy of photographers. I was already thinking about isolating the construction area behind Visqueen to keep the dust out of the studio.
It had been exactly a year since I moved to Tenbrook. A year. I came to this town a transplant from the city, not knowing what I’d do or how I’d ever make friends. I carried my camera everywhere and found a couple of girls who’d pose for me. I also found a motorcycle gang that pressured me into refinishing a scratched-up bike. That led to finding two of my best friends, one who had started opening up the possibilities of what kind of model I could have.
For a reason that continues to elude me, nine different sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen-year-old girls from my school had decided that it was completely safe and acceptable to come into my studio and take their clothes off so I could photograph them. Naked. Me, who had never seen a real live boob before Patricia bent over on the motorcycle so I could see down her shirt. I still looked at that photo sometimes late at night.
I’d become the school’s official yearbook photographer and half the senior class had come to me to have their senior photos retaken. And part and parcel to all that, I developed a kind of trashy glamour style that we called Attic Allure.
Maybe most remarkable, I’d started dating almost the day school started. First Anna, who was a totally cute girl who sat next to me in speech class. And right now, she was sitting at my desk in the studio working on my books. She became my assistant for the yearbook photos, and even though we broke up rather suddenly, she’d stayed on as my assistant and we became just really good friends. So good that now I was paying her to be my accountant.
When we broke up, I turned to an incredible girl I’d been taking pictures of and on the spur of the moment, asked her out to a New Year’s Party. That night, we’d both had our first kiss. I was deeply in love with Christine. But another girl challenged me for Christine’s love. Ronda told me she’d fight me for her. Instead, I suggested we share her and to my surprise, I ended up with two girlfriends. And I’d had some fun exploits with three other girls who let me feel them up and have different kinds of sex with them. I’d become a pretty good pussy licker, thanks to Kelly and Vicki. That was something that Chris and Ronda benefited from.
I looked over at Chris as she fussed around the studio, knowing that Anna’s presence in the room was the only thing keeping Chris’s clothes on her. Ronda was, sadly, off at a summer school in Colorado. My letter from her was filled with telling me how much she missed me and loved me.
When it came time for the big event, there had been no one on my mind but my two girlfriends, and they were of like mind. We’d made love in every combination three people can get into in Ronda’s bed. I was no longer a virgin thanks to those two girls. When Ronda went off to Colorado for the summer, Chris and I became closer and closer.
One of the things that threatened to trash this year was the continued rash of break-ins and vandalism in the community and our former constable’s racist accusations of my friend Tony. Well, one of my photos finally got the bastard canned and we got a new constable who was not prejudiced.
But the petty theft and vandalism continued until I made a discovery while printing full frame enlargements of some of my photos. In the background of different photos, I’d captured a man in army fatigues. I didn’t know what to do because the guy was like the town hero, wounded in Vietnam and mentally and physically disabled.
It turned out that the new constable had been his captain in Nam and came to our community specifically to look up Billy. Constable Stoneburner navigated the tricky waters of getting restitution for the damages instead of retribution. The whole town had signed on to help better provide for Billy and see that he had what he needed.
Most of the time, we managed to get through and make the best of life. Now, my unknown patrons in Chicago were upping the ante with new darkroom equipment, just like they’d provided new camera equipment for me. I was learning something new every day.
I can’t help but think the next year doesn’t stand a chance of being as incredible as this first year in Tenbrook.
I guess I’ll have to wait until I can look back at it and see.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
