Over Exposure
34
Walking a Fine Line
“Glenda” by Ben Heys, ID2716085 licensed from Shutterstock.com.
MAYOR LECHLEITER shook my hand as the applause faded and turned to the microphone.
“I believe that was a clear statement from Nate. Since this was promoted as a press conference, however, we will take a limited number of questions from the press, but please don’t ask about something he’s already clarified,” Lechleiter said. “Yes, you. Please state your name and who you represent then ask your question.”
She held a microphone and a student moved up to her and held a second microphone so her question could be heard by the audience. She did a great job ignoring the second mike and addressed me.
“Carmen Bailey, reporter for KHTN in Huntertown—our only truly local news station. Mr. Hart, Clyde Warren asserts that he holds concrete evidence that you took pornographic photos of a fourteen-year-old girl—not the twenty-four-year-old star of your movie. How do you respond to that assertion?”
The auditorium went silent as if they were all holding their breath. I’d prepared for this and approached the microphone.
“I sincerely hope he is not holding such evidence,” I said. There were a few gasps. I saw Sandra making her way toward me from the seats on stage. “It is for his sake that I hope this, not for mine. I don’t own any such photographs. Clyde Warren is not a law enforcement officer or an officer of the court. The truth is he’s nobody and has no official standing. Even his claims against Dr. May and Miss Ludwig had to be pursued by his cousin, our county attorney. Therefore, if he is holding such pictures, he would clearly be in possession of child pornography, a violation of federal law. I hope he is not in possession of such photos when the FBI decides to investigate him.”
“But did you take them?”
Sandra moved up to stand beside me.
“I would like to introduce Sandra Gottschalk, graduate of Tenbrook High and student at Kent State University. Sandra is studying Human Female Development at the university—something that has been her passion for many years. Her professors indicate she is already far more advanced in the topic than any undergraduate in their experience. Sandra approached me and asked my support in her study. I taught her how to use my studio quality camera to take photos of herself and I taught her how to process and print those photos. The nature of those photos is strictly her business as far as I’m concerned. Sandra?”
“I’m Sandra Gottschalk, Trojan class of 1971. I’m nineteen years old.” There were a few cheers from the student section. “I am, by nature, a curious person. Curious mostly about myself and the changes that come over a girl when she becomes a woman. I have the great good fortune to have a sister who is four years older than I. I saw her developing when I was a child. She grew hair and started shaving her legs and under her arms. She began having a monthly period. She grew breasts. And she was kind enough to answer my questions about the changes I saw in her body and to explain that I would go through those changes as well. I went through them, though not quite as dramatically as Pam. I’m still taking her photos as she gets ready to pop out a little niece or nephew for me.”
People laughed. I had a feeling there were guys in the audience who had seen more of Pam than I ever took pictures of.
“That is when, at the age of nine or so, I began using an old Polaroid camera to take pictures of myself that would show the changes that occurred in my primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Pam helped me for a while, but it was awkward to get quality pictures with the Polaroid. Then Pam told me about a high school photographer who was new in town, but had taken her photo and she’d signed a release to let him display her photos—some of those you may have seen in Nate Hart’s exhibition here in 1968. She said he was honest, had a strict policy of no sex in the studio and not dating models. He was kind and compassionate.
“I asked Nate to teach me how to get higher quality photos of myself. He introduced me to his Hasselblad camera, taught me how to put it on a tripod and how to set a timer so I could snap a picture and get around in front of the camera before the shutter released. He mixed chemicals for processing the negatives and taught me how long to keep the negatives in the developer, how to print using his enlarger, and how to develop and rinse the resulting images.
“Taking my pictures in his studio has resulted in high quality photos of the changes that have taken place in my body. Pictures I have studied in great detail as I’ve written descriptions of the changes. The pictures are of me, naked, displaying my breasts, my butt, and my vulva as they changed over the years.
“Not long ago, my album of photos was stolen. It is not illegal for me to either take or keep photos of myself. It is illegal for anyone else to possess them. I am demanding the return of my property and will pursue legal action against anyone found to have it in their possession.”
I think the appearance of Sandra and her bold statement about how she studied her own body pretty much silenced anyone in the room who wanted to go down that path. Someone wanted to know how long I’d been a photographer. Another wanted me to explain what Attic Allure was. At least I could do that comfortably.
“Any final comment for our guests, Nate?” Lechleiter asked.
“Yes, Mr. Mayor. Just one item. You sitting up there in the student seats. A lot of you are eighteen years old. You have something extremely valuable that I didn’t have when I was eighteen. In fact, I didn’t have it until I was twenty-one. You have the right to vote. In order for my voice to be heard protesting against racism, against the draft, and against the war in Vietnam, I had to take photos and march in the streets and even take a couple of beatings. Your voice can be heard at the polls tomorrow. I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. But I believe you hold many of the same values I do. So, exercise your right to vote by voting against racism, the draft, the war, the infringement of your personal rights, and against any candidate that supports those things. Together, we have the power to change things. Let’s do it.”
Patricia, Toni, Anna, and I got back to Chicago about ten Monday night. It was a long exhausting day. After the conference, it seemed everyone wanted to get to me for ‘just one more question.’ Most I answered with, “Please check the transcript of the conference. I believe I answered that question.”
I did spend a little extra time with the movie crew who were excited about the presentation. They weren’t going to be able to use footage from the press conference for a commercial project for some reason, but I suppose it was because they’d be setting up a different press conference. Bert and Brent weren’t sure yet who they’d have address the crowd, but they loved the scene. More power to them.
I had a lengthy ‘debrief’ with Adrienne in my hotel room during the afternoon. I debriefed her and she debriefed me and since we were without briefs, we just fucked for a while. Adrienne was planning to return to Chicago with Ronda on Friday. Then she, Patricia, Toni, and I would take off for Canada for my spring break while Ronda and Anna returned to school.
I wasn’t completely comfortable that Warren wouldn’t up his attack, or worse, get elected as sheriff and come after me with search warrants for my studio. I decided to move all my negatives and prints except those that were current up to the studio in Canada, where I had refrigerators I could store them in. Of course, I would need to leave the projects I was currently working on in Chicago. That was all school work.
I managed to keep my eyes open during the retouching and compositing seminar in the morning. We were working on hand tinting portraits with an airbrush and watercolor. At one time, hand coloring had been the major way that photographs were turned from black and white to color. Of course, the popularity of color film through the fifties and sixties pretty much made that obsolete. But it held real potential for turning photographs into pieces of art. Several photographer artists were using the techniques and I thought I might do some of it myself.
On Wednesday, we got the news that Warren had been defeated. I also got a call from Sandra asking if she could stop by the studio for a while on Saturday morning before I left for Canada. She wanted to tell me all that had happened in the saga of her missing photographs, but didn’t want to do it over the phone.
Finally, on Friday, just as we officially went on spring break, I packed up my equipment and followed Glenda Cox’s Datsun 240Z north to the village of Kenilworth. I specifically asked her not to go too fast so my VW Microbus could keep up with her. She laughed and said she only went fast on the Interstate.
“It is fun,” she said. “Last summer, I drove from Chicago to Minneapolis in five hours. She really cooks when you get her out where she can run.”
One thing was obvious to me long before we reached Kenilworth: Glenda was rich in a way that I didn’t think even Jordan could match.
We pulled into a long circular drive and she stopped before the front entrance. I was afraid she was going to make me drive around to a servant’s entrance or something, but she treated her car, her home, and her lifestyle like it was no big deal and I soon became comfortable with her.
I got my equipment onto its wheels and rolled inside, stopping just inside the door in the two story foyer to carefully wipe off the wheels so I wouldn’t track anything wet into the house. I wiped my feet thoroughly and felt that I should take off my shoes. The place was beautiful.
An open sweeping staircase wrapped around the foyer and Glenda immediately led me up to the second floor.
“I hope you don’t have your heart set on a tour of the entire monstrosity where I live. I don’t even know what’s in most of the rooms. I only ever go into a couple of them,” she said.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Three years. We moved here right after I finished high school, which was part of what influenced me to go to Columbia. It’s a good program and I didn’t need to fuss around with campus housing and food.”
We went down a short hall and into a bedroom at the end.
“This is a bedroom,” I said.
“Yeah. Do you want to take pictures here? We can if you want, but I thought you wanted a picture with the piano.”
“Yes. That’s the intent.”
“It’s on through here in the music room.”
She led me through her bedroom and double doors into an adjoining room that did, indeed, have a grand piano in it. There were no other doors in the room and it was obvious that the only way to the music room was through her bedroom.
“Everyone has to come through your bedroom to have access to the piano?” I asked.
“Why would anyone else want access to the piano?” she asked. Then she heaved a big sigh. “My parents are not big music lovers. My father is a stockbroker and my mother is always active in some kind of civic or charitable function. I was told they chose this house so I could have privacy while I practiced—which was another way of saying I could practice where they couldn’t hear me.”
“Gosh, Glenda, it must be difficult not having parents who are interested in what you are doing,” I commiserated.
“Oh, not that terribly bad. They’re good people and are very interested in my success. They just aren’t that interested in my music. But if they thought it would help me, they’d pull all kinds of strings to get me the right contacts. Anyway, you want me to just get undressed?”
“Oh, no, not yet. I need to set up my equipment and take some readings. Then I usually take a picture or two for your promotion and publicity. You know, a formal portrait with your instrument. Are you dressed as you would normally play a concert?”
“Oh, God no. I didn’t realize that was where we were going to start. Go ahead and get set up and I’ll get changed.”
She started stripping off her clothes as she walked back into her bedroom and seemed not to care if I was there watching or not. There were two pianos and an electronic keyboard of some sort in the room, but I assumed we’d focus on the grand that seemed to have the place of honor.
“Nate, which do you think would be best for the photo?” Glenda called. I walked into the bedroom and found Glenda completely naked with two dresses in her hands and three more laid out on the bed.
“Wow! Um… All the other musicians just wore their black orchestra uniforms. You don’t have that out.”
“Don’t have one. Pianists get away with a lot more than other musicians. We are essentially soloists and our instrument is way up front, so we’re encouraged to wear something attractive and colorful,” she said.
The gowns in her hands were very different from each other. One was red and looked like it would fit her like a second skin. It was also backless and I liked the kind of semi-transparent strips that ran diagonally across it. The other was silver and hung in kind of a bell shape down to her hips and would then be a tight skirt down to about mid-thigh. On the bed was a blue off the shoulder gown, a green backless gown covered with sequins, and a white party dress that was so short I thought she’d be sitting on her bare butt on the piano bench.
“These all look great. We might just change you into a couple of them.” I said. “I like this red one. Looks like it will fit you like a second skin.”
“Don’t you like my first skin?” she laughed, pirouetting around the room.
“Love your first skin,” I said as she spun into me. “Would like to spend a lot of time with it, in fact. We need to fix your makeup and hair, though. This first set of photos are going to be things you can send to the Philharmonic or to a club downtown. Let’s get you fixed.”
“You’ll do my makeup?”
“Sure. I do quite a lot of that,” I said.
She tossed the dresses on the bed and went to her dressing table, which was set up with good lights and a wide array of cosmetics. She didn’t attempt to dress first, so I felt pretty free to enjoy looking at the first skin she was showing me. As I got rolling with her makeup, it became easier and easier to touch her face and shoulders. And she was beginning to get into a rhythm of her own as shoulders shifted. I could see she had music running through her head as I finished her face and pulled her hair into a knot that would hang down on one side.
Then I grabbed the red dress and dropped it over her head. She slipped her arms into the sleeves and I ran my hands down her breasts and torso as I pulled the dress down smooth.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Red high heels on the second rack in that closet. The really tall ones.”
I jumped to go to the closet and find the shoes. It was huge! This would have made a great bedroom for Toni. With room for all her toys. I found the correct pair of shoes and went back to Glenda. She was just putting on a strand of pearls, tossed over her shoulder so it looked like a choker from the front and hung down in a long strand in back, nearly to her butt. She turned on her stool and pulled her skirt up, then held out her foot for me to put the shoe on it. That was certainly an interesting view. She was wearing nothing but the red sheath and the pearls. I finished fastening one shoe and then the other and she started dancing toward the piano room.
It was obvious that from this point, the shoot was on her terms. She sat at the piano and I got my first picture of her. This was a lot like just getting Avery to dance for me by the river bank, though with less likelihood of us getting a cold bath. This was a number I recognized as soon as she put her fingers on the keys: George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’ The expressions on her face just lit up the room as she was instantly caught up in the music.
I took my time moving the tripod and camera from place to place. I knew that if she played the entire piece, I had a good fifteen minutes to get just the right picture. I even moved behind her and got the classic photo of the reflection of her hands in the shiny key cover of the piano. I hadn’t realized just how long and thin her fingers were. They were incredible.
I moved the Linhof into position and as she reached the portion of the piece that slows down, she got a dreamy look on her face and broke into a stellar smile as she hit the theme once again. That was the picture I wanted for her portrait.
Of course, that wasn’t the end of my private concert. I moved back a little so I could get a full seated picture of her, including her high heeled foot on the pedals.
She brought the piece to a conclusion with her hand held high in the air. I took it and brought her to her feet. She bowed slightly to me and we walked into her bedroom. I looked at the other dresses laid out on the bed and when I turned to her, she was naked again, the red dress lying on the floor. She was stroking her nipples.
“Gershwin just makes me horny,” she said.
I stepped up next to her and put an arm around her. She leaned into me and I stroked her breast as I kissed her neck.
“Oh, yes,” she sighed. “The white and silver gown. It’s time for Chopin.”
I looked at the bed and she shook her head. She pointed to another closet, which was larger than the first. This one was pretty much all gowns. I found one that was white with a silver filigree top. By filigree, I mean the top was almost all strands of silver sequins with a skirt of white satin and a front bodice that was just opaque enough that I didn’t think her nipples would actually show through.
I brought it out and found her leaning over the dressing table, touching up her lipstick. That was an inviting sight. I placed a hand on her buns and she slowly straightened to look at me. She nodded at the dress and I helped her into it. Believe me, it required both my hands in very interesting positions all over her body to see that she was fully tucked in and the strands of sequins hung flat against her skin.
She changed to silver earrings that dangled down and then sat.
“Spikes with a silver strap over the toes and around the ankle,” she said, pointing to the first closet. I went in and quickly found what were almost shoes. They were truly nothing but the sole, a five-inch spike heel, and a strap to hold them at her ankle and her toes. I brought them out and found her fastening a rhinestone cord around her thigh. The dress was slit from the floor up to her butt. She held her foot up to me, exposing herself fully as I strapped on the little shoes.
We returned to the piano and I held her hand as she sat.
“This piece is only five minutes,” she said. “It’s very dreamy.”
She looked very dreamy. It was curious that with the other musicians, I had photographed them with their instruments in hand or posed with the instrument in some way. I hadn’t actually photographed any of them except the cellist while playing their instruments. This piece was extremely sensual. Still, she was as fluid as her fingers as she moved with the music. When she moved in one direction, her butt was almost exposed through the slit in her skirt.
Then, as if by accident, which I was pretty sure it wasn’t, the top of the dress came loose and slipped from her breast. Her leg and one breast were nearly fully exposed and I had just time to switch to the Linhof and take a perfect picture. The piece came to a gentle conclusion and I moved to her to caress her exposed breast. I started to kiss her neck and she turned to meet my lips with her own.
“What do you truly love to do when you are making love to your piano?” I asked. “You are so sensuous and aroused. I want to take it the rest of the way. Do we need a new dress?”
“No,” she sighed, kissing me again. “I merely need to get out of this one.” She stood and I helped her out of the dress, caressing all of her as I took it away. She removed the chain from her thigh and her earrings, handing them to me. I took them to the bedroom and then returned to make sure I had film for the next set loaded.
Glenda started playing while sitting at the piano. That in itself was a pretty sight. Just watching her fingers moving under her boobs was a great image that I captured. I got down low and was able to catch the reflection of her boobs in the glossy surface of the piano.
I don’t know music styles all that well, but I thought the piece was something like a ragtime boogie-woogie. It was definitely foot tapping and before long, Glenda was really rocking. I got behind the 4x5. Instead of capturing a lot of images on the Hasselblad, I was banking on capturing the perfect image on the large format camera. As Glenda pushed her bench back and stood at the piano, I adjusted my fill light and loved the effect of the backlight coming in from the window behind her.
Her right leg was bouncing up and down as her fingers blurred on the keys. Occasionally, I could hear her moan as she shook her head. And then the moment came. She leaned toward the keyboard and then shot straight up on tiptoe, throwing her head back as she shouted.
It was a good thing she was naked, because I think her clothes would have combusted. She was that hot! I got a couple more shots, including switching to an Ektachrome slide for the last two. Glorious.
She finally ran her hands up and down the keyboard and hit a closing chord, starting to collapse back. I ran up to her and caught her as she fell back. I carried her into the bedroom and unceremoniously kicked the dresses off the bed as I laid her back on it. She was vibrating with the passion she’d been playing. She pulled me on top of her and kissed me with such passion that I was drawn into her enthusiasm and was all over her naked body.
Glenda wasn’t the most beautiful girl I’d ever photographed, but she absolutely exuded sexuality as she played the piano.
“Do me,” she husked. “Anything. I need you in me. I need to finish this.”
I didn’t manage to get my clothes off. My trousers never came off. I barely got them down enough to get a condom on my dick before I was drilling this hot pianist. And she was howling with her orgasms as soon as I was in her. It didn’t take long before I was filling that condom.
We were gasping and kissing as I slid to the side so she could breathe. As soon as I was clear, she grabbed my hand and guided it back to her pussy.
“More. One more, lover. One more.”
I had to taste her and slid down so I could get my face between her legs and start licking. With my fingers in her vagina and my tongue on her clit, Glenda screamed out an orgasm and then went limp. I moved up to hold her until she regained consciousness.
“Are you okay, Glenda?” I asked as I petted her hair.
“Oh, so okay. I just love to play boogie-woogie. I always get so turned on I have to get myself off. It was so nice to have a partner who understood. You got off, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Definitely. I’ve never seen anyone get so hot while she was playing. You were amazing.”
“I love to play that. I get totally lost in the moment. It does make it hard to play in public, though. I stick to playing orchestral classics in public. I come home after a concert, strip, and cut loose. Half the time I play with one hand and diddle myself with the other. I’ve never had a guy here while I made love to my music. If my piano had a dick, I’d want it to be yours.”
“Well, thank you. I don’t usually make love to my models. It’s against my principles. But I really loved it.”
“Well, I’m not looking for a repeat performance. I’ll be reliving this one on a regular basis, though. Um… Did you get a picture?”
“I definitely got a picture,” I laughed.
I went straight to the studio and processed my black and white film, printed proofs and packaged it all up to take with me to Canada on Sunday. I’d take the color slides with me and ask John to get them processed overnight on Monday. I was pretty psyched about what I had.
Then I headed home.
When I got there, Ronda, Anna, Patricia, and Adrienne were all bouncing with news. Little Toni, three-and-a-half years old now, was just bouncing and looking like she was ready to fly when I picked her up to dance.
I finally managed to kiss my three girlfriends and my mistress, and find out what was up. Patricia, Toni, Adrienne, and I planned to depart for Canada Sunday morning.
“Dad’s case has been dismissed!” Ronda exploded.
“That’s wonderful! When did that happen?” I asked.
“The judge ruled this morning. It was all because of the Supreme Court decision they released on Wednesday.”
“Is that the case about the other doctor, he told me about?”
“Yes. It was the case from Massachusetts about a doctor supplying information and contraceptives to unmarried women. The court ruled that unmarried women had the same rights to privacy that married women did and couldn’t be denied information and contraceptives. The judge took one look at the ruling and dismissed the case,” Ronda said. “Then he surprised everyone by throwing the case against Miss Ludwig out for lack of a well-defined charge. You’ll get your bail money back.”
“Wow! Does that mean the Supreme Court has finally entered the sixties?” I asked. Everyone I knew considered the Court to be at least ten years behind societal standards.
“More like the fifties, if you ask me,” Patricia said. “That attorney, Mr. White, who’s pushing the class action suit against Warren and the Board for fraudulent manipulation of the call-ups contacted me, too. He wants to up the pressure by filing wrongful death claims against Warren on behalf of all the families who lost a minority son or husband after Warren signed their draft notice. I didn’t even realize Tony was the first one Warren manipulated.”
“I’d like to believe that will go anywhere,” I said, holding the mother of my goddaughter. “But we’ll be beside you every step of the way.”
“The problem,” Ronda said, “is that no one had oversight over who the local boards drafted. Johnson even suggested to them that local boards should draft protesters first.”
“The old SOB,” I snorted. “I’d say I wish he’d go to hell, but he already lives in Texas. May Nixon join him.”
“Let’s go out to dinner. Then you have two girlfriends who want some special loving tonight before you take the other girlfriend and our mistress to Canada. Do you have anything left after your photo session this afternoon?” Ronda asked.
“It was a near thing, but I always have some for you, love,” I laughed.
“Was it terrible for you?” I asked Sandra in the studio the next morning.
“It was pretty nasty. I still have parents, due to my sister’s intervention. I was ready to do the full denunciation of them Monday when Pam stepped in. They had seemed unfazed by my threat to accuse them of distributing child pornography.”
“What did Pam say?”
“Just what was necessary. She told them they would never see or meet their grandchild if they didn’t get my photos back and give them to me. Then she pulled out the evidence that they’d been taking secret photos of us themselves. She had her hand on the phone to call the sheriff when they capitulated.”
“Criminy! I’m so sorry, Sandra. Sorry I ever put you in that kind of situation. I can only claim that I didn’t realize the ramification when you came to me with your request the first time. I should have known.”
“Why would you? We were just two high school kids. Did you know that Dan King—in my sister’s class—married a freshman girl as soon as he graduated? It required parental permission, but she was already pregnant. Her parents could have come after him big time, but her mother and father were married when her mother was fourteen,” Sandra said.
“I never got along that well with Dan. Still, I don’t wish him ill.”
“Well, he’s doing what he wants and I guess they’re happy. He’s running the farm now and she’s pregnant with their third.”
“Three kids and she must not be more than twenty. Wow!” I said, letting that sink in. Well, Patricia was only eighteen when Toni was born and we were doing okay.
“It’s that everything is changing. The whole free love movement is creating its own backlash. It’s all about protecting the children now. People are afraid that letting their children know about the facts of life will cause them to be loose or turn them into lesbians. But none of them know what they are protecting the kids from.”
“From themselves, if you ask me. You know I spent some time in California, and I’ll tell you that the stories you hear are true. And it’s not just about the casting couch. That seems to be a known tradition and my actress friend who was in Over Exposure fully expected to have to sleep with the director in order to get the part. She told me she was prepared to sleep with a casting director to even get an audition. But homeless kids who went to California to get high and drop out are easy targets for older men to pick up and use however they want to. They give them enough money for drugs and dump them back on the street.”
“I found out the whole issue with Miss Ludwig, the librarian, was that she was filling girls’ heads with ‘liberation rubbish.’ People are afraid that girls won’t be satisfied with things the way they’ve always been if they hear about better things. The judge had even said the whole concept of a female orgasm was a myth.”
“I pity his wife.”
“Well, I have the photos in my car now. As soon as I get to Ohio, I’m going to rent a safe deposit box and put them in it. From now on, though, you can display any photo you take of me, no matter what it shows. I’d like to set up a full Attic Allure photo session. I get out of class May 12. I could come here on my way to St. Louis.”
“St. Louis?”
“Yeah. I’m going to go help my sister with her new baby for the summer. I cleared all my possessions out of my parents’ house and she offered to store them.”
I grabbed my calendar.
“Oh wow! My graduation is on the thirteenth. Probably not good to schedule it that weekend. I suppose any time the next week would be okay. Anna graduates the weekend before and Ronda is still in class until mid-June.”
“Great. Put me down for the sixteenth then. I want the full treatment.”
“Sandra, you always get the full treatment.”
“Yeah, but a girl can dream about going one more step. Don’t worry. I won’t push for it, but if your condom covered cock happens to slide into my pussy, you wouldn’t find me complaining.”
I kissed her and she left to continue her trip to Ohio. Even having dodged the bullet on this one, that girl was still irresistibly dangerous.
Sunday morning, Patricia, Toni, and I picked up Adrienne at the Blackstone, where she was staying, and headed toward Canada. We took Patricia’s car because it was faster than the bus. But it also had a lot less room. When I saw the size of Adrienne’s suitcase, I nearly went back to get the bus. Somehow, we managed to get everything in the little Rambler American. I was really glad Patricia got a four-door sedan. It would have been miserable getting Toni in and out of the back seat.
As it was, we packed the driver’s side back floor with things for Canada and had Toni in her seat on that side. I started the trip on the passenger side in back and Adrienne got shotgun. Fortunately, the car had a pretty good-sized trunk. We managed to get everything in it.
With three of us driving, we made good time. We had no difficulty at the Canadian line. In fact, the border agent recognized us when Patricia gave him her passport with Toni’s endorsement in it and her husband’s death certificate.
“Is this the big run for the border?” the agent asked me.
“No sir. Just another practice run. We need to get up to Stratford and get the house ready for the summer,” I said.
“Be careful out there. There have been some reports of icy roads that direction. You have a good trip, eh?” he said. The Canadian border agent was so nice. We’d undergone twenty minutes of questioning and a sniff test from dogs the last time we’d come through US Customs headed back to Chicago. They actually ran my name to see if I was wanted for draft evasion.
We drove on through to Stratford and headed to the apartment.
“Um… You can drop me at the hotel,” Adrienne said.
“What? Why?” I asked. “You’re staying with us this week.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I’m not part of the family.”
“Oh, really?” Patricia asked. “Even a pet can stay in the family’s home. Perhaps we just need to get you a pet bed to put at the foot of ours. If you get cold, we can toss you a blanket.”
Adrienne looked horrified for a moment and then dropped her head to look at the floor.
“Whatever you say, Miss Patricia,” she said.
“What I say is to get your cute little behind in the house and make sure it is naked by the time Nate and I get upstairs with Toni. I don’t think pets need clothes in the house.”
“Yes, Miss Patricia.” Adrienne grabbed her suitcase and ran through the door I held open, already loosening her coat on the way up the stairs.
“My, my, Miss Patricia,” I said. “Are you channeling Anna this week?”
“Maybe a little,” she said. “I intend for the two of us to have maximum use of our mistress this week. That includes you getting a new selection of photographs of her. And I really like seeing her naked. Don’t ask me what has come over me.”
“Whatever it is, I love it,” I said.
“Do you think she’s had enough time to get naked?” Patricia asked.
“It only takes her about fifteen seconds. She’ll be naked and kneeling ten feet from the head of the stairs.”
“Hmm. I’ll let Toni run to make her welcome.”
For the record, we did not make our Fifi sleep at the foot of the bed. In fact, after we’d gotten Toni to sleep and had all three had a glass of wine, Patricia and I sandwiched Adrienne between us and did our best to punish her with orgasms until she finally passed out. Then I slipped into Patricia and the two of us made quiet love as our pet slept beside us.
Monday morning in Stratford has its rituals. I dropped off my slides of Glenda at Pro Photo Source with a request for next day service. Dave said he might be able to get the slides back later in the day, so I should check back. He greeted both Patricia and Adrienne, then stooped down to talk to Toni.
“Do you take pictures?” he asked.
“I draw!”
“Oh, how wonderful. Maybe one day I’ll see your drawings next to your daddy’s photos,” he said.
Toni’s eyes got wide and I could see he had planted a seed in our little girl’s mind that was going to grow like a weed.
We went on to That Scottish Café for breakfast and met Kathleen and Damien there. There weren’t many people back yet, but Damien said he was working on the production schedule with the producer and they were flying in and out of Toronto doing interviews and auditioning actors for the company.
“This is Anita Scott,” Damien said, introducing us to the young woman who was with them. “She just arrived last week. We picked her up on our scouting trip to the RSC when we were there in January and met you.”
“That was such fun!” Kathleen said. “Your… uh… Countess was fabulously entertaining. It was all I could do to drag Damien back to Stratford.”
“The photos turned out great. You’ve received the ones from Jane?” I asked.
“Yes! I’ve never seen a photo of Damien in which he looked so sexy and primed,” Kathleen said. She reached over then and touched Adrienne’s Fifi collar. “Sometimes I am so envious of you,” she whispered. “I come close, but I just can’t let go of my control.”
“You need to have absolute trust in your master,” Fifi said softly. I placed my hand softly on her thigh and thought I heard her purr.
“Yeah. Well, maybe someday.”
“Anita, Nate is the photographer we told you about. If he has time this week it would be great if you got a new promo photo and the complete Attic Allure experience,” Damien said.
“Attic Allure? Is that a thing?” she said.
I hadn’t thought Anita was remarkably attractive, sitting at the table with Patricia, Kathleen, and Adrienne, but once I heard her voice, I was captivated. People would come from miles just to hear her say her lines. They wouldn’t care what she looked like. Not that she was bad looking, but really? Patricia, Adrienne, and Kathleen? You really have to go some to be in their class.
“Attic Allure is a style of somewhat trashy glamour photos that I take. I try my best to bring out what is hidden within by using various props, poses, and backgrounds,” I said.
“The photo of me that’s hanging in Damien’s front hall?” Kathleen said. “That is one of Nate’s Attic Allure photos.”
“I would never call you trashy, Kathleen,” Anita said.
“Nor would I,” I laughed. “It’s the photography style that makes it trashy.”
“I’ll tell you all about the experience,” Kathleen said. “Several of the girls here in Stratford have had the treatment and there isn’t one who has complained.”
“I can’t assume you came all the way to Stratford just to take photos of Anita,” Damien said. “What are you up to this week?”
“Well, the three of us with our little helper here are going to be working on spring cleaning and getting the shop ready to open at the end of May. I think you have me scheduled the week of the twenty-first. If last year’s experience is an indicator, we won’t have time to do any prep work when we get here. We need to hit the ground running, so to speak,” I said. “And in the midst of that, I hope to print the photos for my final exhibition at the college. I think I have all the photos taken, but I’m likely to waste a lot of paper getting them printed and mounted for the exhibition. These need to be perfect.”
“Do you have time for a sitting with me?” Anita asked.
“Oh, yes. Today, I need to focus on cleaning the studio and tomorrow I’m working on a new set of photos of Adrienne. Shall we say Wednesday afternoon?”
“That would be delightful.”
“Kathleen and Damien, if you think of any props I should have for Anita’s photos, perhaps I could pick them up on Wednesday morning,” I said.
“We’ll get anything you need over to you,” Damien answered.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
