Shutter Speed
22
Hold That Tiger!
“Yvonne” by Belovodchenko Anton, ID754081981 licensed from Shutterstock.com
THE COUNTRY WOKE UP Thursday morning to the news that Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. Fuck!
I called Nancy, of course.
“No, they ain’t gonna go crazy over Bobby. Folks figure one white dude is the same as another when it comes to being president. Gene’s the only one talking sense about stopping sending black kids to Vietnam,” Nancy said when she came to the phone. “You should see how many Dick Gregory dollar bills are floating around down here. You know some of them will work in a vending machine? The dude printed money for black people.”
“I’m sure the government is all over it. He’ll have a hard time running for president if he’s in jail. Daley already has it out for him after last year’s election.”
“Daley hates everybody but his little police army. What you doin’ in town, anyway?” she asked.
“I came up for my girlfriend’s prom and graduation,” I said. “I’m doing work in my studio this week. I’ve got two models scheduled today and another tomorrow.”
“You really taking pictures at that camera place you always liked to go?”
“Yeah. I’ll be moving back here to go to college at the end of August, so this will be my base of operation.”
“What about me? Can I get my picture taken again?” she asked coyly.
“Not this week, but I’ll be back in two weeks. How about Tuesday the eighteenth?”
“Seriously? You’ll take my pictures? You’re a honey!”
“I always loved taking your pictures, Nancy. I’ve got to get going now. First client is at nine this morning.”
“I’ll see you in two weeks.”
I got through the rest of my clients for the week and got proof sheets delivered. Then it was time to get ready for dinner with Elizabeth’s family. The first meeting had gone okay, so I wasn’t too nervous over it. Just a little. I packed the bus and when I got to Beth’s house, she ran out to meet me and we parked behind the house. She had me bring my bags and cameras up to her room and hung the tux bag in her closet. Then she turned to me for some serious kissing before we went downstairs to meet the family.
“It’s time, you guys,” Valerie said from Beth’s doorway. “Geez, Elizabeth! Pull your clothes together. Can’t you wait until after dinner?”
“As if you were waiting,” Beth laughed. A tall guy behind Valerie was standing with his hands around her stomach. I pulled mine out from under Beth’s shirt and she pulled herself together.
“I could have just gone on down and left you to make a spectacular entrance by yourself,” Valerie snarked.
“But then you’d have had to enter by yourself as well. I thought you were going to get us all downstairs before Mom and Dad left their room.”
“I didn’t realize it had gotten so late until I heard them leave their room. I… um… got here as soon as I could,” Valerie said. She leaned against her boyfriend. “Oh, Wyatt, this is my sister Elizabeth and her boyfriend Nate. You guys, this is Wyatt Drake.”
“Brave, courageous, and strong?” Elizabeth quipped. They rolled their eyes. I’m sure he’d heard that a thousand times.
We followed Valerie and Wyatt to the main stairs and went down to the sitting room where Mr. and Mrs. Marsh were waiting for us. They had cocktails and were smoking. I was kind of glad Valerie and Wyatt were breaking the ice in front of us. She had to introduce Wyatt, so apparently this was a fairly new boyfriend. Not too new for Valerie to have him in her room, though. Mr. Marsh offered him a drink, which he accepted, handing one to Valerie as well. We chatted for a few minutes, but it seemed mostly a ‘get to know Wyatt’ session for which I was thankful. He’d met Valerie on an international flight from London to New York and had joined her on the trip to Chicago.
I was a little surprised that Valerie would meet a guy on a flight and just bring him home with her. Wyatt was a few years older and told Mr. Marsh he was doing development work for a family business. That seemed to put him in good stead.
We were called to the table and feasted on Cornish game hens stuffed with wild rice. It was a bit of a challenge to eat the bird without using my fingers. I followed the cues from my hosts and managed to mutilate the bird pretty thoroughly. I wondered if it was a test. After dinner, we were all served a glass of champagne and Mr. Marsh raised a toast to Elizabeth for her graduation and for having added only a few gray hairs to his head after her sister had done such a thorough job of it before her.
After dinner, Wyatt and Valerie were going out dancing. They asked if we wanted to go, but Elizabeth waved them on. I was pretty sure they’d be going to a club that we would be turned away from as too young. Besides, I had a feeling the elder Marshes wanted some time with Elizabeth and me.
“As you can see, I’m not only collecting your photographs. I worry that truly fine film photography is a dying art. The newspapers kept it alive for a long time, but George Eastman wanted to put photography within reach of every human being who desired to preserve a record of what he sees. He said, ‘You push the button, we do the rest.’ I don’t think he realized that he was planning the end of an artform. You keep your Hasselblad in the studio most of the time. You lug around a Nikon that weighs almost as much as you do with that motor drive. Valerie has recorded all the places she has flown on a little Instamatic. What next? Photos from our cigarette lighters?”
I looked around the room and could see photos from some really famous photographers: Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, Dorothy Lange, and the infamous picture of Sophia Loren by Alfred Eisenstaedt that appeared on the cover of Life magazine two years before. And in this collection on his study walls were some of my best work. A signed copy of Avery under the streetlamp. A copy of Lori’s dramatic photo that started me on the road to the Attic Allure style. The picture of a street walker he claimed I turned into a work of art. And a picture of his daughter as a clown. My uncle had brokered the sales and I seldom knew who the purchaser was. But to see my photos among such august company was humbling at best.
“Wow! Some of my idols,” I breathed as I walked close to examine each print.
“You’re the youngest. You’re my hope that the artform will continue at least through the second half of this century. And my prayer that you aren’t the last.”
“Thank you for your faith and your patronage.”
“Patronage? I think you have me confused with others. I’m a collector. I admit that I have promoted your work to some others who might have become patrons, but not me. And Nadia is a collector as well. Some of the more erotic works are on the walls of our bedroom where she is the curator. But she wants me to deal with the artists.”
“You still have my gratitude for seeing value in my photos.”
“I expect that in ten years, the value of those signed prints will have doubled three times over,” he said. “Of course, you’ll never see that money. Funny thing about art. You sell a fine photograph for $50. In ten years, a collector buys that photo from your original customer for $500. But all you’ll ever see of that is the $50 you sold it for originally. Consider raising your prices.”
That was sobering. Presumably, if I ever got that famous, new photos that I took would also be worth the $500 price tag. It was beyond my range of imagination to think of my pictures being worth so much.
Photos were not the only thing in his study. I paused at an old shotgun hung on a rack. There were no hunting trophies around, though. Mr. Marsh stepped up beside me.
“Legend has it that my grandfather, back in the early thirties, held off a gang of rival thugs, intent on the destroying the family. The way he told the story, he single-handedly defended the house and saved his family, assisted only by fifteen or so bodyguards. It was the end of the family’s involvement in bootleg liquor, though. He turned state’s evidence and cooperated with the famous Eliot Ness to bring down Al Capone. Some of his other operations, however, may have been overlooked by Ness in return for his cooperation. At the end of prohibition, the family distillery which had been idle since the arrival of Ness in Chicago, suddenly found its products in demand and a back stock of fine liquor was gradually released into the market,” he laughed.
I chuckled at the story. So, the family fortune apparently came from bootleg liquor, converted to a legitimate business at the end of prohibition.
“Your uncle is a fine and dependable employee,” Mr. Marsh continued. “A contractor who is always there when special services are needed to protect a client or transport a sensitive shipment. And he’s a little scary. He warned me not to attempt to recruit you into any family business. Which was fine by me. I like you as a photographer. But you should know that if you ever harm my daughter, you will find yourself looking down the wrong end of that shotgun.”
I took a deep breath. I’d been half expecting some fatherly threat for the protection of his daughter.
“I wondered about that,” I said.
“You wondered what would happen if you hurt Elizabeth?”
“No. I never plan to hurt her, though I’m sorry if you expect us to be married and giving you grandchildren. Elizabeth and I know that isn’t going to happen. I’m in a situation in which choosing any one woman would seriously hurt others. I love them too much to do that. No. What I was wondering was whether Elizabeth’s and Valerie’s boyfriends really left because they’d become obsessed with their wealth, or if you’d merely scared them away,” I said.
Marsh looked at me, feigning innocence.
“I don’t interfere in my daughters’ relationships,” he chuckled. “Not beyond letting them know where I stand. Oh, I might have referred to one as ‘more worthless than tits on a boar hog.’ And I confess to having investigated one or two when they seemed to become interested too quickly. But I don’t actively chase the boys away. Mostly. I’m not trying to chase you away.”
“You should know then, that I will leave whenever Elizabeth wants me to. Not until.”
“Well said. She takes after her mother. I did not stand a chance when that woman looked straight at me and just said, ‘You.’ I was a goner. When Lisbet told me she wanted a photo session with you for her eighteenth birthday present, I had a feeling it was already too late to do anything about it. But when I saw you work with that girl Sylvester brought in off the street and watched what you do, I absolutely knew what would happen when Lisbet came for her sitting. Her mother and I sat down and talked to her about it the night before. I’m afraid we contributed to her conviction that she wanted you, rather than dissuading her.”
“She took me by surprise,” I said. “That being said, I was a willing victim of her charms.”
“Well, Nate, let’s go join our women for dessert and coffee. I’m not much older than your own parents, but I don’t last as late into the evening these days as I once did.”
We sat in the school stadium with about 5,000 others as Elizabeth and members of her class of 1968 were called forward for their diplomas. There wasn’t much of a speech given. It took two hours just to call the grads forward. I took a few photos as I was seated with Beth’s parents and sister. Wyatt had disappeared after breakfast in the morning.
After the ceremony, we met in front of the school and I took photos of Elizabeth with her family. She proudly wore her cap and gown, and then Deke drove all of us back to the house.
“Are you sure you have everything you need?” Mrs. Marsh asked as we were preparing to leave.
“Got it, Moms!” Elizabeth answered. “And don’t worry. We’ll be back for breakfast because Nate needs to get back to Tenbrook first thing tomorrow. I’ve had him for all the time I get him for now. I have to share.”
Beth and I got in the van and headed out. There was a state park beach about forty miles north of Beth’s house and we could camp practically on the beach. Maybe not legally, but we tried to stay out of sight. I parked the bus and we set up the tent. Then we got naked and ran down to the edge of the water, stuck our toes in, and ran back to the tent. Lake Michigan just isn’t warm enough for occasional swimmers to decide they’ll take a little dip. Not at this time of year.
We got the sand wiped off our feet and settled in to make love.
“Am I going to see you on the next trip to Chicago?” she asked as we cuddled together. Even in mid-June, the wind coming off Lake Michigan wasn’t that warm.
“I’ll be back in just over a week. I have photos scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I want to drive back on Friday. It’s kind of a ritual for me to be with Chris on that Friday night. I guess there is nothing stopping me from being with you on any of those nights. I’m coming into town on Monday.”
“Okay, I’ll check it out with Mama. Maybe she wouldn’t mind too much if you just moved in with me that week. You won’t be back again forever.”
“It will only be three weeks, lover. But if you think telling your mother I won’t be back will help, then go right ahead. Coming the second week of July is a little tenuous. If Patricia goes into labor, I won’t be coming out.”
“Oh, I wish I could be there for her baby’s birth, too,” Elizabeth asked. “Would I be welcome with the other girls?”
“I don’t see why not. But you know the routine there. Since I don’t control where you stay or anything like that, you need to coordinate it…”
“…with Anna. You really need to keep that girl near you. She’s more vital to your success than all of the rest of us combined. It never even occurred to me to study accounting and business management.”
“Chris is headed to business school, too,” I defended.
“Her heart is set on ‘doing good for humanity,’ I think is the way she put it. I think she intends to go into charitable work of some sort. I have to say, she’s good at studio work. And I know how much you love her. But she’s not going to be a big help in your career unless she just can’t find anything else. And I’ll bet Chris finds what she’s looking for. She just has that kind of drive.”
“You like her, too, don’t you?”
“Yeah. It’s hard not to like one of your lovers. You’ve chosen some pretty spectacular girls. Now, make love to me here in our lakeside retreat and remind me why I want Mom and Dad to approve you staying with us when you come back in two weeks.”
Making love to Beth with the waves lapping at the beach and the wind in the trees was a delight. But I think making love with Beth anytime in any place would be a delight.
I got back to Tenbrook in time to take Patricia’s week 32 photo and then have ice cream with the family Sunday evening. Mom got home from Annual Conference in the middle of the afternoon and told us she had a new assignment. I was afraid she was telling us we were moving, which would have been a catastrophe for everyone. Instead, she said that she was being put on a ‘circuit,’ which meant she would be preaching at both the Methodist Church in Tenbrook and the EUB church in Huffington. That would be interesting as she’d have one service at ten and one at eleven-fifteen. She’d have to hop in the car and drive the five miles between services during the last hymn. She said it was all part of having officially become one denomination at the uniting conference in April.
That was a significant event, I guess, but what impressed me more was that the Central Conference of the African American Methodist Church was dissolved and the church was officially integrated as a single denomination. It took long enough, but at least they moved forward.
I scrambled like heck to get everything done the next week that I needed to. I had orders for prints I needed to take care of from all the work I’d done the past week. Then I had models from Chicago who preferred to come to Tenbrook for their photo shoot on Wednesday and Thursday. Of course, what I was most interested in was my session with Miss Sullivan, scheduled for Saturday.
She arrived at 7:30, dressed as I expected in a baggy hoodie and sweats. She carried a bag like most of the models who arrived, and kicked off her shoes inside the door. I didn’t think it made much difference in this weather. It was dry and already sixty degrees. I was still blown away, though when she pulled back her hoodie and shook out her long hair. She didn’t waste time in taking the hoodie off and revealing a tight tank top encasing breasts that were pressing nipples against the fabric.
“Do you have something in mind for this morning’s pictures?” I asked, while appreciating the shape of my teacher. ‘Former teacher,’ I reminded myself. I no longer had to sit in her bookkeeping class trying to not imagine her naked. I didn’t think any of my classmates had that problem as she always dressed professionally and looked a little dowdy. Not so the vision in front of me. It was obvious that she’d taken a great deal of care in applying makeup this morning, and the shape that was revealed beneath that tank top was nothing short of enticing.
“Well, yes and no. I do have a kind of theme in mind.”
“Please tell me. We’ll get together any props you might need and get started.”
“It sounds a little hippie-like, but I’m actually into yoga.”
“Really? I thought that was kind of the Beatles’ thing in India with that guru fellow… um… Maharishi something,” I said.
“He has certainly been influential in the teachings of transcendental meditation. I was a student at the University of San Diego, studying business accounting and practices when I came across a local teacher named Beulah Smith. I told you I was a bit of a wild child in college. Actually, a lot wild. But Beulah taught TM and yoga from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who actually came to California while I was in college. Regardless, I’m not here to give a history lesson or to teach you transcendental meditation, but I thought that the poses would be interesting studies in the human form and that one day, I might even be interested in publishing a book of poses.”
“That sounds very interesting,” I said. “I know nothing about it, so you’ll need to tell me what the poses are.”
“Yes. Nate, I will tell you about the poses and demonstrate them, but you are the artist behind the camera. The pose is simply my little part. For everything else, I place myself in your hands.” She looked at me and then took my hands and pulled them to her breasts. “Literally, Nate. Make me look like a vision in your mind. I’m in your hands.”
“I’m pleased to find you there,” I said, squeezing her boobs. I felt her nipples coming erect beneath my fingers. “Why don’t we start with a few poses dressed as you are, unless you have something more comfortable. When I’m more familiar with what we want, we’ll start focusing on the… um… human form.”
She smiled and I gave her nipples a little tweak before I moved to the camera.
“Let’s just start with the white background for now and you can show me the poses. If you need any props, we’ll get them as we go.”
Yvonne moved to the center of the drop and stretched, raising her hands above her head, and standing on tiptoes. I wasn’t sure if that was a pose, but I took a picture of it, anyway. Her tight top was stretched across her very obviously erect nipples and rode up away from her sweats to expose a flat stomach and the indent of her navel.
From that point we were in gear and she showed me several poses as I fussed with lights and lens settings. When I stopped to change film, she stripped out of her sweats. She was wearing a tight black pair of panties and her tank top.
“You can take anything else off of me when you’re ready for it,” she said, as I focused on her again.
I caught a couple new poses and then walked up to her. I felt she’d already given me all the permission I needed, so I stepped behind her and took hold of the hem of her shirt. I hadn’t judged wrong. Her arms were immediately raised in the air so I could pull the shirt off over her head. I tossed it over to her bag and smoothed her hair out. I guess I smoothed her breasts out, as well. She leaned back against me and thrust her breasts up into my hands as I made sure her nipples would show clearly in the photographs.
“This photo session could be the most fun I’ve had since I arrived in Tenbrook,” she sighed.
“Now, let’s try that crouching stretch pose again,” I said. “I love the muscles in your back as well as the breasts on your chest.”
“You’re welcome to it all,” she whispered.
She moved into the pose I suggested and I took more photos. She wanted to use one of the black cubes I had and took some interesting poses stretched out on it. It gave me an additional inspiration.
“This is good,” I said as I changed film. “I’m seeing where we can go artistically with it. I want to change to the black backdrop. We’re going for a higher contrast as we look at the human form—yours—in a new light.”
I pulled out the drop and positioned the cube on it, then adjusted the position of where I wanted my lights. I went to the back and turned out all the non-essential lights in the studio. I didn’t want to pick up any ambient light in this next section. Then I turned to Yvonne.
“It’s time,” I said.
She stood quietly while I put a hand on her stomach and one on her back. Then I pressed them both down into the waist of her panties, as I pushed them down. I let my fingers move through her crack from behind and into her shaved pussy from in front. She was rapidly lubricating.
“Is this what you were hoping for when you set up this shoot?” I whispered.
“Yesss,” she hissed as I rubbed her clit a little, then pushed the panties on down off her legs and feet. “It’s been so long.”
“We are still going to get the photos,” I said, stroking back up her legs and butt and up to her breasts. “Now I want to see those poses on the box. Can you give me the one where you are crouched first?”
“Wherever you put me, Nate,” she whispered.
She was making it clear that she wanted me to keep handling her as she got into position, so I did everything but carry her into the position, stroking her flesh until I was sure I had the right position. Then I took a photo, adjusted the lighting a little, and took another. I was isolating her in a field of black and her skin glowed under the lights.
We kept working back and forth between posing and shooting. I loved putting her in the pose that had her stretched out at an angle with one foot on the box and one on the floor. She leaned back on her arms and I stroked her torso several times, focusing on her abs and breasts. I put a hand behind her head and had her lay it back until her throat and chin were stretched in a straight line from her chest back.
I took the pictures and then quickly went back to her to support her head and her back as I brought her back to a seated position. Then I reversed the position and had her kneel with one leg on the cube and stretch the other leg out behind her to the floor as she leaned forward, supporting her weight on her hand. Her head naturally went forward and her hair made a curtain over her face.
“This is nearly perfect,” I said. “I need you to glow more. I’ll be right back.”
I ran to the restroom that the girls kept stocked with everything they needed to clean, massage, paint, and decorate themselves. As I thought, there was a bottle of baby oil next to the sink. I brought it back and let a few drops fall on her back to alert her to what I was doing. Then I smoothed oil into the skin of her back and arms. Her breasts didn’t really need the oil because they were mostly hidden in this pose, but I oiled them thoroughly anyway. I spread oil all down her extended leg to the floor and brought my slick hand up the inside of her thigh, over her butt, and down her crack until I reached her already glistening pussy. I paused there just to rub her clit and pussy a little. She moaned.
“I’ll give you the rest of the day to stop that,” she said. “And hope it takes the whole day for you to slow down.”
“I need to take this picture before the oil soaks all the way into your skin,” I said. “Then if you’d like, I’ll give you a little massage. This is the big shot. This will be a work of art.”
“Do it,” she rasped.
I had to wipe my hands thoroughly before I got near the camera. I had enough frames left on this roll to capture the scene from slightly different angles and lighting temperatures. She was exquisite. The shot was perfect.
I stripped off my own T-shirt so I wouldn’t get it oily. My jeans would be what they were. I reached her and began to move her slowly so she wouldn’t cramp as I lifted her and sat with her on my lap. She felt good against my chest as well.
“Now, where was I?” I asked rhetorically. Her lips met mine and my hands started exploring her oily body, slipping over her breasts, and playing with her nipples before I slid down her stomach and into her snatch. She moaned into my mouth as I circled her clit and dipped lower to slide into her pussy, then back up to her clit. I continued to pleasure her until she arched her back in my arms and moaned out a long orgasm. She collapsed back to return to my lips as I kept my fingers buried inside her pussy.
“I’m so glad you aren’t a student,” she moaned as she kissed me and I started stroking her back to a peak. “I’d never be able to face you in class after that. Or… after… what I… feel is… coming!” She arched again and I felt even more of her own juices dripping out of her pussy and onto my jeans.
“I’d never be able to concentrate in class without imagining you naked in my arms,” I said. “I’m so glad I got to meet Yvonne Renninger instead of Miss Sullivan.”
“I’d like to teach you one more pose,” she said.
She slid off my lap to kneel on the floor between my legs and start unzipping my jeans.
“No sex in the studio,” I warned her. “Intercourse,” I clarified.
“You have interesting rules,” she said as she managed to get my jeans and briefs down far enough to free my rampant cock. “No intercourse, then.”
She dipped to bathe my cock with her tongue and then sucked it into her mouth. Unlike blowjobs I’d had before, Yvonne did not bob up and down. She slid slowly down my cock with her mouth as her tongue continued to actively stimulate the tip. When I was well into the back of her mouth, she began rhythmically swallowing. That was all. I felt her tongue and throat muscles massaging my cock until I erupted and she kept swallowing. I wasn’t quite all the way down her throat, but it was as far as I’d ever been in a girl. She sucked me clean and then popped off the end of my cock. She smiled at me.
“One of God’s little blessings,” she said. “I don’t have a gag reflex.”
“That was amazing, Yvonne.”
“I’m thinking that this should be our last session here. It’s really too risky to have me showing up early in the morning when your girlfriends could arrive at any moment.”
I was a little disappointed at that, but I could see her point. What we were doing was risky for a teacher, even though I was no longer a student.
“I suppose you’re right,” I said. “I’ll miss seeing you again.”
“Oh, I don’t mean you won’t see me again,” she said. “I just think I should come to your studio in Chicago for our next session. Maybe Labor Day weekend.”
“Oh! Yeah, that would be great! Let’s set that up.”
“Don’t hurry to get these printed,” she said. “I’ll look forward to seeing them when I come to Chicago.”
I was still trying to spend extra special time with my girlfriends before I had to return to Chicago on Monday. I would have photos on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then I’d head back to Tenbrook on Friday for my Friday night heating pad date with Christine. Ronda and I took Christine out on Saturday afternoon, just to go camping. There was a state park about half an hour south of us and we found a place there to camp, paid our five-dollar fee, and set up the camper tent.
The girls brought a cooler of food and I set up the grill to cook steaks. We felt very decadent having such high-class food for our campout. The table and chairs were set up inside the tent to protect us from mosquitoes, though they hadn’t really started emerging for the summer yet. Ten more degrees in temperature and we’d get carried away. While I manned the grill, the girls got the table set and got out potato salad and watermelon. When I went inside the tent with the steaks, I found both girls naked. I didn’t mind that at all, and soon joined them.
We mostly just laughed and talked, enjoying being close and touching our naked bodies against each other. I didn’t think I’d mind becoming a nudist. At least if Christine and Ronda were with me. And Anna. And Patricia. And Elizabeth. We were a month out of school and still holding together, but I’d seen each girl’s schedule for leaving town and knew that I would be in Chicago the last week of August to start the school year. Everyone was parting about that time. Ronda would be gone in mid-August. Anna was leaving as soon as we got back from our camping trip on August 21. Christine hadn’t said yet when she was moving to Peoria, but I had the impression that she would be there already if she could arrange it.
For this night, though, Christine, Ronda, and I ended up in our favorite positions. Chris rode Ronda’s face while she kissed me and I fucked our girlfriend until she was full. Then Christine was on her hands and knees between Ronda’s legs licking her clean as I plowed her from behind. It wasn’t the only lovemaking that went on during the night, but a guy has to sleep sometimes!
I got us home Sunday in time for dinner, then went to the studio to take Patricia’s week thirty-three photo. She was too uncomfortable to make love, but she really appreciated the time I took to massage her thoroughly. And I loved doing it. There was no question in my mind that over the past six months, I’d fallen deeply in love with Patricia. I knew I was only Tony’s surrogate, in her mind, but I couldn’t help but love her.
Monday morning, I had all the girls at the studio as I loaded everything for my next trip to Chicago.
“The inventory suggests that you need to restock your film supply for the Hasselblad while you’re gone,” Anna said as she helped load the bus. “You probably have enough film to make it through the summer, but some of your sessions really eat up the stock. I need to know what paper and chemicals are being provided for you in Chicago, too. We need to keep on top of what you are spending and what we have to count as non-monetary revenue. Remember that receiving $50 worth of free paper and chemicals is exactly the same to the government as getting $50 in cash. They frown on bartering, but if you can show that you provide an equivalent amount of service to Levi, then we can expense it.”
“I’m so glad you are on top of all this, Anna. The money part just gets ahead of me.” I kissed my girlfriend soundly. “I know Levi would love to meet you. I might need to take you to Chicago.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Levi and some others are coming to tour the gallery on Wednesday while you’re in Chicago. The girls will be acting as hosts and docents for your collection.”
“They are?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. I knew both of my models this past week had arrived with escorts and got a full tour of the gallery and studio before our photo sessions. I just didn’t think of it happening when I wasn’t in town. Not to worry. Anna and Christine had it all well in hand.
I kissed each of the other girls and headed east.
The drive to Chicago gave me lots of time review my life. I’d be near Rockford before I could get decent reception of WLS on my crappy radio. I needed to check the wiring on it and figure out why it kept cutting out. I could figuratively examine the lint in my navel on the way to Chicago—as long as I didn’t take my eyes off the road.
Another year. I’d been in Tenbrook for two years. Now I was a high school graduate. And I still didn’t understand what had happened with my life. Sometimes I feel like that old jazz tune the Mills Brothers did. “Hold that tiger. Hold that tiger. Hold that tiger.” Only my life is the tiger.
So, I got to this town because my mother became a Methodist preacher and was assigned out here. The first woman preacher in the Methodist church in Illinois. She said she’d been preaching to her family all her life; she might as well get paid for it. Moving to a small town in northwestern Illinois was a bit of a culture shock for a city kid from Chicago.
I wandered around town and saw some cute girls. I asked if I could take their pictures and they said yes. Photography has been a passion of mine since I was twelve years old and Uncle Nate gave me my first camera: a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye. It didn’t take long before I had a 35mm SLR and an enlarger. I did all my own processing and printing. I entered the pictures in the county fair and won some prizes. Then, all of a sudden, I was the school yearbook photographer.
Mr. Barkley, the owner of the local grocery store, gave me some space in a fourth-floor attic where he stored junk from the past hundred years. I built a darkroom and sectioned off a portion of the space to use as a studio. When the official photographer for the annual student pictures screwed up a lot of the senior portraits, several senior girls—starting with the cheerleaders—came to me to get a retake. We sort of accidentally got into taking glamour photos that included bits of the junk from the storeroom. And those crazy girls decided it was okay to take topless or nude pictures of them. Go figure!
From that, I developed the Attic Allure style that featured a glamour photo—sometimes nude—and some junk. The photos found their way to some influential guys in Chicago, and they got me a professional camera and enlarger, then started sending models all the way out to Tenbrook to get photos in the Attic Allure style.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing. My first girlfriend, Anna, broke up with me because I was taking sexy pictures of naked girls. I’m glad we were able to stay friends and she kept managing the yearbook photos I was taking. Her management skills eventually led to her taking care of my bookkeeping and accounting.
One of my models sort of stepped in and became my girlfriend. I thought Christine was seriously the most beautiful girl I’d ever set eyes on. One of the junior cheerleaders thought the same thing and said she’d fight me for Christine’s affection. I don’t like to fight. I suggested we share her. And then, I had two girlfriends.
I had a girlfriend. And then I didn’t. And then I had two. Now I have five. And there are all these other girls who come up to my studio and just take their clothes off so I can take pictures of them. And they give me money to do that!
I finished high school and got my diploma so I can go to college and avoid the draft. Fuckers! I tried to have my draft classification changed to Conscientious Objector, 1A-O. But the racist cop I helped get canned in our village was now on the area draft board. He argued against the classification and tried to get me classified 1A. I’m pretty sure he was behind getting my best friend, Tony, drafted. And killed in Vietnam. Of course, there was no way to prove that. The other members of the draft board voted to give me a student deferment and told me to just hold tight until I graduate from college and try for a new classification then.
Tony. I stood with him as my mother officiated his wedding to Patricia. They had a weeklong honeymoon before he had to report and another week together before he shipped out. Two fucking weeks. And now Patricia is eight months pregnant with the baby he didn’t even know she was carrying.
I try to take care of her. I know I’m just a substitute for Tony, but she tells me I’m her boyfriend now and she’s my lover. Well, not too much of that going on these days. She’s pretty uncomfortable and I try to soothe her. I massage her and take her picture every week so she’ll be able to show her baby what it looked like when she was pregnant.
She gave me a peace symbol that Tony gave her. I swore that I would resist and never serve in the army even if I have to run to Canada. I haven’t really taken it off except to shower since she gave it to me.
Sometimes, Patricia and I just cry together.
I’m one of the only people I know who graduated from high school with a career and a business already started. This fall I’ll go to Columbia College Chicago to learn how to do what I’m already doing. But I recognize that there’s a lot I’ve got to learn in this business. I’ve been blessed with patrons that help finance me and models who tolerate my suggestions. And, I guess, a good eye.
Now, I’ve got a studio in Chicago, over my film and equipment supplier’s store. He wanted me to have a place to keep taking pictures in my Attic Allure style when I moved. One of my first two models was Starr, an eighteen-year-old aspiring comedienne. She also has a pretty strong personality, and by the time my session with her was over and the photos were developed, I had another girlfriend. Of course, I don’t date models. Well, she got around that by saying Starr was the model, but she was Elizabeth. I was looking forward to seeing her tonight.
I saw twenty-two of the twenty-seven girls in my graduating class naked—and took their pictures! They built up a whole mythology about how I could make a girl have an orgasm without even touching her. It became so ingrained among the girls that they pretty much made it happen. And if I did touch them a little in the process, they didn’t mention that to anyone. She was just another girl I talked into an orgasm.
I don’t understand why they all seem to think that if it’s just Nate taking their naked pictures or caressing their bare breasts, or diddling their little clits, then it doesn’t really count.
So, I have five girlfriends, all of whom I’m intimate with. Christine, Ronda, Anna, Patricia, and Elizabeth. In the world I was raised to believe in, that kind of thing didn’t happen. Or if it did, it was sinful and shameful and evil.
I’m eighteen and I’ve got a camera, a career, a diploma, and a draft card. And five girlfriends. Someday, maybe I’ll understand my life.
Hold that tiger! Hold that tiger!
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
