Chapter 1

If you have read any of my other stories, you know things have a way of happening to me that seem to spiral out of my control, despite my best intentions. My intentions, no matter how honorable, always seem to get turned around to bite me. Fortunately, this has seemed to have pleasurable results. I hope that will continue to be the case.

As usual, it all started innocently enough. My wife and I had decided to relocate our family to the Ozark mountain area. My sister had moved there 7 or 8 years before with her family. We didn't necessarily move to be closer to them, but that is how it worked out.

Shortly before we moved, my sister's marriage broke up. Frankly, I was surprised it lasted as long as it did. They didn't ever appear to have any particular affection for each other, but what can you do. One thing she did get out of the marriage was three beautiful daughters. The oldest (Ashley) was 18 when we moved down, the second (Jenny) was 16, and the third (Ellie) was 11. We had lived about 400 miles apart, so we didn't get to see any of them but about once per year, maybe. Basically, the girls didn't grow up seeing me once a month, or anything like that.

My oldest niece was basically grown and out of the house. She would occasionally show up at our little family gatherings after we moved down, but not always. I got to see the younger two way more often.

With the divorce and such, my sister obviously didn't have a lot of extra money to throw around. As the time came for her second daughter to need Senior Pictures (which can be ridiculously expensive), she asked me if I would try to take them for her. I don't think Jenny was super excited about the idea. It's one of those things where it can be stylish to have your pictures taken by a certain photo studio. But at the same time she recognized the realities of the situation. It didn't hurt that my sister promised that, if they didn't turn out to everyone's satisfaction, she would bite the bullet and take her for at least a small package of pictures.

I am not a professional photographer, by any means. I fall into the category of what I would call "advanced amateur." I have a fairly nice camera, a few other pieces of equipment (flashes, etc... ), and I know how to change the settings to get good results. In a move that isn't normal for our family at all, we had started this process in the middle of Jenny's Junior year, so we had plenty of time. Usually, we try to get things arranged at the last moment.

One thing about the Ozarks is that there are many beautiful locations to use as a backdrop for her pictures. The only unfortunate thing was that there is a fair bit of driving necessary to get from site to site, sometimes. For that reason we decided that we would split our efforts into at least two or three "sessions," heading a different direction each time. Those two factors, more than any other, lead the events that happened.

In any case, on a nice weekend in late spring we got in my Suburban and headed off into the hills to take some pictures. The dogwoods were in full bloom and we had no trouble finding a patch of them to use as a backdrop.

To her credit, my niece took the whole process in stride and I think even started to see some advantages, provided the pictures were halfway presentable. First of all, we had essentially unlimited time. She didn't feel like she had to be in a hurry because the photographer had another session or anything. She also could work in nearly unlimited outfit changes. I had thought ahead and made a curtain area that could hang from the liftgate of my Suburban to give her a place to change. She also had a fair amount of creative input as to how she wanted to pose and where she wanted to be. This can be a touchy subject with some photographers. We didn't have to worry about how many shots we took, or anything, so if some didn't work out it wasn't a big deal.

We took about 20 or 30 shots in the dogwoods and I had her come look at them. I looked over her shoulder as she paged through the camera's display. She liked some of them, enough that she was more than ready to get back to work on taking more shots.

For my part, I was in a slightly different world. I knew what most of the shots looked like already, so as she was looking at the pictures, I became distracted by other things. The first thing was her perfume. The sweet scent rose off ... well wherever she put it. It suited her perfectly. After my attention had been turned I noticed that, while I was looking over her shoulder I had an very nice view down the front of her shirt. It wasn't obviously hanging open or anything, but I could see the gentle swell of her breasts and an occasional peek of the edge of her bra when she would move one of her arms to point something out. The last thing I noticed was the sheer heat of her body. I could feel it radiating against me as I stood behind her. It was all I could do to not put my hands on her waist and pull her against me and bury my face in her hair.