Chapter 8: July, August, and September

After our little break, it was time to get back to work. I went over to the green screen and called Zila, our African-American beauty over. I had explained to her what we’d be looking for in her pictures and she had brought the appropriate clothing. That consisted of just a loose dress and an apron to put over it. She also had some killer heels that matched the red in the red, white, and blue of the dress. She headed out to the changing/makeup room to don those easy pieces of clothing.

I had a gas-fired hibachi-style grill here at the studio for when I wanted to have a hot dog or hamburger at lunch. I had cleaned it up and put a couple of small colored lights inside of it, then put a single layer of lava rocks over the lights. With the lights on, it looked amazingly like a hot grill, complete with glowing coals. I also had a long-handled spatula and some real-looking burgers, left over from a commercial session I had done a few years ago, to go on the grill. In the post-production, I would add a park for the background.

Zila came back out and sashayed over to me, her skirts fluffing out with each step. “Where do you want me?” she asked.

I positioned her with the grill at about knee-height and she was directly parallel to it. I gave her the spatula and told her to pretend she was grilling the burgers for the 4^th of July picnic. She got into the scene quickly and I took pictures of her flipping the burgers and smiling at me, among several other shots. She was constantly flipping the skirt up, showing off her trim legs. Then, it was time for the more risqué pictures.

I asked her to go and take off the dress and return with just the heels and the apron and we’d do it again. She surprised me by not going into the dressing room, but just taking off the apron in front of everyone. She looked at me and said, “Can you undo the top of my dress?” She turned around and I undid the hook and loop closure and unzipped the dress a couple of inches.

She finished unzipping the dress and dropped it right in front of us all. She had worn neither a bra nor panties and stood there proudly fluffing her hair. She picked up the apron and turned to me as she slipped it over her head. Her skin was the color of milk chocolate and there were no tan lines on her anywhere. ‘I wonder if she’s a nudist,’ was the errant thought floating through my brain. I looked around and, again, was struck by the fact that almost every woman there was nearly nude as they watched their sisters pose. By this time, the draining Lou had given me had worn off and I was stiffening in my pants. This was starting to be a hard photo session, pun intended!

Zila again posed with the hibachi and the spatula. She bent over the grill and the apron gaped open, exposing a lot of side boob. Her bare ass was jutting out in the rear, almost begging to be caressed.

Seeing that, I had an inspiration. I called my assistant, Naomi, over and instructed her to get an object from the front. She returned a few seconds later and I called a halt to the proceedings. I stepped up to Zila and explained my idea to her. She nodded her head vigorously and said, “Absolutely. It sounds very ... provocative.”

I pulled down the white background again and asked Willis if he’d help me with moving the loveseat again. Of course, he was willing, and in short order, we had the loveseat repositioned on the white paper. Zila, in the meantime, had doffed the apron and was draping the flag I had sent Naomi to fetch around her.

I arranged Zia on the loveseat with one foot on the floor and the other firmly on the seat of the bench with her knee bent. The rest of her was lounging in the corner of the seat, one arm draped across the back of the loveseat, nearly touching her knee, and the other arm lying across her stomach, holding the flag in place. With Naomi’s help, I arranged the flag so that the hoist, or the part that attaches the flag to the rope, was towards the floor, but between her legs, and the fly, or the opposite side of the hoist, was lying just below her bared breasts. We made sure that her hip was uncovered on the side of the cocked knee. Looking at it as I stepped back, I was in love with the pose. Pure American sexiness at its best!

I took several pictures at different angles with this pose. Her dark skin contrasted wonderfully with the white of the loveseat, and her nipples were stiff with her excitement. We, that is Naomi and I, repositioned the flag, baring more of her abdomen, to the point where Zila’s hand was holding the flag just below and between her breasts with everything else bare.

The flag was quite large and the cloth was flexible and soft, so I had Zila stand holding the flag in her left hand in the same position as we had ended on the loveseat. Naomi brought the bulk of the flag so that it draped over Zila’s left hip, brought around the material so that it draped around Zila’s right shin and I had Zila step on the hoist to hold the whole thing in place. Zila was standing square to the camera. I had her raise her chin, turn her head to the right slightly and look back at the camera. She looked fierce and independent; a warrior woman ready to defend the principles for which the flag stood. The perfect look for Independence Day! Wow!

There was muted chatter throughout the little crowd as we worked, and I started to notice some of the watchers were creeping closer and closer to the action. It was one thing to look back and see the unclad women watching me and my work; it was startling to see four or five nearly and totally nude women at my feet, almost to the point where I had to be careful where I stepped. Yeah, Lou was going to have her work cut out for her tonight trying to drain me dry and limp. My memory would probably supply all the simulation I would need for our love-making tonight!

I had one more picture I wanted to take of Zila, and that was a profile silhouette. Willis and I moved the loveseat out of the way again, and I had Zila sit on the white background. I had a prop tree that I had her lean against and I had her bring one knee up. I had her lift her head, as if she were watching something in the sky. I then turned off all of the lights except the background light and took the picture. It was OK, but, as I looked at it in the monitor, it just didn’t have the punch I wanted.

I told Zila to remember how she was posed and to get up for a moment. I raised the white background and brought down a black paper background. I set Zila up as before and aimed the background light onto the black paper, only this time, I put a blue-colored gel on the light. When the light fired, it threw a dark blue light onto the background and, as the light bounced around and against Zila, it made a wonderful dark silhouette. Her Afro hairstyle glinted in the light and her breasts and body were in perfect profile. Later, in the post-production, I would add some fireworks in the sky in her line-of-sight.

When I announced that July was finished, Zia got up and sat on the couch next to Ginger. They put their heads together and were whispering. I have no idea what they were talking about, but each of them had shy, special smiles on their faces.

“OK,” I said, “is Lou ready?” Somewhere off in the direction of the makeup/changing room I heard a “Just a minute,” and then Lou came out. I had her dressed like she was going fishing, with a fishing vest, a bucket hat, short shorts, and hip-waders. She clumped as she walked, but, then, so do I when I’m dressed like that! Most of the gear she was wearing was mine because I like to go fishing.

The hat was festooned with spinning lures, and the vest had couple of dry flies hanging from the drying patch on the front of it. The shorts were Lou’s, but we had rolled the hems of the legs so high that a portion of her ass hung out a little. She wore an unbuttoned long-sleeved shirt beneath the vest, with the sleeves rolled up high, and the tails of the shirt were tied high beneath her breasts. A little wriggle and one or another of her tits would pop out! The waders, being hip-waders, only went part-way up her thighs, leaving a lot of skin on her thighs bare. It was also obvious that she wasn’t wearing underwear, because the shorts were sporting a nice camel toe!

I had originally planned a nice sky-blue background for these pictures, but seeing Lou like this made me do a re-think. I led Lou over to the green screen and I handed her a spinning rod, and told her to look like she was getting ready to cast a lure. She gave me a blank stare. “What?” she exclaimed. “Jonny, I’ve never been fishing in my life!”

OK, time for another re-think. I walked over to her and slid behind her. I put my left hand on her hip and took her right hand in mine. I pulled the rod backward a little and then told her, “Use the rod to fling the lure forward. Use your wrist to kind of ‘snap’ it at the end and you’ll cast it out.” We weren’t using real lures with hooks, but only a weight in the shape of a small fish. We practiced casting the weight a few times, making sure no one was anywhere they could get hit with the ‘lure.’ It took a few tries, but eventually, Lou got the hang of snapping her wrist. Of course, all I wanted was to see her casting for the picture, but I wanted it to look real, too.