Chapter 11

The hug with Suzanne lasted a long time. She let Andrew finally get in their flat and close the front door before she returned to the kitchen yelling over her shoulder that dinner would be ready in 20 minutes. He dropped his bag in his room and went through to join her. And it was if he had never been away. Suzanne was funny and flirty and the time was so relaxing. He didn’t have to be anyone, he could be himself, there were no secrets. Andrew didn’t have to censor himself, and that seemed incredibly important. They had written regularly through the term but it was good to get additional colour on all her stories.

“How is life in the new flat?”

“Exactly the same physically but they are so proud emotionally about the place. It is their home and something they have bought together. They dealt with a lawyer who is gay himself apparently so they didn’t have to pretend to just be flatmates or anything. He was their shield to the buyer and the agents, and they could be a couple with him. They are happy.”

Those last three words summed it up, everything else didn’t matter.

“But the flat is very similar to the old one. The one extra room is just like the one here.”

There was a tiny room that could be a bedroom in an emergency but Andrew only had a desk in it. Given that the flat was unoccupied two thirds of the time it was just a spare, almost empty room. Its most important function was a place to store his double bass, un-played since he moved in.

“But we have a nice routine. I will often go swimming after classes and let them have time together and then have dinner when I get back there. Nikki does most of the cooking and Fran and I alternate on clean up. I am out a lot, either at the library or at friends, so it is not as if I sit and play gooseberry with them. It is drama free which after last year is very welcome. Plus I get two older sisters giving me advice, although they are both useless about men funnily enough.”

Andrew had to laugh. Suzanne happily chatted away before suddenly realising the time.

“Damn, look at the time. I have to get ready, I am meeting Mary Jones tonight. Can I leave you the dishes?”

It was said over her shoulder as she rushed through to her room. Andrew piled everything up and carried it through to the flat’s small kitchen. Ten minutes later she shouted her goodbye and he heard the front door slam behind her. As he robotically washed the dishes Andrew tried to process everything and deal with the jarring realisation that he was on his own. At first, he was more than a little miffed that Suzanne had just gone out on the night he got home. But then he stopped and thought about the last 10 days from Merry in Cambridge, to Renee in Paris and finally Lilja in Helsinki. What right did he have for Suzanne to drop everything just because he finally came home. It was the night of the 17^th, term for Andrew had ended 18 days earlier. Suzanne had been genuinely pleased to see him and had chatted away while they ate dinner and sat afterwards. But she also spoken about herself for the most part and made plans for the night. Things were changing.

There never seemed to be enough time in Edinburgh when he was back so rather than sit in an empty flat Andrew phoned over to Maggie and Tony’s flat and after getting confirmation from Maggie that she was home he headed over there. Tony was at the studio but would be back just after 9.00. Maggie held him for a big hug then pulled him down for a quick peck on the cheek.

“We have a chance to chat for an hour or so before Tony gets home. I will save all the business stuff until he gets here. Tell me about Paris.”

Andrew started the tale as she made tea and continued it in the living room once they were settled. He talked through everything, with the emphasis this time on technical elements of the shoots, what they were trying to shoot, the sense of a relentless conveyor belt, even as it was modelling with naked women.”

“I am only at a few shoots, normally where the model is new and she wants a chaperone, but I have been struck by how Tony has embraced the idea of keeping the shoot moving. He always worries that he is now only interested in quantity over quality but he is much more focused than he was before. Maybe it is the idea of being a professional rather than just a Friday night amateur. What else?”

“You know how I made you pose down at Queensferry on that miserable day so that I could take a whole range of shots with different filters. Well I want to do something similar with you again but with you wearing different heels. And you will be very pleased to hear that this time it is in the studio. One of the mornings, I spent the first couple of hours being filmed purchasing items in the store. Heloise was the star and she wore a whole range of above the knee dresses, an open coat so that the camera caught them and a variety of different shoes. She is rarely in heels because she is so tall so she could wear up to 3’’ heels when she was with me. I saw that different heels change the shape of a woman’s legs, the way she walks, her posture, everything. I once shot June, the only shoot she ever did, and I saw the utter contrast of walking barefoot versus in heels. I want to take a whole series of shots of you in heels and either skimpy knickers or nothing at all. I want to see how your legs look, the muscles in your arse, try and understand how heels make a woman’s arse jut out slightly, emphasising it.”

Maggie sat and listened and just smiled broadly.

“That sounds like a fun couple of hours. Over this break?”

Andrew nodded.

“If possible. Maybe we can time it so that it is on a night like tonight where I can take all these shots with you before Tony gets back. Then when he arrives we can change the focus, alter the dynamic.”

Andrew had to smile as Maggie’s own smile became a full-fledged grin.

“A great idea. And talking of which I wanted to talk to you about the reception and your last shoot with us.”

She leaned over and kissed Andrew on the cheek.

“Thank you for coming up for the reception, I know it was a long way to come for one evening but we really appreciated it. It meant more to us than it should, as I am sure you had worked out.”

She pursed her lips in a rueful smile before carrying on.

“I know the answer but I have to ask you anyway. Are you studying psychology?”

Andrew looked confused and shook his head.

“Oh I know, but it is disconcerting how you are able to read us and say something that just transports us both somewhere very sexual. You talked quietly to us for what, a minute? Hardly any time at all and when you left I nearly dragged Tony straight to our room. And he wasn’t going to be resisting a single step of the way. We rather shooed our guests out at the end of the night. How are you able to create that image, that scenario so well?”

“You have a conditioned response now Maggie, that’s all. Boating holidays for you mean pushing your boundaries, getting acceptance from Tony, and me I suppose, of who you are. You are a born model, you love to pose and when you are posing for me, all those secret desires have an outlet, the way you just revel in showing off, so it wasn’t difficult. It is more than you are just a born model, you are a complete exhibitionist even more than a model. When you book models for the shoot on the boat, see if you can get a model that poses the same way you do now, but is prepared to have them published. The day before I turn up you watch Tony photographing her in exactly the same way that I photograph you. How do you think you are going to react when Tony gets you to pose identically for me?”

Andrew had to stop as if he carried on then it looked like Maggie was going to jill off right in front of him. She stopped squeezing her thighs together and took several deep breaths.

“It sounds so straightforward when you explain it. And as you tell it clearly works.”

She shook her head, to try and clear the images as much as anything.

“And we never talked about the shoot when you got Tony to shave me down there. Where did you get the idea?”

“The initial idea is from looking at all those magazines you had lying around. Several of the models were trimmed and more. But then when I was in Cyprus one of the women I was with was completely bare. It was one of the Germans who didn’t speak English so I couldn’t ask about it. And I didn’t hang around on the beach but given the sizes of the bikini bottoms there had to be quite a lot of trimming going on. And it was the perfect blend of Intimate yet ridiculously sexy. And is not the sort of thing that either Tony or I could shoot with any old model. It is the act of a lover, of a couple, not a model. How did the photos turn out?”

“They are exactly as you described them, intimate yet really sexy. I loved the way you switched between Tony’s fingers and the razer on my pussy, especially when he was trimming round the lips, and my face. At times I am sitting there in rapt concentration, yet there are other shots where I am clearly thinking about the whole act, and that you are filming it. They are locked away in the darkroom with all the rest, otherwise I would show you. There is one where I am biting my bottom lip with my eyes closed but it is just so powerful.”

Maggie had been reminiscing with her eyes closed and she opened them and looked at Andrew.

“Have you an idea for this break?”

He nodded, smiling.

“Well?”

“You will be the last to know. But you will love it.”

Andrew smirked at Maggie’s pouty face.

“Well Christmas is a week away, I can wait for my present. Going back to the reception I saw that you spent most of your time talking to Elspeth and Donnie. She said that the two of you got on fine. Was it awkward?”

“Not really. Stacey never introduced me to Hamish, and kept away all night, that would have been awkward. Elspeth brought Donnie over as soon as she saw me so just that right there calmed a lot of nerves. And we had a long chat about photography and Elspeth modelling. They asked for advice about ideas, they seem to do most of their shooting in the bedroom. So I gave them a couple of ideas that intrigued them. But they are like you and Tony in a lot of ways. Now they have come to it much later and without any history but it is more real for him, for them both, if there is another photographer. She is totally comfortable being on her own with me, and if he had any concerns initially then he doesn’t now. So that is the first part, I am safe, but the second is that I never discuss her shape. As Donnie said, they have both eaten more than their share of her cooking. So I let her do the same thing as you, push her boundaries. A different starting point, a slower progression and I am sure she will get to a point beyond which she won’t go. My guess is that she wants to pose naked but can’t figure out how to do it in a way that is flattering to her.”

“I will get June to talk to her, see if there is a corset that can keep everything tucked in for her. You really think she would pose naked?”

“The way she acted during the last shoot she came pretty close and asked me to tell her when to stop. She was on her hands and knees in the bath full of bubbles. She was concentrating on lifting herself up in tiny increments. She relied on me to tell her when to stop.”

“When you say it like that it does seem like she is ready to pose that way, if she can keep her tummy tucked in.”

Tony’s arrival was greeted with a quick handshake from Andrew and a long body-draping kiss from his wife. Tony just laughed.

“Have you been turning my wife on again?”

They all laughed as it was clear as day. Tony returned to the living room with three beers and Maggie snuggled into him on the couch.

“We waited until you were home before talking about the business. We have been talking about the reception and our photoshoots.”

“Thank you for coming all the way up just for the evening. It was great that you were there. It meant a lot.”

Reassurance given, and acknowledged, without actually being mentioned.

“Why don’t you start Mags.”

“Everything is signed, and we are committed. Believe it or not we even qualified for an EEC grant since we are creating employment in a deprived area. I didn’t think that Burntisland was that deprived but doing any investing away from the cities qualifies.”

“I know a Scrappie over here, friend of a friend, so I gave him first dibs on anything at the site and he owed a favour to a mate in Fife and so between the two of them we got rid of more than half the junk on the site without spending a penny. They then cleared the rest for us and we got a deal. They found some stone at the back that had peeled off the cliff so that has been stacked out the way and we will use it to face up at least part of the studio wall when it is finished. The foundations are being worked on as we speak and we need to sign off on the rest of the structure by the end of the year. There are a set of plans for you to take with you over there.”

Tony indicated a stack of paper on the shelving unit.

“Most of it is easy. The ground floor is one big space, the 1^st floor is two spaces which will eventually become sets, with a permanent wall between them. The top two floors will normally be used as several separate sets but the walls are not permanent so they can be made into one big stage, both on the 2^nd floor and the top floor with the patio outside. The electrical seems over the top but we can have nine separate areas and if they are all booked then we will need it. I need you to agree to that. You will be interested in the way they are combining the structure and stabilising the slope but that is all agreed. The quicker we get the skeleton of the building up, the quicker we can start using the sets, make some money back.”