Chapter 24

As soon as we made it back downstairs, Laura found her spot in the middle of the loveseat. I stopped only a step or two into the room and Dana did the same next to me.

“Are your cameras ready or do you need to put photopaper in them?” Dana asked quietly.

“They’re ready,” I answered.

I had been keeping them ready or loaded all the time. It’s not like they were accidentally going to get exposed, especially since I kept them in the darkroom all the time unless I was going to use them or take them to class.

I was looking at the scene in front of me. I had the new black backdrop up. It covered a ten-foot section of the wall from floor to ceiling. The loveseat was sitting where the drop sprawled into the room for another ten feet.

Using a backdrop like that would allow me to adjust and manipulate the color and lighting of the pictures I took. My mind instantly went to all the different possibilities and options. Like most times I was in a studio, my mind went into overdrive, filtering out everything else that I didn’t need.

The only issue, or potential issue, was the window on the side wall. It wasn’t dark outside yet, and some of that light from the falling sun was leaking into the room. The blinds were closed, but they didn’t stop everything. I was so singularly focused on that fact that I never heard Dana ask me another question.

“Josh, did you hear me?” Dana put her hand on my shoulder.

“Wha ... what?” I stammered out.

“Where are the cameras?”

“Oh, in the darkroom.”

“Cool, I’ll go get them.”

“Yeah, sure, that sounds good. Thanks.”

I decided I would deal with the window later. I knew that was probably a mistake, but something that I could talk to my mom and dad about later. I don’t think they would take too kindly to me just covering them up with plywood or something. Sure, I could hang a blanket over it, but I wasn’t thinking along those lines at the moment, and I wasn’t great at going with the age old saying, the simplest solutions are usually the best solutions.

“Here you go,” Dana said loudly enough to grab my attention.

I turned and saw her holding both of my pinhole cameras, handing me one.

“Thanks.”

Dana smiled before she turned to look at Laura, who was stretched out on the loveseat languidly, her arms over her head so they hung off the back of the arm rest. It was a pretty cool position and eerily similar to the one of her on the dock. Except, this time, she was fully clothed.

That didn’t stop me from remembering that night in full, vivid detail.

The resulting image I had captured was nothing short of incredible. The lead up to it—wasn’t great, to say the least. Laura retreated to Dana’s car, refusing to come out of the passenger seat. When I finally got her out of the car, Laura then proceeded to explain, well, everything. Even after all of that had happened ... if there was ever a time to say magic was real, that was it. The proof lay no further than a couple steps away in a small stack of black frames to my left.

“What are you thinking about?” Dana elbowed me, smirking.

“Just thinking,” I replied, feeling heat rise in my cheeks.

“Not going to tell me?”

“Nope.”

“Fine,” Dana huffed. “Be that way.”

I just shook my head at Dana’s pouty reaction.

“So, how are we going to do this?” Dana asked, looking first at Laura and then back to me. “You going to get naked or what?”

The matter-of-fact way Dana said it made Laura startle and I audibly groaned.

“Don’t give me that crap, you know you want her to get naked.” Dana gave me a don’t-even-try-to-lie-to-me type of look.

She wasn’t wrong. I really, really did, but I wasn’t going to be the one to suggest it. Thankfully, that’s what Dana was good at: getting straight to the point and not at all bashful or apologetic about it.

“Well?” Dana asked impatiently.

Laura shifted in the loveseat, putting her feet on the floor so she could sit up.

“Is that what you want?” Laura asked.

What was I supposed to say to that? It’s not like I was going to lie to her. Lord knows Dana wouldn’t let me get away with that even if Laura might.

“I mean, I’m cool with it if you are...” I was blushing furiously now.

It’s ridiculous how nervous I was. I had been taking pictures of nude women all semester and was never this ... worked up. I don’t know if it was just the fact it was Laura, or if it had anything to do with Dana being here as well, but the end result was still the same. My heart hammering away in my chest. A blazing heat ignited in my face, and my hands felt like they were sweating enough that I was worried they would leave a wet print if I touched anything.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Laura replied, giggling as she watched me fidget uncomfortably.

Her carefree agreement to strip didn’t lessen my nerves at all. If anything, it only made it worse because now I had a lump that felt like it was the size of a grapefruit in my throat that wasn’t there a moment earlier.

With no other prompts needed, Laura jumped to her feet, grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt, and pulled it up and over her head, giving Dana and me an unobstructed view of her perfect, pale breasts.

My eyes bulged at the sight, and I am pretty sure my jaw was dangerously close to touching the floor. It was a wonder my tongue wasn’t hanging out.

“Now we’re talking!” Dana exclaimed, smiling excitedly, her eyes never leaving Laura’s newly exposed flesh.

When she finished stripping, Laura was clothed in only a pair of nondescript black panties.

“Aren’t you going to take those off too?” Dana asked.

If I had to bet, Dana was more eager for Laura to get naked than I was. That was saying something. If Laura noticed or cared, she didn’t make any mention of it. Dana was, well ... Dana ... what you see is what you get. That was one of the things I really liked about her, even if she did make it her life’s goal to tease and embarrass me at every turn imaginable.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Laura answered, quickly lowering herself onto the loveseat and stretching back out in her previous position before all the excitement started.

“What?” Dana looked stunned. “Why not?”

“It’s not the right time.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

I had no clue what was going on. I was just happy with what I had in front of me. Laura looked gorgeous and I didn’t want to be greedy. Dana, however, had no such reluctance.

“It’s not the right time.”

The way Laura emphasized the word time, told me something was going on. I just didn’t know what.

“Time, when would be the right—Oh!” Dana’s eyes widened for only a moment before she steeled her expression. Dana then rounded on me, “are you just going to stand there and gawk, or are you going to take some pictures?”

“Yeah, of course!” I replied.

First things first, I need to set up the lights. I grabbed two different stands and tried to hustle over to where I was going to stand. I started moving before my feet were ready and got the legs of the stands tangled which in turn, got my feet tangled up in the mess and nearly fell flat on my face. Luckily, Dana was there to reach out and offer some support, keeping me on my feet, barely.

“Easy there, killer,” Dana said, and Laura tried to stifle a laugh behind her hands.

“Thanks.”

The silver lining to my sudden bout of klutziness was it gave me a moment to look around the room and actually see what was going on—more importantly, see the lighting. It was awful. The window was indeed going to be a problem. Even with the different types of lights, filters, and positions I could use, it wasn’t going to work.

We could wait a few hours for the sun to set, and full dark to set in, but I didn’t think Laura would want to just hang out with us topless like she was. I wasn’t about to send Dana or have myself go upstairs and ask my parents for some help. That would be a whole different kind of awkward.

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Pinhole - Higher Learning

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