Chapter 29

Jeff wasn’t just a little impressed with the darkroom and studio in my basement—he was flat out jealous! I couldn’t have been prouder, which was obvious by the way I was suddenly strutting around. At that moment, a peacock would have looked plain or dull next to me. At least that’s what it felt like to me.

“Where’d you two go?” Dana called out from the studio.

“We’re in here!” I replied, loudly.

“Get your asses out here; April will be down here in a second.”

Jeff gave me a surprised and bemused look.

“That’s Dana, you’ll get used to it,” I told him, grinning. Not that I am that lucky or anything.

Jeff didn’t need any further prodding. I followed him out the spinning door to find Dana standing a step or two away, her hands on her hips, her toe tapping on the floor, looking as if we had kept her waiting for hours instead of mere seconds.

I was still walking with that proud air about me when I emerged, and Dana gave me a look that almost made me pause.

“Why are you walking like that? Do you have a stick in your ass or something?”

“Wha—”

“Seriously, what’s wrong with you? You look like a chicken trying to be a peacock or something,” Dana cut me off brutally.

Dana viciously ripped a hole in my sails in the way only she could do before I had a chance to do anything about it. My shoulders slumped and my moment of cockiness was dashed just as quickly as I had found it.

Before I had a chance to wallow in self-pity, Laura emerged downstairs with a shyly smiling April right behind her. I could see that the girls had helped April put her hair up. Two wispy strands hung down from the updo, framing in her face.

Her outfit was entirely hidden until Laura walked into the room and gave Jeff and me our first glimpses of April’s outfit. When I finally got to see her, all of her, she looked exactly like I remembered ... perfect.

April wore a white, lacy bra and panty set matched with a pair of white strappy high heels. The lace was actually a densely embroidered pattern of flowers and vines. The fabric was thick enough that it obscured everything behind but for only the barest hints of the color of April’s skin.

She wasn’t what some of the members of the photography club called busty, but April surely wasn’t lacking in that department. Like Dana, she had more than enough to show off and create wonderful cleavage, if she wanted to. She filled the bra perfectly. So perfectly it was hard not to stare at the point where the swell of her breasts started and then down to the valley in between.

When she passed through the hallway and into the studio, I noticed the little white wings affixed to her back just peeking up over her shoulders. From the way they were positioned, I guessed they were attached to her bra somehow because there weren’t any other straps over her shoulders.

Laura and Dana were smiling proudly, which bolstered April’s confidence. April’s cheeks still flushed, which was a good look on her. That only drew me to her impossibly blue eyes that glimmered and sparkled when the light caught them just right.

“Told you!” Dana snickered.

I looked at Dana, but she wasn’t looking at me. When my eyes met April’s again, I caught her eyes moving up to meet mine and she blushed even further. This time the pinkish red color has blossomed on her chest.

“Yeah, I see you were right,” April replied.

I didn’t see it coming but Laura had moved over beside me and smacked me, hard, on the shoulder. That got both April and Dana laughing heartily. On instinct, my eyes shifted to Jeff, who just shook his head and shrugged. He knew and understood, but he wasn’t about to open his mouth and step in front of that particular high-speed train.

“Do something about that!” Laura demanded. Making a point to indicate my groin area.

Shit! I shifted around, trying to reposition myself so my arousal wasn’t quite so obvious. It’s not like I was going to whip it out right here and do something about it. Eventually, it would go away ... I hoped.

“And you didn’t believe me,” Dana said to Laura.

“It’s not that I didn’t believe you. I know better than that,” Laura replied. “I can’t really blame him though. Look at her, she’s gorgeous.”

Jeff nodded vigorously in agreement.

“You look beautiful,” Jeff affirmed.

While the girls fussed and mussed with all things that involved April, I grabbed my pinhole cameras, all four of them, and brought them out into the studio.

“Four, I thought you only had one, maybe two of those?” Jeff asked.

“I had two,” I answered. “But I thought I might need more for this. You know, just in case.”

“Still, you only get four shots.”

“I mean, that’s true, but I do have my own darkroom room right over there, so really, I can get as many as I need, in theory.”

“Cool,” Jeff replied. “So, we can look at the first four and decide if we need more after that? Tonight?”

“Yeah,” I replied, smiling while Jeff started grinning.

Dana, Laura, and April were all huddled together around the high-backed loveseat talking amongst themselves when I got the cameras out and ready.

“So, ladies, are we ready?” I asked.

“Yup!” Laura called out excitedly.

Laura was bouncing around excitedly. Dana had been through this before, Laura hadn’t, so it wasn’t a surprise to see her acting like this.

“April,” I asked, just making sure she was ready, regardless of what Laura claimed. “You ready?”

“Sure,” April answered, a hint of her shyness coming back in her facial expression.

“Did you have any ideas in mind?”

“Well...”

I took four shots of April. None of them were anything fancy, let alone exceptional. Laura wanted to show off the little wings with each of April’s poses. April loved that idea as well, so that’s what we did. There was nothing wrong with those poses, they just weren’t... good enough. I knew it, Dana knew it, and so did Jeff. I thought he was going to throw in his two cents at some point, but he remained surprisingly quiet the whole time, just watching appraisingly at what was going on.

When it came time to develop the first four images, Laura and April were almost overly eager to not only see the process but be a part of it. We learned something vital right away when the five of us went into the darkroom: everyone couldn’t stand around the developing trays to watch at the same time.

It came as no surprise that Jeff wanted to be front and center, but so did April, and Laura. For the two girls, I had expected them to want to be ... well, there. These initial photographs were their poses after all, and April being the subject definitely wanted to watch the whole developing process. I needed to be there too. Dana, not one to be left out, tried to scootch in as best she could.

That resulted in me not having any space to move, let alone using my arms with any kind of freedom. The one saving grace, or relief about the whole thing, was I wasn’t getting peppered with questions from all directions. At the same time, I wasn’t getting questions for any direction, not one.

Dana was the first to notice the potential issue with all of us crowded around the solution filled tubs.

“I’ll be over here if you need anything,” Dana announced, moving away.

It was Jeff’s turn to realize what was going on, and he too joined Dana off to the side. They weren’t so far away as to not see what was happening. They just weren’t close enough to get a front row seat, not like April, Laura, and me.

I gave Dana a thankful look to which she smiled and gave me the slightest nod in return. Jeff just crossed his arms in front of his chest and acted like he was looking at everything else in the red tinged darkroom instead of what we were doing as I was developing the first image.

April was standing on my right, shoulder to shoulder with me but staying just out of the way. Laura was on my left, leaning over far enough that I worried any hint of a splash would end up on her face.

“Uh, Laura?” I asked, hesitantly.

“Yeah?” Laura turned her head to look at me but didn’t lean back even a fraction.

“You should probably back off a bit.”

“What?” Laura looked at me utterly confused as to why I would suggest such a thing. “Why?”

“Splashing...”

“Oh!” Her eyes went wide and jerked back away. “Yeah, thanks.”

April took a step back as well, and I heard Jeff’s muffled chuckle. I turned to look at him, but he waved me off. Dana was grinning right next to him, and I rolled my eyes at the pair of them.

I turned back to Laura and smiled. “No problem.”

Slowly, I slipped the first of the four images into the development solution.

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Pinhole - Higher Learning

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