Chapter 5

I took the picture. I took a couple of them, because I could feel my hand shake. When I straightened up, Alyssa shifted as well. I thumbed back through them.

“How’s it look?” she asked.

“Pretty good.” Really good, honestly, given my erection. Unfortunately, the view screen on the camera was really too small for me to give any of them a thorough look.

“Can I see?”

“Let’s give him a chance to go through them,” Katie said. “Can you come by Friday?”

I looked up to see a flicker of disappointment in Alyssa’s face, but she covered it quickly.

“Sure! Friday’d be fine!”

Katie brought water to Alyssa one last time as I started packing up my equipment. I was still mentally distracted—I kept remembering Caroline bent over like that, waiting for me. Wiggling her ass just a bit and sighing deeply. Alyssa had just offered the same. Well, not really.

And even if she had, there was no way I was going to fuck Alyssa.

Despite what my dick wanted.

“Wow,” Katie said. “That shot is ... beautiful and obscene.”

“Yeah.” I sighed and leaned back in my kitchen chair. The smell of baking lasagna filled the room. Katie leaned forward a bit to get a better look at the picture.

“Is she wet?” Katie asked.

“You mean turned on? Yeah, I think so.”

“I ... I thought she was a pro.”

“You don’t think pros get turned on?”

“Was it ever a problem?”

“No. Well, not after I met your mother.”

“Huh?”

I shrugged. “I was never alone with a model after that.”

“You had Mom there?”

“Or another photographer.” I nodded at the computer screen. “Alyssa’s the only one I’ve photographed alone since.”

Katie slowly nodded. “Well, these are pretty good.”

“Technically,” I said.

“This last one’s more than that.”

I sighed. “Yeah ... that one’s good.”

“It’s the juxtaposition. Her face is angelic, but her hand...”

“Pure sin.” I thumbed back. “These are good, too.” I pointed at the one of Alyssa looking over her shoulder. “The same mix of angelic and naughty.”

“But less explicit.”

“Yeah. More subtle.”

“Mmm hmm.”

I sighed. “Well, it’s a good start.”

“What do you mean?”

“The only hints of soul are in those.” I gestured at the screen again. “The rest are professional enough. Good enough for Playboy or one of those sites.”

“Is Playboy still in publication?”

“I think so. But there are online sites that’d take Alyssa’s photos.”

“Do you want to sell them?”

I shook my head. “It’s not what I want to be known for.”

“Did you ever?”

“Do you really want to know?”

She paused in thought.

“I ... I think I do,” she said. “But I want a drink first.”

“Fair enough. Why don’t we have this conversation on the porch?”

The warm night was filled with the sounds of insects and the occasional night bird. We could hear distant traffic from time to time, but nothing from the neighbors. I settled into a chair a bit apart from Katie’s. In the dark, she’d have a harder time reading my face. I sipped my whiskey and gathered my courage. Katie remained quiet, though I could hear her stir.

“So,” I said, “I, uh, was a bit wilder before I met your mother. I quickly figured out young women would drop their clothes if they thought the photos might appear in Playboy. And there was always a chance, you know? I had a buddy that worked for Playboy and he was happy to pass on my photos to the editors.”

“Did they ever publish any?”

“No.” I fell silent. “They were good, but no better than dozens of other pros.”

I fell quiet as the memories stirred.

“I liked taking those types of pictures,” I continued. “It was fun, and, well, sometimes there were other benefits...”

Katie snorted.

“I’m only human,” I protested. “And I was single. Until I met your mother.”

The vision of Caroline, laughing with her friends at the bar that night ... her smile...

“But you still took nudes,” Katie said. “After.”

“Oh,” I said. “Even when we were dating. I never hid it from your mother. She was mostly amused. Of course, it was just pictures then.”

“Of course.”

“Then your mother agreed to pose. When B&W published the photos ... well ... that’s when everything changed.”

“You went artistic instead of glamour.”

“Yeah. And they’re what got me the university job.” My mind drifted back to those photos and that session. It’d been the first time Caroline and I had screwed afterward. The night I knew she was the one.

“So, yeah,” I said, “Alyssa’s photos would be perfect for whatever’s replaced Playboy these days. I might even be able to sell them. But ... I left those days behind me.”

We were silent for a while. The insects in the yard buzzed.

“Do you want them back?” Katie eventually asked.

“No...,” I said. “No, I don’t think I do.”

But as firm as my voice was, I wasn’t so sure.

I slowly sipped my drink as we sat quietly in the night.

Wednesday night, Katie dragged me to an art show at a local gallery. The oil paintings were okay—mostly landscapes and flowers in pots. They were fine, but nothing that spoke to me. The canapés were good, though. Still, I made small talk with the gallery owner and some of the students from the university who’d come by to check it out. Katie flitted everywhere, which didn’t surprise me. Thanks to her years of teaching, she seemed to know half the town.

After it wound down, we stopped for a drink at a lounge Caroline and I used to visit from time to time. I hadn’t been back in years, which made it a bit disorienting. It took me a while to realize they’d painted it a different color than it’d been before.

“That was fun,” Katie said.

I shrugged and looked over the drink menu.

“It looked like you had a good time talking to June Watson.”

I furrowed my brow. “She was...?”

“The one that painted the lilies.”

“Oh. Yeah.” The grey-haired woman who’d started painting as a second career. We’d talked about impressionists.

“Well?”

“She was nice.”

“Just nice?”

I gave Katie a pointed look.

She sighed and picked up her own drink menu.

“Just give me some time.”

She snorted, but that was it.

That night, I lay in bed thinking about the party. I didn’t want to date June Watson, but ... maybe someone else...?

The session with Alyssa had gotten me stirred up. Besides her body, all the memories of sessions from my younger years came back. I hadn’t been a player, but ... well, I’d had my fun.

And my dick certainly remembered that. Even if I let my fantasies slide back to Caroline as I took care of myself.

But jacking off wasn’t the same. And, now, after three years, I was sure. I wanted more.

Thursday, Katie had a lunch date with a woman she’d been chatting with online. She wouldn’t tell me exactly what it was about ahead of time, only saying cryptically that she hoped it worked out. I decided not to press. With her out of the house, I could dig up some of my older files without a bunch of annoying questions. Those files had long been transferred to cardboard boxes in the attic, but it took me far less time to uncover the ones I wanted than I’d expected.

My files from my pre-Caroline shoots.

I consolidated all of them into a single box which I took down to my bedroom. After pulling a few select files out, I tucked it away in the bottom of my closet where Katie was less likely to be poking around.