Chapter 6 - A Story of Unusual Bequests

“Jim, is there something I can do for you?” Lia asked as she walked into the kitchen, freshly showered from the morning’s dawn raid in search of isolation, nature, and somewhere for Miss P to run wild. It had been only her second outing, and as advertised, both Miss P and Lia had ‘needed’ a good boning afterwards, so the question of Lia’s offer to do something for me left me a little lost for an answer. The long tee-shirt she was only wearing was paying things off for me, too.

“Something you can do for me? Try not wear it off?” I winced.

Lia grinned. “Didn’t mean that, though if you’re offering to rock my world again...”

“I’d love to, but perhaps breakfast? First?”

“Oh? Not during?”

“During?”

Another grin. “Well you’ve got a ‘sausage’ and if you’re okay slipping it between two slightly hairy slender doughy–”

“Enough with the metaphors, please?” I begged, Lia smiling as the conclusion of her comparison died on her lips. “I thought you said you’d had sex before you’n’me? It’s like you hadn’t and now we’ve unleashed something uncontrollable.”

“Oh it’s not uncontrollable, but unleashed? I like it, I’ll take it, and you can unleash me any time you want,” she smirked as she checked the pot, saw that it was good, and poured herself a cup of Earl Grey. “Breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Kitchen table, holding on to the bannisters, or just about anywhere else you want to bone me, you can bone me.”

“Very, er, comprehensive,” I smiled, waving my cup in salute to her being game for the old to’n’fro in pretty much any location I might come up with.

“So, what else can I do for you?” Lia asked.

“Else? Like what?”

Lia shrugged. “Jim, you’ve been running me around for photos all week, we painted your bedroom yesterday, and I know I put you up here last night so you didn’t smell of paint or get all tripped out on the fumes, but come on, there must be something fun I can do for you. Aside from boning. We can still do that any time you’re ready. Hint. I’m pretty ready right now. Damn good tea,” she grinned as she took the kind of pleasurable sip that would have awoken the second Earl from his slumbers.

I shrugged. It was true I had been her taxi-cum-photographer for the week, Lia now having photo sets taken in wheat fields, meadows, small stands of trees that wished they were enough to be a wood, even a cautious set as she approached a slow-running brook. I hadn’t minded in the least and I’d enjoyed the whole process, even pretending to understand the witchcraft she used in PhotoShop to resurrect a fifty-fifty shot into something way better than I ever imagined it could be, in the process somehow making me look like I was good at my job. In return we’d done the only thing I’d set as any kind of objective for my holidays, something I’d decided needed doing pre-Lia, namely repainting my bedroom. She’d known it was on the cards but I’d said nothing specific, and when I tried to hurry back to mine a little quickly after we got back from the shoot she’d asked why. I told her, and suddenly I had a helper in old jeans and an old tee-shirt. Not only had it been much quicker that way but I’d also had fun chatting along, singing along to the radio as we rattled through the painting in no time at all, really. Lia ended the session by announcing we should celebrate our hard work with an early night, though we were not early to sleep. I shrugged. “Things to do for me? Well the bedroom’s done–”

“That’s it!” Lia interrupted. “Indiana Jones! We could go through your grandfather’s boxes and you could tell me your stories. With tea, of course. I can make it if it helps.”

“More tea?”

“Missing the point, Jim.”

“Maybe, but seriously? You really want to help me see what’s in there?” I asked as she sat down to her portion of breakfast, bakery-fresh croissants in a variety of flavours, warmed in her oven by yours truly as I heard her shower switch off.

Lia smiled. “What’s in the boxes? Might be interesting, I mean I’m sure it’s interesting to me, but I didn’t know your grandfather so for me it’s your stories about you, that’s what I’m coming for. And the tea.”

“You have the same teas as I do.”

“I know, but your pots? They make the best teas.”

“If you say so,” I conceded, having once heard it’s as much the pot as the tea, though no pot can save a mediocre leaf. “Not sure how interesting the stories will be, though. Postcards. Comics. Family photos. Pretty sure that’s all we’ll find in there. At least, that’s what the inventory from the solicitors claimed. And at least a couple of boxes of ‘miscellaneous’ which is anyone’s guess.”

“Postcards? Photos? That’s interesting already, but Jim, it’s your stories that I want to hear. Maybe it’s old news to you but they’re new stories to me and, y’know, since you’re my boyfriend and you’re boning me every chance you get, maybe I’d kind of like to know a bit more about who’s making my fanny wet every fucking day,” she punningly explained, sounding entirely happy with the situation.

“It will be nice to talk about him,” I said, realising that I didn’t really get the chance to talk about my grandfather any more. None of my friends knew him, my parents knew him already, and that left exactly nobody. Except now I had Lia to talk to about him. Who knows, it might even get her to tell me more than how I knew she had a father, never mentioned anything about her mother, and that seemed it. “Suggestion?”

“I’m still eating here,” Lia grinned. “Suggest away but no kinky shit, not just yet.”

“I’ll bear it in mind, though what I was about to suggest was if I leave you to what remains of the croissant–”

“Hey! I’m a very delicate eater. I’ve been told so,” Lia pouted.

“Not what I meant. I was going to suggest if you finish your breakfast, I can go and get things ready.”

“Ready? So you’re hiding the kinky shit?”

“I don’t have any ‘kinky shit’. What I meant was I can open the windows, find something to label the boxes with, that kind of thing. Also, clothing? If we are going to be humping boxes–”

“Humping boxes? That’s some seriously kinky cardboard shit. I knew you were into that kind of thing.”

“Ahem. What I mean was if we’re moving boxes around then nothing more than shorts’n’tee-shirts should be the order of the day, and that means I need to get out of my photographer’s gear.”

“You don’t want me to help you out?” Lia double entendred.

“You don’t want to hear about my grandfather?” I countered, knowing where Lia’s stripping me was pretty much guaranteed to lead.

“Rat! That’s not an either/or.”

“It is for now. Man’s got to catch his breath.”

“Aw. Too much boning?”

“Not at all, but I do like to end on a flourish.”

“A flourish? That’s what you call cuming in me?”

“You have another term for it?”

Lia shrugged. “No, ‘flourishing’ in me’s fine. Weird, but fine. So, how long should I take over this final croissant?”

“Twenty?”

Lia shook her head. “Make it thirty. Need to dress for the occasion, y’know, something that doesn’t show the dust.”

I shook my head. “I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

“And helping me out of it later?”

“Of course. Later.”

“Deal. Okay, off you go then and hide the not kinky shit,” Lia grinned as I finished my tea, took a long moment to kiss her, and headed back to mine.

It was a little more than thirty minutes later when I heard the knock on the door, but as soon as I opened it all was forgiven. “Rosie the Riveter?” I asked.

“You got it!” Lia grinned, posing 007 style as if she were armed with a riveting gun. Lia’s interpretation of Rosie meant old fashioned big shorts in white, a denim blouse with the sleeves rolled up and tied up as a demurely buttoned halter, and a red’n’white polka scarf tied round her head, her hair a loose pony tail tumbling out of the back.

“Reward?” she asked, not waiting for my answer as she marched me inside, gently kicked the door closed behind her, pinned me to the wall, and kissed me until we had matching rivets. “Remind you of anything?”

“Er...” I said unsurely.

“You don’t remember?” Lia asked as we headed upstairs.

“No...” I said, by now certain I should.

Lia sighed. “Men. No tits? No interest. Don’t tell me you skipped my early sets looking for fanny, did you?”

“No,” I answered, trying not to sound too wounded. In truth when I’d found out my hot neighbour was on OnlyFans I may have skipped to the ‘good bits’, but I’d looked at the rest, too. Just ... briefly.

“Oh? You didn’t skip them but they didn’t stick in your memory as much as what sticks out?” Lia asked, grinning. Thank God she was grinning.

“Well I wouldn’t say that exactly–”

Lia smiled, interrupting me from digging in deeper. “It’s okay. Actually, I get it. I’m the bears’n’plushies girl. Photos that aren’t that? Teddy-no-tits? Swipe left, haha. Don’t worry, it’s not a test and not remembering me as Rosie’s honestly not a biggie. Also, it wasn’t my best work. I got the outfit for an early gig I got through Sequins, got him to photograph me in it afterwards, and that’s how we had our first argument - at least I think it was our first - about I should ‘show some tits’. I’d been looking up the old wartime images and I wanted to do poses like them. He wanted my tits out. I wasn’t that confident about going nude then so I said no. In spite he cut my paid shoot short, and I had barely enough good ones I could salvage for a set of twelve. Oh, maybe we could try that set again sometime, with tits, or at least hinted tits? Not today though. Today’s IJ day,” she said as I figured out ‘IJ’ was Indiana Jones. “Anyway, how do you know about Rosie?”

“My grandmother. Mum’s mother,” I said as we paused on the landing a moment as I opened another window to let in some kind of breeze.

“American?” Lia asked.

“No, but she dressed up like it for the Jubilee. I saw the photos and asked her who it was. I’d totally forgotten about it until I opened the door and saw you.”

“So, I remind you of your grandmother? Should I feel offended, or is she hot?” Lia teased.

“Lia! She’s my grandmother!”

“I heard, but she’s not mine. Also, also a woman. So? Which is it? Am I offended to be compared to a granny, or you keeping some hot grannies hidden away somewhere?”

“You know that’s an impossible question,” I answered, shaking my head.

“I know, but we’re still here, waiting for your answer. So what’s it to be?”

“Can I plead the Fifth?”

Lia shook her head. “She might have dressed up as an American but that doesn’t make you an American, meaning you have no jurisdiction for the Fifth. So?”

I sighed. “Lia, I don’t think I can say. She’s my grandmother. I don’t know I can even think of her in those terms.”

Lia smiled, hugged me to her, and kissed me. “I get it. You’re not into kinky shit like GILFs? Not your thing. That’s cool. Come on then Indy, show me into your lair and tell me some stories,” she said, her eyebrows somehow pointing at the closed door to my spare room.

“Jackanory time it is,” I said, ignoring my mind’s explaining how if a MILF was a ‘mother’ then a GILF was just ‘no’.

“Jack-a-who?”

“Jackanory? Television show? Get some famous person to read a children’s book in brief segments, ten minutes a time I think?”

Lia shook her head.

“How is it you’re only a couple of years younger than me, but you don’t know about Jackanory? I feel old.”

Lia smiled. “Don’t worry, I like how you feel plus I love how you feel in me too, haha. Also, you really can’t tell when I’m pulling your leg, can you?”

“Never playing poker with you. Ever.”

“I thought you liked poking me.”

I chuckled. “I do, but later, remember? For now, are you ready to brave the unknown?” I asked as I pushed a little on the door, enough to reveal there were indeed boxes within.

Lia turned to me, side-eye style. “Er, Jim?”

“Lia?”

“Think you might have oversold the whole ‘end of Indy’ thing.”

“For me this is a lot of boxes, and I thought it was a good line.”

Lia smiled. Indulgently. Ouch. “It was, but this? Jim I was imagining boxes, and boxes, and more boxes. Instead?” Lia said, pausing as she counted up. “I make that not even a dozen storage boxes, some LP cases - I hope there’s an LP player in one of those boxes - and that’s it.”

I nodded. “I guess since I dumped them in here after the executor sent them over they kind of grew in my imagination,” I said, hoping it sounded less lame to Lia than it did to me.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Lia laughed. “Men and their size exaggerations. Now. Important question. Where’s the chairs?”

“There aren’t any chairs.”

“No chairs?”

“No chairs, not in here, no. Like I said, I don’t come in here.”

“No? Window’s open and,” Lia paused and sniffed theatrically. “No musty smell...”

“Okay, so I came in here yesterday to freshen it up a bit.”

“Ah, so? Opening the windows? Getting ‘things’ ‘ready’? I know your game, mister. This was all part of your cunning plan to press gang me. Or... no! You were planning to enslave me and keep me as your scullery maid?”

“Curses, thwarted again. Also, what is a scullery maid?”

Lia grinned. “No idea, just like I’ve no idea what a scullery is? Something to do with boats? Maybe? Seriously, where do we sit?”

“Seriously, I was planning on the floor.”

“The floor?”

I nodded. “The floor. No table to put things on, so, the floor.”

“The floor? You’d better be planning some truly excellent incentives for this,” Lia teased as she sat down, cross-legged, watching as I reached down the first box, the Stanley knife, and the marker pen before I sat down next to her.

“Incentives? Hot tea?”

“Hmm, good, but how about a hot boning?”

“Not just any old boning but a hot boning? Hot as in... ?”

“If I’m getting sweaty, it’s a hot one,” Lia grinned.

“Got it Shall we?” I suggested as I carefully slit the sealing tape, opened up the flaps, and peered inside the first box.

“Whatcha got, mister?” Lia asked as I reached inside and pulled out an old’n’battered comic.

“Iron Man,” I said as I handed it to her.

“You’re sure? He’s seen better days. Oh, this one of the comics you used to read with your grandfather?” Lia twigged.

“Sid.”

“Sid?”

“Sid, as in ‘I’m Sid, grandfather’s just a job I inherited, so you call me Sid’.”

“Wow. You too?”

“Me too what?”

“Dad’s Remy.”

“Who what?”

Lia giggled. “My Dad. His name’s Remy. I always called him Remy. Never Dad. Of course sometimes he was ‘daddy’ but only when I was wheedling.”

“You’re a wheedler?”

Lia nodded seriously. “Oh absolutely. When I want a thing and I can’t get that thing? Jim, it’s only fair that I warn you but I can wheedle to county standard at least, maybe even national levels.”

“I never knew.”

Lia grinned. “You’ve never said ‘no’ to me yet so, y’know...”

“Not something I’m planning on saying any time soon, either, and yes, this is one of the comics Sid and I would read, and this box,” I said, pausing to check inside. “And this box is full of more of the same.”

“More?” Lia asked as she handed me the comic and I put it back in the box, labelling the side before I moved it away from the rest.

“Oh. You’re not going to look at more?” Lia asked.

I shook my head. “Not this morning. Lots of comics, lots I will have forgotten I ever read, but I’m afraid all the stories are either Sid bought this comic for me or Sid read this comic with me. Trust me, that’s a lot of variation on exactly the same theme, but not much interesting unless you’re secretly into comics?”

Lia shook her head. “You didn’t read books as a kid?”

“Not too much. School books, of course, but I was a teen before I really got into books, and just crappy fantasy I’ve never touched since.”

Lia nodded. “Any idea why you didn’t ‘do’ books?”

“I was the kid who read all his school books. After them? I wanted to read something that wasn’t a book.”

“No comics around here though?”

“I moved on. I’ve read a few of the famous ones like Watchmen, but now I prefer books.”

“Also but not too many? I’ve only seen the one book case.”

“Kindle.”

“Ah. Anything in there you should be telling me about before I find out for myself?”

“No, I deleted all the gay porn after we started dating.”

“Aw, that’s a shame.”

“It is? Why?”

“You don’t think girls can’t enjoy two oiled up young men going at it?”

“I, I never thought about it. Do you? Enjoy oiled up young men boning away on the pages of a book?”

Lia shook her head. “Oil gets into the paper and leaves stains,” she teased.

“And a Kindle wipes down. Interesting perspective. Now, let me get another of these boxes as if I’m right, there’s something you might find more interesting,” I said as I took down box number two.

“Me? Jim, we’re here to open the boxes for you, not me.”

“I know, and you’re just being here makes this less ... well, I was going to say a chore, but it’d be fairer to say it’s easier to remember things when you’re not alone with the memories.”

Lia turned, smiled, and hugged me as she kissed me softly on the cheek. “Okay, so what’s this you’re tantalising me with?”

“Postcards,” I grinned as I took out one of the identical blue leather bound photo albums from inside the box and handed it to her.

“Postcards? How’s that ... oh wow!” Lia said as she opened the album and looked inside. “These are incredible. And old.”

“I know. One of Sid’s idiosyncrasies. He travelled a lot for his work, and whenever he was abroad he would collect postcards of the places he visited. And they were ‘proper’ postcards as he called them, real scenes of real things, not ‘tourist tat’.”

“I can see that,” Lia said, pointing to an image of a cottage in front of an alp, the text at the bottom in Austrian so I couldn’t make much sense of it except for the annotation ‘1922’. “So what did he do?”

“Architect. Not one of the flashy ones, but the kind who works in a big firm, the kind who the flashier ones might turn to for ‘input’ when their latest ‘grandiose fucking spectacle’ has been rejected as unbuildable.”

“Wow. Build anything I’d know?”

I shook my head. “He was more a details man. The postcards? He didn’t just get what was new, he went looking for older postcards, too, building that had been bulldozed or got destroyed in the war, that kind of thing. Plus we exchanged.”

“You collect postcards?” Lia asked, a little cautious, like someone you know and love and respect just confessed how, by the way, they also really love traction engines and there’s a fair coming up this weekend.

I shook my head. “Not like Sid did, no, but whenever he was away somewhere, he would send me one or two postcards, and Dad encouraged me to do the same to him and Fenna when I was on holiday. Later, er, just to him.”

“Fenna?”

“His wife. My grandmother. She died when I was nine so I don’t really remember her much except from photos,” I said.

“Er, I gots to asks,” Lia mugged. “But ‘Fenna’?”

“Dutch.”

“Really? Wow. How did that happen?”

“Short version, he was over in Best - yes, he made that joke - working on some redevelopment, they met in a bar one night, they married out there, and they were inseparable ever after.”

“Sounds bravely impetuous.”

I shook my head. “He always said as soon as he met her, he knew. The rest? Just details.”

“Wow, now I’m wishing I’d had the chance to meet both of them.”

I chuckled. “Sid was an odd combination. He did the most conservative job in the world, but was also part of the process of some really avant garde builds. Dressed in a suit at work, but at home lived in denim jeans and tee-shirts.”

“And Fenna?”

I shrugged. “I was only nine when ... I don’t really remember her too well. Always smiling. Naughty. Smelled of coffee and fresh bread.”

“Fresh bread? That’s a perfume in the Netherlands?” Lia joked.

“No. She baked her own breads. Every other day she would be baking something first thing in the morning with a dough she’d made the night before. Never tasted bread as good as I remember hers was.”

“Sounds like you knew a bit about them.”

“They didn’t live too far away, down by the Brecon Beacons. I guess ... yeah, I guess I’d spend a week or so with them in the summer holidays plus the odd weekend here and there.”

“While you parents had date nights?” Lia asked.

“Huh?”

“Wait, you mean to tell me you never figured it out?” Lia smirked.

“Oh my God. And there I was thinking I was getting extra holidays?” I said as I realised what their young child would never imagine, that with me away the mice could play. “Sneaky buggers.”

Lia chuckled. “Something to ask your parents about?”

I shook my head. “Not really. They’re good in that you can talk to them about anything, but asking? That’s prying a little too much.”

Lia nodded. “Nicely balanced. So? That box? It’s full of albums of Sid’s old postcards?”

“Looks like his full collection, yes. It’s different not seeing in on the shelf of a bookcase, but yeah, I think they’re all there. You want to go through some more now?” I asked as Lia handed me the first album back.

“Can I look through them some other time?”

“Of course, any time you want.”

Lia beamed. “In that case, what’s in the next box?”

Smiling, I took down another box, slit the seal, peeked, and grinned as I passed it to her.

“You tell me.”

“Hmm. Sounds intriguing. Going to give me a hint?”

I shook my head. “Sid’s old camera.”

“His old camera, huh?” Lia said as she opened the flaps, looked inside, took out Sid’s camera, and sat back, her eyes wide. “Jim? You know what this is?”

“Sid’s camera stuff?”

“Sid’s camera stuff? Sid’s camera? You didn’t tell me Sid was also a professional photographer.”

“He wasn’t. He had a camera to take shots of buildings, that’s all. There should be some albums of those photos somewhere too.”

“Okay, you mean to tell me you really don’t know what this is?” Lia asked, clearly surprised I didn’t.

I shook my head.

“Jim, this is a Leica! It’s a fucking vintage Leica!”

“That’s good? I mean I’m getting from you that it is, but honestly, I don’t know anything about cameras? Remember how I’ve had to watch a tonne of YouTube videos to use your camera?”

Lia nodded. “I do and you’re right and give me a moment,” she said as she looked inside the box, found a manual, opened it, and a piece of paper fell out. “Oh this shit just got fucking real,” she said, her eyes wide as she read the paper, took out her phone, looked something up, and whistled softly as she nodded. “Okay, you’ll need to er, haha, you’re already sat down. That’s good. Jim, this is a Leica M2 and it looks pristine. And it was only serviced the end of last year. And it got a clean bill of health. Jim, you’ve got a fully working, fully serviced, fully fucking Leica M2. Please, Jim, you’ve got to promise me you’ll learn how to use this.”

“Okay, I mean sure, I guess. So to me this was just Sid’s old camera, older than me even when I was a kid. I get it’s special but what’s so special–”

“That I’m creaming my panties?”

I chuckled. “Quite.”

“Okay. If, and I mean if, but if you could get one of these, fully serviced and working, you wouldn’t have any change from fifteen hundred quid. And you’ve got one. And lenses. Jim? You, me, and this camera? You’re going to take boudoir photos of me that will scorch the fucking film!”

“I am? And, er, film?”

Lia nodded. “It’s so much better than digital. It has character and personality and, and, and...”

I smiled at her enthusiasm as it shone from her. “Okay. I get it. I don’t understand it, but I get it. My next thing is to learn how to use a film camera.”

“No, it’s to learn how to use a Leica.”

“I have to call it that?”

“You have a Leica, you have to tell everyone you’ve got a Leica. But you can’t join a camera club with it.”

“I can’t?”

Lia shook her head. “Nope. No way. You any idea how much vag you’d get with a Leica? Or cock? Or both? You’d get all the boning you want just for walking in with that in your hand. They’d probably not even stop to ask your name!”

“Got it. No camera club. Lots of YouTube. Maybe even some reading?”

“Reading and photography books.”

“Photography books?”

Lia nodded. “See how others have used a Leica. See what shots they took. See what photos Sid took, even if they were buildings there’s still composition’n’lighting’n’shit. And you absolutely have to see how they took boudoir shots with old film camera, old ones if you can find them, the photos I mean.”

“Got it.”

“Oh, and in black’n’white, too.”

“Black and white? Not colour and not make it black and white in PhotoShop?” I asked cautiously.

Lia shook her head. “No. You can tell the difference.”

“Er, one question? These boudoir photos? Of you? They’re nudes?” I asked. Lia nodded. “So where do I get them developed?”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“Ah, as ah shit, that’s a problem. I don’t just know where to take the film, I don’t know where to go that I can trust not to take copies. Er, you want to learn how to develop them?”

“And print them out?”

“Oh absolutely.”

“Me?”

“You?” Lia smiled.

“Not sure about this, but don’t I need a dark room for that?”

Lia nodded, smiling as she asked, “What do you do in this room?”

“Ah,” I chucked, guessing what was coming next.

“Promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“And just for the sake of curiosity and with us already having established I’m disinclined to say ‘no’ to you, what are you proposing to make this up to me?”

“Well we don’t have the time now, but later? How does the offer of a full-swallow pre-boning blowjob grab you?”

“By the throat,” I joked. “Seriously, you’re expecting a ‘no’ from me on that?”

“That’s my boy. Meanwhile, another box?”

“Already?”

Lia nodded. “If we don’t put this away, soon, I’ll be getting you to go get some film and start taking photos of me now.”

“Another box it is,” I said as the Leica was put safely to one side, and I opened another of the storage boxes. Inside, a surprise.

“More postcards?” Lia asked as I handed her one of the red coloured leather bound albums from the middle of the box.

“I guess, but I’ve not seen these before. Sid kept his postcards in black albums like the others we’ve already seen, and his building shots were grey with details on the spines. These? No idea.”

“Ooh, intriguing,” Lia grinned as she flipped the album open a little from the beginning. “Bloody hell,” she said as she held the album open for me to see. “You don’t need to go hunting out old boudoir photos, it looks like Sid collected French postcards.”

“French postcards?” I asked as I looked at the postcard, showing a women in her twenties, maybe, with hair that screamed pre-war, and that was all she was wearing as she lay back on a chaise longue, nude, looking up at the window to the right of the image. “Bloody hell indeed. I’d no idea.”

Lia shrugged. “People’s people. Sid liked naked old people, haha, I mean old postcards of naked people.”

“So it seems,” I said as Lia flicked through the rest of the album. It was more of the same. Different models. All nude, semi-nude, or coy-shy nude.

“You know, some of these are really good,” she said, pausing and pointing before moving on. “And that’s ‘good’ like how if someone with his new Leica were to suggest I pose like this ... or this ... oh and definitely like this one... ?”

“It would be a good thing?”

Lia grinned as she nodded. “Blowjobs for days, easily. It’s just a shame about the whole boudoir thing though.”

“Because?”

Lia sighed. “Kind of need a boudoir if you’re going to take boudoir photos of me all languorous’n’nude’n’shit, and if this going to be a darkroom...”

“About that?”

“Hmm?”

“Let me check something a moment?” I asked as I pulled out my phone, Googled something I think I’d heard Sid talk about once, and smiled as I prepared to make Lia’s day twice over. “You know how smart people are at solving things? Seems I don’t need a darkroom. There’s a couple of options, but it looks like you use a sealed tank to drop the film into, add the chemicals, and ta-da, it’s all done bar the printing. No dark room, just a kitchen table, some chemicals, a blackout bag, and a plastic tank.”