Chapter 13: Bah! Humbug!

I printed the picture that Leah specifically wanted, with her bent over and looking back over her shoulder, her pussy on full display and in sharp focus. She wasn’t even interested in looking at the other proofs. I examined the picture carefully and tried to identify everything I saw there with the diagram that had been in my facts of life book. But it didn’t really do anything for me. It was more like a medical exam. When it came to rubbing one off late at night, I much preferred the picture of Patricia with her tits exposed and making a kissy face at me. I mean at the camera.

Two of the world’s most perfect breasts. She’d told me I could see them just about anytime I wanted to. That was quite a promise.

If I had to fix an exact time, I’d say that Wednesday was the day things started to fall apart on me. It should have been a good day. I had three senior girls come up to me to ask if I’d retake their senior pictures for them. I told them to meet me in Miss Sullivan’s classroom after school and I’d give them the price sheet and set an appointment. I’d put together a standard package deal and typed several copies up. Pam and Lori had warned me that everyone would want a retake. I wasn’t about to offer everyone the opportunity for a modeling agreement. The retake agreement spelled out that I owned the negatives and would sell prints at $3.00 each for a 5x7 and $5.00 each for an 8x10. The $40 basic package included the proof sheet for them to select their prints and one each of the 5x7 and 8x10 for their yearbook and personal use.

Cool. Three girls at $40 each plus I still had three cheerleaders to do who might or might not have modeling agreements. Regardless, Pam had already ordered a dozen of her photos at half price, so even with the free sitting, I’d make about $30. Seniors were notorious for ordering a dozen or more of their senior photos to ship off to grandparents and other relatives. I had a feeling their parents would be paying for them.

When I first did Patricia’s Garret Allure photo, I’d called up Levi at Camera Warehouse in Chicago and asked him about the best photo paper for glamour portraits. After we talked for a while, I put in an order for satin finish fiber based paper (sometimes called double weight) and the chemicals I’d need to process it. I also got a dozen plexiglass drying plates and a rack that hung from the bathroom door for drying the prints. While the fiber based paper has better archival quality with deep blacks and brilliant whites, it takes a long time to enlarge and develop. I wasted some paper and money on the first few I printed by rushing the process. Even rinsing the photos took longer—like half an hour compared to a couple of minutes for resin coated paper. And it tore more easily when wet. It took me a while to get the knack for it. But when people saw the comparison prints I did of Patricia’s portrait done on glossy RC paper compared to satin FB paper, they inevitably wanted the fiber print. I set a premium for it and only printed 8x10 photos at double the standard rate. Yearbook photos, of course, all got printed on glossy RC paper.

Well, that was a little digression, I guess, but when the girls had agreed to meet me in Miss Sullivan’s classroom after school, Anna turned to me with a puzzled expression on her face.

“Are you retaking all the senior pictures?” she asked.

“No. But a lot of them were truly awful. I guess the guys don’t much care, but the girls have a really keen awareness that this photo in the yearbook is going to be the way their classmates remember them for years to come. Miss Sullivan said this was not officially a school project since the school already paid for the original photos, so I can charge a sitting fee and they pay for prints,” I explained.

“Oh. I didn’t know you were doing that.”

“I’ve only had time to do one so far. It turned out well enough that others want me to do them.”

“I didn’t know you were taking pictures of a lot of other girls,” she said.

I should have known that wasn’t the end of it.

We had a home game Friday night and I spent a lot of time getting pictures of the cheer block and people yelling. I caught a couple more good ones of the cheerleaders and a couple of good action shots, too. There was one I was sure would be on the bulletin board Monday.

There was a dance after the game. This is such a small town with so little to do that the school holds a dance after just about every home game. It gives kids something to do on a date night instead of just going out to park, I guess. Not that I had that option.

Anna said she was really tired and didn’t want to go to the dance, so I walked her home after the game. On the way out the door, Avery, the kind of aloof cheerleader, spotted me and said, “So, 2:00 Sunday, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you then.”

Anna didn’t say anything on the way home, but just before she went inside, she suggested that maybe we could meet up Saturday afternoon. I told her I’d be finished with the laundry about two o’clock and she said she’d meet me downtown.

“Where do you do the retakes of senior photos?” she asked when we’d grabbed a soda at Sweet Treats. Mr. Lewis wasn’t open for too long on Saturday afternoon, but we got there just in time.

“In my studio,” I said.

“Where’s that?”

“You know. It’s on the top floor of Center Marketplace.” I was sure we’d talked about that before.

“I thought that was just where you have your darkroom.”

“It is, but I have a little studio up there, too.”

“I want to see.”

Well, that was a nice idea. Alone with Anna in the studio, I could be persuaded to break my rule about not kissing there. We walked around to the back of the store and climbed the stairs. I unlocked the door.

I was pretty proud of the way the place looked. It was really feeling like a professional studio. I had it set with the white backdrop down and the stool set for the portrait I’d do the next day. Then we’d reset for Avery’s glamour photo. Anna walked into the room and looked around it with a look of amazement on her face. Then she went and stood in front of my display wall with around fifteen photos on it. I’d found it helped for people to be able to see what was possible.

Anna whispered and as she spoke her voice got louder.

“Patricia. Judy. Janice. Christine. Pam. And you’ve got Avery tomorrow and then those three girls who stopped you in the hall this week?” she was almost at a hysterical pitch, but I didn’t recognize it for what it was. I thought she was really pleased that I was getting so much business.

“Yeah. Would you like me to do photos of you? We could set up some really nice ones. You’re a lot prettier than any of these.”

“No!” she snorted. “You just bring girls up here? Alone? And you take sexy photos of them?” she demanded, pointing to the glamour photos of Patricia and Pam.

“Well, if they want sexy photos, sure. I call it garret allure. My own style and brand. But look at Judy’s picture. Have you ever seen her look so sweet and innocent?” I asked.

“This is not okay!” Anna declared, grabbing my immediate attention, and telling me something was wrong.

“What’s not okay?” I asked, still not grasping the issue.

“That you bring pretty girls up here alone and get all sexy with them, unchaperoned and just together!” She was working herself up into a real frenzy.

“It’s just a picture.”

“You can’t do this anymore!”

“What do you mean? You know I’m a photographer. This is what I do!”

“Not and date me. No way, Nate. I can’t be your girlfriend if you have all these other girls you’re with.”

“I’m not with these other girls. I take their pictures.”

“Not with me. Make a choice, Nate. Stop doing this or stop dating me.”

Oh, shit! I’d brought her up here thinking we might jump the gun and kiss five days before her birthday. Instead, she was giving me an ultimatum! Stop taking pictures up here? Even if I never took another picture of a girl’s breasts, there was no way I was giving up getting my actual career started. I’d be taking pictures of girls—and men and women and children—for the rest of my life.

“I can’t just stop being a photographer, Anna. This is who I am,” I pled. Her lip quivered.

“Goodbye, Nate. I can’t be with you like this.”

She turned and walked out the door as I stared after her.

Jesus Christ! What just happened?

I just went from having a fun girlfriend and thinking we might kiss to being dumped in my own studio!

I knew better than to stay in a place where there was so much stuff that I could destroy. I stormed out the door and locked the studio behind me. I grabbed my bike and headed out of town on River Road.

I pedaled hard for an hour. I was crying and screaming. It was so unfair. Why did I have to choose between dating Anna and taking pictures? Why would she do this to me? She had to know I was waiting for her. I wasn’t even going to get to kiss her! Damn it! Damn her!

I came to a stop at a bridge. The river was a lot narrower here than in Tenbrook. I wheeled my bike off the road into a hay field and down toward the water. It was cold out and I’d been sweating. I wasn’t really dressed for temperatures in the twenties. At least it wasn’t snowing, but the wind was out of the north and cold. I picked a rock up and threw it in the river. Then another and another. I had my camera on my back, as always and I almost ripped it off and threw it in the river. That would show her.

Show her what? God, I could be stupid. I’d seen six naked girls since I moved to this town out in the sticks. And I had to fall for the one who wouldn’t even kiss me because she wasn’t seventeen. Stupid idiot!

I snapped a couple of photos in the waning light of day under a cloudy sky. Everything looked a little flat and unreal. Then I got back on my bike and started riding toward town. At least the wind was behind me, but my hands and ears were freezing.

It was dark when I got home and Mom and Dad were getting worried. I’d told them I was just going downtown to meet Anna for a soda. Then I didn’t come back. I apologized and said I didn’t mean to worry them.

“Your ears are red. You’ve been outside in freezing weather too long,” Mom said. “What happened?”

There was nothing but to fess up.

“Anna broke up with me. I was a little upset and went for a ride.”

“Go upstairs and run a hot bath. Dinner will be ready in half an hour,” Dad said. He always cooked on Saturday night, but Mom had finally gotten him to stop using a ton of garlic on Saturdays.

I nodded and dragged myself upstairs.

I met Avery in the loft at two o’clock on Sunday. She laid forty dollars on the table.

“I’m not interested in anything except the yearbook photo and this garret allure photo thing.”

“Okay,” I said. I was a little relieved. I really wasn’t ready to do a bunch of sex shots. “Let’s start with the yearbook photo. I honestly don’t know how that photographer messed up your pictures. It’s like he had the entirely wrong lens settings for the environment. We can try a few different poses and expressions. Have a seat on the stool and I’ll do a couple of light meter readings.” She sat and I held the meter near her face. “Do you have any powder with you? You’ve got a shiny spot on your forehead,” I said.

She jumped up from the stool and grabbed for her bag.

“Mirror in the bathroom,” I said, pointing. She rushed in. A few minutes later she came out of the bathroom and set her bag back on the chair. It looked like she’d touched up all her makeup while she was at it. I handed her a tissue. “Blot your lips a little. That dark red will look black in the photo.” She was startled, but blotted. “Now lick a little so they’re shiny.” She did. “Smile.”

I took the first photo and she relaxed. Her smile was much more natural in the second photo and simply dazzling in the third. I had her shift a little and turn her head toward me. We tried a couple of other expressions, but there was no question that the most natural was her brilliant smile. We were both into the session by the time I finished the yearbook shots and I was sure we had a couple of good ones.

“What would you like for your garret allure photo?” I asked. “Any special position? Costume? Props? Bare shoulders or covered?”

She started pulling her shirt off.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said. “I’m not a slut like Pam is. If you take a picture of my nipples, you have to crop them out of the print. On the other hand, I definitely want my cleavage down as far as you can get it without showing my nips. And if I ever find you sold a picture of them, I won’t bother suing you. I’ll kill you.”

“That’s what our agreement is about. You aren’t a model, you’re a client. I own the negatives, but you are the only authorized buyer of prints. I can probably get pretty close to what you want with your bra on.”

“You don’t want to see me topless?” she asked.

“It’s not a requirement,” I said. “This is your photo session.”

She had the shoulder straps of her bra down but then leaned over to get her purse. She pulled out a cigarette and put it between her lips. Then she lit it. I moved quickly to get an ashtray set on the table near her. She smiled at me and then rather defiantly used one hand behind her back to unsnap her bra and let it fall into her lap.

I was faced with yet another pair of phenomenal boobs.

She crossed her left arm under her breasts and took hold of her upper right arm, effectively pushing them up and together to enhance the cleavage. She raised her other hand with the cigarette and smiled at the camera.

“How’s this?”

“Good. Really good.”

“I practiced it in front of a mirror.”

“Turn to your left a little further and drop your head a bit. That’s it. You’ve been using your Hollywood smile. Let me see one that’s a little more seductive.”

She picked up on the concept right away and took a puff of her cigarette and then letting the smoke drift from her mouth as she gave me an absolutely ‘fuck me’ gaze. Her slightly puckered lips with the smoke coming from her mouth was as sexy as anything I’d ever seen. We took half a dozen more variations, but I was pretty sure we had exactly what she wanted.

“That’s a wrap. I’ll have the proof sheet by Wednesday. Since the proofs include an occasional nipple shot, you’ll need to stop by here to pick them up. I can’t bring them to school.”

She stood up and stretched, spreading and flattening the boobs that had been tightly compressed a minute before. She snubbed out the cigarette and reached for her bra, being intentionally—I thought—slow and deliberate about putting it on. She smiled at me as she shook her boobs into the bra and pulled her blouse on.

“You know, you can be just as sexy fully dressed as you can naked,” I said. “Let me get one more shot of you just standing there like that.”

She stopped buttoning her blouse about two buttons short of the one-button maximum allowed by the school. She stood there in a plaid miniskirt and the partially open blouse and I got a nice full-length portrait. I wished the school allowed skirts that short.

She picked up her things and headed for the door.

“Thanks, Nate. Put me down for three o’clock on Wednesday to look at the proofs.”

“You’ve got it, Avery. See you then.”

Our whole session had taken only an hour. I had plenty of time to process the film from the past week in school and Avery’s photos. I printed proofs, chose my pick of the week to enlarge, and then looked over Avery’s proof sheet.

She had big boobs. I think the biggest of any of the girls I’d photographed so far. When she had her bra and tight cheer sweater on, they looked even bigger. But when I looked at them bare in the picture, they left me cold—a lot like Leah had. This was definitely a case in which cropping the photo would improve it.

I was a little worried about how things would play out at school now that Anna and I were no longer a couple. We’d been together since the first day of school. I found out quickly when she called me into the hall at lunch. She had Tony in the hall against the mugshot board. I was a little worried about that, but Patricia was standing nearby and Tony was grinning. Pretty much the whole school had heard about him being called into the police station.

“Remember to smile, Tony,” Anna admonished him as she had his sign to him. He glanced at it and couldn’t stop laughing as he held it up.

“T. Kowalski: False Arrest.”

We all had a good time laughing at that. When I got the shots, Patricia and Tony went into the lunchroom. I stopped for a minute to talk to Anna.

“I’m glad you’re still working with me on yearbook photos,” I said.

She looked at me a little sadly and shrugged.

“As you would say, it’s my job. I’m not going to quit it.”

I nodded and went to finish my lunch.

The only other time we really talked at all was Thursday. We weren’t walking to class together anymore, even though we were still in the same seats next to each other. When the bell rang, I leaned over and whispered.

“Happy birthday, Anna. I hope you have a great day.”

She turned to me and smiled a megawatt smile and then skipped off down the hall.

There was an away game Friday night, but I didn’t bother to go.

I did a lot of cleaning in the studio and arranging things on Saturday after I finished my chores. Avery had been by on Wednesday and ordered her prints. It was a pretty big order. She said she’d make it worth my while. I showed her the cropping I had in mind for her garret allure photo and she loved it. She wanted one of it on the premium paper and ordered ten more 8x10s in glossy. The yearbook photo was an easy pick as well. She paid me the $60 extra on the spot.

While the laundry was in the machine Saturday morning, I went to the lumber store and bought a few supplies to make a dimmer board. It wasn’t very sophisticated. It pretty much ran to an outlet and then my two flood lights plugged into the other side. Between, I wired dimmer switches that I could control the two lights from. It had space that I could wire a couple more dimmers into if I got more lights. It did give me better control of the temperature of lighting on the stage area.

And on Sunday afternoon, Chris came over for a Christmas photo shoot. She had a couple of outfits with her and got busy right away setting her scene. I pulled the light blue backdrop for the scene and moved the fireplace in front of it with candles on the mantel and a wreath hung on it. I’d visited the antique shop and traded in the knick-knacks for a picture, a telephone, and a clock. The clock cost twenty bucks, so I was really careful with it. I hung the picture of a winter scene from a string across the backdrop stand.