Chapter 21: Moving Tribute

“WE’RE MOVING.”

“Now?” I asked. What the hell? When we moved here, they said four years. This was not good.

If my reaction was poor, Kat’s was off the chart.

“NO! I’m not going!” She threw herself at me and I held her as she started sobbing against my shoulder. I guess I had some tears, too.

“Mom, what happened?” I asked. “They said four years. Why did they just change it? Where are we supposed to move to?” I had visions of being sent across the state again, or maybe to East St. Louis.

“It’s a whole lot of things, kids,” Mom said. She was sagging against Dad and tears were running from her eyes, too. “The Methodist and EUB churches down in Sage voted to combine their congregations into a single church. The Methodists just built a new church and the Bishop and Cabinet decided this was a perfect opportunity to put a new minister over the combined congregation. It’s not that far. You’ll still be able to see your friends. It’s only thirty miles south of here.”

Dad pried Kat away from me and took her to sit on the sofa.

“Honey, it’s better this way. You start high school in the fall. It will be much easier for you to adjust to a new school as a freshman when everyone is in a new school than after you’ve been a year here and have to leave all your high school friends,” he said.

“But ... I still have to leave my friends. Julie and Brian, and Patricia and Toni, and Vanessa. I’ll never see them. And the studio. You’re not going to move, are you, Nate?” Kat pled.

Crap! What could I do? I had three girlfriends and a goddaughter here in Tenbrook. My Attic Allure Studio. What about our plans for Vegas? I could just stay in the hotel. That would be okay. It would be the same as a dormitory. Except in the fall, I still wouldn’t be here. I’d be in Chicago. And a dorm room wasn’t like you moved everything with you. I still had a room at home. It had my bed and my clothes and stuff I’d collected over the years. It was where I came home to.

I sank into a chair and put my head in my hands. Mom put a hand on my shoulder, then sat next to Kat and Dad. We’d left Chicago to start a new life where we’d make real friends. It worked. I realized that in just three years, I’d come to think of Tenbrook as home. This was where I was anchored to friends and lovers.

Damn it! No wonder the kids who were born and raised here never left! They grew up in this environment and had friends they’d known all their lives. A few went off to college or trade schools. Some couldn’t wait to leave. Many moved to Huntertown or Fulton to get work. But they kept cycling back into Tenbrook. I guessed that half my classmates would marry someone from our town. No wonder.

We’d have the week to get the house all packed up and ready to move. The conference coordinated the moves and we were scheduled out a week from Monday. But Mom would be in the pulpit in Sage next Sunday. She wouldn’t stand in the pulpit in Tenbrook or in Huffington again.

But I had my own problems. I had models scheduled every day this week. Mom asked me to take care of packing my own room and help Kat pack hers. The movers would deliver boxes for us the next day. They’d assess how much there was to move and if they needed any special crates. I thought maybe I should move my sister’s horse in the VW. I knew there were other valuable things in the house. We had a pretty good collection of depression glass. And Mom had collected souvenir salt and pepper shakers from wherever we had vacationed.

I wouldn’t move the studio. Really, I couldn’t move it. A bunch of stuff was slated to travel with us to Las Vegas. And there would be no place for an entire studio at our new home in Sage. This was a unique space. It was only thirty miles from Sage, so I could move and still come to work in Tenbrook.

At least for the near future—the rest of the summer—Dad was going to keep his job in Huntertown. It would mean a 45-mile commute for him—an hour each way. He said the conference considered that in reassigning Mom. They felt that was still manageable. I guess that was a new consideration for the Bishop and Cabinet. When they moved a male minister, it was assumed his wife would simply quit her job if she had one and go wherever he went. Dad was a preacher’s wife. They were making an extra consideration regarding his job. Maybe it would help other wives in the future.

I was exhausted when I got to the studio Monday morning. I don’t think I slept much Sunday night. Everyone was worried because I hadn’t gone back to the hotel. I explained what had happened and they were all shocked.

“This won’t affect what we’re doing. We’re still going to Las Vegas. We still have models coming in every day this week. It will mean that I need to spend my evenings at home, helping get packed. I’ll have to spend any extra time in the studio working on printing orders. I think it means I’ll be depending on all of you to keep things running smoothly and get us ready for Vegas.”

“You don’t really need me in the studio this week,” Patricia said. “Beth can take over my responsibilities. I’ll go to your house and help Kat and your mom. They’re going to be swamped. And there are things of mine and Toni’s at your house.”

“I’m good with that,” Beth said, hugging Patricia. “As long as I don’t have to have a baby as part of those responsibilities. You probably know Nate’s house and family better than any of the rest of us. That makes sense.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. You’re always so thoughtful. Kat loves you and it will mean a lot to her,” I said.

“Our model will be here in fifteen minutes,” Anna announced. “We should get ourselves in gear and get ready. Today is a straight portfolio shoot. She’s a musician and getting ready to go out on her own.”

“What kind of music?” Judy asked.

“She plays violin ... I guess she refers to it as a fiddle. Plans to head to Tennessee and get involved with country and bluegrass music.”

“That should give us something to work with. I’m assuming most of her pictures will involve her holding her violin ... er ... fiddle. Let’s pull the countryside backdrop and check for supporting props and costumes,” I said.

Everyone started hustling to get the studio ready. My four girlfriends all came up to me for a deep kiss and Patricia took Toni to head for my house.

It was a good day and we got some cute pictures she could use for her promotion and advertising. Apparently, she was going out on tour with a bluegrass band and intended to have her picture on posters.

We finished the work and I went home to help get the house packed.

“Kat, we’re going to decorate a model today,” I said Wednesday morning at breakfast. “Would you like to sketch her?”

“Can I?”

“I’m inviting you. She’s been sent by a patron as a model to pose as we see fit. In other words, she’s being paid. We should get the patron’s money’s worth. One of my assistants, Leanne, is an expert with makeup and has ideas for how to create artistic beings out of models. I don’t know how well it will work, but we’ll have plenty of time to pose her and hold her there while I take pictures and you sketch. You’ll have to work fast, though.”

“I can do that. Um ... Could Julie come with me so I’m not like the only kid there.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that, but Julie would be welcome. She might learn something about modeling.”

Mom gave me a smile and nodded to me. Patricia had been with me all night and was holding Toni for breakfast.

“Enjoy the last meal in the kitchen. We’re packing it today,” Patricia said.

“I need to go down to Sage to meet with the pastor/parish committee this afternoon,” Mom said. “I hate to leave you alone, Patricia. Maybe you should go over to the studio this afternoon.”

“We’ll see how things are going,” Patricia said. “Maybe Ronda could be spared to come and help me.”

Melody Anders was a stunning model who had obviously worked in many photo studios and art studios. We explained the concept and Leanne showed her sketches. Melody thought it all sounded very Avant Garde. We had her for the entire day, so we went straight to work with standard portraiture. She appreciated having a new headshot and was very cooperative when we started doing some Attic Allure shots with her nude and posing with a strip of fabric or in a good figure drawing pose.

After the first long pose that Kat sketched, Melody came over to talk to her and look at the sketch. She talked to Julie about modeling as well, and went to take another pose so Kat could sketch her before we got ready for our next scene. I moved in for some photos of the pose, as well. Melody seemed to know more about posing than all the rest of us combined. We gave her a break and after lunch, Leanne started working with her on the Avant Garde makeup and costume bits.

Ronda happily left to join Patricia in packing up the kitchen and my bedroom. I was sure there was nothing in my bedroom that would shock either girl. I did, however, think my old nighttime companion album was in a desk drawer. They’d have fun with that.

Leanne called me into the makeup room, which is what we’d begun calling the first restroom. Melody was on a stool, wearing a robe as Leanne finished her facial makeup. It was impressive.

“How did you find such brilliant colors of makeup?” I asked. Melody had red and blue chevrons next to her eyes.

“It’s tempera,” Leanne said. “I’m just getting started using it and currently, I’m applying it with a brush. I like it and I think I’ll invest in an airbrush this fall.”

“I think it’s great.”

“Now I need to apply the costume bits. You’ll have to help hold them in place as I glue them,” Leanne said. Melody shrugged out of her robe, revealing that Leanne had painted down over her chest and left breast.

While I’d adjusted positions for Melody and touched her to shift her around, I hadn’t really been very intimate in the touches. After all, my sister was sitting right there watching. Leanne’s concept was to glue crinkled tinfoil in various strategic places that would make Melody look a little like a hybrid human and robot.

My job involved holding bits of tinfoil to Melody’s face, neck, nipples, and like a belt over her pussy. When we were finished, Melody reached up and gave me a little kiss.

“When we are finished with this, I hope you will take great care in slowly removing each piece of this costume from my sensitive bits,” she said. I gave a squeeze to one of her sensitive bits and agreed. Before we left, Leanne added just a bit of glitter to Melody’s hair.

“He might have to shower with you to get that out,” she whispered.

We tried a couple of different backdrops as Melody posed and held the poses long enough for Kat to finish a sketch. We took a few minutes between each couple of poses to give Melody a chance to work the kinks out of her muscles and have a drink. The pace of the work was much closer to what I envisioned working with a large format camera would be like. I’d done a few limited sessions with a 4x5 camera and really liked the results.

We worked all afternoon on the poses and Melody added a lot with some action poses that gave both Kat and me a challenge to capture. And at the end of the day, I did help Melody get out of her costume and carefully cleaned the bits of spirit gum off her nipples and her skin. We made out a little and I freely explored her naked body, but I didn’t try to bring her to an orgasm, nor did we shower together. It was more like just winding down after an intense day.

When Kat and I got to the house, we found that not only were Patricia and Ronda working to get things packed, but half a dozen church ladies had arrived and were carefully wrapping and packing the knickknacks and glassware in the kitchen and scrubbing the stove and refrigerator.

Elise Berg was there to take care of Toni as Patricia and Ronda worked in the house. Kat found that Patricia had neatly packed nearly everything in her room and was so relieved that it was done that she broke down in tears. Julie had come home with us and she and Patricia held Kat and comforted her.

“You know, Kat, Julie is almost sixteen,” I said.

“Does that mean I can sign a model release and have you take my pictures?” Julie asked.

“Um ... We can ... uh ... discuss that when you’re ready. I was thinking of other things that being sixteen means. Like getting a driver’s license,” I said.

“Yeah. I’m signed up for the July session of drivers’ ed. I should be able to get my license as soon as I turn sixteen,” Julie said. Then the light came on. “Hey! That means I could come and visit you, Kat! I’ll be able to drive and I’m sure I’ll be able to use the car sometimes. I can still be your model!”

“Would you? Will you, Julie?” Kat cried.

“Yeah! I’d really miss being with you. I’ll even bring you-know-who with me sometimes. It just limits the kind of modeling I can do. I’m not going to get naked in front of my brother. Again,” Julie said.

“That was an accident,” Kat laughed. “He was so embarrassed he ran out of the studio and wouldn’t talk to me for three days.”

“It was probably because you were ... um ... posing me,” Julie whispered.

Oh, my! I thought I’d heard enough and fled the room, too. I was not going to talk to Kat about how she posed Julie.

I talked to Jeri Dawson, our model on Friday, who said she just wanted some unique photos and would be happy to pose in any way. She also whispered that she’d heard I was very good at getting a model into any position I wanted her.

“I hope maybe you can show me some new positions,” she whispered.

“Uh ... Jeri, whatever you’ve heard, I don’t have sex with models.”

“Oh well. You can still get me in the position.”

Great. We did some fairly standard shots—portrait and typical Attic Allure poses. It irritated me to even think of an Attic Allure pose as being typical, but I had established the feel of an Attic Allure photo and now we needed to work on making them unique. When we really got to a good stage, perhaps I’d get better at turning them into art.

“We’ll need group transport,” I told Chrystal. “Our next pose is in the wild.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Chrystal said. “I was getting bored. Once I find out what you need in an outdoor setting, I can start putting together a list of possible settings for Las Vegas.”

We loaded cameras and tripod and reflective sheets that we could use to light the subject. I had Judy and Patricia pull together fabric in which to drape Jeri. We let her put on a sweatsuit and thong sandals for the trip. Anna grabbed all the towels she could find.

One of the popular make-out places along the river was also popular for skinny dipping. It was a decent day, so I figured it was a good time to get wet.

I directed Chrystal to the location, but the bus was too big to pull all the way down to where kids usually parked, so we had to get everything out of the bus and carry it down to the water’s edge. I pulled Jeri aside to talk to as I started getting her ready.

“We might all have to get naked by the time this day is over,” I said as I unzipped her sweatshirt to take off. She closed the distance and gave me a kiss.

“I can’t wait to see you naked,” she said, pulling my hands to her breasts. “Are you going to get me wet?”

“That depends on what you mean. Before the photo, I’m going to try to keep you out of the water. If there’s another way I can get you wet, I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’ve had a good start all day so far. You do like me a little, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, Jeri. I like you and I think you are pretty spectacular as a model and as a woman. Your breasts are just perfect. And your ass is simply unbelievable,” I said as I pushed her sweatpants down over the beautiful globes of her butt. “I don’t want you to get dirty out here, either, so I’ll just carry you over to the water.”

I took her to the water’s edge and called Judy and Leanne to work on her a bit. I wanted flowers in her hair.

“Obviously, we’re at the water and I’d like Jeri to be my nymph. Um ... What did they call them? Not a dryad. Those are tree spirits. Naiad. That’s the water spirit. So, flowers in her hair. Some filmy cloak. We’ll start out with it dry, but we might get it wet and see how it shapes to her skin. Oh, let’s wrap some of our vines around her legs. We brought the high heel sandals? Good. I’ll leave her to you.”

I stepped over to check the camera, which Beth and Anna had set up. Ronda had been whispering to the other helpers, especially those who weren’t from Tenbrook, to tell them about this location.

While I was at the camera, I casually stripped off my shoes, trousers, and shirt. I left my briefs on. When they saw what I was doing, clothes started to fly.

“Theresa, Debbie, and Pris will start as our lighting people. Get reflectors. Patricia, honey, let me use you as a stand-in to get focused on.” I scooped Patricia up in my arms and carried her out into the water to a rock about ten feet off shore. She giggled and kissed me while I waded. The water wasn’t quite up to my crotch, for which I was thankful, because it was pretty cold.

I set her on the rock and did some petting as I got her into a pose.

“Okay, lights. Bring your reflectors into the water so you can catch the sunlight and direct it to our model.”

I positioned them, making my way to each of my assistants and making sure they knew I appreciated their nudity. I went back to the shore and looked through the camera lens. I’d had Beth and Anna set up both my Nikon and my Hasselblad camera as I thought I might want to take pictures of more than just our model. I fired off one of Patricia and then had Pris move further into the water to get more light on her right. While the water wasn’t up to my crotch, it was definitely caressing the pussies of my assistants.

I turned back to Jeri to find that both Leanne and Judy had joined in the nudity. I asked Beth to fire off a few shots on the Nikon while we went out to get posed. Then I picked up Jeri and carried her into the water. Patricia had already vacated the rock and jogged back to shore. When I looked over, I saw her talking to equally naked Cassie and Chrystal. One and all, I guess. I was glad that Toni was being watched by Grandma Ellie on this day. We were all pretty relaxed, even though there was some exclaiming over the temperature of the water. It was only the 20th of June.

Judy and Leanne waded out with me and helped get Jeri in position and arrange the flowers and the gauzy drape over her. Jeri openly enjoyed the fondling of our naiad as we got her into position. I went back and switched over to the Hasselblad as Beth continued to take pictures of each of our staff as we worked together. I did get the reflectors repositioned a couple of times and after every couple of photos, I waded back into the water to shift Jeri to a new position.

“God, look at her legs in that position,” Ronda whispered beside me. “She is beautiful.”

“She sure is,” I agreed.

Then I felt Patricia and Ronda take hold of my briefs and pull them down.

“Today, everyone goes nude,” Patricia giggled. “Jeri deserves to know you appreciate her looks.”

We worked for half an hour and I waded out to Jeri several times. She did seem to appreciate my nudity, as she stroked my rod as much as I handled her breasts and legs to get her in position. She was smiling and joking all the time we worked.

“Are you wet, yet?” I asked as I probed between her legs.

“I’m definitely getting there,” she laughed.

“I’m going to really get you wet now,” I said.

I had her lean back and arranged the gauzy cover over her. Then I scooped up a handful of water and poured it over her.

“Oh, shit!” she said. “I know that made my nipples hard, but I’m not sure it made anything else wet. Talk about a cold shower.”

The effect, however, was perfect. The gauzy cover clung to her skin and turned pretty much transparent. She looked like a nymph who was just drying herself in the sun. I had to shift Theresa and Debbie as the light had changed with the advancing sun.

I carried the Hasselblad into the river with me, being very careful to keep it from getting wet. I took a couple of closeups and then shifted Jeri so she was ready to slither off the rock. I moved back and handed the camera to Cassie to put back on the tripod, then went out to help Jeri stand on the rock in a regal pose as if looking off into the distance.