Chapter 3: The Set Up

It’s really amazing just how quickly one can adapt to not sleeping alone, especially when the someone is a person as cuddly as Lou. It’s also amazing how well one can sleep with another person just a few inches away. I slept well that night despite all of the turmoil going on.

I got up at my usual time and Jake was ready for his walk. He was a little more anxious this morning than he was last night and wanted to smell just about everything. I was more interested in the exercise aspect of our walk, so I was almost pulling him along. He did his business, I cleaned it up and we finished our route. By the time we got home, Lou was up and moving around.

She was dressed in one of my button-down shirts that she was wearing as if it were a robe. It certainly was big enough on her, but her legs peeking out from the shirttails were enough to get me started. I came into the bedroom as she was bent over straightening the bed and I put one hand on her hip and put the other beneath the shirttail. As I rubbed her ass, she made a small moan that almost sounded like a purr.

She straightened up, turned around and put her arms around my neck. She said, “As much as I would like to linger and make love, we both have things to do today. I need to go to the city and talk with Mr. Tralmark, and you have a meeting with Jim Willis. Do you have a senior this morning?”

“No,” I answered. “I still have the wedding photography to work through and some other things to do, but I’ll call Willis when I get to the studio. Then, when I get back, I’ll probably call Nils and see if he has a line on models that might be up for this enterprise.”

“Nils,” she said. “Isn’t that your artist friend over in C__________? He paints a lot of nudes, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. I hear he’s living with one of his models, or she’s living with him.”

“Well, you better include me in this calendar you’re doing!” she said, punctuating her words with a finger in my chest. “I want to be there to keep you out of trouble!” She giggled at that.

“Hmmm,” I said. “I suppose you expect to get paid, too. Right?”

“You betcha!” she replied. “If I am going to be there for several hours, I expect to get paid, and paid well, too.” With that she turned and unbuttoned the couple buttons she had closed and dropped the shirt on the bed. A naked Lou was something to behold. She had a gracefulness and a presence about her few women had. I was instantly hard for her.

She noticed that my walking shorts had a tent in them where my cock was. “Now, now,” she said. “I said we didn’t have time for that this morning.” She patted my cock through the cloth. She then reached up and pulled down my shorts and gave my cock a lingering, loving suck as she kissed it. “I’ll make it up to you, my friend,” she said, addressing my cock instead of me. “I’ll be back tonight and if you’re not too tired, you can try again to get me pregnant.” She knew exactly how to get him to jump, which he did. She giggled and pulled my shorts back up. “Keep thinking those happy thoughts,” she finished as she patted him again.

She went to the closet and took out the dress she had worn the night before. We hadn’t yet gotten to the point where she kept a change of clothes at my place. That would change in the near future, I hoped. I wanted her to bring all of her stuff from her apartment and move in with me. We hadn’t discussed that yet, but it seemed like the next logical step, right? I mean, we were practically really married!

She slipped the dress over her head and turned away from me. “Zip?” she asked, and I reluctantly zipped her up. I say reluctantly, because, despite the new pressures we were under, I wanted to linger here with her. Having her love me had become nearly all-consuming to me. I know, I know: I’m a hopeless case, right?

She sat on the bed and daintily put her shoes on, then stood up and gave me a kiss. “I’ll call later when I know what’s going on up there,” she said. “I’m not sure when I’ll be home, so don’t wait up.” I returned her hug and kiss and walked her to the door. We didn’t say much, but just hugged at the door.

Lou stepped out just as Jenny was leaving next door on her way to school. Jenny yelled “Hello” to both of us and as Lou was getting into her car, stopped and spoke with Lou for a few seconds. Both Lou and Jenny turned and waved to me. Lou got into her car while Jenny hurried down to the school bus stop. I waved and returned to the house.

It felt really, really empty. Jake sat there, patiently waiting on his breakfast and looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. I got him his food, grabbed a banana, and headed out the door myself. Well, it was going to be a busy day and I needed to get it started. I grabbed a burrito at Mickey D’s.

When I got to the studio, Naomi was just getting in. “How’d the meeting go?” she asked.

“Well, I was late, but Lou kept everyone entertained ‘til I got there. After that, I opened my mouth and it went downhill from there. Just about what you’d expect. But, I think we’ll have a really huge photoshoot on our hands shortly.”

“OK,” she said. “When will you know? I’ve got to keep your calendar straight, you know.”

“I know, I know. Sheesh, someone might think you’re my wife,” I teased.

“If only you’d asked before Jerry did,” she said, wistfully.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I have to meet with the art director, a guy by the name of Jim Willis, real soon, so that we can go over some of the details. What’s my calendar like today?”

“Well,” she drawled, prolonging the word. She flipped open the paper calendar. “You don’t have anything until this afternoon, actually, so if you want to talk to the guy, you could do it this morning. The senior isn’t until 3.”

“OK,” I said. “I still have a lot of work to do on that wedding from the weekend, so I’ll put a call in to him and make an appointment for maybe mid-morning. How’s that sound?”

“Fine by me,” she said. “Did you finish that senior yesterday?”

“Yeah,” I said, “she’s in the main computer. I’ve gotta tell you, it was a bit out there. It almost looks like I was doing a boudoir set!”

“I got a glimpse when I was leaving,” she replied. “Knowing you, there should be some for your private album!” She laughed, knowing there was no such thing.

She sat down and started the computer while I went to my office. Surprisingly, there were no new messages on my answering machine, so I got out Jim’s card and called. He wasn’t there yet, so I left a message. About ten minutes later there was a call. Naomi stuck her head in the door a couple of minutes later.

“That was your 3:00 appointment,” she said. “They’re sick and I rescheduled them for later in the month. It should be on your computer calendar.”

Well, that gave me a little more flexibility today. Maybe when Jim called, we could meet at lunch.

When he called, that’s what we arranged. He ordered take out from the local sandwich shop and we had a ‘working lunch’ in his office where we made a whole bunch of decisions about this calendar thing his boss wanted.

The first thing we did was to establish a date to do the photography. We decided that a Saturday in early October would be best. I didn’t have anything on the calendar for the first weekend, so we could close the studio for the day without too many consequences. A sign on the door a week or two prior would have to do to let people know they couldn’t pick up pictures. I put it into the electronic calendar so that Naomi wouldn’t try to put something on that date. Since we were under a time crunch, we decided to try to get all of the women together at the same time and work through the sessions. There’d be few costume changes, so we could work through the poses fairly quickly.

Our next thing to do was to decide what the themes would be. Since Topham wanted an old-fashioned kind of pinup calendar, going with the holidays within each month seemed to be a no-brainer. But what of the months without holidays? Well, that was simple enough when we really got down to it.

January would be New Year’s Eve, of course. That was one of the no-brainers. So was February with Valentine’s Day and March with St. Patrick’s Day. We thought Easter was often in April, so that’s what we put down, but the idea of April Showers was discussed. We decided to table that one for more input.

May would be graduation or prom with a girl in a gown either way. Black if it was graduation or something really risqué if we did prom. June was going to be a wedding theme, while July had Independence Day. I wasn’t sure if we would do fireworks or a cookout, so that was left for later cogitation.

August was also a toss-up: beach scene or camping, another to which we’d come back. September was back-to-school and October was Halloween, of course! November would be Thanksgiving. Maybe we could have a couple of girls on that one, one in Pilgrim costume, the other in Native American. Hmmmm. Have to think about that a little bit, too.

And, finally December. That one was another no-brainer, it being Christmas and all. I had an idea for that, but it would be up to Jim to sell it to Topham. Personally, I thought he’d be gung-ho for it, but one never knows, does one?

With some of the months being a little undecided, we thought we’d wait until we had interviewed the women I was going to photograph before we finalized the themes. Sometimes, the model will help decide the subject matter, and I had no qualms about being a little up-in-the-air, so to speak.

I mentioned to Jim that Lou wanted to be one of the models. He was pretty enthusiastic about that. As for Ginger being in, I really had no problem. She was exceptionally pretty and had a figure most men loved to see in photographs, imagining themselves as her boyfriend or husband.

About then I sensed a bit of hesitation on the part of Jim. “What’s up, Jim?” I asked. “We’ve got most of this nailed down. I have most of the sets and I’m sure we can get models, so what gives?”

He turned a bit red, stammered a little, then said, in a quiet voice: “Jane wants to be one of the models.”

Well, I could see why he was hesitant. I mean, at dinner she didn’t come across as being brave enough to shed her clothes in front of others. And, quite frankly, while she wasn’t in the least ugly, she also wasn’t the knockout Ginger was. She was, as I thought the night before, a ‘Plain Jane.’

I was, in a word, flummoxed. “Why does she want to do it?” I asked.

Jim was just as flustered. “Well,” he started, “it’s something she’s always wanted to try to do. I don’t understand it, but there it is. Do you think she can measure up to the other women?”

OK, I’m pretty good at tap-dancing around a truth, but this time I thought the person receiving the truth had to reveal it for herself. “I don’t know,” I answered. “But, if she wants to interview, have her at my studio next Friday evening and we’ll see where we go from there. I’m not going to guarantee anything, OK?”

“Sure,” he said. “She’ll just have to take her chances, won’t she?”

“Yep,” I said. And, with that, the planning session was pretty much over. Just as I was getting ready to leave, I remembered an idea I had earlier. I turned around and went back to Jim’s office. I stepped in and got his attention.

“I have an idea, but you might need to run it by Topham,” I said. “How would he feel about being Santa? He could be in the studio during some of the photography and be a part of the December theme. I can just see Ginger on his lap with him dressed up as Santa!”