Chapter 4: First Interviews

After talking to Nils, a painter I knew, I set up interviews for the following Friday. Jim Willis and I discussed putting an ad in the paper or something on-line, but we eventually nixed those ideas. Nils had put enough professional models our way that we were able to fill our twelve months. There were even a couple of surprises in store!

I managed to keep myself busy for the next week. Between my high school seniors and the business portraits that kept coming in, I didn’t get to have any time with Lou. I even had a couple of sessions on Sunday, for heaven’s sake!

Finally, Friday arrived. We closed the studio at the regular time and Naomi went home to feed her children. She’d return at 6:30, a short time before we would start our interviews.

Lou came in around 6:00 PM with some Chinese takeout. We ate quickly, washing the food down with some beer that I had in the lunchroom refrigerator. Willis and Topham showed up about the same time as Naomi. I asked if they had eaten (which they had) and I escorted them into the camera room and showed them where to sit. I made sure that they would have plenty of room to see the women and that they could talk to me, but I admonished them that they were just there to observe, but not to say anything to the women.

I went back out to where Naomi was sitting and gave her some final instructions: she was to hand out the applications, make copies of their IDs and not say a word about what might be going on in the camera/interview room. I would tell her all about it if she stuck around to the end, but if not, on Monday when she came to work. I also had her collect the model releases of any of the young ladies we decided would be a part of our calendar. I knew that even with such sparse instructions Naomi would be efficient and be able to work out any kinks in the plan.

About that time, the first of the models arrived. I like it when a model is prompt. It shows she knows my time is valuable and, in all likelihood, she is not a diva. That always promises that we will probably have a good rapport and things will go somewhat more easily. Not always, but promptness puts me in a good mood and that can be catching.

As I was speaking to Naomi, I saw three women come in and it looked like they were a group. One had a head of curly black hair. The second one had long streaked hair, and the third really stood out from the group: she was about eight or nine months pregnant! I knew I had to have her in the calendar!

Naomi was handing out the forms, and I leaned over to her and said, “When it comes time for one of these three to come in, have all three of them come in together, OK?” She nodded and kind of shooed me out of there. I went back into the camera room.

The application forms were pretty easy to fill out: name, address, phone number in the first section. The second section, which in other applications would be for a person’s work history, was just with whom the models had posed in the past. I fully expected that Nils’ name would be prominent among this group, especially as he had recommended most of them.

The third section, just above where they would sign the application, was a series of questions about things like tattoos, piercings, etc. The final question on the application was pretty blunt: “Do you have any objections to being nude in the course of this assignment?” The answer would be a simple “yes” or “no.” If their answer was “yes,” then I would politely thank them for interviewing and send them on their way. If the answer was “no,” then I would take the time to talk to them, see what they looked like unclothed, and I would probe them for their reaction to being on a calendar that would likely be seen by many people. I wanted to weed out any future problems before they occurred.

I went back into the camera room and seated myself next to Lou. She gave me a little kiss and I explained what we would be doing with the ladies. I told Willis that he could ask questions, but I hoped that Topham could contain himself. He was not very happy with that, but I told him that he could look, but not touch, and if he had a question, he could relay that to Lou and she would ask the question. I know it was a bit bizarre, but I didn’t want his attitude from the dinner to contaminate the proceedings.

The first candidate surprised me. It was Jordan, from Diamond’s spa. She was as long and as lithe as I remembered her, and just as slim. I remember thinking when we did the ads for the spa that she looked like she was only about twelve years old, not the twenty-three her license said she was. She had long, dark hair and she smiled when she saw Lou and me. She marched right over and gave Lou a kiss on the cheek and gave me a good kiss on the lips. Yeah, she might look twelve, but she kissed like a woman possessed!

I introduced her to the other gentlemen. Jim got up and shook her hand, but Topham, doing as instructed, stayed sitting and barely took her hand. He leaned over to Lou and said something. She answered him and he frowned and leaned back in his chair, a frown crossing his face. I decided to ignore him.

I asked Jordan to sit and to give me a moment to look over her application. As I expected, the only experience she had was with me and the ads we had taken earlier in the year. I already knew she was of age, so I didn’t have to look at the stapled copy of her license to check. I handed the application to Jim Willis for his perusal, and started with a synopsis of what we were going to do.

I explained that we were going to be photographing women for a classic pinup style calendar and that each month would have a theme based on the holiday or the traditional goings on in each month. I also explained that we would do two versions of the calendar, one clothed and one nude. Did she have any problem with that concept?

She, of course, said no, but then she added, “You already know what I look like nude, Jonny. I didn’t have any problems with Diamond’s pictures, so why would I have any problem with this?”

I, of course, had no answer for this. Lou took over at this point and asked Jordan if she could undress with all of us here. Jordan looked at us and then stood up. She reached down for the hem of the simple shift she was wearing and pulled it over her head. She wasn’t wearing anything under the dress!

“See, Jonny,” she said. “I remembered what you said about tight clothing leaving lines on the skin!” I asked her to walk around the room and let us see her natural grace, which she did. It was a simple exercise, and it allowed us to see that, though she didn’t have a lot of feminine development, she did have a widening of the hips and some breast development. I saw her as maybe our March Leprechaun, for the St. Patrick’s Day theme.

I leaned over to Lou. “How do you think she’ll look in green?” I whispered.

Lou put her hand to her chin and thought about it. “I think green would be a very good color for her dark hair and that complexion. Too bad she doesn’t have red hair!” she whispered back.

“OK, Jordan,” I said. “You’re hired. Before you get dressed, though, I need to take a head shot of you.”

She nodded and I motioned to where I had a camera set up with a plain white background. I turned the lights on, put her on a mark I had on the floor, and took a couple of pictures.

When I was finished, I said, “You can get dressed now. The date is October 7^th. You should be here around 4 to 4:30. Any problems with that?”

She ran over to me squealing. “You mean it?” she squeaked. She was still nude, and her nipples were hard and pointy from her excitement.

“Yes,” said Lou. “We’re thinking you will make a great leprechaun. Got any green tights?”

“Yes, I do,” said Jordan. “I even have a green vest from a Halloween party costume. Should I bring it, too?”

“Of course,” said Lou. “Now get dressed and be sure to fill out the model release and make sure Naomi gets it before you leave.”

Jordan slipped the dress over her head and wriggled like women have from time immemorial to drop it into place. She sat and was putting on her sandals as I explained that she would be paid $100 an hour with a four-hour minimum. I also told her there would be a possibility she might be in more than one picture and she would also be compensated for that. She came over and grabbed Topham’s hand and shook it, then grabbed Jim’s hand and did the same thing, saying over and over again, “Thank you, thank you.”

She kissed Lou on the mouth this time and then grabbed me around the neck and pulled me down to her level and gave me a really searing kiss. “Thank you, Jonny,” she said very quietly. “You have no idea what this means to me.” I didn’t have the faintest clue what it meant, but that was OK. I didn’t have to know.

She skipped out of the room, closing the door firmly but quietly. “Wow,” said Jim. “Are they all going to act like that?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “She’s kind of young, but very enthusiastic. With her slight build, I think she may have a complex about it. Maybe by picking her to be one of our models, it boosts her ego.”

“I think you nailed it in one,” said Lou. “That takes care of March. So, one down, eleven to go!”

“No,” I said. “That’s one down and nine more to go. You and Alex’s girlfriend are our first two models.”

“That’s right,” said Topham. “And, I like your idea for the December page. I talked to Ginger about it, and she was very enthusiastic about the idea.”

“Good,” I said. I turned to Lou. “What do you think of being the Halloween model?”

“Give me some time to think about it,” she replied. “I don’t know about being a witch. I don’t have the nose for it!”

“Oh,” I said, “You don’t have the nose or the complexion, but you sure got me under your spell.”

Topham groaned and rolled his eyes while Willis just shook his head. “You two are just embarrassing!” he said.

We interviewed several more women, rejecting some and keeping others. I could see the pictures growing in my mind and I hoped that later I could get my vision across to Jim Willis and he would agree to what I wanted to do. I knew that some of the women would be in a couple of the months’ pictures.

We, or, I should just say “I,” received another surprise about half-way into the interview process. Who should come waltzing in but Gina, our bride from just a few weeks ago. I guess my surprise showed on my face because Gina said, “Close your mouth, Jonny! The flies will fly in and fly out again,” and she giggled.

“Who ... What ... How did you know about this?” I asked, stuttering my surprise.

Gina replied, “Well, Lou’s been working with my dad, and after my honeymoon I wanted to see Daddy, and Lou was there and we got to talking...”

“Yeah,” said Lou, “we got to talking and I told her about this little shoot and Gina here got all excited about it.” Turning to Gina, she asked, “Did you talk to Cole about this?”

“Oh, I sure did!” Gina exclaimed. “I even talked it over with Mom and Dad and they thought it would be fun. So, here I am.”

I had her sit down and I looked over her application as a way to get my thoughts in order. That took a couple of not-so-surprisingly tense moments, but when I looked up, I was much calmer.

“OK,” I said, “here’s the deal...” and I explained what we were going to be doing. I asked her point-blank: “You’re going to be dressed very provocatively for a lot of people to see, and totally nude for some others. Are you sure you and Cole, not to mention your folks, are going to be OK with this? This won’t hurt your daddy’s business? You won’t have second thoughts?”

She smiled, tilted her head down and looked at me through her eyelashes. “Why, Jonny,” she purred, “after all you’ve seen of me and my family, do you really think they’d be upset by something like this?”

I could see her point. I did have a good sense of the family’s values, and they certainly didn’t conform to any Puritanical ideal! I nodded my head and said, “OK. I understand. Now, how about you getting undressed and letting us all see what you look like?”

She stood up and without any hesitation unbuttoned her blouse, took it off and laid it on the arm of the chair. She undid the clasp of her bra and shook herself free of it, eliciting a gasp from Mr. Topham. She smiled at him and undid the closure to the top of her skirt, unzipped it, and with a little wriggle, it fell to her feet. She was dressed in dark stay-up stockings and no underwear, her pudenda full and proud, completely bare of any hair. Believe it or not, it was a little shiny. I guess she was excited to be bare in front of strangers. She must have an exhibitionistic streak in her!

I had her do the walk I had all of the others do, even though I was convinced she would be our September model. When she returned to the chair, I asked, “Do you have your old cheerleader’s outfit, or maybe a pleated, plaid skirt?”

Her eyes lit up. “Yes. Yes, I do and I think I can see where you’re going with this! Does this mean I’m hired?”

I walked her over to the camera, telling her I needed a head shot. I went on to explain the pay and all of the attendant particulars, just as I had with the others. “We’re planning on shooting on Saturday the 7^th of October. Any problems with that date? We will probably be here for several hours.”

She screwed up her face in thought as she pulled the blouse over her shoulders. “No,” she said. “Cole will probably be watching the football games, so he probably won’t miss me too much. Can I stay with you guys overnight? It’s a pretty long drive.”

I looked at Lou. She said, “You can stay with me and you can sleep in as late as you want. This curmudgeon gets up early every morning to walk his dog and he’s like a bull in a china shop! Very noisy.” I stuck my tongue out at her.

“Goody!” said Gina. “We can have a girls’ night!” With that, she finished buttoning up her blouse and went over to shake Mr. Topham’s hand and then Jim’s. When she got to me, she pulled me down to her level, very much like Jordan did and gave me a lip-smacking kiss. Then, she gave even a better one to Lou. I know that I had started to get hard, and I could imagine how Lou was feeling!

Gina left with a little skip in her step, just like Jordan. Our next interview was an even bigger surprise, although why it was, I can’t think, but our next interview was with Jim’s wife, Jane.

Gone was the “Plain Jane.” In her place was a ravishing brunette dressed in a long trench coat! I looked at Topham and he was plainly gob smacked, his mouth hanging open. Jim, on the other side of me was just about choking.

“What’s wrong, dear?” asked Jane. “Are you alright?”

Jim just stammered, not making any sense whatsoever. “Never mind him,” she said. I gestured to the chair. She handed me the paperwork and sat, demurely crossing her legs. Despite the length of the trench coat, her knee-high black boots and the several inches of her black hosiery above the boots, a bit of her bare leg could be seen.

I looked at the application and saw that, some years before she had modeled for another photographer in the large city north of us. I wondered where the mousy little woman had gone, and where this vixen came from. Maybe it would come up in the interview.

I started to give her my spiel about the calendar, but I had barely started when she waved me to a stop. “Remember, Jon, I was at the dinner and I don’t need everything explained. Yes, I know that I will be partially clothed in one version of the calendar and nude in the other, and, no, I don’t have any problem with that. Jim, on the other hand, might, but he won’t say anything, will you dear?”

Jim, looking little green-about-the-gills, shook his head. “No, I don’t have any problems,” he said. “I just wasn’t expecting this.”

“Now, dear,” said his wife, “you knew I was coming, didn’t you?” He nodded his head. “Be a good boy and let Mr. Eugene finish his interview and I’ll reward you when we get home.”

Jim actually blanched at that. “Yes, dear,” was all he said.

At that point, I was curious as to what this siren actually looked like under the trench coat. “OK,” I said. “How about you take off the trench coat and disrobe for us so we can see what you look like?”

She smiled very seductively, rose from the chair, and divested herself of the coat. I think we all, with the exception, perhaps, of Jim, gasped. Totally gone from our consciousness was the meek and mild “Plain Jane” and in her place was a beautiful dominatrix!

Her hair was colored and greased and pulled back into a skin-tightening ponytail, like what you often see on models. Think Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” video, and you’ll know what I mean. She had the smokey eye makeup and even the very, very shiny, very, very red lipstick.

That was startling enough, but when she shed the coat, all of the black was suddenly visible. Yes, her boots were black as was her hose, but so too was her ... well ‘outfit’ is about the only word I can use to describe it.

The outfit consisted of the knee-high black boots, black stockings, and a black corset with a belt from which she unfastened a black riding crop. The corset had garter tabs to which the stockings were attached, but instead of covering her chest, the corsets plunged down and around her boobs, displaying them, and boy, were they something to behold.

She had to be a double D in the bra cup size, although you never would have figured that from the drab clothing she had worn to the restaurant the week before. Those clothes were basically shapeless and hid all of her charms. She certainly had not tried to impress us, that was for sure. Now, however, she was trying to impress, and was actually doing a pretty good job of it!

She was also pretty meticulous, at least as far as I could see. Women who were not used to wearing garters often put their panties on first before the garter. That makes it more difficult to remove said panties. She, on the other hand, must have had experience, as she wore the panties over the garter tabs. The panties were black, also, and disappeared into the crevasse of her ass. Her nipples looked a bit red, and I suspected she had put some rouge on them to make them stand out.

The crack of the crop against one of her boots brought our attention back to her. “Well, gentlemen,” she asked, “do you like what you see?” The slap of leather on leather brought me back to earth.

“Lose the panties, please,” I said, trying to sound much more confident than I actually was feeling. “Walk around the room and let’s see what you look like.”

She deftly hooked her thumbs into the scanty waistband of the panties, dropped them to the floor and daintily stepped out of them. She turned, and as she turned, she pinched her nipples to make them stand up and out. She started to march around the room, then realized that this was not the pace to take with us, and slowed down to a saunter. The room was quiet, except for the “click-clack” sounds her high-heeled boots made.