Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy!

Nils got a phone call today. It was from a promotions company and they were asking him if he knew of any models that might be up for a unique opportunity to model for a calendar! And, guess what? Nils recommended me! He also recommended Ruth and even Faith. We’re to go to where the company is (the next town over) and interview there. I’m really excited!

Nils mentioned that the photographer would be Jon Eugene, a guy over in M__________, a town just between here and Ruth’s college. I’ll pick up Faith and then fetch Ruth and we’ll all three go over and see what’s going on over there. Nils had more information, but he thought it would be best if we got the complete story from Mr. Amundson and Mr. Eugene. After seeing some of Eugene’s work in magazines, I can’t wait!

I haven’t met Mr. Eugene, but I guess Nils and he are pretty well acquainted. In fact, early this summer, Mr. Eugene asked Nils to join him on a short trip to a cabin on a lake to take and paint some pictures. I guess Mr. Eugene thought that Nils would like the distraction and could do a little painting up there. Nils has been very tense lately; maybe he needs another vacation!

I asked Nils about it and he told me that it wasn’t a real big deal, but he and Jon had agreed to visit this place up in the mountains on a lake before Jon’s season got too busy. Mr. Eugene takes a lot of high school senior pictures in the area, and from the time school lets out until late September he doesn’t have any time for a regular vacation.

When Nils got there, he found out that Mr. Eugene had invited his girlfriend, Lou, to come up there, too. I guess Nils liked Lou a lot and he thought Mr. Eugene might be getting married! Nils described Lou as being kind of tall and lithe, like me, but she has deep auburn hair that constantly flops down into her eyes because one side is longer than the other. He also said she had a nice laugh.

The three of them were up there just a few days, less than a week, but the sun was warm and the water was cool, so Nils said they all three loved swimming there. They’d dive off the doc and just goof around, I guess. Nils said that Lou didn’t have a regular bathing suit, so she wore a t-shirt and panties and when they got wet, they were practically transparent!

In the evenings, Mr. Eugene always had a fire going in the fireplace in the cabin. He would turn off the lights, so the only light in the place was just the fire. Nils said Jon suggested that they both try to capture Lou’s image by the light of the fireplace. Nils said that Jon suggested it as a challenge for each of them and their art.

I guess Nils suggested that perhaps Lou should be nude on the rug in front of the fireplace. Lou said she had a better idea: she went and found a real bearskin rug, complete with the head of the bear still attached. She put the rug on the floor and got out of the t-shirt and panties and laid down on the rug. The two artists worked with her to get her into the position they wanted and after some friendly argument, Lou put an end to it by telling them she’d pick the pose, and laid down with one leg lying over the other, one hand lying along her torso to her hip and the other propping her head on the head of the bear.

Nils said the two of them (the artists) liked the pose, but he proposed that Lou lay a little twisted with her hands over the bear’s head and her head on her crossed arms. Mr. Eugene liked the pose and told Lou “Don’t move!”

Photography is very easy to get the picture, much easier than an artist who uses paint and much faster than someone who sculpts. Mr. Eugene had taken dozens of pictures from lots of angles while Nils was still just sketching. The two men decided that, since Nils would need time to actually put paint to canvas and that Mr. Eugene needed some time to put the pictures into a computer and adjust the pictures to his satisfaction and then to print them, they would compare the finished products in a couple of weeks. Nils said Lou got up and took Mr. Eugene up to their room. Nils put his things away and then went to bed.

Nils is not usually an early-riser, but he said he couldn’t sleep and got up just as the sun was rising. He went as he was to the lake and dived in. There was a raft some ways out and he swam to that and back again several times when, on one of his outbound trips he heard some noises behind him. He stopped swimming and turned around to see what was making the noise.

He said he was a bit surprised: there, near the end of the dock, was Jon sitting cross-legged and Lou going up and down in front of him. Nils realized they were making love in the early morning light, so he drifted over to the raft and held onto it, just watching them. He said he memorized the way the rising sun hit their bodies so that he could paint it later. I’ve seen that painting; it looks almost like a guy is in a lotus position with his woman draped around him, the sun illuminating their skin and hair. It’s very ethereal.

Nils said that when they were through, Lou curled up on the dock and Mr. Eugene went and got his camera. Nils swam over to the dock very quietly and when he got there, he just looked at Lou.

He said he leaned over her and gave her a kiss on her cheek. He said she didn’t open her eyes, but she did smile.

I guess nothing else happened that weekend, except that Mr. Eugene got some pictures of Lou with the forest for a background and Nils dabbled a bit with a landscape or two. When Nils got home, however, he did finish the painting of Lou in front of the fireplace. He showed it to me, along with a copy of the photograph Mr. Eugene took. Both were exquisite, with Mr. Eugene’s having a bit more color to it, but, and here I’m kind of prejudiced, I liked Nils’ painting much better. It had more warmth, if you know what I mean!

Nils said I’d like Jon (Mr. Eugen’s first name), but he also said that Jon would be in charge and I should do what he said, as if it were he telling me what to do. I shrugged my shoulders and told him I’d be a good girl. That’s really one thing he doesn’t have to worry about! He kissed me and told me to have a good time and he’d see me when I got back.

So the day of the interview finally arrived. I went over to Faith’s house and picked her up. Boy, is she getting big! She said she’s less than a month from her due date, and I certainly can believe that. On the way to pick up Ruth, she confided that Logan was acting a little weird and that Leila was taking up a lot of his time. She was concerned, but she said that after the baby is born she thinks things will settle down. I hope so. Faith is my friend and she deserves to be happy.

When we got to Ruth’s place, I found her ready to go and waiting at the curb. I think she was as excited about this as I was. I introduced her to Faith and they seemed to like each other immediately, especially since Ruth insisted on taking the back seat. It would have been very difficult for Faith to sit there, that’s for sure!

We drove over to M______ and as we drove and talked, I think Faith’s enthusiasm grew a bit. By the time we arrived, she was almost bouncing out of her seat. We went into the building, which was a photography studio, and there were maybe a dozen other women filling out applications. They were all very beautiful and I recognized a couple of them from some of Nils’ paintings.

Some of the models were called in individually and a couple were called in as a group. When it came time for me to be called, it turned out that Faith, Ruth, and I were called in together. I thought that was a little bit strange, but I’ve found that artists don’t really think like other people. Anyway, that’s true of Nils, so I assumed it to be true of Mr. Eugene.

We three trooped in there, Ruth in the lead and Faith trailing, and found ourselves in a living room set, complete with a loveseat, a couch, and a couple of easy chairs. It almost looked like a real home. On the loveseat sat a woman who I recognized as Lou from the painting, and on the chairs were a couple of men. A man stood near the door and took our applications. When he sat next to Lou, I didn’t need him introducing himself; I knew he had to be Jon Eugene, the photographer.

He invited us to sit on the couch, but pulled up a straight-backed chair for Faith. Faith thanked him, saying it might be too difficult to get out of the couch. That brought a short laugh from Lou and the two gentlemen, and Jon said, “Don’t think anything about it. We want you three to be comfortable here.”

He then introduced everyone. He introduced himself first, by saying we could call him Jon. Of course, the woman was Lou. He introduced her as being his assistant on this venture. The big man in the chair to our left was Mr. Topham and the man in the right-hand chair was Mr. Willis. He was introduced as the art director for Mr. Topham’s projects.

He went on to explain what they were looking for: faces and bodies for a pin-up style calendar. He went on to say that each month would be a theme, like October being Halloween, etc., but that there were actually two calendars being made: one for the mass-market in which we’d be in lingerie and one that was destined for a more private market where we’d be nude. Did any of us have a problem with that?

Faith suddenly became our spokeswoman. “No, I don’t think any of us have a problem with that,” she said, glancing at us. When neither of us denied her statement, she went on. “We’ve posed for Nils many times, so we don’t have a problem with nudity. Just what were you thinking of?”

Jon had a wicked gleam in his eye. I think he was getting a picture in his mind. Nils does that when he’s got a really great idea for a painting. “I think,” he said, “that we need to find out what you look like before we can make any decisions about who is going to do which month. Can you disrobe and let us see what we have to work with?”

Faith nodded and stood up from the chair. Ruth and I took our cue from her and stood up. Faith turned away from me and backed up a little. “Zipper?” she asked and I unzipped her dress. It fell away and revealed that she, like me, had nothing on under her dress. Her tummy stuck out from the rest of her body and she rubbed her hands over it, massaging it lightly.

I reached down and grabbed the hem of my t-shirt and pulled it over my head. With my curly hair, I don’t worry about messing it up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ruth doing the same thing. It took just a moment to drop our jeans and we stood there as naked as Faith, although not as big.