Chapter 9: The Rush to Build

ANNA AND I spent Saturday night at the Holiday Inn in Windsor and enjoyed a little loving in the jacuzzi tub in our bathroom. I love all my girlfriends and enjoy loving on all of them in the bed at once. But there is also something wonderful about having one-on-one time. Ronda and I had quite a lot of that in the fall when it was only the two of us in the apartment. It seemed that the personal time was more limited once Elizabeth was back and living with us and Patricia, Toni, and Anna were coming up every weekend. I’d been making use of the second bedroom for private time with a girlfriend on occasion.

This week, though, was all Anna and me. And I enjoyed her as completely as I possibly could. In the big tub, I washed her and shampooed her hair. I held her as the jets pounded against our travel-weary bodies. I fed her in the restaurant, literally giving her bites of my food. I massaged her when we got back to the room.

And I kissed her. At every opportunity, I kissed Anna on her lips, her face, her hands, her nipples, her pussy, her feet, her back. Whatever was closest to me, I kissed. By the time I got her clothes off of her in the bedroom, she was charged. Anna loved kisses and kisses made her want to do other stuff.

The stuff we did included me entering her as she lay beneath me, then rolling to our sides, to my back, and reversing to her back. It included her sitting up on top of me and bouncing on my cock. It included me pushing her knees back to her breasts as I pounded into her pussy from above. Before our night had ended, it included me behind her, entering while we lay on our sides and then rolling so she could push up on her hands and knees as I humped over her butt and reached beneath her to fondle her hanging breasts.

The stuff included me going down on her until she squealed out a huge orgasm, and it included her milking my cock until I filled her mouth with come.

I’d intended to get a quick start Sunday morning to Stratford, and instead we stayed another night at the Holiday Inn so we could just make love some more.

And talk. Of course, we didn’t spend all our time fucking, but sometimes, even talking led to kissing and kissing led to other stuff, as she called it.

Sunday night we slept more soundly and after making love in the morning, we headed for Stratford.

“Does it strike you that we have sex a lot when we’re alone?” Anna asked as we drove toward our summer home.

“I’m a guy, Anna. You’ll have to define ‘a lot.’ I love sex with you. Is it too much?”

“No! That’s what amazes me. I’ve had your penis in my vagina so much in the last thirty-six hours I feel like it grows there. That’s where it should be whenever we can arrange it!”

“You’re not sore, are you?” I said.

“No. I’m so wet between what I make and what you leave behind that I think you could just slide in right now.”

I glanced over at her and she made a silly face. I pulled off the highway into a rest area and drove to the end to park. It was ten in the morning and it didn’t look like anyone was around, so we grabbed a blanket out of the back and headed to a treed area at the end of the rest area.

“Let me suck you to get you ready,” she said. “Sucking your dick is almost like kissing. I want it all!”

I was hard in a few seconds, it seemed. Anna pulled her pants down and got on her knees. I got up behind her and slid right in. This wasn’t a gentle making love time. This was frantic animalistic pounding that brought us both to a noisy climax in a couple of minutes.

“Yes!” she yelled. “Oh God, yes! I love you!”

“I love you, but we’re actually kind of exposed out here. I didn’t realize we could be seen from the far end of the park back here.”

“Oh, wow! And here’s my butt, shining in the sunlight.” We jumped up and tucked ourselves in, looking back at a car that had just pulled in at the other end of the parking area. “Oh, boy! We didn’t pay much attention to where we were. It’s freezing cold out here and the blanket is soaking wet from the ground.”

“We’ll have to wash and dry it when we get to town. Nothing like starting our week in Stratford with clean clothes.”

We ran to the bus and tossed the wet blanket in back. Anna slid over to the middle of the seat and parted her legs on either side of the gear handle. And we stayed in that position all the rest of the way to Stratford.

“Where’s the baby?” Harold asked when he saw us at the shop. He was our real estate consultant and had really done a lot to help us find a place and get settled.

“Only two of us could make the trip this week,” I said. “Patricia and Little Toni are staying with Ronda so she doesn’t get lonely.”

“I guess there are some advantages for everyone in your kind of family,” he chuckled. “Tom Forsythe will be here in a few minutes. He’s a good contractor and can work all week with his helper. It didn’t look to me like the project should take any longer than that.”

“If we can start today, so much the better. Anna and I will be helpers, too. I helped build my first darkroom with my dad’s help. I know pretty much how it is supposed to go.”

“Here’s Tom now. I have the permit for doing the construction you want. We wouldn’t have needed one except for your specification on water and power. Tom, this is Nate Hart and Anna Marx. They own the place.”

“Hi, Nate. I took the liberty of picking up the electrical and plumbing materials so we could get started right away,” Tom said.

“That’s great. Let’s take a look at the space and make sure we’re all on the same page about where things go.”

At ten o’clock, Anna and I had been fucking in a roadside rest area. At eleven-thirty, we were measuring and preparing the space for our new darkroom. I liked Tom and got along well with him. He had a good customer ethic and listened when I told him what I wanted, then made good suggestions to make it happen.

At three o’clock, Anna went with Tom’s helper—a guy who was about our age named Dennis—to the lumber yard and put in the order for the building materials we needed. Anna wrote a check on our Stratford business account and they said the materials would be delivered in the morning.

We knocked off at six o’clock. Anna and I went upstairs to our apartment to get cleaned up so we could go out to dinner.

“What the...? Oh, my God! Look at all this stuff!” I said.

“I wondered where it was. Melinda said she’d stored it all. I didn’t realize she’d stored it all in our bedroom.”

“There are a lot more boxes here than there were when we unpacked the darkroom in Tenbrook. What did we order?” I asked.

“Levi and I went through catalogues and ordered everything we could think of that we’d need here in the studio, not just the darkroom. So, the enlarger, developer tanks, spooler, trays, drying sheets, different lenses and filters, tongs, and anything else we could think of. He also equipped you with the other chemicals—he said they were bleaches—so you could do Cibachrome processing. There are lights, a control board, standard backgrounds, a few nice special backgrounds, and tripods. We didn’t buy any cameras for up here. We decided you should cart those back and forth. Then there are the other supplies over here,” she said, opening the refrigerator.

It was full.

“Levi asked if we had a refrigerator, so we ordered film, paper, and chemicals that Melinda stored in here. I knew about this because she had to take all the shelves out of the refrigerator and just stack the boxes in here as tightly as she could.”

“Are we paying her enough to do all this?” I asked.

“Probably not, but she was happy to come in and putter around this winter. She cleaned out and organized the whole studio space downstairs.”

“Let’s make sure we treat her right,” I said.

“You’re so good about that. I’ll make sure she stays happy.”

“Well, we’d better clean up so we can get some food and then come back and clear the bed.”

“We could make love again in the shower before we go out,” Anna suggested, giving me a kiss. “And you could have told me I was working all day with a huge wet spot in the crotch of my pants. It looked like I peed them!”

I got the offending article of clothing off her and we stepped into the shower to make love again before we went out for dinner.

Work went well and quickly. Melinda came over and helped Anna paint the studio area. Then they cleaned the restroom and improved the lighting in it so models could refresh their makeup. Melinda was a great worker and we took her out to dinner on Wednesday.

Also, in the middle of the day on Wednesday, I called Elizabeth at Rose’s house in Las Vegas to tell her to break a leg for her opening night. I had flowers sent to her dressing room—or what I assumed was her dressing room. I guess she actually just had a space at the long table of mirrors where all the dancers did their makeup. She wasn’t a headliner, after all.

And Anna and I continued to make love every night and again in the morning before we got out of bed for anything more than brushing our teeth and using the toilet. By Thursday, Anna and Melinda were able to start painting the darkroom black as I went up to start unpacking the equipment.

Thursday afternoon, someone started pounding on the front door, which we’d kept locked while we were working. I finally went out to see what was going on.

“Excuse me! Excuse me! Can you take my picture? It’s urgent.”

“I’m just getting set up. I could take it tomorrow before we close up and go back to the States. We’re not really open for business yet.”

“Please!” she pled. “I’m auditioning tomorrow and my luggage was lost. I don’t have a head shot to put with my resume. For that matter, I don’t have a resume. It was all in my luggage. It got caught up in customs because I have so much luggage.”

“I see,” I said. “Come in. It’s cold out there. Where are you from?”

“London,” she said. “I interviewed with the director over the phone and he said to come and he’d find a place for me. But I have to abide by the rules. I need a headshot and resume. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s see if we can help you. We’ve just been building the darkroom and studio this week. I guess we’ll figure it out as we go. So, you need a standard actor’s headshot? We should be able to do that. Maybe we can help with the other things, too.”

I led her back to the studio, through all the antiques that occupied the front of our space. Or junk. I wasn’t sure how much of it was verifiable antiques and how much was just second hand junk. It looked an awful lot like the attic in Chicago.

“Oh, I’m Nate Hart. This is my studio, or will be during the summer months. I guess the season is just getting ramped up here. We won’t arrive until June for the summer.”

“Oh, yes! I’m Kathleen Thomas, actress. I’ve just arrived from London. Flew in to Toronto and took a bus to get to Stratford. I’m told my luggage will arrive sometime ‘later.’ I’m such a wreck.”

“Anna? Can you help Kathleen here get ready for a portrait? She’s in a pickle and I think we can help.”

“Sure. Oh, Kathleen, you’re pretty. I’m Anna. Do you have makeup in your bag? Let’s see what we can do to freshen you up. Stay away from the black room. Some of the paint is still wet.” Anna led a compliant Kathleen to the bathroom. I was glad Anna and Melinda had scrubbed it.

“Melinda, I hate to impose on you further, but could you give me a hand setting up some lights and a backdrop? I guess we are in business sooner than expected.”

“My life was so boring before you and Anna showed up,” Melinda said. “This week has been great fun. You certainly get things done when you’re around, eh?”

We had to carry the backdrops down from upstairs and set up the stand for them. I pulled a standard background down. They’d included a nice mottled cream-colored one and I thought that would make an excellent backdrop.

I’d been taking pictures mostly with the Nikon of our work and progress so we could show Patricia and Ronda when we got home. Of course, the Nikon was now loaded with color slide film, so we wouldn’t see slides for a week after we got back to Chicago. It would be different than the 4x5s Leslie and I had taken.

Melinda helped me run extension cords for the lights and get things plugged in, so when Anna led Kathleen out of the bathroom/dressing room, we had a reasonable looking setup. Melinda was free to go now, but she wanted to stick around to watch Anna and me work.

“Oh, Melinda, do we have a typewriter and some good paper in the store?”

“Yes, Nate. It’s an old typewriter, but it works well. I sometimes type up a certificate of authentication for certain items. If someone comes in to sell us an antique gold watch, for example, I might not be able to verify the information, but I can require the seller to do so and sign a certificate. It’s the way Mrs. Wells had me do it.”

“That’s good. We’re going to help Kathleen put together a resume once I’ve taken the pictures.”

“You’ll help me do that?” Kathleen cried. She jumped up to give me a hug and say thank you.

“Nate can’t resist a damsel in distress,” Anna laughed. “We’ll have you all fixed by morning. Which reminds me, do you have any other clothes?”

“No! This is all I have.”

“We’ll go shopping as soon as Nate finishes this shot.”

“You guys are so nice!”

“Now,” I said, “you know everything is going to be okay, so let’s lose the worried expression and show me what a smile you have. Brilliant! Now, let’s turn toward Anna. Here we go.”

I guess when I have a model and start snapping the shutter, I have a different personality that appears. I moved Kathleen from position to position, cajoling her into the right expression. She had no problem with me moving her shoulders or lifting her chin. In fact, she was a very good model.

“If you are going to get to a clothing store, we’d better stop taking pictures and get you out the door. I’ll finish setting up the developer and enlarger, then start processing this roll of film. I wish you were one of my models. I’d love to do a whole set of photos of you,” I said.

Anna and Melinda took off with Kathleen to shop and I finished getting the darkroom ready for my first batch of photos in Canada.

Anna returned long enough to drag me out of the studio for dinner. Melinda and Kathleen were already seated at a pub just up the street from us. We all had a beer with our dinner of very typical pub food. I had a really good steak and onion pie. I noticed Kathleen stuck with basic fish and chips and said they were just like ‘back home.’ Anna had a big bowl of French onion soup in a crockery bowl with cheese browned and melted all over the top and down the sides. Melinda laughed at all of us trying to fit into life in Stratford. Then she ordered bangers and mash in order to keep with the theme. I had a feeling she’d have normally ordered a burger.

After dinner, we returned to the studio. I started by showing Kathleen the proofs and indicating my selection from them. She was fully in agreement. So, I handed her off to Anna to work on her resume. Melinda said she had a cat at home and needed to leave for the day and feed it. I could hear Kathleen and Anna getting ready to type up the resume until I closed the door on the darkroom.

I printed half a dozen prints of her headshot so she’d have spares. It was a very good shot. I also printed a couple copies of a slightly wider angle shot that showed her upper torso. It was just enough to show that she had a nice set of boobs beneath her collar, so if a director was interested in that, or she wanted to promote it, she could.

It was eight o’clock before I walked out of the darkroom and with the construction, painting, setting up equipment, etc., I was pretty beat. I didn’t see Kathleen and Anna in the store, so I figured I’d just go upstairs. Anna was probably up there, and I was sure Kathleen would be back for her photos in the morning. I checked the front and back doors to make sure we were secure inside and walked up the stairs.

“Did you bring the photos up?” Anna asked. “We’re just having a cup of tea to pass the time while waiting for you.”

“Oh, I’ll run back down and get them. I didn’t see you and wasn’t sure where you’d gone.”

I ran back to the darkroom and brought the photos upstairs. Kathleen took one look at the photo and started crying.

“Is there a problem?” I asked. I sure wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction.

“I’m sorry. They’re wonderful. You two have been so nice to me. I can’t believe you came to the aid of a stranger and helped me with pictures, shopping, and getting my resume ready. And while we were drinking tea, I told Anna about having seen your shop from the bus window and running straight here from the bus station and I haven’t even been to a hotel to find a place to stay and Anna said I could stay here for the night. You’re so nice!”

Oh! She was spending the night? Well, we did have four bedrooms and Patricia and I had gotten a couple set up. I guess there was no problem with her staying here. Why not?

We stayed up just drinking tea and talking until way late. Anna got Kathleen settled in the spare bedroom and we all went to bed. The late hour didn’t stop Anna from wanting to make love, albeit a little quieter than we’d been earlier in the week.

In the morning, we had breakfast and Kathleen got ready to go to her audition. We had her sign a model release with the promise she’d return for a session when we got back in June. In the meantime, I’d be hanging a couple copies of her portrait in the new studio as our first photos in Stratford.

We still had a lot to do in the new space to make it look more professional. I went to a used appliance store and dragged home a refrigerator we could use downstairs for photographic materials. There was no sense in keeping that in the apartment upstairs. Anna and I did a careful inspection and inventory of all the equipment and she checked everything against our bill of lading. She was going to have a bunch of work to get accounts all in balance.

First, she’d need to complete my income tax. Her father had done our corporate tax. He worked with an accountant in Stratford to complete the Canadian taxes, which were almost non-existent based on having done no business in Canada by the end of the year, but all the investment and equipment purchases needed to be accounted for so we’d have accurate books by the end of 1970.

By the end of the day on Friday, we had things put in the best condition we could. Melinda had all the instructions for getting us open in two months. Anna and I made love again Friday night in our apartment and Saturday morning, we headed back to Chicago.