Chapter 6: Balance and Movement

ANNA HAD, INDEED, sold Hal Zefford a couple of my photos to display in his gallery.

“He doesn’t want too many, but he’d like a brochure of samples, a catalogue of sorts, to show customers who are interested in the two he accepted,” Anna said. “Of course, the term ‘sale’ is a little over-expressive. He’s taken them on consignment when you get them printed, matted, and framed. He’ll hang the two on consignment. If they sell, he gets 60% and you get 40%, of the price we set. So, if he sells one for less, you still get 40% of the asking price.”

“Damn, this is complicated. Sounds like he gets the lion’s share.”

“Only of what he displays in his gallery. If he sells from your catalogue, he only takes 20%. You can list the unframed price and bill the framing directly. Prints to be signed, of course.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m glad you are on this. I suppose we need to choose prints and see about making a catalogue.”

After a leisurely brunch with the family and kissing Toni, Patricia, and Anna goodbye as they headed back west Sunday morning, Ronda and I headed for the studio to meet Dale, formerly my Art Composition instructor. Beth rode downtown with us so she could go to the theatre and check the callboard. The director said he’d be announcing the cast for Streetcar sometime Sunday.

Ronda and I got the studio set up and cleaned up the last remains from the previous day’s painting session. When Dale arrived at the studio, it was all cleaned and ready for action.

“Dale, welcome to Attic Allure,” I said as she entered from the stairway.

“Oh my. It is obvious that your instructors have not actually been here. They told me you had some props that you used to create your unique style. This is an entire attic filled with props and costumes and scenery. Now I really wish I’d been here when you and Leslie were creating your compositions,” Dale said.

“Well, you might have found it a little uncomfortable. Leslie and I have known each other for a couple of years and worked together on a few occasions. We were both comfortable in our own skin, so to speak.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have minded that,” Dale said. “Back home I’m generally considered a nudist. I never wear clothes when I’m painting.”

“Oh, good!” Ronda said. “Perfect for Attic Allure.”

Dale stopped and looked at Ronda as if she’d just noticed her.

“Dale, this is my assistant today, Ronda. Ronda, this is Dale McKenzie, our model today,” I said. “We haven’t really talked beyond your stated desire to have the Attic Allure experience. Do you have specifics in mind?”

“Oh, well, not really. I brought your model release.” She handed it to me and I passed it on to Ronda, who took it to the desk. Dale was only twenty-seven. I was curious about her level of experience that brought her to Columbia as an instructor for the intensive. “I suppose,” she continued, “that I’d like a souvenir of sorts. I have a lot of pleasant memories from my weeks in Chicago, but nothing really to take with me.”

“That will be great. I like to start a session with a good portrait. It gives us a chance to learn to work with each other and to put the student teacher relationship behind us.”

“That relationship is already forgotten. I’m in your hands,” she said. “And, of course, in the hands of your pretty assistant.”

“What do you think, Ronda?” I asked. “Something rather Bohemian?”

“Yes. Let me see what’s on the costume shelf.”

“If you’d accompany me behind the privacy screen, Dale, we’ll take a look at your makeup and hair. Ronda will bring something for your formal portrait.”

“I was surprised to find you have an assistant. I had expected us to be ... um ... alone,” she said.

“Sometimes a model finds a ... woman’s touch to be desirable when we are changing costumes, undressing, doing makeup, or even relaxing after the shoot. We have a hard and fast rule about no intercourse in the studio, but sometimes the experience gets so intense that some form of relief is required,” I said. “If you prefer, I can send Ronda home, though she asked to be my assistant today.”

“Oh, please. Don’t send her away. I’m an artist and I find the female form as stimulating as the male form. I didn’t come to your studio with the expectation of being fucked, but if circumstances happened to lead that direction, I wouldn’t be averse to it. If not in the studio, perhaps elsewhere.”

That certainly laid Dale’s expectations on the table. I pulled her hair back and brushed it straight down her back, about to the center. It was blonde and straight, and she looked a lot like the pictures I’d seen of hippie flower children. I really needed to take a field trip to San Francisco. I wondered if Adrienne would like to guide me.

“I don’t know where Cassie comes up with these dresses,” Ronda said as she joined us behind the privacy screen. “Did you say she’d been to an estate sale?”

“I think she goes to something every week. Anna’s given her a budget to acquire more props and costumes as she can. It isn’t a huge budget, but you should take a look at some of the new jewelry over there.”

“I think this will look perfect on Dale,” Ronda said, holding a very Bohemian looking dark blue dress with embroidered flowers. It was short and very off the shoulder.

Well, we’d move right to the main attraction. I reached around Dale and began unbuttoning her blouse. She was startled for a moment, and then leaned back into me as I glided over her breasts and down her torso. I pulled the blouse off, leaving her topless. I was sure she’d worn bras to class the past three weeks. I notice that kind of thing. These beautiful tits certainly didn’t need one.

“Oh, you are very pretty,” Ronda said. She couldn’t restrain herself from petting Dale’s boobs. Dale pushed them into Ronda’s hands and made free with her own hands to feel up Ronda.

“We’d better get some photos taken,” I laughed.

I helped bring the dress over Dale’s head and held it while she got her arms in the sleeves. Ronda removed Dale’s trousers and found she wore nothing under them, and like many of the professional models I’d been with, was shaved bare.

The dress bodice was elasticized and cut across just above Dale’s nipples. The sleeves were only attached under the arms and hung in a full blousy sleeve to her wrists. It was embroidered there and at the hem of the skirt, which only fell to about mid-thigh.

“How convenient that you have such perfect clothing ready,” Dale said.

“I sometimes think the whole attic is a magic trunk. You open it, and pull out whatever it is that you need at the moment. Wait till we get to choosing props for you.”

“So, you choose props for every model?” Dale asked as I led her to the studio area.

“Most of the time. It’s a mark of the Attic Allure style. Sometimes, though, a model doesn’t need any prop at all. You know what we need now, though?” I said. “Ronda, we need flowers for her hair.”

“I’m on it.”

I pulled down the light blue backdrop for just a hint of shading in the background. If I needed to darken it, I could always use a red or pink filter on the camera. It was still a struggle for me to use the terms I’d been given when I got to college. I’d learned color theory and filtering in my freshman sciences class. I’d ordered my first set of filters out of the school’s Edmonds Scientific Company catalogue. A red filter filtered out red and turned it black. The filter itself was a shade of blue or cyan. In photography, I was told, that was a blue or cyan filter. They were named according to the color of the filter, not according to what they did. I found that I still had to translate the terms in my head and sometimes got them switched. I knew which one I needed, regardless.

I got a small box for Dale to put her foot on, which bent her knee. Then I ran my hand up her thigh, pushing the skirt up. Just below her pussy, I had her take hold of the hem and hold it there. Ronda arrived with a wreath of colorful flowers for her blonde hair. I nodded and made a slight adjustment to the lights. Perfect. I took pictures and moved to different angles. I shifted her position, replacing the box with a stool she could sit on as I did torso photos. I pulled her hair forward over her chest and it fell below her breasts. She must have been growing it out for years.

After I’d changed film, I started shifting her to sexier positions and let the dress slip beneath her breasts. Sometimes the pictures I took were just face shots, but I liked having her breasts out where I could see them.

“What kind of things speak to you?” I asked as we took a break to find props. “What item would you say most embodies the real Dale?”

“Oh, that’s easy. It’s the same as what enticed me to come in for a photo. Jewelry. When I saw what you did with the necklace and earrings on Leslie, I got rather tingly,” she said. “I’m not sure I could have done what she did and posed topless in front of a classroom of my peers to demonstrate the use of nipple clamps, but it definitely turned me on.”

“Hmm. I don’t want to use the same piece that I used with Leslie. But my wonderful assistant Cassie acquired a whole box of costume jewelry. Let’s see what we have.”

I brought the box to the table, much as I’d done with Leslie the previous week. We sorted through things and I came upon a silver piece that seemed to go on forever.

“Let’s see what this looks like,” I said. I held it up to Dale’s neck and then took it away. “We’re going to get just what you want, Dale. This piece simply screams ‘naked!’ Ronda, can you help get Dale out of her dress?”

In a moment, my erstwhile instructor was standing naked in front of me. Ronda held her hair as I fastened the necklace behind her neck. It dangled down all the way to her thighs and I had to figure out how it was supposed to be worn. I started by smoothing out the top part, between her breasts. I held it in place while I teased her nipples to full attention. The corners came right to the edge of her nipples.

Then, I finally figured out that the long pieces were actually a kind of belt that fastened around her waist. It held two chains in front that made a circle around her navel. At the bottom of the circle, a dozen chains of various lengths dangled with the longest in the middle, hanging right to the top of her slit. I spent a few moments making sure those chains hung straight and true, while I slid my fingers through her wet pussy. She sighed, “Yes,” and I realized Ronda was reaching around to pinch her nipples.

I saw that there were two additional loops on the top piece, and they fit perfectly over her nipples to hold the center piece spread across her chest.

“That is really beautiful,” I said. Ronda came around to the front to get a good look and clapped her hands together. “I want one!” she said. I wasn’t sure if she meant the jewelry or the nipples.

I pulled a mottled backdrop and got on a stepladder to shoot down a bit. Ronda arranged her hair so it fell behind her ear. I stopped and while Ronda occupied Dale for a few minutes, I got out the 4x5 and loaded it for a couple art shots. I had to move Ronda back out of the way as she’d been kissing our model while Dale had unbuttoned Ronda’s top and had both hands inside. I had Ronda refresh Dale’s lipstick and check to make sure none of her makeup was smeared. Then Dale relaxed back a little displaying all that silver jewelry against her pale skin and pretty tits.

That wasn’t the last photo we took, but I felt we’d achieved the goal we set out for. Dale still had questions about how I used props and I chose a shawl and a hammer. I took her jewelry and switched it for a choker that I saw in the box. Ronda helped me as I folded the shawl diagonally and tied it around Dale’s waist with the point down her right hip. This did absolutely nothing to hide her breasts or slit, or to block access to them. Ronda and I took full advantage of the access and before I had the scene set, Ronda was also naked and my shirt was fully unbuttoned.

“Now,” I said. “I need to see you fierce, ready to attack with the hammer.”

“Oh! I see!” Dale instantly went into a semi crouch that made her look like a tiger about to pounce.

“Ronda, we need war paint. Something aboriginal.”

“I’ve painted pictures of aborigines,” Dale said. “I can do the makeup.” She went behind the privacy screen and sat in front of the mirror to start choosing makeup. Ronda went with her as I switched to a wild desert backdrop. I chose a rock and then changed the hammer for the spear we’d used on a photo shoot at the Valley of Fire in Nevada.

When I checked behind the privacy screen, I found Dale’s makeup was finished and she was sucking on one of Ronda’s nipples while vigorously pumping her fingers in and out of my girlfriend.

I kissed Ronda and she gasped into my mouth.

“Now, wild things. We need to take some more pictures.”

Dale stood and stuck her fingers, fresh from Ronda’s pussy, into my mouth as I stroked through her wet channel.

We did an entire roll of photos in front of the desert backdrop as Dale danced and paraded her naked body around exuberantly.

“In order for you to take your photo with you, I’ll need to stay for at least a couple of hours and do some processing and printing,” I said as I carried Dale back behind the privacy screen. It was one of my little rituals, and I kissed her while stroking her breasts and running my fingers down to her pussy. “Um ... You two could go entertain yourselves and I could bring the photos in a few hours,” I said.

“It would be better if we entertained each other in the darkroom,” Ronda said. “Nate has to keep moving things from place to place in the darkroom, but he always seems to have time to satisfy a model or assistant.”

“Then I’m for that,” Dale said. “We don’t need to dress at all.”

I managed to get the film processed and to print contact proofs while the girls got each other off beside me and then both pulled my trousers off and fought over who would suck the first load out of my dick. Every time I had to move a print to a different bath, or complete an exposure, they switched off. I didn’t have all the proofs finished when I filled Dale’s mouth. She immediately turned and pressed her lips to Ronda’s to fill her mouth with my spend. Once she was naked and cut loose, Dale was a total freak.

We chose the prints we wanted and I started with the full-size art prints of Dale in the jewelry so it would be dry enough to send with her. Then I started printing half a dozen matte 8x10s to send with her as well. By the time I was finished with those, I’d had my cock in each of the women, and I was filling a condom up inside Dale when the last timer went off.

“I hope you’ll come to visit me in Australia,” she said. “I’d be happy to show you around and entertain you for a few months or years.”

“What an attractive proposition,” Ronda said. “I’m betting that sometime in the next three or four years, we’ll take you up on the visitation part. I’m not sure about the years part. We have other girlfriends who need Nate’s attention. And a mistress, too. We’ll either bring them all with us or have to make it a shorter visit.”

“Well, perhaps I’ll be invited back to Chicago one day,” Dale said. “Thank you both for giving me the full Attic Allure experience.”

The next week was typical chaos of getting back to school and into the grind again. We also had to adjust our schedules for Elizabeth’s role in A Streetcar Named Desire. She’d been cast as Blanche and would be rehearsing or performing for the remainder of the quarter. She laid her rehearsal schedule on the table Sunday night when we all got home and it looked horrendous. Six weeks of regular rehearsals, a week of dress rehearsal and three nights of performance. Then, she’d have finals.

Ronda’s finals were the same week as Beth’s performances. That would be intense. My spring break wasn’t until March 28—Easter weekend. I was feeling that I needed to go to Stratford and see about getting the new equipment Anna and I ordered set up there. I needed to talk to the contractor Harold had found for us and make sure I actually had a place to work this summer.

In the meantime, I needed to adjust to my new class schedule and professors. In some ways, my class schedules were getting more manageable. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I didn’t have class until 9:00, which meant I could make sure Ronda and Beth had been sent off to school with a good breakfast and still make it to my own classes without a problem. Tuesday and Thursday, I had a promising class that met for two hours at 8:00. It was called “Image and Text” and dealt with printing from a press perspective instead of an enlarger perspective. Anna had told me I needed to get a catalog of my art prints for Zefford Gallery. Maybe this class would show me how to do it.

That was my only Tuesday/Thursday class! By 10:30, I could be in the studio for a full day’s work, assuming I wasn’t busting ass studying. I knew my study group would want to claim some time, too, but I hadn’t met with the whole group since mid-December.

So, my class schedule would mostly be Monday, Wednesday, Friday. From 9-10 I had a class called “Self-Management and Freelancing.” It was the first class I’d had with all four other members of my study group. The school really pushed that class, even if you didn’t intend to go into business for yourself.

From 10-11, I had my second semester of History of Photography. From 11-12, I had a core curriculum class called Education, Culture, and Society. Carrie was in that class with me. My next class was at 1:00 and was my third semester of Photographic Practices. Finally, from 2-3, I had Color Photography. Leslie was in that class with me.

It was a heavier load than I’d been taking with six classes and eighteen credit hours. At the same time, it seemed my classes were more concentrated and I had more usable free time. It was a world different than my first semester, when my last class didn’t get out until five o’clock.

“It’s cool that we actually all have a class together,” Carrie said when we met for our study group Tuesday afternoon.

“I’m kind of feeling this term like I’m actually in college,” Devon said. “I mean, up to this point I’ve felt college was just the same as high school, but without parental supervision.”

“I agree,” I said. “I think Beth explained to me that the first year or so was really designed as a transitional period because even at eighteen we are inexperienced in self-management.”

“I guess that’s what we’re supposed to be learning in this class,” Carrie said. “I know I was pretty scattered last year. I didn’t really know what I was here for. I had all these ideas of changing the world, but no real direction.”

“What have you settled on, Carrie?” Leanne asked.

“I’ve declared myself as a sociology major. It intrigues me and I still want to change the world and make it better. I think Sociology will give me a better understanding of what I want to change and tools for doing it, even if I still end up a go-fer in some law office.”

“There’s a woman lawyer I met last year who is also into politics,” I said. “Name’s Leva Harmon. I’ll see if I can arrange an introduction for you. I still sometimes hear from her.”