Chapter 18: Playing with Dolls

I HELPED CLAIRE DRESS, which involved a lot more touching and kissing, and packed her suitcase. We had one last kiss at the stairs and I headed to the darkroom. I found Rita at the door with the rolls of film to be processed.

“Some days, working with you is like watching live porn. Can I join you in the darkroom while we get things processed?” she asked.

“It would be hard to resist you,” I said. “In fact, I have no desire to.”

Once we were in the darkroom and I had a roll of film in developer, Rita set about getting us both naked.

“I can’t believe that after you ate her out, you let her walk away without fucking her. I was ready to scream, ‘Give her your cock!’ as if I was watching a movie.”

“What kind of movie would you be watching that you’d scream that?” I laughed. We kissed a few times and then I pulled and rinsed the roll of film, reloaded the tank, and handed it to Rita to turn the knob.

“What kind do you think? There’s a theater over on Harris that shows triple-x movies. I sometimes slip into the back row in an overcoat and sit to diddle my clit through a double feature. I kind of like watching. I like doing it, too, if you happen to get a hand or something free and would like to do me.”

I did get something free and we managed a lot of contact as we were processing film and printing contact sheets. When the last sheet was in the fixative, I finally managed to get a condom on and insert Tab A into Slot B. Her words. No matter, having her bouncing on my shaft was a delight and I was happy to fill a condom as Rita gasped out her own orgasm.

I was late for dinner, but everyone expected I would be.

The big news the next week was that Vietnam Veterans Against the War was mounting a weeklong protest in DC. There were a few thousand of them gathering, a little more organized than the student protests had been. Veterans had gone through the process of scheduling appointments to meet with congressmen and senators during the week, backed by the demonstrators on the Mall.

“I’m going to go,” Patricia announced at dinner Tuesday night.

“Go where, Sweetheart?” Ronda asked.

“To Washington to join the protest. I’ve contacted some other war widows I know and we’re going to meet up as Widows Against the War. There’s going to be a massive protest on Saturday. It might be bigger than the one we went to during the moratorium. I need to go.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said immediately.

“You’ll need help with childcare,” Ronda said. “Do you want to leave Toni with us or have us go with you?”

“You’d do that?” Patricia asked. Tears were near.

“Of course, my love. You know Anna and I would do anything for you. I’ll call her now and we’ll be ready to leave Friday morning.”

I nodded. I was so fucking proud of my girlfriends.

“Nate! Thank goodness I caught you!” said the voice on the phone when I answered Wednesday evening. “We can do it tonight if you can be at the airport by ten.”

“Do what? Who? Valerie?” I said.

“Yes! It’s Valerie the bride and I can get my wedding party onto a brand new plane tonight at ten. We’re opening new routes from Chicago, flying the 747. I told the PR people that you’d take pictures of the interior of the plane for publicity if we could shoot my wedding party there.” Valerie was very excited and talking so fast I could hardly understand her.

“Okay. I think I can make that. Where should I come?”

“Do you have your microbus with all the seats?”

“Yeah. The seats are all in.”

“Then pick up Leslie and swing by my parents’ house to pick up the girls and me.”

“Okay. I’ll call Leslie and see you between nine and nine-thirty.”

“If you’re late, we’ll be drunk!”

“Right. See you in a little while.”

I don’t think being early prevented any pre-party drinking. The girls were pretty rowdy. I’d called Leslie and she met me at the studio to pack a minimal amount of equipment, which meant my camera case and tripods. I was going to have to hope the area we were shooting had adequate lighting. I was pretty sure I couldn’t run an extension cord to power any lights. I did have my strobe, though, so that might be adequate. I packed an umbrella as well. Of course, Leslie had her Leica with her and I trusted she’d be shooting as many photos in 35mm as I did in 2x2 and 4x5.

“How many of you are there?” I asked as the girls came down the Marshes’ front steps.

“Just seven!” Valerie announced.

She practically manhandled Leslie out of the front seat so she could sit next to me. One of her friends got in next to her. Leslie went all the way to the back of the bus after wishing me good luck. We were full.

I hadn’t had nine people in the microbus in a long time. And all seven in Valerie’s party wore stewardess uniforms. I wasn’t sure if all seven were actually stewardesses. I didn’t think so. One was a little chubby and airlines were picky about that.

I followed Valerie’s directions to an employee parking lot and she hung a card from the mirror that had a flight permit on it. Leslie and I unloaded the equipment and followed Valerie through a private gate to a hangar.

I’d been on a 747 on my last trip to LA, but I’d never really been outside one. All we saw from the gate when I boarded was the nose. There were lights on all over the building and Valerie showed her ID and a letter of permission to board the plane. It was really big. It was about as long as a football field and as tall as my apartment building. I lived on the sixth floor. From wingtip to wingtip was almost as far as nose to tail.

A guy in uniform met us at the foot of the stairs and I assumed he was a pilot. There were stripes on his shoulder boards. Um ... epaulets, I think I was told at one time.

“Just don’t mess anything up. We fly this baby on her maiden voyage tomorrow at eleven a.m. Are any of you on the crew?”

“No, Jim. We’re in town for a couple of days before any of us report for duty.”

“Good. I can smell the alcohol and I’d hate to report you if you were flying,” he said. He turned to me. “I’ve been instructed to show you the cockpit. If you’ll follow me, please.”

We climbed a flight of stairs to get to the door, and then up the circular staircase to the upper deck. The pilot, Jim, led me forward and unlocked the door to where pilots flew the plane. I quickly loaded my Hasselblad and followed him into the little room.

I’ve never seen so many gauges and dials. Even the ceiling was lined with switches. I don’t think the flight deck of Hal’s spaceship in 2001: a Space Odyssey had so many controls. I guess flying in space is easier than flying around the earth. There were two seats in the nose with control sticks in front of them. The left was for the Captain, Jim explained. The right was the first officer’s seat. Oh. Like Star Trek. I could picture Kirk and Spock in the seats. There was a desk with a million gauges in front of it behind the right seat with a seat at it. This was for the second officer or flight engineer, according to Jim. Okay, Chekhov.

There was a fold down seat behind the captain’s chair that he called a jumpseat and was used for observers or pilots transferring from one base to another. He said a second crew could be housed in a bedroom area behind the lounge for really long flights. I took pictures, mostly of the controls. Jim sat in the captain’s chair and allowed me to sit in the first officer’s chair. I took a picture of him from there.

When I’d finished my tour, Jim relocked the cockpit and repeated his instructions not to break anything, then he went down the stairs and off the plane.

“Woohoo!” Valerie said as she raised a champagne glass. A couple of corks popped and the girls’ glasses were filled. Getting them in a semblance of order for a photograph was like herding cats. Someone was always paying attention to something else.

“Valerie, isn’t Elizabeth going to be in your wedding party?” I asked. I suddenly realized the absence of her sister.

“Yeah, but she’s off performing in Buffalo. Then it’s to Niagara Falls and then Boston and then who knows where. She’ll show up the day before the wedding and leave as soon as I say I do to head off to her next performance. Miss her?”

“Of course,” I said. “I just realized she was absent.”

“Yeah, well we have lots of pictures for you to take. So, let’s get loaded and start shooting.”

I thought she was well on the way to being loaded already, but she tried to hand me a glass of champagne and I waved it off. I noted Leslie had no problem participating in the party.

“I’m driving, Valerie. I have to stay sober and I’d appreciate it if the rest of you didn’t get so drunk that you throw up in the bus.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay. Just remember, you have to get all seven of us naked eventually. It will be easier if we’re a little drunk. And maybe your cute assistant will get naked, too.”

I figured that was a given.

We started with fairly formal shots of all the girls in kind of a wedge around Valerie, seated in one of the luxury recliners. Then I worked on getting them in different positions and began getting rid of their jackets. I’d do clever things like have one girl getting topless and another girl have to shield her with her jacket. Most of the girls lost their skirts after the jackets and just had their shirts on. I thought the chubby girl was the most fun among them and was an instigator when it came to risqué scenes.

By the time I had them all topless, I’d had fifteen boobs in my hands and a good handful of ass from each of them as I positioned her. None of the girls were actually introduced to me, so I’m sorry to keep referring to characteristics like the chubby girl. When I had a nice handful of her tit, she turned and kissed me, forcing a champagne-tasting tongue into my mouth.

“If you have a condom, you can have a little fun bouncing off my ass with your cock in my pussy,” she said. “If you’ve never had a big girl, you have a real experience coming. And coming and coming.”

“Thank you for the invitation. We might not get that far, but I’m definitely planning to let my fingers do the walking,” I said. She kissed me violently again.

“Yes.”

Eventually, panties came off all of them and I had seven stewardesses dressed in their hats, neckerchiefs, and high heels. I knew from my flying experiences that no working stewardess would be wearing heels like these. But it did do nice things for the legs and asses I was seeing.

“You guys have another round,” Valerie said. “I promised PR that I’d have Nate take pictures of all the main areas of the plane. We’ll be back in a few minutes. Leslie, maybe you could take some pictures of the girls.”

Leslie, of course was as naked as the other girls, having no inhibitions about drinking or playing. She agreed and got the six girls lined up in a kind of pyramid as Valerie and I went down the stairs. Hmm. That was a clever way to get us alone. I quickly realized that was her intent all along.

I took pictures of the first class cabin and the three areas of the coach with Valerie’s hand wrapped around my waist, jacking my cock. When we got back to the first class cabin, she led me to the front seat and knelt on it with her bare ass wiggling up against my cock. I quickly got a condom out of my pocket and as soon as I was sheathed, slid smoothly into the sister of my former girlfriend. I really didn’t feel bad about it. I’d fucked her mother a few months ago.

Believe me, Valerie didn’t feel bad, either. In fact, she felt damn good. I got her off just before I filled the condom. Then I twisted her around on the seat and got on my knees in front of her to eat her to an earth-shaking climax.

“God, my sister is an idiot,” Valerie panted as we checked the seat to make sure there was no residue left behind. “We’d ... um ... better put this away before we go back upstairs or you’ll have to do all seven of the girls up there.”

She tucked my cock back into my pants after removing the condom and finding an airsick bag to put it in. She rolled that up and we went back upstairs. Most of the girls had some of their clothes back on. Leslie was coaxing the stragglers into at least skirts and blouses, whether they were wearing panties and bras or not. One of the other girls, who I assumed actually was a flight attendant, collected the remaining pieces of clothing and put them in a plastic bag. She said they’d sort it out when they got to the hotel.

Valerie got dressed to much ribbing by the rest of the girls. She just grinned. They did a pretty good job of policing the area, picking up corks and bottles to deposit in another garbage bag. I packed my camera equipment and checked to make sure I had all the exposed film. I hadn’t even opened the Linhof. I shot six rolls of film in the Hasselblad, and I knew Leslie had shot a couple rolls of 35mm transparencies. When we got everything in tip top shape, we traipsed down the stairs and out the door of the aircraft.

When we got in the bus this time, Valerie got in back. The chubby girl got in front beside me and Leslie was beside her. As soon as I was started up and out of the parking lot, she slid my hand off the gearshift and up the inside of her bare thigh. Fortunately, I wasn’t driving far for the first stop. Valerie directed me to an airport hotel where four of the girls—the real stewardesses, I was told—got out and spent a lot of time gabbing on the sidewalk as Valerie convinced Leslie to join her and a friend in the back seat.

As soon as there was more room, the chubby girl spread her legs wide and pulled me into a kiss. She pushed at my hand and I found her hairy pussy to be a real swamp. I got my other hand under her blouse and on her bare tit and worked both the nipple and her clit until she gasped out an orgasm only partially silenced by my mouth on hers.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just fuck me now?” she asked. “I’m really pretty flexible and there’s more room in this front seat than some cars I’ve made it in.”

“Thank you for the offer. I’m pretty well wiped out now,” I said.

“Valerie has had more men in her pussy than cars in the Holland Tunnel. But I love her.” She looked out the still open door on the side of the bus. “Hey, bitch! Get back on the bus so we can go to bed.”

Valerie and her other girlfriend and Leslie got in the microbus and sat in the last seat with Valerie sandwiched in the middle. The other girls closed the doors behind them and headed into the hotel. I drove Valerie and her two remaining bridesmaids home and then took Leslie home with her sleeping on my shoulder.

I dragged myself to class on Thursday and went straight home after work. We decided that for such a fast trip, we needed to take Patricia’s car and not the bus, even with five of us in the car. As soon as Anna got in from Rockford Thursday, I took the car out and got it serviced. I checked the tires and made sure the tank was full. I even washed it and cleaned the inside. Friday morning, we got up early and headed out.

Ronda had called a travel agent to get us a hotel room about half a mile from the National Mall. A weary desk clerk looked at us and just shrugged as he handed Ronda a couple of keys.

We went to the restaurant in the hotel for dinner and then crashed for the night. It had been an eleven-hour trip from Chicago and even with four drivers, we were all bushed. We didn’t even complain about having two beds and a crib in the room. We all just went to sleep.

In the morning, we collected our signs and Toni’s stroller to walk the half mile to the Mall. What a jam! I think there were more people there than we’d seen during the moratorium two years ago. Maybe a quarter million people pressing into the Mall with signs and slogans.

According to the news we’d seen the night before, eight hundred Vietnam veterans had individually approached the Capitol and tossed their medals, ribbons, and even discharge papers on the steps. We could see flags flying upside down. I asked about it and was told it was an international sign of distress.

The veterans, in their uniforms and fatigues, were scattered among the crowd. Of course, I took pictures. There was no way we could collect names and releases, which meant that the photos were strictly for editorial use. I’d get home Sunday night and spend the night in the studio developing film and printing images to take to the newspaper Monday morning.

Perhaps the most moving tribute I saw all day was when a couple dozen war widows approached the steps and knelt with photos of their husbands and just cried together. Ronda and Anna stood behind Patricia with hands on her shoulders while she held Toni. That would be a photo our family would cherish forever.

We were tired and hungry by the time we got back to our hotel and managed to get through the cafeteria line for food. We all headed back to bed but were up early Sunday morning for the drive back to Chicago. It was an exhausting weekend and we all wondered if anything from the week had done any good. The war was still the war.

Two of my photos, including the picture of Patricia and Toni with Tony’s photo and the other widows, were published in the newspaper Monday evening. I sent copies to the Huntertown newspaper and they ran half a dozen of them with the story Ronda and Anna wrote to go with the photos.

My Constructed Image project was due on Thursday. I’d spent my spare time—hah!—all week working on Toni’s dollhouse. When she got it back over the weekend, she’d have a far more elaborate setup than she ever imagined before. I figured a way to mask out a bit of the dollhouse in the shape of my goddaughter. I printed her image in the dollhouse and the project passed. I also got a lot of critique and comments about how I could improve it. Some pretty helpful advice.

The spring was collapsing on me. I was just two weeks from the end of the semester and I’d promised to spend the weekend photographing Renée for my patron, Simon Guzik. Anna had negotiated the pricing and he’d agreed to a phenomenal sum for both Renée and me. This was to be a set guaranteed to be one of a kind. I would try to make sure there were good photos of Renée that were not in the set that we could have for our own collections. The set was to be just six images, but they needed to tell a story of some sort. This might have been a more difficult assignment than any of my classes this term.

We spent our entire session Friday working out the scenario. I had Renée, Rita, and Leanne with me. We talked about possibly doing artwork on Renée, different costumes she could wear, and settings we might use. Of course, Guzik wanted his set to include artistic nudes. I couldn’t blame him for that. Renée had an exquisite body she’d invited me to explore thoroughly. I was looking forward to that opportunity again.