Chapter 34: Walking a Fine Line

MAYOR LECHLEITER shook my hand as the applause faded and turned to the microphone.

“I believe that was a clear statement from Nate. Since this was promoted as a press conference, however, we will take a limited number of questions from the press, but please don’t ask about something he’s already clarified,” Lechleiter said. “Yes, you. Please state your name and who you represent then ask your question.”

She held a microphone and a student moved up to her and held a second microphone so her question could be heard by the audience. She did a great job ignoring the second mike and addressed me.

“Carmen Bailey, reporter for KHTN in Huntertown—our only truly local news station. Mr. Hart, Clyde Warren asserts that he holds concrete evidence that you took pornographic photos of a fourteen-year-old girl—not the twenty-four-year-old star of your movie. How do you respond to that assertion?”

The auditorium went silent as if they were all holding their breath. I’d prepared for this and approached the microphone.

“I sincerely hope he is not holding such evidence,” I said. There were a few gasps. I saw Sandra making her way toward me from the seats on stage. “It is for his sake that I hope this, not for mine. I don’t own any such photographs. Clyde Warren is not a law enforcement officer or an officer of the court. The truth is he’s nobody and has no official standing. Even his claims against Dr. May and Miss Ludwig had to be pursued by his cousin, our county attorney. Therefore, if he is holding such pictures, he would clearly be in possession of child pornography, a violation of federal law. I hope he is not in possession of such photos when the FBI decides to investigate him.”

“But did you take them?”

Sandra moved up to stand beside me.

“I would like to introduce Sandra Gottschalk, graduate of Tenbrook High and student at Kent State University. Sandra is studying Human Female Development at the university—something that has been her passion for many years. Her professors indicate she is already far more advanced in the topic than any undergraduate in their experience. Sandra approached me and asked my support in her study. I taught her how to use my studio quality camera to take photos of herself and I taught her how to process and print those photos. The nature of those photos is strictly her business as far as I’m concerned. Sandra?”

“I’m Sandra Gottschalk, Trojan class of 1971. I’m nineteen years old.” There were a few cheers from the student section. “I am, by nature, a curious person. Curious mostly about myself and the changes that come over a girl when she becomes a woman. I have the great good fortune to have a sister who is four years older than I. I saw her developing when I was a child. She grew hair and started shaving her legs and under her arms. She began having a monthly period. She grew breasts. And she was kind enough to answer my questions about the changes I saw in her body and to explain that I would go through those changes as well. I went through them, though not quite as dramatically as Pam. I’m still taking her photos as she gets ready to pop out a little niece or nephew for me.”

People laughed. I had a feeling there were guys in the audience who had seen more of Pam than I ever took pictures of.

“That is when, at the age of nine or so, I began using an old Polaroid camera to take pictures of myself that would show the changes that occurred in my primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Pam helped me for a while, but it was awkward to get quality pictures with the Polaroid. Then Pam told me about a high school photographer who was new in town, but had taken her photo and she’d signed a release to let him display her photos—some of those you may have seen in Nate Hart’s exhibition here in 1968. She said he was honest, had a strict policy of no sex in the studio and not dating models. He was kind and compassionate.

“I asked Nate to teach me how to get higher quality photos of myself. He introduced me to his Hasselblad camera, taught me how to put it on a tripod and how to set a timer so I could snap a picture and get around in front of the camera before the shutter released. He mixed chemicals for processing the negatives and taught me how long to keep the negatives in the developer, how to print using his enlarger, and how to develop and rinse the resulting images.

“Taking my pictures in his studio has resulted in high quality photos of the changes that have taken place in my body. Pictures I have studied in great detail as I’ve written descriptions of the changes. The pictures are of me, naked, displaying my breasts, my butt, and my vulva as they changed over the years.

“Not long ago, my album of photos was stolen. It is not illegal for me to either take or keep photos of myself. It is illegal for anyone else to possess them. I am demanding the return of my property and will pursue legal action against anyone found to have it in their possession.”

I think the appearance of Sandra and her bold statement about how she studied her own body pretty much silenced anyone in the room who wanted to go down that path. Someone wanted to know how long I’d been a photographer. Another wanted me to explain what Attic Allure was. At least I could do that comfortably.

“Any final comment for our guests, Nate?” Lechleiter asked.

“Yes, Mr. Mayor. Just one item. You sitting up there in the student seats. A lot of you are eighteen years old. You have something extremely valuable that I didn’t have when I was eighteen. In fact, I didn’t have it until I was twenty-one. You have the right to vote. In order for my voice to be heard protesting against racism, against the draft, and against the war in Vietnam, I had to take photos and march in the streets and even take a couple of beatings. Your voice can be heard at the polls tomorrow. I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. But I believe you hold many of the same values I do. So, exercise your right to vote by voting against racism, the draft, the war, the infringement of your personal rights, and against any candidate that supports those things. Together, we have the power to change things. Let’s do it.”

Patricia, Toni, Anna, and I got back to Chicago about ten Monday night. It was a long exhausting day. After the conference, it seemed everyone wanted to get to me for ‘just one more question.’ Most I answered with, “Please check the transcript of the conference. I believe I answered that question.”

I did spend a little extra time with the movie crew who were excited about the presentation. They weren’t going to be able to use footage from the press conference for a commercial project for some reason, but I suppose it was because they’d be setting up a different press conference. Bert and Brent weren’t sure yet who they’d have address the crowd, but they loved the scene. More power to them.

I had a lengthy ‘debrief’ with Adrienne in my hotel room during the afternoon. I debriefed her and she debriefed me and since we were without briefs, we just fucked for a while. Adrienne was planning to return to Chicago with Ronda on Friday. Then she, Patricia, Toni, and I would take off for Canada for my spring break while Ronda and Anna returned to school.

I wasn’t completely comfortable that Warren wouldn’t up his attack, or worse, get elected as sheriff and come after me with search warrants for my studio. I decided to move all my negatives and prints except those that were current up to the studio in Canada, where I had refrigerators I could store them in. Of course, I would need to leave the projects I was currently working on in Chicago. That was all school work.

I managed to keep my eyes open during the retouching and compositing seminar in the morning. We were working on hand tinting portraits with an airbrush and watercolor. At one time, hand coloring had been the major way that photographs were turned from black and white to color. Of course, the popularity of color film through the fifties and sixties pretty much made that obsolete. But it held real potential for turning photographs into pieces of art. Several photographer artists were using the techniques and I thought I might do some of it myself.

On Wednesday, we got the news that Warren had been defeated. I also got a call from Sandra asking if she could stop by the studio for a while on Saturday morning before I left for Canada. She wanted to tell me all that had happened in the saga of her missing photographs, but didn’t want to do it over the phone.

Finally, on Friday, just as we officially went on spring break, I packed up my equipment and followed Glenda Cox’s Datsun 240Z north to the village of Kenilworth. I specifically asked her not to go too fast so my VW Microbus could keep up with her. She laughed and said she only went fast on the Interstate.

“It is fun,” she said. “Last summer, I drove from Chicago to Minneapolis in five hours. She really cooks when you get her out where she can run.”

One thing was obvious to me long before we reached Kenilworth: Glenda was rich in a way that I didn’t think even Jordan could match.

We pulled into a long circular drive and she stopped before the front entrance. I was afraid she was going to make me drive around to a servant’s entrance or something, but she treated her car, her home, and her lifestyle like it was no big deal and I soon became comfortable with her.

I got my equipment onto its wheels and rolled inside, stopping just inside the door in the two story foyer to carefully wipe off the wheels so I wouldn’t track anything wet into the house. I wiped my feet thoroughly and felt that I should take off my shoes. The place was beautiful.

An open sweeping staircase wrapped around the foyer and Glenda immediately led me up to the second floor.

“I hope you don’t have your heart set on a tour of the entire monstrosity where I live. I don’t even know what’s in most of the rooms. I only ever go into a couple of them,” she said.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Three years. We moved here right after I finished high school, which was part of what influenced me to go to Columbia. It’s a good program and I didn’t need to fuss around with campus housing and food.”

We went down a short hall and into a bedroom at the end.

“This is a bedroom,” I said.

“Yeah. Do you want to take pictures here? We can if you want, but I thought you wanted a picture with the piano.”

“Yes. That’s the intent.”

“It’s on through here in the music room.”

She led me through her bedroom and double doors into an adjoining room that did, indeed, have a grand piano in it. There were no other doors in the room and it was obvious that the only way to the music room was through her bedroom.

“Everyone has to come through your bedroom to have access to the piano?” I asked.

“Why would anyone else want access to the piano?” she asked. Then she heaved a big sigh. “My parents are not big music lovers. My father is a stockbroker and my mother is always active in some kind of civic or charitable function. I was told they chose this house so I could have privacy while I practiced—which was another way of saying I could practice where they couldn’t hear me.”

“Gosh, Glenda, it must be difficult not having parents who are interested in what you are doing,” I commiserated.

“Oh, not that terribly bad. They’re good people and are very interested in my success. They just aren’t that interested in my music. But if they thought it would help me, they’d pull all kinds of strings to get me the right contacts. Anyway, you want me to just get undressed?”

“Oh, no, not yet. I need to set up my equipment and take some readings. Then I usually take a picture or two for your promotion and publicity. You know, a formal portrait with your instrument. Are you dressed as you would normally play a concert?”

“Oh, God no. I didn’t realize that was where we were going to start. Go ahead and get set up and I’ll get changed.”

She started stripping off her clothes as she walked back into her bedroom and seemed not to care if I was there watching or not. There were two pianos and an electronic keyboard of some sort in the room, but I assumed we’d focus on the grand that seemed to have the place of honor.

“Nate, which do you think would be best for the photo?” Glenda called. I walked into the bedroom and found Glenda completely naked with two dresses in her hands and three more laid out on the bed.

“Wow! Um ... All the other musicians just wore their black orchestra uniforms. You don’t have that out.”

“Don’t have one. Pianists get away with a lot more than other musicians. We are essentially soloists and our instrument is way up front, so we’re encouraged to wear something attractive and colorful,” she said.

The gowns in her hands were very different from each other. One was red and looked like it would fit her like a second skin. It was also backless and I liked the kind of semi-transparent strips that ran diagonally across it. The other was silver and hung in kind of a bell shape down to her hips and would then be a tight skirt down to about mid-thigh. On the bed was a blue off the shoulder gown, a green backless gown covered with sequins, and a white party dress that was so short I thought she’d be sitting on her bare butt on the piano bench.

“These all look great. We might just change you into a couple of them.” I said. “I like this red one. Looks like it will fit you like a second skin.”

“Don’t you like my first skin?” she laughed, pirouetting around the room.

“Love your first skin,” I said as she spun into me. “Would like to spend a lot of time with it, in fact. We need to fix your makeup and hair, though. This first set of photos are going to be things you can send to the Philharmonic or to a club downtown. Let’s get you fixed.”

“You’ll do my makeup?”

“Sure. I do quite a lot of that,” I said.

She tossed the dresses on the bed and went to her dressing table, which was set up with good lights and a wide array of cosmetics. She didn’t attempt to dress first, so I felt pretty free to enjoy looking at the first skin she was showing me. As I got rolling with her makeup, it became easier and easier to touch her face and shoulders. And she was beginning to get into a rhythm of her own as shoulders shifted. I could see she had music running through her head as I finished her face and pulled her hair into a knot that would hang down on one side.

Then I grabbed the red dress and dropped it over her head. She slipped her arms into the sleeves and I ran my hands down her breasts and torso as I pulled the dress down smooth.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Red high heels on the second rack in that closet. The really tall ones.”

I jumped to go to the closet and find the shoes. It was huge! This would have made a great bedroom for Toni. With room for all her toys. I found the correct pair of shoes and went back to Glenda. She was just putting on a strand of pearls, tossed over her shoulder so it looked like a choker from the front and hung down in a long strand in back, nearly to her butt. She turned on her stool and pulled her skirt up, then held out her foot for me to put the shoe on it. That was certainly an interesting view. She was wearing nothing but the red sheath and the pearls. I finished fastening one shoe and then the other and she started dancing toward the piano room.

It was obvious that from this point, the shoot was on her terms. She sat at the piano and I got my first picture of her. This was a lot like just getting Avery to dance for me by the river bank, though with less likelihood of us getting a cold bath. This was a number I recognized as soon as she put her fingers on the keys: George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’ The expressions on her face just lit up the room as she was instantly caught up in the music.

I took my time moving the tripod and camera from place to place. I knew that if she played the entire piece, I had a good fifteen minutes to get just the right picture. I even moved behind her and got the classic photo of the reflection of her hands in the shiny key cover of the piano. I hadn’t realized just how long and thin her fingers were. They were incredible.

I moved the Linhof into position and as she reached the portion of the piece that slows down, she got a dreamy look on her face and broke into a stellar smile as she hit the theme once again. That was the picture I wanted for her portrait.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of my private concert. I moved back a little so I could get a full seated picture of her, including her high heeled foot on the pedals.

She brought the piece to a conclusion with her hand held high in the air. I took it and brought her to her feet. She bowed slightly to me and we walked into her bedroom. I looked at the other dresses laid out on the bed and when I turned to her, she was naked again, the red dress lying on the floor. She was stroking her nipples.

“Gershwin just makes me horny,” she said.

I stepped up next to her and put an arm around her. She leaned into me and I stroked her breast as I kissed her neck.

“Oh, yes,” she sighed. “The white and silver gown. It’s time for Chopin.”

I looked at the bed and she shook her head. She pointed to another closet, which was larger than the first. This one was pretty much all gowns. I found one that was white with a silver filigree top. By filigree, I mean the top was almost all strands of silver sequins with a skirt of white satin and a front bodice that was just opaque enough that I didn’t think her nipples would actually show through.

I brought it out and found her leaning over the dressing table, touching up her lipstick. That was an inviting sight. I placed a hand on her buns and she slowly straightened to look at me. She nodded at the dress and I helped her into it. Believe me, it required both my hands in very interesting positions all over her body to see that she was fully tucked in and the strands of sequins hung flat against her skin.

She changed to silver earrings that dangled down and then sat.

“Spikes with a silver strap over the toes and around the ankle,” she said, pointing to the first closet. I went in and quickly found what were almost shoes. They were truly nothing but the sole, a five-inch spike heel, and a strap to hold them at her ankle and her toes. I brought them out and found her fastening a rhinestone cord around her thigh. The dress was slit from the floor up to her butt. She held her foot up to me, exposing herself fully as I strapped on the little shoes.

We returned to the piano and I held her hand as she sat.

“This piece is only five minutes,” she said. “It’s very dreamy.”

She looked very dreamy. It was curious that with the other musicians, I had photographed them with their instruments in hand or posed with the instrument in some way. I hadn’t actually photographed any of them except the cellist while playing their instruments. This piece was extremely sensual. Still, she was as fluid as her fingers as she moved with the music. When she moved in one direction, her butt was almost exposed through the slit in her skirt.