Chapter 4: And Action

I GOT OUT of my job at two o’clock and went to my Chicago Fashion Tribes class. That was the first time I saw one of my buddies. Leslie was taking this course. That seemed natural, since her concentration was fashion photography.

“Nate! I wondered where you were. What are you taking?” she asked as she gave me a hug.

I found out that when I had Imaging Strategies and Experimental Photography, she was taking Fashion Photography/Studio and Commercial Photography. We agreed to get together Wednesday at noon and try to get Leanne, Carrie, and Devon together for our weekly study group.

After what we quickly dubbed ‘the tribal class,’ I headed straight home. Getting out at four o’clock meant I was still likely to hit the peak of rush hour on the train at four-thirty. You could just about bet that by the time any train got to the south end of the Loop between four-thirty and six o’clock, there would be standing room only.

“Oh, man, look at this,” Patricia said when she got home. She barely got the newspaper tossed on the table before she was bowled over by Toni. Ronda had the little girl all day and was still trying to get dinner on the table for the family. I’d try to get home sooner tomorrow. I had a feeling the family was going to start eating later in the evening than we had been. Especially when Ronda started school in three weeks. But Toni was going to start daycare tomorrow while Patricia worked. We all agreed that Ronda wasn’t the equivalent of daycare, no matter how much she loved Toni.

“What is it?” I asked, looking at the entertainment section of the New York Times.

“It came out last Wednesday, but I didn’t think of picking up a copy until I saw it in the break room today. Page thirty-one. It’s a review of Beth’s show.”

I sorted through the pages until I spotted the review of The Emerald Slipper. I don’t think the show was at all what I thought it was. And the reviewer struggled to be kind. And failed.

First of all, the show is definitely not for adults of any ages. Although at the Saturday preview matinee I attended some of the children seemed to enjoy some of it some of the time, it is not a recommendable show for children either—unless you are absolutely at a loss for something to do with a child at 7 o’clock in the evening.

The play, the work of Josill Alcarez, who also directed, has an Oriental background and characters named Prince Won Ton, Princess Consume (pronounced consommé) and Chow Mein, which means it has much to overcome before it begins.

—The New York Times review 9/2/1970 by Mel Gussow

“Oh, dear. There isn’t even a mention of the acting or actors,” I said. “And the reviewer ends by saying, ‘I’d be a Liar Box if I said I enjoyed any aspect of it.’ Poor Beth.” I tossed the paper on the table and took Toni from Patricia so she could take off her jacket—and a few other clothes—and sit down at the table. I got Toni into her high chair and Ronda put a very nice tuna/noodle casserole in front of us.

I had a completely different line-up of classes on Wednesday with Image Strategies, Makeup Techniques, and Urban Images in Media and Film. Leanne was a student assistant in the Makeup Techniques class. It would be a hands-on class, but like all classes, the first day was an introduction and I figured out that I’d need to go buy the textbook, which cost something ridiculous, like $12.95.

Leanne and I went to the cafeteria to meet Leslie, Carrie, and Devon. Only Devon was definitely Dora now. She made no pretense about being who she was. I wondered how I was going to deal with her when she came to get her ID photo. Well, she’d have that battle with the Registrar, not with me. She looked divine.

“I don’t know, but by the looks of it, you four all got laid this summer. I mean, I know Nate did. Dora already told me she did, and I can’t imagine Leanne and Leslie going to visit Nate in Stratford and not getting screwed. I’m insanely jealous,” Carrie said.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t found a guy to do the deed with!” Leanne said. “Nate, you really need to help this poor girl out.”

“Not my job!” I said. Not that I’d mind fucking Carrie, but I was afraid she’d think that meant we were getting married.

“No, I think I found the guy, but we haven’t quite gotten to that part yet. But he’s so sweet. He works on Leva’s staff, so you know he’s respectful of women.”

“How goes the campaign?” I asked.

“I think she’s going to pull it off. I didn’t know this, but the Chicago City Council isn’t the only City Council in town. If that made any sense,” Carrie said.

“Almost,” I said.

“There are a number of neighborhoods, like Englewood and Edgewater, that have neighborhood councils. They aren’t as prestigious as the City Council, but they make a good stepping stone for political aspirations. Leva is going to run for a board position on the Edgewater Community Council.”

“That’s cool. That’s a nice neighborhood. It’s where Beth’s family lives.”

That got us talking about Beth and the bad review her show got and how we’d broken up at the end of the summer and she’d gone to New York. Then we caught up on everyone else’s summer. We agreed to meet on Wednesdays at noon and the next meeting would be at the studio.

I got a call on Thursday that I had an appointment Friday for a portrait. Cassie didn’t think it was a big deal and shouldn’t take too long, but the order for prints was likely to be large.

That was unusual for a basic portrait. The only time a person wanted a lot of prints was for a portfolio, or for school pictures. I thought perhaps one of the brochures I’d handed out had brought in a client.

I got to the studio about ten after having had a long and luxurious lovemaking session with Anna. She’d finished her first three days in classes and was happy to be home. She had a pile of homework already, though, as she had two classes that were going to take a huge amount of time: Real Estate Finance and Banking. Apparently, our transaction to buy the house and business in Stratford had been extremely simple compared to what financing a home purchase in the US could be. And I thought banking was nothing more than putting money in a checking account and making payments from it. According to Anna, they were really big topics and she’d spend an entire semester studying each.

I guessed accounting and finance were as complicated as photography. At least I didn’t have to buy huge textbooks for most of my classes. They were more esoteric, I guess. A lot of my tribal class and the film class would be taught out of magazines and newspapers. The Image Strategies and Experimental Photography classes were mostly hands on with a couple of professionals who brought their experience to the classroom more than a text. Only my makeup class had a real textbook. It would be an expensive class beyond that as we were supposed to start assembling our own makeup kit.

My musing was interrupted by the arrival of my client. She was carrying a dress bag in front of her that was blocking my view of who it was, but when I greeted her and she lowered the bag, I almost lost it.

“Welcome to Attic Allure. Let me help you with your dress bag,” I said. “Valerie? What are you doing here?”

“I’m getting married!” she said.

“Here?”

“No! I’m getting my bridal portrait done here. Where else would I go?”

“A bridal portrait! This is your wedding dress?”

“Yep.”

“Sorry for having been taken so off guard. Welcome. I’ll be happy to take a bridal portrait. I was just so surprised to see you. It’s been...”

“The New Year’s Eve Party when you brought that incredibly beautiful woman from Los Angeles. As well as all your girlfriends.”

“Adrienne is our mistress. I was out in LA just a couple of weeks ago to work on the movie. I saw her then,” I said. “Here are a couple of pictures I took while out there. Not of Adrienne, but of some actresses.”

“Do I recognize her?” Valerie asked. “She seems familiar.”

“That’s Sue Fletcher. I’ve never seen anything she’s in.”

“I don’t recognize the name. Were you taking a picture of a teenybopper? That’s a little risky, isn’t it?”

“That’s the actress Lorna Love. She’s twenty-three. She’s playing a teen in the movie.”

“You have a Lolita in your movie!”

“It’s not my movie. I only act as a consultant on photography issues and I took production photos during the first week of shooting. It’s actually a murder mystery,” I said. I didn’t want anyone to think the movie was about me. Lyle was a creepy guy, both on film and in person.

“Well, I finally got my guy, so I need bridal photos. I think I’ll want one of those big color pictures to give my parents. I’ll need a couple dozen black and white 8x10s to send with announcements to newspapers and society journals, and I’ll want an album of intimate photos that show me getting ready.”

“Wow! Let me see what I have for scenery props and background that would be good. Too bad I can’t show you coming down the aisle on an airplane in your gown.”

“Yes! Could you do that? I mean take the picture if I got it set up?”

“I’ve taken pictures on a plane before. I think I could get a good one. I just don’t happen to have a plane available.”

“I’ll get one. But not today. Today, start with a regular portrait and then get me into my dress.”

I paused as I set the stage for a standard portrait as I considered what she had just said. Get her into her dress? Well, Jordan had said that I didn’t need to be concerned about taking pictures of Valerie or Nadia. What the hell?

I treated Valerie like I would any other client. If I had known how extensive a sitting she wanted, I would have gotten an assistant in. This could take a long time, but Valerie had already described several hundred dollars’ worth of photos she wanted to buy. I’d just go with it as it came.

Valerie posed nicely on a stool for her initial portrait and I got her in all the positions I would have used for a high school yearbook. Nothing really special about that portrait set, but she was very pretty and it would make a nice portrait.

“Now, you can step behind the privacy screen to put your dress on,” I said. “I think I have a white room backdrop that I can use for the portrait. The dress is white, isn’t it?”

“Um ... Nate? Yeah, white. But ... I don’t suppose you’ve ever done a wedding. It takes more than one person to get me into the gown.”

“You want me to dress you.”

“It’s why I came to you for this set of photos instead of Olan Mills,” she said.

“Okay. Let me get the backdrop up first. If you wouldn’t mind giving me a hand, we can get it done more efficiently.”

I got the drop and Valerie helped hold it while I fastened it in place. I pulled the white drop out under the room so she would have a white surface to stand on. I set lights approximately where I thought they would go. Then I took a deep breath and went to help Valerie get dressed.

By the time I joined her behind the privacy screen, she was wearing only her bra and panties. Well, at least I didn’t need to undress her. She had the bag unzipped and I could see the beautiful white dress in it. She was bent over to remove her shoes from the bottom of the bag. My cock was instantly reminded of another stewardess I’d seen bent over like this. Wow! The panties didn’t really hide much. They were the style that just had a string around the waist and one down her butt crack. There was a triangle of thin silk covering her pussy lips. Mostly.

“Enjoying the view?” she asked, looking back at me.

“Yes, actually. Don’t hurry.”

She wiggled her hips slightly and then stood, turning to face me. The bra was as thin as the panties and her nipples were clearly visible through it. She handed me a pair of white lacy hose and sat down, holding out a very shapely leg.

“I was told by my sister that you don’t fuck in the studio,” Valerie said as I sorted out the hose and reached for her foot.

“That’s right.” I was thankful Beth hadn’t mentioned areas where I did fuck.

“That’s what gave me the courage to come and do this photoshoot with you. It was what you did in the shoot with Lisbet last spring. I’m okay with all that. In fact, I’m kind of hoping for all that. But it wouldn’t be seemly for the bride to fuck another man while she’s wearing her bridal gown, or putting it on, or taking it off. You know, the groom has a right to expect something,” she laughed.

“I agree,” I said. “Who is the lucky guy?”

“Daren Collins. I was with him at the New Year’s Eve party, but there were so many people there, I scarcely spoke to you. He works for the government, in civilian service at the Office of the Architect of the Capitol. He’s an assistant deputy something or another, but has a pretty good career path in front of him. And family.”

“I had assumed he was temporary,” I said. “Every time I met you at the house you were with someone else.”

I moved to her second leg and rolled the hose on. She sighed and opened her legs wide.

“Look at this, Nate. Oh, don’t be shy. I know you’ve seen a pussy before.” She pulled the gusset of the panties aside so I could truly see her bare lips. “Do you know how many men have put their penis in this vagina? I don’t know either. I’ve spent five years as a sky mattress. And I finally found a man who not only wanted to get between my legs, he wanted to stay there.”

She pulled her panties back into place and stood up.

“By the way, that sounded tired and bitter,” she said. “I’m not, really. I’ve had a blast flying and meeting people. I like getting a man’s penis in my vagina. I still wouldn’t mind getting yours there—but not in the studio or in my wedding gown. I figure there must be some reason so many women want to hang with you all the time. So, help me out of my bra and into my dress. I figured that it would be easier to start fully dressed and have you take pictures in reverse order as you undress me, than to keep stopping as I dress to take the pictures.”

I worked with Valerie all afternoon. And played a little. She had lovely boobs, just a little smaller than Beth’s. Valerie was a little shorter than Beth, and perhaps a little thinner. Why was I constantly compelled to compare Valerie to her younger sister?

Nonetheless, Valerie responded well to my direction and seemed to appreciate when I moved her with my hands, whether they strayed to her ass or anyplace else. The pictures of her in her dress with her veil and train in front of the backdrop were perfect. I loved the white on white look and took all the time necessary to capture the image of her full length front and back. Each time she moved, the train had to be adjusted.

“This is pretty, but how do you handle it, going up and down the aisle and dancing at the reception?”

“It’s brilliant, really,” she said. “Are you ready to start undressing me? I’ll show you.”

“I’d like just a couple more close-ups. One veil down and one veil up.”

“Can you see through it okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I did a series of photos of a model a few years ago just dancing with a veil in front of her. Nothing else. They were gorgeous.”

“We should try that,” she said.

I didn’t take a lot of photos, and I took most of them on the Linhof, so it took a little longer to get set up and get the right film carrier in. I was taking both color and black and white images.

When I’d finished the last take with Valerie fully dressed, I needed to take ten film carriers into the darkroom, carefully separated as to which were color and which were black and white. I put them in different dark envelopes that I’d pre-marked and then reloaded the carriers.

When I brought the new carriers out, I asked Valerie what she saw as the sequence for the next batch of photos.

“I think I’d like photos front and back without the train and veil in front of this backdrop, but then I’d like you to do something really dramatic with the rest of them. You know ... with the rest of the pieces coming off.”

“Okay. Let’s start with removing the train and veil.”

The veil was fairly easy, but I had to put her hair back in place when it was removed. Then she showed me how the train, which had been attached to the skirt when I got her into the dress, unbuttoned from the waist of the dress so I could remove it. I got them into the dressing area and hung up, then returned to see the stunning result.

The dress was lace, tailored tightly to her bust and hips before flaring out just slightly around her legs all the way to the floor. It had a plunging neckline both in front and in back. In front it was cut well below her boobs and had just a translucent layer of silk beneath it. With the train on the dress, I hadn’t realized the lace and thin silk underlayment went all the way down the skirt.

In back, the vee went all the way down to her butt, stopping just above where one would see her crack. I’d put the dress on over her head, much as I’d helped Ronda into her homecoming dress years ago. It fit snugly over her hips and had barely cleared her boobs on the way down. I had to make sure those beautiful breasts were securely tucked inside the gown.

Now I wasn’t sure but what I could see them beneath the lace and silk. Not clearly, but I just knew right where the nipples were. I got her into the first position and took the color and the black and white pictures as she looked over her shoulder at me. Or rather the camera. Then, just as we’d used a three-quarter back position, I turned her to three-quarters front. I knelt to fluff the edge of the skirt out a bit and make sure it hung straight. From this distance, I was sure I could see her panties and where the white stockings ended. Well, I supposed no one but her husband would get this view on her wedding day.

It was a good view, though.

“Now, for something dramatic,” I said. “Let’s get this drop out of the way and pull the black. You have lovely fair skin and the white dress will make a great contrast with the black background. I’ll have you floating against the void.”

Getting the background out of the way was a little more difficult than getting it in place. All I could ask Valerie to do was stay out of the way while I wrestled with it. I only rolled it up and didn’t attempt to move it off the stand. I rolled up the white backdrop that I’d extended for her to stand on and pulled down the black. When it was in place, I moved Valerie onto it. I adjusted the lights and was satisfied that I had her isolated.

“Now, how are you going to undress me?” she whispered. “Please be careful not to damage the dress.”

“I’ve gotten a better look at it now that we have the veil and train out of the way,” I said. “I think we can get some lovely shots that look like you are getting into it instead of out of it.”