Chapter 2: Saturday

Bits of dreams and fantasies re-assembled themselves into consciousness. I slowly opened my eyes and found myself looking into a pair of beautiful blue eyes that proved last night hadn't been a dream.

"Morning, sleepyhead. Oh, and it only took one angel," Beth smiled shyly.

I blushed when I realized she'd heard my whisper last night. "So I wasn't dreaming. And you weren't supposed to hear that, I thought you were asleep."

"I though it was sweet. Nobody ever said anything like that to me before."

"Er ... what time is it, anyway?" Mr. Smooth here, trying to change the subject.

"It's about ten. Why, do you have to go?"

"No. I should probably go home and get some clean clothes, but I don't have anything planned for the weekend. What'd you have in mind?"

"Nothing special, just bum around. Maybe a picnic or something?"

"Okay, why don't we go over to my place and I'll get changed, then we can head out from there."

"Then I suppose I should get some clothes on, huh?"

"Welll," I joked, leering at her T-shirt, "Only if you insist."

She playfully slapped my arm, "You'd just love to see me go out dressed like this, wouldn't you?"

"Who said anything about going out?" I grinned.

She looked at me with a curious expression, "You don't have any idea how good you are for a girl's ego, do you? Now let's get dressed and I'll fix you breakfast."

I grabbed yesterday's clothes and walked down the hall to the bathroom. When I got back Beth was dressed in her usual outfit: loose jeans and an oversized bulky sweater.

"Beth, why do you always dress like that?"

"Like this? Because is comfortable."

"Well, ah, you, um..." Oh shit, all of a sudden here I was trying to play Henry Higgins. "Don't you have any T-shirts or more stylish jeans or anything like that?"

"Um, yeah, but I don't like to wear them much."

"Why not? You'd look great in a pair of low riders and a nice tight T-shirt."

"Oh, fuck, I couldn't wear something like that!" Her blush went all the way down her neck when she realized what she'd said and she fled downstairs to fix breakfast.

I just shook my head and followed.

As we were eating, Beth studied me for a while and, in a small, almost little-girl voice asked, "Do you really think I'm pretty?"

"No, I don't ... I think you're beautiful."

"Um, Tommy, are you gay?"

As long as I live, I will never figure out how the female mind works, let alone be able to predict what veering path they'll take next. On top of that I'd just taken a mouthful of juice—which ended up all over the counter, missing Beth by inches.

As we finished cleaning up the mess, I looked up and asked, "What made you ask that?"

"Well you say you like me, but last night you stopped ... twice."

"Stopped? Stopped what?" I was totally lost—not the foggiest idea what she was talking about.

"When you were rubbing my back, you stopped before you got to my butt and then again when you were doing my legs you didn't go, y'know, all the way up. And later when we were in bed," a slight pink tinge flashed across her face, "you didn't try anything. Why I even had to FORCE you to grab my boob!"

"I didn't think you'd want me to touch you like that. It wasn't that I didn't WANT to."

She looked at me for a while then just shook her head, "You're too much."

As we cleaned up the breakfast dishes, a thought that had been floating around my head for a while suddenly crystallized. "Beth, we've got to do something about your self-image. Have you got a camera?"

"A camera? Yeah, my folks got me one for Christmas last year. Why?"

"How about a two-piece swim suit?"

"A two-piece ... you mean like a bikini? Can you see me wearing something like that?"

"Do you have one," I said, evading her question.

"Well ... yeah, someplace. Mom bought me one a couple of years ago, but I've never even tried it on!"

I looked straight into her eyes, "Do you trust me?"

"After everything last night, I guess I'll have to," she sighed.

"I want to try a quick experiment, if you'll trust me."

"What do you want me to do?" I could hear the trepidation in her voice.

"Grab your camera and change into the bikini and I'll show you."

"You want to take pictures of me in a BIKINI!?"

"You said you trusted me."

"Well ... okay. Nobody else is going to see the pictures, are they?"

"Not unless you want to show them to somebody. After we're done you can erase the memory card yourself to make sure."

She pulled a Nikon D300 out of a drawer and handed it to me, "Are you sure this is going to work?"

"The idea or the camera?" I kidded her, "With a camera like this I can work miracles. This looks almost new, don't you use it?"

"I've never figured out all the controls. All I wanted was a simple one I could take some snapshots with, instead my dad went nuts and bought me that. I've got the case around here somewhere that has a some more lenses too."

While she searched for her bikini I fiddled with the controls on the camera. This was going to be fun!

As she headed for her bathroom, suit in hand, I heard, "I hope I don't regret this..."

While she was changing, I warmed up her computer and spent a couple of minutes on Google finding what I was looking for. "Shit, I hope this works," I muttered as the search engine brought up my choices.

"Are you ready?" I heard through the bathroom door.

I cleared the screen and answered, "All set."

She opened the door and shyly stepped out, looking like she'd rather be walking into a lion's den. "Do we have to do this?"

"No, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised." I know I was! The black bikini was even smaller than I expected. Either her mother didn't understand how shy and body-conscious her daughter was or Beth had gone through one hellacious growth spurt. The suit did a magnificent job of showing off her figure. She was tall, with great legs, thin, but not supermodel skinny. She reminded me of the pro volleyball players I'd spent many a Saturday afternoon watching on the tube. The suit even made the most of what she had up top.

"Stand in front of that bare wall," I said as I tried to remember the poses in the pictures I'd downloaded. "Now move your left leg out in front of your right. Okay, now turn back to look at me." <CLICK> "Great, now let's try another one..."

I shot perhaps a dozen pictures before I told her I thought I had enough.