Chapter 23: A Photo Shoot in Huntington Hall

A very eerie silence settled over the university once all the students had departed for the holidays. A couple of coffee shops in the student center remained open to serve the handful of students living off campus not traveling, but the dorm area was totally deserted. Even most of the RA's had left. A couple of her co-workers were coming back right after New Year's, but Cecilia was the only RA who would spend the entire Christmas break in the dorm.

The dorm's manager decided to make her duty RA during the break and give her the keys to the entire building. In the morning she had to unlock the service entrance to let the janitors in, but apart from that, she would have Huntington Hall to herself until after New Year's.

Two days after Jason left there was a heavy snowstorm that blanketed the university. With the students gone and only the service entrance of Huntington Hall remaining open, there was no need to shovel the sidewalks. With the sidewalks buried under a foot of snow the dorm area became even more deserted, silent, and desolate.

During the days she was snowed in, Cecilia was able to relax in many small ways she couldn't when the dorm was full of students. She greatly enjoyed the silence surrounding her. The only noise she would hear during those three weeks would be whatever noise she chose to make. Sometimes she played classical music or a CD from "Socrates' Mistresses", but more often everything was turned off and her room was as quiet as the rest of Huntington Hall. The quiet was very nice for a soul starved for tranquility.

She remained busy, active on the Internet or preparing for the upcoming semester. She spent several days making major revisions to the website of "Socrates' Mistresses" and improving her knowledge of digital art and web graphics. She experimented with sound files, looking for the format that would best suit the band's Internet needs. She got caught up on the news by reading on-line articles and corresponding with Kimberly and Cynthia Lee. The days flew by in spite of the void Jason's absence had left in her life.

For most of the break Cecilia didn't bother to get dressed. Under the influence of her boyfriend, during the fall semester she had become used to sleeping naked. With the heat turned up in her room, she also enjoyed not wearing anything while studying or relaxing. Even when she went to the bathroom she knew there was no need to get dressed, since there was no one else on the floor to see her. The first few trips she simply wrapped herself in a towel when she went to pee or take a shower. Later, as she became more comfortable walking around in the vacated building, she began leaving her towel in her room. As she walked down the hallway with the cool air blowing against her bare skin, she reflected how much like Jason she had become in being comfortable with her body.

Three days after the dorm residents had left, Cecilia had built up enough dirty clothes to need to do a load of wash. She made a rather important decision; she would not get dressed when she took the dirty clothing downstairs to the laundry room. Why bother? There was no one to see her, and it would be nice to have every article of clothing in her room clean and put away, with no exceptions. With her heart pounding and the thrill of erotic excitement going through her thoughts, she walked down the stairs wearing nothing but a pair of flip-flops. Her heart continued to pound as she placed the clothes in the washing machine, turned it on, and went back upstairs.

Naked, she made several more trips up and down the stairs to move her clothes to a dryer and later pull them out. She unfolded an ironing board and spent the next hour ironing and folding her clothes. She put the ironed clothes in a basket or on hangers, and then made several more naked trips up and down the stairs to move everything back to her room and put it away. By the time she was finished, she no longer felt that she was doing anything daring. She was becoming used to being naked outside of her room and found it quite enjoyable.

From that point forward she began doing her building checks in the nude, wearing just her sneakers and carrying the dorm keys and her radio. She patrolled the deserted hallways several times a day to stretch her legs. She enjoyed walking around the empty floors and exerting herself going up and down the stairs.

From doing her building checks in the nude, Cecilia progressed to exercising in the nude. In the director's office there was a treadmill. Because the environment outside was so bitterly cold, she had no desire to go out, not even to stay in shape. Instead she decided to exercise on the treadmill by walking and running, still dressed in nothing but her sneakers. She did not have to worry about her boss catching her naked in his office, because she had his dorm keys and he would need to radio her if he wanted in the building. So, twice a day she entered the office to spend an hour walking and jogging on the treadmill. By the end of Christmas break she had worked herself up to running two miles non-stop and walking an additional four miles.

Cecilia's sexual urges did not diminish over her three-week confinement in the dorm. With Jason absent from her life, she returned to her old routine of self-pleasure. She spent countless hours masturbating and gently caressing her body with her fingertips. Usually she stayed in her room during her lengthy sessions of self-love, but not always. One of the best orgasms during her three weeks of solitude came one night in the commons area during a very heavy snowstorm. She sat in front of a bay window on a sofa, caressing and fondling herself in the open room as a layer of new snow blanketed the deserted university. What excited the RA was the fact the window was in plain view of the entire campus, but because she was sitting in the dark and it was snowing, she was invisible to the outside. She wondered what the dorm's freshmen would think if they could have seen their no-nonsense RA sitting naked in the commons area, sweaty and gasping, her legs spread to the world, giving herself an orgasm.

For the second time of her life, Cecilia faced the prospect of spending Christmas alone. It was ironic that she had plenty of people in her life who cared about her, but their circumstances prevented them from being available to spend any time with her on Christmas.

Dealing with being alone at the end of December was very hard on her. Christmas was the one time during each year Cecilia had good memories of her life in New Jersey. She knew that it was easy idealize those few pleasant moments that stood out in an otherwise very bleak life, but she couldn't help it. As hard as it was to believe, as Christmas loomed she even missed her family.

Christmas always had been the one time during the year the Sanchez family could ignore their personal problems and set aside their disputes. Cecilia, her mother, and her cousin always spent a couple of days preparing traditional Dominican dishes, so the family always ate well during the last week of the year. Whatever money they had was spent on gifts and decorations. Neighbors always came over, and there were numerous invitations to visit other families in the housing project. There were Church services and midnight masses, traditional Spanish Christmas music to replace the ever-present Salsa and Rap that permeated the project, and Christmas pageants at school and at church. Cecilia did not miss very much of her life in New Jersey, but she did miss Christmas.

She spent a lot of time corresponding with Kimberly Lee about Christmas in Upper Danubia. Kim also missed Christmas, but for a different reason. The Danubians did not have any major celebration of Christmas on December 25, but instead combined the celebration of Christmas with celebrating New Year's a week later. The tradition was to spend the hours before midnight with family members, then attend Temple services for an hour, and then to spend the following day and evening visiting friends and exchanging gifts.

"Christmas used to be a bigger deal than it is now, but since the Danubians are getting back into their old religion, the Catholic holidays don't matter to them too much anymore. I miss my family and sometimes miss the way we do things in the US, so I feel for you about missing Christmas with your own family."

On the morning of December 24, Cecilia got a call from Suzanne Foster. She was greatly surprised, because she had thought that Suzanne would be off-campus like most of the other dorm residents. She had indeed left for the holiday, but had to come back because of a fight with her father. Her dorm director, aware of her difficult personal situation, decided to waive the rule about having her stay out of her room over the Christmas break and let her back in. She would have to eat out of the dorm, but at least she could sleep in her room.

Suzanne was very upset over her latest fight with her father. She had been forced to leave her family's house the morning before Christmas and faced spending the rest of her vacation alone on campus. Cecilia decided to get together with her friend, have lunch, and give Suzanne a chance to have someone to talk to. As bad as she felt for Suzanne, she was glad to have a familiar face on campus to alleviate her own loneliness. For the first time in over a week, Cecilia got dressed and nerved herself to face the bitter cold outside to walk over to Suzanne's dorm.

The two women crossed the university to eat at a restaurant just off-campus, and then wandered around a bit until the stores began closing. During that entire time Suzanne talked about a disastrous end of the semester. In a three week period she had broken up with her boyfriend, been accused of cheating on a term paper by a professor, and had a vicious fight with her father.

"The cheating hassle was why I never called you when the Dukov group was here. The ethics panel actually had me go to a hearing and I had to bring in all my research stuff. I mean ... I had to go to the library and get all my books and take them over, dig up my notes ... I even had to go through the trash to get some scraps of paper that I took notes on. Any you know why they accused me of cheating? Simply because the way I write is kinda like the way one of the professors here writes. I didn't even know who the guy was, but they said I was copying his work. I'll tell you, I'm mad about this ... really mad, and I told them that. Anyhow, they cleared me, but I don't know if really they believe me or not. And, I don't know if the professors are gonna trust me after this, because the whole thing's gotten around the department. Let this be a lesson to you, keep your research notes for your papers."

Suzanne vented her anger against her boyfriend, who was art major specializing in painting. The guy had not really done anything all semester except create a few very bad paintings. He had no job and Suzanne had been paying for their dates. On top of everything else he had flunked a couple of his classes at the university and was considering taking classes at the community college. Since he no longer was going to be student at the university, he would have to move off-campus and really had nowhere to go.

Suzanne snapped when he told her he wanted to keep his stuff in her room and sleep there until he came up with something else. She was fully aware he would not be able to come up with anything else, and probably would want to stay indefinitely. Furthermore, by having a male stay in her room, she would be risking getting kicked out of the dorm. The answer was no. No stuff in my room, no sleeping in my room, no using my meal card to eat in the cafeteria. Go find someone else to support you, because I've had it. And by the way, you'd better change your major, because you don't know how to paint. What you call a painting is something I could have done when I was in kinder garden.

Suzanne went home to her father's house in an irritated mood. She made the mistake of telling him and her step-mother about the final two weeks of her semester. He promptly used the cheating accusation and her most recent break-up to ridicule her, and heap his usual contempt on her life and her efforts in college. Suzanne, still in a rotten mood from the events over the past two weeks, simply left the house without saying anything and returned to the university.

Cecilia was curious about the odious behavior from her friend's father and why she put up with it.

"You know, you take a lot of shit from your dad, and I don't get it. I'm tellin' you, if I were you, I would've told him to go fuck himself a long time ago. There's no way I'd put up with what you're puttin' up with. So, how come you're doin' it? How come you're takin' his shit?"

"I don't know, Cecilia. I don't know why I'm doing it. I'm always asking myself the same thing, but I keep hoping that someday things might be different. I keep hoping that he'll change, I mean, go back to the way he was when I was little, and we might be a family again ... like before my mom left."

"It's not gonna happen. You don't have any family, 'cause your dad's just a rotten person. You gotta deal with that. That's your reality, and you just gotta face it. That man's no good, and you know he's no good. He doesn't deserve you bein' nice to him."

"I guess. I don't know myself why I'm this way ... why I can't let go. Right now I just can't."

Cecilia, upon realizing she wasn't going to get Suzanne to change her outlook on her relationship with her father, decided to change the subject and work on improving her friend's mood. She invited Suzanne back to her room to listen to the latest CD sent to her by Kimberly Lee and to look at the website draft she had prepared. Suzanne, who had more of an eye for aesthetic appeal than did Cecilia, made several suggestions to improve the over-all appearance of the webpages, including a change in the color scheme. A few mouse clicks accomplished those changes, and yes, the webpages did indeed look better with the new colors.

Suzanne was in a quiet mood and ready to listen to Cecilia's adventures with the Danubians. She was impressed that Cecilia actually had sat for dinner with the country's Prime Minister and made a suggestion that perhaps salvaged an international treaty. Cecilia talked at length about the final week of the semester on her floor and her efforts to get her residents to pass their classes. While they were talking Cecilia burned an extra CD for Suzanne, figuring that her advice on the webpage more than made up for the fact she was giving a friend the band's latest music for free.

Suzanne invited Cecilia back to her room to look over the photos she had taken in the art department studio earlier in the semester. It was strange to see her own body, completely stripped in a totally empty setting, her brown skin sharply contrasting with the white backdrop. She was surprised at the pictures' quality, and also at how attractive her own body appeared in the pictures.

"Dang ... I look good in these. They're really great."

Suzanne handed over a folder containing copies of the entire photo shoot. It occurred to Cecilia that she now had at least one decent Christmas gift she could give to Jason; she could have a couple of the pictures framed and present them when he came back from Wisconsin.

The photographer then announced that five of the photos would be included a city-wide exhibit of figure photography in January. That news both frightened and excited Cecilia, the knowledge that hundreds of photography fans would be studying her figure in detail. However, whatever reservations she might have had about being placed so prominently on display she would have to keep to herself, because she had signed a model release.

Cecilia looked over some of Suzanne's other work, which included a black football player who had posed nude in different spots around the university gym and stadium, various models posing outdoors in parks and forests, and a lot of shots of the Tri-Alpha 10-K race. The strangest photo shoot of the semester was of an older professor posing in his office. The man was in his 60's and there was absolutely nothing attractive about his body, but somehow Suzanne had managed to make the subject intensely erotic.

"I like this set, and I really don't know why. Anyhow, he's retiring in May, and he's going to let me do an art show with this project once he's safely out of the university. It's sort of funny, when you think about it. I've got my statement I want to make with these pictures, but he has one as well, which is different from mine. He told me it's going to be his way of saying goodbye to his life as a scholar."

Looking at her friend's work had intensely aroused Cecilia. In spite of her nervousness about her images being presented in the art show in January, she secretly found herself wishing she could do another photo shoot. The photographer, who was very good at discerning the thoughts of her subjects, picked up on that immediately.

"I got a question for you. You say there's no one else in Huntington Hall except you?"

"Yeah, it's gonna be just me 'till after New Year's. Sometimes the janitor or the repair guy shows up and I gotta let 'em in, but that's always in the morning and just for a couple of hours. If they ain't around I always keep all the doors in the building locked."

"You know, I was thinking about something. If you got that whole building to yourself, we could take advantage of that to do some more photo shoots over the next couple of days. I'd have plenty of time to set up and get the lighting right. If you're up for it, I think we could get some really great pictures, even better than the ones from the studio."

Cecilia's heart jumped. She was indeed up for another photo shoot. After nearly two weeks of being without Jason, she was full of pent-up sexuality. A lengthy picture-taking session in Huntington Hall would be perfect way to release her emotions.

As it got dark outside, Suzanne and Cecilia loaded themselves with her photography supplies and made the trek from Suzanne's dorm back to Huntington Hall. They had to make two trips, because Suzanne wanted to bring all of her lighting. Cecilia then offered to open a vacant room to her friend and get her a set of linens, so she would not have to return to her room at night. The offer also gave Suzanne a place to keep her equipment, which she gladly accepted. She added a toothbrush, a bottle of shampoo, and comb to her camera bag and with that the two women trudged through the snow to get back to Huntington Hall.

Suzanne's plans turned out to be quite ambitious. She had a unique opportunity to take advantage of having an entire building available for nearly a week to do with as she saw fit. The first thing she did was tour all of Huntington Hall, including the rooftop and basement. She turned on and off all the lights, took measurements, looked out the windows, and explored the most secret areas of the dorm. She seemed particularly fascinated with a section of the basement, carefully looking at the pipes and several concrete pillars as she pondered the underground area.

Suzanne let her model know that she planned to spend several days taking pictures and she wanted the project to be a serious artistic undertaking. She also let Cecilia know that while shooting, she would be in control, period. If Cecilia wanted the project to be successful, she had to follow the photographer's commands with no questions.

"We're going to be doing some experimental stuff, and I'll be asking you to do some things that might make you nervous. But if you get nervous, that's fine, that's going to be what I want. The photos I'm planning are not just going to be about your body in this dorm, but also your emotions."

She wondered what on earth Suzanne meant by that, but she still wanted to go through with the photo shoot. She was determined to see how far her friend could push her and what the artistic results would be. She knew that Suzanne's personality completely changed when she was taking pictures; that she became very demanding of anyone modeling for her. When Suzanne was behind the camera, she was the boss, period. She expected her model to follow her commands and put forth every bit of effort to make each frame work. It was Suzanne's job to take care of the lighting, camera angles, camera settings, and picture developing, but it was the model's responsibility to put forth the effort and emotion needed to provide acceptable subject matter.

Suzanne was aware that over the past couple of weeks Cecilia had not worn any clothes while alone in the building. As soon as she was settled in her room she directed her model to undress. Cecilia returned to her room and pulled off her clothes. Her heart pounding, she stepped back into the hallway as Suzanne's camera flashed at her figure. Her friend now was in complete charge of her life, and would remain so until the photography session ended. The very first thing she told Cecilia was that would not be allowed to get dressed again until the photo session was over.

"I want to get as many good shots of you as I can, and I don't want pressure marks from your clothes to show up in the images. Also, I want you to get used to running around in the nude, so it'll be something you won't be worrying about later on. This photo session is going to be all about you, not about what you're wearing."

Suzanne began by directing her model to take whatever dirty clothing she had downstairs to the laundry room. Cecilia did not have much that she needed to wash, but she obeyed and walked down the stairs with a basket as Suzanne's camera clicked behind her. There were more pictures taken in the laundry room, pictures of Cecilia walking up and down the stairs, pictures of her moving around in the hallway, and pictures of her ironing and putting everything away.

Suzanne spent Christmas Eve and the following day taking pictures non-stop of her model doing every daily activity imaginable, all of it in the nude. Cecilia was on the move the entire day doing housework, even though cleaning Huntington Hall was not her responsibility. She was ordered to clean a bathroom, mop the entire cafeteria floor, cook a meal, wash dishes, run a vacuum cleaner in the entire second floor hallway, and straighten the furniture in all the building's common areas. Suzanne ordered her to tidy up the building's reception desk and then sit down and do some work at the computer. She ordered her to go into the director's office and do some work at his desk. Then she ordered Cecilia to go upstairs, put on her tennis shoes, and use the treadmill.

"You'll need to put some effort into your running. I want you sweating before you're done."

Cecilia ran a full three miles, non-stop at a fast setting before Suzanne let her stop. She was covered in persperation and gasping for breath when Suzanne finally turned down the setting and let her slow to a walk to cool down. As the sweat continued trickling down her body, Suzanne took more pictures of her model walking: from the front, from the back, and from each side. There were pictures of her stretching, and then pictures of her taking a shower with the shower curtain open. Because water had spilled on the bathroom floor, Cecilia had to get on her hands and knees and clean it up with a towel while the photographer photographed her. The photographer directed to turn her bottom towards the camera and spread her knees and arch her back while she was wiping the floor, to expose herself as much as possible. She felt the bathroom's cool air blowing against her bottom and vulva as the camera flashed behind her.

As Christmas Day progressed, Suzanne's pictures became more intimate and the camera more invasive. Cecilia no longer noticed, however. She was tired from all of the housework and by the end of the day had totally forgotten that she had spent the last 24 hours in the nude in front of her friend. She got on her computer and began reading and sending e-mails. She was able to completely ignore Suzanne and follow her normal routine. Being ignored was exactly what Suzanne had in mind, because she wanted the pictures to be natural.

When it was time for Cecilia to go to bed, Suzanne continued documenting her friend's life. Cecilia took the bedspread off her bed and turned up the heat, so that she could sleep with no covers and be photographed throughout the night as she moved about on the bed. Suzanne dimmed the lights, adjusted her camera lens to maximize the limited lighting, and patiently watched her model while she slept.

About three in the morning Cecilia woke up and heard the quiet clicks of Suzanne's camera. Half asleep, she walked down the hallway and into the bathroom to pee, with Suzanne following her. When she returned to her room, she still was half asleep but felt very aroused. Her sexuality surfaced, partly from missing Jason, and partly from the feeling of being submitting to Suzanne and being documented in every intimate detail. Ignoring the fact her actions were being captured on film, she began caressing herself, gently running her fingertips over her stomach and breasts. Slowly her fingers moved to her thighs, then ever closer to her clitoris. She spread her legs and gently massaged her labia and touched her vagina. She rolled over and ran her hands over her bottom, gently caressing her backside as she rubbed her front over the bed. She then flipped on her back to continue teasing herself up front. Suzanne very quietly moved about the bed with her camera, capturing everything in minute detail. Cecilia's expression changed as she moved closer and closer to climaxing. She became wet and began sweating as she teased and tormented herself, striving, as always, to delay the orgasm as long as possible.

Suzanne took numerous pictures, quickly using up her film and desperately swapping used rolls of pictures for unused ones. This was her chance to document a real orgasm. Sure ... there were plenty of pictures of women pretending to have orgasms, plenty of pictures that looked as fake as a three-dollar bill. This was different. This was the real thing, and when the pictures were developed it would be obvious that it was genuine, a real woman truly enjoying her own body.

After Cecilia went back to sleep, Suzanne returned to her borrowed room to restock her film and make sure the most recent pictures were safely stored until they could be developed. She then took off her own clothes and slept for a couple of hours, but woke up at daybreak and got dressed to make sure she was in Cecilia's room when she got up.

By the middle of the day after Christmas Suzanne had documented 36 hours of Cecilia doing every imaginable daily activity in the nude. She wanted to change her focus and take pictures of her model actually posing instead of just moving about naturally. There was no question that Cecilia felt perfectly comfortable with posing, so it was time to move on to more ambitious pictures.

As she followed the photographer's lead, Cecilia's intense sexuality fascinated Suzanne. She decided to bring that out as much as possible throughout the second full day of shooting. Her ultimate plan was to seduce her friend. She did not want to make physical love to her, but instead have her subject to make love to the camera. Slowly she manipulated Cecilia's emotions as she gradually persuaded her to assume ever more revealing and submissive postures. Cecilia found herself under a spell of her own making, desperately wanting to surrender herself and be taken. She was wet and her eyes were glistening with sexual desire. For the entire afternoon her soul belonged to the photographer and her camera.

Finally, at about 10:00 pm, Suzanne could tell that intense exhaustion was overtaking her model's intense arousal. She allowed Cecilia to clean up and get back on her bed for some sleep. As before, that second night she allowed her model no bed covers and absolutely no privacy. Cecilia ended the day desperate to relieve her burning desires. With her friend's camera quietly clicking nearby, she masturbated uncontrollably for a very long time before finally climaxing and falling asleep.

At the end of the second full day of shooting, Suzanne was exhausted herself, but was exhilarated at the total success of the project so far. She wanted more. She knew that the next day she could get even better pictures out of her friend if she handled her correctly. She looked about the room to see what might truly arouse Cecilia, but at the same time scare her and test her emotional limits.

She noticed the drawing of Jason, bent over, with belt marks covering his exposed backside. She peeked in the closet, and saw two very heavy old belts hanging just inside the door. It was obvious that Cecilia never wore those belts, because they were men's belts; too big, too weathered, and too thick to be worn by a young woman. Behind the belts was hanging a small black leather paddle. Hmm ... so that's what Cecilia's into ... OK, that's what I'll get her with tomorrow...

Suzanne returned to the basement, where she would finalize the most important episode of the shared experience with her model. There was a thick cement pillar standing in the middle of the room. By sheer luck, it had several u-shaped pieces of metal imbedded in the concrete that must have been left over from when the building was being constructed. She looked at the concrete support beams above her head. There were additional u-shaped pieces of metal embedded in the beams. That was perfect. The next day she would used the pillar and support beams to tie Cecilia in different poses and photograph her in bondage. She needed some rope, which she knew would be somewhere in the building, because it was needed to hang banners. Finally she found what she was looking for, several long pieces of soft nylon rope rolled up in a box with some old cloth signs. She put one piece in her pocket and laid out the others near the pillar. Then she went upstairs to get her lighting. Once the lighting was set up and tested, the basement was ready.