by KG MacGregor
every bit the girl next door she had watched that first day on the
bus ramp. There had been a charming innocence about her that
day, as if life had not yet challenged her. In fact it had, and the
Claudia she had come to know was introspective and far more
complex.
She raised her glass in a final toast. “I won’t ever come back
here without remembering today.”
Claudia smiled and blinked back tears. “I’m going to miss
you.”“So don’t go,” she said boldly. “Stick around and see what
happens…with your job, I mean.”
“Leo, what I said the other day, that bit about the grass being
greener…”
The words had echoed in her head all week, but she didn’t
dare let herself believe them. “I didn’t take it seriously. You were
upset with Mike.”
“But I wasn’t just being flippant. I admit I was a little surprised
I said it, but one of my friends used to say if it came out of your
mouth, it was in your head. I’ve never thought of myself that way
before, but the idea wasn’t as far-fetched as I thought it would be.
If it weren’t for Mike, who knows what might have happened?”
If only she could convince Claudia to take the chance. “It was
that way for a lot of us. We had feelings we couldn’t fight. I’m not
saying that’s what you’re doing, just that we all have things that
make us stop and think.”
Claudia blew out a ragged breath. Her cheeks were flushed,
but there was no way to tell if it was from the wine or the
conversation. “Thinking is all I’ve done for the last month, ever
since that weekend when I got so mad at Mike for not calling
me back. I know he’s under a lot of stress to bring this job in on
time and on budget, and that sort of thing always makes him try
harder to control things, including me. The problem is I don’t
care much for being controlled.”
“Nobody does.”
“Maybe that’s all I was reacting to. I have to make him
understand how I feel. If he can’t, then we don’t have a future.”
“I’m sure you’ll work it out.” With every dalliance toward the
possibility of opening her heart to a woman, Claudia seemed to
retreat with a new plan for dealing with Mike, as if it was the only
choice she would allow herself to make. Leo couldn’t ask her to
try something that would throw her whole future in doubt, not
when she seemed so certain of what she wanted.
“I don’t want to think about Mike anymore. Today’s about
us.”“I’ll drink to that.” Leo tipped her glass again and pulled the
box from inside her jacket. “I have present for you.”
Claudia’s eyes grew wide with surprise. “What’s this for?”
She shrugged coyly. “Lots of things, like thank you for
helping me with the photos, congratulations on graduating from
college…good luck with finding a job.” She grinned with delight
as Claudia tore the paper away and removed a small pendant on
a gold chain, dark green with streaks of amber.
“Leo, it’s beautiful.”
“It’s called Vulcan jade. It’s found in the rocks around here.
It’s thousands of years old, and best of all, it won’t shatter if you
drop it.”
“It’s perfect.” She held the chain to her neck. “I’ve missed my
other necklace, but I love this one even more. Put it on me.”
Leo leaned over to fasten the clasp around her neck. “I know
it isn’t as dainty as most of the things you wear, but I hope it
makes you think of me.”
Claudia surprised her with a sudden kiss on the cheek as she
rubbed the smooth stone. “I bet I wear it all the time. Now I feel
bad because I should have gotten something for you.”
“I have the photos, which are fantastic, by the way.”
“Do I get to see them?”
“I still haven’t decided on the final six, but I’m narrowing it
down. If you can stand to wait, I’ll show you everything the next
time you come back.”
“I don’t know when that’ll be.”
“But that’s part of my sneaky plan. You have to come back up
here if you want to see them. And maybe I’ll only show them one
at a time.”
“I promise I’ll be back, Leo.” Claudia’s fingers crept across
the table and intertwined with hers. “And when you get to be
some rich and famous photographer, I’ll be able to tell people
you stole a part of my soul.”
“I suppose I did,” Leo said softly, studying their hands. Such
an innocent show of affection, but one that made her heart
ache with longing. “That last picture we took, the one with the
overhead light…I was looking at it this morning. I’ve never shot
anything so lovely in my life, and it didn’t have anything to do
with where the lights were or how I had the camera set. It was
just you.”
Claudia opened her mouth as if to speak, but closed it
suddenly. Then she glanced at the nearby diners and leaned her
head toward Leo’s. “You want to do one more?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not going to show these photos to anyone, right?”
“No, I’ve already locked the prints and the negatives away.”
“I want you to do a nude photo of me…something beautiful
and artistic that nobody else will ever see.”
Leo was stunned, especially as the seconds passed in silence
and Claudia’s serious expression never changed. She, not Claudia,
would be the one exposed by such an intimate act. “I can’t…I
can’t do that. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Why not? Because you have feelings for me? That’s all the
more reason to do it.”
The impulse to withdraw was overwhelming, but Claudia
had tightened her grip to hold her in place.
“It’s okay, Leo. I need to feel close to you too, and this is the
only way I can.”
She lifted their hands so that Claudia’s ring was on top. “This
makes it not okay.”
Claudia stared back at her, a gaze so intense it was unnerving.
“It has nothing to do with anyone else. Just you and me. If you
really don’t want to, I understand. But you told me you’d like to
do one just for art’s sake. Let me give you this.”
Leo’s head was spinning from all that had come to light in
only the last few seconds. Not only did Claudia know how she
felt, she obviously had feelings of her own, feelings that craved
intimate expression.
Chapter 20
On the drive back from Big Sur, Leo did her best to keep the
conversation light and casual, though her stomach was in knots.
Obviously her attempts to mask her attraction had failed, and
she was dying to know what Claudia had meant when she said
it was okay. Perhaps this was her foray into the “greener grass.”
What mattered most to Leo was having Claudia’s trust, and that
hardened her resolve to handle this in the most professional way
possible.
When they reached her house, she half expected Claudia to
lose her nerve,
which would have been both a welcome reprieve
and a colossal letdown. Instead, she had marched purposefully to
the attic and was now behind the curtain shedding her clothes,
set to emerge any minute in a dressing gown.
Leo looked around at her makeshift studio, thinking it had
been a repository for junk only weeks ago. Now it was a sanctuary,
an almost holy place where she had peeled back the layers of a
kind and lovely friend to find and steal a piece of her soul.
Once she had agreed to accept Claudia’s exquisite gift, her
mind’s eye formed the portrait. She wanted the softest light
possible for today’s sitting, something from the side so she could
hide the detail in the shadows. An erotic photo didn’t have to be
revealing.
The Bronica was still in place on the tripod, which she
lowered so she could shoot Claudia in a sitting position. With the
camera waist-high she wouldn’t need to stand on the platform, so
she dragged it to the center of the set.
“Be right back,” she called. From her linen closet she retrieved
a dark blue blanket and returned to drape it elegantly over the
platform. Claudia had not yet come out from the corner. “Is
everything okay back there?”
“Do you mind if I put on the shirt again instead of the
robe?”
“No problem.”
Claudia emerged slowly looking exactly as she had for their
last photo session, in the long white shirt with her hair swept
high in a twist. She haltingly eyed the setup. “I thought this was
going to be easy, but I seem to be freaking out a little.”
“We don’t have to do it,” Leo said calmly. “We can fold it all
away and still have time for a walk before sunset.”
“No, I want to. I just have to get up my nerve.”
Leo gestured toward the platform. “Why don’t we sit and
talk for a while? If you change your mind, that’s fine.”
Claudia lowered herself to the padded platform, holding the
shirt in place around her thighs. “How do you usually do this?”
“I don’t really have a set routine. The women are usually
nervous at first, so I try to get to know them a little bit. Then we
talk about what kind of attitude we want…you know, whether
they want be alluring or coy.” Her anxiety dissipated as she
adopted a more professional tone.
“What usually makes the best one?”
“They’re all individual. Like I was saying the other day, the
most important thing is the relationship between the subject
and the person who gets the photo. What does she want it to
say?” She spun around and adjusted the reflector screen upward,
casting Claudia in soft light from her right side. An idea for an
image was taking shape in her head.
“I’m doing this photo for you. What do you want it to say?”
Claudia too had grown calm and pensive.
“I liked the way you put it at Nepenthe.” Though her voice
was unsteady, she kept up her professional visage as much as
possible, eyeing her light meter reading instead of Claudia. “That
you feel close to me.”
“I do.” Claudia shifted sideways and rested her foot on the
platform. The shirt was so large that it draped across her thigh.
“I guess I’m ready whenever you are.”
Leo was mesmerized by how quickly the light fell from
Claudia’s figure once she turned. The shirt drew most of the
light, with the side nearest the reflector bathed in white radiance.
Everything else was shadowed. “It means a lot that you trust me
to do this.”
It was a fine line in every session to balance the professional
with the personal but never had it seemed more imperative than
now. Doing her best to concentrate on the technical aspects of
the shoot, Leo scooted her lighting assembly farther from the
platform, effectively lowering its intensity. Still, the lines were
sharper than she wanted, but she could blunt them with a filter
over her lens.
“You’ll be coming down to visit Sandy and Maria, won’t you?”
Claudia asked in what seemed an obvious attempt at distracting
conversation. “And there’s no reason I can’t come up for a
weekend every now and then. I know you usually do weddings
on Saturday, but…”
The words fell into Leo’s head but her attention had shifted
to the inverted image in her viewfinder. Too much light on
Claudia’s legs drew the eye from the center of the frame, where
the white shirt glowed. “Can you turn a little more to your left?
Imagine you’re trying to hide something in your lap.”
“Like this?”
“That’s good. Are you comfortable?”
“Mostly…but I feel like I’m going to fall off this little
perch.”
The strain of keeping her balance would show in the portrait,
likely in the form of another wrinkle on her brow, albeit nuanced.
Leo abandoned her camera and stepped onto the set, shuddering
to realize that her angle gave her full view of Claudia’s dark pubic
curls, though they were shrouded in shadows.
“I’ll make a few adjustments and you tell me when it feels
better. I want you to feel relaxed.” Her hands trembling, she
knelt at Claudia’s feet and nudged her leg into a support position.
With her handheld light meter, she monitored the contrast of
the shadows in order to attain the overall image of an oval shape.
“Now rest your other foot on your knee and see if that isn’t more
stable.”
“It is, but I feel like a stork,” Claudia said with a nervous
chuckle.
Leo stood back to take it all in. Even with the shirt on, it
was amazingly intimate. “This is a gorgeous shot.” She made one
final adjustment, lifting Claudia’s arm to drape over her knee, and
stepped behind the camera to confirm her settings. “Remember
that first time we went walking down by the wharf?”
Claudia flashed a gentle smile and Leo clicked the shutter.
Claudia relaxed as Leo blew out the last of her breath,
wondering if that signaled an end to their session and therefore a
retreat from shooting something more intimate. She was relieved
and at the same time oddly disappointed, as she had gathered her
courage to remove her shirt without hesitation once Leo gave
the word. There wasn’t a lot of difference between the photo
they had just finished and the one they had done last week with
the shirt off her shoulders. If anything, the other one had been
more revealing, even though she’d had the security of knowing
she was wearing panties underneath. Not so today, since she had
been fully exposed when Leo crouched at her feet during the
final adjustments.
The erotic look in Leo’s eyes had thrilled her. It was obvious
she was trying to maintain her professional manner, yet there was
no mistaking the quiver in her voice or the shaking of her usually
steady hands. They were more than model and photographer,
and this was more than just an artistic sitting.
“I think that wi
ll be the new favorite in my Claudia Galloway
collection,” Leo said, sliding toward her on the stool. One hand
brushed the shirtsleeve while the other gently nudged the bent
knee farther into the shadows. “This white shirt throws off a lot
of light. Your skin won’t do that, so I’ll need to move the light
closer. It should only take a few minutes to meter it again. Will
you be okay with that?”
Claudia shuddered with the realization they were pressing
ahead. “Do you want me to take off my shirt now?”
“If you’re ready. Or we can talk some more about how
we’re going to do this. I want to keep the same pose, but I’m
thinking”—she lightly tipped Claudia’s head forward—“it might
be more sensuous if we stayed with the hiding theme. If you hold
your chin down I can’t see your face. It really shows off the line
of your neck, though.”
“But if my head’s down, you won’t be able to tell it’s me.”
“There’s no way I’ll forget it’s you,” she said softly.
Claudia found her own hands shaking as she fumbled with
the buttons on the shirt. It was incredible how right Leo had
been that their relationship made this more than just a photo
shoot. When she first was tempted by the prospect of posing
nude for Leo she had rationalized it as a chance to do something
daring. Now it had become an exercise in erotica, a flaunting
display of forbidden sensuality that was safe only because Leo
respected the boundaries. Claudia didn’t trust herself, especially
as she sensed Leo’s growing determination to follow through. It
would be easy to cross the line, breaching not only the ethical
limits of her agreement with Leo, but her commitment to Mike
as well.
As she released the last button, Leo swept the shirt from her
0
shoulders, leaving her totally nude. She could feel the eyes on
her, but didn’t dare turn.
A warm, trembling hand caught her arm and repositioned it
on her knee. “Now lower your head until you can’t see the light
anymore.”
She complied and saw that her right breast was fully
illuminated, its areola pebbled by the cool air and excitement
of being exposed. Willing herself to relax with deep, controlled
breaths, she sat perfectly still as Leo held the light meter to her