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Photographs of Claudia

Page 17

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

 

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