by Hazel Keys
I clicked through all the uneventful images, until I saw it. The girl in the nurse’s outfit. She was beautiful, yes, with a hot body crammed into that sexy costume, but that wasn’t what was drawing me to her. There must have been another hundred girls in the building that could fit that description.
No, it was the look on her face. The world going on behind her eyes. She looked lost, like she didn’t belong. Like she was seeing another, alien world for the first time and questioning it with the same adorable naivety that I like to think the human race would use if we ever met beings from another world, trying to get them to explain their own existence in terms we could understand. That innocence, that uncorrupted purity, it lit her with analmost angelic glow and it may have been the most enchanting sight I’d ever seen in my life.
Juxtaposed with the slutty clothes and the base decadence surrounding her, it made for an amazing photograph. The wild setting didn’t even show in the picture, it was just reflected in her. I wanted her. I wanted her incredibly. I wanted to take more pictures of her, to magnify that charming innocence so the world could appreciate how unbearably attractive it was. I wanted to make love to her. Not to corrupt her, but because I felt that the incomparable pleasure we could bring each other could only make that pure light shine even brighter. I could feel my cock growing as I looked at the picture.
“And who’s that?” came Helena’s voice from behind me. She gave me a start, so lost in the face of the blonde nurse was I. “She’s pretty. I see you went to the party, after all.”
I turned in my office chair to face her. She was dressed in her chic pantsuit with minimal jewelry, what she always liked to wear when she flew, just as she’d been when she left. “I didn’t expect you back until tonight,” I told her. “Loverboy didn’t measure up, after all?”
“It didn’t work out as I planned, no,” she offered me a reticent smile. “The snow was amazing, though.”
“Well, I’m glad about that.”
“And I finally got the confirmation from the college. They want me to present my series of lectures on fashion history, after all.”
“Cool,” I remarked, “so we’ll members of the same faculty?”
“Indeed. But don’t think,” Helena continued, walking over to my chair with her eyes on the screen, “that I don’t notice you trying to change the subject. Who is she?”
I swiveled back to the monitor. Helena perched on the arm of my swivel chair and slid decorously into my lap. “In truth,” I said, “I’ve no idea. It was just a random snapshot. It is a beautiful picture, though, isn’t it?”
“I think all your pictures are beautiful,” she quipped, planting a little kiss on the side of my forehead. “She’s clearly a tourist. Do you want to sleep with her?”
I swear, she could always tell when I was thinking something like that. “I guess, but it’s not just that. This is possibly the most moving photograph I’ve taken in nearly ten years, and it was by accident. Imagine what I could take if I found her and shot her properly.”
“If you say so, darling,” she said, sliding off my lap and standing back up. “She does have great tits though.” She turned and headed out of my office. “Remember; no falling in love with her. Shoot her, shoot all over her if you like, but you belong to me.”
“How could I forget,” I responded without turning around. “I love you, too.”
“I’m going to shower the aircraft off me,” she announced. “I’ll tell you now that this weekend has left me more than a little frustrated. It would be great if you had any idea what might help me out?”
I chuckled as she stalked off down the corridor, and went back to trying to calculate exactly what made the picture of this girl so special, so I could replicate it later. I heard the shower running and, even though I’d had a very tiring and entirely satisfying night previously, I felt it was the least I could do to go and perform my husband’s duties.
Chapter 5:Paige
School started and Adam left at the crack of dawn for his economics class. Mine didn’t start until lunch, and that was only an elective. My architecture classes didn’t start back up until the day after next, but I couldn’t sleep after he left.
I lay in bed, looking at the high ceiling of our old-world apartment. I’d driven us back from Austin and Adam seemed to be asleep for nearly the whole journey.It was late when we got home, or rather it was early Sunday morning, and we went straight to bed. Barely a word had passed between us since the sex in the dungeon and, when we eventually woke on Sunday proper, things carried on in that vein.
We pecked each other kisses, brought one another drinks, and so on, but kept busy preparing for our upcoming classes. I kept getting distracted, though. Adding to my silent fear about Adam and his lack of desire for me, now I couldn’t get that masked man out of my head. He kept appearing before me, fit and perfect, his black leather mask, and the black leather half jacket that just covered his shoulders, the only clothes he wore, with his long cock so hard and pointing right at me.
There was no mistaking his desire for me. Unlike Adam, this mystery devil didn’t have to find a reason to fuck me. I felt the sweat beading on my lip as I relived the sensations I felt with him. That his focus was on me as he was inside another girl; that he stopped having sex, mid-thrust, to come and speak to me; that, if I’d merely nodded to him, he’d have fucked me senseless without hesitation and I know he wouldn’t have finished until I was screaming for mercy. It made me feel wanted, made me feel sexy, the way Adam used to make me feel.
I wasn’t planning to find this guy, or anyone like him, and cheat. I wanted to make this work with Adam. I loved him. But each disappointment was pushing me further and further away. The fact that he seemed to be ignoring the problem or, worse, thinking that because we’d managed a quick screw on Saturday night things were better, only confused me even further.
I heard Stacy making noise outside my door and decided to go and have some quality sister time. I wasn’t in the habit of gossiping, especially about my own private life, but I needed a kind ear to listen.
I came out in my robe to find her trying to make toast in the kitchenette. She had on the tiniest thong, so small I thought she was naked when I saw her from behind at first, and a tight linen vest didn’t reach down to her hips, showing her toned stomach and angel wings tramp-stamp off. I didn’t see a problem with it, as Adam had gone to class. It wasn’t like she was deliberately trying to flaunt her amazing body, he just preferred tiny clothes.
“I hope you don’t prance around like that when my fiancé’s here?” I smiled, nodding at her as she held up a cup, asking silently if I wanted some coffee.
She made a sarcastic laugh as she grabbed the half-full pot. “Darling,” she announced, “I make sure I never have a stitch on when there’s any man in the house, you know that.”
I giggled and went to sit on our couch. Stacy joined me in seconds, passing me a coffee and dropping a plate of burnt toast on the table, then flopping down beside me.
“When’s your first class?” I asked her, sipping the warm but old brew.
“Biology, this afternoon,” Stacy was pre-med. “Unfortunately, not the kind of biology I enjoy.”
“I feel for you,” I said.
“I bet. You’ve got it easy,” she smiled. “Playing house with a gorgeous boyfriend. No hard work for you whenever you’ve got an itch you need someone to scratch.”
“Like you have to really work hard to find anyone willing to… scratch you.”
“Sure, if I just wanted to bring home any of the lowlifes I spend my evenings gyrating for.”
“Well, maybe we should switch places for a week,” I said evenly, looking off into the distance.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about things maybe not being as rosy in paradise as you think.”
“Really?” Stacy looked right over at me, like she was trying to read something in my face. “What are you trying to say?”
“I
mean I love Adam,” I said truthfully, “but things haven’t been exactly fireworks between us lately.”
“Maybe you’re just comfortable with each other,” she reassured me, putting a small hand on my knee. “Sure, the sex might become more sporadic but it certainly looks like the desire’s still there.”
“Does it?” I turned to her, suddenly feeling really upset. The fact that we were presenting this perfect façade to everyone, even our closest friends, and doing such a good job of it, was so depressing I felt like breaking down. “I don’t think the desire is there anymore, Stacy. At least not from him. We’ve barely made love for months. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
I could see Stacy was taken aback. “What about the fetish club and the sexy underwear I found in that box under your bed?” I shot her a look. “I was out of hose so I was trying to steal some of yours.”
“It’s okay,” I smiled. “Besides, the underwear was a non-starter. And we had sex at the fetish club, but it wasn’t exactly passionate.”
“What do you mean?”
“I kinda felt like just a convenient hole.”
Stacy didn’t say anything. She just turned and pulled me to her. I almost fell against her chest, desperate not to cry. I breathed in the sweet scent of her and willed myself to try and draw some of her strength, some of her give-a-damn attitude, some of her confidence. “Don’t worry,” she eventually whispered, “everything’s going to be okay, you’ll see.”
We heard the key in the lock and knew it was Adam coming home. We only had seconds, but we were able to separate, tell each other silently that we never discussed this, and go back to smiling before Adam walked through the door.
“Wow,” he smiled as he looked over us. “My two favorite girls. How’d I get so lucky?” He walked right up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek, before heading over to drop his bags and books on the dining table we never ate from.
“Well this is stimulating,” sang Stacy, “but I need to go get ready for class.” She got up and hurried off to her bedroom. Adam, to his credit, didn’t even glance in the direction of her nearly naked ass as she disappeared. Instead, he sat down next to me and turned on the TV. I snuggled up next to him and he stroked my hair. I spent the last few minutes before I had to go to class thinking that what Stacy said might actually be true.
*****
It was good tofeel the Texas sun on my skin again, even for the few minutes it took for me to walk from the parking lot to the classroom. Dressed in my vest top and shorts, I let the heat caress my bare shoulders, arms, and legs for as long as a white girl dared before burning, then stepped into the cool, air-conditioned lecture hall.
Julie was there, sat down near the front. She was from Dallas but took classes in San Antonio because she was majoring in fashion, a course they didn’t have in the northern Texas school. We’d both been taking photography as an elective since we began, both figuring it would be an advantage for our chosen career paths, both of them being very visually involving. Julie, though, had always been a keen photographer and was almost bouncing up and down in her seat with news.
“You’ll never guess who they’ve got to replace Professor Wilkins now he’s retired,” she told me.
“Laurence Silver,” I said.
“No!” she exclaimed. “He had his show extended and had to drop out at the last minute!”
Aside from the fact that they’d told us we had Silver last semester, he was the only famous photographer I could name, apart from Annie Leibovitz. I liked the class but I wasn’t trying to hold onto the names of those that had gone before me. I had an idea I only knew Silver because he was supposed to be teaching us and I was pretty sure they hadn’t got Annie to fill in now Laurence had dropped out. “Who then?” it was hard not to get caught up in her excitement.
“Caleb O’Connor!” she almost exploded as she told me. I kept smiling but the name meant very little to me. “You know him! He was like a rock star in the early Two-Thousands, photographing and sleeping with every beautiful woman in New York. His shoots were legendary, and so were his parties. He’s the original bad boy photographer. Plus, he’s married to Helena Carsen, the supermodel who said she’d never get out of bed for less than fifty thousand dollars!”
“I take it you’re a fan, then?” I teased her. It was fun to watch her normally straight and preppy exterior melt at the prospect of meeting one of her idols.
“Well, I… you know…” she pushed her eyeglasses up her nose a little and pouted her beautiful lips. “I appreciate his work. He’s always managed to bring out his female subjects’ innate sexuality and, while his pictures were risqué, they were never sordid or overtly sexualized…”
“Aha,” I could tell she was floundering a little. “So, he’s hot, then?”
Julie eventually managed to collect herself. “Yeah, he’s hot,” she admitted.
The rest of the class filed in slowly, and we all sat down to wait for our semester to begin. I guessed the news of our new hellraising teacher had spread because there was a tension in the air. I also noticed that one or two of the female students who were normally above such things had done their hair nice and put on some makeup. I was suddenly quite excited to meet this wonder boy that everyone else seemed to know about.
After almost ten minutes of waiting, the natives were just beginning to get restless.Then the lights dropped. The quick, excited hush that fell through the room really did put me in mind of a Guns N’ Roses concert.
We were all unexpectedly blinded by a bright white light on the huge projector screen that faced us. The groans were abruptly silenced, though, when a picture appeared there. It was Angelina Jolie, in her sexiest, pre-Tomb Raider days. She was nude, staring at the lens, a white blanket contrasting beautifully against her smooth, tanned skin, and strategically covering most of her modesty, save for one full, rounded breast. With those big eyes and that smoldering pout, she looked positively seductive, and she knew it.
There were a few wolf whistles from around the room, followed by a chorus of complaints as Angelina disappeared in favor of the blank, white screen again. Then another picture appeared. This time it showed a slim, naked blonde girl kneeling. Her face was red, her hair and makeup mussed with sweat and she held her mouth open to catch the cum shooting from the long, fat cock of the muscled guy standing over her. It was a nasty, almost gruesome looking scene that was hard to look at. In fact, I heard the girl behind us swear, get up, and storm out of the class.
“Well, that wasn’t quite the reaction I expected,” came a smooth, unflustered, masculine voice, “but it was, at least, a reaction.” The lights came back on and the porn disappeared from the overhead projector. “Good afternoon, everyone. I’m, apparently, Professor O’Connor. But, as that title makes me sound strangely like a Spiderman villain, let's stick with Caleb, shall we?” I followed the sound to find a man, maybe still on the good side of thirty-five, tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in only a loose-fitting white shirt and jeans, with a floppy, messy haircut, and a wide, self-depreciating smile.
“That’s your hero?” I whispered to Julie, who was shrinking down in her seat.
“That’s him,” she confirmed.
“Not bad.”
“Now, before an outraged faction of you go off and report me for warping your fragile little minds with pornography, I want you all to consider something,” Caleb continued, speaking right to the back of the class. “Remember the first picture. Adult, certainly, but beautiful.Socially acceptable, most definitely art, and taken by yours truly about fifteen years ago.” There was a smattering of applause, not least from Julie, sat next to me, but there was also ananxious, uneasy feeling in the air.
“Now, consider that second picture. Adult as well, pretty fucking far from socially acceptable, at least not outside of Paris, New York, or Los Angeles.Definitely not taken by me but I’m pretty sure I have some similar shots buried somewhere in my archives,” he smiled at the nervous round of laughter, “but, is it art?”
Caleb’s eyes leveled themselves at me and I couldn’t help feeling there was something familiar in his look. An amused, half-smile played around his lips. “And what makes you say that, Miss…?”
“Patterson,” I returned his smile. I could have sworn he was looking at me like he knew all my dirty secrets. “It’s not art because it's pornography.”
“That’s a very arbitrary statement,” he said. “Are you telling my pornography isn’t expressive? A lot of the porn I’ve seen is definitely creative.” There was another ripple of uncertain laughter. “I guess you could argue that it’s not really open to interpretation, but then neither was my photo of the lovely Angelina.”
It was hard to argue with him, but I still felt like I was right. “Porn is exploitative!” I cried, pleased to have pulled that one out when I needed it.
“Is it? Is that girl being exploited?” he asked the hall. There were a number of affirmative murmurs. “In the moment, I’m certain she knows she’s being filmed. She agreed to it and is being paid for posing.”
“So, by that rationale, your belittling the damage pornography does to women, both on the screen and off?” I accused him.
“I certainly am not!” he almost shouted. “I’m just wondering if you know how much the plants in Von Gogh’s Sunflowers were paid? Or the Tiger Shark in Damien Hurst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living?Now, that’s exploitation.”His point was silly, but it was a point. If the girl was being exploited, she had at least agreed to it. “If something can’t be art if it’s being exploited, a lot of artists are going to find themselves unemployed.”