He told her to bend her left leg at the knee, then went back to check the shot. He couldn’t get her feet into the shot, so he moved the tripod back and checked it again.
“Okay, you’re set. Make sure you’re right in the middle of the tape mark or you won’t be centered. And this time, you’re going to have to toss the robe out of the way, otherwise it will hide the shoes. And I know this is going to be really hard for you, but you have to smile when you’re looking over your shoulder. Try not to think of this picture as lewd, try to be flirty, like you know how beautiful you are and aren’t ashamed to flaunt it. I know that’s not like you, but see if you can slip into a little fantasy here. Who knows, it might make it easier.
“If you think you’re all set, I can set the timer and get out of here before you toss the robe. You’ll have forty-five seconds. That way you won’t have to run back and forth. That okay with you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Her voice was very tiny.
“Good, I’ll slam the door so you’ll know I’m out.” He walked over to the camera, set the dial, and quickly left the room, closing the door with a pronounced bang.
Two minutes later, the door opened and she called him to come back in. She didn’t seem as shook up this time. Maybe she was getting used to this, he thought.
He took out the note and silently read the third pose. This one was going to be hard, so was the next. If she was sane for the last one, she might be inured.
“Time for a break,” he said as he walked over to a decanter set on a bookshelf. “And some brandy.”
“No, no brandy.”
“Yes, you’re going to need something to brace you for the next one.” Ignoring her pleas, he poured her a half snifter full and walked over to where she stood looking at a painting. He wrapped her fingers around the glass and placed his over hers, then he led it to her mouth. “Nice big sip, c’mon.”
“I can’t be drunk for this.”
“Why the hell not?” he asked.
She shook her head and took a big swallow. It was smooth and only mildly flavorful until it went all the way down, then she felt the warmth and the burn. And remarkably, she did feel better. She took another sip and he laughed.
“Who did this painting? It’s wonderful.”
“My father. He likes to dabble now and again. He likes to think he’s an undiscovered Kincaid.” His tender smile told her that he thought the world of his father.
“It’s as good as any I’ve seen.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him that next time I see him.” He laughed out loud just then, and she blinked up at him with a curious look on her face. One finely sculptured eyebrow shot to her forehead demanding explanation.
“Oh no! I can’t tell you what I was thinking.”
“Sure you can. We should be able to tell each other anything after this. Look what we’re doing together for Crissakes.”
He was honored she had said that and so felt compelled to share his thoughts.
“Just thinking how I would broach the subject. ‘I was entertaining a young woman here in my study, a beautiful young woman who at the time was wearing my bathrobe. While we were taking naked pictures of her, she commented on your painting.’ ”
He watched her face freeze, then break into a wide grin. She laughed and he laughed along with her.
She finished her brandy and walked over to place the glass back on the tray. He noticed that her gait was a bit loose and when she replaced the glass, it clunked harder on the tray than she had probably meant it to.
“Time to finish,” she whispered. It was as if she knew the gallows were waiting for her and she had no choice but to walk her last steps to it.
Cayce went back to the camera, made a few adjustments, moved the tripod so it was focused lower, and placed a chair a few feet in front of the camera.
Slowly she sauntered over and sat lightly on the chair. She watched as he looked through the viewfinder, centering her.
“Okay, this one’s going to be tough. You have to remember the placement of your arms as well as your legs. Make sure you’re in the center and that you don’t move the chair and it’ll be over with. Check it, then go back for the fourth one. It’ll be the same pose, just scoot forward a little, being careful not to move the chair when you shift your body. Okay?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, “No, it’s not okay. This is so sick!”
He walked over to where she sat and bent down to caress her cheek. “I know it is. Just focus on getting the shots right. You can take the time to dwell on everything else later. There will be plenty of time to deal with the horror after we’re through. We have a timetable we have to stick to and roles both of us have to play before you can hold Joshua in your arms again. This is not a time to think of yourself. Others have made far greater sacrifices for the ones they love. Through the ages, men and women have had to die for lesser causes. This won’t matter a hoot or a holler in Heaven. Once you get there, the memory of this will be erased for all eternity, but the deed will be recorded and your place assured, trust me on this.”
He walked back to the camera, checked the viewfinder, and asked if she was ready for him to set the timer.
Her hands were on the collar of his robe, as if she were ready to spread it wide. And he was momentarily surprised that at that moment he wanted her to—but for him, only for him. Her large green eyes appealed to him and he wished there was some way he could protect her, shield her from the eyes of the evil demon who lusted for her body.
He set the timer, and as it made its low whirring sound, he again left the room.
After a minute he heard her moving around, then silence. Then she was up again, then silence again. Then a long anguished sob before he heard something crash into the wall. He ran to the door and knocked quickly, then hearing no reply, he carefully opened the door and called softly, “Paige?”
He heard a soft whimper and saw her in a disheveled heap on the floor, her head on her arms, sobbing into the seat cushion. A quick look around satisfied his curiosity about what she’d found to throw. On the wall opposite his desk, was the slow trickle of many connecting lines of water. At the floorboard was a shattered crystal vase and the flowers it had contained. It had been Waterford, something his mother had given him, but as he heard Paige’s heart breaking, he wished he had a hundred of them for her to throw up against the wall. He would have done anything to drown out the sound of her tears.
He went over to her and knelt, then he put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his chest. She hadn’t bothered to close the robe and he was shocked to find her bare breasts pressing against his shirt. He held her close and listened to her cry until her sobbing became softer, and then he realized that she was trying to tell him something.
“I can’t get the picture right. I tried five times! I can’t do it!”
He massaged her shoulders then gently lifted her into his lap on the chair. He pulled the lapels of the robe together and tucked her under his arm as he rocked her. The robe was lying open over her legs, barely covering her upper thighs. He felt desire, hot and intense, shoot through him and settle in his groin. He knew his body and he knew that within seconds he would be hard and heavy and jutting against her bottom unless he moved her.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the love seat on the opposite side of the room.
“I’m sorry about your vase,” she sobbed.
“It wasn’t a favorite,” he lied.
“And the beautiful flowers.”
“It was time to replace them.”
He held her close and with his lips touching the hair at her temple, he half hummed, half crooned Schubert’s version of “Ave Maria.” It always had a calming effect on him. He could only hope it would calm her also.
After she stopped crying and had wiped her tears on the sleeve of his robe several times, he tilted her chin so he could look into her face. He took in her red eyes, now outlined with blotchy mascara, her smooth, pale cheeks and her soft, full lips. Lips that were no longer colored with lipstick but pink-tinged naturally. She looked so vulnerable, yet so beautiful at the same time. He couldn’t resist, yet he had to. It was everything he could do to keep from bending his head and putting his lips to hers. His breathing stilled as he stared at her soft lips and imagined what it would feel like to kiss her. He thought he actually heard the mantle clock stop ticking for the brief seconds he contemplated taking her lips with his. He closed his eyes tightly to deny the temptation that was only inches away.
While drawing away from her, he forced his eyes open and they grew wide with wonder. She was looking back at him, confused and unfocused as if in a trance.
Her fingers uncurled from where they sat resting in her lap and she brought them up to touch her lips. “I thought you were going to kiss me,” she whispered.
“I thought so, too. I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t be sorry. I wanted you to,” she whispered.
“I’d like to kiss you, sometime when you can think about kissing me back.”
“Okay,” she answered, drawing out the word.
“Right now,” he sighed heavily, “we’d better get back to those damned pictures.”
“I can’t do it. Could you?” she asked timidly.
“Could I take them?” he choked.
“Yes, could you, please? I just can’t.”
“Won’t that be worse?”
“Will you make it worse?” she asked and her voice was so tiny and so scared that he felt a physical pain in his chest.
He hugged her close and put his face into the terry cloth at her neck.
“No, sweetheart, no,” he groaned, “I’ll try not to make it worse. I’ll try.”
“I’ll close my eyes. I think I can get through it that way.”
She heard him start to pray. She could make out phrases where he asked for guidance, for strength, and then finally to be saved from temptation. Then he lifted his head and simply nodded.
She wiped the tears from her face using the back of both hands then stood to get a tissue so she could blow her nose. She used a corner of the tissue to repair her eye makeup then turned from the mirror and gave him a tremulous smile. “Ready,” she proclaimed.
He walked over to the camera and she went over to the chair. Before sitting, she let the robe fall from her shoulders to the floor. And there she stood, naked before him. Naked, and as lovely a creature as God had ever created, he thought. He forced himself to look away from her standing there, just a few feet away, and bent to look at her through the lens of the camera. This was worse. It brought her even closer and more clearly into focus. Her breasts were lovely, high and small on her chest. They were stunning little globes of perfection, alabaster white, tinged with the blossoming pink growing from her shame. His eyes lowered and fell on the sable triangle guarding her womanhood. The soft tufts looked like the down on a baby’s head and he wanted to run his fingers through it so badly that he had to stuff his hands into his pockets to keep them from reaching for her.
As he looked through the viewfinder, she suddenly sat down in the chair, and before he could blink, she spread her knees wide and raised her hands behind her head.
Sweet Jesus! It was all he could do not to drop to his knees from the sight of her sitting there baring everything.
“Take the picture!” she barked.
His finger, unconscious on the button, pushed it down.
When she heard the click, she quickly slid forward, spread her knees as wide as they would go, and screamed, “Take the picture!”
Again, his mindless body performed, and he took the picture.
Jumping up, Paige grabbed for the robe. Cayce had turned to face the wall.
After a long silence Cayce whispered, “Don’t ever forget that your body was made to give and receive pleasure with the one you love, not for viewing by this sick bastard!”
She shivered as she stepped into the robe. He made her feel lovely, not tawdry and lewd as she had been feeling.
“More brandy,” he whispered. “This time I think I need it more than you,” he said as he let out a long breath.
They walked together over to the decanter and he reached up to rub the back of her neck. “You‘re doing great.”
“One more.”
“One more,” he repeated before downing his glass in one quick swallow.
He left the study and walked into the dining area. He raked his fingers through his hair, mussing it and unknowingly making himself rakishly attractive in the process. His mind was in overdrive as he walked around closing all the blinds. She was going to be naked on his table, spread wide and making him take the picture!
The prayers he called forth to fill his head as he removed the candlesticks and the centerpiece weren’t helping. Lord, protect us. Me, from carnal thoughts, her from me.
She had followed him and now watched as he rearranged chairs and removed the tablecloth. His lips were moving, but she couldn’t quite catch what he was saying. She knew he was praying and wondered exactly what he was praying for.
He walked past, not even acknowledging her as he went back to his study for the camera. When he returned and had it set up, he unceremoniously dragged her over to the table and picked her up by the waist and plunked her on the end. Then he went back to the camera and focused it before looking up at her. He removed the tattered note from his pocket and handed it to her. He wasn’t about to read it out loud.
And she was grateful.
5. Lay on a table, bring your knees up to your chest, then spread them as wide as possible. Use your fingers to spread your cunt lips. Make this one a close up.
Her nerves were shot. She could feel how frayed they were. The brandy helped, she was even a little high, but not high enough to forget that the next pose would remove any shred of dignity she had ever had, forever. When this picture was circulated, which was exactly what was supposed to happen this Sunday morning, she knew she would never be able to look anyone in the eye ever again, certainly no one in her church.
Cayce, watching the expression on her face, knew what she was thinking. He wanted desperately to be able to save her from this. “Even though you have to be naked, because of the close-up I can frame this so the rest of you is not in the shot.” That meant her breasts and her face would not be visible. The only part of her that would be, was her womanhood. What kind of comfort is that, he thought, shaking his head.
“At least you’ll be anonymous in the picture,” he muttered. But he knew it meant nothing.
“Yeah, but he’s taken care of that, too, hasn’t he?” she replied bitterly. “I have to print my name across the top. Everyone will know exactly whose . . . whose . . . vagina they’re looking at. Everyone,” she said ending with a broken sob.
He walked over to where she sat at the end of his dining room table and with his finger he traced the path of a tear down her cheek. Then his head tilted and he smiled. “What’s your full name?”
“Natalie Paige Lawson.”
“And your maiden name?”
“Porter.”
“Well, how about using your maiden name, your first name and just your middle initial? Natalie P. Porter. No one will know you by Natalie will they?”
“No,” she said thoughtfully, “I haven’t gone by Natalie since grade school.”
“It’s perfectly acceptable for a widow to revert back to her maiden name.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t know Porter’s my maiden name or that Natalie’s actually my first name. I’m afraid if I do that, he�
�ll see it as defaulting and not return Joshua. It’s a good idea, but I can’t risk it. The idea that I could do all this,” her hand waved up and down in front of the robe, “and still lose Josh, is more than I can bear to think about. We have to do it his way.” She shivered with revulsion. “We have to,” she whispered. And then without another word she slipped off the robe, letting it fall to the polished wood floor, scooted back from the edge of the table, and placed her feet on the opposite corners. Her hands went between her spread thighs and using her fingers, she parted her labial lips. “Take the picture,” she sighed resignedly. “Just take the damned picture.”
Not a foot away, he followed her movements. He knew that his eyes had gone wide and his jaw had dropped. But for the life of him, he couldn’t move. The sight of her displayed like that caved him in viscerally. Desire, hot and searing, raced through him. Blood pulsed, making his muscles tense, and flushed through his veins so quickly that it made him dizzy. He was instantly lightheaded and was momentarily afraid he was going to fall to his knees, in front of her, right there. Where he could simply lean in and kiss her, wrap his tongue around the dainty fingertips that were showing him the way into her body.
“Arrgh!” he groaned before blinking hard and stepping behind the camera.
He opened one eye to look through the lens, willed his forefinger to push the button down so he could capture the shot, and quickly spun around so he was facing the living room wall.
He heard her moving on the table and then heard her feet hit the floor. He listened for the rustle of the robe being donned before turning back.
Worth Any Price Page 21