by Lexy Timms
My practice photos were being taken on my digital camera, but I was actually getting to use my old-school Canon for the job. That camera took real photographs that had to be developed in a real dark room. Needless to say, that point added some excitement for me, and an even greater need to get the photos exactly right.
I took out the Canon and scanned the stage again, adjusting the aperture.
“Hey, man,” I said to the crewmember I’d been talking with the most. “Can you bring over two of those Kinos and set them up by the table?”
The door opened and I turned. The woman who entered was stunning. And, she was the only one not glued to her phone. She marched in, wearing nicer clothes than any of the other models. She was actively looking around the set, thinking intensely to herself. It was her different attitude that made me take my first snapshot with the Canon: she was merely looking at the set and yet, it seemed as though she had many trains of thought leaving the station all at once. Her expression reminded me of my own, deeply lost in though.
She was also extremely hot. She was bigger than any of the other women in the studio, but I didn’t give a damn. She had creamy, pale skin with nice blonde hair. Her curvy body shined through her tight blouse and loose skirt. Her chest and backside were impressive as well, but I found myself more drawn to her light blue eyes. Even from afar and through my viewfinder, they were like beacons beckoning me to her. To me, she was the most interesting person in the room. I would have been happy to only shoot her for the entire day.
I took a deep breath, but was unable to finish counting to five.
She walked off the stage and out of sight. I stared as she walked away and my eyes remained locked in the direction she went for several seconds.
All the lights in the room came on at once, briefly turning the canvas back into a warehouse before several crewmembers yelled for it to turn back off.
As the lights fell and stage lighting filled the darkness up again, the blonde returned. This time, she was pulling in a mobile coatrack with nearly a hundred different outfits hanging and waiting to be worn. The other models took pictures of the coatrack and began to look through and pick out certain outfits.
I approached the coatrack and the woman I was looking for walked straight to me. She held out her hand and smiled.
“Hi, I’m Kayla Reid,” she said to me. I shook her hand. “Are you Justin?”
“Yeah, Justin Baker. Your friendly neighborhood photographer.” I regretted my choice of words and immediately wanted to turn back time and try again.
“It’s good to meet you, Justin,” she said.
“You, too,” I said, changing my tone. “You know, I’m actually warming up the camera right now and would love to get a few practice photos with some of the poses your boss was telling me about. And maybe a few of my own ideas.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What’re you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to sound casual. “It’s just, you’re the only one dressed right now like… well, like a model. They’re all in t-shirts, shorts, and sweatpants. You came prepared.”
“You came early,” she said.
“I arrived early,” I said. “I never come early.”
I smirked and she actually smiled again.
“I didn’t expect the set to be ready so soon,” she said. “We might not be here all day after all.”
“Quality work in small-budget time,” I said. “So, what do you say? Think you can lay across that glass table for me?”
“I’m not one of the models, dude,” she chuckled. “I’m Kayla Reid, Donnie’s coordinator for the shoot.”
I was immediately embarrassed by my flub and hoped that it wouldn’t reflect poorly on me. Thankfully, most women weren’t offended if you mistook them for a model.
“Wow, way to let me go on like that,” I said.
“I was wondering how long you were going to keep up that model shtick,” she said.
“I wasn’t kidding—” I started.
Before I could continue and say more stupid things, she spared me any further embarrassment and went over to the rack. She started handing out clothes to the appropriate models. She matched all the clothes in under a half hour.
She moved some of the props around and adjusted things according to some design that I was unaware of. She had a clipboard, but she hardly consulted it. Whenever a model would come to her with a clothing issue, she was able to get it sorted out in under a minute, usually in time for the next model with an issue to approach her. She did this while also applying makeup to some of the models (since the makeup artist was running late), stocking a cooler with cold bottles of water (since the lighting helped keep the room drastically hot), and talking with six or seven different people on the phone. She was more than a coordinator, she was a captain at the helm of the entire ship.
I was so focused on her that I had entirely silenced the nearby voice of the earlier crewmember who was calling out to me.
“Where do you want them Kinos?” he asked me grumpily.
“Nowhere, just- standby,” I said.
Once the models were dressed and the set was perfect, Kayla turned to me.
“You ready, Justin?”
“Absolutely.”
I took photographs of the models with haste. Speed was part of the actual process, but there was a significant factor that was stirred into my process. Kayla.
On some shoots, the director or coordinator could become tyrannical, sometimes taking over the whole shoot. They might change my lighting or demand that we take an abundance of pictures we didn’t need. Some coordinators or directors were the type to complain after the fact, without ever having voiced concerns or opinions during the actual job. I went in expecting to get one or the other, because I was becoming used to it.
Kayla was not merely a coordinator. She was a collaborator. Neither of us were completely in control, but rather, we worked together and the result was rewarding.
But, whenever a model was in a specific pose that I personally found pleasing, I would think about how it might look with Kayla as the model. I was getting caught up. My eyes would stare intensely into the viewfinder and at the gorgeous girls, but my mind would linger on the breathtaking aura that I felt around this humble creature named Kayla.
She showed no insecurities, mild or great. She only exuded confidence. She appeared more collected and confident than any other woman I had ever worked with. She was the sexiest woman I had ever captured with my camera lens. As I worked, I felt little impulses of aggravation. I was angry at the missed opportunities I had to capture Kayla simply existing. She was right there. I was desperate to turn the camera on her. Everything she did seemed worthy of preserved memory. I only wanted to take pictures of her.
As the minutes went on, the models and Kayla would leave the room. The models would re-enter wearing new outfits and Kayla would return, commanding the attention of every living and inanimate thing around her. We worked together, but if there was ever deference, it was always me to her, willingly.
I was packing up my lighting while the crew removed most of the props. The models were taking selfies and planning where and how they were going to spend the rest of their weekend.
Kayla walked back in and walked up to the spiral staircase, examining it briefly before climbing onto it and leaning against the column, posing.
“How’s this?” she called out to me.
Without hesitation, I put down my lighting case and got the Canon back out. There was a never a time greater than the ten seconds that passed before I took another photograph of her. It felt like I was capturing something rare.
“Perfect,” I said, snapping some photos. “Just keep doing whatever you want to do. I’m not here.”
She chuckled, biting her lip. She stood up and went up to the top of the stairs, looking out beyond. She was beyond vibrant.
“You really know what you want once you’ve that camera out,” she said to me. “You’re a good commu
nicator. I thought today went really well.”
“Yeah, same here,” I concurred.
“The girls seemed to respond to you,” she added.
“Did they?” I wondered. I truly hadn’t noticed.
“Yeah, I’m going to let everyone know how awesome you were,” she said, descending the stairs, stopping occasionally to make a playful pose. Even when she wasn’t taking herself seriously, she was sexy.
“Maybe we’ll see each other again soon,” I said.
“That’d be cool,” she agreed. She walked toward the exit, avoiding the prop tables and chairs as she moved.
“We’re not going to get any of you on the tables?” I asked her.
She blushed, giggling. “You really want that?”
“More than you’ll probably believe, yeah,” I said unafraid.
She moved melodically and slowly over to the glass table, hoisting herself up and spreading out across, not leaving any of the table uncovered. One of the models was watching us, but we didn’t care.
“Didn’t your parents ever talk to you about sitting on the table with your shoes on?” I said to her.
“All right, all right,” she said with humorous sarcasm. She kicked off her shoes and flexed her feet as she rolled around and made different poses for me. I was snapping photos by the second, growing more excited in every sense of the word.
“You got any tattoos?” I asked her.
“Nope,” she answered. “I want one, though. But, it has to be good.”
“You want it to mean something?” I asked.
“Well… something to me, yeah,” she said. “What about you?”
“I do,” I answered. “But, you can’t see it.”
“Why, you got a tramp stamp?” she teased.
“Nah, it’s covered by my shirt,” I said. “It’s across my chest. If you ever get a tattoo, I’ll show you mine.”
“Aw, you’re not going to show me now?” she asked.
“Baby, at least let me take you out first,” I said.
Her eyes widened briefly and then closed. No picture I took had any flaws.
“How tall are you?” she muttered. “You look taller than six feet.”
“6’1,” I responded. “Is that too tall?”
“I was actually hoping you were taller than that,” she replied, winking.
She got off the table once the number of models watching us had climbed to three. She rapidly made her way toward the dressing rooms.
“Let me know if you ever develop any of those,” she said to me.
“Absolutely.”
After the tables and chairs were moved (spiral staircase still in place) and the clothes had all returned to their designated hangers, it was only a matter of minutes before the crew clocked out and the models flew off into the sky.
I was not only the first to arrive, but I was, seemingly, the last to leave. I looked over the set, making sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.
Then, near where the tables had been, I spotted something. I went by and picked them up: Kayla’s shoes. She had left in such a hurry that she neglected to put them back on after I asked her to take them off.
I stood by, wondering whether I found an opportunity to be around her a little more. I spotted a dim light by the dressing rooms, wondering if anyone might still be back there…
Chapter 4
Kayla
Justin, the photographer, had done a miraculous job of making me feel like I was truly a professional model. It was a high that I wasn’t eager to come down from. After the shoot, I literally spent several minutes at a time simply daydreaming, imagining my life as a model.
I was still in the dressing room. The shoot had been over for nearly an hour and a half. I wasn’t thinking about the professional shoot. Instead, I was thinking about the shoot that occurred only about thirty minutes prior… the one I knew would fuel at least a week’s worth of future daydreams.
There were times in my life when I entertained a desire, albeit secret, to be a model someday. Despite being plus-sized, I always envisioned having fun in front of the camera. It was never something that I took seriously, but it was a fun fantasy. It was only with Justin that I felt like I had stepped into a living embodiment of one of my modeling fantasies. If those girls, the real models, hadn’t been watching us, I would have continued and suggested more poses for him…
I attempted to quiet my imagination and switch back to my personal project. From out of my bag, I pulled out the underwear set I had designed for Bethany and me to try out. I had yet to try them on myself, mostly out of fear of breaking them. I knew that the material I used was going to feel comfortable and breathe well, but it was the elasticity that I worried about. I wondered whether it would hold.
I knew that once I arrived home, I would talk myself out of ever trying them on. So, trying to look at it as ‘work’ (which it technically was), I decided to try on my bra and panty creation and go from there.
I threw off my blouse, skirt, and bra, taking a moment to look myself over in the mirror. I put on the bra first, before sliding off my original pair of panties. I liked how the bra felt and it wasn’t too constricting, which was incredibly rare for bras in my size.
I dropped my store-bought panties to the floor and slid on the ones I made. They were a little tight, but in that moment, it didn’t bother me.
One thing was for sure, they looked good on me. I admired my work in the mirror, stretching and turning, looking at myself from all angles. They weren’t transparent, but they hugged close enough that a trained eye could potentially make out the details of my body.
I thought about the photographer taking more pictures of me. He’d clicked away frantically before and I imagined how I would have looked with his lighting, those props, and this new underwear. I would have been shy, but it was entering my “fantasy repertoire.”.
Suddenly, as if he’d known I was thinking of him, Justin entered the dressing room. He walked through the door and came to an abrupt halt, standing there and staring at me. He actually looked like a deer caught in headlights. He chuckled and cleared his throat. I could feel my cheeks flushing.
“Well… hi, again,” he said to me.
“Hey, yourself,” I said smiling.
“I… really didn’t expect to see you here,” he stammered. “And- certainly not… You look… you look…”
“Yeah, how do I look?” I asked him sincerely. “Be honest, I’ve a good reason for asking.”
“You look fucking incredible,” he said. “I mean… I’ve never seen a design like that on underwear like that. I mean… It looks really… It’s…”
I was surprised by his nervousness. I wasn’t sure what reaction I was expecting, but it was definitely not anxiety. He was incredibly good-looking, fairly intelligent, and he had a way with words when he wasn’t watching me model or stand there in my underwear. I assumed he had to be taken. Every guy I ever met that looked like him was never single. But, I was still feeling surreal after our personal photoshoot and wasn’t sure what to believe.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t knock,” he said. “I was actually trying to find a place to put your shoes. I wanted you to get your shoes back, you left them out there.”
“Well, are you going to come in?” I asked him. “It’s okay. It isn’t like this is the first time you’ve seen a woman in her underwear. This is a model’s dressing room, after all.”
He obliged, closing the door behind him. He handed me my shoes and meandered back toward the door. I could tell he still felt bad about not knocking.
“So, what was your ‘good reason’ for wanting to know how you looked?” he asked me. “Trying to impress someone?”
“In a matter of speaking,” I said. “I made what I’m wearing right now.”
“You made that?” he asked. “Wow, you really are something. What the hell can’t you do?”
“I can’t fit into a size-one anything,” I said.
“So, fucking what?” he retorted. “Yo
u look great in that. And, you made it? That’s awesome, Kayla, really. I really don’t think I’ve ever seen underwear quite like it.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “Because I thought so, but… you can get caught up in the work and not know how you look to other people, you know?”
“I know what you mean,” he said.
“I designed this to help curvier women,” I said looking back in the mirror. “I want them to feel just as beautiful as the models that come through here.”
“You’re just as beautiful as those models,” he said. “I actually thought you were one, remember?”
“I really thought you were just joking,” I said.
“No. I wasn’t. I was disappointed when you said you weren’t one of the models,” he said, inching closer to me. “Might be something you’d want to consider.”
“I’m not sure everyone would be thrilled about looking at provocative photos of women like me,” I said as I put my blouse and skirt back on. “I appreciate your kind words, even if there is a hint of sarcasm to them.”
“There’s no sarcasm here. I’d much rather go out with you than any of those girls I was shooting for Donnie T.”
“I know Amy or Kristy had to give you their numbers,” I said to him, thinking back on how they were whispering about Justin through most of the workday. “They were making eyes at you all through the shoot.”
“I didn’t get any numbers,” he said. “Although, I wouldn’t mind getting yours. I could take you out sometime. Sucks though, I live in Newark, but I’d be more than willing to drive back to New York and grab a bite to eat with you.”
“You live in Newark?” I asked surprised. “Jersey?”
“That’s the one,” he said. “Why?”
“I live in Newark,” I replied. “Small world, huh?”
“That’s quite a coincidence,” he agreed. “Well… we’ll go out in Newark, then.”
I smirked, brushing my hair after I had all my clothes back on.
“When you say ‘go out’, do you mean actually going out?” I wondered. “Or, are you only interested in my body?”