“Oh my God, you’re taking that? I’m not ready yet,” his subject complained. “And I thought he wanted me to take it all off.” She was still dressed in the silk bathrobe.
Jason ignored her complaints and continued to shoot her natural movements. He had prepared himself to preserve her every antic. In his professional opinion, everything she did by accident could become flawless.
“We’re gonna shoot it all, step by step, to see what he likes the best,” he advised. They were shooting storyboard scenes for a romantic getaway at the Oasis Resort Hotel for the magazine’s December issue. And Gabrielle was the perfect getaway gift for any man.
She grabbed the silk robe above her cleavage with both hands and pulled it slightly open, just enough for a man to beg for more.
“I already know what he likes best,” she purred. Then she laughed and covered herself up with folded arms.
“Beautiful!” Jason told her. He snapped it all, every impeccable frame of her girlish tease.
“I didn’t even do anything yet.”
Jason snapped the pictures and shook his head. She is so damn dramatic, he noted. She could be an actress. She makes this shit seem easy. I love working with her!
In her blatant inexperience, Gabrielle would effortlessly tell a story through her reactions, without photographers needing to tell her much of anything. She never hid herself from their views. She was always there, wide open for their lenses.
“Trust me, you’re doing everything you need to do,” he assured her. “Just keep being you.”
She looked straight into his camera with piercing dark eyes and shrugged. “Okay, if you say so. And umm…let me know when you want me to take it off.”
Dammit, she’s sexy! Jason convinced himself. As he stared at her wild, unashamed and reckless beauty through his lens, her cinnamon-colored skin appeared as smooth as an infant’s ass rubbed down with baby oil. No makeup was needed to cover up anything. In fact, makeup would only ruin her perfection. All Gabrielle needed was a dry towel to pad away her shine, a touch of gloss to accentuate her pouting lips, and a hard bristled brush to straighten out her thick mane of long, wavy hair.
Jason nodded and began to imagine the next stage of his work—the naked scenes. And Gabrielle seemed eager to shoot them.
“Okay, well, I’m ready when you are,” he told her. “But take off the robe in stages. You know, one shoulder at a time; one side at a time, and give me angles while you do it, like a strip tease.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
Jason’s blue jeans tightened at his crotch, while he took pictures of her disrobing, piece by piece, shoulder by shoulder, breast by breast, and angle by seductive angle.
Man, I would love to jump up in that bed and join her, he mused. But his professionalism demanded that he did not. She was only a subject; a model of seduction.
Arnold Whittingham Jr. pulled into the valet parking area at the front of the Oasis Resort Hotel while still chatting on his cell phone.
“Yeah, I’m having a staff meeting tonight, honey, so I don’t know how late I’m gonna be. We’re on deadline to finish this December issue. And I swear, this pet project magazine is wearing me out. Can’t these people finish anything on their own?”
“I told you, you need to hire an editor-in-chief and give him or her the power to run it, Arnie. But no-o-o, you can’t seem to let it go without wanting to run it yourself,” his wife insisted over the line.
“All right, well, maybe I’ll start looking for a good E-I-C. All right, baby? But I gotta go now. And I love you, too.”
Arnold hung up his cell phone and stepped out of his black Bentley Arnage in a long, camel-colored cashmere coat with Italian leather shoes under his beige dress pants. He was a confident and wealthy man of fifty-six and was handsome with gray hair.
“You checking in, sir?” a valet attendant asked him.
Arnold shook it off. “Nah, I’m only here for a few hours. So give me a temporary ticket.”
“All right, about how many hours?”
The tall, stately man looked down at his Rolex watch and shrugged. “Let’s say, ah…six or seven hours. What does that make it, two or three o’clock in the morning?”
The valet added up the hours. “Yeah, that’s about right.”
Arnold tossed him the keys to his Bentley and headed inside the resort toward the registration desk.
“May I help you?” a young woman asked him in a uniform ensemble of navy blue, cream and orange.
“Yes, I’m Arnold Whittingham from The Higher End magazine. I believe we have an executive penthouse suite here where we’re shooting for our December issue.”
“Oh, yes, yes, it’s room, ah…” She looked it up on her computer monitor. “Seventeen-oh-one,” she told him.
“Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome. And thank you for choosing Oasis.”
He smiled and waved a friendly hand as he headed toward the elevators.
“As long as the rooms look as good as you advertise them.”
“Oh, they do,” she bragged with a smile.
Back up in room 1701, Jason and Gabrielle had gotten good and comfortable. The beautiful model was shamelessly butt naked and flopping all over the bed in various unrehearsed poses.
“Oh, this bed feels so good all over,” she moaned as Jason continued to shoot her raw and naked energy. His jeans had now become moistened from pre-ejaculation. She was really turning him on.
“Okay, now lie flat on your stomach and turn slightly toward me.”
She did as he told her with no hesitation.
“Now cover your breasts with your right arm and hand, while extending your left arm to the edge of the bed.”
Gabrielle obeyed him again.
“Beautiful!”
“You are, too,” she teased.
That made Jason pause. “What was that?”
The model chuckled. “I don’t know what it is, but guys with dreadlocks seem sexy to me, for some reason.”
Jason was so intrigued that he was tempted to stand up tall from behind his camera and question her like a detective. But he dared not to miss anything. He felt addicted to the poetry of her movements. And if he moved away from his lens, he may have missed an all-important line on her comprehension.
“How come you’ve never told me that before?” he asked from behind his lens.
She smiled at him like a Cheshire cat in cinnamon-brown human form. “You seemed like you were all about your work, so I didn’t get a chance to.”
He was about his work, almost to a flaw. How many other enticing models had he ignored, or put on ice, while giving his full allegiance to the eye of his lens?
“Well, don’t you love modeling?”
He shot the lower end of her back and the round curve of her naked ass.
“Yeah, but not like that. I mean, I’ve only been doing this for a year now. But I didn’t know you could make so much money doing this.”
Jason snapped at her response and grimaced. “Where are you from again?”
She giggled at his assumptions. She had gotten the same bewildered response from many of the men who had met her.
“Minnesota,” she answered. “I know, I know, it’s Prince’s state, right. And the movie Fargo.”
“Oh,” Jason mumbled. He was an original New Yorker.
No wonder she’s so…aimless with her sex appeal, he thought. What else could a girl be from Minnesota? There was nothing there but a giant mall with an amusement park inside.
“Where else have you been?” he asked.
She was amazingly comfortable in the room with him, naked and all.
“I’ve been to Mexico, and Florida, Canada, New York, Los Angeles…” She paused to continue in her count. “Chicago…New Orleans.”
“All on photo shoots?”
“Umm…no, not all the time.”
She suddenly seemed a little guarded. Jason read it, but kept going with his calm interrogation.
&
nbsp; “Did you go with your girlfriends?”
Gabrielle’s thoughtful hesitation told him more than she imagined, and he caught it all on camera. A picture was worth a thousand words. How comfortable did she feel about telling him her personal business?
“Well, to tell you the truth…no,” she leveled with him. “But…I mean, I don’t really feel guilty about it. I wanted to travel.”
Jason raised a brow and peeped at her above the lens with his naked eye for a second. “Feel guilty about what?”
She caught herself and laughed naughtily. “Umm, is this too much information?”
Jason shrugged. “What, you’re already butt naked. Go ahead and lay it all out.”
“Oh my God, why did you have to say that? Now you got me feeling subconscious,” she complained. She even covered up her body.
“Okay, I apologize. Now turn all the way over on your back and stretch both of your arms out to the edge of the bed.”
He was growing more authoritative with her by the second. The safety gloves were off now. It was time for raw expressiveness.
Gabrielle glared into the camera. “No. You come make me,” she told him.
Jason froze and missed the shot. Shit! Then he snapped it late and missed the moment.
“Dammit! Do that again. The same way.”
“Why?”
He ignored her question. “Matter of fact, turn your body to face me and spread your legs out on the pillows at the headboard. Then say it again.”
Gabrielle continued to grin at him. “You’re getting very kinky with me now, Mr. Cameraman. Would your boss want me posing for you like that?”
“He told you to take it all off for me, right? So what do you think he wanted me to shoot?”
“Something tasteful.”
“Yeah, tasteful and naked. So don’t be ashamed now. Let’s get it all.”
She sighed and swung her body clockwise, tossing her naked legs against the pillows behind her like he asked, while turning to face his camera.
“There, are you satisfied now?”
Jason snapped her picture on cue. “Very.”
She smirked. “This is what you make all the models do for you, hunh? They all let you get your way?”
He started cheesing and couldn’t help himself. Man, she’s great at this. I’m probably better off as a gay man with her, he pondered.
“I wish. But we can start with you,” he teased. He wondered how far she would allow him to go with their flirtations.
“I bet we could,” she flirted back. “So how many pictures are we gonna take on this bed, anyway? Doesn’t he want us to shoot the whole room?”
Her query was factual. The assignment was of the entire room. But Jason was having far too much fun with her on the bed.
“We’re almost done,” he told her.
Tap, tap, tap!
Gabrielle looked toward the room door behind him. Then she eyed Jason skeptically. “Are you expecting anyone?”
Jason shot that scene from her as well.
Tap, tap, tap, tap!
Shit! he cursed as the taps on the locked door persisted. I thought he told me he MIGHT be stopping by, he questioned of his boss. Hopefully, it was only room service. But no one had ordered any food. Jason walked over to the door to investigate.
Arnold Whittingham Jr. waited outside the locked door of suite 1701 and wondered why it was taking so long for anyone to answer.
Maybe I should have called first, he pondered. What if they’re in there doing something they’re not supposed to be doing?
That thought sent a wave of shock and panic rushing through the publisher’s passionate body.
Shit! What the hell was I thinking, leaving the two of them alone while she does a naked shoot? he asked himself, and then he leaned in to listen through the door.
Jason Polk arrived at the doorway and looked through the peephole right as his boss leaned in to eavesdrop.
The photographer paused after he noticed Arnold’s movements of snooping. He didn’t want to startle his boss by catching him in the act, so he froze behind the doorway and waited for better timing.
“Who is it?” Gabrielle asked him from the bed.
Jason became confused by his dilemma. If he answered Gabrielle while he so close to the door, it would be an easy call for his boss to presume that he had likely been busted. Jason waited there in silence until Arnold had righted himself at the door.
The photographer then opened the door quickly enough to fake surprise. “Hey, so I see you did stop by.”
Arnold Whittingham Jr. paused at the doorway long enough for Jason to wonder about his thoughts. But neither man wanted to play their cards too easily.
“Yeah, I figured I’d drop by for a minute, you know.” Then he closed his eyes. “I’m not interrupting anything I’m not supposed to see, am I?”
Jason wondered, Is it unethical for a publisher to drop by during the naked shoot of a professional model? Then again, if they are all professionals, why not?
Jason shrugged. “Only if she doesn’t feel uncomfortable about it.”
He stopped and looked back at Gabrielle.
Gabrielle hesitated, overhearing their conversation. What was a naked, young woman to do? It was her job to pose. And the man who was paying her for it had a right to see the raw product. Or did he?
“I mean, is this like…normal? Or does the publisher usually wait to see the pictures after they’re taken?” she asked.
Jason looked back at Arnold. The young model’s response seemed logical. He was even impressed by her tactfulness. He didn’t know she had it in her to be so wry.
Arnold popped open his eyes and said, “Well, how ’bout I sit over in a corner chair, and act as if I’m not here?”
Jason didn’t like that idea at all. Not only would the publisher’s presence be distracting, but he would no longer be able to enjoy the privacy of the shoot. What would happen to the open and playful candor he had established with his muse?
Fuck! Jason cursed. He could not allow himself to passively accept the invasion of his professional space, whether the publisher was paying him handsomely for the job or not. As a rising photographer in the world of images and trustful relationships, Jason had the normal ego that any young man in his position would have. So he declined his boss’s idea before Gabrielle could respond.
“You know, I just don’t think that, ah…that’s a good idea. I mean, we still have a lot more to do here. And my shoots tend to move a lot faster with less people in the room. Especially in an intimate setting like this.”
Arnold heard the word “intimate” and became immediately alarmed.
“Intimate,” he repeated. “This here is a professional shoot, Jason. She knows what she needs to do. You photographers get a little too personal about this stuff sometimes. So just keep snapping her pictures, and I promise not to bother you.”
You’re already fucking bothering me! Jason snapped to himself. However, the publisher had strolled into the room and taken a seat in the lounge chair anyway.
As a last resort, Jason asked, “Well, how does she feel about it?” He made it clear through his rigid stance that he would not continue the shoot until they were all in agreement inside of the room. And if they were not, then the intruding publisher would be kindly asked to leave.
Suddenly, all eyes shifted toward the naked young model on the bed. When the publisher considered how seductively his young, handsome, and dreadlocked cameraman had convinced the young woman to pose for him, he became more adamant to hang around. The scene even turned him on. That was his intention for popping up on them in the first place, to get a rise out of it all.
Gabrielle looked into the eyes of both men separately; first the young, talented photographer she had been assigned to work with, and then into the eyes of the sly, old publisher who was paying her. And she was forced to choose her loyalty.
She quickly shrugged. “Well, I don’t really mind. I mean, he’s gonna see the naked picture
s of me to choose from anyway. So like, what’s the point in the argument? Let’s just, umm, do what we need to do and get it over with.”
It was a great answer for Arnold. He would now be able to watch. But for Jason, her answer amounted to torture. He could no longer speak to the young alluring model with the open rapport that they had established. He also agreed to speed up the pace of the assignment, with a drastic change in his attitude. “Okay, well, we’re about done with the bed scene. So let’s get a few more shots and move on.”
Gabrielle looked confused. “Are you sure?”
The bed scenes hadn’t seemed that complete before the boss had suddenly shown up.
Arnold caught on to his young photographer’s haste.
“Hey, man, again, I’m not even here in the room with you guys. So just do everything you would normally do,” he insisted.
Jason took a deep breath and ignored him. With the publisher sitting there inside the damn room, he couldn’t act normal. He couldn’t make believe that the motherfucker wasn’t there. He was no damn actor!
Jason shook it off and focused to get the final shot that he wanted.
“Okay, ah…could you lift your behind up enough so I can see it behind your head.”
Gabrielle laughed the same as she had before Arnold had entered the room with them. So she was obviously not disturbed by the publisher’s presence.
“You mean like this?” She raised her ass higher than what he needed.
Jason checked his view and shook his head. “No, bring it back down three inches.” He waited for her to position her beautiful ass at the right height before he stopped her. “Okay, right there.”
While he snapped the desired shots of Gabrielle’s seduction with his camera, he could see Arnold Whittingham Jr. smiling his ass off through his peripheral vision.
This motherfucker’s getting off in here! he told himself. But hadn’t he been getting off with his own fantasies before the boss had shown up? And wouldn’t the enticing resort pictures lead to other men having their fantasies? They were all in the same profession together, the profession of magazine illusions. And it was Jason’s job to create the strongest images for everyone. So he calmed down and decided to ignore the distraction.