"Black and White" (closed)

Karl Keener was hurrying through his morning. He hated days like this. The reason he'd abandoned photo-journalism to become a freelance photographer was to have command over his work schedule. He loved the freedom of working through the midday hours of one day, napping 'til midnight, partying 'til dawn of the following day, sleeping till noon, shooting the sun going down, sleeping normal night time hours, then getting up at dawn to have breakfast with a friend or film the laughing, life-filled neighborhood kids getting on the school bus, without ever once looking at a clock with wonder whether he was supposed to here or there and anywhere at this time, that time, or the next.

But his latest photo book of photographs was heading for the printers, and he'd been told that they needed one final perfect photo of Karl himself for the dust jacket's back cover. Glory -- his publicist, editor, and wife all rolled up in one -- had arranged for him to have the studio one extra day. As he entered, Karl discovered that the caffeine-addicted woman with whom he'd had a strange relationship for going on 15 years and his Production Assistant, Allison -- an intern from the local college's photography department -- had all of the equipment already set up, waiting for Karl's arrival.

"Take your shirt off," Glory commanded as soon as Karl entered the room. When he asked why, she said, "To stay with the book's theme."

Although he hadn't expected this, Karl knew that it made sense for his own picture to be somewhat suggestive. The hundred and fifty pics in this, his third book, were a departure from his last two books: the first had been about the ravages of poverty and crime on the inner city; and the second had been about the beauty and joy of being a child who, among other things, likely didn't have any understanding of the first book's hardships in life. This time around, though, the pictures were all intimate and even erotic in some conspicuous or only suggestive way.

Oh, it wasn't all about showing off bared flesh of the nether regions, of course. There was one image of a fully clothed woman in a passenger jet's bathroom, curling her finger in invitation to another fully clothed woman; another of a woman dropping quarters into a man's palm as he looked through the open door of a bathroom at the condom dispenser on the wall; and yet another of a pair of teenagers in their Prom clothes, glancing over their shoulders at the back seat of an older family style car.

The tens of thousands of pictures Karl had shot during his career, and the smaller number of them that had made it to print and been sold, either as individual images, collections, or books had varied in great degree when it came to topic and message. Honestly, the only thing they all had in common was that they'd all been in black and white, the only medium Karl would ever consider employing.

He stripped off his shirt, letting his wife fiddle with his mussed hair a bit before running her licked fingers over the shorter hairs of his beard and mustache...


When she was finally happy with Karl's appearance, Glory turned to the Assistant and asked with impatience, "Where's the girl?"

As Allison hurried off toward the studio's bathroom, Karl asked, "What girl?"

"The girl who's going to be in the picture," Glory said with a matter of fact tone.

Karl asked with a confused tone, "Why is there going to be a girl in the picture? I thought this was supposed to be my pic for the jacket cover."

"Because it's a book of intimate, sensual, and erotic photographs," Glory said, chuckling as she did when she was about to say something he wouldn't like. She reached out to lay a hand softly upon Karl's bare chest as she explained, "Honey, love your body as much as I do, I think we need something a little more erotic than just a picture of you with your shirt off."

Movement out of the corner of his eye caused Karl to look right, in time to see a beautiful, young woman -- a girl as Glory had called her -- emerge from the bathroom. A robe that concealed her from neck to mid-thigh showed off just enough of her long, sleek legs and eye-catching cleavage to make Karl want to see more of her. And, as he suspected, he would.

"Okay, sweetheart, lose the robe," Glory ordered before looking all about herself and asking Allison, "What happened to the stool, the tall one? I want start off with Karl sitting on it and the girl..."

Glory looked off to the younger woman and asked, "I'm sorry, sweetheart, what was your name?"

"Andi," the woman answered as she unknotted the tie around her waist and let the robe fall away...


As Karl ogled the young woman's beautiful form, Glory continued, "Okay, Andi is it. I want you to stand behind Karl and, I don't know, lay hands upon him..."

"Tell me again..." Karl interrupted with a lower voice, not wanting the other two women to hear what he was asking of his wife. When she turned her attention to him, Karl finished, "...why are we putting this ... Andi in the picture with me. If you want the picture to speak of intimacy and eroticism, why aren't you -- my wife -- in it with me."

"Don't be silly!" Glory laughed, loud and long, as she urged Karl toward the stool Allison had finally located and placed. Glory's days of being proud about her body had passed even before she'd met Karl, and while he himself didn't abide by the philosophy that a woman had to look like a Victoria's Secret model to be beautiful and sensual, Glory wasn't about to take even one item of her clothing off for a sexy jacket cover photograph. When she got the two of them nearer one another, Glory introduced, "Karl, Andi. Andi, Karl."

"Nice to meet you," Karl said politely, offering his hand. And while naked or partially naked bodies -- male and female, old and young, beautiful and ugly -- were nothing new to the photographer, Karl couldn't help but glance to the woman's wonderfully shaped breasts for a smidge of a moment and begin formulating erotic fantasies about having his hands all over her. He looked back up to her sparkling eyes and told her, "Thank you for being here today."

"Okay, okay," Glory said impatiently, "let's get this started."

She began giving direction to the pair, mostly to Andi as Karl for the most part only had to sit there with a slight smile or lack of expression entirely. The Assistant occasionally chimed in or even asked questions of her photography boss, and Karl sometimes made suggestions concerning the camera, lighting, angles, and more. They went at it for almost an hour, with the poses shifting greatly but typically having one main theme in common: Karl was the center of attention, of course, but the intimacy and eroticism of the way the anonymous woman placed her hands upon him, or leaned into him, or glanced down from over Karl's shoulder ... this was the theme of the picture that would eventually go onto the back of the future best seller.

Ultimately -- though none of the four here at this moment would know for days to come -- the photograph that would ultimately make the jacket cover was from the last pose Glory put the pair in. She had Karl sit on the stool yet again and face the camera directly, his knees parted wide. She handed him the first camera he had ever used, an ancient Kodak his father had given Karl at age 7 when the boy had declared he wasn't to be a war zone correspondent.

(Karl was shocked, though pleasantly so, to find that Glory had even known about the camera -- which had been on a shelf in his condo -- let alone that she'd brought it with her today.)

"Take your panties off, sweetheart," Glory instructed Andi, before turning to Allison, then to Karl, to explain the shot she wanted. She saw hesitation in Andi, chuckled, and reassured her, "It's okay, honey. No one's going to see anything more than we've already seen here today."

After Andi was naked, Glory took the younger woman in her hands and moved her back between Karl's widened thighs. She pulled the hand with the camera around and positioned them before Andi's groin, hiding the lower of her womanly features. Glory backed up, moved to reposition the camera, then backed again, directing Allison to take the shots. After a few minutes of making small changes -- during which Karl lived in fear that Glory was going to notice his massive erection or, backing too far, Andi might feel it -- Glory announced that they were done and everyone should be proud of their work.

"Thank you, sweetheart," Glory told Andi, handing the younger woman her robe and a business card. "We'll call you about picking up your check. You did very good today."