Camouflage

He pulled her out to where the water was nearly chest high, but not too high for him to continue his pleasant assault on her nipples as her breasts bobbed on the surface of the water, and then, her knees hooked on his hips once more and the fingers of one of her hands working her clit, she positioned his cock head at her entrance with the other hand.

Grant thrust deeply and brutally up into her cunt. She lurched backward and, using her knees as leverage, began pumping herself hard on his cock. She was fucking herself on him. She had come such a long way in the months since she'd lived in Annapolis with her parents and sat on her parents' front porch in the swing with this Naval Academy midshipman or that one and let him finger her through the leg hole of her panties and even, eventually, if he was polite enough in asking, fuck her in the backseat of her car in the family garage. But she had never stripped down like this for sex, let alone taken the lead.

After the first orgasm, Grant carried her back up through the surf to the beach and laid her down on the towels on her back.

Cath was still stinging a bit from his taunt of her being prudish, so, rather than letting him cover her body with his, she gently pulled him down onto the towels, onto his back. He was still in full erection, having made sure she was satisfied first. Cath straddled his torso with her knees, pressed down on his arms with her hands, and impaled herself on his cock.

Grant was laughing and groaning at the same time, and he had a decidedly self-congratulating expression on his face. Cath had never taken the initiative like this before. This was even more surprising than the other evening at the art gallery, when she had strongly hinted—enough for Grant to fully understand her without explicit reference—that she wanted to make love before going to dinner. They had lost their reservations at a restaurant that was very hard to get seats in, but, as he'd only booked the restaurant to impress Cath enough to get his cock inside her later, it no doubt had all worked out to the good in his view. Cath knew—and well appreciated—that working on her inhibitions had been one long campaign for him.

They hadn't even settled into a good rhythm, however, before Cath froze, rolled off of Grant, and pulled one of the towels around her torso.

"What is it, Cath?"

"Sorry. So, sorry. I can't. Not nude out here in the open." And then she was standing, forcing her feet into her flip-flops and struggling up the beach to the beach house.

Grant was left, still hard, and really wanting it, but flabbergasted at what had caused her inhibitions to flood in again. If he'd been looking in the direction that Cath had been looking as she rode his cock, though, he would have seen the figure of the man on the deck of the main house, training the lens of a pair of binoculars on them. By the time Grant stood and pulled up the remaining towels, though, the man had retreated into the house.

Grant was even more confused when he reached the beach house, because, as he entered the house, Cath pushed him down on his back on the carpet in front of the sliding glass door, mounted his cock, and completed the fuck.

That evening Grant teased Cath off and on about her bouts of prudishness while, both fully dressed, they shared the duties of preparing a dinner. Cath wouldn't tell him what she'd seen, though. She was too embarrassed. It also stung that she wasn't able to just continue the sex on the beach whether or not anyone was watching. Grant was making her inhibitions out as something she just had to overcome, and maybe he was right. She wasn't in Annapolis anymore and playing around with panting midshipmen. She lived in the Big Apple. She enjoyed sex—more now than the furtive fumblings with the midshipman, so full of themselves and their cushy futures and acting like they were doing her a favor to fuck her, or that they were just in a hurry to carve another notch on their ceremonial saber sheath.

Grant had suggested that she needed to do something daring and scandalous to rid herself of this albatross forever, and Cath, after what she now saw as her bizarre behavior this afternoon, was beginning to think he was right.

"How about some two-handed poker after dinner?"

"Sure, why not?" Cath answered. What she really wanted to do was to make love after dinner. She was becoming addicted to Grant's cocking. Maybe under the stars out on the deck. Maybe work on those inhibitions.

"Strip poker? The winner gets a 'yes' to any single request of the other?"

"Sure, why not?" If she won, they'd be out on the deck.

She lost. But they were still out on the deck. Grant pulled off his socks, the margin of his victory in the poker game, and carried Cath out on the deck; pulled a pad off a chaise lounge and placed it down on the deck floor; pushed Cath down on her back, with a chair cushion under the small of her back; and fucked her missionary style, while Cath groaned and moaned and stared up at the stars. She'd won too.

"So this was your wish too?"

"My wish to be granted for winning the poker game?"

"Yes."

"No. This was just because you looked so fuckable. I had to restrain myself to get to the end of the game. I only was able to hold off because I really want something from you."

"Something other than this? What?"

"I want a photograph of you done by Hunter Winslow. One like in the galley."

"Oh, Grant. I don't know . . . I couldn't . . ."

"There is that prudishness again. I won, fair and square. You need this as much as I do. It would be just for me. I'd hang it where no one else could see it. And you've seen what he does. Someone you know—as intimately as you know me—would have to walk right up to it to have any idea it was you."

"I don't know Grant. Oh . . . OH!"

Grant had moved down her body, until his face was in her pubic vee. His arms were wrapped around her waist, holding her in thrall, as his lips and teeth found her clit and she clutched at his hair and moaned and started to thrash about wildly.

She saw that lights were on in the other house and she could see the silhouette of a figure standing out on the deck of that house, looking in their direction, no doubt hearing her moans and cries of ecstasy.

But, throwing an arm over her eyes and crushing her pelvis against Grant's digging tongue, she arched her head back and began to yowl, no longer caring who heard or saw.

* * * *

"Please take off your clothes. You can hang them over on the screen or fold them and lay them on that chair over there—with Grant's."

Cath was standing there, in the center of the photography studio, feeling like a zombie and trying to shut her systems down even further.

Why had she agreed to do this? And, having decided to do this—to pay up her poker debt to Grant—why was she thinking of backpeddling. Was she really this fickle?

He was right. No one would know it was her. And he probably also was right that a wanton act like this was just what she needed to explode her inhibitions of being nude in any but the most intimate private situations. Maybe after this she'd go back to Annapolis and rape every good-looking midshipman she could find—in the nude, on Stribling Walk in the shadow of the Mexican Monument, at midday.

But all of that went out the window because Hunter Winslow was here, barefoot and dressed only in droopy, worn jeans and looking at her—no, capturing her attention—with those piercing, coal-black eyes of his. He was almost feral. Thin, but tightly muscled, the veins standing out on his arms because there was no fat on him.

And he wanted her to strip. And he was going to take her photograph—painted to match the swirling colored patterns on the padded lounge and flooring on the platform that was surrounded by camera tripods. There were even cameras overhead pointed down at the platform.

She assumed she would lie, nude, there while he painted her body to blend in with the set, and she'd have to resist shuddering at the touch of the intimidating, yet mesmerizing, mad artist.

And, worse, she had figured out what had made the photograph in the gallery so disturbing and sensual all at once. And Grant had confirmed that the photographs would need to be taken after sex.

Her stipulation had been that it would be Grant who was there to fuck her before the photographs were taken. She could not bear the thought of Hunter Winslow fucking her. And it wasn't because he repelled her. It was the opposite. It was because she could see the danger and evil in him and still was attracted to him. Ever since she had agreed to do this and Grant had set up the appointment in Winslow's New York studio, Cath had dreamed of lying under Hunter Winslow. But her great fear was that once she had coupled with him, she would want to do so again and again. She didn't want such a compulsion or complexity in her sex life.

She felt she must resist. Working her way out of prudishness was one thing. Coming under the power of a man like Hunter Winslow was something else altogether.

"Miss Tatum. I said you were to disrobe and leave your clothes over there."

"Yes, of course." She hoped her voice didn't sound as small and scared and breathy to him as it sounded to her.

Grant was already naked and was masturbating in front of a mirror at one side of the room, preparing himself for the first stage of what Cath was now thinking was to be an ordeal.

"Very nice," Winslow said as, nude, Cath came from behind the screen. He held out his hand and she placed one of hers in his. His eyes were slitted but boring into hers, drawing her both physically and emotionally toward the chaise lounge. She trembled at the touch of his hand on hers and moved, again like a zombie, to the couch.

After rising from his knees where he had been hunched over Cath's pelvis and bringing her to an orgasm with his tongue and teeth on her clit and his fingers inside her, Grant stood at the end of the chaise lounge, crouched between Cath's legs.

"No. On your back, I think. Have her ride you."

Cath had mostly had her eyes closed to this point. And when she had them open, she was avoiding looking wherever she sensed Winslow was in the room. She melted under the power of his gaze, and thus she didn't want to make eye contact. At the sound of his voice, though, she opened her eyes and involuntarily turned her face in his direction. She gasped when she saw that he, too, was nude now. He was strutting around holding a camera. He was almost Satyric in his nakedness, with a line of black, curly hair running from swirling around his nipples, down his sternum and belly, and to pelted thighs. His thighs were noticeably hairier than his torso. If he'd had horns and cloven feet, Cath would have likened him to her concept of the devil. She had no idea if he'd already started taking photographs. If so, it wasn't what she had agreed to. But that thought receded to the back of her mind as soon as she realized he was naked—and in a full, upcurved erection. He captured her eyes with his and there was a sensual, cruel smile on his face.

Cath knew then that Hunter Winslow was going to fuck her too. And, as his eyes bored into her, taking possession of her, she no longer cared. She felt a long sigh, ending in a whimper, welling up from her core and escaping through her clinched teeth. She was defeated without even having struggled.

Grant was laying on the small of his back at the bottom edge of the lounge, his feet flat on the floor and his legs spread. Cath perched astride him, facing him, skewered on his cock. She was moving, leveraging off the lounge top with her knees and calves planted on either side of his hips.

She shuddered in fear and anticipation—and of want—for what she knew was coming. A groan escaped her lips as she felt Hunter's hands palming her breasts from behind and knew that he was standing between Grant's legs.

"Tilt her," she heard Winslow instruct Grant in a low, hoarse voice, and she whimpered, knowing exactly what he was going to do, but not having the strength or resolve to try to prevent it. She cried out and ineffectively tried to pull from Grant's smothering embrace as she felt the head of Winslow's cock at her anal shaft and then felt him work his way inside, deep.

She stopped struggling as both men bottomed in her separate channels, and she began to whimper and moan as the two started to slow pump her in counter rhythm. Winslow was nibbling and sucking on the hollow of her neck as one of his hands went around her waist. His thumb was on her clit and two of his fingers were working their way inside her on either side of Grant's stroking cock. Grant's hands came around and palmed and spread Cath's buttocks cheeks to give Winslow even greater penetration. With a little cry, she felt the fireworks start and her pelvis involuntarily moving back and forth, taking one deep and withdrawing—only to be taking the other one deeper. Winslow longer; Grant thicker; both demanding their all.

Cath had come again and was utterly exhausted when Grant pulled out from underneath her, Winslow turned her on her back, thrust inside the channel Grant had vacated, and pumped her with an increasingly filling cock to a third explosion. All the time he was holding Cath's eyes in thrall by his, willing—successfully—her to want exactly what he was doing to her.

After he was done with her, Winslow pulled Cath fully up onto the couch, her body spread all a kilter on her back in full satiation and exhaustion—and began clicking off photo shots.

Her eyes closed and she drifted off into a totally spent sleep, only vaguely wondering when the painting of her body part would come in. For all she knew or cared, that had already happened. If not, was there to be another round of sex after the painting? Feeling the shame, but dismissing it, she found she hoped there was another round to come.

* * * *

It had been two weeks since she'd last seen Grant—at the photo shoot in Hunter Winslow's studio. Somehow, as she had feared, after having been so fully taken by Winslow, she couldn't feel the same way about Grant again, not the least because he had sent her home in a taxi and stayed on at the studio with the photo artist, no doubt to share in the pleasure of the development of the photos of her. But eventually she became antsy for attention, and when Grant called, she agreed to go out with him. It was only after she'd rung off from that conversation that she realized that Grant hadn't been pestering her for dates and attention either. This was quite unlike him. Before the studio photo shoot, he'd called her at least once a day.

Perhaps, she thought, the little orgy they'd fallen into had given both of them pause for thought.

When she did see Grant again then, she knew it would be the last time.

They had gone on a boat cruise from the tip of Manhattan. Being somewhat new to the city, Cath had never seen the city scape from the water, so Grant took her on the Midtown cruise. Then it was back to his apartment, where they both were to shower and change, make a little love, eat dinner, and then make some more love. It had been the routine they'd fallen into prior to the Hunter Winslow photo shoot.

But this time the date ended during Grant's shower. While he was checking on the makings for their dinner, Cath toured his apartment and found a room she'd never seen before—his very private study. Prominently displayed on his wall was the postcoital photograph of Cath at Hunter Winslow's studio just two weeks earlier. Her body wasn't the least bit camouflaged in this photograph.

When the shock of seeing herself vulnerable and nude and spread like that—even though knowing that photographs had been taken—wore off, Cath moved in closer to the photo. It was titled "Cath Afterward #2."

So this was why the title of the photo she'd seen in the gallery was marked number three—because two copies without the camouflage painting existed beforehand. She had no idea how Grant had gotten hold of this copy, which exposed her in very recognizable form for all of the world to see—unless, of course, if Hunter Winslow had given it to Grant.

"It's lovely, isn't it?"

Cath turned toward Grant. He was nude, ready to go into the shower. He was half hard, and his voice was thick with lust. "Every time I see that, I want to take you again."

"This isn't the photo I agreed to, Grant. What happened to the body paint camouflage? You said no one would even know it was me."

"Oh, there's such a photo. That's probably already hanging in the gallery. As he told you at the end of our session, Hunter photoshops the colors in on that one—the number three version."

"Hanging in the gallery? You said it would be hanging here, just for you to see."

"I was talking about this version, not the camouflage one."

"And how did you get this version? He didn't say anything about producing any copies that hadn't been photoshopped. Who has number one? And is it the same as this—as explicit as this? Baldly me? Showing everything, including how I looked naked after . . . after . . . being taken like that. By both of you."

Grant just gave her a lopsided grin—and Cath realized she didn't have to be told who had the number one photo—or how explicitly it was of her after sex.

"Just seeing it and you together has me horny," Grant said.

Cath didn't have to be told that either. He was at full staff now.

"Come, shower with me." He was holding a hand out to her.

"A few minutes. Give me a few minutes. Go ahead a start without me."

When Cath heard the shower running, she reached up and took the photograph off the wall and walked out of the apartment. It was merely symbolic, she knew. It was a photograph. Grant would just get a replacement if he wanted one. And the thought of that made her see the inside of Grant's den again in her mind. She hadn't focused on what she'd seen before. The very first thing she'd seen when she went into the room was the photograph of herself, and she'd walked directly to that. Now that she was removed from the room, though, she realized that that wasn't the only photograph she'd seen on his den walls. There were others, several others. All of people in the same pose as she had been in—and not just women; men as well.

Cath puzzled over all of this for two days, expecting Grant to call her at any moment and to precipitate some sort of confrontation. She had no idea what she'd say—or even why. And this not knowing had her jittery and staying close to the telephone.

She ran their last conversation over and over in her mind, dissecting what had been said—and what hadn't been said—trying to make sense out of it. And while she was doing so, she remembered that he'd said the camouflaged version of her photograph should already be on display in the gallery.

At first she declared she would never go looking for it. But increasingly she realized that she must. She must know just how camouflaged it was. She couldn't bear the thought that she'd be with a client someday and he would give her a curious look and say something like, "You are familiar to me. Have we met or have I . . .?" In her mind, she saw him turning red at that point and mumbling something in embarrassment, just then realizing where he had seen her—in a postcoital nude photograph on an art gallery wall.

She put on a brunette wig she'd gotten for a costume party, dressed in frumpy clothes, dug out dark sunglasses, and took a taxi to the art gallery.

She easily found the photograph. She remembered the colors that had been swirled on the lounge and floor—burgundy and silver and a cobalt blue. Sure enough, it was titled "Cath Afterward #3." He didn't even have the decency to give her a fake name. She stood in front of the photograph at a distance and was relieved to see that, as with the Rachel photo, she had to look hard to see the female figure in it. Up close, though, she certainly could see the nude figure, and she could see that it was of her and that it was obviously taken after exhausting, but exhilarating sex. She struggled in her mind. How much was she able to identify this—and her—because she already knew who the subject was and what the circumstances were of the photo shoot?