The Beauty Within

She closed her eyes as she stepped on the scale, not wanting to see until it stopped changing. Slowly opening just one eyelid she peeked. The red digits glowed 125. "125! I'm 125? Holy shit!" Leaping up she fell backward off the scale and stumbled against the bathroom wall.

The bath towel fell off and she looked at herself in the mirror. The body looking back at her was lean, trim, muscles were defined. She saw the hours of workouts, of eating better, and finally saw through the fog of old memories and impressions left on her by the ways other people described her. "Suzy, you really are something now aren't you?" Turning and posing a bit, she left the towel on the floor and walked naked to her closet, enjoying the cool air on her skin. It was as she was getting dressed, only her underwear on that she remembered the goal and the reward when she first started getting serious, what she would do to reward herself. "When I reach 125 pounds, I'm posting nudes on the message boards. I want to read all those comments, telling me how hot I am. Then I'll know for sure."

Today was that day. "Now, right now, before you talk yourself out of it, do it now!" she told herself. A few moments of scurrying about, setting up the camera and experimenting with getting it right and she was ready to start. First she changed her underwear, putting on a sexier thong. Then a few from behind, she looked back over her shoulder, winking at the lens as the flash popped. Turning a bit more the edges of her breast visible, she took a few more, then her hands over her breasts, half hiding half on display. Then finally her hands in her hair, chest completely exposed, and she knew that it was going to be public.

Her hands shook as she logged in, and then created the thread in the forums. "Crap, what the hell do I say?" At a loss for words all she could do was type "This is milestone of sorts, a reward for accomplishing a goal. Enjoy." And she picked three teases and the last bare breasts to go out. With a click of the mouse she exposed herself to the world and then turned off the computer to get on with the rest of her day.

The kids had to be picked up, groceries bought, dinner made for her man when he got home. She felt like a vixen, a sex kitten and even with the new rush of lust induced adrenaline; she had things she had to do. The fact that she was smiling as she did them just made them more bearable. That and the bag boys at the grocer were staring at her, checking her out. The rush grew a bit more intense and she winked at the one who carried the bags to her car.

Lively Mediterranean music filled the kitchen, and she shook her hips as she began cooking. The sizzling of the skillet and the drone of the vent fan added to the ambiance, and she didn't even her hear husband come in.

"Hey Suze....... It smells good. What's for dinner?" Rather than turn around she looked over her shoulder first, fixing her eyes on him with a seductive gaze. "Tonight, Ricardo, we will dine on chicken Parmesan, fettuccine, and salad so ripe you will still smell the air of the garden." She blew him a kiss to make it even more appetizing. Her fake Italian accent sounded silly but she didn't care. She was still enjoying the new zest for life she discovered.

"Oh well that sounds nice and all, but I have to head out to the airport. There's some emergency in Toledo and I have to be there ASAP. Can you make me a sandwich real quick?"

"Yeah sure, no problem." She was deflated, hoping he would join her in her reverie, pretending to be the landowner of the farm she worked, and whisking her off to the main house to ravage her luscious body. The real world came crashing around her all too soon. Dinner was served, dishes were done, the kids put to bed and by now he was some where over Buffalo. She turned the computer on wondering if she was too optimistic about her new body. What would the total strangers, the faceless nameless chorus of eyes that peruse hundreds of thousands of naked women daily, how would they greet her new body?

In the few hours that they had been up, the view count had reached over a hundred, and there was already a second page of comments. "Nice body!" "Way to go!" "FUCKING AWESOME" "HOT TITS" and on and on, the responses were positive, appreciative, encouraging. She was hot. "Damn straight, I am hot!" Each comment made her blush and smile, and think of herself once again as the attractive woman she saw this morning. Sending responses, thanks and flirts back, she was about to sign off then looked back at the empty bed behind her. If her husband wouldn't appreciate her efforts, then these men would.

The thong came off with a tug and she set up the camera again, baring herself to the digital eye. She went to pour a glass of wine, and brought the bottle back with her. Turning on the radio she danced to the music, letting go of every inhibition she might have had. Click after click, picture after picture she became more proactive, more erotic. She felt the eyes of all those men and women, as if she were on some worldwide stage. The liberation of her inner tease moved her more profoundly than she imagined, and soon she was less concerned about the pictures and more focused on her own body. Touching and exploring, feeling the way she responded to the arousal. Her fingers slipping inside the folds of intimate flesh, she stimulated herself more, harder faster, then grabbed for the vibrator she kept in the bedside table. Legs wide, body exposed, she let herself go and felt an orgasm like she rarely had before. And then another, and other, until she was exhausted from exploring her own needs and slid under the covers in nothing but her skin and sweat.

Her head hurts from the bottle of wine, and she remembered the pictures after a long hot shower. She looked through them, choosing five more that bordered the truly pornographic but could not unravel the facade of the mother, homemaker, PTA member and volunteer at the thrift store. As much as being a temptress was a trill for her, she was not ready to trade in one life for another. Convinced she was sufficiently anonymous and yet adequately arousing she sent the next set out for the waiting screens.

As the computer shut down the phone rang, a transfer from one life to another. "Hey Suze, Its Rich. Things here are pretty bad. I'll be here all week. Tell the kids I'm really sorry and give them a kiss for me each night." She paused, wanting to seduce him, to talk dirty in his ear and make him want her more, to make him forget his job and grab the first flight home just to take her the instant he walks in the door.

"Oh, that's awful. I'll let them know and you take care of yourself out there."

Wife, mother, good girl, quiet wall flower, all the other incarnations rushed back to hold captive the succubus. She dressed and went about her day, not once turning a head or beckoning a smile from passers by. Suzy inwardly cursed herself for thinking she was sexy, for trying to be a sex kitten and told herself that she should just be the happy homemaker, the pudgy quiet girl she was in college, just give up being sexy. The half gallon of double fudge ice cream would be the first bullet to end the life of her seductive alter ego.

Once more she logged on to the message board, already formulating her goodbye message. The upper right hand corner showed a private message for her. Opening the message she read the offer to model for Bias, a Manhattan photographer wanting to do some erotic series that will illustrate a collection of stories. Please keep his on-line ego a secret but is she was open to it would she come by the studio on Thursday to discuss ideas and do some preliminary test shots? Suzy clicked the link to his studio web site to look at his work and was breathless the way he made images of striking almost dangerous looking women. The vixen within her dodged the ice cream spoon, and began screaming the clothing choices even as her fingers typed the acceptance.

Rich wouldn't be back until Friday at the earliest, more likely it would be Monday. This was her chance, her one shot at glamor she always dreamed about. She would be a "Bias babe" as the website called them. She made arrangements for a friend to pick up the kids and put on the slinky black dress she never wore. It was now or never and she wanted now to be amazing.

Entering the studio, she saw the large prints of his works, floor to ceiling images of women in leather, silk, water, shadows. For a moment there was a feeling of intimidation, of not belonging in these kinds of pictures. Turning to leave she heard him call out "Oh wonderful you're here!" and with a strong arm around her waist he ushered into the makeup chair and the assistant began their tasks.

"I'm wanting to do something natural, raw, no props, not effects just pure inner beauty brought out to the surface. When I saw your posts, I knew you were the model I needed. I promise you, you will love these, and even be proud enough to show them to your mother, grandmother and Sunday school teacher." His cadence was almost too quick to catch, and yet familiar in some way. Suzy nodded and listened as he described the photos, the way she would pose and stand and lay across a chez lounge. Then once makeup and air were done, she stood, opened her dress, letting it fall and with her head high she walked onto the set.

Two hours later she was dressed again, and looking at the pictures on the large monitor. Bias was describing them and how they would be used but she was staring, seeing her face but not recognizing it as herself. It was as if someone stole her face and created these images to make her look like someone else.

"Where are my flaws? My scars, my freckles, that can't be me there."

"You don't have flaws, like a diamond you have facets. Like I said I knew you were the model I needed the moment I saw you."

"What did you say?"

"I knew you were the model the moment I saw you."

"No before that!"

"You don't have flaws?"

"YES! Where did you hear that?"

"It's just a saying, I hope you're not offended."

Suzy shook her head, but was obviously taken aback. "No, no, its just the only other person whose said that was a friend back in college. He was a photographer too. Except his name was Toby."

"Short for Tobias. Named after my grandfather." Bias blushed and smiled, as he revealed his secret.

"TOBY! You're Toby?

"Hi Suze... yeah its me." The hip edgy artist turned into the awkward skinny kid with the Nikon around his neck. "I was afraid you wouldn't come if you knew it was me. And please keep the Toby thing under wraps. I have to maintain my new image for the art crowd." He put his sunglasses on and tried to look aloof before bursting out laughing.

"Oh Toby, I'm so happy for you. You became what you always wanted. How did you know it was me though? I'm totally different from back then."

"Your eyes Suzy, its your eyes. You have this beauty inside you, and its obvious to anyone who looks at your eyes. That's why I wanted you to model for me back then, and why I wanted you now. The way your eyes are so powerful and enchanting. The rest of your body just goes with that in whatever mood you are. Now that you think you are sexy, your eyes are even more powerful."

Now it was Suzy who was pink in her cheek. She remembered how she refused time and again each time he asked her. Her confidence was non-existent so long ago. It was only just the last few months as she focused on her workouts, her own health that she came into her self esteem. She lifted her face to look at him again and her eyes met his. She saw how he looked at her, how he saw into her eyes and saw all the things she had become, and he had seen them all before.

"I think I owe you something." She barely got the words out, her voice barely even a whisper.

"No, Suze, I have to pay you, that is how the whole modeling slash photographer thing works."

"No Toby. The last time you asked me to model for you... well last time in college any way, I said you were more likely to get me to give you a blow job then you were to get me to pose for you. Well I just posed for you. I owe you; I want to repay you for seeing in me what I couldn't see myself."

The rest of the crew had left as soon as the shoot was over. Toby led her back to the set, to the empty secluded open space where she was so naturally at ease. His hands slowly, tenderly undid her dress, baring her once again. She exposed him, shirt, pants, taking in his body and what he had become as well. Her fingers slid down his chest along his waist and she sank to her knees. First a kiss, just a kiss to the tip she placed there, her gratitude expressed before she went further.

Months later, she was roaming through a book store, idly looking at the art books. The new release was on display on a table, black gloss cover of a black and white photograph. She recognized her hair, and his torso. "The Biased Pieces, Erotic Photography of Bias" was in white relief on the black cover. Suzy opened and looked for her pictures, but couldn't find a one. She turned to the front and read the acknowledgment "To S. who has a beauty within that she only just now can see for herself."

She put the book back down and smiled as she walked out of the store, and she noticed the young man behind the counter watching her move.