Gone in Minutes Ch. 05

GONE IN MINUTES Ch 5

Written by Vandemonium1

Edited by CreativityTakesCourage

Just another quickie. No idea where this one came from.

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THE SCENE. It's a glorious spring day and the educational consultant has walked the Year 11 photography elective class to the local park. Cameras in hand, they're sitting on the grass in a circle around the professional photographer.

"Now then, guys and gals, we've spent the last two semesters discussing the technical aspects of photography. In other words, you've learned how to take a photograph with artistic intent instead of just using the automatic function. Now I want to discuss copyright and legal issues."

The class grumbled, they'd been looking forward to spending an hour in the sun, they could have gone over this shit in the classroom and not had to walk the seven blocks to the park.

"First, copyright. If you take a photograph on a company camera, in company time, the company owns the copyright. If it's your camera, in your time, you do. If it's your camera in company time, well, copyright ownership gets a little hazy, okay?"

The class nodded. It all seemed straight forward.

"Now, exactly what and who are you allowed to photograph and under what circumstances?" The consultant didn't wait for any guesses from the group.

"Well, here's a few examples. You can take a photo of those kids playing over there, but you can't publish them for profit without getting their parent's permission. Technically you can't even publish them on social media, but the courts in this country have never bothered enforcing that one. Now, can anyone tell me the legality of, say, taking a photo of someone through a window of that motel over there?"

The students automatically turned to look at the edge of the park, a stone's throw away. On the other side of a car park a double height row of rooms, the peeling paint on its façade highlighting its age, basked under the sign of a cheap motel franchise. The general consensus was that it would be an invasion of privacy to shoot through a window. The teacher agreed, pointing out that while it wasn't technically illegal to take the shot, publishing it anywhere, including on social media would land the taker in deep poop unless they received the subject's approval. He glanced at his watch.

"Now, let's do a little exercise. Remain seated but form line facing the motel. Have your cameras ready. I want you to take a photograph of the next person or people you see across that carpark. Alternatively, you can set your camera to continuous shooting mode and take several. This is a technique often used by both paparazzi photographers and sports photographers. After you've taken the shots we'll discuss which ones you can do what with."

The class did as directed, many exchanging sly grins. It wasn't often they were given permission for a little voyeurism. A cleaner wheeled a cart in front of one of the rooms, let herself in and disappeared. The sound of expensive cameras clicked and whirred. It was a fairly exclusive school in a wealthy suburb and none of the parents wanted their child to be seen with anything but a professional grade camera and lens system. At this time of day there were only a smattering of cars in the carpark.

At almost precisely 1:50 p.m. one of the ground floor doors opened and a snappily dressed man stepped out, adjusting his tie. He turned in the doorway and kissed the partly clad woman behind him, passionately and for several seconds. Out of earshot, twenty-four cameras clicked and whirred. The woman hastily closed the motel room door while the man turned and strode to what looked to be a late model SUV. Some of the students continued to capture his progress even after he backed out of the parking spot and drove away.

The students lowered their cameras and stared at each other incredulously. Through the viewfinders most of them had recognised Mr. Butterworth, their Headmaster, and Ms. O'Connor, one of the school's English teachers. They were too stunned to speak. The photography consultant filled the silence.

"What a fantastic example. Now, who can show me some pictures and tell me what you can and can't do with them?"

One of the students, whose camera had a large viewing screen, thrust it at the teacher who glanced at the display and described it to the others.

"An excellent example. Great framing of the shot, Thomas. The photo shows two people embracing and kissing in the doorway. The man is clearly just outside the room, in a public space, as are we. The, er, lady is just inside the room, in private property. So, taking photographs of the man is perfectly legitimate, however, if you try to profit from the shots you may well find yourself in legal hot water. You could publish them on social media and the man could get them removed with a court injunction but if you're sued you'll be making history."

He watched most of the class as they practically salivated, wanting the teacher to shut up so they could post the juicy gossip as quickly as possible.

"Now, unless you delete the shots of the woman, clearly an invasion of her privacy, you could be in deep shit legally. If anyone got a shot of when her breast was exposed by her unbuttoned blouse and tries to publish it, even on social media, you'll be in all sorts of pain under the public decency laws."

The majority of the class groaned in disappointment then quickly reviewed their own captures to see if they'd caught the breast of their good-looking English teacher.

"Unless, of course, the, er, lady in question grants her permission for them to be published. Does anyone want to ask her?"

Many of the students had been taught by Ms. O'Connor for several years and she'd sent more than one of them for detention. Just about all hands went up.

"Righto. Let's go then. Jason, you knock on the door and when she opens it, state your case clearly and concisely. The points you need to cover are that you took some photos of her saying goodbye to the gentleman a few minutes ago, one or more of which show one of her breasts uncovered, and would she grant her blessing for the shots to be used publicly."

The professional photographer grinned at the tall student, who grinned right back. It was a game and they both knew it. The whole class walked directly across the carpark, arriving in the covered walkway three doors along from the target room. As they approached the room the door opened and Ms. O'Connor stepped out, now decently attired, and closed the door behind her. Her face fell as she recognised some of the people walking toward her as past or present students. Jason led the pack.

"Ms. O'Connor, we inadvertently took some photographs of you through the open door before and wondered if you would give us permission to publish them. We can exclude the ones showing your left breast if you like."

Ms. O'Connor went puce white for several seconds, then a deep purple red from embarrassment. They'd seen Clive leave and knew she wasn't his wife. If this got back to the school board, her job was toast and she'd be very hard pressed keeping the why from her husband. The students greatly enjoyed the show. Finally, she recovered.

"You most certainly don't have my permission to do anything but delete any pictures you have. What I do in my time is of no concern to you, or anyone else for that matter. What two consenting adults do is their business and if any word of this gets out, well, I wouldn't count on any of you passing Year 11 English, I can tell you."

She attempted to stare down those students in the front row of the mob. Trying to look brave even though she was terrified. Many of the youths dropped their gaze under her steely expression. Someone stepped out of the crowd from behind the tall Jason, setting himself apart from the pack. Ms. O'Connor's face went even whiter than before and her knees wobbled so badly she almost fell to them.

"Dave! I'm sorry, honey. It isn't what it looks like."

Dave Brown just shook his head and walked away. The class followed him while yelling over their shoulders.

"Oooh, busted."

"Good luck, Ms. O."

"Nice titties, Teach."

Rather than futilely chasing after her husband, Susan O'Connor, she'd never taken her husband's surname, returned to the school and her lover to try to do damage control. While Susan returned to her classroom after her free period, Clive Butterworth tried to do what he could but knew it was futile. Two of the students involved were children of school board members. He sat in his office and quaked until the inevitable phone call came. 'Please arrange for yourself and Ms. O'Connor to stay there until the board is convened this evening'.

Epilogue

At 8:05 p.m. the recently unemployed Susan O'Connor returned to her house to find all her clothes piled in the garage and her keys no longer fit the locks on the house.

Shattered and demoralised she gave up banging on the door after a mere five minutes, gathered up the bags that fit in the trunk and back seat of her car and drove to another motel. She knew it was a waste of time trying to talk Dave into forgiving her. Deep down she'd always known. She'd just not been strong enough to refuse the advances of the powerful Clive Butterworth and relied on their cleverness to prevent them being caught. Like most cheaters she'd subliminally considered the small chance of being caught an acceptable risk. She'd never considered the social fallout as she never expected to leave any evidence of the affair to be found. After unpacking enough clothes for a couple of days, she started researching privacy laws. What she read began to fill her with dread.

The phone calls began before 10 a.m. the next morning. Fellow teachers, friends, and family.

"Have you been on Facebook this morning? Clive's all over it. Seems he's been having an affair."

"There's a picture clearly of Clive but the face of the woman he's with is blurred out. Why aren't you at school today?"

"Sue, we've been friends of yours and Dave's for years, please don't tell me that's you in those photos. It sure looks like the same mermaid tattoo on your shoulder."

"Stay away from me and my husband."

"Really, how could you do that to Dave?"

Perhaps the worst were the long time friends that didn't even have the decency to speak to her, just sent her an abrupt text condemning what she'd done to a once proud marriage and a decent man.

At 12.25 p.m. the first truly terrifying text arrived. It was a from one of the male teachers at her school, 'nice titties, wanna get together tonight?'

Sue went searching and soon found a social media site that left her cold. It showed a series of three photographs. The first was of a man and woman kissing in a motel room doorway, the back of his head obscuring her face. The second was of Clive walking away from the door, clearly showing his face and her looking fondly at his retreating back. The third was a zoomed in shot of her unfettered left breast exposed by her unbuttoned blouse. Within two hours eleven similar texts arrived.

By 6 p.m. the calls stopped. Susan O'Connor had no friends left.

The next day, whenever Susan went out in public, people stared or stopped and pointed at her. She scurried back to the safety of her room and ordered room service. She swore the receptionist had a chuckle in her voice as she took her order.

Desperate for a shoulder to cry on or just a hint of support, Susan pulled into her parent's driveway two days later. Her worried looking mother intercepted her halfway up the drive and asked her to stay away until her father had calmed down a little. Apart from the fact that he was a longstanding board member of the school and had had to endure the looks of the other members as the antics of his daughter and Clive Butterworth were discussed at length, Dave was like the son her father never had. Susan begged her mother to meet her somewhere, her mother told her she dared not, her father was that mad.

Lonely and afraid for her future, Susan found herself knocking on the door of her old house two days later. Her desperate logic being that if she could get Dave to forgive her, then other people would as well. She held no hope of them reconciling but she hoped his basic good nature would allow forgiveness at some point.

Dave opened the front door to her knocking and immediately looked over her shoulders, up and down the street.

"Do you mind coming around the back, Susan, it's a little embarrassing being seen with you."

After days of trauma, something inside Susan just snapped.

"What the fuck! It was you that arranged for me to be publicly humiliated. You, that lost me all my friends. You, that made me the target of every perv in town. You, that means I'm ashamed to show my face during daylight hours."

Dave just grinned.

THE END

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