Marly White's Photographing

'Excuse me, this will sound like I'm chatting you up, but I promise you I'm not. I'm a professional photographer, and I thought you'd make a good model.'

Marly put her wine down and her face frosted over with suspicion. The man was in his late forties or well-preserved fifties, wearing a buff silk scarf that made him look a little artistic without being flamboyant. She had noticed him watching, of course, as she did the routine attentions of men, and filtered out those harmless looks that seemed neither offensive nor flattering. He had been looking around in the pub, and had not dwelt on her.

'My name's Philip Causley, I can give you a card,' he said, taking a clear plastic case from his inside pocket and producing one. 'That's my website, look around and see if you'd be interested. Fully clothed,' he added, raising his eyebrows to her as she hesitated to take it from him. 'Landscapes, children, weddings, flowers, pretty girls.'

'I'm not a pretty girl.'

'Take the word of a professional. Yes you are.'

She bowed her head slightly and took the card with a good grace. She introduced her boyfriend Edward as he returned from the bar with a red wine and a pint of Hoegaarden. Edward muttered a curt 'Oh yes' at Marly's explanation, which she made faintly sardonic for his benefit, and shifted his angle to exclude the photographer.

'Look at it and e-mail me or ring me if you like it. The modelling rate is okay, not big money, but professional rates. I like interesting faces. As you'll see.'

'Thank you, I might do that,' she said with a light, sweet smile and rejoined her boyfriend in privacy. The card was laid down on the shelf behind her and Causley had no option but to withdraw to his former place at the bar. When he had left and Edward's purposely unrelated chat had been dealt with, she commented in an undertone, 'What cheek, calling me pretty.'

'But you are, gorgeous,' said Edward, taking her arm and touching the side of her nose with a pained look. 'The prettiest person I've ever known.'

'Oh and you're a besotted fool,' she said happily. They exchanged a quick public kiss. 'I want a fuck,' she whispered.

* * *

In the morning they had sex again and she got up to make a cup of tea. In the back garden next door the lawn was full of buttercups with patches of dandelions rising above them, a beautiful sight to start her day. A pigeon sat comfortably on the lawn, occasionally remembering its purpose in life and pecking at the ground without getting up, but not much motivated. Marly felt like the pigeon. If anyone saw her tits she didn't care.

Between the sink and the cooker was a small mirror: here in passing she paused to contemplate her hair. Did she prefer it curled like this? Edward hadn't been forthcoming with any definite preference. Her frown made her look at her face and think how ordinary it was, and she could see half her scrawny body. What a pity not to have anything to offer.

Then clear slime oozed from inside her, down her thighs, and she gazed at it and let this delicious and disgusting sign cheer her up: someone liked her just as she was. Someone wonderful.

That reminded her of the interest a stranger had taken in her last night, and she smiled inwardly, wryly, at that, wondering whether he had meant anything by it or was just the groper Ed assumed he was. Philip... Philip Gordon, no, Corston, Corton... Crawley? When she had deposited the two cups on the little table near the bed, and noted that she might have to wake Ed up again if he wanted anything warm and wet, she got a tissue from her purse and cleaned herself then hunted for the business card. Several searches failing to turn it up, she decided her solicitous lover had probably steered her away from it and made her forget to take it. She put Mr Corvey or Canvey out of her mind and went and seduced Edward again, using the tea to good effect.

* * *

Two months later she needed another bookcase, tired of dusting stacks beyond her armchair. Merely rearranging them so that Sebastian Faulks was on top instead of Zola only made her wish she had time to reread them: she needed them shut away where they wouldn't mock her. The local paper, the Ham & High, was in the pile of papers to be recycled; she extracted the end with the small advertisements and dropped the cars and property guides back.

No bookcase, no better secretarial jobs, but a two-column advert for a photographer whose name rang a bell. It took a minute to work out why. There was a web address listed so, accepting advertising in the Ham & High as at least some cachet of respectability, Marly flipped open her laptop and checked him out. Landscapes and children's parties and all such innocent things as he had said: quite well done too, good compositions, no-one cut off, but not very adventurous. The pretty girls in their own section were often in frilly white, upright and glamorous, a record of birthdays and graduations from the ages of about seven to twenty-five. She was unimpressed. These were commercial beautifications, not the 'interesting faces' she remembered his claiming she had. Either he was undiscriminating with his cards or he had a sideline in flim-flam. She had her fingers stretched to Alt-F4 the window when the phone rang downstairs, and she pricked up her ears to see who'd answer.

It wasn't for her. When she returned to the screen she noticed a link 'Interesting faces' on the right, away from the commercial attractions. Marly hesitated; tried it; and her grin spread.

A few old men gurning or women bowed by poverty caught unawares, a few young children squealing in surprise, but about half the page were young women in casual attitudes. As she clicked on the thumbnail pictures to see them full size she nodded appreciatively. Here he had a lot better taste, when he was presumably doing it for himself not for the doting parents. A very sexy picture of a tearaway with long blonde hair and a pale, spotted face, glancing back at the camera amid some very fast movement: full of energy, not wanting to be interrupted. A dark-haired girl of perhaps fifteen relaxing in a hammock, eyelashes prominent over closed eyes, T-shirt riding up over her pierced belly. One sad, beautiful face with a strawberry birthmark, downy arms crossed, neither clothing nor nudity discernible. Mostly they were pretty, but not so much that she wouldn't feel out of place.

* * *

'After work tomorrow? I can be there at half six.'

* * *

Edward had wanted her to take someone with her, if she must do it at all, but as he couldn't make it then she didn't feel like disturbing a girlfriend. She had her mobile with her, and on the way past the premises on the bus to work she had seen that they looked respectable enough. The glass-doored lobby was lined with big, glossy, impressive landscapes on one side and the very cheesiest graduation gauziness on the other. There was an empty secretarial desk; no sound here for a moment, but lots of noisy people still in an advertising agency next door. She gave the bell a ting. Nothing happened.

Then Philip Causley appeared in a white apron and plastic gloves. 'Oh, I'm sorry, I was in the darkroom,' he said. 'Expecting a delivery. You're not... No, I was expecting you, wasn't I, Miss...?'

'White,' she said with a sink of the heart.

'So sorry, my secretary's gone. Let me see.'

He took off his gloves and found an appointments register, looking up to her again when he'd identified her. 'Miss White, lovely to see you. I gave you my card, you said?'

'You don't remember,' she answered, every trace of confidence gone. This was a mistake because he gave cards to everyone in pubs and he wouldn't look at her in broad daylight.

'No, I'm afraid not, but if I invited you here I meant what I said. I like your face,' he added with a smile, the first time he had been less than distant. 'Have you seen my website?'

'Yes. The interesting faces section,' Marly replied sourly. Freaks, she almost said.

'Well now, can I first get you to fill this out,' he said, fishing out a two-part form from a drawer. 'Your name and address, legal bumf about fees and nudity, that sort of thing.'

'You said you didn't do nudity,' she said, slower this time and with an involuntary glance at the doors behind her. They were unfastened and escape was easy, but she wanted to make sure whether she had been made a fool of.

'Ah, no, I do, but only with consent. That's what the form says, no nudity. We use a different contract for nudes. What I think I probably said was that I wouldn't want you to do nudity.'

'Why not?' she laughed in almost open contempt.

'Because...' he stammered, as if she was being obtuse for not seeing it, 'I'd only just met you. Can't ask strangers to do that. Nude modelling is usually professionals, or regulars at least.'

'And my body's crap.'

'I haven't seen your body so I can't comment. You look fine to me. I'm sorry we seem to have taken a bad turn. I'm sure I was just inviting you to pose for head and shoulders portraits. You have seen my website?'

'Sorry. Do you mind if I ring someone?' she said, feeling rather humiliated now by her own hasty assumption. 'Hi, Ed. I'm at the photographer's now, Mr Causley's, in West Hill... Not sure how long I'll be... I'll ring you again when I'm about to leave, promise. Love you... You too.'

'Wise move. I could be anyone. Excuse me, Miss White, while you're thinking I just need to swirl some prints around. Be back shortly.'

Marly sat herself on the luxurious brown leather sofa around three sides of a glass table. She moved some magazines and books out of the way: art photography, ceramics, castles of Britain, yachts, a presentation folder of more birthday tweeness. It was all designed to show respectability and she sighed at herself. Then she decided her doubts were quite reasonable but had been dispelled. She said as much, with an apology, to Causley when she handed him the completed form on his return.

He gave an avuncular smile and led her into a studio, one corner pure white with lights and silver reflectors and a snowy rug all arranged in front of a Hasselblad on a tripod, the rest of it rather cluttered. He took a smaller camera and snapped her as she was looking round.

'I wasn't ready,' she exclaimed open-eyed.

'You looked good,' he said, snapping her open-eyed stare. She crinkled into a smile and he snapped that. 'You've got a lovely face and this is how I want to capture you. Anything awful gets wiped, don't worry.'

For half an hour they talked, she walked around the room touching things, browsing the magazines, slowing to a halt when he commanded but never actually posing. She was quite comfortable with him now, hearing him describe his wife and two sons. He got out albums of them and allowed her to flick through. At his invitation she opened big boxes of loose unmounted landscapes, and found she rather liked his taste in these too when he did what he liked instead of what customers bought.

'I'll choose one of these and put it on the web, if that's all right with you. I'll need you to sign a release for that.'

'Yeah, sure.'

She opened the next print box and saw some very round pink breasts. A pretty teenager with an easy smile and one arm high up. Blonde hair with pink streaks above, a brown-blonde fuzz at the base of the print. Hip-bones jutting daintily out of a trim midriff. 'Are these all...?' she asked.

'Yes. Put them back or look at them if you like, I don't mind. That one's Katy.'

'Lovely. Do you do much like this?' she wondered, surreptitiously hefting the box in her hand: it was quite as full as any of the others she'd been through. Causley photographed her.

'When I've got someone I like. Put them back if they disturb you.'

'Oh... no...' she said coolly. Why should she be disturbed? In fact she sat on the edge of the rug and began to (snap) take them out one by one, laying them carefully upside-down in the lid. Four of Katy; then an Indian girl with long hair, mainly from the back (snap); then the oddly attractive blonde she recognized from the website, not really beautiful but compelling in the way she twisted round and played on the floor, just flashing something gold in a nipple.

These were all taken on a patterned aqua sheet, and as Marly looked up musingly into the middle distance (snap) she noticed it on a cupboard shelf. She looked down again and bent a little more over the next picture to identify it: a smooth expanse like a hip. The next one was the same, wider angle, then the next opened up to include a shaven slit. The fourth of this model with no face was legs apart, the rosy interior peeping from the slit. This was the only really sexual content she had seen. The rest were nudes, pretty girls, but nothing gross. She restored them all to the box with a sigh and noticed the (snap) again.

'Surely my hair was covering my face for most of those.'

'No. Not enough to hide it. I know what I'm doing.'

'What did I look like?'

'Curious. Want to see?'

Without waiting for an answer he linked the camera to a computer and swivelled the screen round for her. She sat up and stretched, then observed the sequence of her expressions. It was, oddly, interesting. She saw herself as pretty enough to be of appeal to others, and some vivacity and thoughtfulness and humour were revealed.

'They're very good.'

He counted the shots, totted up the fees, and mentioned that he might like to use one or two in a book he was putting together, and that would naturally bring in more for her if he did. Marly almost regretted it was over; he seemed to have turned back to business again, and she supposed he had other work to do. A look at her watch told her she'd been there almost an hour.

'Is that the session over?'

'Yes. Unless you can think of anything more.'

'It's quite well paid. By my standards anyway. It'll help... Out of curiosity, how much do your nudes get?'

He named a figure as he tidied away some magazines and switched off the computer. There was silence between them for a few minutes as they drifted towards reception, where he did some more cleaning up of papers. The agency next door was quiet. 'I'll let you out,' he said at last, opening one pane of the outer door for her. 'If you're interested, we'll have another appointment. You'll want to discuss it with someone first. I remember you in the pub, and that chap you were with. Boyfriend?'

She nodded.

'Ask him. I'd love to see you. My secretary would be with us all the time.'

'I don't think he'd want me to do it.'

'Would you want to?'

She broke into a faint grin.

'Well then... perhaps I'll see you again.'

* * *

She smiles enigmatically up at the viewer, one arm negligently resting in her curls. Her breasts are shallow volcanoes, her perfect skin is of the softest pink, her belly two jutting prominences rising from a dune. On that thin, fragile torso her upper legs are long and powerful, and her arms plump and languid. She is inviting you -- to talk, to sex, to mockery, to refreshment in her wells, to understanding from her heart. She cannot be assuaged by anything but love.

So Philip Causley sighs with unfulfillable desire when he parts her legs and sees her inner vale, but cannot drink there. He touches the back of his hand lightly to her nipple and she looks proudly down at the touch. She has been made beautiful, she has been unveiled. These movements are brief adjustments to fix her position, then back he goes to his distance and records her.

Edward watches with love and desire. His admiration for his beloved cannot be increased by any new display of her nakedness, but he admires how she has been made to glow and know. Already they have eaten and drunk of each other countless times, flowed together, swum as one. There are no secrets of their bodies. But secrets of beauty are eternally refreshed.

Causley announces clearly that he needs to retire to his darkroom for ten minutes, and won't be out before. The secretary, motherly Mrs Gill, almost simpers as she says she'll be out in the reception area if they want anything. There's no door behind her, only space and awareness.

Marly and Ed are looking into each other with wonder about what greater, special thing they could do now. He squats beside her and runs a finger up and down her impossible smoothness, bends down to suck the dainty jelly of her breast, parts her thighs enough to evoke her smell.

'We'd need an hour at least,' Marly gurgles.

'Home time now,' says Edward, but he goes round above her head, unzips himself, and dangles over her face where he can see all down the slender landscape. Her flesh is leaping with flame and her legs twist open like a turbid brook. She begins to suck.

Balls in her nose, hands rubbing her breasts, her lover arched over her, she draws back her neck to take him in more comfortably. She sucks harder, she sucks longer, she sucks deeper, she uses her liquid mouth to superheat him. He wants to be naked and pressed against her whole length but it is too late. Marly knows and is grasping him with both hands, dragging him in, and Marly's mouth is full of cum, her chin and cheek wet when she splutters, and sits up, cleaning her face with her unsatisfied hand.

Edward staggered back trying to orient himself, before doing up his trousers. Marly just licked her lips and her hand to make sure she was not revealing anything and lay back with a contented expression. They were twenty minutes from home by bus; she could just about wait that long.

Mrs Gill came in then and Mr Causley a minute later, wiping his hands on a cloth, and both said their final items of business and farewells as Marly reluctantly put on a bra and reached for the rest of her clothes. As they were passing the outer desk, where Mrs Gill went on leaving the photographer behind, she took another sheet from her drawer and addressed Marly in a lowered tone, as if wouldn't be quite nice for Causley to overhear.

'You're a natural model, love. Just take one of our special fee lists: going rates for those little extras, you know, sapphic and bodypainting. All very good taste, don't worry about that. In case you're feeling adventurous one day. Now you'll want to get home to a nice cup of tea, love, won't you?'