Pictures of Her

Her clothes accented her body, inviting looks without implying that there was anything specific to look at. The only thing to see was her smile, and her eyes, and when she favored you with the attention of either, you felt like you were seeing all you needed to see.

Of all the pictures I'd taken, these were the ones I felt most anxious about. They were candid, snapshot views of fleeting expressions, postures held for a split second in the midst of purposeful movement.

It would be a tragedy if I had been unable to capture all that in at least one still frame of millions of pixels. I was too busy capturing more to go back and check, and I knew I would never see most of them once I handed her the memory cards.

When she stripped and sat again to fold and put away her clothes, I took the chance of thumbing back through the pictures I had just taken of her in her everyday clothes.

One took my breath away. One singular snap. It was perfect. She was perfect. She was everything she was, in that one picture. Fully clothed in the same basic kind of outfit I saw her in all the time, it was her most revealing expression and demeanor frozen into permanence, never to be diminished, never to be clouded by the trials of life and time.

I noted the number, #43 on card 1, and vowed to get that picture for myself later. It would be abrogating our deal, but I couldn't not have it.

I had just fallen in love with her.

I wouldn't let it affect my work, my professionalism. These pictures were for her, not for me. I had no right to take the pictures I wanted of her, of what I wanted to remember. I was here to take the pictures so she could remember herself.

"I'm ready for my close-up," she said. I looked up, startled. She was leaning on the wall, her hands up over her head, her nude body stretched out all the way to the sky and all the way to the ground. Her shins disappeared into the weeds, making her look like she was of the earth, that she had risen from it.

I snapped the picture, then quickly swapped out the card just in case, while she stood watching me with a look of anticipation. I stepped toward her, my lens leading the way, clicking the shutter as I approached.

I got about halfway, and her expression slowly changed to the one she had shown last year when the close-ups got very intimate. Then she stared into my lens and put her hands under her breasts. As I snapped pictures, she hefted them. I kept shooting, and she kept squeezing and lifting them, pushing them together. She looked down at herself and ran a finger over her nipple.

As before, I knew that these looks, these overt displays, were not meant for me. They were meant for my lens, which meant they were meant for herself; she never lets anyone see them. She was documenting something, commemorating something that had happened in the prior year. Something she had learned about herself. Something she had become.

I didn't think too much about it. I had a job to do. I wasn't there to gawk, though that was all I wanted to do. I was there to be the conduit for these messages to her future self. Where last year, I had taken the lead, systematically moving up and down her body and suggesting shots I could get; this year, she was in charge.

She was never meek and rarely shy, but I always knew her as reserved. She still was, but something about these picture sessions, the private intimacy of them - never mind the presence of the photographer - that brought out something in her that she usually kept to herself. Though maybe she revealed it to those few men lucky enough to be blessed by shared intimacy with her.

My presence was necessary, but I had become almost invisible, just a machine who would channel this new energy without absorbing any of it.

As if. I did my best to justify my invisibility in whatever was going through her mind, but it was impossible to not be affected by it. Worse, my feelings for her warred in my mind with professional detachment.

I documented her body for her, every part of it in closeup detail. Detail she would re-examine when she was an older woman, remembering her glory days.

"I've had a few more firsts this year," she said, standing straight and giving me a look that drilled right into the most primitive parts of my brain.

"Oh?" I said, imagining what they were, what the lucky guy who had shared them with her had experienced.

"Just a few," she said. "I'm trying to figure out how to best commemorate them."

My mind reeled through last year's session and that one picture of my hand, My hand, standing in for the hand of some man she hadn't named, feeling her up for the first time.

What would I stand in for this time?

She watched the gears turning in my head. I let my professionalism interrupt my spinning thoughts. "Maybe your boyfriend should be the stand-in this time?"

She shook her head. "We aren't that serious yet. Not enough to let him know I do this every year, anyway. And he hasn't... well, no, not him." She grinned at me, understanding that I would understand what that meant.

"You just tell me what you want me to do. Or maybe if you want to tell me what firsts you want to commemorate, I can think of something."

Her smile turned a little shy. "I bet you can think of something."

"I'll be professional," I said.

She nodded. "I know you will." She looked around, then stood against the wall. "Just take pictures," she said as she lowered herself along the wall, her stance opening. She reached her hand between her legs. "Whatever seems... pertinent."

She was giving me carte blanche, at least with my camera, at least within my professional artistic judgment. I got the idea that she expected to be unable, soon, to make such calculated decisions.

She began to move her hand in earnest. I worked the camera, not focusing on the action between her legs, but not neglecting it either. Her face was beautiful as it went through one expression after another. On it were painted the waves of pleasure that ran through her body, ebbing and flowing, with each building higher than the last.

Through it all, she slowly slumped down the rough stone wall. I wondered if it was scraping her back, if it would leave red scratches and cuts. If it was, she didn't look like she cared.

She gradually sank all the way to the ground, her hips away from the wall, shoulders in the dirt, her neck bent roughly forward in the corner where soil and stone met.

Even contorted like this, her belly and chest scrunched up, breasts squeezed into misshapen blobs, her neck straining, her face as twisted as her upper body... even like this she was beautiful. I did my best to capture it all. I did my best to ignore the churning in my gut from wanting to share this with her rather than merely document it.

She suddenly stopped and looked up at me. She pulled her hand away and let her knees fall to the sides. She clearly hadn't finished. We held each other's eyes for a moment, a heroic moment on my part.

Her cunt - and yes, right now it was a cunt, as needy and wanton as I'd ever seen a woman, even in porn; she had deliberately let herself and her body become that - it beckoned me, spoke to me. Begged me.

"I need your hand." Her voice was a wavering, thready hiss.

I could only nod, feeling numb everywhere but inside my pants. I made no effort to hide how much my jeans bulged outward as I knelt next to her and tried to figure out how to make this shot. To make for a natural angle, I would have to use my right hand on her and take one-handed pictures with my left.

It wouldn't work, but I had an idea. I left her lying there, scrunched against the wall, unsatiated, her legs splayed obscenely, and went to my bag to get two tripods. A low, ground-hugging one and a tall one.

She sat up from her awkward position and worked out a crick in her neck, her immediate desperation receding. No fault of mine; she'd made the decision to break the moment, to order back the rampaging tide that had been about to overtake her.

She stood and went to her bag, pulling out a beach blanket. "Where would the light be best?"

I chose a spot, and she spread the blanket out, then sat on it. The way she sat, looking so natural, so much like she belonged right there, had me snapping pictures again.

She caught on and posed without posing. She sat like she was just enjoying the bright sun on her skin, sitting up straight with her legs crossed at the shins, knees out. She leaned back on her arms, pushing her chest toward the sky, letting her legs fall casually, naturally, more open.

I took full body shots. This was not about close-ups, this was about her as a whole person, someone whose body and mind were not separate things, no detail more important than the rest.

The sun shone through her pubic hair, lighting up the shape of her lips, both outer and inner, her hood in sharp relief, still aroused even during this intermission. I hoped I captured it the way I saw her now, not as an arousing look at her pussy but as a part of who she was. I hope I captured something that she could look back at someday in the future and remember how she was at that moment, at that time in her life.

I paused and looked at her with professional eyes. Detached eyes, eyes that were not who I was at that moment. She nodded and settled herself on the blanket, taking a minute to get centered on it and fully on her back.

I set the two tripods up. The first stared right along the length of her body from just beyond her feet and only inches off the ground. It would capture the most graphic details of what she obviously intended, the continuation of her wanton display a few minutes ago. It seemed... pertinent.

The other held a second camera high to one side, looking down at her from the thighs up. I made sure her face would be in the view, so the camera would catch the more meaningful details.

I took a few test shots and made some adjustments. The sun did most of the lighting work, but I set up a reflector on the shadow side to reduce the contrast. Her skin glowed in the sun, pale everywhere, but even more around her hips and her breasts, places where the sun doesn't shine. Except today it did.

I sat next to the blanket in the grass, making sure my own body was out of the frame. I had remotes for both shutters in my left hand. My right hand was free to pose for her pictures, to simulate some experience she had had months ago. Or maybe weeks ago. I would probably never know.

"Just touch me, all over," she said.

I looked at her, a question. She bit her lip and nodded. "Just enough for pictures," she said.

"I'm a professional," I repeated, mechanically, a hollow expression. I felt anything but professional now. I looked down at her body, the body that belonged to... no, was an integral part of, the woman I had just fallen in love with.

I reached my hand up toward her chest, making sure not to lean in so far that my face and fully clothed body did not intrude into her memories. It made it hard to look like a natural position, but I was sure I'd made it work.

I put my hand just under her breast and clicked the remote, the one for the overhead camera. I slid my hand up over it and my breath hitched. Her face stayed neutral.

Then I slipped. I let my professional mask fall, just for an instant. I broke the fourth wall. I reached up and cupped her cheek in my hand.

Her eyes shot wide and she stared at me, apprehension on her face. I jerked my hand away and we both sat staring at each other. Then she gave a tiny nod, as if she meant it for herself and not me. "It's OK," she said. Then a firmer nod, one for me, that said to continue, all business.

I put my hand on her breast again, a much less inappropriate gesture in these circumstances. Click. Then down to her belly. Click. To the inside of her thigh. Click. Both cameras this time. Then inward. She bit her lip and gave me a nod.

I touched her. I touched her moist hair, her lips, more. I found the hollow between her lips and pressed.

She reached down and grabbed my wrist. "Not yet... I mean, I haven't had that first yet."

"Oh! God... OK... I think we have the pictures you need."

"Yeah. Umm... one more, if you don't mind." I nodded. "Can you get one with your head... I mean the back of your head..."

"Where my hand was?" Was she really asking me to do that, to put my face between her legs? Normally, she wouldn't have to ask twice. She wouldn't have to ask once. But this was... different. "If that's what you want," I said tentatively.

She nodded. I positioned myself, my jeans-clad ass blocking the camera on the ground. She pulled her thighs wide and I moved my head down, using all the willpower I had to keep my tongue in my mouth, to not make actual contact as her scent overpowered me. I kept my eyes closed, some feeble attempt to protect her modesty. Click. I moved slightly, as if my tongue was hitting a different spot. Click. Twice more.

"Is my face in the shot?" she asked.

I looked up at her, making sure the razor stubble on my chin didn't brush her swollen lips. "Yes, I made sure of it when I set it up."

She stared at me and swallowed. Her eyes flashed uncertainty, and something else. "Then can you..." she couldn't bring herself to finish, but it was obvious what she meant.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded, a curt and nervous nod. "Just one picture. Or, you know, a couple to make sure at least one comes out right. I want to see my face in the pictures."

I nodded, then went down on her. Really went down on her. Her sharp, earthy taste combined with the scents hammering my brain drove me on. The textures of her, the way her body reacted and moans escaped her mouth, the way her thighs began to quiver.

All of a sudden her hands were on the side of my head, pulling me away.

I gasped and looked up at her, my jaw slack, my mouth covered in her juices. "I think those will be good shots," she said, surprise in her eyes. Some kind of realization that I didn't grok then, nor for a long time after. I knelt up, looking down at her needful body spread open under me. I think if I'd opened my jeans and just taken her, she'd have let me.

I quickly stood and grabbed the camera from the high tripod and stood back over her, between her legs. I snapped picture after picture. She was as beautiful as ever, but now raw need was painted across every inch of her face and body, magnifying it a thousand times.

She lay there, staring into the camera as I moved to different angles, but not moving her body.

"Can you just get my face and chest now?" she asked.

I gulped and nodded, knelt next to her for closeups. She pulled her knees back and I clicked the remote for the ground camera, the one looking up between her legs. Both of the portals into her beautiful body would be front and center in the shot.

She moved her hand down, out of the camera's view, and began a vigorous motion. My camera followed the heaving of her breasts and the building agony on her face. Her expression was wracked with twists and contortions that reflected the convulsions coursing through her body. A flush filled her face and ran down her chest like a splash of warm water.

The memory card filled just as her face froze with beatific awe, a thousand-yard stare that seemed to take in the whole of space and time. I scrambled to grab the other camera, not wasting time to detach it from the tripod. I missed only the briefest moment.

Her eyes clenched and her jaw stretched wide open, then half closed, fighting the taught tendons in her neck that wanted to pull it in every direction at once.

She finally collapsed, quivering, onto her side. She stared at me as if trying to remember who I was and why I was there. I snapped pictures of that expression as well, then plopped down to sit next to her.

I wanted to hold her, to spoon her and cuddle, but that would not be professional.

On her return to the world, she told me. "There's one more first I did this year. I want two more pictures, just two."

"... OK?"

She lay on her side, and she reached her hand out to me. Put it squarely over my jeans. I almost came on the spot. "You must be pretty worked up," she said.

"I'm... I'm OK," I said. I really wasn't.

"I know. I want you to pull your pants down."

My eyes shot wide open. "I don't think that is a good idea right now."

"I think it is a very good idea. For exactly the same reason."

I hesitated.

"Just two pictures," she said again.

I pulled my pants down, slowly, willing myself to not lose it just from the friction of my boxers sliding over me. And not to get my hopes up.

"Come over here and kneel down," she said once I had them off my feet. I did. "Closer."

I was kneeling right next to her head, my staff straight out, pointed right at her face.

"First picture," she said, looking up at me and then at the camera. I put it to my face and looked through the lens as she leaned on one elbow and studied my cock from an inch away. I didn't know what specific picture she wanted, so I snapped one, then another with her head in a slightly different position.

Another when she reached her hand out and surrounded it. Another, just to try to take my mind off the best feeling I'd ever had in my life.

When she put her mouth around it and looked up at me with those big brown eyes gleaming, her whole face a vivid smile, I almost forgot to snap the shutter.

Then she backed off. She took my hand and brought it to my dick. When I'd gotten the idea and wrapped myself in my fist, she let her hand fall to her side.

"Can you get a little on my face?" she asked. "Just a little, and not in my eyes?"

I could get a lot on her face, on her neck, on her tits. I felt like I could get enough on her to shampoo her hair with it. But I just nodded, too weak to do anything other than what she asked. "I'll try," I said.

Too weak, and too defeated. She'd given this to some man. Some man who wasn't me had shoved his dick into the mouth of the woman I loved. Then he exploded into her throat. She'd backed off for maybe only an instant, just enough to get a little on her face, but not in her eyes.

I was being stupid. She owed me nothing, and any healthy, active woman her age would likely have done this, probably more than once. That included any of the women I might date in the future. It included my future wife, whoever that might turn out to be. Nobody could hold it against her. And I myself had once this year been the recipient of it from someone who would go on to date other people, to marry someone else some day.

She wanted to remember that, to mark another milestone in her life. I would be the prop in that re-creation.

"OK," she said and laid half on her back, looking up at me past my rock-hard dick. I began to do the only thing I could do.

It took no time at all. My prophylactic measures to temper my own need earlier in the day were laughably inadequate against the entire last hour of foreplay. I probably could have cum just from thinking about it, without even needing to touch myself. But I did need my hand, at least to aim.

I was worried about that. I'd never tried to aim before, to control it. It just flew wherever it was going to fly, into or onto whatever it was already inside of or pointed at, even if it was only air.

I didn't even have to imagine doing to her all the things I wanted to do to her. I just looked at her face, calm, relaxed, looking up at me with patience and encouragement.

It was somehow that, that neutral look devoid of any overt need, any wanting, a faint smile that stopped well short of the kind of grotesque smile that women in porn use to pretend that they just had to have a load on their face to make their lives complete.

That's what did it.

The first shot arced well over her face and disappeared in the weeds beyond. I watched the entire path it traced with that detached pre-nut clarity, the frozen moment before a climax fully hits.