Originally published in
Lyrotica: An Anthology of Erotic Poetry & Prose,
edited by Rebecca Ammon
Kimberly stared at the mask, fingering the delicate cream-colored plastic. “What is this supposed to be? Some Lone Ranger meets Phantom of the Opera kind of thing?”
She pulled the string around the back of her head and rested the mask carefully against her face. I smiled, silently applauding myself for selecting something that so evenly complemented the bronze complexion of her skin.
“I appreciate your doing this for me,” I said, lifting the DSLR camera from the table positioned against the wall of my basement.
“You just better make me look good. Like Josephine Baker or Pam Grier.”
Everything had come together so quickly that I was operating off of a combination of butterflies and adrenaline. The camera was my birthday gift from three weeks ago, the mask just one of several souvenirs I picked up in New Orleans while strolling Royal Street in the French Quarters. I had wanted to shoot nudes in the tradition of Herb Ritts and Marc Baptiste, and while it was much easier to come by the camera, it was next to impossible to come by the model. That was until my friend Kimberly agreed to help me out.
The fact that she had even volunteered was still a bit of a mystery to me. I had known her nearly all of my life, and in that time, she had never shown any interest in serving as a muse to any of my creative endeavors. Once while we were in high school I had made my move only to be shut down. “You’re my friend, and I need you to be just that,” she told me right before she started dating the captain of the basketball team. Even now that we were still close friends, I was no more a part of her romantic radar than I had been years ago. This was illustrated boldly by the fact that she currently had a boyfriend, some fancy lawyer who practiced international law downtown.
As I prepared my basement, I found myself staring at the thin aqua colored bed sheet in front of the wall. It resembled rippling water as the triad of key, filler, and backlights reflected off the wrinkles in the cloth. Kimberly stood off to the side dressed in a ribbed sleeveless t-shirt, braless, and a pair of loose sweatpants, her feet bare. She had brought a pair of pumps, at my suggestion, and they sat near the wall on the other side of the room.
“Check you out,” she said when she saw me, camera in hand.
I nodded, trying my best to display the kind of confidence that deep down I was sorely lacking. I was still having trouble realizing that she was actually here. I wanted to ask her why now—after all of this time, but I was afraid to say anything that might turn her mind at the last minute. Maybe she was just being my friend after all. But in a way, it felt like the entire situation was a tease, compounded even more by the fact that her boyfriend would be out of the country for the next few weeks doing work in Jordan. In that window of time I could easily lose myself in Kimberly’s eyes a million times—not that she would notice.
She looked over my shoulder. “I love that painting,” she said, pointing at the mural of two people intertwined, the bodies melting into one form. I had painted the image in a drunken state one night as I pined over her and why fate had been so cruel as to never allow us to hook up. “It’s very sensual,” she added.
“Thanks,” I responded, trying to suppress the blush burning in my cheeks. I wanted to say more about the mural, but my nerves got the best of me.
I suddenly wondered if I could do Kimberly justice with the photographs. Was I wasting her time? I was just an amateur with a camera well beyond his skill level, yet I was asking her to take off her clothes. I wasn’t sure I would have done the same for her had the roles been reversed.
I shot off a few practice shots, just to stall and build up my confidence, before turning to her. “OK. Let’s get you beneath the lights over there.”
She walked over to the sheet and stood there, barefoot and clothed, while I checked the lighting levels. I hooked up the camera to my laptop and shot a few pictures of her, checking each of them on the display. As far as I could tell, they looked nice.
For the first time since Kimberly arrived, I began to feel the shoot might go well after all and we might just end up with some nice pictures.
“You ready?” I asked, lowering the camera to my side.
“Sure. You got any music or anything. It’s kind of quiet in here.”
“Hold on,” I said, walking over to my laptop. I put on Michael Jackson’s “Lady in My Life” and set it to repeat.
Kimberly walked over by the wall and began to lift her shirt above her stomach. She pulled the t-shirt over her breasts, attempting to cover her nipples with her left arm. Carefully, she continued lifting the shirt over her head so as to not remove the mask, no easy task with one arm. As she leaned over to pull down her sweatpants and panties, I was blown away at how exponential her sexiness grew with the increase of her exposed flesh. Just beneath her navel was a tattoo of the word “love” in cursive, small and suggestive.
“You look amazing,” I said, as she stood before me completely nude, her left arm still crossing her chest. “It’s OK if you want to put your arm down.”
She blushed. “I guess I’m trying to build up the courage for you to see me like this.”
She was already naked, and I could see the flatness of her stomach, the curviness of her hips, and even the low trim of the hair that rested in the sweet spot where her legs met. Still, her hand was guarding what remained of her. I placed the camera on the table and walked over to her. Resting my hand gently on the warm flesh of her shoulder, I said, “It’s OK. We don’t have to do anything that you’re uncomfortable with. In fact, I like that pose. Do you mind walking over here and letting me get a shot of you like that?”
“Really? I feel so silly.”
“Trust me. You look fine.”
Kimberly stepped over and allowed me to position her against the backdrop. I had her turn her body to me at an angle, her arm still crossing her chest.
“I’m going to shoot from the waist up on this one. OK?”
“OK.”
I snapped a few shots, centered and off-centered, alternating my focus between her and the background behind her, changing angles every few shots. I glanced again at my laptop to check out the composition of my shots. That’s when I noticed that Kimberly’s arm had fallen during the last few shots. She was now standing completely naked before me, and I hadn’t even noticed.
I looked up from my laptop, taking in the round, firm shape of her breasts and the way her nipples seemed to swell in the coolness of the room. “You are perfect.”
She lifted her hand to her mouth to keep from laughing aloud. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious, Kim. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.”
“Well, can I see the pictures?”
“Not yet,” I said, refocusing my lens on her. “I want it to be a surprise.”
She smiled, placing her hands on her hips. “So how do you want me to pose now?”
While I had originally planned out most of my shots, I surprised myself when I responded, “I’ll follow you. Do what you feel.”
She rolled her eyes for a moment, trying to suppress a smile. Then she lifted her hands above her masked face like a superhero ballerina and stood on her tiptoes.
I smiled, continuing to snap away.
Her arms extended slowly as she moved her body fluidly with the rhythm of the music. She was now dancing, her body taking on shape after shape. As she extended and stretched her legs and arms, the definition in her muscles formed highlights to her body.
And then something happened. She stared directly into the lens, removing the mask so that she was no longer anonymous. It hung gently around her neck for a moment before she lifted it over her head and tossed it onto the chair situated just off the turquoise sheet.
Up until that moment, she had been in her own space, pretending to be someone else. Now she was looking directly at me, and it was Kimberly, not her masked doppelganger.
She ran her fingers through her curly hair. With her right hand, she blew a kiss toward the camera.
“Nice,” I said, my face flush with excitement, but my finger continuing to snap pictures. “Very sexy.”
She smiled, sliding a finger into her mouth. She removed it slowly, allowing traces of saliva to mark her down her chest and onto her nipple.
I struggled to hold the camera firmly in my hands, but the butterflies racing in my stomach teased me, lubricating my palms so that I almost dropped it several times.
She reinserted her finger into her mouth, this time drawing a line to her other nipple. With her thighs pressed together, she bent herself forward ever so slightly and placed her index finger in front of her sealed mouth, a gesture of silence. Then with her other hand, she navigated her way back to her middle, parting her legs again.
My finger continued involuntarily snapping pictures, my mind now paralyzed with longing.
She lowered herself down onto the turquoise sheet, lying sideways from the camera, and arched her back so I could see her pushing her body upward, her ass lifting from the sheet, her hand, glistening with the juices of her own excitement, moving back and forth between her legs. She moaned, pinching her nipple lightly with her other hand, as her feet sought friction against the smoothness of the sheet.
I lowered the camera to my side, half-expecting her to stop now that she was no longer being photographed. She continued moving her body, though, making herself feel good. I could feel myself stiffen as I watched her, her hand floating above her crotch as two fingers moved in small, delicate patterns. She could have been doing this alone in her bedroom for the one thousandth time the way she moved so fluidly.
Kneeling down beside her, I placed the camera on the floor. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. Her skin was warm beneath my lips, and I felt as if I were dissolving into her glow. Her eyes fluttered for a moment, but remained sealed. She continued to moan, as I lifted my lips and placed them gently over hers. Her tongue brushed softly against mine, and with her free hand, she pressed firmly against my chest, rubbing it, her fingernails sending chills throughout my body.
I removed my shirt and took one of her nipples into my mouth, my tongue dancing like a feather against her skin. Her body continued to arch, willing me to kiss her farther down her body and across the soft flesh of her stomach.
When I reached the “love” tattoo that trailed beneath her navel, my tongue traced along each letter, outlining it, as if I could bring the emotion out of her towards me. I could feel her arm brushing lightly against my forehead as she continued pleasuring herself. Gently I moved my mouth down to where her moist flesh and fingers intersected.
Lifting her hand, I finished what she had begun.
We slid back and forth across the sheet as the music played softly around us.
I tasted her. She tasted me.
The skin of our bodies kissed with an aching to be connected into one form.
I entered her. She enveloped me.
We uttered breathless, unintelligible moans into each other’s ear, our own language, created from our youth and manifested now in this sweaty embrace.
When we came, it felt as if the sun had exploded between us, leaving our bodies tingling in the coolness of the air. I looked at the ceiling, savoring the feeling of her lips against my neck and the scent of her hair as it brushed the side of my face.
For a while neither of us said anything, as if speaking would somehow plant our feet back into reality. So I held her close to me, our legs interlocked, wishing that we could stay that way forever.
“The painting on the wall,” she started, her voice drifting softly over my body, “that’s us, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She nestled her head in the crook of my arm, seemingly content in her silence.
I wanted so badly to ask her, “What now?” but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything that would take her out of the moment. Instead, I held her close to me, enjoying the feeling of her body spooned in mine as we drifted off to sleep.
I woke a few hours later, the sky through my window still pitch black. Feeling for Kimberly, I slowly realized that I was alone on that cool sheet. Not even the imprint of her body remained amid the ruffled cloth. An empty feeling hit me hard, and I wondered what had happened. Had she even been here at all? Only the mask lying on the floor against the wall made me hold fast to the fact we had actually made love earlier.
Rising to my feet, I looked for any traces of her: a handwritten note, a strand of hair, anything. Only Michael Jackson’s soft, crooning voice remained in the void, cycling on repeat from earlier. Then I remembered: the camera!
I quickly walked over to the DSLR and turned it on. As it booted up, I held my breath. When the display launched, I felt myself tumble down into the pit in my stomach. There were only two pictures on my camera, both of Kimberly from the waist up, disguised in that mask, her arm draped across her breasts. All of the other pictures had been deleted. It was as if nothing had ever happened.
But it did, I was convinced. I could still feel the phantom movements of her body rocking against me as my erection returned. I knew right then that I would have to cling to that sensation before even it, too, disappeared.