I had spent that lazy Sunday morning with the papers, sipping coffee in bed while Gus lay splayed at my feet, playing video games, something I never let him do on my TV. I even joined him for a round of Wii Tennis.
“You’re holding the thing wrong,” he said, adjusting my paddle. “But that’s okay. Everybody does it different.”
What can I say? We lost track of time, something I don’t normally do, so when noon rolled around I found myself tearing through my closet, plucking shoes and blouses and throwing them on my bed in a big colorful pile. I was late! Again!
The news network had scheduled our billboard photos that afternoon, citing that appointment as the only one the fancy new photographer had available. I was bitter about having to work on a Sunday, even though posing for pictures was hardly the most difficult part of my job. Luckily the shoot was in the Warehouse District where Julius lived, so I planned to drop off Gus on the way. Julius offered to keep him overnight and take him to school the next day, something I usually balked at. But this time I let him do a little extra. Why not? I told myself. He wants to. Let him.
In the weeks that followed that sexy afternoon with the handyman, I’d slacked off more than I had my whole life. Now and again I’d get lost in a daydream, but the kind that happened to my whole body, not just in my head. I also caught myself strutting, walking the halls and edit suites at the TV station like there was a pulsing, sexy soundtrack playing in my head. My heels clacked, my hips swayed. I felt a new sense of rhythm taking root in my body, a feeling I remembered from my singing days in college.
I found myself in elevators, alone, holding on to the rail behind me, singing to myself, rocking slightly while I flashed back to the tub, the water, the steam, the sweaty wineglass, the suds dripping down Dominic’s arms and thighs, my arms and thighs. Good lord. I’d had good sex, and I was to have more sex, any time now, an idea that filled me with tingly anticipation. Best part? I didn’t have to work for it. I didn’t have to primp and flirt; I didn’t have to endure agonizing dates or jeopardize my public reputation; and I didn’t have to court rejection. Most important, I didn’t have to introduce anyone new to my son. This was just for me, the Formidable Solange Faraday—
“Mom! You’re gonna be late.” It was Gus puncturing another daydream.
“Almost ready, baby!” I said, taking a fistful of blouses out of my closet and throwing them on the bed.
The Warehouse District was one of my favorite neighborhoods in New Orleans. I’d always thought that after Gus went off to college (assuming he didn’t go to Loyola or Tulane), I’d sell the house and move into some kind of cool loft, but Julius beat me to it. Four years ago, he renovated a twenty-five-hundred-square-foot space on the fourth floor of an old rope factory. At first I was worried that there was no yard or green space where Gus could play. Then I worried about big windows with old sashes, the kind that can come crashing down on a curious child’s little body. But I got over my fears when I saw what Julius had built in that wide-open space: an indoor jungle gym with climbing ropes and mats. Plus the place was big enough that Gus could actually learn how to cycle upright on a bike, indoors. After conquering circles on the floor of his dad’s loft, Gus felt confident enough to take to the bike paths in the park. I was grateful Julius had done the hard part of running behind the bike at a clip before launching him. My job was now to walk behind him clutching my sweater, yelling at him to be careful.
I surveyed the pile of clothes on my bed. Jewel tones and bright colors look best on camera, so my closet looked like a storage locker for UN flags. I had to come up with six looks for the staged and awkward group shot of the network’s four anchors, Jeff, Tad, Bill Rink, the weather guy (and resident asshole), Marsha Lang, and me.
Marsha was the network’s star, and also my mentor and friend. As the first female African-American news anchor in New Orleans, she had won a Peabody for her editorials on Anita Hill’s testimony in the Clarence Thomas hearings. But she was well into her sixties now, and claimed to be hearing the clock tick on her career. But far from treating me like her competition, she took me under her wing and considered me her successor.
Every year I wore a black skirt and black heels, from which I had no less than eleven pairs to choose, all varying heights and toe curves, some rounded, some pointed, each with a purpose. The four-inch stilettos were for when I anchored at the glass-bottomed weekend desk, the three-inch platforms for my stand-ups in front of official buildings, and the two-inch heels with the rounded toes for running after indicted members of city council or the Louisiana state legislature.
“Mom!” Gus said again.
“Listen, guy, I know!” I yelled back. “Why don’t you come help me pick out my clothes for work pictures?”
Why was he so worried about my being late? He was an anxious kid. Was it because of the divorce? Julius said he had been like that as a kid, which I found a little comforting. But one of Gus’s teachers once said he was a “too-serious little boy,” to which I replied, “What does that even mean? Maybe that’s just his character.”
But that fear of being a “bad mother” was always there, hovering in the wings of motherhood, a show everyone watched and felt entitled to comment on.
Gus poked his head into my room. “You said noon and it’s, like, quarter to.”
The last time Julius took him for a haircut, the barber had cut it too short. It was just starting to grow out and was still unsure of what it wanted to be. An afro? Something more stylized, as his crowd became more sophisticated, more attuned to pop culture and all its awful, wonderful influences? I’d leave that to Julius to sort out.
“What do you think?” I asked, holding up the red blouse with the bow next to the low-cut gold one.
“Um, the red, I think.”
“But I wore red last year.”
“Then the gold,” he said, his words edged with his dad’s impatience.
“I’ll bring all of them,” I said, throwing a dozen tops into a zippered wardrobe bag, followed by a few pairs of black shoes.
“I’ll carry it down,” he said.
“It’s heavy.”
“It’s fine,” he said, hefting it over his shoulder.
Damn, the back of my ten-year-old boy’s neck could still make my heart hurt, it was so vulnerable, so thin and bony. I imagined it coiled with muscle, strong enough to hold not just a wardrobe bag, but a head full of the thoughts and worries typical of the average young black man in this city. But those worries were nothing compared to his parents’, I thought. Nothing.
When I pulled up in front of Julius’s loft, Gus sprang out of my car, yelling over his shoulder, “Bye, Mom.” Used to be I covered his somber face in a thousand kisses before letting him go. But he was beginning to push back, and I had to let him. He wasn’t a tickle-monster anymore, and I couldn’t remember the last time he absently grabbed my hand in the street. Contemplating my boy growing up could put me in a day-long funk, so I shook it off and sped away.
The photographer’s loft was only two blocks away, but you could tell from its tinted windows and Art Deco–styled double doors that this building was a next-level posh conversion. This was the first time the network had veered from using its regular commercial photographer. They’d hired a guy named Erik Bando, an award-winning portrait photographer who also worked for National Geographic. Marsha and I had Googled his photos a week before the shoot and we were both impressed. She thought it was a sign that the affiliate was upping its game; we were currently third in the local ratings.
“Not sure how edgy photos will fix our ratings,” I said.
“Ours is not to question why,” she replied. “Ours is only to pose and smile.”
A cool, blond assistant with big, red glasses greeted me in the lobby of the photographer’s building and took my wardrobe bag from my hands.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said.
“Oh, don’t worry, you have all day,” she said, punching the elevator button.
I looked at her. “Really? I thought I was scheduled for three hours.”
“Well, I mean, you can … take your time.”
Okay then. On the ride up, she was quiet, staring straight ahead.
At the top, the doors slid open to a spectacular studio, twice the size of Julius’s. This was at least five thousand square feet of exposed brick and wide plank floors. Most of the walls were painted white, with small partitions carving out thematic spaces like a maze, some areas with wide, low-slung couches, some with large colorful backdrops suspended from the ceiling and unspooling to the floor. I could hear a buzz of activity in the brightly lit corner where a green-screen backdrop lay near the wall-to-wall windows. Along the outside walls were photos of bleakly beautiful landscapes, and of the awful things war does to places and people, shot after riveting shot, and a few stunning nature panoramas that no doubt required death-defying feats to capture.
The same blond now directed my attention away from the pictures to an empty director’s chair next to where another makeup artist seemed to be fussing with Marsha’s foundation. I took the vacant seat.
“Afternoon, my dear,” Marsha said without looking up from her smart phone. “Have you heard? Apparently Madonna has been outfitted with a set of ‘grillz.’ Also she is learning how to ‘booty pop,’ whatever the hell that is.”
Marsha proffered a screenshot of the pop star’s gold mouth accessory.
“I see. Well … now that it’s big with middle-aged white women, at least Gus isn’t going to want one.”
She smiled, placing her glasses on her face.
“Well, I’m off,” she said, pushing up from her chair. “See you tomorrow.”
“Wait! I thought … aren’t we getting our pictures done together? Where’s Jeff and Tad? Where the hell’s Rink?”
“Came and went. The beauty of Photoshop. We don’t have to pose together to look like one big happy news family.”
“Aren’t we?”
“Sure,” she said with a wink.
“Have you seen Erik’s work on that back wall?” I said. “Take a look on the way out. Astounding images.”
“I know. But have you see Erik?” Marsha muttered, nodding towards where a powerfully built man, easily six foot four inches tall, stood talking to his blond assistant.
“Um. That didn’t come up in our Google searches,” I whispered, noting his wavy brown hair, almost the same color as his skin. From across the room, you could also see his rock-climber forearms flinching as he carefully polished a large, round lens.
“Born in Kenya. Dad was a half-Japanese, half-Swiss diplomat; mom was some kind of African princess. Big scandal. Grew up in Paris,” Marsha whispered, peering at him over the top of her glasses. “Never married. Placed fifth in the ’98 Olympics. Biathlon. That is the sport where you ski, my dear, with a fucking gun. He represented Switzerland.”
“How did you find all that out?”
“He spent the better part of last winter documenting border skirmishes in Northern Afghanistan. Those pictures on the wall? They were nominated for a Pulitzer. He speaks Farsi. Oh, and he’s a Leo.”
“Bet he never guessed you’re a journalist.”
“God, if I were twenty years younger. Hell, ten.”
“Marsha! Are you objectifying this man?”
“I am.”
“But that’s against everything you stand for.”
“Yes. Right up against everything I stand for,” she said, softly cackling. Then she turned to me. “Do you know what happens, Solange, to your sense of propriety after you turn sixty?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Neither do I, and I do not care to know. Well, good night then. And try the canapés. They’re delicious.”
The blond assistant slid a glass of champagne into my hand. “Here you go. To relax you.”
“No thanks,” I said, carefully placing the glass back on the makeup table. “I’m already relaxed.”
Marsha looked at the champagne and then at me. “Oh, I could weep,” she said before kissing me on the cheek good-bye. She turned on her heel and made her exit.
“Let me introduce you to Erik,” said the blond assistant, leading me by the elbow across the room, the remaining assistants giving the impression of seas parting as I entered Erik’s orbit.
“Erik, this is Solange Faraday. The weekend anchor.”
He was directing a gaffer high up on a ladder, the muscles in his arms tensing, his voice commanding and deep.
“To the left and down. I want the spotlight right … there … where the screen creases on the floor.”
“If this isn’t a good time—” I said to him.
“Nonsense,” he said, turning to face me, looking me up and down. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
Good lord, my breath actually caught in my lungs. Up close he was like an African/Asian/Nordic god, and though I hated the term exotic, I couldn’t think of another way to describe his almond-shaped, gray-flecked eyes, his thick wavy brown hair, his crooked, bratty smile, his brown skin, which looked partly genetic and partly the result of some death-defying adventure that took him way too close to the sun. He was closer to my age than I’d thought at first, something I found a huge relief, though I don’t know why it mattered. When did I start doing that? Comparing men’s ages with mine? After I turned forty? After I stopped feeling noticed by anyone under forty?
“Hello. Um, so … where can I change?” I asked, turning into a schoolgirl. Next to this man, I felt almost petite, delicate even. Pull yourself together, Solange! You’ve done important, dangerous reportage too.
“Use my bedroom.” He pointed to a door flush with a large white wall.
“You live here?” I asked, surprised.
“I sleep here,” he corrected. He was smiling again, showing one chipped front tooth, the kind of offhand flaw I’d always found terribly sexy. I felt my face heat up.
His bedroom was large and airy, with floor-to-ceiling steel factory windows, glossy white trim. The walls were white too, and the dresser white-stained oak in a matte finish. The king-size mattress was on an oak platform and covered in a white duvet and pillows. It was the kind of room where a lot of sex would take place, a room where children definitely were not allowed.
My garment bag was hanging on a bare rack in the middle of the room. I decided to throw on my gold blouse, not one I usually wore to work because it plunged a bit, but I was feeling, I don’t know, like being noticed. Like being looked at, by him.
When I entered the work area again it was quiet, no gaffer, no camera assistants, just the blond assistant neatly laying out makeup brushes in front of a lit-up mirror.
I took a seat and crossed my legs.
“We’ll just focus on the eyes, I think,” she said, looking at me through the mirror. “Make them pop. You don’t need much. You glow on your own.”
She was talking about me, not to me, and yet I still blushed.
“Is this blouse okay?” I asked the assistant, suddenly feeling flustered and self-conscious, like the blouse was too low, or maybe not low enough.
“It’s lovely,” she said, picking through the brushes. She didn’t seem to have a great handle on the tools of her trade, let alone the colors. I soon began to look a little garish. When she pumped the mascara tube ominously, I had to stop her.
“Look. I know photos require a bit more makeup than usual, but I am not sure this lipstick suits me.”
Her face fell. She was clearly nervous. “Normally I do my own eyes at the network,” I said. “Do you mind?”
“Yes! I mean no, by all means, I don’t mind. We just want you to feel totally comfortable and sexy.” She exhaled, utterly relieved.
“I just … want to look like myself.”
“Right, totally,” she said, backing away as I wiped off some of her enthusiastic work, reapplying it with my lighter touch.
Why would someone with Erik’s profile hire such an incompetent makeup artist? What was also weird was how quiet everything had suddenly become. I hopped off the director’s chair and poked around the partitions looking for Erik, for anybody. I found him measuring the light in front of a large green screen, onto which the newsroom and a cityscape were projected.
“There you are,” he said. “Shall we begin?”
Erik expertly positioned me where I’d appear on the billboard, my elbow resting on a block, an appropriate stand-in for Bill Rink. Erik wasn’t shy, placing his hands on my shoulders, moving me this way and that. And I was … enjoying it. I found it almost … relaxing.
“That’s good. Commanding. Yes, perfect,” he muttered into the viewfinder, clicking away. “Now arms crossed, that’s right. Shoulder to me. Nice. That’s it. Nice. Very nice. Smart. Good.”
I was posing for the camera as I had done a million times before, but I was also posing, a little bit, for Erik. He was pulling a certain kind of sexiness and daring from me.
“Lovely, Solange. Let’s try another look.”
“Yes. Let’s.”
I skipped (skipped!) back to the bedroom and threw on my red shimmering blouse, returning to position myself in front of the green screen. This all felt so girly, heady, model-y. I was having fun.
I hopped back onto the stool while Erik concentrated on placing a light just so. He stepped in front of me, awfully close, to move a lock of my hair … just … so. When he was taking pictures, looking at me through a viewfinder, I felt fine. But now, standing there looking down at me the way a man looks at a woman, his hip cocked, one hand holding his massive camera like it weighed nothing, his other hand scratching the back of his head, I became wobbly on the stool.
“You’re a natural in front of the camera. I mean, that’s evident from your work. But you’re also incredibly easy to photograph. Lovely at every angle.”
Click, click, click.
“Oh. Thanks. I guess,” I said. Was he stepping over a line? It felt like it and yet I couldn’t help but feel flattered.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Offend me? No, I’m not offended,” I said. “I think … sometimes I wrestle with compliments like that.”
Click, click, click. He moved back and forth in front of me with the camera, crossing my sight line like a pendulum.
“I don’t know. I guess I just want to be taken seriously.”
He snapped more pictures, this time stepping closer. “You don’t think a woman can be sexy and taken seriously?”
“Of course,” I said. But did I believe that?
He was smiling into the viewfinder.
“It’s easier doing this without my work colleagues around,” I admitted.
“People on their own are far less inhibited. They’re more themselves. That’s why I prefer to do group shots this way. Photoshop everyone together later. Okay, I want to get a few more before we lose the sun,” he said, peering over his camera, a lock of wavy hair rakishly falling over one of those gray eyes.
I noticed long shadows tracing along the wood planks. The day was drifting by. I also realized the blond assistant wasn’t around anymore and low jazz music was wafting from hidden speakers. Are we alone? I put my hand on my stomach, feeling a little dizzy, hungry maybe. Where was that canapé table? Didn’t Marsha mention food?
“Solange, I’d like to see you in something other than your work wear.”
What?
“Oh. Well, I didn’t bring anything else but—”
“Something that shows off your true self. Away from work.”
He regarded me intently, like this was a dare.
“Like I said, I didn’t bring casual clothes. Why would I?”
This was becoming strange.
“I have some things you can try on. They’re hanging in my room. See if anything strikes you.”
What the hell? He seemed so nonchalant, adding, “If you’ll accept the Step, that is.”
He snapped a picture of my face just then, no doubt revealing the shock registered there. The room was completely silent except for the creaks and knocks from the surrounding lofts. Oh, and my heart rattling around inside my chest.
“Are you one of the men from …?”
He nodded, his face serene. He regarded me thoughtfully, his camera down, resting against his thigh.
“Don’t you normally sleep with supermodels?”
“I can assure you, I never kiss and tell. So?”
“So.”
“So … do you accept the Step, Solange?”
When he smiled, his skin crinkled around his mouth and eyes. I slid off the stool. My legs were liquid.
“Which Step is it again?”
“Courage,” he said, his free hand now traveling under his T-shirt to his stomach. Maybe he was nervous too?
“I could certainly use more of that right about now.”
“This is one way to get it.”
“Okay then. Why don’t I go and slipintosomething-morecomfortable?” I said it really, really fast as I made my way to his bedroom.
I shut the door behind me and took a deep breath. This was all moving fast. The first fantasy was on home turf, and that was nice. This was really close to work and it made me a bit nervous. My eyes scanned the room. Something was different. The rack that had held my work blouses was gone, replaced by a row of fancy, flimsy, sheer things, festooned with feathers, lots of lace, a bow or two. Closer examination revealed mostly black and nude bras and panties, with splashes of red and white here and there. It was all lingerie—elegant stuff, expensive stuff, teddies, sheer wraps, a long see-through black gown and beneath, on the white-painted floor, a pair of gorgeous black feathered mules. A thick, white terry-cloth robe lay across his bed. On the dresser was another blessed glass of chilled champagne, which I downed (impressive, for me) in almost one gulp.
What was I about to do? I was about to have sex with a sexy-as-hell war photographer, but not before he took some sexy shots. Of me. Wearing this sexy stuff!
I pulled out the sheer gown, held it up to the window. Holy shit, I’d never buy something like this for myself. When would I wear it? I thought back to Julius when we were married. If I’d shown up in our bedroom wearing this, he’d have laughed. Not in a mean way, but in a way that said, Baby, you don’t have to put on a show to get to me. I imagined my hurt. Why would he laugh at a time like that, when all I was trying to do was be sexy for him, like that expensive marriage counselor had suggested way back?
And just like that, I was having an imaginary fight in my head with my ex-husband, feeling all that old familiar rage, the kind that would have sent me storming back into the bathroom, slamming the door on him, yelling, “Forget it!” to which Julius would have replied, “Solange! Come ooooon. I was just kidding! You looked beautiful!”
Screw you, Julius.
I snapped out of my fight. Dammit, this is not for Julius, and truth be told, not even for Erik. This is for me!
I tore off my work clothes, selecting the full-length, black sheer negligee, carefully slipping it over my head, surprised at its sturdiness. The gauze tumbled over my legs, the empire waist cinching tightly under my breasts. I could barely look at myself in the mirror, but I forced an appraisal.
Wow. Okay.
I not only looked sexy, I felt it.
I can do this!
A step closer changed my mind. I could see my nipples press through the material! I covered myself instinctively.
Actually I can’t do this. I can’t just step out there like this.
I gazed over at the rack, at all the other lovely, sexy things. I thought of Erik, his arms, my fingers running through his hair. I looked at myself again in the mirror. All those years of being single, and a mother, and a working mother, and a hard-working mother, meant I had lost the ability to just play.
There was a gentle knock on the door.
“Solange? Are you okay in there?”
The champagne was warming my skin.
I slid my feet into the heeled slippers, counted to five. Look at you in that black negligee. Are you seriously going to go through with this? At the last minute, I reached for the bathrobe and threw it on, covering myself up.
Baby steps.
Go! Just go. Carefully in those heels, I walked to the door and opened it. I could see the light from the setting sun coming through the windows.
“I’m over here, Solange.”
I followed the sound of his voice, the heels making a hollow clacking sound on the wood floors. I peeked around behind the partition and found Erik bent over the top of an elaborate-looking camera mounted on a tripod, different from the small one he had used for the earlier shots. The backdrop was different too, this one dark blue, with large colorful pillows and throws strewn about a sectional that barely rose above the floor.
“Hi,” he said, looking up, his face soft.
“Hi,” I said, barely cracking a smile.
“Make yourself comfortable.”
Clutching the robe, I walked over to the pillows and cleared a space on the sectional, lowering myself like a big chicken settling into a nest. Definitely not sexy.
I was still in my bathrobe when Erik began to take pictures.
He looked over the top of the camera again. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing,” I said, looking around at the dark shadows, feeling horribly self-conscious. The sky was the blue of deep dusk.
“This is only my second fantasy.”
“And what about this scenario had you fantasized about?”
I cast back to the day I had filled out my folder on my kitchen table. What had I written about Courage? It wasn’t specifically about having sex with a handsome photographer, but I had written something about “watching myself, seeing myself” as a desirable woman.
“It was about being … watched, seen, feeling beautiful,” I said.
“Why’s that hard for you?”
“I don’t know … in my business it can distract as much as it attracts. The more beautiful you are, the less, it seems, you’re taken seriously.”
“I’m certainly taking you very seriously right now,” he said, peering over the camera intently at me. Click, click.
“Can I ask you something? Why are you doing this?”
“Why would you ask that?” he asked back, half laughing.
“It’s not like you’d have any problem meeting girls.” There I go. The journalist in me is about to kill the chemistry.
“No problem meeting girls. They’re everywhere.” Click. “On the other hand, I don’t really meet a lot of women,” he said, adding, “How about this. Instead of telling you why I’m doing this, let me show you.”
My head swam with that proposition.
“Starting with that bathrobe. Let’s lose it, Solange. And then I want you to just ignore me. And relax back onto the couch.”
Maybe it was how commanding he was, or maybe because the light was dimming and flattering and the puffy sectional so comfortable, but I found myself tugging free of the terry-cloth robe and tossing it to the side. I rested on my side, on an elbow, in that black negligee, my hand on my still-churning stomach.
At first, I didn’t know where to look, how to be. And then … I began to relax. I closed my eyes and lay back against the pillows. After I’d stretched and lounged for a few minutes, he stopped and flopped next to me on the sectional holding the camera. He smelled delicious, a deep citrusy musk. His warm arm brushed against mine as he positioned his viewfinder in front of me, cueing up images.
“I want you to see yourself.”
And there I was, or someone resembling me, now bathed in a gorgeous light; my skin seemed to glow, velvety shadows hugging my curves. Then I saw my dark nipples pressed against the sheer fabric. I covered the viewfinder with my hand, my pulse racing.
“Wow,” I said. “You realize because of my job, you’ll have to destroy these.”
He smiled.
“I wanted you to see what I see when I look at you. Let’s do some more,” he said, springing off the seat next to me.
There was that familiar tug, that ache behind my belly button. I was becoming aroused. Having the courage to reveal this side of me to someone was turning me on.
“Feeling a bit bolder?”
I nodded.
“Do you want to try something else on? Or take something else off?”
What a choice!
“I’ll … check out that rack again,” I said, unsure if I wanted to delay, or draw this out. What did it matter? I was getting into this.
I practically trotted to the bedroom and flicked through the rack feeling a little more daring. I pulled out a pale pink bra laced with gray ribbons and matching bottoms. The bra gave me the kind of cleavage I normally never flaunted. I threw on a matching gray gauzy wrap over the ensemble, deciding to go barefoot with this outfit. That’s why he didn’t hear me approach the partition, behind which he was now tinkering with filters, adding some kind of scrim over the lightbox.
He looked up. I let my hands drop to my sides, allowing the wrap to gape open so he could take me in.
Courage.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, nodding to indicate that I should take my position on the sectional again.
His eyes never left me as I folded down into the pillows. When he approached the sectional, I rolled onto my back, locking my gaze on his. He stood over me, his camera clicking away.
“Open the robe,” he said, his voice guttural, urgent. “Good. Now move your hands down your body.”
My eyes closed, I let my hands drift over my breasts and down my sides.
“Like that … yes.”
My hands moved across my stomach then stopped at my panties. I opened my eyes and met his gaze again. He was kneeling before me. Reaching out with his free hand, he clasped my fingers and pressed them under my elastic band, urging me to touch myself. I slid my fingers down, astonished at how wet I was.
“Tell me what you feel like,” he said, now nearly straddling me, snapping pictures.
I stretched back, embarrassed, pressing my face into a pillow next to me, and all the while my fingers were moving around under my silk panties.
“I’m … wet,” I mumbled, finally. “Very.”
“Yeah? Show me,” he said, his eyes on my hand.
I hesitated.
“Those pictures. You can’t ever …” I warned.
“They’re yours. Don’t worry. When we’re done, you get every frame. I promise. Remember, courage, my love.”
I eased my panties off, pushing them down my thighs, kicking them to the floor. My knees together, I placed my hands inside my thighs and turned my head away again. I just … couldn’t believe I was doing this! Marsha would be shocked! Let alone Julius!
Erik positioned himself at the foot of the sectional. As I spread my legs, he began to click his camera, transfixed. My hands drifted back up. I shrugged off the gray wrap. Then I arched and undid the bra, tossing it over my shoulder. My hands replaced my bra and I found myself squeezing my breasts and writhing, his reaction to this surprisingly turning me on.
“That’s it, Solange. That’s it,” he murmured, inching closer.
I sat up feeling emboldened.
“What about you, Erik?”
He stopped and placed the camera back on the tripod next to us, adjusting the lens to face us, clicking on a button.
“We’re rolling video on this, okay?”
I took a deep breath. Could I do this? Yes. I could. I nodded and he drew his hands away from the camera. He pulled his T-shirt over his head, showing off a smooth, rippled torso.
“Take everything off,” I said, in my voice, with words coming from my mouth. Courage indeed.
He gave me a wry smile as he undid his jeans, stopping momentarily to fish a condom out of the front pocket, tossing it next to me. For such a large man, his body was lean, compact, smooth. He had a smattering of scars, a dramatic one on a pectoral, just below his rib cage. He noticed me noticing it.
“I was a fencer,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow.
“A shitty one,” he added.
I laughed. Naked, he began a slow crawl up my body. Now he was on all fours above me, his hair falling forward, and I pressed my whole self deep into the cushion below, shrinking, my nerves now on fire. Could I go through with this?
“Touch my scar,” he whispered, taking my hand and bringing it to his warm stomach, now rising and falling with his own quickening breath.
My fingers traced his soft line of hair, following the scar’s jagged ridge of flesh, then trailing it down to his erection, stiff and insistent.
“Oh yeah,” he murmured, closing his eyes.
I gathered him in my hands. The way he winced, his lip curling back, that’s what got me going. He stood up and tugged my ankles down, parting my legs around his knees. His kissed me, his body undulating over mine, both my hands now cupping his erection, caressing more urgently. He took my breasts into his hot, wet mouth and devoured them; this man was hungry for me. Looking down at my body through his disheveled hair, I knew where he was heading and what he wanted to do to me.
He took me by the waist with both hands. He made the moment linger, before sliding them under my ass cheeks, lifting them lightly, reverently, his fingers going from soft to firm as he spread me open to begin his feast. His tongue found my groove, gathering my lips in his, slicking me down. It was shocking and incredible. What is it about a stranger that lets you abandon all your rules and regulations? Or maybe it was this particular stranger, all appetite and want.
I moaned, my face pressed sideways into the pillows. The heat radiated through my body, made my skin prickly with desire. I peeked over my breasts as he stopped and felt around with one hand for the condom packet, the other hand still beneath me, then brought it to his mouth. He ripped it open and slid it on. I squeezed my eyes shut and could feel the head of his erect cock prodding into me, inching in, all the way in, his hands now gripping my hips hard as he began his slow, gorgeous assault on me. I saw nothing else against the black backdrop of my eyelids, but I felt everything … So this is what it’s like to be fucked hard and well by a beautiful man …
And this is what it looks like …
Later, in the safe confines of my bedroom, popcorn resting in a bowl next to me, the volume on my laptop low, I skipped fast through the stills Erik had taken of me, past the ones of me posing in the lingerie—some that I liked, some that made me wince and slap the screen shut. Then I came upon the naked shots, the ones with my legs spread, my whole body willing, eyes hungry. Oh my god, look at me!
I screamed into my pillow from joyful mortification.
And then I queued up the video, fast-forwarding to the part where Erik opened my thighs wide, hovering over me for a second to take it all in, his back muscles flinching, the close-up as he dipped to lick and suck my clit, my fingers pushing through his hair, my eyes closed. Holy Christ, the look on my face! Pure sexual ecstasy. Here it was: the reason men like to watch. I did look delicious, didn’t I. His head between my thighs, and oh, when he turned me over onto my knees (a not unflattering angle, if I may say), how he fucked me furiously, and how I clenched and stiffened before I came. I was peering at all of this over the top of my sheets, my face lit by the blue screen, my eyes big like saucers.
I made a sex tape! A fucking sex tape! Then came the part where Erik pumped into me, harder and faster, mercilessly, the shaft of his thick penis inching in and out while his fingers dug shadows into my hips. I could tell exactly when I was coming on the video, and I was coming again, now, my own fingers retracing his path as I watched myself being watched by him, his eyes on my back, while he drove into me again and again, calling my name, “Solange,” and saying, “Yes, oh yeah, oh god, baby, I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come now” … and he did. And so did I—again—falling back into the pillows of my bed in my own home, my eyes rolling back again in utter bliss. I froze the shot on Erik collapsing across my back, his arms wrapped around my waist, because there it was, evidence of my courage to do something I had never thought I’d do.
And it was all kind of beautiful.
In the morning, before I headed to work, I watched that video one more time, while the dishwasher hummed and the coffee brewed. Then I smashed that lovely USB stick into a thousand pieces in the backyard, burying the shards under an old pine.