I Guess So

Originally Posted Sunday, March 3, 2013

I thought I would have a new model to post here soon.  I shot in the studio last night for the first time in more than a week.  Work at the factory has been rough, and I've been resting.  If I shoot once every one or two weeks, though, you, sweet reader, have the same series to look at for that length of time.  It becomes like the experiment Playboy tried in the seventies, Playboy for Married Men.  The centerfold was the same woman every month. 

But last night's model was young and had not modeled before except with a friend taking photo classes.  But she wanted to and she was very pretty, so who am I not to help young people achieve their dreams? 

Pretty as she was, though, she was stiff and mechanical.  I shot her in a formal dress for that series ongoing series, then in a cocktail dress thinking she would loosen up.  "Do this, do that," I would say.  "Fall apart like an old stuffed doll." 

I put her in a black full slip. 

"Make it look sensual," I said. 

"I'm not really a very sexual person." 

"Me neither.  But this is something else, not sexual but seductive, not you but an image of that."

She was nervous, I guess, and I figured the night to be a wash. 

"I just don't want naked pictures of myself on the internet," she said. 

I admitted that I was a fan of that sort of thing.  Every sixteen year old with an iPhone and a bathroom mirror is doing it.  They are laughing and celebrating themselves.  "Look at me!" they are saying.  "I'm beautiful like man's first wife!"  And indeed they are. 

"I think everyone should be required to post a picture of themselves naked on an internet site," I told her.  "It should be mandatory.  Then no one would have to worry about it ever again.  It is stupid."  I used to think if that happened, people wouldn't care any more, that nudity would be nothing.  But nope.  It's not true.  Nobody ever tires of seeing people naked." 

I was thinking of young people, of course, and not myself.  Naked pictures of me when I was younger are one thing, but now. . . it is another.  But even I like looking at pictures of me naked when I was young.  I should have done that more. 

"Listen, if that's what is bothering you, go write into the model's release that the images can not be electronic, that what we shoot tonight can only be used for print."

It was like electroshock.  She was different after that.  When we first began to shoot, she would go to the other room to change.  Now she was galloping around like a doe in spring.  Everything about her had changed.  All the stiffness was gone.  She was bubbly.  I would be, too, if I looked like her. 

But the best part was that she began to tell me her story.  I love stories.  I told her I would write hers, and she grinned and said, "O.K." 

"When I was in high school, I was flatter than pancakes.  And I'll tell you the truth, one of my breasts was deformed."  She named some condition in medical terms I can't remember.  "The first thing I did when I got out of high school was get my breasts fixed."

"Are you happy with them?"

"Oh, yes.  Everything changed.  I was a virgin before that.  I hadn't done any drugs.  I was as straight as a person could be."

"New titties made you do drugs?"

She laughed and said, "Yea, I guess you could say that.  I smoked pot and did Ecstasy a few times.  But I've still only made love to one person."

She had a boyfriend who was thirteen years older than she.  I thought about his happiness for a while.  Her mother was from Nicaragua and her father from Israel.  It had made a lovely combo.  I thought about those patriarchal cultures. 

"I don't like young boys," she said. 

"Good for you.  I agree." 

Yea, yea, yea, I can hear you, but I can't always think about the happiness of others.  Let me have something for myself once in awhile.

"My father was twenty-nine years older than my mother.  He left when I was a little girl."

"How many brothers and sisters do you have."

"Only child."

"So it's been just you and your mother your whole life?"

"Yes." 

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, she was so different now.  The pictures. . . oh. . . they were so. .  . she was. . . different. 

I looked through the images when I got home.  I could throw away almost everything from the first part of the evening.  They were horrible.  And I could use almost everything from the end of the shoot. 

When we were finished, she didn't leave.  This happens sometimes.  I'm not sure why and never sure what to do.  She was dressed and we just chatted.  Now she wanted to tell me everything, but she wanted me to ask.  I did.  What else was there to do?  And I can ask some of the most unexpected things. 

She was fascinated by all the old and weird cameras around my studio. 

"Do you mind if I take pictures?"  She had her iPhone in hand and strolled around photographing them all. 

I really liked her.  I liked hearing about her intimate life, about how it has evolved, about what is inside her when she is alone.  People are very and wonderfully complex.

"You had wanted to do this when you came, hadn't you?"

She looked at me.  "I guess so." 

But I can not post them here, so if you want to see them, you will have to buy a print.  Now there's a thought.

And the moral of the story?  I guess it is that a pair of implants can change your sad and ordinary life.