The Anniversary

THE ANNIVERSARY

A month to go. I want him to remember me always as I am now--38 years old, all my charms intact, my bust deeper than ever, my face and complexion more intriguing, my tummy still flat and firm.

"One more button, my dear." Lionel, the photographer, looks at me critically, considering the effect. "Yes, yes--just like that. I need to see the swell of your cleavage. Turn slightly to your left? Chin up. Lean forward slightly. Perfect."

I find the session excruciatingly sexy. Lionel doesn't treat me as a sex object, but as a potential work of art. Michelangelo, or someone like him, said that in every block of marble is a beautiful figure waiting to be released. My body is ready to be set free, onto a flawless photograph.

We start with jeans and a white shirt: my sleeves rolled up, the emphasis now on my neck, now on my midriff, now on my underwear.

This may be art, but nature takes over. When I shed my shirt, slip the straps away, and reach behind to release my breasts, the air on my bare skin makes me draw in my breath. Lionel's camera makes love to me.

I'm topless now, my nipples standing out, shamelessly erect.

Lionel is pleased. "Your husband--what's his name? Graham--is going to love this."

He adjusts the focus or the F-stop or the shutter speed. I suspect he's zooming in on my tits. Well, let him; they like the attention. I like the attention. A spark flies between us. They say that's the secret of good glamour photography.

On the bed, I show off my figure without inhibition. Lionel's hand brushes me as he guides my pose. His touch electrifies me. I want more. Cup them; cup them please.

He doesn't. Instead, he asks me to unzip my jeans. "Good. Now slip your hand down in there." The shutter clicks, twice, three times, and I lose count. "Graham wants to see you masturbating. Men like that. Of course, we can't actually go so far, but you can give him a hint. Yes, deeper, you're doing fine."

I'm doing so well that I want to pleasure myself in reality.

Soon I'm down to my knickers and nothing else, lying on my front.

"All right, Sandra," he tells me. "Turn around onto your back, please? Now, hook your thumbs in."

I'm entering more exotic, more erotic territory. He coaxes me to slide the lacy garment down, a millimetre or so at a time. I like the look of my tummy, how it glows, how it presents itself to his camera lens. We're getting perilously close when he tells me to stop.

"That's as far as we go, love. I don't do pornographic. Except..."

"Except...?" Surely, he is about to say that this could be an exception.

He disappoints me. "Except that these pictures could do it for anyone. Suggestion is powerful. And you're very beautiful, you know."

I like the idea of Graham jerking off to the view. I like it a lot, but I want more, now.

"Suppose I ask you if we can go further, just for me, for my collection, would you agree to do it?"

"You have a collection?"

"I'd like to start one." And I would.

He stands quite still, camera in hand.

I have to clinch this deal. "I'll pay you well."

He doesn't react.

"You are gay, aren't you?" It feels like it has something to do with that, though I can't work it out.

He smiles, a slow, hesitant then friendly smile. "Sandra, if you go further, I'll be the one jerking off."

That changes everything. The pulse in the room intensifies. I don't want Lionel, not in that way--no, I won't cheat, but I want him to see me, shoot me, bring me even more to life.

"Please?"

I don't wait. I open myself up, past my mount of Venus, past my labia and my shy clitoris and the moist entrance to my vagina. The camera comes up close, pointing right at me, real, complete and fully exposed. Lionel takes me from above, below, between, spreading and yielding, from every delightful angle that eye can see and cock can touch and tease and penetrate.

He takes out a handkerchief and mops his brow.

"How much will that be, then?"

"Nothing. It's a gift. An exchange, if you like. You gave me your soul when you bared your lips."

***

The album arrives in time, discreetly packaged. Graham opens it on the day. He has no idea what to expect. On the cover is my portrait, a charcoal sketch.

"What's this, then, Sandra?"

"Something to remember me by."

A look of uncertainty, unhappiness, flashes across his face. "You're going away? Leaving me?"

"No. No, my love. But Graham, the woman you see there won't always be around. She's only passing through; she's transient, transitory."

I can only stop him looking puzzled by snuggling up next to him and putting my arm around his shoulders.

"Come on, let's look."

We sit there together, paging through the album. My breasts, my neck, my flanks, my thighs, my belly, my hands and arms: all of them, pictured as I've never seen them before. Not quite all of me, though: I have kept those extras in reserve.

"Oh honey," Graham murmurs.

I tease him. "Getting hard?"

"Honey, I've always known you to be beautiful, but this, but here, but now..."

It is true. Out of my body Lionel has made something of great beauty.

We get to the unzipping shots, and Graham starts kissing me in earnest. His hands are on my breasts, and my hand caresses his shaft.

We make love as if for the first time, as if for the last time. As if we were Adam and Eve, with gentleness and delicacy and gratitude. The moment of entry is made even sweeter for me by my secret knowledge of my most intimate parts caught forever on film, forever new, forever aching to be filled--celebrated, affirmed, inviolate: art and nature combined.