1. Nina
NINA
From my vantage point, I saw it all.
I watched the prelude to every fantasy unfold. I witnessed women luxuriating in their bodies and men wrapping their arms around them—lovers poised with coiled tension, a powder keg of desire primed to explode.
I gazed at women and women, men and women, men and men. And women alone, desire written in their eyes.
Today, from behind the lens, I studied a party of two, drenched in sexual anticipation.
In my studio, the curvy brunette stretched like a cat across the sapphire-blue cover on the opulent bed. The dark-haired man gripped her hip with one hand, his other in her hair. He lay behind her, his body sealed to hers, his eyes hooded.
A queen flanked by her loyal soldier, who served and protected her. Or maybe she served him. As I snapped shot after shot, I wrote the script to their after-dark affairs, imagining filthy moment after filthy moment.
Truth be told, I didn’t have to imagine much. Their passion for each other was evident in their expressions, unmistakable in the tangling of their limbs. Yes, I’d posed them in my studio boudoir, but the poses came so naturally to these two.
I moved around the bed, giving direction from my Nikon. “Marco, can you move your hand down her thigh a little bit? I want to see more of the curve of Evangeline’s sexy hip.”
“It is the sexiest hip God ever created,” he growled, making the adjustment.
“And, Evangeline, look to the left so the camera can see more of those glossy pink lips.”
She shifted, briefly shooting him a look, a private gaze.
So much was unsaid in the way they stole glances at each other.
Longing. Craving. Heat.
My mind raced ahead.
Would he take her after their photo session? Would his hands travel all over her lush body?
I wrote Marco and Evangeline’s afternoon delight in my head.
Perhaps my neighbors would tell stories later of how the lift was stuck for thirty minutes that afternoon, and it was sooo annoying to have a mechanical malfunction.
Only I’d know what had really happened.
I’d know why everyone in this high-rise had to take the stairs.
The second they left my home studio and entered the elevator down the hall, Marco would become insatiable, his palm slamming against the stop button.
He’d yank up her skirt and thrust inside her, her wrists pinned above her head.
She’d need no coaxing. She’d be ready for him, head thrown back, lips parted, taking it hard and loving it.
Or perhaps the legend of their passion would be written in the parking garage. Maybe he’d pounce on her in the front seat before they turned on the engine, and those coming home early from work would do a double take.
Did you see them? That couple heating up the windows in the black Audi? She rode him like he was her stallion.
Or maybe they’d play denial games on the drive back to their home.
Evangeline would want to touch herself, and Marco would issue orders in a deep, rumbling voice, one hand on the steering wheel, one on her bare thigh.
Don’t touch yourself till I say so.
Show me your panties.
Now show me yourself.
I bet she’d loved being told what to do.
Bet she craved it like air.
He’d make her squirm till they returned home and he’d order her to get down on all fours and then he’d take her to the edge of pleasure.
I clenched my thighs at the wild thoughts racing through my head as my camera captured their suggestive poses, their heated expressions, the sensual record of the moments before the camera stopped clicking.
Before.
That was what my lens recorded. The build, the slow burn, the seconds that ticked till these lovers lunged at each other.
Sensual boudoir photography was my jam.
It was the best job ever.
And also the worst.
Because of days like this. When my mind zigged and zagged with images.
But I was a professional, and I had to keep my own wild meanderings at bay and finish the job.
I zoomed in on their faces, then I stepped back, grabbing a series of full-body shots as the couple shifted, sitting up, her legs wrapped around his ass, their arms curled around each other. Two people who couldn’t get enough of each other.
“Gorgeous,” I said, murmuring my approval. “Now, Evangeline, I want you to look at Marco like you’re going to rip off all his clothes.”
She laughed, shooting me a playful glance. “But I’ve already stripped him down to his boxers.”
I smiled knowingly from behind the camera. “Then you’re not done. Look at him like you’re going to tug those boxers off and have a field day with him.”
“Field day,” he whispered to her in a voice tinged with lust. “That’s what we’ll have when we’re done.”
Just as I predicted.
Then the pair of them laughed, and I caught that too, because that’s what they’d asked for when they ordered this photoshoot—to record their love, their passion, and their trust in each other.
They wanted it all for posterity—when they longed for each other and when they laughed with each other too.
They seemed to share their vulnerability and tenderness so easily in a stranger’s bedroom.
How did they do that? How did they let go?
“Just behave while you’re in here,” I teased. “But, Marco, I need one thing from you.”
“Name it,” the man said.
“Run your hands through her hair,” I told him.
A groan rumbled up his chest so loud I could hear it. His fingers roped through her honey-brown strands, and I snapped that shot, capturing provocative moment after provocative moment, even as my mind ran away again.
I wanted that . Wanted it for me, and wanted it for my damn job. If only so I could get these images out of my head while I worked.
Surely my overactive, overheated imagination helped my job of capturing sensuality. But I didn’t need dirty images bearing down in the studio. And the images showed no signs of abating as I pictured his hands tightening around her glossy locks later, tugging, pulling, yanking.
Did he make her scream?
Moan?
Or simply melt?
All of the above, I decided as they cast hot stares at each other.
The longing in her eyes was visceral, a palpable force in the room.
In his irises, I saw intense devotion and filthy desire.
This was when I stopped directing them, letting their natural instincts take over.
She pressed her body closer to her man, sealing herself to him like she was riding him.
“I want something that captures us in the throes of passion,” she said, her voice smoky, like she could barely hold back as she looked at me. “Nina, do I look like a woman about to be devoured?”
I answered her with complete honesty. “Yes.”
A small smile seemed to tease at her lips. “Best feeling ever, isn’t it?” She winked, like we were soul sisters on this front.
I answered her with a total lie. “Of course.”
Inside, I replied truthfully, privately, saying, I wouldn’t know .
I’ve never had what she’s having.
Evangeline pulled on a robe as Marco excused himself to the restroom to dress.
It was funny to see his modesty after I’d already witnessed him so exposed—though not physically. I never captured full nudes of men. Only women, and only if they requested.
But I was grateful he was gone for a few minutes, because I found it easier to show women the images on the back of the camera without their lovers by their side. She could look at them through her own eyes, not his.
And women saw their bodies differently than men did.
Mostly women saw the emotions in the photos, not simply the beautiful bodies. That was what I always tried to convey in both the solo shoots of women and the couple shoots—the emotions.
Evangeline couldn’t contain a wildly pleased grin as she stared at the window on my camera.
“You’re very good,” she said, cooing at the shots, almost tracing her finger against the screen. “I’ve never seen us look this way before. Our faces caught in these moments . . . moments of passion.”
I smiled. That’s what I loved most about my job—when my clients were comfortable enough to relax and let go, to reveal to the camera what was so rarely seen in front of others.
But I wasn’t going to take credit for their desire.
“The two of you make it easy,” I said, deflecting the attention to the client, where it belonged. “You’re obviously so deeply in love.”
I expected her to murmur a quiet thank you or to simply agree, giving me a yes, we are .
But her answer took me by surprise as she looked away from the camera and met my gaze. “It’s not easy. It took me a long time to get to this place.”
I tilted my head, curious. “What do you mean?”
Her brown eyes were rich with secret knowledge, insight into the ways of sensuality. “To ask for what I wanted.”
“You weren’t able to before?” I was eager to understand what she meant. I wanted to know how to ask for that. I wanted to have that.
“No. I was terrible with communication in my early twenties. I was unsure of my own desires. I didn’t know what I needed in bed, and in love, and in life. And then I learned how to speak about my desires.”
“How?” The word hung in the air, a desperate plea. “What did it for you?”
She moved in closer, like she was about to impart the kind of secret passed down through generations, protected by a secret society. “ Aphrodite . She changed my life.”
“The ancient Greek goddess? Have you been visiting Mount Olympus?” I asked with a light laugh.
She answered with a chuckle, but shook her head. “Please. You don’t have to go beyond these four walls to visit with her. And she is a modern-day goddess. A goddess of sensuality. I’ll introduce you to her.”
I blinked, trying to figure out if my client was talking in code or truly believed she could speak with mythological figures. But I was intrigued enough to keep going. “How would I find Aphrodite?”
“Do you have a smartphone?”
I laughed and couldn’t resist rolling my eyes. “No,” I teased as I reached for the mobile device in my jeans pocket. “Of course I do.”
“And do you have a podcast app?” Evangeline asked, and the puzzle pieces started to slide into place. She wasn’t in touch with ancient Greek gods and goddesses, but rather the world of podcasts. I was down with that.
“Yes. I love science podcasts and how stuff works podcasts,” I said, brightening as I thought of my collection of “Geeks R Us” podcasts, as my friend Lily playfully referred to my listening addiction.
“File this under how stuff works, then,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes as she tapped on the screen, then showed me the artwork for Ask Aphrodite .
Ah, that made sense. “I swear you won’t regret it.
Aphrodite changed my life. I learned how to ask for what I want in bed.
And Marco gives it to me. Now, thanks to her, I know what it’s like to feel incredible, to have a lover take me to the edge of desire.
” She sighed seductively as if remembering that feeling.
“To the edge and beyond.” Then she collected herself.
“You know what that’s like. That kind of O. ”
She said it absently, offhand, even, as she turned around and picked up her clothes.
I smiled and gave a quiet “Yes.”
But the truth was, I knew nothing of the sort.
When they left, I shut the door, a heaviness in my chest from telling another half-truth.
I didn’t lie all day long. Some days no one asked about me.
But questions from clients arose more often than not, peppered with knowing glances and sisters-in-sensual-arms winks.
And I wanted to stop telling little white lies in my studio.
I wanted to have one full, honest conversation with a client when she’d ask about sex, or desire, or longing.
Color me a contradiction.
I was the boudoir photographer who’d never been naked with a man before.
The more I shot, the more I wanted to know what the couples in my photos were feeling.
Wait. Correction: the more I needed to know.