LAID & BETRAYED (Getting wrong with Mr. Wright) (3 page)

'You take a good picture.'

'
Really
?'

He nodded. 'Y
ou ever
thought
abo
ut
modeling?'

I shook my head.
'No, no.
Never.'

'Well, you never know.'

He was smiling, staring at me,
studying
me like you'd study a still life in art class.
The sun
was passing through clouds
and the light in the room was both hazy and dazzling like light through water. I remembered learning in some long distant class that in photography time does not exist except as a series of frozen moments
arranged
by some higher form of physics in which the person and the photograph are separated, not by time, but imagination.

'
Can I take another couple of shots?
'

'
Course,
'
I gushed
.

I
knew he was talking about taking shots of me,
but
I processed the question as if he wanted to take more shots of the room.

He set up a video camera on a tripod. He spent a long time adjusting the lens, but then approached with his digital camera. He told me to stand at the side of the window with the sun ligh
ting just one side of my face. T
he camera clicked and he changed angle. I had seen models in movies and you sort of know how to act, how to pose
, how to move, how to make infinitesimal changes in your expression
.

As Charlie
Wright
moved around the room, I
jutted out my hips and
turn
ed
to peer over one shoulder with expressions that were arrogant, alluring, provocative
. T
he click, click, click of the camera
was
like a metronome beating out
a steady
rhythm and lulling me into a sense of…
a
sense of what I
'
m not sure, but when he asked me to pull my blouse off one shoulder, I didn
'
t hesitate.
I was living in the moment and wanted to be and do and feel everything that had always been risqué, out of touch, too old for me. After all the exams, the confines of school,
the fights with Simon,
I wanted to
live my own
life. Lots of confused feelings were rushing around my head as the camera kept clicking and Charlie
Wright
'
s
deep
voice encouraged me.

'
More. More. That
'
s it. That
'
s lovely, that
'
s perfect,
'
he
said
.
'
Grace
, undo another button on you blouse, it
'
ll look nice.
'

And I undid another button, leaning forward to reveal my
sun browned
breasts like a model in a magazine.

'
Beautiful. Beautiful.
I am going to buy this house,
Grace
,
'
he said.

'
That's…that's great.
'

P
erspiration
coated my
skin
.
My underarms were
wet
.
This was the connection, the
pull
of destiny. If
Charlie
Wright
bought the house,
I
'
d get tho
usands of pounds in commission. I'd be free of my
father,
free to do whatever I wanted.
I kept posing, turning, thrusting out my hipbones.
I didn
'
t know what to do with my hands
and,
whe
n I gripped them behind my back,
I
realized
I was pushing out my breasts. He stared into my eyes.
I smiled.
He looked serious.

'
Grace
, will you do something for me?
'

He didn
'
t say what. He just looked at me and I nodded.

'
Of course,
'
I said.

'
Take your top off for me.
'

The words came from his mouth like a coil of silver smoke and seemed to hang there
as if in
a bubble.

Take your top off for me.

It was such a simple sentence.
Such a simple request.
My tingling nipples were tingling even more. I wanted to release them, give them air. The sweat on my back turned cold and made me shiver. The silence stretched. I was a rabbit caught in the headlights of his
amber
eyes, immobile, terrified, excited.

'
Take your top off for me.
'

He said it again, his velvety voice deeper and darker like the words were no longer a wisp of smoke but words whispered from far away. They reached me like a recording that had been slowed down.

Take your top off for me.

Just as I often knew what my
father was going to say before
he said it, I had known Charlie
Wright
was going to ask me to take off
my top. B
ut the
for me
tagged on to the sentence was puzzling, and the politeness of the request made it difficult to say no without seeming disrespectful
, childish even
. I felt flustered, embarrassed. And I felt energized, too. I had willed this. I must have known something was in the air when I removed my bra that morning. I had been thinking wanton thoughts and he had read my mind.
Was I so obvious?
Was it too late to stop?

'
I can
'
t do that,
'
I finally mumbled.

'
Grace
?
'
He waited.

'
Yes.
'

'
I won
'
t tell you again.
'

'
But…
'

He took a deep breath. I sensed rather than saw the faint shake of his head. The disappointment. I was no more than an overgrown schoolgirl with my head full of cheap fantasies, a pathetic little virgin.
That's what Simon had said,
and the words rang through my head like a
funeral
bell.
I had failed. I would never sell Black Spires. I wouldn
'
t
be able to cope on my own
. I was doomed.

'
Please,
'
I said, but my will had gone.

He raised his brow, the upward motion acting as a spring that resonated from his
bright
eyes to my arms. It was quite uncanny, a stage trick, a radio wave. As his brow went up and his eyes flashed, I wriggled my arm
s
out of the narrow sleeve
s
, raised the cotton blouse over my hair and ran the material down my left arm to my hand. I
realized
I had been holding my breath and let out a long sigh. We stood there in the silvery light, my breasts standing out firm and full, my nipples hard and painful, pink and shiny with
the
rush of blood.

I dropped the blouse on the floor.
He took several pictures, but they weren
'
t very good. I wasn
'
t posing, just standing there.

He clicked his fingers and pointed.

'
If you please.
'

I went to speak but my mouth just fell open and nothing came out. My breasts were already on show, sun bronzed and pretty, throbbing with the beat of my heart. Breasts are everywhere. In every newspaper and magazine,
on
television and
the sides of buses
.
But my skirt?

'My skirt?'

He nodded. 'If you please.'

'But…'

'Before we lose the light.'

His words
whizzed through my brain like a
c
harge
of
electr
icity and,
even as I determined to shake my head and say no, I reached for the snap and lowered the zip. I wriggled my hips and my breasts faintly swayed as the skirt fell in a pink pool about my feet. It was warm in that sunny room, perspiration veneered the split in my bottom and my knickers were damp. I could smell my own arousal and
realized
with shame that the obscu
re pleasure of that moment came,
not from any expectation of what might take place, but simply from exposing myself.

'
Very good,
'
he said.

My pink knickers fitted snugly, the elastic stretching like a bridge from the supports of my hip bones in such a way that, had
Mr
Wright
leaned forward, he would have got a glimpse of the dark little forest of hair nestling below.

He adjusted the camera.

'
Those, too,
'
he said.

His voice was a chant, whispering my own inner desires. Each time he asked for more, I gave more, my blouse, my skirt. I was on a slippery slide. There was no way
to get
off. I didn
'
t want to get off.

'Mr.
Wright
…'

'The light, Grace, it's important.'

'Can't you just…'

He didn't reply.
He adjusted his camera.
I stood there, skinny and naked except for my pink knickers.
He snapped his figures and
I slid my thumb
s into the
elastic
. I
drew
the damp material
over my hips, revealing
my pubic hair,
over the round cheeks
of my bottom
and down my long legs.
I pushed them to one side with my toe.
I was naked. I was free. I felt
terrified and I felt c
ompletely and totally alive.

'
Good girl.
Lean over the table.'

And I did.
I spread my legs and
bent
over the polished surface of the narrow table between the tall arched
windows. T
he camera clicked and captured my most intimate parts, the
crease of my
bottom
, my throbbing breasts, my glazed eyes, my inner dreams and fantasies. I was naked with a stranger in a big haunted house, alone, miles from anywhere
.

'
That
'
s lovely. Nice.
Very nice.
Push forward
. Come on
now,
push out that
cute little ass
. Nice. Nice. Give it to me. Give me more.
'

I climbed
up on
to the table. He didn
'
t need to tell me how to arrange myself, you just know these things: on my hands and knees with my bottom pushed out, my breasts hanging like udders. I wiggled like a
dancer
and the more I wiggled the more the camera clicked and the wetter I got. I co
u
ld feel contractions and I
wanted to touch myself.

'
Lay back,
Grace
, legs up, that
'
s nice. That
'
s nice.
'

He was reading my mind. I spread my legs and my palms with stretched fingers went a
utomatically to my breasts. My nipples
were on fire. I turned the little buds and squealed in pain and the pain turned to
a strange and marvelous
pleasure. I ran my right hand down my side, across the bony curve of my hip and into my
pubic hair. My pubes were drenche
d.
There was a musty, musky smell in the air, the smell of sex
. As
I slid
my fingers inside my wet crack and
nursed my clitoris, teasing it like
a cat with a toy mouse. T
he juices gushed from me, hot and sticky,
and
the camera
kept
clicking
, keeping up the beat
. I threw my head back, and through my orgasm I rose clean off the table and would have fallen I
'
m sure had Charlie
Wright
not lifted me in his arms.