Intimate Portrait #38

Several years ago I was having dinner with an old friend from high school whom I hadn't seen in quite a few years. We had been drawn to each other since the first time we met, always with a mutual respect for each other, though there were never any sparks in a man-woman type way. She lived a few states away but tried to visit her family as often as she could and thankfully I was one of the few friends still in her visit rotation.

Over dessert the conversation steered toward past relationships and she began to immediately vent, a rare occurrence. She was upset that her very recent ex had claimed that she didn't have a nice looking vagina, which was frustrating to her on multiple levels, not least of which was her firm belief that her genitalia was prettier than most. I teased her about it, saying that in the past several years I had become witness to the wide variety of shapes and forms god (God?) had created in that particular area. Mind you, when I had first started to take photography of models seriously, she had been one of the first female friends to mock me on how difficult my life must be day to day.

As the conversation progressed she excited asked ”Wanna see it?" and I almost spit out my sip of 7&7 from pure shock. While unclear if it was genuine or not, this offer was definitely not in her character. "Sure," I blurted out, uncertain of calling her bluff, "are you going to bend over right here?" "You still live near here, right? Let's go back to your place, I've still got an hour or so."

With that, we pounded the remnants of our drinks, hopped into my pick-up, and soon were walking through my door. "Do you want another drink?" I offered, thinking she might need a bit more liquid courage to complete the act. "Nah, I'm good, I just really want your opinion!" And with that, she pulled her tight jeans down and bent over the arm of my sofa in the warm, cheap glow of my small, overhead, living room light. With her underwear knotted into the top of her jeans, she twisted and arched, struggling to achieve what she hoped was the best possible angle for my perspective. I smiled and didn’t budge, arms crossed, leaning in the doorway to my kitchen, enjoying the very unexpected turn of the evenings events, feeling conflicted about how much I was admiring the view of a friend that I had never had a physical attraction for until this moment. When I thought I had tortured her with my silence long enough, I finally stopped her wriggling and said, “That’s good, I think I’ve got the picture. Yes, it’s actually really quite nice, and though I’m already of a fan, yours is definitely one of the nicer ones I’ve seen.” 

She didn’t hesitate to agree and continued to preach about her lower body’s attributes; she didn’t have pimples on her butt, her skin was light-toned and smooth, “I even have a pretty asshole, right?” Yes, yes, of course you do, dear. Any man would be crazy to not like it. And how are you such an expert, do you look at it often to admire yourself?

“Nah, I just give it the occasional glance, but ah know what I’m workin’ with,” she muttered with a newly discovered southern drawl that made me chuckle out loud. “Wanna take a picture of it?” This time I was a little more prepared for such a shocking statement from her, and in the spirit of the evening, I embraced the offer completely. “Sure, give me a second to set up my lights.” And with that, I silently went and set up a strobe in my bedroom in seconds, since it was already second nature to me at that point in my career. I ripped the blankets and pillows off my bed, creating a spartan, blank canvas for her pale skin to inhabit, then laughed at her as she scoot-shuffled awkwardly from the living room to my bedroom, pants and underwear still down around her lower thighs the whole way.

“Where do you want me?” she asked innocently, then immediately giggled realizing how it sounded in context. I smiled and confidently directed her to the center of the bed, told her to bend over, and grabbed my camera and near full memory card that I had yet to clear off from the day’s earlier shoot. After a bit of light adjustment and advice on arching her back, I tried not to think about the odd direction our friendship had taken while I focused the lens, all while she hummed the chorus to “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” the last song that had been playing at the bar. Her jeans were too high up her thighs for the composition I wanted, so without warning I stepped up and roughly tugged them down in one quick jerk, eliciting a squeal of delight from her that momentarily filled me with pride. With that, I took five quick shots, all the filled memory card would allow, and called our little shoot done.

We drove back to her car laughing the whole way, each accusing the other of having the “bright idea” and merrily recapping the evening’s progression. Saying nothing more, I parked illegally behind her vehicle and left the truck running, walked around to her side and gave her a big, tight hug, asked her to say ‘hello’ to her family for me, and left. We still talk about every six months, and as expected, that evening has not changed our friendship in any way.