Chapter 3
Steve hated leaving for work as early as he did, but he had operational meetings starting at 7:30. It wasn't the hated going to work; it was that he hated leaving April. Their love left him feeling peaceful and contented, an emotion he had never felt before. His life had always been about hard work and striving for lofty goals. Being happy, comfortable and at ease was something foreign to him, but it was something he could love getting used to.
When he arrived at work, he had to go over all of the plant's operational performance during the weekend and then plan for the upcoming week. After all the operational meetings, he had a meeting with the owners of the bottling plant and by 10 o'clock he finally had some time to himself.
The first thing he did was take the memory card out of his camera and download the weekend's photos to his laptop. As he browsed pictures, he stopped and marveled at the pictures of April. As beautiful as the landscape was, nothing compared to her willowy, succulent figure and when he put the two together, the photographs were stunning.
Her time as a model really came through in the photographs. She knew how to move and pose to show off her lithe, luscious form, creating electrifying photographs with a hint of eroticism. He moved all of her photographs into a private folder that he kept hidden from the world. With her exhibitionism, he knew she would love for him to publish her photographs, but these were for him and him alone.
Photographing her was part of their erotic play. Showing off her naked body in front of the camera was a heady aphrodisiac for April and it got her incredibly wet. Steve knew that and as much as she loved being photographed nude, he loved capturing her elegantly, titillating form. Taking photographs of her was foreplay for both of them and yesterday with her suspended beneath the Acacia tree, had been blisteringly impassioned.
As he stared at the photographs of April, he thought back to last night. Their love making had been nothing short of spectacular and he remembered her body squirming in erotic rapture underneath him. However, right now he was daydreaming about how she never left his arms during the entire night. They started out spooning amid April wrapped tightly in his arms, with her back pressed tightly against his chest and his hands filled with her breasts. Later when he rolled to his back, she used his chest for a pillow and wrapped her legs tightly around his.
A knock on his office door startled him out of his reverie and he returned to the business of running a bottling plant. The rest of the day was nonstop meetings and interruptions, but the smile never left his face. Just before two PM he called April to check on her and found her on the way out the door to work. They spent a few moments expressing their love for each other and then each had to return to business.
At about 4 o'clock Steve began his meetings with the second shift and gave them marching orders for what to do. Everything was running smoothly so there were very little changes for second shift or third shift for that matter. Shortly afterwards he left the plant, picked up some fish and chips from their favorite restaurant had stopped by the hospital for lunch with April.
She was in the middle of a procedure and Steve had to wait for a half hour before she could get free, but then they enjoyed their dinner together. They sat at a little picnic table the staff placed outside and had their dinner. They sat side-by-side with their bodies touching at the hips. The heat of their bodies touching was comforting for both of them and they enjoyed their time together.
It was not nearly long enough and very soon, April was called back the emergency room. Steve gave her a rousing kiss goodbye and left for home. The house they had rented was not very large and contained two bedrooms and two baths at the end of the cul-de-sac. It was on a Greenbelt and afforded them a place for many hikes through the bush and biking to the stores. It was not the most upscale neighborhood, but it fit their needs.
As soon as he arrived home, Steve knew something was wrong. The front door to the house was open, as was the storage areas in their carport. He got out his phone and dialed 999 as he walked towards the front door. A glance inside the door showed that the inside had been ransacked, but a quick look inside didn't show anything missing.
Emergency operator dispatched police and within forty-five minutes the police had arrived and verified that his house had been broken into and ransacked. They didn't hold out any promise that they would ever find people that did this, but they made a report anyway. They didn't dust for fingerprints or do any forensic tests. Steve made a report that's probably all he could do.
As the police left, he went inside to do his own investigation and find out what was missing. He began cleaning everything up and putting things away. None of April's jewelry or her clothes were missing and that was probably the most expensive thing in the house. The TV and all the electronics were also still there and Steve thought that was odd. The electronics were generally the first thing stolen in a break-in.
Steve slowly and methodically went through the house picking up, cleaning up and looking for anything might be missing. Nothing seemed to be missing until he made it to their spare bedroom and storage area. All of April's storage had been picked through, but it seemed as though they were curious and not really looking for something. However, when he got to his photography area the opposite was true. His photography area had been searched very thoroughly.
Steve really preferred the color saturation and effects that he could achieve with film, but film was getting harder to come by. When they moved to Capetown Steve left all of his film cameras behind and decided to go completely digital. All of his memory cards were gone as well as his external hard drive backup. He was furious that somebody had stolen all of his photographs and he worried about photographs of April now getting out into the open.
He knew April wouldn't mind that photographs of her were now out in the open. Actually, it would give her erotic thrills that somebody was looking at her naked body. Just the thought of others looking at naked pictures of her would leave her excited and would result in more passionate nights like last night.
Steve on the other hand wanted to protect April's reputation. Back in Texas, when the henchman of April's father had taken photographs of them making love Steve had moved heaven and earth to get them back. However, once they retrieved them, they spent many hours looking at them and re-creating those erotic nights. April was so turned on by those photos that she wanted many many more.
As April's lover, friend and master it was Steve's job protect her physically, emotionally and her reputation. The photographs they had stolen were very intimate, revealing an extremely erotic in nature. He didn't want anybody else to have those photographs except for him, so now he had to get them back.
However, they were not really missing, because of Steve's habit of downloading the photographs immediately after they were taken. His laptop and camera were still out in the car and he ran out to retrieve them. Once he was satisfied, they were secure inside the house he finished cleaning up and putting things away. He really didn't want April to walk into a house still disheveled. He knew she would have a long stressful day at the hospital and didn't need more stress when she came home.
Once the house was put back in order, he sat down to contemplate what actually had gone on. The break-in of their house had all the looks of a robbery except nothing had been taken, except his photographs. He had to conclude that somewhere along the lines he had taken a photograph of something that somebody wanted or something they didn't want him to see. It could have been someone stalking April and wanting photos of her, but timing indicated that it was something recent. The only thing he could think of was the photographs he took of the elephant capture yesterday.
