Over the next year, he would take me to my limits and coax me past them. And I loved it. Hell, I ADORED it. I was in love. I was crazy, stupid, head over heels in love.
Oh, I knew there was a cold streak in him. He would take me to bars and clubs where he was well known, introduce me around, and treat me like a princess. But when I was asked to dance, he would accuse me of "flirting" when we got home and I'd get one of those spankings.
The truly frightening thing was, I enjoyed them. That release, that amazing orgasm, made it worth it.
He was building a professional photographer's kit as well, all on my credit card. It wasn't just the $900 pocket camera or the $2,500 studio camera. It was the $150 light stand and the $3,500 MacBook Pro.
But it was worth it.
Almost every weekend he would take me out, "on location" as he called it, and take my picture. At the beach, he had me in a string bikini, something I had never considered before I met him, and the camera would click hundreds of times as he directed me. In the woods, he had me in ridiculously short Daisy Duke cutoffs and a halter. At a road construction site, I started in jeans and a flannel shirt before ending up in only a hard hat behind the wheel of some monstrous machine, I think he called it a front-end loader. In each case, I was naked by the end and so damn excited I'd beg him to make love to me then and there. Sometimes he even said "yes."
I realized, I suppose, how isolated he had me. I felt like Carrie Bradshaw from
Sex in the City
when she and the Russian were living in Paris. I hadn't been out with the girls in months although Tricia or Pam would call sometimes.
And I knew, when I bothered to think about it, that I was being manipulated.
I knew all of those things, and I just didn't care. I loved when he took me out wearing things that should have left me embarrassed and humiliated but, instead, made me proud. He wanted to be seen with me in something that emphasized the size of my hips and ass and the lack of size of my boobs, and I wanted to please him.
"Come in here," he called one evening after dinner. Tonight he had me completely covered from the waist up. I was in my long-line, front zip bra and a brightly patterned long-sleeve blouse. From the waist down I was naked.
I went into the bedroom that had been converted over time into his studio and found him sitting at his fancy MacBook Pro.
"Come here," he said, crooking his finger, beckoning. So I went, putting my hands on his shoulders, bending forward a little to see what was on the screen.
My knees got a little rubbery and I had that almost dizzying rush deep in my belly as my adrenal glands squeezed about a quart of adrenaline into my bloodstream and the whole fight-or-flight system kicked in.
I was looking at me.
Oh, he had done as he promised. In each pose, my face was turned away or just cropped out, but those were my titties and that was most definitely my ass. I have a birthmark low on my belly, between my
mons
and the hollow of my hip, and it was clearly on display. And a girl always recognizes her own tits, especially girls like me who had spent a good bit of their mirror time looking at them and wishing they'd grow.
"Well," he said, turning his head to look up at me, "do these meet your approval?"
"Oh, God," I sort of moaned.
He chuckled at that. "Good oh God, or bad oh God?" he asked.
"You are such a good photographer," I said, "you even make me look good."
"Ahhhhhhh, my ugly duckling again," he said and I thought there was a hint of anger in his voice.
"But yes," I hastened to add, "they meet my approval."
He grinned, moved his mouse until the little arrow covered the button labeled "send" and clicked.
"Well, Kerrie," he said, "you're posted."
The
non sequitur
distracted me.
"Kerrie?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, grinning, "I thought that would be a good porn name for you."
"Porn name?" I asked. Okay, I wasn't at my best but, well, there was a lot going on in my head right then.
And, again, I was stopped for a few seconds.
"Ummmm," I said, "Buttercup."
"And what street did you grow up on?" he asked.
"Ummmmm," I said, feeling dumb, "Krameria."
"See, your normal porn name would be Buttercup Krameria," he said, chuckling, "now, isn't Kerrie better?"
And it all came together and I started laughing.
Okay, I was a couple of beers and some pretty good pot into the night, but this was pretty out of control. The thinking part of me recognized that I might be a little hysterical, but the slightly drunk and pretty high part of me thought it was just plain funny.
I wouldn't be able to say no to anything and, on some level, I was proud that he thought men would like looking at me.
"One more thing," he said and I knew this was one of those Colombo moments and he had something, well, "interesting" in mind.
"You know what they say," he said, his hand patting my ass gently, "if you want it, put a ring on it."
"Oh God," I thought, "he's going to propose."
"Well," he said, "I want it."
He opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a small box. Well, a small box but too big to be a ring box.
He grinned and opened the box, Inside were two rings and a tiny padlock. Every girl recognized the rings. They were plain, self-piercing hoops, small, maybe a half-inch in diameter. The padlock was tiny, something that might be found on a jewelry box. Smaller than something from a suitcase.