Copyright 1998 Del Edwards
Demure and almost dainty she danced before my eyes,
Laughing and sparkling, an unannounced surprise.
And yet she knew she was the prize,
To be used by the one who won her.
I could see it all in her eyes.
She promised an endless supply of delight
In spite of her fright
To the man who would treat her right.
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Teresa's flirting was physical or with her facial expressions. She didn't depend on double meanings or subtle suggestions in her words.
They had been acquainted for a couple of years. She was the social worker at the school where he volunteered once a week. The school administration wanted a staff person present for the after school program, so Teresa functioned as an official overseer while he taught the kids photography.
She was most of a generation younger than him and obviously took care of herself. She was trim and firm. He could see that from time to time when she wore slacks and a knit top. Often she wore clothing that concealed her fine body. It was the style of the times he supposed but he found himself objecting silently when she showed up in those baggy blouses and long skirts. He hated the gauzy look that was so in fashion with the women. And it was a little easier for him to construct fine fantasies about her when he had the right visual information. A large part of her facial expression came from her lips and the way she held her mouth. Her eyes seemed to be the punctuation marks that followed her silent statements with her expressive mouth. And there was that sheepish, 'Oh you caught me daydreaming about you' smile. It was kind of impish and that's when her eyes sparkled most.
Her physical flirting became bolder and more frequent as the year went along. It was easy for her because most of the time they were in darkroom conditions where long touches went unnoticed by students concentrating on making photographic prints. Her hand resting on top of his at the examining station where the kids brought their prints to evaluate them under a dim white light baffled from the rest of the darkroom. More than once he found the back of his hand in contact with her hip as they stood side by side at the examining station. She never moved away when he moved his hand slightly to let her know that his hand was there. Sometimes she even moved closer. Another time she moved in close to him in the dark and pressed her thigh against his knee with enough pressure and for so long that there was no doubt about the purposefulness of her behavior. His blood would run hot and he had a difficult time not answering her touches with an even more erotic touch. Sometimes she would crouch at the examining station and he would bend over her so their bodies were almost touching and he could smell her scent. Ostensively they were looking at a print one of students had made but there were invisible lines of magnetism drawing them together.
Once when he walked into her office unannounced and sat on the couch across from where she was working at her computer terminal he experienced a sudden and overwhelming excitement and desire for her. It was late summer just after school started, and he was on campus to do an inventory of supplies because the photo club program was about to start. She was wearing a blue denim prairie dress. He could see her black bra peeking from the armhole of the dress as she rocked back in her chair, extended her legs fully, pointed her toes and stretched her arms over her head. The dress draped across her body and gave full revelation of the fine figure under it. The wave crashed down on him without warning his throat swelled, his chest tightened and he was struggling with every syllable of his speech.
Another time he had a flash fantasy about sliding his hand up under her skirt and caressing the inside of her thigh as he sat in the dark taking a break. She was standing facing him within easy reach. It was just one of those sudden things that flashes through the mind. He let it continue and was now stroking her sex through her panties. They were conversing but in those little slices of time, probably microseconds, between listening to her, forming responses and speaking to her, he was fondling her crotch and distracting her from the conversation they were having at another level of consciousness... his imagination could hear the raggedness in her speech as she became more excited. He let his mind carry this fine little fantasy a step further.
She moved slowly past him to the darkest part of the chemistry classroom they had converted into a photo lab. The dim yellow safelights didn't reach into the part of the room where she was standing facing away from him. Her bending at the waist until she was doing something with her hands around her feet followed the quick gathering motion of her hands. But the light was so dim he couldn't make out any of the details. She repositioned herself just where she had been after finding her purse on the table and fussing with it for a few moments. He could sense her excitement as she moved a half step closer to him, her right leg now touching his right thigh. He continued the fantasy as his right hand again went exploring under her skirt. He gently stroked the inside of her thigh, moving ever closer to the junction of her legs where her sex was waiting. This time there was no cloth covering. He slowly worked his first two fingers up into her warm wetness and touched the neck of her womb. She let out a moan and her hips bucked. The fantasy ended abruptly when one of the students called his name, needing help with some photographic problem.
Since processing film had to be done in total darkness and wasn't nearly as exciting as making prints, each week he would collect exposed film from the kids and process it in his home lab. The following week they could begin making contact sheets and prints as soon as the lab went dark. Sometimes he gave a short talk about technique lighting, equipment handling, composition, etc. before the room went dark.
Teresa had talked about getting her camera fixed and maybe participating in the darkroom work herself since there were a couple of enlargers that were not in use. He encouraged her and even handed her a roll of film and commented, "Bring me back some good ones."
Just after Thanksgiving she handed him a roll of exposed film when the kids were turning their film in for processing. There was a psychic flash during the moment she placed the film in his hand she was looking at the film cassette and then her eyes locked onto his and there was a flicker of a smile on her lips before she looked away.
Teresa's film was one of four rolls he processed at one time. She had a single lens reflex that she pretty much left in the automatic mode. The kids were using low end point and shoots. It wasn't difficult to pick out Teresa's film from three feet away as he hung the film to dry. The exposures were correct and consistent compared to the kid's film. They were still learning the limitations of their cameras.
Later when he was cutting the dry film and putting it in sleeves he took a closer look at her film. Some shots around the house of presumably her husband and children, some action shots at a soccer game, several groups she was in some of them so he figured she used a tripod and delay timer on her camera and grab shots at a picnic in a park, then a series of six waist up shots of Teresa. She had listened well when he told the kids how window light could be a wonderful large light source and yet a directional one if they worked near the wall the window was in so the subject would be side lit.
In the first frame of the series she was in profile, facing the window. The next frame showed her turned toward the camera. There was a slight smile on her face and her left hand was touching the top button of her dark blouse. In the next frame she had turned half way back to the window and both hands were on the bottom button of her blouse. It gaped open revealing a dark bra. Her head was turned to the camera, her gaze engaging the viewer. Frame four had considerable subject blur due to movement but it was obvious she was removing her blouse. In frame five she had already unhooked her bra and had her thumbs under the shoulder straps. It still covered her small, firm breasts. In the last shot of the series her head was cocked flirtatiously and she was smiling. Her hands covered her bare breasts.
The last five frames on the roll were made at a low angle looking toward a large multi-pane window. Teresa filled the bottom half of each horizontal frame. She was completely nude, reclining on the carpet just below the big window. Her automatic camera had exposed for the bright light coming through the window so she was woefully underexposed except where the back light skimmed across the upper outline of her body. Intentional artsy or an error of technique, he wondered.
The next Tuesday he handed the sleeved negatives directly to her even though his usual practice was to drop them on the table and let each person find their own negatives. There was a bemused smile on Teresa's lips as she took the negatives from him.
"Did you make a contact sheet first like you tell the kids to do?" she asked.
He resisted the urge to tell her he wanted to contact her on the sheets and just said, "Yes."
"Make any prints?" she asked with her eyebrows raised.
"Of course. That nice little series of you standing at the window is now a screen saver on my computer. You pop up and start doing your thing when the computer is idle for more than seven minutes. And I put one of the ones of you reclining at the end of the series as sort of a punctuation mark," he told her.
"I'd like to buy the prints as a gift for my husband," she said without a trace of emotion on her face. Then she broke out laughing. "Just kidding. They're for a fascinating man that I want to intrigue, "she said, still smiling. "You keep 'em."
Now he was smiling. "Oh my, you have succeeded," he said.