An Accidental Photo Shoot

As the fasten seatbelt sign flashed on, I sat morosely in my seat. Air travel always makes me feel blue. I was a 34 year-old man, traveling alone on vacation. I was traveling alone because I had become a widower at the ghastly early age of 29. The love of my life and I had always loved to travel together. I had no children because there was always going be time for that later. My wife in particular loved flying. Planes took us to exciting new places and let us revisit favorite prior destinations. She even had earned her own pilot's license. We were saving up for a plane of our own.

Fuck that aneurysm. That goddamned bolt from the blue.

So what was I doing vacationing via plane, if planes made me so depressed?

The wheels bounced on the tarmac and my mood brightened most instantly. Because planes took you to places like Vegas, baby!

I particularly like Las Vegas as a destination. I can have a great time there just over a long weekend. I enjoy gambling and am reasonably good at it. And the city is filled with gorgeous women. I may still be pining over lost love five years gone, but that doesn't mean I don't like chasing women and occasionally catching them. I just have zero interest in ever making another partnership for life. I would always have that ugly question in the back of my mind: Whose life? But Las Vegas was particularly good at ephemeral encounters of all kinds.

I Ubered to Caesar's Palace and checked into the class of mini-suite I always reserve. The bathrooms in these rooms are just downright silly. They have an oversized shower, but even more extravagant is the double-sized jetted tub. Moreover, the back wall of the tub is frosted glass and can open up into the bedroom. I freshened up quickly and donned clean, pressed clothes.

A quick trip down the elevators and I put my usual Vegas routine in motion. I usually start with some Craps play during the afternoon. Craps is a fun, social game where you meet a lot of people. It has my favorite blend of highs and lows. And not incidentally, if you know your shit, you can play a long time before you lose all the money you have budgeted for the trip, day, or session. Breaking even is a Win in my book. If I walk away from a table with more cash than I started with, my policy is to spend it immediately.

After a few hours of fun, I move to the pool if the weather is good. Should there be an event making the "European" pool crowded, I will go over there and enjoy all the topless women, but usually, I just wander the main pools, gathering sun and meeting whomever I might.

Then I have dinner at the bar of one of the great restaurants in the city. The food's just as good, and not only do I not look lonely dining by myself, I usually can meet some strangers and have good conversations. If not, bartenders are professionally fun.

At least one night I'm in town, I take in a show, though those are pretty necessarily a lonely experience.

Then some of the best gambling takes place at night. People are drunk and excited and tired. They bet stupidly, which makes for lots of big wins we all celebrate, and infinitely more losses, which we all politely ignore.

I talk a lot about meeting 'people'. By people, I mostly mean women. I talk to lots of guys, but those are conversations that are simply background entertainment. I can't remember conversing with any guy I've met in Las Vegas more than once. But lots of women come to Las Vegas without men. Many of them come for the same kind of one-day relationship that I look for. The trick is to encounter them, identify them, make an impression on them, and enjoy them. And if I fail at any of those steps, I try again. And if I still don't succeed there are alternatives readily available....

This trip, I arrived late Thursday, and it was too late for afternoon Craps or an elegant dinner. I had a ticket to a stand-up show with one of my favorite old sit-com's stars. Beyond that, I ate at the food court and had a miserable failure of an evening at the tables. I just went to bed early to help with the time difference and to change my luck.

Friday dawned bright and sunny. I had a delicious brunch, served by a delicious-looking waitress who was sadly much too young for me. After that, I took one of my cameras out on the Strip and photographed passing pedestrians. I even did a study of the exterior of the Paris casino, which I had never shot before. I hit the craps tables around one and found myself on the corner to the stickman's left, next to a serious knockout who was also at the table solo. Miranda had a a mass of curly blonde hair surrounding a round face made up in expertly invisible fashion. She wore a light blue v-neck top. It was cut what I like to call 'Vegas deep', which is to say it was extravagantly deep while stopping just short enough to be almost plausibly appropriate. And she had a very delicious pair of tits, magnificent enough to draw every eye around. They were works of art in a perfect frame is what I'm saying.

Miranda enjoyed leaning way down to shoot the dice and the people at the other end of the table were getting a real eyeful. We chatted as the play went on and I learned a couple of things. Miranda knew almost as much about Craps as I did. And she was tilting her torso toward me when she rolled so I could enjoy the view as well. Soon we were both flirting overtly with each other.

"Hey," I said, believing the time was right, "How about we take a break? I'm in the mood for a cocktail better than we can get here at the table. Maybe at a quiet cocktail bar."

"That sounds good," smiled Miranda. Then she went on in a lower voice as we colored up our chips, "But the casino bar drinks are crazy expensive. Do you maybe have a bottle in your room?"

Of course I had a bottle in my room. This was not my first rodeo.

We had just left the table, her up $150, and me down half my budget for the afternoon, when her phone rang and she swore. She flushed in embarrassment at me as she answered the phone. "Hi honey!"

Uh oh.

I'm pretty sure that she would have gone to my room with me anyway, even though the cat was out of the bag. But nothing doing on my end. I do not fuck married women. Not if I know. I will admit that I had not made the good faith effort to find out with Miranda that I usually do because, holy shit, those tits. But once I knew, I punched out with leeringly complimentary regrets. Her husband should play less golf, because I'm sure she found somebody else that trip.

Since the weather was great, I went to the happy hour party at the topless pool with high hopes of changing my luck. Alas, it ended up being a frustrating bust. There were indeed a ton of women there. A decent number were indeed very appealing in their skimpy bikinis. But virtually all of the hotties already had a guy attached at the hip. And a depressing percentage of the best looking one's kept their tops on, too. I still saw a lovely selection of pulchritude, but it was definitely not the cornucopia of opportunity I had encountered on some previous visits.

I showered and dressed. I ate dinner without much of anyone, male or female, to talk to. I had some fun at the craps table that evening, but was flagging at the early hour of ten o'clock. The crowds at the table that night were homogenous, and I was having mediocre luck. Before eleven, I cashed out and decided I was done with gambling for the night.

But I wasn't sleepy. It had been a frustrating day in many ways, especially sexually. It was time to explore my options in the more or less sure thing category.

I slowed as I walked past the large casino bar near the lobby. I mused that I need only take a seat alone in there and have a drink or two. In short order, sex would find me. I chose to pass on that. Straight up sex for money with a moderately good-looking California divorcée who had just flown in for the weekend to rustle up the cash for her Audi payment left me cold. I'd done it in the past, of course, but I still had another whole day and night in town, and resorting to the ultimate sure thing wold have felt like giving up.

That left me with Option S: One of Las Vegas's many glittering strip bars. To be clear, this meant that I was NOT getting laid that night. Vegas clubs are full of the hottest selection of strippers I've ever seen, and 'air dance' is a dirty word within, but even in the private high roller rooms, you are not gong to get even a decent hand job. Still, I personally enjoy the hunt for the dancers who give high mileage for my money, while avoiding the strippers with overly strict personal limits.

I sat through a drink or two stage side, happily feeding dollar bills into garters or g-strings. But I was slowly growing antsy because every dancer that I fancied was already spoken for when they got off stage, and every dancer that was available was not up to my own particular tastes. I was considering moving to another club, when 'January' was called to the stage. Her tanned thighs and ass were unblemished and just exactly curvy enough. Her waist was narrow and she sported a deep, deep navel. And her breasts were enhanced to a size that would look a little bit ridiculous on a civilian, but on an exotic dancer were just perfect. She clearly had been gifted with enough natural cushioning to make those edifices look and move almost plausibly real. And her last customer had apparently left when she was called up on stage! After her set, I drew her away to a cozy chair in an out of the way corner where she sat in my lap.

After a few intermittent dances, I began to realize that not only was January hot, she was also pretty--almost beautiful. Her teeth were perfect, her eyes bright blue, and her nose strong but pert. Overall, her face looked sweetly youthful but her expression was intelligent and mature. Her visage was arresting, actually. I found myself staring just a bit more at her face than at her tits, which was weird in a place where you were expected to stare at a woman's rack, and it was also weird because her rack absolutely stunning.

I shook my head as she slid back into her little white teddy after a couple of lap dances so we could enjoy the cocktails that had just arrived. "I don't quite get it," I said to her, being both truthful and flattering. "Why are you working here? Haven't you tried modeling?"

"What kind of modeling," asked January, implying a no either way, "fashion or nude?"

"Either, frankly."

"I dunno. I guess no one has ever asked me. And I do pretty well at this," she replied, wrapping her arms around me to remind me of what she was in my lap for.

"Shit," I laughed. "I'd sure as hell pay to shoot you."

I hadn't meant anything by it, but I saw a light spark in her eyes. "Are you a photographer?" she asked with an interest that made me focus.

"Yes, and no," I replied honestly, but with the spin I wanted. "Photography is not my profession, but I require a lot of photography for my business, and I never need to hire anyone else." I paused to make her wait for it, then asked, "Why? Would you be interested in doing a photoshoot?"

"I don't know..." she replied, though I suspect she already thought her answer was going to be yes. "Nude or clothed?" she asked hesitantly.

I blushed a little at her and stroked her lovely thigh as I replied, "January, I'd probably die of remorse if I took pictures of you and they weren't nudes!"

"Wow. I don't know... That's a very different thing from dancing here with no cameras," she temporized.

After a quiet pause, we both said simultaneously, "How much?" We laughed. It was a dangerous negotiation, since neither of us had any experience with glamor photography, but we came to a price we were both happy with. We then decided we could do it the next day, right after lunch and she agreed to shoot in my hotel suite. "I'm on vacation, so I obviously don't have an assistant," I cautioned. "You'll have to do your own makeup."

January laughed and replied, "I can manage the makeup. And to your unspoken words, you seem fairly gentlemanly here, so I guess I'm prepared to trust you to behave when we are alone."

"Of course I'll behave," I laughed. "Honestly," I went on, looking into her eyes seriously, "I really am mostly a gentleman. And this will be a rare opportunity for me. I'll be too busy worrying about getting great shots, and doing four hands' worth of work with two, to be a bad boy." It was not a rare opportunity for me. It was a unique one. I have never done a photoshoot of any sort with any paid model before, much less an erotic shoot with such a fantastic subject. I knew my mind would be too occupied with planning and worrying about the whole idea to even rub one out later that night.

I was wrong about that last thing.

I shot out of bed at an ungodly early hour of the morning for Las Vegas. I had to eat an early breakfast, then be at a good photography store when they opened so I could buy a bunch of different equipment. I would need that equipment to convince January that I knew what I was doing, and to give me a half-way decent chance to produce some good shots since I definitely did NOT know what I was doing.

I got a ring flash and a remote LED fill light with several reflectors and filters to make up for the shitty lighting in my suite. It wasn't really shitty lighting, but for photography it was. I grabbed a pair of cheap, used, prime lenses in 28mm and 50mm focal lengths. I could have afforded new, but the scuffed equipment would make me look more professional. I even grabbed a tripod. I almost never use them for the candids and landscape shots I usually take, but if I wanted to try anything with natural light from the heavily tinted room windows, I would need it. All in all, I spent as much on equipment as I was going to on my model, but I figured what the hell.

I barely tasted my lunch because my anticipation was roiling my insides. I got back to the room in time to remove and hide all the packaging from my purchases. I had two cameras with me on the trip: my expensive new Sony mirrorless DSLR, and an old camcorder. I thought she might worry that I would try to video things as well, so I attached the video cam to the tripod and laid that out ostentatiously in the open, with the capped camcorder lens pointing at a wall.

I thought I was set until I realized that I smelt of nervous sweat from all my running around in the Vegas heat. I stripped and dove into the shower, scrubbing as fast as I could. I had barely stepped out when January called. She was getting out of her Lyft at the front entrance already. I gave her the room number and rushed to dress. I had forgotten to get out underwear, but I got dressed anyway. She would never know, of course, and the elevators were close both to the hotel entrance down below and to my room up on my floor. I was barely dressed and my damp hair brushed before I heard the knock on my door. At the last second before I went to open it, I remembered to grab my dirty clothes off the bathroom floor and throw them in the closet floor with the rest of my laundry.

I opened the door with an easy smile and ushered January in. I was relieved to see that she had not brought the rolling suitcase I had expected, just a huge shoulder bag. Further, she had arrived quite conservatively dressed in a nice dark suit with a moderately short skirt, dark hose, and pumps with three and a half inch heels that in Las Vegas were demure, but in a city like St. Louis would practically scream "Come Fuck Me!"

"I brought pretty much everything to wear we discussed," January said as she entered the suite. Then she stopped and exclaimed, "Hey! This is a sweet room. I've never stayed in anything like this!"

I declined to inform her how reasonable these little suites were when it was a low-occupancy weekend like that one, and instead told her how amazing she looked. "I'd really like to start shooting with what you are already wearing," I said.

"Really? I kind of thought you'd want me in one of the stripper outfits or my other lingerie."

I laughed. "All in in good time. I mean, that was my plan, but you look so damned good in what you are wearing now, I want to shoot you in it... and getting out of it."

"Oooh! Naughty man!" January cooed.

"I have a naughty subject," I cooed back. We sounded quite silly, and we laughed. I was glad to be silly since it seemed to relax her. At least that made one of us.

"I do need a model release," I told her. She complied easily, and that is how I found out her real name was Elise. I liked that name better and asked if I could call her that. She agreed.

"Okay Elise, I've decided I want to shoot today in what I'll call vignettes. I mean the pictures will progressively tell a story or little series of actions. Got it? Good. Let's start with you simply entering the room, okay? Just come through the door again and I'll walk you through things. And feel free to add your own details if you like!"

January/Elise nodded, still a little nervous. I fidgeted with the lighting, then had her step out into the hallway and come back through the door. I had her pose several ways in the doorway before letting it close. "For now Elise, I want to do this in a kind of voyeuristic style. Pretend I'm not here and never look at the camera, alright? Good. Now throw the privacy bolt. No, try again. Gentler. Again, but keep your fingers straight."

"Oh, you want my to stroke it like it's a cock?" she laughed.

"Exactly." I replied. I got several good closeup shots of her giving the throw lock a hand job, and I found I was already getting hard. I backed up and had her slip out of her jacket, arching her back as she did so to thrust out those massive puppies in profile to the camera. "Hang it up in the closet, please," I asked. It was too late when I remembered that I had tossed all my dirty laundry in the closet in a pile! Elise just laughed before returning to her quiet character.

"Move into the restroom, please," I instructed, and followed her with the camera into the spacious room. "Leave your heels on, and let's work on ways you can take off that skirt."

"I have some professional expertise in taking off my clothes," replied Elise drily. "Can I try some things?"

"By all means!" I replied, a bit more eagerly than was professional.

Elise smiled at me before looking away from the camera. She stood before the entrance to the shower, back square to the camera, with most of her weight on her left leg, her right spread out slightly to the side, She twisted her shoulders to the right and reached back to unzip the back of her skirt. She began to slip off the garment.

"That is gorgeous!" I exclaimed. "But please go slowly. Ridiculously slowly, if you were watching in real time. I want to get lots of shots."

Elise just nodded and let her skirt slip off her sweeping hips an inch or so at a time as I snapped shots. As her skirt slipped lower, it revealed a pair of beautiful black panties that were smallish but cut for everyday wear. "I thought I'd be changing before we started shooting," she apologized. "These are my regular person undies!"

"Not at all," I interrupted. "Actually, they are perfect for what we are doing with this first series of pictures." I asked her to continue. She slipped it to her waist, leaving her firm ass cocked a little toward the camera and revealing that she wore a pair of thigh-high hose that clung tightly enough to her legs to stay up without a garter belt. I had her pause there and shot a series of close-ups encompassing her ass and upper legs.

I moved back and asked her to continue. Elise bent further and stepped elegantly out of the skirt. She straightened and turned toward the camera while keeping her gaze on herself in the mirror. I had her slip the skirt right back on and try stripping out of it again several more times in different ways. None was as sexy as her first effort, but all were turning me on.