This story is based on a real opportunity I was presented in university, but I chose to take a pass because I was afraid what might happen. All characters at 19 years or older. The age of majority is 19 in Canada, so it would all be legal, theoretically. Feel free to comment.
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Mike and Dan had been going to the same university together for three years. Dan wouldn't say Mike was a close a friend, but they moved in the same social circles, and shared a few classes. They had entered a couple case competitions as a team, put on by the business school. They had done very well, coming in as runners-up in one. As much as Dan enjoyed occasionally hanging out with him, Mike had some behaviors that kept Dan from trying to get closer.
Dan considered Mike a bit of ladies' man, and had witnessed him putting his moves on several different young women, all the while having a steady girlfriend. Dan found this infuriating on a couple of levels. He struggled to meet the right girls, and get anything going. Mike girlfriend was very sweet, and he was cheating on her with these other women!
Dan was an amateur photographer. He had a job with the student newspaper and yearbook teams, taking pictures of campus life. He became fairly well know for always having a camera with him to capture the "goings ons" around the campus. It was his official hobby, and he was getting pretty good at various aspects of it. He had recently added studio portraits. Dan knew a couple of pros and they would lend him their lights for setups, on occasion.
One day at university, Dan was eating lunch in the student union when Mike's girlfriend, Brenda sat down at his table. He had known Brenda since she had started dating Mike a couple of years ago. He usually shied away from talking with her because he disapproved of the way Mike cheated on her, and he was always tempted to spill the beans.
"Hi Dan, how's your day?" asked Brenda.
"It's ok," he replied as he flipped through negatives he had recently developed.
"New pics?"
"Yeah, from the basketball game on Tuesday night."
"I didn't hear. Did we win?" she asked.
"We did, but it was close. Came right down to the buzzer. I think I got a couple of good shots, too."
Dan continued to examine the negatives. In his peripheral vision, he noticed Brenda was looking around, and if to make sure they had some privacy.
"Dan, can I ask you for a favor?" said Brenda.
"I don't know, I'm fresh out of cash," he replied with a smirk.
"Ha! That's not it," she said, then continued. "Mike has joined the Army Reserves. Did you know?"
Dan shook his head no.
"Well, he is going to be off training all of July and most of August. He doesn't even think he will get enough time off to travel home all summer. We've never been apart that long and I'm worried about our relationship. So I was thinking of something I could do for him, well, for us, I guess. Could you do some photos of me for him? You know something he could look at while he's away."
Dan considered the request. He felt like he was getting the hang of the portrait thing and was ready to take it up a notch. There were some concerns around getting his hands on the lights and such, but if the timing wasn't immediate, he could probably arrange something.
"I can do some photos, sure. Do you mind if I do the studio-thing? With lights and stuff? I've been thinking about working with a serious subject, recently. I've mostly just been experimenting, but I think I'm ready to do something of consequence now."
Brenda's face lit up in a smile, and she clapped her hands together.
"Yes, yes, that's exactly what I want. Something indoors, that looks professional."
"Well, I don't know about professional, but I should get some pretty good shots worth printing, if I take enough photos," he offered.
"Great! When can we do it?" asked Brenda.
"Probably not for a couple of weeks. I need to borrow some gear, and find a place," he said.
"We can use my place. Both of my roommates work after school most days, and Mike never comes around until later in the evening."
"Ah, Ok, maybe," he said cautiously. "I'd need to see the place first before deciding. I need a certain amount of space, and the right decor for it to work. Maybe I can stop by and look at it next week?"
"Are you busy on Saturday?" asked Brenda? "I'll be alone for a couple of hours after lunch. You could stop by. If you don't like it, you would have more time to find somewhere else."
"Saturday can work for me. What time?"
"Any time between two and four o'clock," she replied.
Dan showed up at Brenda's apartment around 2:15 on Saturday. Her and her roommates lived in one side of a duplex house near downtown. Brenda met Dan at the door and welcomed him in. As they walked around the place, it quickly became clear that lights were going to be essential. The house did not have many large windows. Those that it had seemed to be partially blocked by trees on the property that were filling in with new leaves. The afternoon sun was casting shadows across the windows.
The interior lights were pretty feeble, too. They were all yellow, incandescent lights, anyway. They could create a certain atmosphere, but these were not going to work for what he was thinking about.
The living room was an odd shape: it was long and narrow with a sofa on one wall and window at the end, adjacent to the front entrance. There wasn't a decent angle that presented a flat background.
Dan told Brenda what he was seeing as he walked around. She tried to make suggestions as how it might work. He considered everything she said, but dismissed each suggestion, one after the other. Dan had a feeling she really wanted to make it work here, even though he had mentioned he had some other places in mind. He wanted to accommodate her, but it wasn't looking ver promising.
"What about your bedroom?" he asked.
She paused thinking, then said, "maybe... you might have to move some things, though."
She took Dan down the hall to the last door and opened it, entering her room. When Dan walked through the door and looked around, the first thing his eyes fell on was a laundry basket of clean clothes. On top was a lace bra and matching sheer lace panties. Dan quickly looked away so as not to draw attention to them.
The head of her bed was against one wall. It was a princess bed with sheer curtains hanging from the four high posts. It looked to be a double, or a queen. That had potential. She also had a night stand, desk and a large dresser.
"What do you think? I have the biggest bedroom" said Brenda.
Dan considered the desk briefly, but decided he could not use it. It was one of those cheap pressboard things that never survived a move without falling apart. That left the bed.
"The bed might work, if you're comfortable working from it. I would need to move some furniture. I want to take out the desk and chair, for sure, and then move the dresser against this wall by the door. That would give me room around the bed to setup the lights and still move freely."
"Do you want to do some test shots?" she asked.
Dan had brought his camera for that very reason.
"If you are game to take some now, sure. You can wear what you have on."
