The Roving Photographer
"I don't understand your feeling that Margeaux wasn't using you to live out a cuckold fantasy," Dr. Robins said. "If she was actively working to get other women to have sex with you, that seems like something a cuckold would do."
Jon had never thought of Margeaux that way. "It seemed to me that she was telling the truth when she said she wanted me to be happy. I believed it when she said she wasn't the jealous type. As time went by, I got to learn more about her relationship with her girlfriend, and they had a real emotional bond. If she wanted to keep her girlfriend, she felt she had to let me have girlfriends, too."
Dr. Robins still thought it was very unusual that two college-age people had the kind of relationship Jon described. Was he telling the truth? She thought he seemed like a sensible person who knew it made no sense to lie to your therapist. "So you're convinced she didn't have any other agenda?"
"Oh, she definitely had another agenda," Jon said. "She just loved the whole idea of being a celebrity. She was constantly doing things that called attention to us as campus personalities. I think she imagined that people in Hollywood had open relationships, so she wanted us to be seen as being like that.
"Besides, most of the times I slept with other women it happened because of a project Margeaux started for reasons that had nothing to do with sex."
"I'm dying to hear about that," Dr. Robins said.
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Jon wasn't surprised to learn that Margeaux was very active on social media, but he hadn't realized that she was making a significant income. Margeaux had a video podcast that focused on hair, makeup, and all things girly. It was good, and she had a lot of followers. She demonstrated lots of products which she sold on her website. Cosmetics companies sent her samples of new items they hoped she'd promote, and they paid when she did it. She had a presence on all the major platforms, and her audience grew steadily.
It was obvious why. She was good. Margeaux seemed to know everything about her subject, and she expressed herself as well in text as she did in video. One day she let Jon watch as she made her podcast, and he was impressed. She tried to be professional, and she succeeded. Mainly.
Margeaux knew all about cosmetics, but she didn't know much about photography. Jon wasn't a professional, but he'd attended photo workshops and had worked hard.. He understood the fundamentals of lighting, shutter speeds, depth-of-field, composition, and many other technical issues that an average person like Margeaux knew nothing about.
He pointed out clutter in the background of her podcast, demonstrating how much better it looked if she removed a few distracting items hanging on her wall. The light was coming from the wrong direction, and when Jon fixed it Margeaux's complexion looked much better. She was shooting her pictures and video with her cellphone camera, which had an autofocus feature that focused on the wall behind her. This left the subject of the image - Margeaux's face - slightly out of focus. He showed her how to fix that. Jon also suggested that she use his camera, which was of much higher quality. He moved the camera closer so Margeaux's face filled more of the frame. With all these improvements, the results were much better.
"Wow. Jon, you really know a lot about photography," Margeaux said.
"I'm OK for an amateur," he said.
Margeaux realized Jon could probably solve a problem for her. The website where she sold products looked amateurish. The main image on the first page was a simple selfie of Margeaux. It was a nice selfie. She'd taken time to apply a nice filter that made her look like a model. But it was too plain. She'd had an idea for something better, but she hadn't been able to take the picture alone.
Margeaux wanted one of those pictures that showed her nude, but had her body in a position with her arms and legs blocking the view of intimate areas. It's a very common type of illustration, and Margeaux had used the self-timer on her cellphone to try to take one, but she couldn't get it right. Could Jon try?
He had her sit in her desk chair and wrap her arms and legs around into a posture that showed she was nude, but still concealed her private areas. The resulting images were far better than anything Margeaux had imagined. She was thrilled.
But Jon thought they could do better.
"Let me make a suggestion," he said. Jon had Margeaux lay on her bed. She laid on her belly, rose up on her elbows, and crossed her arms in a way that let the camera see the tops of her breasts, but not her nipples. She bent her legs at the knees and crossed them at her ankles. Jon took the photo from a low angle so her head and face blocked the view of the crack of her butt. It showed a lot of skin, but was still G rated.
"I like this better because the picture is horizontal," Jon said. "A computer screen is horizontal. The best web pages use horizontal images."
"Jon, this is wonderful," Margeaux said.
"Well, it's an improvement," Jon said. "But we could do better. If we want to do this right, we should shoot these pictures in a studio. We could use a plain black background and set up perfect lighting. I'm sure we could find one in town that we could rent for a couple of hours."
It was Margeaux's turn to have a better idea. "The School of Art has a photo studio that students use," she said, explaining that art majors take pictures of their projects in the studio, and that fashion design majors shoot models dressed in their creations. "I can reserve that place any time you want," she said.
By the time they actually got into the studio, Margeaux had thought of several projects she wanted Jon to shoot. She had him take pictures for her web businesses, but she also had him take pictures of her wearing some of her best clothes. Margeaux knew that real models have portfolios that show them wearing everything from formal wear and lingerie to athletic apparel and swimsuits. As she posed for Jon, he realized that she'd been standing in front of mirrors and pretending to be a model since she was a little girl. She knew exactly how to position herself for the camera. It was remarkable. Shooting Margeaux in a real studio made it obvious that her ambition to be a model was not some impractical dream.
"While we're here, there's one other kind of picture I'd like you to take," she said.