The email message with the JPEG attachment was addressed only to me, not to Yvonne's usual list of joke and story recipients, not to my wife and me, just to me alone. That was a little unusual. The message was a bit cryptic: "Can you enhance some of the features you find attractive?"
Well, the file had passed through the virus check and intrusion detector, so I decided to open it. When opened, the file revealed Yvonne in a beautiful, full-length evening gown. It was not at all revealing, but it still aroused me. I find women dressed in evening gowns are frequently more sexy that women wearing next to nothing. Yvonne's photo was no exception.
I am a professional photographer. I do technical photography, mostly for industrial trade journals. For today's publications, digital editing is an important skill for a good photographer. Nearly all photographs taken for publication can benefit from enhancement. Sometimes it's done by taking out unwanted reflections, sometimes by removing or fuzzing distracting backgrounds, and sometimes by just improving the brightness or contrast or color balance. I have never done glamour photography or editing, but one or two ladies I know have sent photos asking me to jazz them up for their boyfriends and husbands.
But Yvonne's request didn't specifically tell me what she wanted done. Because she is a good friend whom I didn't want to risk offending or embarrassing, I decided to ask her for a little more guidance.
Her emailed response was little help: "Use your imagination!"
Well, that certainly cleared up nothing.
My first effort was simple and modest. I gave her a slightly narrower waist that accentuated her nicely rounded breasts. Narrowing her waist made them appear to protrude more. Then I inserted a narrow but obvious slit up the side of her left leg. It was nothing too risquΓ©, just a little thigh. I figured she might even object to that, so I emailed the edited picture back to her.
Her reply: "Show more skin...a lot more!"
My reply: "How much more?"
Her reply: "Enough to make a man want to fuck me silly!"
Okay. A little background about Yvonne might help explain why she would make such a request from me.
My wife, Denise, and I got to know Yvonne and her husband, Dave, in community theatre in Portland. That was almost ten years ago. Both Yvonne and Dave were actors. Yvonne is also a talented dancer and choreographer. In some community theatres, the actors have egos that would make one think they were stars on Broadway rather than in the converted grocery store that served as our playhouse. Fortunately, everyone got along well in our group whether they were cast or crew.
Because we were all so close, it shocked us when Yvonne and Dave separated and then divorced. Part of the problem was that Yvonne had a very high-paying job that required her to travel frequently and be gone for weeks at a time. My wife blamed Yvonne for the divorce and began to avoid any contact with her. I knew that both Dave and Yvonne shared the responsibility for their break-up. We continued to see Dave and Yvonne socially, though separately. Denise did not disguise her desire to avoid Yvonne entirely. I felt that we should support them both but not favor one over the other.
Though my wife is younger than Yvonne and is very attractive, I think she was somewhat jealous of Yvonne. Maybe jealous is too strong. She may have just been a little envious. Yvonne is better educated, well-traveled, and very outgoing. She is 44 years old, but her years of disciplined dance training have kept her body in excellent condition. Her legs are clearly dancer's legs, beautifully tapered and smoothly muscular, and they make her appear taller than her 5'-06".
I continued to correspond via email with both Dave and Yvonne. Denise knew about the email contact, but she had little interest in email or even in the computer for that matter. In time, Dave's correspondence dropped off as well.
About two years after Dave and Yvonne's divorce, Denise and I left Portland and moved to Chicago. I continued my occasional email correspondence with Yvonne. Our exchanges were nearly always little more than the usual internet jokes and stories. Gradually, though, I noticed that Yvonne's stories were getting rather racy, sometimes sexually explicit. I thought little of it since there were always multiple addressees on her emails. I was just another one of them. Several times each year I would travel back to Portland on business, and if either Dave or Yvonne were available, I'd get together with one of them for dinner.
So receiving Yvonne's request, though a little unusual, was not exactly shocking or startling. I assumed she had a boyfriend or girlfriend whom she was trying to impress, and she trusted me a digitally manipulate her very lovely body.
I decided that my best approach would be to prepare not just one but a series of altered images, each one showing a little more of Yvonne and a little less of the dress. Call it a digital strip tease. Then she could pick the one she liked the best. Since I had never seen Yvonne in anything more revealing than tight jeans or a dress, I had to speculate on what was hidden beneath her clothes.
The first photo in the series was the one she had originally sent. Each successive photo digitally removed more and more of the dress. After twelve hours of very careful and painstaking editing, Yvonne was completely naked and exposed. I must admit being both proud and aroused by my own digital handiwork. I had tried to digitally enhance, and in some ways recreate, what I thought to be Yvonne's natural beauty.
Yes, I took creative liberties with her physical features. They were driven by my sexual fantasies of Yvonne and me together. Hey, since she wasn't paying me, I figured that I was entitled! And that's exactly what I told her in the message that accompanied the edited photo attachments. If nothing else, I thought she'd probably get a laugh out of that.
I received no messages from Yvonne for nearly two weeks. That didn't surprise me, though, because of her travel schedule. When her messages resumed, they said nothing about the photos, so I asked if she had received them. Her next message said she had, but she made no comment. No "Thank you," no "Go to hell,"nothing. I concluded that I may have angered her by going a wee bit too far in removing all her clothing. Yet, her email messages with jokes and stories continued.
About two months after sending the photos, I needed to travel back to Portland for a business meeting. I mentioned this in an email to Yvonne. She responded by suggesting we get together for dinner. By that time I had forgotten about her photo spread.
After completing my business in Portland, I called Yvonne. We made small talk on the phone, and then she asked if I would be available to join her for dinner. I gratefully accepted. She said to call for her at 5:30 p.m. the following night. We would have a cocktail and then go to dinner.
Promptly at 5:30 I rang her doorbell. She answered, dressed in a long sleeve shirt and blue jeans. After giving me a friendly hug in the doorway, she invited me in. She explained that she was running a bit behind. She pointed me toward the breakfast bar between the kitchen and dining room and said to fix myself a drink while she got dressed. I poured myself a glass of wine and then began to admire her growing library. I was so engrossed that I didn't hear her come back downstairs.
"Are you ready?" I heard her voice behind me ask.
I turned...and almost dropped my glass of wine.