"It has been a pretty good day, on the whole," Charlie thought to himself as he biked home. He hefted his rucksack and thought about the memory chip in the camera. He had been tempted to leave his bike at the bike shop with Jenny's just for the romance of it, but he was eager to get home and look at his photos with artistic and lascivious intent. He not only liked Jenny, but she was cute and sexy and gorgeous and had a great smile, not to mention other attributes, like playfulness. If only she followed through more on her hints. Well, she did plenty of hinting in those poses at the rock, and she had started the water fight that got them both soaked. And she let him kiss her. But that was it, and he was frustrated and eager. Oh well, like Bill had said, there's always next time. It was almost a week until Saturday; he could hardly wait.
His folks wanted to know all about the "hike," as they called it. So Charlie talked about hiding the bikes, finding and cleaning up the little campsite, and how much Jenny liked the pirags. He didn't mention the photography or the water fight.
His dad cocked his head. "So did you dunk her in the water or make out or anything?"
Charlie reddened a little. "Uh, no..." It wasn't quite a lie. They hadn't done those exact things.
His dad raised an eyebrow. "Son you're either a liar or a fool."
"John!" Mom scolded. "We raised him to be a gentleman!"
Dad snorted, and Charlie smiled bashfully. "Well, we held hands on the way back."
"Well, better than nothing. Jenny's a nice girl. She'd make a good catch. Just make sure she knows you're interested."
"He lets her know by being nice to her, don't you, Charlie?" Mom asked.
"Yeah, but I try to be nice to everybody. Besides, maybe I'm not interested," he grinned.
"Right. Like I said, you're—"
"John!"
Charlie retreated to his room while the retreating was good. He locked his door, got the chip, and settled in front of his computer. It was the bakery's old desktop CPU, and the monitor was a CRT, but so far it had met his humble student needs fairly well. It even had a network card so he could get onto the internet through their cable subscription. He started to insert the card and discovered the slot was too big! The computer predated the little memory chips now used in phones and cameras! He hit his head in frustration. An adapter? What time was it? Too late; the electronics store would be closed by now; it was Saturday; He'd have to wait until Monday. He threw himself on the bed and began to review the day in his mind, thinking of all the female bodies, and how good some of the shots of Jenny at the rock had looked in the viewfinder.
The viewfinder! Duh! It was small, but it was a screen. He jumped up and grabbed the camera, put the chip back in, and menued his way to the review screen. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. He scrolled through the pictures. He deleted a couple that were blurry because she had moved, but the rest of the pictures looked pretty good. He really liked that she had left the wet top clinging to her torso the whole time. It was hard to pick the sexiest, and he looked at the pictures several times each. Finally he settled on one that emphasized her breasts as she stood with her back to the stone, hands behind her head, giving the camera a knowing smile.
He grabbed his trusty old gym sock, covered his already eager member, and began to pump.
——————-
Charlie stuck his head through the dive shop door. Karen appeared to be waiting on someone in the military, so he slipped in quietly, to not interrupt.
Karen saw him and called him over. "Charlie, meet Lieutenant McGraw, an old friend, now in the coast guard."
"Call me Troy," said the good looking-man. "I'm actually looking for Rick, and just stopped here for directions. So I'll let you folks be. Thanks for the help." He gave a very informal salute, and left.
Charlie sensed that Karen wasn't telling him something, but didn't sense that there had been any messing around. He shrugged internally and held up the small memory chip.
"Okay, let's get started. I take it that's pictures you took that afternoon." Karen smiled. "Jenny?"
Charlie blushed. "Yeah. She kind of did the posing. We were checking out the south shore for good photo spots."
Karen nodded and kept a poker face. "Well let's take a look at the dive pictures, shall we? I had a little chance to look them over Sunday, and put the fuzzy ones in a discard folder, but I'll let you actually delete them." (Charlie didn't know this was a test; good photographers mercilessly delete their bad photos.)
They settled in front of the computer Charlie at the keyboard, Karen to the side. "Okay, go to the folder labeled "first." Those are all plain nature shots mostly." Charlie opened the folder and double-clicked the first photo. It opened into a slide-show-type program and they scrolled through the pictures.
"Okay, nice detail here, see? Next. Too much background. Do this," and she reached for the mouse and dragged a rectangle on the picture, then dragged the sides of the rectangle. Finally she pressed Enter to make the crop. "See? Now the fish isn't lost." They continued through the set, Karen commenting, occasionally demonstrating, but mostly making Charlie make the changes. She sat so close their legs touched, and she didn't pull away. Sometimes she put her hand on his shoulder and pointed at the screen with her far hand, causing her breast to contact his arm. Sometimes she patted his leg or back, praising a particularly good shot.
Charlie enjoyed the contact, but it made him nervous.
Together they moved a couple pics to a "final" folder. Then they moved to the next folder, shots of the snorkeling girls. "Yes. These are more, shall we say, interesting!" They scrolled through some shots. "Okay these silhouettes straight against the sun are pretty standard stuff, and these turned out pretty well. Professional looking." They looked at some more. "Nice cleavage shots here. The girls will either love them or hate them."
Charlie looked at her sideways. "I bet the guys'll all love them."
Karen laughed. "I bet you're right!" They continued through the selection, Karen making mainly suggestive comments such as "nice butt shot," "suggestive pose there," and "Crop this. Move in on her." They moved some into the final folder.
Finally they got to the folder labeled "third."
They heard the door open, and they looked up. Some guy came in, looking around. Karen jumped up to greet him. She had seen him before, but couldn't place him.
"Uh, I"m looking for a guy name of, uh, Asch Jones? Ashurbanipal, I guess."
"I know who he is, but he doesn't work here. Who might you be?"
