I long had a deep fascination with classic photography of the female nude. This was an interest beyond the prurient; of course I adored women, and I loved making love to them. I simply believed that the female nude was a miracle of nature-- and that the ability to capture that miracle through photography was an almost mystical act.
I had one of the largest, personal collections of books on the classic female nude: a photographer friend once offered me a sizable sum for it. It was clearly another miracle that I met my future wife-- second so far-- at her book signing for "The Art of the Nude Model."
Her groundbreaking work delved into the personal lives of the models who posed for some of the world's most famous paintings. When I told her about my own collection, she thought (as she told me later), that I was "some kind of charming nutball"-- until I offered to open up my antiquarian bookshop for her at 11 pm.
My first photograph of her has that raven-haired beauty nude, in low light, seated on the floor of my shop, surrounded by piles of books on art history. She had confided in me that that was her fantasy: to be nude and lost in books on art and I said "why not?"
I took a chance and left her with her clothes on. I went upstairs to my small apartment and grabbed a camera. When I came downstairs, she told me she was ready before I saw her. The only lights were from the street. I only got a few shots in that light when she stood up stark naked and came to me and said something like "oh fuck" and that was that. We both can still, to this day, pick out the very spot on that worn old rug where we first made love.
She had a house out in the country, at the edge of what she called her enchanted wood. Once I moved my precious items (and only some of my books) out of my cramped city apartment into her space-- now our space-- she led me to her "faerie circle."
One had to carefully climb over a boulder, then there was a surprisingly short trail into a tranquil wooded area. The trail ended and emerged into a grassy spot surrounded by tall trees... I saw the faerie circle resemblance immediately.
We waited there on Midsummer's Eve for the faeries to appear. When they didn't, we at least did our best to sanctify the place with some warm lovemaking. We soon discovered it was best to-- in certain months-- prepare one's naked body with a coating of anti-bug lotion before venturing out without any clothes on.
I soon turned her walkout basement into my own amateur photography studio. After a few exotic and explicit nudes of her, that I swore to never share, I brought up my dream: I as an amateur would take the very first nude photos of amateur models of all ages. As a book dealer, I had contacts in the publishing world as well as my accomplished photographer friend to assist.
She was silent for so long that I was concerned that she disapproved. Then she told me of her own, latest dream project. As a professor of art history at a small private college, she was gathering stories from her female students about their own experiences posing nude-- possibly for a new book or at the very least for a magazine article. Many of them were taking her course because of their own fascination with the subject. Some of the braver young ladies were already posing nude for the college's art classes, in which they were actually paid a small stipend for their modeling time. Others had even more titillating nude tales to tell.
We looked at each other and we said "Kismet!" at about the same time. We would combine our two projects: Ashley would cautiously sound out her students and bring up the possibility of one or more of them posing nude for the first time for me.
To maintain some sense of propriety, the prospective models would only pose after the semester was safely over and their papers were all graded.
I hate to give the impression that we constantly celebrated important moments in our life by making love, but that's exactly what we did-- then and there, on the rug in my photography studio. I know it was the thought of me coaxing some shy young ladies out of their clothes and photographing them nude that got me started, but things ended well. Although we did our best to clean things up, I at least can still see a tiny and apparently permanent stain left behind from our very wet spot.
The months went by; we got married; we went through our first winter together; and I shoveled snow for the first time in fifteen years. Then one day she came home looking all breathless and flushed. It was mid-May, near the end of the semester.
"I got one!" she blurted out as she sat down in her kitchen chair.
I stopped stirring whatever it was that I was attempting to cook. I had a much-splattered copy of 'Cooking for the Clueless Male' on the countertop. "You what?" I asked.
"That didn't sound right," she admitted. She got up and found an open bottle of wine and poured herself a glass.
"Red?" I questioned: she was usually a white wine drinker.
"Oh yes," she replied. "It's definitely a red wine evening."
Finally fortified, she explained that she had found a female student who never posed nude before-- or for that matter, had never posed for anybody before. Ashley wanted to talk to me first before making the arrangements... which still didn't explain why she was so flustered.
"Talking to her about it, her posing in the nude, imagining her blushing even hotter as she shyly exposes her body for the first time, for you, for us..." she took more than a sip of wine. "I was probably as aroused then-- as aroused as you are now. And I don't remember ever feeling that way before."
I put the pot on simmer and sat down next to her, trying to think of what to say. "Do you 'like her like her'," I asked.
"What-- are we in high school now?" But then I could see her actually thinking about it. "Yeah," she sighed. "That blushing little brunette really turned me on!"
There wasn't much more to say after that. We finished dinner mostly in silence. Then she took my hand:
