Sara

Not a lot of sex. Plot driven. It also has an open ending that lets you, the reader, construct your own path forward, but with your encouragement I may expand it onwards. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to a person or persons alive or dead is purely coincidental. Thanks go to S. for ideas, help and encouragement.

*****

Sara

Martin dashed to get the phone.

"Martin here" he said cheerily.

"Oh, hello. My name is Sara. I understand you photograph art." The voice was soft and feminine.

"Yes, that's right. How did you get my name?" Martin imagined the woman on the other end of the phone. Cool blonde? Sassy redhead? Guessing the appearance of callers was one of his favorite games.

"The lady at the Art Centre mentioned the quality of your work." Sara said.

"Did she?" Martin smiled to himself. As President of the local photographic society, he had arranged workshops and exhibits at the Centre. Martin had worked hard to establish good relations with the staff including donating his photographic services for the Centre's annual fundraising gala.

"I would like to have my work photographed. Currently, I have an exhibit on at the Centre. Ceramics." Mid-to-late 30s, blonde, slender, talks with her hands...

Sara arranged to meet Martin at the Art Centre the following morning.

Martin arrived 20 minutes early to check out the exhibit. If the work were lousy, he'd have ample time to invent a diplomatic exit strategy. The exhibit was a pleasant surprise.

Most of the works were about thirty inches high in the form of irregular vases with abstracted faces in matt glazes with snippets of poetry woven into the graphics. Martin concluded that the works would not be hard to photograph. He knew he could do a good job even though portraits and figurative subject matter dominated his portfolio.

He would need his lighting equipment and portrait background. The lighting setup would take about ½ hour then 15 minutes per piece. Roughly 8 hours of photographic work and 3 hours for post-production editing. He figured $50 per piece would be about right. He was, after all, a professional photographer.

Martin sat down on a bench and waited for the arrival of the cool blonde of his fantasies. He glanced at his watch...5 more minutes. He was flicking through images on his Notepad when slender south Asian woman entered the gallery.

"Martin?"

Martin looked up into dark eyes outlined in Kohl set in a face of such exotic beauty. He was momentarily struck dumb. At first glance, she looked no more than thirty-five, but as one who dealt in portraits knew she must have been in her late forties or beyond that. Maybe more than twenty years older than his thirty-two years.

"Uh, Sara?" his voice lacked its usual self-assurance.

"Am I that much of a disappointment?" her eyebrows rose in alarm.

"Not at all. I mean I thought. Well, with a name like Sara." his voice trailed off.

"Oh, of course. I changed my name to Sara after I came to Canada. Much easier to spell than Sunaina," she said.

"I'm a little surprised. I thought from your English you were Canadian."

Martin was thrown off his game by the mature, dark skinned beauty. He pitched directly into praising the work and that he'd love to photograph it. Very quickly arrangements were made for the photographic session the following Monday, the day before the exhibit was to be removed.

After offering her thanks, Sara was quite curt. "Sorry have to run. See you on Monday at nine in the morning." Sara was quite unnerved by the handsome stranger. She did not know how to handle the immediate pull he had on her, so she chose to break off and run.

Martin ran after her and pushed his card in her hand. "In case there is a problem, call me. Is there any way I can reach you?"

"The desk has my number." Sara left with Martin standing watching her gracefully disappear down the corridor. To himself he said, "Until Monday then, my sweetie" and smiled.

Sara's black hair pinned up in a bun glistened and contrasted with her dusty copper complexion. Professionally he would have described her as having a balanced and well-proportioned configuration. But her appeal was much more primal. She was a total knockout, a MILF, a Goddess.

Sara was on time for the photographic session. Martin was already there.

"My goodness. I've been thinking about you. I have to tell you that you're much younger than I expected." Martin got off on the right foot. Sara was quietly flattered and a bit scared by her own reaction to him. Such openness was something she liked about her new country. She thought he too was younger than she expected from the timbre of his deep modulated voice on the telephone, and handsome as well.

"I'm just setting up." Martin felt foolish as he stated the obvious waving at the lights and camera. "Perhaps you can help me move the pieces, one-by-one to the table in front of the backdrop."

"Of course. I'm used to moving them around. I think I'll start with this one." Sara moved to a large piece at the far end of the gallery. Martin could only watch in awe as Sara move with the grace of a dancer on her well proportioned and shapely legs. The snug designer jeans she wore showed off her well-formed butt to perfection as well as her legs. Martin thought, "I'm in love" and smiled to himself.

"Its my favourite. What do you think?"

"Great. Just great." Martin's comments were not necessarily directed at the pot in front of him.

"Before we start can we go over why you need these works photographed? Depending on the purpose I might vary my style."

"That's easy. I have been approaching galleries. I have a few snaps from my iPhone but none of the Galleries will even look at those shots. They do like my artist statement and my background though, so they have asked for professional quality shots. It's that simple."

"Got it. Excuse my curiosity. Your background. Where do you come from?"

"Bribajistan."

"Never. Your English's so good, I'd never guess." Martin was being honest.

"Oh, my schooling and university was in English. I spoke it since I was a kid."

"That explains that. On the phone I had no idea."

"So you said. Does it matter?"

Martin recognized his mistake. "No. No. Please excuse me - I'm just being nosey. My only thought was that you were Canadian, so I was thrown a bit."

This pleased Sara. She was flattered. After at just over two years in the country she was being taken as a local. Martin fussed with the lights and the camera. He took the first shot and invited Sara to see it on the back of the camera.

He could feel her warmth as they both bent over with their heads close together to squint at the small window. He reached in to magnify a small part of the shot to demonstrate the definition. Sara also noticed Martin's warmth, and smiled to herself how such a situation would likely never happen in her homeland, being so close to an unrelated man, and with no chaperone present.

Over the next hour and a half they continued on, with little conversation, until they had photographed about a third of the collection. Martin was getting fussy about the lighting and orientation of the pieces as he progressed. He was concentrating on the photography and at the same time enjoying the look of Sara as she moved around bringing and returning the pieces. Martin declared he needed a break. They adjourned to the small cafeteria for a coffee and muffin.

"So what brought you to Canada?" It was the best Martin could do.

"My husband."

"I'd noticed you were married."

"It's a bit more complicated than just following my husband here. My husband worked for an American multi-national company as the personnel director in Bribajistan He mixed with a lot of Americans and Europeans in his day-to-day work." Sara felt a need to tell her story. Explain herself to Martin. She needed to talk.

"He also comes from an educated and upper middle class family. We lived well and had two servants. We have a twenty-year-old daughter, Shamina. Anyway, he became more and more fed up with all the troubles in Bribajistan. The bombings and stuff. My Uncle who put me through University, my mother and my older brother were all killed in a bomb blast at a market. My father had died in an earlier war."

"He raged at the Taliban and the self appointed religious police. More and more he came to conclusion that religion was at the bottom of all this strife. He hated it. He thought deeply and read a lot. He then told me he did not believe in God. He was an atheist." Sara sipped he coffee and looked at Martin with tears in her eyes.

"We would occasionally talk about religion or the lack of it at home after there had been another horror. He was careful not express his views outside the home. He also became very sensitive to how I was treated as a woman and really resented the constraints placed on me. Although I have to say I noticed it less than him since I had lived with it all my life."

Sara took a bite of her muffin and continued. "The only thing we can think of was that one of the servants heard us talking and told someone. We started to get abusive letters and threats. At first we ignored them. Then as they intensified Ahmed started to tell his work friends about the incidents. We started our enquiries about going to the US, but that was so difficult we looked at Canada. We were listened to and we were placed on a list for emigration." Sara paused to catch her breath.

"Then the threats became more explicit. Ahmed's car was set alight. We had stones thrown though our windows. Someone broke into my studio and smashed most of my pots. The police did very little to protect us, except to warn us about a possible attack. We pressed the Canadian officials about speeding up the application. In one sense we were lucky. A consular official was visiting us to check something when a firebomb was thrown through our window. He arranged immediate asylum and spirited us out and over here."

Martin was mesmerized by Sara's story, and the candor with which she delivered it to him as a stranger. "That's terrible," was all he could manage. The sense of mystery and adventure surrounding Sara further increased her attraction to him.

"It's been tough in one regard. Ahmed at fifty-five could not find work in Canada. Our funds are limited and he had to find work. Eventually, he approached his old company and they offered him a good job. The problem was that it was in South Africa. We now had a dilemma. Shamira had entered University here and needs at least one of us around. So I am stuck here in Canada for the last two years with her and away from Ahmed." Sara took a sip of her coffee.

"Oh. Don't get me wrong, I love it here. I have more freedom than I have ever had in my whole life. Sitting here talking with you would be not be allowed in Bribajistan. Ahmed is so happy for me. He is a generous man. He celebrates my freedom as much as his own. So we are living apart but in constant contact by e-mail and Skype almost every day. I was mad he missed my first exhibition. I miss him, but am happy at my freedom to be me."

Martin felt a stir of arousal as he learned that Sara was not only away from her husband, she had a twinkle in her eye when she declared her freedom to be herself. He suspected that she was playing with novelty of such a concept. Martin saw opportunity and almost permission to pursue her. "Game on," he thought to himself.

Again Sara paused for coffee. "So what about you." Martin gave his background as a photographer and touched on the fact he divorced about a year previously.

Sara suddenly had a moment of panic. She had somehow thought of Martin as a talented amateur, like herself. On realizing he was professional photographer she thought about his need to be paid. Coming from a trading family she well understood the principle of paying for services. "Oh Martin, I never asked you how much the shots you are taking will cost me. What do you charge?" Sara thought to justify her mistake. "As the President of the photographic Society I just thought you..." her voice petered out, as she knew she was making things worse. She noticed Martin's face getting red.

"You do realize I'm a professional photographer," Martin said brusquely.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I just assumed the Photography Club was a group for amateurs." Sara was apologetic.

"Do you think an amateur would have equipment like this?" He held up his camera with a gigantic zoom lens at least 18 inches in length. "This lens alone cost me $8,000 second hand. A new one would be seventeen." Martin struggled to keep his cool. He was angered more with himself than Sara. Joining a group of amateurs rather than deal with the political in fighting at CAPA had been a mistake.

Martin had thrown Sara off balance. The way he looked at her. His physical presence. Realizing her mistake, she blushed in shame at her foolishness. Martin softened his confrontational stance, at the same time feeling a return of the hardening lower on his anatomy.

"It's my fault. I should have brought up fees at our initial meeting." He said ruefully. "I guess my brother's right. He says I think with my other head." Sara took a moment to process the remark. Involuntarily, she looked down at the bulge in his cargo pants. Her mouth dropped open in shock.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you" Martin said quickly lowering his camera to hide his erection. Sara laughed in spite of herself at the sight of the camera with its gigantic lens.

"I thought size wasn't everything," she said breezily.

"Hmm. Back to business." He paused to allow himself to change mental gears. "I had thought $50 per item, to cover my time and the cost of producing prints. So this morning's session would add up to about $500 plus tax. Say $600. How does that sound to you?" Martin could see the color drain from Sara. "In view of your circumstances I'm prepared to offer a fifty percent discount, so lets say $300." The colour did not return to Sara's face.

"This is so difficult and embarrassing. I cannot pay you until I have sold some pieces. With Ahmed away, and two homes to keep, and our daughter at university things are tight. I'd foolishly reckoned about $100 at the most for the whole collection. Oh dear. What have I done? Can I give you an IOU?" Martin observed Sara's distress and confusion.

Martin thought for a more than a few moments. He could really use some funds right now. He had an idea. "Sara. I think we can work something out if you can feel you can cooperate on a project I have in mind."

"What you thinking?"

"Let me blunt. You are beautiful." Sara immediately blushed offering an embarrassed denial.

"I would like to have a studio session with you to do your portrait. I usually find myself shooting old geysers and blonde blushing brides and the jocks as grooms. To do something with your coloring and configuration would be special for me providing you would allow me to show your shots to the public, usually in shows or competitions. How does that sound to you? Then when you have sold some of your pieces you can commission me to do the rest of your pots." Martin thought he could make some portraits of Sara quite saleable.

"Let me think about it, Martin. Sounds possible, but its big step for me and I'd like Ahmed's buy-in before committing to it." The truth of the matter was that the idea of being photographed professionally excited Sara. It took her back to the halcyon days when she was little and her parents had studio shots taken each year until she was ten. Her father was always taking snaps of her with his Kodak.

"OK. Let's go back to the gallery and pack up. I'll download and look at the shots and make any adjustments. You call me. If I've not heard from you within a week I'll delete the images, and we'll both write the morning off as a pleasant meeting. How does that sound?"

"Works for me." Sara was getting the local idiom perfectly.

Using Skype, Sara discussed the idea of having some portraits taken with Ahmed as soon as she got home. He was all for the idea as long as she sent some of the shots to him.

Sara phoned Martin the next evening giving her OK and to make arrangements to pick up prints of her ceramics. Martin was delighted. He discerned that she was not only keen to get the prints she was enthusiastic. He mused that maybe she was a closet exhibitionist, but it was more of a hope than a possibility. He asked Sara to bring four to six outfits with her, including at least two that she had worn in Bribajistan, if she had them.

Sara arrived pulling a wheeled suitcase. Martin showed as much nervousness as Sara. Her beauty threw him off balance. He set up the lights, cameras and the chaise longue ahead of time. After some awkward greeting conversation he ushered Sara into a room at the back of the studio where he sometimes slept. The bare room apart from a cot and a hand washbasin at least did have a full-length mirror.

Sara appeared in a shimmering red and gold sari, with gold sandals, bangles and large pendant earrings. Her hair was swept onto the top of her head in a swirl. Martin had problems getting Sara's coloring right in comparison to the bold sari. He played with the lights for some time, apologizing all the time. He persisted and got one really good shot of her back with her looking over her shoulder back to the camera. He noticed she had an affinity for the lens, as was common with good models but few other people.

"Lets try some western clothes."

Sara returned to the studio with a dark blue knee-length fitted woolen dress. It clung to her curves. Martin became energized ordering Sara into different poses. He suddenly realized that where the dress stretched over her breasts, hip and butt the outline of her white bra and panties were vaguely visible. Martin brought in a stronger light, explaining the dark color needed more light. The brighter illumination showed up Sara's underwear even more. Martin clicked away happily.

Sara's next outfit was a classic rich green sari, with all the gold accessories back on. Martin dimmed the lights and achieved some great soft shots that suggested sophistication and warmth.

The next piece was a rather boring black evening gown. Martin rushed through a dozen shots.

Sara just remained sitting after Martin had finished. "Is that it then, Sara?" Martin knew the dark blue dress shots would be good.

"I do have one more outfit. It's a bit of a joke actually. Shamina suggested I bring it, but I am not sure. It's a bit young for me I think." Martin immediately guessed she wanted to be talked into it, shedding the responsibility for being silly of something.

"Come on Sara. Don't be such a coward. I am sure your daughter will be disappointed if you don't try." Martin went on for at least two minutes in the same vein. He eventually went over to the bench took her hand and slowly edged her to the back room talking all the time. "If you don't want to do it when you get out here, I'll not take any shots. Promise. You strike me as someone with both courage and a good sense of fun, so give it a try."

Sara emerged about five minutes later. He thought she's lost her nerve. She was wearing a white cotton long sleeved blouse with a black leather mini-skirt, no stockings and patent leather four-inch high-heeled shoes. Her hair was now down and brushed. She was a knockout. Marin felt his cock stir for the first time that afternoon. "You look fantastic. You were made for that outfit. Your daughter has great taste."

Sara was hearing all the words she had hoped for, longed for. She felt free with her legs uncovered and visible. She straightened her back and felt the blouse stretch across her breasts and hardened nipples. She was a little larger in the bust than her daughter.