Open Bottom Is Best

It happened a long time ago. But I remember it as if it was yesterday.

School and I didn't get on very well. The lessons were fine. In fact, in my first two years at high school I was top of the class in English, Maths, and Chemistry. But I was bored. Bored, bored, bored. And so, at the first opportunity, I left school and signed on for a photography apprenticeship at the local newspaper, The Daily Record.

It was back in the days when the world was pretty much in black and white. I spent most of my first six months at The Daily Record in the darkroom, developing five by four cut film and 120 format rolls of HP4, and making contact proof sheets. After that, I progressed to working with the photo editor and the various photographers, making finished prints for the cliché machine.

Finally, towards the end of my first year, I was given a Rolleiflex Twin Lens Reflex camera and sent out into the world.

In all, I spent almost five years at The Record. And it was certainly a lot more exciting than school had been. But then, after a while, even life at The Daily Record began to lose its zing. 'I think I'm going to have to find something else to do,' I told Adam Carter, one of the senior photographers, when we shared a pint or two at The Crown.

'You don't want to do that,' Adam said. 'You were born to be a photographer. You have the eye of a photographer.'

'Some days,' I said. 'But some days I just get so bored.'

Adam laughed. 'Perhaps you need to photograph some other subjects,' he said. 'Something other than the Mayor opening the newly refurbished ladies' loo. Or perhaps you need to specialise. Sports perhaps. Food. Animals. Or maybe fashion. I don't know.'

And then, a few days later, just as I was leaving The Record on my way to try and get yet another interesting shot of the Mayor presenting a prize for the best-kept pensioner garden, Adam was coming the other way. 'The Crown,' he said. 'Five o'clock. I think I may have the answer to your little problem.'

As I recall, I was a bit late in getting to the pub, and by the time I got there, Adam had pretty much demolished his first pint.

I went up to the bar, got Adam a refresher, and a pint for myself.

'Lingerie,' Adam said, as I settled his drink in front of him.

'Lingerie?'

'Yes. You know. Bras. Knickers. Other frilly fripperies. I'm sure a good-looking lad like you has seen his share.' And he laughed.

It turned out that one of Adam's friends was the in-house photographer for a lingerie company. But he was about to retire. His one last chore before he swapped his camera for a fishing rod was to find his replacement. Adam thought the job would suit me down to the ground. 'You'll have to do a bit of an audition,' Adam said. 'But you can do that.'

'When?' I asked.

'When?'

'Yes. The audition.'

'Oh... that. Tomorrow afternoon. You'll need to throw a sickie. But you can do that.'

To say that I was nervous would be an understatement. I didn't doubt my ability to take a pretty decent photograph. I was just worried about being able to concentrate. I was worried about being able to keep my mind on the job, given that 'the job' was going to be photographing attractive women wearing not very much.

Adam's friend, Cameron, was very helpful. He showed me a selection of photographs that he had taken and pointed out what made each shot successful. Then he showed me a few other shots and pointed out what made them less than successful.

The model for my audition (even after all of these years, I remember her name was Jane Greening) was booked for two-thirty. When she arrived at the studio -- on the dot -- Cameron introduced me to her and then instructed her to strip off and put on one of the bathrobes.

'It takes fifteen minutes or so for the marks from the bra and knickers they've been wearing to disappear,' he told me quietly. (It wasn't something that had occurred to me.)

There was a bit of a screened off area at one end of the studio where the models could get changed. But, as I soon discovered, the girls who did the lingerie and swimwear shoots weren't that big on privacy. On that first afternoon, I'm pretty sure that Jane started to undress while she was still standing in the middle of the studio. To this day, I seem to recall that there may have been a bit of a stirring in my trousers.

From memory, we spent the best part of an hour photographing Jane in a selection of the lingerie company's latest creations. And then Cameron and I disappeared into the darkroom to see what we had. As I recall, Cameron was rather impressed. 'Adam told me you were a bit of a natural,' he said. 'He wasn't wrong.'

The following day, Cameron took me up to the third floor to meet the two brothers who owned the business. (The photographic studio was down in the basement.)

'You're a bit younger than we were expecting,' George, who was the elder of the two brothers said. 'But then I suppose we were all a bit younger once.' And he laughed. 'When can you start?'

I told him that I would have to give the newspaper a month's notice.

'Does that work?' George asked Cameron.

'We can make it work,' Cameron said. 'I can stay on for a couple of weeks to hand over the reins.'

The brothers both shook my hand, and that was pretty much that.

'Do I get paid?' I asked. 'Or is working here considered sufficient reward in itself?'

'Oh, yes,' Dennis, the other brother, said. 'I suppose we should talk about that.' And he suggested a certain sum. I can no longer recall what it was, but I do remember that it was a lot more that I was being paid at The Daily Record.

That evening, I bought Cameron and Adam several pints.

When the other photographers at The Record heard about my new job, the consensus seemed to be that I was 'a jammy bastard'.

'I need a bottle of gin if I want to get Deidre down to her knickers when I have the camera out,' Trevor said. 'And if I want to shoot the beaver, I need a box of chocolates too.'

On my first day at the new job, Cameron introduced me to Janet and Dora, the two 'house models'. 'You'll see quite a bit of Janet and Dora,' he said. 'No pun intended. Technically, they work for the design department. Dennis -- he's in charge of design -- likes to have a shot of each garment as it progresses through the stages. Nothing complicated. Just a straight forward shot on a plain cyclorama background.

'For the fancier stuff -- advertising and that sort of thing -- we generally get models from the model agency. We'll go and meet the girls at the model agency tomorrow morning. See if they have any new livestock. Although, to be honest, we tend to stick pretty much with the same five or six models.

'And then there's the Plus range. That's a bit more niche. There are a couple of girls we tend to use for the Plus range. Valerie and Ramona. Bigger girls. Valerie's also a bit older that the others. But she's easy to work with. Yes. I think you'll like Valerie. Most people seem to.'

During the couple of weeks that I spent with Cameron, learning the who, how, and where, I think we had three studio shoots -- interspersed with half a dozen mini sessions with Janet and Dora. It was certainly a lot more fun than trying to get an interesting shot of the Mayor opening the newly refurbished ladies' loo. And I was surprised -- and, in some ways, a little disappointed -- by how quickly I got used to having half-naked women around the studio.

At the beginning of my first week without Cameron, I got a request from one of the sales managers for a couple of shots of garments from the Plus Collection. 'It would be good if you could use Valerie,' the sales manager said. 'The customers seem to like her.'

I looked up Valerie's number and gave her a call.

Most of the models seemed to be in their early twenties. Valerie was probably in her mid thirties. And she was definitely a few sizes up from the other girls. In fact she was verging on BBW. But she was very attractive -- in a big girl kind of way.

'So... what do we have today?' she asked when she arrived at the studio.

'A corselette,' I said. 'Is that OK?'

'Oh, yes,' she said. 'I like a nice corselette.'

'It's a bit... well... engineered,' I said.

'I think that's the point of them, isn't it?' she said. 'Open bottom?'

To be honest, I hadn't really studied it. But, in order to answer Valerie's question, I did give it a more careful inspection. 'Umm... no,' I said. 'It has... well... fasteners. If you know what I mean. In the crotch area.'

Valerie seemed just a tad disappointed. 'Oh well. Never mind. Personally, I prefer an open bottom. But it's only a photograph, isn't it? Let me go and get undressed.'

Valerie went off in the direction of the screened-off dressing area, stripping off as she went. And then she returned wearing just a bathrobe that was a couple of sizes too small for her.

'Coffee?' I suggested.

'Perfect,' she said.

I made a couple of cups of instant coffee, and we sat and chatted while we waited for the marks from the bra and knickers Valerie had been wearing to fade. In the course of our chat, I discovered that modelling was just one of Valerie's side hustles. Her main source of income was translating to and from German. Mainly for book publishers.

'German?'

'Mainly,' she told me. 'And the occasional bit of Dutch and Danish.' She explained that her husband -- who was an architect -- was German. 'It's quite useful being able to keep my hand in,' she said. 'On Tuesdays, we only speak German at home.'

'Why Tuesdays?' I asked.

'I have no idea,' she said. And she laughed.

And then it was time for her to go and climb into the corselette. 'I might need your help,' she called out from behind the dressing screen. 'This is a bit tricky.'

I suggested that perhaps I should get one of the girls from the design department to come and lend a hand.

'I think you'll manage,' she said emerging, half-dressed, with a broad smile. 'I just need a hand with some of these fastenings. Some of them are a bit tricky. I know corselettes are supposed to be snug, but there's snug and there's snug.'

I did manage. Albeit somewhat nervously. And the shoot went very well. Valerie looked as sexy as fuck.

First thing the following morning, the sales manager who had requested the corselette shots came down to the studio and asked when I was going to be doing the shoot.

'Done,' I told her. 'Yesterday. I'm just about to run some proof sheets and bring them up to you.'

'Oh dear,' she said.

'Oh? Problem?'

'The customer has just phoned to see if we can also supply a few shots of the open bottom girdle. Style seven three six. Just the girdle. Just from the waist down.'

'Umm... gosh. Let me phone Valerie,' I said. 'Given that it's bottom only, we could use someone else, but Valerie is easy to work with.'

I phoned Valerie and, after a moment or two's hesitation, she said that she could reorganise her afternoon. 'But I'd like to try to get away at a reasonable hour. It's Gerhard's birthday.'

'Gerhard?'

'My husband,' Valerie said.

I told her that it was just one garment and it shouldn't take more than half an hour or so.

Valerie arrived shortly after two and was delighted to see that the 'one garment' was a fairly plain white open bottom girdle. 'I do like an open bottom girdle,' she said. 'And so does Gerhard.'

'I suppose you'll need to wear a pair of plain white knickers,' I told her. 'Just to... well... you know.'

'Oh? Really?' she said. 'You're no fun. What about meine Fotze?'

'Meine Fotze?'

'My cunt,' she said. 'I thought that was the whole point of an open bottom girdle.'

There was a lot to like about Valerie.

'Oh well... at least I won't need to wear anything on my top,' she said.

We did the shoot with Valerie wearing white knickers to cover the corset's opening. But she didn't wear anything on her top half. Even with the knickers on, she looked as sexy as fuck. My hands were shaking so much that I was worried that the pix would be out of focus.

When we had finished the shoot, Valerie went and stood in front of the full-length dressing mirror for a minute or so. And then she removed the knickers and looked at herself again. 'Yes. Much better,' she said. And then she asked me if I would take a few 'snaps' of her wearing just the open bottom girdle.

'Just the girdle?'

'Yes. Without the knickers. It's Gerhard's birthday. A couple of snaps of me wearing just the open bottom girdle would make a great birthday present. I'll pay you.'

I thought about it for a moment or two. She was right. She did look great in just the open bottom girdle. 'OK,' I said. 'Come on then. And you don't need to pay me. The brothers are already paying me.'

We took half a dozen shots. And she did look fabulous.

'Are you going to be home this evening?' I asked.

'I am. I have some champagne on ice,' she said.

'Then give me your address. I'll make a couple of blow-up prints and drop them around this evening. May as well catch the birthday boy while it's still his birthday.'

Gerhard was thrilled with his present. (And why wouldn't he be?)

He poured me a glass of champagne.

'Happy birthday,' I said.

'Almost happier than I can be believing,' he said as he studied the prints of his girdle-clad wife for the umpteenth time.

And then Valerie -- who had slipped away somewhere while we were talking -- reappeared. She was wearing an open bottom girdle. That's all. No knickers. No bra. Not even any stockings. Gerhard slipped the fingers of his right hand under the open front edge of the corset and into her Fotze (that's cunt to you and me).

'Oh yes,' Valerie said.

'Valerie is liking being fucked in the girdle with the open bottom,' Gerhard said. 'And she is liking you. Would you be liking to be doing the honours?'

'It's your birthday,' I reminded him.

He laughed. 'But that does not mean you cannot be helping the celebrating.'