A few minutes later, as they waited for the dye to fix, they were again seated on the sofa in the lounge. Arabella's head was swathed in a plastic shower cap and covered with a multi-coloured towel. Her scalp tingled as the stuff went to work, a strong smell of chemicals, filled her nose. It felt weird sitting there, while a laboratory fumed above her. "So I was gonna tell you about the angel" Pausing for a sip, Dagmar continued, "I first saw it when some friends and me went to the old cemetery for a picnic"
"Of course we don't have cemeteries as old as the ones they have in London, I would kill to see Highgate, its where Karl Marx is planted, but its still pretty old. So we'd heard that they were going to plough it all up and wanted to go there one last time before it all disappeared. Ciggie?" As she reached for the pack of cigarettes and her lighter, Arabella could help but notice the swell of her pale left breast beneath the cut-off T. It was obvious that she was not wearing a bra. A slight thrill ran through her, which was strange as she hadn't though of women in that way before.
Dagmar leaned back and inhaled until the ember on her cigarette glowed. She parted her lips and emitted three perfectly formed smoke rings. "So there we were on a perfect spring day, with this quaint picnic basket that Klaus borrowed from his aunt, having like the best time. Great atmosphere, warm breeze, good wine and wonderful food, coz Gillian, Gareth's girlfriend is a trainee chef at one of those posh restaurants up by the lake, you'll probably meet these guys at the club tonight.
We were gothed up to the nines, I was wearing a long black gown, the other three were in more black than is normally seen at a funeral"
Arabella sipped her drink the bite of cranberry was followed by the slight burn of vodka, she thought it a good combination. "We had drunk our way through the best part of 4 bottles of wine and were way pissed even in spite of the great food we had eaten. I had gotten onto this rant about graveyards and how sexy I found them, the history, and the aura of death, that sort of thing. Heh, it seems silly now but you have to remember that we were quite squiffy by then. Klaus had brought his digital camera and he asked Gillian and me if we'd be up for doing some poses with some gravestones. Well one thing led to another and Gill and I ended up leaning against that angel, which to be honest was not standing too straight to begin with. I then got a wicked idea and after conferring with Gill we laid it out for the boys. What, I said, would they do for us if we turned the pose session into a topless shoot? I already knew what I wanted but I was damn curious to know how far I could push the guys."
Arabella leaned forward intrigued, "No way?!"
A smile was playing on Dagmar's lips. " Of course way, they're boys after all. Here I'll show you." She climbed up off the couch and went to her bookshelf. She returned with a large photo album and opened it up on the coffee table in front of Arabella.
Normally people's photo albums bored the pants off her, but this time she was pretty interested in seeing the picnic pictures.
The album was covered in purple velveteen, spiral bound with black plastic covered sleeves. "Count yourself lucky," Dagmar smiled as she settled down on the couch." I only show this album to a very select few." The first shots were of the group getting standing in front of a large black twin cab pickup truck. "That's Gareth's truck, its great for putting the fear into taxi drivers, also its got a bitchin sound system"
She pointed to a tall blonde boy, quite handsome in a Teutonic sort of way, he was wearing leather trousers and a button up black shirt." That's Klaus, I took the pic which is why it's not as good as some of the others."
Successive photos introduced Arabella to Grant a beautiful boy with waist length black hair and his girlfriend Gillian a petite girl with red hair and a snub nose, wearing a long dark green velvet dress. "I'm so envious of her skin, she's a natural redhead, and so she is genetically equipped with pale skin to die for. They've been together for ever" Photo's of the couple seemed to express an intimacy that only couples seem to have, a lack of awkwardness, the way they held each other.
Arabella felt a twinge of regret, her relationship with Tim had been passionate but all too brief, and her move to the city had put paid to any chance of reconciliation.
As the pages turned so the picnic seemed to become more bacchanalian. The picnickers looked more relaxed, and the photos seemed less conspired.
" Here's where the gravestone poses start." The camera had caught some lovely shots of Dagmar and Gillian draped over tombstones, lying on graves, imitating statues, Arabella reserved the opinion that the shoot would probably have been more successful if the girls were not so drunk. Their happy sloppy stances were in direct contrast to their solemn surroundings.
" And right here is where the photos become a lot more interesting." Dagmar said, turning the page. " In exchange for seeing some bootie the guys had to agree to get that big fuckin angel back to my place afterward"
Arabella smiled broadly as the pages revealed pictures of Dagmar and Gillian undressing each other, she noted that Dagmar was the first down to her bra, leaving her dress hanging from her hips. "Oh wow, you have a really cool tattoo!" Arabella exclaimed. A large black Celtic cross covered Dagmar's back.
"Yah, that's almost a years work there, Jimmy my tattooist stopped charging me after the 6th month, by then it had become a labour of love." In the first few pictures it was somewhat obscured by her bra strap, but there followed a few shots of her back with the bra removed. " Still doesn't do justice, here are some close-up shots" Exposed Dagmar's back was a masterpiece the paleness of her skin contrasted with the stark black of the interlaced ink work. "God that must have hurt." Arabella said. " I just got a little butterfly done and I nearly passed out."
"Yah well, fortunately I have a high pain threshold, in fact I think I got quite addicted to the needle, would you like to see my other tattoo?" Turning the page revealed some more photos of Dagmar lying on a gravestone by now she was completely nude. A short study of the sequence of photos told her a bit more about Dagmar's body modifications. She was pierced in both nipples, and belly button below, which a Celtic pattern began which ended in an arrow shape at her groin. Gillian on the other hand was only pierced in her left nipple and did not seem to have any other visible markings. She was, as the russet triangle of her pubic patch indicated, a natural redhead. Seeing her pale body against the dark stonework was the perfect contrast of softness of flesh against the roughness of stone.
Paging further she saw that Klaus had captured the girls both naked and intertwined on a grave. Several zoom shots showed that they had ceased to mug for the camera and were in fact, engaged in some serious kissing. "I guess we were drunk than we thought; it started off just as bargaining chip to get the boys to lug that silly angel. But we got so into it that we forgot about the boys and the camera."
She turned to page to display a blank sheet, "Fortunately so did Klaus, he was so distracted he forgot to take any more pics, or at least that's what he told us when he got prints made. I still have this feeling that we're gonna show up on Gothic Sluts or something"
