The forecast called for scattered afternoon thunderstorms, some possibly severe, and included a flash flood watch for several counties. Faren heard the loud severe weather notification from her phone on the nightstand, and her heart sped up as she knew things would soon start happening. She had known today would be active and spent the last few days preparing. Making sure she had her room key, she grabbed her phone and stepped out past her car to the middle of the gravel parking lot. The sky was darkening to the west and she could just barely see the leading edge of the giant ufo-shaped cloud that indicated a developing supercell.
Faren had been a professional photographer for the last five years. It started as a hobby when she was 12. She loved thunderstorms and used to position herself in the family garage and take photos of them with her first camera. That beginning led to a growing passion for all things photography, and every type of photo subject under the sun. She went to college on an academic scholarship, and majored in meteorology with a minor in photo journalism.
One stormy Sunday during her freshman year, just for fun, she grabbed her best camera and tagged along with a group of friends who were aspiring storm chasers. That day changed everything. Faren ended up with a world class lightning strike photo that went viral online and propelled her to instant fame. The photo was shown by all the major news networks and soon had been seen tens of millions of times, all around the world.
She won several awards and received numerous lucrative opportunity offers, many of which would have required her to quit school and move overseas. She definitely wasn't going to quit school so she opted for some commissions from individuals and businesses who wanted her to take specific photographs. She did very well with that as she stayed and completed her degree. After college, her career really took off and she became one of the best known award winning photographers in the business.
Faren was also stunning. She had been a beautiful little girl, and grew into a bombshell woman. She was as feminine as it gets, wearing only dresses, skirts, or shorts.......no pants. Her long hair was golden brown and looked good no matter how she wore it. Her face was 1950s movie actress pretty, with big green eyes and perfect lips. Her curvy body invited a consistent onslaught of "admiration" from many hopeful men, and more than a few women.
At 24, Faren was still a virgin. Not that she necessarily wanted to be, she just hadn't found the one yet. She didn't date much in high school because the boys were immature and were only after sex. She tried dating a few college guys her freshman year, but discovered that they were just older and slightly smarter versions of the high school guys, who now had alcohol to help them get what they wanted. Speaking of alcohol, she made out with one of her drunken college girlfriends after a late night party one time, but the girl wouldn't go any farther than kissing because she said that it would make them 'lesbos'.
She wondered at the time why people needed sexual preference labels. Wasn't it possible to just be attracted to a cool person without any pre-qualifiers? THAT was her sexual preference.......cool people that she was attracted to. It was all very frustrating for her and not worth the effort, she'd decided. After her lightning strike photo went viral, she didn't have time for dating or relationships anyway, between her school work and the part-time photography gig.
But now, as a successful young professional she was ready to meet someone special.
The bar scene wasn't her thing. She'd spent more time getting to know colleagues and acquaintances that she found interesting, than she ever spent flirting with anyone in a bar. She also believed in chance meetings....that total strangers can sometimes be the best friend or love of a lifetime that you just hadn't met yet. She wasn't exactly looking for someone, but she was more open to the idea than ever before.
It was time to head towards the storm and find a decent vantage point to try to get some good images. She photographed all kinds of things as a professional, but storms were her favorite and the source of her original success, so she always spent some of her long summer vacation trying to capture something new from the clouds. She had become very good at capturing lightning images using fast shutter speeds, but hadn't been in proximity of another ground strike since that original photo that started her career.
She loaded her equipment into the X5 and headed west towards the dark horizon. She chose this little part of the county because it was rural and sparsely populated but had lots of country back roads, increasing the potential number of places to get good shots. She pulled off the highway down a gravel side road, with the storm about 10 miles out, according to her radar app. She made two more turns and went down a steep hill, across a dry creek bed, and up another steep hill until she found a long open meadow that ran along the dirt road. She spotted a row of rusty mailboxes and pulled over across the road, at the end of an adjacent driveway.
For the next 10 minutes, Faren was checking the radar, setting up and anchoring tripods, checking her lighting meter, and watching the sky. She had positioned herself east of the storm, so she should stay dry here and didn't worry about bagging the cameras. She got back in the car and grabbed a package of cheese peanut butter crackers off the dash and reached behind her seat into the cooler and retrieved an ice cold Dr Pepper. Bottle, of course. She'd been hooked on both since college. Upon finishing her delicacy and checking the radar again, she looked out across the field and saw the first bolt of lightning snap just beyond the tree line.
She stepped out and walked towards her cameras just as a very nice, large, approaching pickup truck slowed down and stopped right next to her.
The door opened and a gorgeous redheaded woman turned and dropped out of the driver's seat, her cowgirl boots hitting the gravel with a clomp and her red curls bouncing playfully.
"Hi!" she flashed a pretty smile.
"Hi!" Faren said, smiling back, guessing she was around 30.
The woman walked around her truck and retrieved some mail out of one of the mailboxes.
Faren had never remembered seeing a more beautiful human. She was a little flustered and her face and nipples tingled.
"Good looking storm" the woman said cordially, seeing Faren's equipment and assuming that was her purpose in being there.
Faren was staring now. The curly red locks and lightly freckled cheeks, blue eyes with long lashes, glossy lips and a tiny little nose. A light blue sleeveless top and a white skirt with light blue boots. And.......her nipples were hard......and distracting.
"Uh....yeah" she snapped out of it. "It's about to cut loose."
The woman studied Faren up and down for a long few seconds, blushing and smiling when their eyes met again.
"I have some bad news and some good news," the woman said, with half cute smile and half apprehension.
"What's that?" Faren asked, looking surprised, and trying hard not to look down at the woman's erect nipples.
"Well, the bad news is your gear and car are blocking my driveway, and I have frozen groceries in the truck that have already been in there an hour."
Faren looked at her gear then back at the woman, and fake smiled.
"What's the good news?" Faren asked sheepishly.
"The view is much better from my place up the hill. You can follow me up after we load up your equipment. I'll help so it'll be faster."
Faren noticed a look in the woman's eyes, but too early to tell what it was. As the two folded tripods and loaded gear into the suv, Faren could smell lemons and vanilla as they passed close to each other several times. The woman's features were even more lovely up close, and Faren was nervous, realizing she was attracted to her. She noticed there was no wedding ring on her hand.
They stood and turned at the same time and almost bumped foreheads at one point, finding themselves face to face, and time seemed to slow down briefly as they shared a nervous second of sexual tension, both glancing at each other's lips, then blushing and taking a quick shuddery breath before darting their eyes away, pretending they weren't just thinking about what it would feel like to kiss the other.
