Chris was the young mother who lived three houses down on the same side of the street with her husband and newborn son, Max. I knew them only casually until Chris started taking little Max for morning walks in the stroller. I was too old to be Chris's father so I figured it was safe to be friendly to her-when I saw them pass. I had seen her come and go on a working woman's schedule for the last couple of years before she gave birth. After Max was born her comings and goings were more sporadic. Chatting with Chris and another woman in the neighborhood one day I learned that she was working from home part-time by computer.
I didn't even know if Chris drank coffee when I casually invited her in for a cup as she was passing by one morning with Max in the stroller. She smiled and said, yes, because she had been curious about me for a long time. She left the stroller outside the front door and took Max in her arms. While I poured her a cup of coffee she wandered around the living room looking at the pictures on the walls.
She sat across the table from me and sipped at her coffee. She was a solid-looking woman, slightly pretty with shoulder-length brown hair parted in the center. The large square jaw was what didn't fit with the fineness of her nose and eyes, I realized as I looked intently at her. I dropped my gaze to her breasts and realized that she must be breast feeding little Max. They looked large and heavy under her simple cotton blouse.
"These look like original prints," she commented with her free hand as she gestured toward the living room.
"Yeah, they're my stuff," I replied.
"You portray women with warmth and sensuality," she noted. She raised her cup and took another sip, glancing up at me as she drank. Her comment and her look demanded a reply.
"You think so, huh?" I responded. Max was beginning to fuss. Her attention went to him momentarily and then came back to me as she readjusted her arm to cradle him.
"Yes. You are the curiosity object of the neighborhood," she said. "Now I'll be grilled by the other women about what your house is like on the inside. They'll be green with envy when I tell them about the coffee invitation and the pictures." Max was whining and squirming in her cradled arm. She stood up and began rocking Max in an effort to quiet him.
"Grist for the mill huh?" I said. I figured she would be leaving any second now that she was on her feet. I wondered how she would describe what she had seen to another woman. What would she remember since the female mind is so different that the male mind. I wasn't really focused on what she was saying and had to go back into my three-second tape-delay memory to replay what she just said.
"He wants to be fed. Do you mind?" she had said.
"No problem," I replied without really thinking about what she was saying. She moved to the love seat in the living room area and sat down facing away from me. She put the baby on the cushion beside her. Suddenly I realized what she was doing ... baring her breasts so she could suckle the baby. She bent toward the baby, picked him up and put him to her breast.
"Do you ... do you get excited when you are photographing women nude," she asked. She appeared to be looking at a photo of a nude on the far wall although all I could see was the back of her head.
"Maybe a little sometimes," I replied. "Most of my attention is on the artistic and technical aspects of what I'm doing. That pretty well uses up my mind," I added.
I saw her head nod several times acknowledging my answer.
