What could please a young scientist more than daydreaming about winning the Nobel Prize? In David's case, it could be much more than a daydream. Chapter Four gives us good news about Victoria, and it shows David treating Mary with more respect and consideration. And it shows their sexual relationship taking a particularly wonderful turn. As you read this chapter, keep asking what you'd do if you were David.
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I spent most of the next week compiling my data and thinking about how I'd write up results of my research. It pained me to publicly admit that I'd been careless enough to expose a student assistant to an experimental therapy, but I couldn't think of another way to explain how the sonic stimulator worked. Maybe I could publish my work in two parts. My first publication could detail the effect on dogs. That, by itself, was significant enough to justify publication in a major journal. Any competent neuroscientist would realize that the natural next step would be to measure the effect on humans. Then, after letting this news spread across the scientific community, I could publish a second paper that revealed the magnitude of what I'd discovered.
I enjoyed imagining that this second paper would be cited when I won the Nobel Prize.
Can you tell how happy I was feeling? Work was going great. I was deep into a passionate love affair with a spectacular woman. My dogs loved me.
As a bonus, Victoria was doing very well. My decision to pay her expenses for the last semester of her MBA program had transformed her life. It was gratifying to see how much I'd managed to help her at a critical time in her life. It had taken so little to help her. I realized that there must be a lot of people like Victoria, trying to overcome the difficulty of being a woman living in a man's world. Her parents would not have treated a son the way they treated her.
It was obvious that she was eating better and getting enough sleep. She finally had time to devote to her studies and show her professors just how capable she was. Moving out of her family home had been good for her and her relationship with her parents. She told me that she was even socializing with the girls in her dorm, going out to clubs, dancing, and doing all kinds of fun things that normal students do.
She had so much spare time that she was spending part of it in the lab taking care of my dogs. I was a little uncomfortable with the idea that a paid student assistant was working unpaid overtime, but the dogs liked it, and I enjoyed her company. She was a nice young woman, and I was glad to have her around.
Much of my spare time focused on Mary. I'd finally recognized that I'd done too much to punish her for the way she'd treated me. Instead of looking for ways to degrade and exploit her, I started looking for ways to make her happy. I surprised her by taking her to a trendy luxury resort on the west coast of Mexico. She was so happy when I gave her the news that she reminded me of a kid on Christmas morning.
We only went for a four-day weekend, but Mary packed so much luggage I had to pay a surcharge to the airline. Clothes. Shoes. Swimsuits. Lingerie. Cosmetics. More lingerie. It went on, and on, and on, and despite it all, I could tell she was afraid she'd forgotten something important. When I told her I would buy her anything she forgot to pack, she got such a loving expression on her face that it melted my heart.
We liked a lot of things about the resort. It had a wonderful nightclub, and I discovered that Mary was a great dancer. She never ran out of energy, dancing until we could walk on the beach as the sun came up. There were great restaurants. Nice boutiques. Many, many opportunities for her to doll herself up and display her beauty to an appreciative audience.
But her favorite part, by far, was the resort's nude beach. Being able to parade around naked in front of a crowd thrilled her. She'd never been to a nude beach before, and she liked it so much I decided that I'd take her to more of them in the future.
I enjoyed taking pictures of her, especially on the beach. Mary loved posing for photographs. She liked imagining she was a famous model or actress, and she'd spent so much time studying pictures in celebrity magazines that she knew exactly how to pose in ways that displayed her face and body to maximum advantage.
It was just as nice as you can imagine. I hadn't had a vacation for a long time because I was reluctant to leave my dogs untended, but Victoria offered to come around often enough to make sure they got enough food, water, exercise, and loving attention. This was the time she realized I was involved with a woman, and it seemed to make her happy for me.
Something interesting happened when we got back.
I downloaded the vacation photos onto my laptop, and I was particularly impressed with the quality of the pictures from the nude beach. The photos looked nice on my cell phone, but they looked amazing on the screen of my laptop. Most of the time Mary used elegant clothing and makeup to look good, but she looked even better naked. She looked so good I wondered if my reaction was colored by the fact that I had feelings for Mary - feelings that were growing stronger. I finally concluded I wasn't looking at her through rose colored glasses. She really was that hot.
I refuse to be ashamed of the fact that I sometimes sample the porn available on the internet. I'm a healthy young male. It's what we do. You probably won't be surprised to discover that I'm not a big fan of all the out-there kinky content. When it comes to porn, I prefer stuff that celebrates the beauty of the female body, especially in a romantic context.
For that reason, I patronize websites that feature amateur nude photography of ordinary women. I love looking at pictures of cute girls who pose nude to indulge the whims of their husbands, boyfriends, or girlfriends. Most of these pictures are of low quality because they are taken by ordinary guys using amateur equipment. But the very best photos are obviously the work of professional photographers working with women who are either models or cute enough to be models.
I enjoy voting for the women I like best, and I enjoy seeing how often I end up voting for women who win the monthly contests that award nice cash prizes. It's intended to motivate women to send in more pictures. In some cases, these pictures are good enough to be considered erotic art. In other cases, there are pictures of rough looking women shoving cucumbers up their asses.
I prefer the first kind.
You can see where this is going. I immediately realized that Mary was beautiful enough to win top prizes in these contests. If I just sent in copies of her at the nude beach, she'd be sure to get compliments and votes from men (and women) from all over the world. It might be enough to win. But then I had a better idea.
I wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject. Obviously, I could use the sonic stimulator to force Mary to go along with my idea. But I didn't want to do that. Since Mary loved putting herself on display, I figured it was something she would want to do if I presented the idea properly. But the choice would be hers alone.
"Mary, come and look at these pictures," I said, showing her the nude photos from Mexico. As I expected, she liked the pictures. A lot. It made her feel like a centerfold.
"You know what I'd like to do?" I asked. "I'd like to put some serious effort into creating some beautiful photographs of you posing nude. Use a real camera, not a cellphone. Get some good, professional lighting. Have you pose like a real model. Maybe we could create something artistic enough to have a big enlargement framed so we could hang it in the bedroom."
"That sounds great," she said.
At first, I thought I'd be the one to buy the equipment and take the pictures. When I was a kid I used to imagine how great it would be to take nude pictures for men's magazines, and I was looking forward to acting out that childhood fantasy. Mary didn't think much of my idea. She had a lot more artistic ability, and she knew it. She was more qualified to be in charge of this particular project, so I let her take the lead.
She bought the camera and a special filter; I have no idea why she needed the filter. She insisted it would make the pictures better. She bought two professional lights; she got one of those circular ring lights and a separate light on a tripod. Mary went all through my apartment looking for a place to pose, and she didn't find one. I suggested that she just pose on my bed, but she wrinkled up her nose at that suggestion. She finally decided that the best place was at her apartment.
I came home early from work one afternoon and drove over there. Mary had removed all the paintings from the wall behind her sofa, creating a place to sit with a nice uncluttered background. She shoved her end tables and coffee table out of the frame. She set up the lights, then closed the shades on a window off to the side.