A Special Photo Shoot

I had just come home when the main phone rang. Reluctantly, I went to check the Caller ID screen, and had it been anyone but family, I would have ignored the phone so I could go make myself a much-needed late dinner. Instead, seeing that my little sister Staci was calling, I answered the phone.

"Hey, sis!"

"Hey yourself, Brett! I hope I'm not bothering you."

"No, but you might hear some noise as I go into the kitchen and make dinner."

"Ouch, rather late for dinner. Evening photo shoot today?"

"Yeah." I was thankful for the cordless phone as I made my way through the living room toward the kitchen. "The third straight evening of Little League photos. I need to do the final set tomorrow, then spend the weekend and probably early next week getting all the initial proofs done for all the teams."

"I see. Actually, that's a good segue for what I wanted to ask you about..."

"Oh? You need some special photos done?"

"Well..." Staci was not someone to hesitate, so this particular pause caught my attention. "These are definitely special pictures I need."

"Okay. Something more elaborate than a passport photo, I suppose."

"Yeah."

I started rummaging through the kitchen cupboards, looking for something I could make relatively quickly since I was nearly starving. "Anything in particular?"

Again, my little sister hesitated, and I stopped looking through the cupboards. "Uh... Sis?"

"It's... Well, I want some special pictures for Terry's birthday."

That narrowed things down considerably. "Okay. In the studio? Outdoors somewhere, maybe over by Andrew's Lake? Some romantic location you have in mind?"

"Bondage."

That response stopped my heart for a moment, for it was the first time that I had ever truly thought of Staci as being potentially sexual, never mind being potentially kinky. "Um, I can do that, I guess," I responded, "but bondage is a bit out of my realm..."

I thought I heard a sigh of relief from my sister. "I'm not looking for anything strict," she said. "I'm not planning on thick heavy chains and being suspended upside-down from the ceiling with various sex toys sticking out of me. Just some bedroom bondage pictures, that's all."

I had seen some bondage photos on several occasions. A few times, they were professionally-made images, with professional models restrained in different poses which I just knew would take years of training to hold for any length of time so the pictures could be taken. And, of course, there were plenty of amateur bondage images available on the Internet, most of them being of very poor quality and featuring women in various stages of undress who were tied down with whatever was available, which was typically not the stereotypical cuffs and chains. But while I had seen such things in the past, I had never paid much attention to them.

Clearly, that would need to change.

"Well, I can do that," I finally offered, "but I don't have anything even remotely close to standard bondage equipment around here. The best I could do would be to borrow a collar from a neighbor's dog and put that on you."

While I had not intended that to be a joke, I was nonetheless relieved when I heard Staci's giggle. "That's really not what I had in mind, especially not if the dog has fleas."

She had a good point, especially since I had noticed the neighbor's dog scratching himself behind the ears that morning.

"Can we do this when I come to visit at the end of the semester?" Staci asked.

"Sure," I replied. "The other option would be for me to come see you and do it there, but I'm guessing that might ruin the surprise aspect of things."

"Yeah... Thanks, Brett. And I do have two requests about the pictures themselves."

"Okay."

"The ones I finally choose need to be done as five-by-sevens so I can frame them, and whatever work product I do not keep gets destroyed."

That made sense, given the sensitive nature of what she wanted to do in front of a camera. "I'm fine with that."

"Good!" Her sigh of relief was unmistakable. "Terry should be home soon, so I'd better hang up here. I'll see you in a few weeks, okay?"

"Okay, sis."

"And no pizza!"

"Yes, Mom."

She was giggling just before she ended the call.

*****

For the next few weeks, I spent a little time each day looking online for bondage images. I was amazed at the work professional BDSM photographers were doing. Yet, strangely enough, the professional in me began to gradually and continuously lose ground to the stereotypical male in me, replacing the faces of the women in the images with Staci's face.

That was a little disturbing. It became even more disturbing to me when I began to fantasize about what might happen while my sister was posing for me. At first, those fantasies had her fully clothed, the way I had always seen her, but soon those fantasies involved less clothing, then less clothing, then she was topless, and then she wore nothing but earrings and a necklace as she was tied by scarves to the bedposts.

And then there was the dream in which she was blindfolded by an old bandana, with a rope connecting each wrist to either end of the headboard of my bed. In the dream, I could not remain professional any longer and began to undress her, and she did not protest when I finally entered her, thrusting as deep into her body as I possibly could...

...and awakening with quite a mess on my stomach and a rather hot face.

*****

"Hey, bro!"

Staci's voice was as sweet and bubbly as ever. "Good to hear from you. Glad to be home?"

"Well, yes and no. I'm glad the semester's done, especially after that philosophy exam yesterday, but it's somewhat boring here since my friends are still in school."

"Yeah, that's the down side to a college that ends earlier than most." I had attended the same college, so I understood my little sister's lament all too well. "But at least that gives you the jump on summer jobs."

"I already have one, thank goodness! I'll be babysitting Patty's kids Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, then driving back to campus and spending the weekends with Terry."

"I see. What does Dad think of that plan? For the weekends, I mean."

"Ugh. He's not too thrilled, but he never has been happy with Terry."

In a way, I could understand. Two college-age women living together was one thing. Two college-age women living together while being romantically involved was something slightly different. I had no issues with my sister being a lesbian, but I did fear that if the wrong person found out about her sexual orientation, life could suddenly become really difficult for her and for Terry. It was hard enough for her having a father who was so far right that Pat Buchanan looks like a Democrat, and with that type of mindset, her sexual orientation definitely rubbed him the wrong way. To that extent, perhaps it was a good thing for her to be gone on the weekends, when he was more likely to be home and yet again give her a piece of his mind concerning her choice of sexual partners.

"Well, for what it's worth," I offered, "when you're here this weekend, you won't need to worry about his lectures."

"Thank goodness. By the way, my plane should be landing about 6PM."

"That's fine. I'll meet you at the baggage claim area. Just be sure to e-mail or text me your flight number and airline so I know which carousel to go to so I can find you."

"Okay. And can I make a request?"

"Absolutely."

"Dinner's on me. It's the least I can do for the pictures for Terry."

I smiled to myself. "Okay, sis. If you insist."

*****

She definitely insisted. Red Lobster was not what I had expected for dinner just after leaving the airport, but that was what Staci wanted, and she was true to her word, stopping me when I attempted to pay the bill.

As we drove from the restaurant to the house, that was when I finally asked The Question: "When do you want to do the photo shoot?"

Staci smiled nervously. "I was hoping we could do the shoot tonight," she answered, "so that you could develop the pictures tomorrow and I can take them with me after we've destroyed whatever I don't want."

It was a good thing that I did not have anything planned for Saturday, which was a little unusual for the time of year given that a significant part of my business was wedding photography. "I guess that works for me," I told her as I turned onto my street.

That was when I had a sudden vision of her: my little sister, naked, wearing a collar and a big pink ball gag, drooling on herself as she knelt at the center of the bed, ropes wrapped around her chest and breasts as if forming a harness, a pair of chains connecting the collar with each of her wrist cuffs while she fucked herself with a thick lifelike dildo...

"Um, Brett?"

"Yeah?" Only then did I realize why she had interrupted the vision: I had just driven past my own house.

"Um, sorry," I apologized lamely, slowing the car so I could use someone else's driveway to turn around.

"It's okay," she said. "Thinking of the shoot?"

"Well, yeah. It's... odd for me, you know? I've never done anything like this before."

"Neither have I," my sister said as I pulled into a driveway and then shifted to Reverse. "But to be honest, you're the only one I'd trust with anything like this."

I backed onto the street before I responded. "Seriously?" I asked.

"Seriously. I know you won't take advantage of the situation. If nothing else, I know you won't violate my relationship with Terry."

"Yeah, well... First I need to get us to the right house!"

Fortunately, she giggled, taking the edge off the seriousness of the conversation.

*****

It was well after sunset when, as we sat on the back porch listening to the loud music from a party a few houses away, I finally turned to Staci and simply asked: "Ready?"

My little sister knew exactly what I meant. "I'll need a few minutes," she said.

"That's fine. I'll need to get the lights and the camera."

"Okay."

While Staci was in the small guest bedroom, I trudged the equipment from the basement to my bedroom, setting up the lights and taking a few test shots of the bed. After all the thoughts which had passed through my head in the previous few weeks since she had initially asked about doing this for her, it was almost too easy to imagine my sister on the bed, tethered cuffs securing her wrists to the ends of the black metal headboard, a crimson thong providing minimal modesty as her somewhat-embarrassed blush attempted to match the lone garment she was wearing.

I sensed more than heard Staci behind me, entering the bedroom, and I turned toward her, finding her dressed for bed. The yellow floral print pajama set was one I had never seen, but it looked nice on her. She was even wearing cream-colored slippers, which was almost useless since she would be out of her slippers in a few moments so she could mount the bed.

My sister also carried a small black bag, similar to a bag received at a store, but the lack of a logo made me particularly curious about what was inside. I had what I felt was a good guess, given the nature of the photo shoot, but I knew it was best to wait until Staci was ready to reveal the bag's contents.

"I didn't know you'd need these lights for this," she said.

I had set up two lights in the bedroom, one near each end of the foot of the bed. "These will help minimize the shadowing," I informed her, "plus it would be relatively dark in here without them since there's no natural daylight coming through the windows and the bedroom ceiling light is purposely not very bright."

"Good point." She had visited several times previously and was familiar with the darkness of the bedroom at night, even with the main light turned on. "Here," she said, offering me the black bag.

I accepted the bag from her. "What's in here?" I asked.

"The cuffs," she replied, "and also a whip."

That surprised me. "You... you also want me to whip you?"

She smiled as she shook her head. "No, although I do want to try being whipped, but I'm saving that for Terry."

"You actually... You really want someone to hurt you?"

"She does already, at least a little. She really enjoys biting me, especially my breasts, and the way she pulls my hair..."

There was a significant moment of discomfort as we both realized that we were talking about sexual matters -- specifically, two siblings were discussing sexual matters.

"So part of the idea of the photo shoot," I offered, attempting to dispel the awkwardness of the moment, "is that you want to essentially 'announce' to Terry that you want her to hurt you even more. Is that right?"

She nodded. "Yeah. That's part of it. Plus, I just wanted to give her something different for her birthday, something unique, something that's certain to get her attention and something that she'll definitely enjoy again and again. I think this is something unique enough, and it also sends her a message."

"And what about the pajamas? Does what you're wearing send a message?"

She shrugged. "Not really. She just enjoys unbuttoning my shirts and blouses and slowly revealing me, and I love it when she does it."

I shook my head, both out of disbelief that I was having such a conversation with my own sister and also to dispel the new inappropriate image of her which had formed in my mind. "So how do you envision this photo shoot playing out?"

Staci moved to sit on the edge of the bed, slipping off her slippers. "Well, I was thinking of having my arms and legs tied to the bedposts, with the whip balanced across my chest, or maybe leaning against me right..."

"'Right...?'" I prompted.

"Um... Right between my legs."

"Ah." In my search for bondage images, I had come across a few pussywhipping videos, and I figured that that was what my sister wanted to suggest with a whip placed so strategically.

"This is awkward," she said.

"Yeah," I agreed, "but I'm glad we're doing this, actually."

"Really?" She had an expression of mild surprise on her sweet face.

"Really. Like I said before, I've never done any bondage photography before. This definitely isn't going to be on par with some of the professionally-done images I've seen online, but this will probably give me a few things to think about as I continue in my photography career. Who knows... Maybe this will be the catalyst to get me into a new area of photography."

Staci giggled to herself. "It would be really, really weird if I was responsible for my brother's kinky photography business!"

In the odd silence which followed, I finally reached into the bag and produced four tethered cuffs. They were all black, with Velcro closures and a fake fur lining for comfort. At first, I was a little surprised that two of the cuffs were slightly larger than the others, but then I realized that the larger cuffs were apparently meant for the ankles and the smaller cuffs were meant for the wrists. The tethers were fairly long, giving me plenty of opportunity to provide my sister with adequate slack while still being able to tie the tethers securely.

And then there was the whip itself. I had also seen several whips in my online review of BDSM photography. The black whip she had selected had a relatively short handle, and maybe ten or so thin leather strips at the "business" end. I gave it a few test swings, impressed by the sound those leather strips made as they flowed through the air.

"That sounds a little scary," Staci commented.

"Really? I don't think so." It did not sound scary at all to me, just very intriguing.

"That's probably because you're not the one who'd be getting hit with it!"

"Touché." I set the whip on the bed, next to the tethered cuffs. "Well, I guess we'd better start, or else we won't finish until sometime tomorrow morning."

"Yeah. I guess you're right."

The binding process seemed to take a long time, as if we had suddenly entered into a slower point in the space-time continuum. I remember watching my sister crawling to the center of the bed and positioning herself with her arms and her legs spread toward the bedposts. I remember languidly moving around the bed and applying each cuff, being careful to ensure the proper closure of the Velcro straps, then taking a very long time to tie each tether at multiple points along each bedpost.

I definitely remember standing at the foot of the bed, admiring my handiwork, and particularly taking note of how my little sister's breasts seemed to rise and fall with her breathing as she tentatively tugged at her restraints, testing her bondage and discovering that I had given her very little slack.

And in that moment, as I saw my own sister bound to my bed, I recognized why so many guys seem to find a bound woman so irresistible: She was powerless to stop me from having my way with her if I decided to do it. I could tear open my sister's thin sleepwear, take a moment to undress myself, and fuck her. If she did not want to have sex with me, she could not stop me from raping her. She was completely vulnerable, entirely at my mercy, with her trust in me as the only means of protecting herself.

I also recognized what she meant when she had said that she did not trust anyone else with this photo shoot. Even beyond the fact that she and I are siblings and should therefore never see each other in such kinky situations, she knew that I would not commit the ultimate taboo, nor would I endanger her relationship with her girlfriend.

The professional within me took over again, causing me to pick up the whip. "Balance the whip across your chest to start?" I asked.

"Yeah..." She stilled in her bonds, looking down her body to where I stood at the foot of the bed. Her hazel eyes were riveted on the whip, and part of me wanted to quickly flick it to strike her somewhere, probably her lower leg given where I was standing, but I knew it was best to not do it, to allow her girlfriend the honor of being the first person to whip my sister.

Not surprisingly, while doing my research on bondage images, I had seen some video clips of women being whipped. Some of the whipping had been relatively light and sensual, with the women clearly enjoying the experience, trying to lean more into the path of the whip to maximize its impacts and moaning seductively as the whip kept moving back and forth across their bodies. But much of the whipping I saw in those video clips was harsh, severe, turning the women various shades of red and even raising some nasty-looking lines of welts when a bullwhip was used to make the women scream and struggle and in one case even cry.

I looked at the whip in my hand, trying to imagine it, or anything else, being used to hurt my little sister. Part of me wanted to know how she would react, to both a fierce whipping and a much lighter, more sensual whipping. I had to wonder: What would it be like to strip my own sister and then use the whip on her?

And that was when I became consciously aware of the bulge forming at the front of my jeans.

With a shake of my head, I tried to slip back into my professional persona. Moving to the side of the bed, I sat beside Staci. "How do you want it?" I asked.

She knew I was referring to the whip. "Across my chest, please. Diagonally, like a seat belt in the front of a car."

"Okay." Carefully, I placed the whip as she had requested, taking great care to not touch her breasts. She probably would not have minded an "innocent" contact with her chest, but after all, she was my sister, and even though I had had plenty of fantasies in the previous weeks involving her, I was fearful of any contact with Staci which one might consider as sexual or intimate, any contact which might negatively impact our familial bond.

She sighed softly. "That feels good..." she whispered, tugging again at the wrist cuffs.