showcase those amazing legs.”
He stood over her, shooting down. Syria assessed the light she was reflecting and felt like it was over-emphasizing the size of the woman’s nose by adding an extra shadow. She shifted over and held the reflector higher.
Anthony glanced over at her. “Excellent change. You have an eye for it. Have you done this before? Or maybe you’re an artist?”
Syria shook her head. Anthony clicked a few more shots, then stepped aside. “Okay, Sharon, let’s do this thing.” He picked up a silky white robe.
Sharon sat up and slipped the robe on, then worked beneath it, tugging off her bra and thong to toss them in the grass a few feet away. Syria held the disc close to her body, resting her arms, and hoped her flaming face wasn’t too obvious.
“Shoes or not?” Sharon asked.
Anthony turned to Syria. “What do you think?”
She glanced back at the woman. “Shoes make it more formal, like a photo shoot in a magazine. No shoes make it like you stumbled upon her, something natural and spontaneous.”
“Nice observations. What do you think, Sharon?”
“I want to look like a centerfold,” Sharon said.
“So shoes it is.” Anthony led her closer to a tree. “We’ll start here.” He looked around. A man was walking across the top of the hill, a backpack on his shoulder. “We’ll wait this guy out.”
He and Sharon chatted amicably about when he’d show her the proofs. Syria watched the other man anxiously, wondering if he might stop to watch and if they’d go on anyway. Obviously Syria hadn’t stopped them by her arrival.
But he moved on and the valley was theirs again.
“Let me set up the shot first so I can work swiftly,” Anthony said. “Hug the tree, knee cocked out, look over your shoulder.”
“Still on the face?” Syria asked. The new position would make it hard to reflect the right direction.
He glanced at the sun. “Not possible here. Let’s rim light her.”
“What’s that?”
“Kick a little light from behind her onto the curve of her back so we get a highlight.”
Syria moved around Sharon, watching the sun, and angling the disc while Anthony moved his flash and tripod. “Here?”
“Perfect, but switch to the gold side.”
Syria glanced down. Sure enough, the disc was silver on the front and gold on the back. She flipped it over. The light had a different color on the white robe, warmer toned.
“That’s it. Okay, Sharon, we’re ready. Take it down slowly, then toss the robe at Syria’s feet so it’s out of the shot.”
Syria’s heart sped up as the woman slipped the satin off her shoulders, letting it fall to her elbows, caught on her ample breasts. She glanced at the crest of the hill again, but no one was around. Her heart was beating in strange places, her throat, and between her legs. Sharon shook her head, letting her hair fall down her back, and when she looked at Anthony again, it was pure lust.
But Anthony was completely unaffected, snapping shots as though she were a part of the tree. “Chin up a little. That’s it. Now let it go.”
Sharon shrugged again and the robe slipped to her wrists. She took it in one hand, held it out for a couple shots, and tossed it Syria’s direction.
Syria inhaled sharply. The woman was damn beautiful, her body curved and toned, perfectly tan with no lines. Her breasts were still high and firm, her legs slender and shapely. Keeping the shoes had been a good decision, as it made her calves stay taut and as her knee came up and around the trunk, the shiny smooth leather was a killer juxtaposition against the roughness of the bark.
Syria wondered what it would feel like to have your naked skin against a tree, out in an open park. She couldn’t hold a candle to a woman like that. She wasn’t beautiful whatsoever, her mixed heritage of Oklahoma mother and a father from India made her skin a strange watery coffee color, and her hair dark but not thick and lustrous like Indian girls, just curly
Sharon Cameron
Marianne Evans
Rebecca Scherm
Kade Derricks
Gary D. Schmidt
Kerry Newcomb
Alex Siegel
Samantha Power
Candice Stauffer
Lillian Stewart Carl, John Helfers