Day of the sexy shoot, I hold up cheeky pink leopard print panties for him to see. “I’m not doing it naked,” I say, and I offer him a choice of this pair or hot pink boyshorts. He’s flustered with the shock of diving into my treasure chest of lingerie, so I choose for him. I go for the animal.
We cut up 60s-esque daisy patterns from the newspaper, gray and pink petals. His flowers are awkward, the blossoms wilted and withered rejects. Even between us it’s awkward, especially after it has been so hot behind our computer screens.
“How many damn languages do you know?” I had written him. “Keep going–it’ll be like in ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ when Otto speaks half-assed Italian to Wanda and she gets all worked up.”
He knew French, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and Hungarian, and he wooed me with all of them, plus the Cyrillic alphabet. He was modest, though. “The latter two certainly won’t get me into a mermaid’s pants … or pant,” he quipped.
The e-mails passed back and forth almost hourly. “My box has not got this much action in months,” I told him.
I make some tea as our scissors traced curves around that day’s news. He pulls out a silver flask, takes a swig, offers me some. It’s whisky. A day of full vice, I think, recalling the cigarettes puffed on the ride home and the questionable business to be had in my basement.
Finally, we pluck enough paper daisies to cover my push-up and panties. I grab my cheap, iridescent bedspread, and we climb down to the frigid basement. Whipping out the familiar camera, he starts testing for light. The room looks like a tacky, by-the-hour motel: lime sherbet walls, thin standard blue carpet, naked windows and my Pepto-Bismol-on-acid bedspread.
I push two bare mattresses together and cover them in pink. An iPod starts playing a peppy tune. I pull my cherry red tank top over my head, suck in my gut. Next comes my yoga pants, sliding over the panties. I stand before him, feeling far more naked than I really am. I hop onto the bed to hide my skin with arms and crossed legs.
