Safe and Sound

by Caitlin Ricci

  I wasn’t actually sure about that. I shrugged. “Um…. Maybe?”

  Oliver smiled in a way that made me think he might have been laughing at me, on the inside. He took down the handcuffs and brought them over to me. “They’re just toys. If you pull hard enough, you can easily open them all on your own. They’re just props for pictures.”

  I took them from his hands and realized that they were actually plastic too. They looked real enough, but they definitely weren’t. I put one easily around my wrist, and he attached the other to the daybed before I could put it on my other wrist.

  “Sit down and look like I kidnapped you for some nefarious purpose like world domination or something.”

  I laughed and tried to look scared. He took some pictures. I went for pouty, and he took some more. This was easy, and I was having fun with the sun coming over me from the french doors behind me and the birds singing outside. I was relaxed, and this felt nice and completely normal.

  All that shattered, though, when Oliver reached out to touch my chin. I jerked back before he could touch me, and he stepped back too.

  “Woah. You’re okay.” He lowered the camera and put it on a nearby table before coming to me. “Sometimes I’ll need to move you. That involves touching. Do you want to stop instead?”

  I hadn’t realized he would need to touch me, but now I felt silly for not thinking about it. I shook my head. “I was just startled.”

  “Good.” He went to a mini fridge in the corner of the room that I hadn’t noticed before. There he got out two bottles of water and brought me one, which I fumbled while opening, since my one wrist was still hooked onto the daybed.

  “I’ll tell you before I need to touch you for a shot in the future,” he said as he went back to his camera.

  That would be really nice of him. I needed the warning. “Thanks.”

  He looked back over at me and pursed his lips. “How do you feel about undoing your pants but not taking them off?”

  I hadn’t actually thought about it. “Uh… would I get paid extra?” That simple question made me feel like a whore, and I tried not to think of myself like that.

  Oliver nodded. “Yes. Partially undressed shots do get paid more than shirtless. If you’re not comfortable with it, though, then that’s fine. I was thinking of starting a new project of men and partially undone jeans is all.”

  “Not showing anything, though, right?” I had to be certain about that.

  “No. Definitely not showing me anything more than you’re comfortable with.”

  I figured that was probably something I could do, then. With one hand I put the water down by my feet and then undid the button of my jeans. I hesitated on the zipper, especially since I didn’t have anything on underneath, but eventually I decided to take it down too. I wanted the extra money, and if I was careful, then Oliver wouldn’t get to see any more of me than I was letting him right now anyway.

  “Gorgeous,” Oliver said with a grin before he started taking pictures again. He had me kneeling, then sitting, and lying on my side. But most of the time I was supposed to lie back on the daybed.

  “Run your hand down your chest and stop at your jeans,” he said. I did, and he took a bunch more pictures. This wasn’t bad at all. “How comfortable are you with putting your hand into your pants like you were about to stroke yourself?”

  I froze and shook my head. “I’m not.” I really hoped he wasn’t going to offer me money to make me change my mind. If he did I would probably take it, but I didn’t want it to be like that. I didn’t want to lose myself and my boundaries just because I needed to move out.

  “Okay.” The easy way he said it made me think it really was going to be just fine that I didn’t want to do that. “What about playing with your nipples?”

  I wasn’t so sure about that either. “I have no idea how to.” I’d never done much experimenting on my own with them, so I was kind of at a loss.

  Oliver lowered the camera again. “Can I show you? I’d have to touch you, but I wouldn’t make it sexual. Or you can just squeeze them yourself and see if anything feels good to you.”

  “I’ll do it myself.” I thought he might have taken my rejection badly, but he just shrugged as if that wasn’t a big deal to him either. I liked how everything seemed to be just fine while I was there. Like whatever pace I wanted to go at was fine for him and if I didn’t want to do something that was perfectly okay too. I put my handcuffed hand above my head to use as a pillow and began pinching my nipples. I didn’t feel much doing that, but he seemed to be okay with it because he kept taking pictures of me.

  I felt like I looked good when he was photographing me. It made me smile, and then when he started laughing, I did too. His laughter helped me relax even more.

  Taking a chance, I pushed my hand down my belly and into my pants, just for a second. It didn’t feel wrong to touch myself like that while Oliver was watching me and taking pictures. It didn’t feel like it was a big deal at all actually. Oliver was a professional, and I wasn’t doing anything bad. It was okay for me to touch myself.

  I gently wrapped my fingers around my shaft. He came closer to take more pictures of me, and I closed my eyes. Touching myself was a lot more difficult with him being right there and standing over me.

  “You can stop. I can tell you’re getting nervous.”

  I quickly took my hand out of my pants and fixed myself up. “How did you know?” I thought I’d been doing pretty well hiding it.

  He put the camera down and pulled up a chair to sit across from me. “After a decade or so of being a professional photographer, it’s not hard for me to see when people are really into something or if they’re just doing it because they think they should be. What part was bothering you most?”

  I undid my wrist so that I could put both of my hands in my lap as I sat up to talk to him too. I was embarrassed, but I wanted to be honest with him. “That you were so close. That part was hard for me.”

  He gave me a quick nod. “I get that. Were you afraid that I was going to touch you or push you into doing something more that you weren’t ready for?”

  Maybe that had been it. I wasn’t really sure. I didn’t know Oliver well enough to feel safe around him, but I wasn’t exactly scared of him either. “I have no idea.”

  He chuckled. “That’s fine. Will you come back?”

  I didn’t know why he would want me to. I wasn’t anything special. “Sure. If you want me to, I mean.”

  “I do. And, I have a friend who, if you ever did want to do something more, and possibly involving another person, he does a lot of erotic shoots. He has a gallery in Boulder that is pretty much exclusively mostly naked guys kissing and rubbing on each other and more. He pays well, if you’re interested.” He dug a card out of his back pocket and handed it over to me.

  I glanced at it. Chester was this guy’s name, and he had a guy’s naked butt on his business card. I definitely wasn’t ready for someone like that. “I’ll think about it,” I told Oliver. I didn’t want to be rude.

  “Sure.” He pulled out some cash and handed that to me too. One hundred this time. And I’d been there less than two hours.

  “Thanks.” I quickly put the cash in my wallet. It was good to know I was that much closer to my goal of being able to move out and have my own place away from John. I got off the daybed and started getting dressed again, though there wasn’t much to do since I hadn’t taken that many bits of my clothes off. Just my shirt.

  “I’m glad you came back. Thanks for wanting to try new things,” Oliver said. I could feel him watching me while I moved around his space and got dressed. His attention didn’t bother me, though. Not like John’s did. Oliver watching me made me feel interesting and attractive.

  “I’m glad I did too,” I said once I was ready to go again. He showed me out, and less than ten minutes later, I was back on the bus that would take me home.

  Chapter Four

  Oliver

  I SENT some shots off to
Phillip from Mason’s first shoot with me. They were just of his back, which was beautiful in its own right with lots of smooth muscle and hardly a flaw, and I knew Phillip would enjoy them. I trusted him, but I made sure to lock the photos so they couldn’t be shared, copied, or saved either. He had men in his life that I didn’t know and who might have been looking at his computer. And I also promised my models that protection. The photographs I took were often intimate and I knew I would be upset if someone had pictures of me in the positions I put my models into and then shared them around for anyone in the world to find.

  Is he your latest boyfriend? Phillip texted me a few minutes later.

  I laughed and went into the kitchen to grab myself a beer out of the fridge. I wish, I texted back. Have fun on your date with Chester.

  He’s taking me to a drag show downtown. You know I’ll love it.

  Better him than me. I didn’t really like drag shows that much. Some of the jokes were a bit too much for me. Exes had told me I’d been too sensitive about it. That’s why they were exes. Or one of the many reasons at least. But Chester liked them, and Phillip did too sometimes. I was glad they were going out together, regardless of what they were doing. It was good for them to have date nights too. Yeah I do, I texted back to him.

  With Chester out with Phillip, I’d be alone for the night. Our relationship was odd, for some people, but for us it worked. Chester was dating both of us, I was dating Chester, and Phillip did whatever he did, which wasn’t any of my business since he and I were only friends. I had the urge to text Mason, even though I’d only just said goodbye to him. And, even stranger, I wanted to take him out to dinner. I generally didn’t do that with my models. Sometimes I would order pizza and have it delivered while they were there, and then we’d eat together, but going out to dinner together implied something more than that. It was closer to asking him out on a date, which was definitely not where I thought Mason’s head was at.

  And yet, there I was, pulling up his name on my phone and sending him a text. Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?

  I put my phone down and walked away to go sip my beer and watch some TV. There was a new supernatural drama show starting tonight that I was interested in. Or at least I was willing to give it a chance. My rule was that I always tried to give movies half an hour and TV shows three episodes before I called them ridiculously stupid lost causes never to be seen again.

  I was halfway through the show when Mason texted me back. I can’t do dinner. I could do lunch though.

  Maybe he worked at night or had to babysit a younger sibling. Perhaps he was taking classes at one of the many colleges around Denver. That’s fine. I’d like to see you again.

  I’m nothing special.

  I instantly hated whoever had ever made him doubt any bit of his natural spark, but it was something I was used to hearing from the people I photographed. I saw them differently than they saw themselves. To me, every person I photographed was beautiful and unique. Some of them had what they considered to be their own flaws, but I only saw them as more pieces of how unique these people were, and I hoped I was able to capture a bit of that in my photographs.

  You are to me, I told him. Since I had essentially asked him out on a date, I considered mentioning Chester to him, but I decided against it. I didn’t think one dinner with Mason would go anywhere, so I left it alone and decided it wasn’t a date at all. He was too young and far too fragile for me. And I had a strict policy against dating virgins. They were too breakable, and I wasn’t going to be the one to ruin them with my rather unorthodox views regarding sex.

  Thank you.

  I smiled down at my phone. You’re welcome.

  He didn’t say anything else to me after that. Not that I expected him to. I went back to watching my movie, and he did whatever it was that he did when he left my house. I was curious about his life before and after I saw him, but not enough that I would go asking him for details. I enjoyed my privacy, and I wanted others to have it as well.

  MASON CAME back nearly a week later, and I ushered him inside with a smile. “Can I get you anything? Tea? A beer? Some coffee?”

  He glanced over at me as he removed his hoodie. It was raining outside and he was soaking wet. I brought him a kitchen towel to dry off with while he was deciding if he wanted anything else.

  “A beer?”

  I nodded and went to get him one of my good kind, not the cheap stuff Chester kept over at my house for when he wanted something to drink. No, this beer was thick and rich and perfect with a pizza, which I was considering ordering for us since it was a bit too rainy to walk anywhere and my car was in the shop getting tint applied to it.

  I handed him the beer, and he handed me back a damp towel. He made a face at his first sip, but he kept drinking it, so he must not have completely hated it. He put it down on a nearby table while he stripped off his shirt. He looked down at his jeans and frowned.

  “If you’re comfortable taking them off, I have plenty of sheets that you could wear around your waist for today’s shoot,” I offered him.

  He hesitated but eventually gave me a quick nod. “Will you leave the room while I change, though?”

  “Of course.” As much as I wanted to see him naked, I didn’t want to invade his privacy just to have my curiosity about him sated. I went to the trunk, which I kept in the far corner of the room, and pulled out my thickest sheet. Most of the sheets in there were made of sheer fabric and meant to hide very little, but this one was thicker. It might have even come off my bed at one time since I didn’t remember buying it specifically for a shoot. I handed it to him. “I’ll let you have a few minutes. Call out for me when you’re ready.”

  Mason nodded, and I left him alone.

  “Okay,” he called to me a few minutes later. I came back in to see him sitting on the bed with the sheet wrapped tightly around his waist. He was pale and obviously nervous as he watched me with wide, frightened eyes. I wasn’t used to seeing such fear from a virgin before. Nervousness I was used to. Nearly everyone was nervous at first. But this level of fear was new for me.

  “You’re safe here,” I told him gently. “I’m not going to do anything to you that you don’t say I can.”

  “Have you ever had sex with one of the people you’ve photographed?”

  His question surprised me. Not many people were blunt enough to ask me that. They wanted to be special, though I didn’t lie to them and promise them a relationship before we had sex either. “Yes, I have. A few different people.”

  He nodded, and surprisingly that seemed to make him relax. I’d thought for sure he would have grown tenser with that information. “I like that you’re honest about it. You don’t seem like the kind of guy to play games just to get someone to have sex with them.” He took another sip of his beer and made another face, and then he drank a little more.

  “I’m not,” I assured him. That’s what teenagers and creeps did, and I was neither of those things.

  Mason gave me a little smile. His beer looked like it was almost empty.

  “Do you know a lot of creepy guys like that?” I asked him. I wanted to know about his life. I’d take anything he wanted to tell me. But I found myself wanting to know a lot more than I already did, and I didn’t think I was going to settle for the nothing I knew about him now.

  Mason looked away from me. His mouth tightened, and I knew I’d hit a nerve with him somewhere. I didn’t expect him to answer me.

  His expression was answer enough, but then he quietly said, “Just two.”

  I instantly felt protective of him, and I hoped whatever he’d been through was over now. For good. I came forward and ran the fingers of my right hand lightly down his bare arm. He turned back to me, his eyes wide, his lips slightly parted on a silent gasp. I leaned down and brushed my lips against his. He leaned toward me at first, but then seemed to remember what he was doing and where he was and maybe also that he was naked under the light sheet I’d given him. He turned away from me
again, his shoulders rounding, as if he was trying to hide away from me.

  “Can I take some pictures of you now?”

  Mason nodded but said nothing. I turned on my camera, intending to just take a few overall shots of him, but I found myself focusing on the little details. I loved his back and the way his shoulders curved with the fine, lean muscles he’d likely built from years of working with the horses. But that was all just an assumption on my part.

  “How long have you been at the rescue?”

  “A while,” he told me vaguely.

  “Do you have a favorite horse there? Or one you’re working with right now?”

  His lips curved up into a brief smile, and I was glad to capture that moment with my camera. “Right now I’m working with a palomino Clydesdale cross named Ted. He’s massive, easily one of the biggest horses I’ve ever been around.”

  I could imagine. Clydesdales were gorgeous, but they weren’t a horse I would ever feel comfortable getting on the back of. They were simply too big for me. “How tall is he?”

  “Seventeen—two. I mean, he’s seventeen hands, and a hand is four inches, and it goes up to his withers, sorry, his shoulders so he’s….” Mason blushed beautifully. “I was going to try to figure out the inches and then the feet to give you some idea, but I’m not great at math really.”

  “It’s okay, I’m not either. But I’ve got some idea of how big he is. I wouldn’t be able to ride him.” I did the math anyway. Ted was almost six feet tall at his shoulders. And I knew what withers were too, but with Mason looking so uncomfortable right now, I didn’t want to scare him away by saying the wrong thing. “Have you gotten on him?”

  Mason shook his head, and his blond hair fell over his eyes. “I can’t. I don’t have that much experience. Eli will, at some point, but I need to get a lot better at riding before he’ll let me on a horse that green. Sorry, green means that—”

  “Inexperienced,” I filled in for him. He didn’t need to give me a refresher on everything having to do with horses. I did have a working knowledge of them.