Lena & Carlos delve into the archive

On late summer evenings the sunset looked especially nice from the entryway of Lena’s studio. On this particular evening, the soft gradient of pink and orange was visible in the gap between the house and sauna. The sky reflected delicately off the surface of the plunge pool and a blush of hibiscus stirred in the calm air.

Inside, Lena switched on a lamp hanging over the big work table in the center of the studio, throwing a warm circle of light amid the evening blue. Carlos sat on a stool sipping mint tea.

“Let’s see. Shall we start with the most recent?” Lena said, moving over to look up at a stack of albums and boxes on a high shelf.

Carlos glanced over at her, admiring her bare legs beneath the loose knit pullover she had thrown on over her bikini. They had gone for a dip in the river together after dinner. “Sounds good.”

The shelf housed the archive of reference photos Lena had taken of models over the years, going right back to when she and Carlos had moved to Fern River and built the house and studios. Back then she developed all the film and prints herself in the tiny water closet by the door — a task she had by now sensibly outsourced to one of the photography teachers at the college. Lena returned with a few albums and set them on the table.

“You’ll recognize some of these,” she said, winking at her husband, who sat comfortably on the stool in his dry swim trunks and unbuttoned hemp shirt.

First were the photos of Jule, which Carlos had seen already. An almost abstract tight shot of her chest, framed at the top by high collarbones set in sharp shadow, and at the bottom by the diverging arcs of her large breasts, nipples just out of frame. Then another of her back, crossed diagonally by a sleek twist of blonde hair. Lena flipped through to a shot of herself, pressing her bare breasts together with forearms and pursing her lips.

“Jule took this one,” Lena said, looking the photo over and setting it beside another of Jule facing the camera topless. “It always helps to let the models shoot some of me. Loosens up even the stiffest sessions. Every roll has a few.”

Carlos felt a stirring at the frank juxtaposition of his wife’s familiar small breasts next to the young woman’s large pair. He had seen most of the photos taken by her models over the years, and enjoyed them.

On the next page of the album came two of Bri draped in gauzy cloth striking sculptural poses, followed by a low-framed shot of a young man perched atop the stool with one foot raised onto an overturned apple crate, penis resting heavily against the other thigh. To Carlos’ mind it had the unmistakable look of an impending erection. “Who’s this here?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

“Oh that’s Liam. I did a watercolor sketch that day as well. I didn’t make the poor kid take any of me.”

“Looks like he may have enjoyed it.”

Lena smiled and looked back at the photo before closing the album and picking up the next. The first print was of Yvette, the museum curator, standing among the dahlias in the garden looking rather serious. Her arms were crossed under her low teardrop-shaped breasts, and a large bloom hovered modestly beneath her navel. “Isn’t she lovely?” Lena said, brushing her finger over the satin paper. “Yvette is beyond busy at the moment, with the Come-In approaching and all.”

“Bless that woman,” Carlos said with a smile, admiring her posture.

Lena stood and walked over to the shelf, climbing up to retrieve an old cigar box tucked behind a hanging philodendron vine. “This one,” she said, squaring the box on the table, “is from way back.”

The first print was of a man Carlos didn’t recognize standing nude in Lena’s newly-built studio. The wide V of his back led down to a strong and shapely butt, his feet planted at shoulder width. “Professor of Anthropology,” Lena said. “Or was it Philosophy? Fascinating man.” In the next photo he had turned to face the camera. Carlos’ eyes went immediately to the man’s large penis, which although completely soft, hung well below his equally large balls. “Don’t be jealous,” Lena said, squeezing her husband’s butt at the edge of the stool. “I didn’t see it hard either.” They laughed.

They went through the prints one by one, reminiscing about old acquaintances and admiring younger versions of friends. Near the bottom of the stack they came to a series of photos of Margot, which Lena arranged across the table. “She was just visiting from Spain then, wasn’t she?”

“She was,” said Carlos, remembering the time clearly, despite the many intervening years. He and Lena had just opened up their marriage, and he and Margot enjoyed a brief fling. He looked over the photos of Margot posing fully nude around the studio: one of her slouching in an armchair next to the woodstove, another of her looking up at the skylights with her elbows and shoulders pulled back, her large and buoyant breasts swooping out to puffy nipples levitating over her stomach. Another with legs spread at right angles on the wool rug, hands raised to cup her breasts. He could recall the heft of them in his own hands as she straddled him.

Lena reached down and felt him stiffening in his thin shorts. “Fond memories huh?”

Carlos brought his hand up to cup her firm bottom. “Mmmhmm.”

The next print Lena added to the arrangement on the lamplit table was another of herself, clearly taken on the same day by Margot. She was topless in unbuttoned high-waisted jeans, sitting on her knees on the patterned rug. One hand was down the front of her pants, and the other was raised to pull on one of her erect nipples. Her cheeks and neck were flushed and eyes closed in what Carlos immediately clocked as pleasure well on the way toward orgasm. He felt himself rise to full stiffness.

“She and I got off in front of each other for the first time that day,” Lena said, looking down at his tented shorts. She took one last photo from the box. “You’ll remember this one, it was from later that same day.”

A younger Lena & Carlos looked up at them from the print she set on the table next to the others. They were standing nude in front of the studio among the flowers, captured in the midst of evidently boisterous laughter. It was taken just a few seconds after a a familiar photo of the two of them that hung framed next to the sink across the room.

“Margot took that one, didn’t she?” Carlos asked, involuntarily smiling to match the photo. “I had no idea you two masturbated together. That’s exciting to learn, all these years later.”

Lena reached down to caress his erect length invitingly through the thin fabric of the shorts. She slipped her pullover down over one shoulder and motioned with a finger for him to follow. She led her husband, visibly erect, past the blush of hibiscus toward the house where the curtains over the open bedroom windows swayed in the evening air.