Welcome to the Darkroom:
In my circle of photographers, we don’t talk about cameras, or lenses, or even Photoshop.
We talk about life.
Photography is about witness.
It solves an ancient question about the human condition:
is any of this real?
Making pictures is the act of me seeing you…
….and then you seeing me see you
…and then me seeing you see me seeing you.
…and in this moment, answers rise up in the developer tray.
Each of these stories is a mix of fact and fantasy – but that’s not the point –
In a nod to my photography hero, Richard Avedon:
“All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth”
“Sometimes I think my pictures, are all just pictures of me”.
Enjoy.
Her mom wants soup for dinner tonight.
Not just any soup – a very particular brand of frozen broccoli cheese soup.
“Tell me you are 78 without telling me you are 78, mom,” she teased.
She had been staying with her mom for several weeks.
Part customary, part nursing her mother back to health, part low key hiding from the dilemmas of home.
A quick moment in the bathroom – her nightshirt came off.
As she reached for her black sundress, she brushed her hair.
Naked.
It’s the only nakedness she’s been getting lately.
“It’s a shame all of this is going unappreciated, every day….”
Depeche Mode droned on her iPhone.
She ran a brush through her hair a few times to achieve some modicum of presentability.
The ends of her long brown hair woke her nipples from their long nap.
“God, those split ends are killing me.”
Night shirt off, black sundress on.
Same material, same length.
One showed more boob, and was somehow deemed more socially acceptable for wearing in public.
She smirked at the irony, turned off the light, and got on with the day.
She hadn’t even planned to feel anything that day.
Hair up.
Little black sundress.
No bra because, why?
The fabric was soft enough to forgive her.
No panties… why?
She was proud of what she had.
If the 79 degree breeze was going to be the only thing that saw all of her for a while, so be it.
‘Life is difficult enough, take the small wins when you can’ was her undeclared ethos.
Being in “mom-mode” for her own mother was sobering.
It was hard to talk to her about anything in her own life; she devolved into criticism every time.
And yet she loved her mom, through all the layers of mutual resentment.
She wasn’t even totally at peace with WHY she kept spending time away from her adult home, here in her childhood home.
A good wine buzz usually kept that question neatly tucked into bed while she and her mom would mutually stare at the TV and watch the breadcrumbs of Cinema.
Fast & Furious 17?
Sure.
Why not.
The 13th Star Wars prequel that was in a galaxy so far away that it no longer had any familiar actors playing any familiar characters?
Yep.
Beats talking about her estate planning.
Sleeping in her childhood home was such a trip. Some nights she would lay awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the first time she had sex in this room, back in high school.
She missed those days of feeling so alive. So radiant. So wanted by every boy.
This old bed held many memories.
They made her smile – one of the few unique benefits of nurse duty.
Hell, post divorce life has been pretty good, too – it’s just that the men are more handsome, with more money, and more understanding of how to please a woman.
Her head felt thick. Was it the wine? Was it a sleep hangover from binge watching The Bachelor Season 7 for the 7th time with mom last night, just to pass the time?
She doubled-checked her list: Candle. Wine. Frozen broccoli cheese soup. That one brand that mom likes. She won’t eat anything else.
Christ.
It’s true. The older we get, the more we become like toddlers.
It just felt good to get out of the house. Away from the woman who gave her life, if even for an hour.
As she entered the store, the breeze from the grocery store doors threatened to make her Marilyn Monroe for a moment.
She flattened her palms over the hem of her dress for just a moment to keep it down.
“I wish I had someone to lift my dress for, God… what a waste of a perfectly good breeze.” she muttered in her mind so loud it came out of her lips.
“I sound like a crazy lady.”
The noisy entrance masked her confession.
Her eyes rolled behind her sunglasses.
Bon Jovi hummed through overhead speakers.
“I’m not old enough for this to be playing in the frozen food section. Bullshit.”
She said it out loud.
There weren’t enough people around to hear her tiny rant.
Her phone buzzed – a text message from him.
Short. Oddly erotic for how mundane his message was.
Their words were one of the few things that kept the spark alive while she was gone on these extended “nurse duty” deployments.
She thought back to the last time they made love.
The way he filled her up, emotionally, energetically, physically.
His hunger for her had a way of making her feel deeply feminine.
She ran her fingers through her hair to re-claim the mess the breeze had made of her hair.
Her scalp tingled, begging for his hand in her hair again.
The way he took it – Assertive. Kind. Desirous.
He’s a real life fucking vampire. There was no other way to account for the way he kissed her bare neck.
Fuck Edward Cullen.
She looked down to see where here hair was landing and noticed that her nipples were now awake. The black fabric was forgiving, but didn’t hide everything.
She tried hard to not think about it too much. It was a pointless pursuit for now.
Not only could she not see him any time soon, she couldn’t even get any quality alone time.
In her childhood bedroom… with her mom down the hall… who always asked too many questions, too often.
Utterly.
Pointless.
A man with a roller cart stacked with Cheetos and other Frito-Lay products cut her off.
He didn’t even notice her.
What the fuck?
She responded back to his text with a ‘heart’ reaction.
Any more than that would stir up a conversation that would leave her wanting and unable to do anything about her desire, or the difficulty of her situation.
It was better to stay accustomed to starving.
Her skin felt silky smooth as her thighs brushed together, turning into the produce aisle.
Cucumbers.
Cool. Firm. Beading with water.
She picked one up without thinking.
As she wrapped her fingers around it, his text from last night replayed in her mind, jolting her into a realization of how she was actually holding the vegetable.
Self conscious, she snapped out of it.
She quickly forgave herself. There was nobody around.
She picked up another cucumber, this time, holding it more imaginatively.
Unapologetically.
At its peak ripeness, every one of its cells were full of water. It was heavy. If it were a balloon, it would burst – but the dutiful cucumber held its water for the moment when someone would devour it.
The cucumber reminded her of him. His urgency.
His dimensionality.
His voice. The way he looks at her when she’s being bold.
The way he says her name when she’s about to lose control.
She swallowed.
She picked up another one. Compared lengths. Compared thickness. Her inspection of the produce suddenly felt absurdly intimate.
“Fuck….” She cursed under hear breath. She bit her lip.
“This is ridiculous.”
“If I was at home, alone, I would have done it already”, she admitted to herself.
“While mom sleeps through “The Price is Right”.
She felt heat gathering under her skin. Her nipples tightened against the fabric of her dress.
She brushed her hair just to give her hand an excuse to touch one of them for a split second.
“If I was the only one here, I would fuck this cucumber right here, right in the produce section.”
Her admissions deepened.
“What would he say if he could see me right now?”
Her mind started playing scenes without her permission.
She remembered his text and thought about telling him what she was imagining, but no – that would instigate a long, hot, and bothered text thread and now is not the time for that.
She imagined finding a lonely aisle. Maybe back by home goods.
In her mind’s eye, she finds the perfect corner. There’s one light bulb out above her. It’s slightly dim.
She imagined lifting her dress just slightly. Not enough to be obvious. Just enough to feel the air.
Her skin imagined the tip of the cucumber making its journey from her lower thigh, up, up, up…. to her inner thigh…
Her body responded instantly to the thought.
Warmth.
Wetness.
Urgency.
This time she felt her breasts calling for attention before she looked down at them – it was now even more obvious that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
She caught her breath.
Which was more dangerous – that she wanted to, or that she could?
Or the words she wished he would text her right now?
“Do it, babe…”
She imagined his encouragement.
“Let them watch”.
She placed one cucumber into her cart.
Her favorite one.
It reminded her of him.
She began moving. Scouting.
She glanced down the aisle. A woman with a toddler at the far end. A man studying avocados. No one looking at her.
Her pulse climbed.
Her body buzzed. She had moved from imagining to finding the perfect spot.
Her fingers tightened around the cucumber.
She contemplated his girth, on how long it’s been, and how long it may still be.
“Who does this?,” she whispered to herself.
The good daughter buying vegetables for dinner?
Or the woman who could ruin herself in aisle 9 and then stand in line smiling politely while the cashier scanned her groceries?
“But I want it.”
She felt dizzy with it.
She wasn’t in a hurry. She had time to kill before making dinner.
Def Leppard played a cheesy make out ballad in the overhead speakers.
It was her favorite song in the 11th grade. She couldn’t penetrate the rising buzz in her brain to think of the song name.
The thrill was now more than the moment – It was the risk. The question: What kind of woman am I?
He would be so proud of me if I did…
She began to notice the way the fabric of the sundress caressed her bare hips.
She became more aware of the invisible eddies of atmosphere inviting themselves up into her dress, the way her un-bound breasts bounced more as she walked.
The way her nipples began checking in with headquarters more regularly.
Her sandals gently slap the tile floor. The arches of her feet come online. The breeze slowly moving up into her dress feels more important now.
She reaches a path less traveled – the bulk section.
Thank god it’s a slow day at the supermarket – not a soul in sight – just the soft droning of The Pet Shop Boys over the PA.
She leans back against a metal shelf. The coolness presses through the thin fabric of her dress and into her spine. The refrigeration hum vibrates faintly through it.
“Really? Could I…. Um… really?” She half heartedly checks in with herself.
“….because, FUCK….”
Her heart is pounding now.
She tells herself she’s just adjusting her dress.
Just shifting her stance.
Just existing.
But her hand moves without permission, one step behind her imagination.
She lifts the hem of her sundress just enough to feel the air circulate more freely inside of her thighs.
Her laser-bare skin registers every micro degree of temperature change.
The cucumber is still cold.
She presses it lightly against the inside of her thigh.
“Could I?”
The shock of temperature makes her inhale sharply.
“Fuck I need this…”
The contrast. Cold and heat. Public and private. Innocence and intention.
She moves it a few inches higher, letting the tip of the cucumber warm against her skin, tracing a familiar path upward, the way he always does, during those deliciously extended anticipatory sessions…
“This would feel so good…”
S
he imagines telling him about it.
She imagines his excitement.
“What if someone saw me actually do it?”
Okay so what IF someone saw? She knew that any man would love it… hell he’d probably even want to stop and watch…
Women? They’d be jealous, but nobody would say anything.
But what if?
Her breathing grew shallow.
She pressed the cool firmness higher, just brushing her bare flesh, barely glancing her lips.
She’s already warm and aching.
It doesn’t take much.
She’s already on edge.
Her brain buzzes even more steadily.
She imagines his turgid presence. His voice telling her not keep going…
Her free hand tightens on the shelf behind her.
For one reckless second, she almost lets go completely.
Almost.
Recomposed, she becomes temporarily reasonable.
“White wine, candle, soup….” She revisits the shopping list.
Grocery stores usually peak out at a 7 when it comes to wine. She’s love a 10, but tonight a solid 6 or 7 will do.
“We live in wine country, what the fuck is all of this Australian and Chilean shit doing here?”
“Can I just get a proper mid-market Napa chard, for God’s sake?”
“One bottle, two bottles or a magnum?”
If she and her mom finish a magnum tonight, she’ll feel like a derelict, even though her mom will be largely responsible for it.
She opts for a $10.99 un-oaked Chardonnay and a Pinot Grigio from wherever.
Optics.
She stops by the frozen food section, grabs mom’s dumb soup, and makes her way back to her enclave in the bulk section.
Her mind is made up.
Life is short.
It’s time.
A cart rattles somewhere in the distance.
She listens like a whale pinging sonar in the ocean.
The cart is definitely going further away.
She got even wetter in that moment.
She looks down at her hand.
The cucumber is still cold. Still heavy. Still waiting.
Her pulse is everywhere now.
In her throat.
In her wrists.
Between her legs.
The store hum feels louder, like the whole building is breathing with her.
“What if someone sees?” has transformed into a secret wish.
It makes her wetter.
She walks up and down the aisle, peering around corners.
Nobody.
She slips back into the shadowed corner near the bulk bins.
A rack of discounted pasta shields her from one side. A tall end cap display blocks the other.
It is not invisible. It is just… neglected.
Her heart pounds so hard she thinks it might be visible through her dress.
Her nipples most certainly are.
She loves it when they show. While other parts of her life are a mess, her breasts, are not.
She’s always loved the moment of reveal, when a new lover takes her top off for the first time.
The look of awe in his eyes always makes her twice as wet.
She listens.
Cart wheels. Distant conversation. Now it’s The Rolling Stones on the PA. No footsteps close.
She leans back against the cold painted cinder block wall.
The chill presses into her shoulder blades and makes her shiver. The hem of her sundress trembles against her thighs as she inhales.
She could still leave, but why?
She finds the hem of her sundress. It’s a short dress, her hand doesn’t have to traverse far.
She takes the hem in her finger and thumb, and slowly lifts it, imagining him… HER him, and some other him, walking by. She practices letting him see her.
All of her.
In the light.
She can feel the light on her bare flesh. Another rush of hot blood to her head.
“This is amazing….”
She touches herself for a moment. She is already slick enough to only need a few fingers to bring it into her.
She imagines him at home, listening intently to her story of what is about to happen.
She imagines cumming and then telling him about it. She knows how he would bask in her story during his private moments.
She gets even hungrier.
She brings the cucumber up slowly.
The first brush is barely contact. Just the cool curve grazing the inside of her thigh.
The temperature shocks her. Cold against heat.
She bites her lip hard to keep quiet.
His encouragements are now just a faint echo in her psyche.
Her breathing grows shallow. Her fingers tighten around the vegetable, condensation slicking her palm.
She presses it higher.
Not fully.
Not yet.
Just enough to feel the promise of it. Just enough to know she could.
Her pulse explodes.
Something shifts inside her:
She doesn’t want safety anymore.
She wants the edge.
She shifts her hips slightly against the shelf and presses the cold firmness directly where she’s burning. The shock makes her knees buckle. She grips the metal rack behind her to stay upright.
Her eyes close.
The contrast is unbearable. Cold outside. Heat inside. Public space. Private hunger.
She moves.
Small. Controlled. Almost imperceptible. A subtle roll of her hips that could, from a distance, look like nothing at all.
She’s shaking now.
She imagines someone turning the corner. A stranger stopping. Watching. Saying nothing. Or worse… understanding exactly what she’s doing.
The possibility sends a violent rush through her.
She presses deeper.
And then – she feels something…. Else.
Every woman has this instinct – especially women who grew up attractive and bathing in male attention, like she did.
A sixth sense that tells a girl when a boy’s eyes are upon her.
A subtle shift in the air. The prickle at the back of her neck.
She’s still pressed into the corner of the wall and the shelf. Dress slightly lifted. Breath shallow. The cucumber cold and firm in her hand, resting where she shouldn’t be resting it.
She looks up.
He’s at the far end of the aisle.
Mid-forties, maybe. Reasonably cute. Casual button-down. Horned rim glasses. Cart idle beside him. Not pretending to shop. Not looking away.
Just…. watching.
Her heart slams so hard she nearly drops it.
For a second she thinks:
I’m caught.
But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t gesture.
He just holds her gaze.
There’s no shock in his face.
No outrage.
Only awareness.
The space between them tightens like a wire.
She could stop.
She could lower her dress, walk out, pretend this never happened.
He gives her that option. He doesn’t approach. Doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t nod.
He just stays, and doesn’t look away.
Her pulse goes molten.
The humiliation hits first. A hot wave that flushes her chest and throat.
Then something else rises underneath it.
Control.
Understanding.
He hasn’t stepped forward.
He hasn’t claimed the moment.
That means it’s still hers.
She hasn’t even blinked since they locked eyes.
Her hand trembles under the fabric.
The cool firmness presses against her again and she inhales sharply, eyes still locked on his.
If he turns away, what will she do?
Will it break her spell?
He doesn’t.
The hum of refrigeration fills the silence of their mutual understanding.
And in a moment, everything goes still.
Calm.
Hot.
She takes the hem of her dress into her finger and thumb again.
She lifts it slowly. A wry half cocked smile emerges on her lips.
She knows that this is safe.
She knows this will be one of the best days of his life.
Maybe her life, too.
Pride replaces nervousness.
His poker face is a bit better than hers. He doesn’t flinch, but his eyes seem to deepen, drinking her in.
She rocks her hips slightly, lifts her little black dress completely, daring him to look away.
The warmth between her thighs turns to outright heat and hunger.
Her nipples rub against her dress and remind her – and him – of their presence.
Her half smirk begins to change.
The cucumber moves higher up her thigh.
As it approaches, her smirk evolves in to a smile.
She understands – he wishes that he was a vegetable in this moment.
She grants his second best wish…
She brings it higher.
She lets her hips move.
Barely – just enough that he can see her chest rise. The slight tightening of her jaw. Her fingers grip the shelf behind her.
He sees.
He knows.
Her knees soften.
This is madness.
This is power.
For a moment, she is Goddess Kali.
She presses the cold curve into where she’s already aching, her entire body a live wire. The risk is no longer abstract. It has a face. A witness. A man choosing to stand there and watch.
Her breathing grows ragged.
The look in his eyes changes. Not hunger exactly. Not lust. Something darker. Recognition. Like he understands the choice she’s making.
The stately cucumber opened her wide and filled her completely.
Over, and over, and over…
She commanded its obedient depth and breadth into her quivering body.
His chest rose slowly, deeply, deliberately. she understood his breath.
His exhale gave her more permission.
Electricity moved slowly through her body, from her feet, to her pussy, to her breasts, to her lips.
Not because of the object in her hand,
Because of her witness.
She tightens. She trembles.
She breaks a nail on the shelf.
Her eyes flutter, she maintains eye contact with him through one eye, while the other collapses shut.
Beads of sweat form in the small of her back.
A wave begins to approach her body and soul.
In complete abandon, and complete control – she fucks herself while her sentinel stands watch.
The wave crests. It carries her up, higher, and higher, crashing over her with a shocking deliciousness.
Nothing matters and everything matters all at once.
She drops the deflowered produce, glancing her calf and touching her sensitive toes as it rolls an inch away.
For a suspended second after, neither of them moves.
He lowered his eyes to his shopping list as if remembering the script he was supposed to follow.
He shifted his cart, and moved slowly toward paper goods.
She stayed still a few seconds longer, letting her pulse and her dress settle. The fluorescent lights came back into focus. The tunnel vision rescinded opened back up.
Still a bit shaky, she placed the cucumber gently into her basket alongside some frozen broccoli cheese soup.
Returning to reality, she scopes out the scene. A mirrored dome security camera is nearby.
In plain sight.
A modern day Eye of Horus, you can never tell where what they are looking at, if they are watching live or recording for later.
She felt another ripple move through her.
The idea that this moment might exist somewhere else now.
Stored.
Timestamped.
Archived.
Saved for later.
She smoothed her dress. Placed the cucumber into her basket. Walked back into the bright aisle like nothing had happened.
Seven minutes later she stood at checkout.
Raspberries.
A candle.
A bottle of chardonnay.
The cucumber.
Frozen soup.
She watched Sharon’s dry hands run the grocery objects over the scanner.
Sharon should be working in a diner in the south topping off coffee and listening to the town gossip.
Her rusty red hair was a bit too lush and vibrant for the wrinkles on her face. It was pulled up with a hair clip, locks of it flopped down over her thick rimmed glasses.
Candle. Beep. $4.79
Chardonnay. $11.98 Beep.
Sharon looks like she could use a glass of wine.
Her red lipstick was a bit out of whack. Maybe she just had one.
Raspberries. $5.29 Beep.
“Oh look how ripe these are, better eat them up tonight!, Sharon drawled.
She noticed Sharon’s nails.
She had been somewhere fancy recently.
Bag of frozen broccoli cheese soup. Wet and glistening from the first stages of thaw.
“You got a nice date tonight, sweetheart?”
Southern accents let people say things that Californians cannot.
“Candles and wiiine and soup? …and salad?? You need some lettuce, honey? It’s over there behind aisle 9.”
Did Sharon just make a comment about the solitary cucumber?
Sharon had leaned into that comment.
“I wonder how many single girls she’s seen come through her line with just a single cucumber…”
A perfect specimen of a cucumber.
She ventured a guess.
“No, it’s just for my mom and I. She’s old. Seems like broccoli cheese soup is an old person thing.”
“Awww well, I hope you’ve got a good man somewhere, you sure are pretty.”
Sharon picked up the cucumber.
It was still tumescent. Just… a cucumber. No lettuce. No tomatoes. No croutons. No other sign of salad making.
“Such a shame for a pretty little thing like you to go unappreciated.”
She took her time enunciating every syllable in “un-app-re-cia-ted”.
Sharon’s eyes slowly inspected her figure, only slightly hidden by her little back sundress.
Warmth washed over her body.
The cucumber’s turgid skin was slightly wet.
Sharon moved it around in her hands. She seemed to be looking for the produce scan sticker, or was she?
Sharon wrapped her fingers around it. They didn’t quite reach around its circumference.
Her lips gathered into a gently smoldering smirk as she watched Sharon handle the cucumber.
Sharon smacked on her gum. She sounded hungry.
After a bit too much searching with her fingers, Sharon let out an exhale that was supposed to be private.
She plopped it down on the scale.
The cucumber’s collision with the scale let out a low “thud” that spoke its mass out loud.
Its gentle upward bend kept it from rolling away.
Sharon began keying in the 4 digit code for “cucumber”, her fingers deliberately punching 4…. 0….. 6…. 2….
She did it without breaking eye contact.
“Did you find everything you were looking for honey?”
Another wash of warmth cascaded over her body.
A gentle tingle moved up the back of her neck.
She rocked her hips slightly, instinctively.
Her body took over again and nodded her head.
She did an instant replay, remembering how Sharon touched the cucumber.
She searched Sharon’s eyes deeper, maintaining eye contact while she tapped her card on the terminal.
“Beeeep”
The receipt machine dispensed paper.
A luscious smile emerged from her lips as she imagined what Sharon might be wondering.
“I hope you have yourself a real good night, sweetie…”