Two Hundred Dollars Ch. 23

He's not going to want to do anything painful to my vulva, she firmly decided, No slapping, certainly. Does he want to stare at me again?

As she prepared herself to negotiate how much he'd get to see and for how long, Kent's eyes flipped up to meet hers and he drew breath in to speak.

"I want a picture of you," he declared, narrowing his eyes and leaning forward.

"A picture?" she stomped down on the instinctive rejection hurtling up her vocal chords, silently choking while she waited for him to continue.

Well, you wanted him to take the initiative. Let's see where this goes.

"You don't want to be identifiable," he offered.

"Obvi."

"But you should be naked," Kent cleared up and sat back in his chair. "It'd be good if I could see the redness from the last twenty four hours."

Bold. I wanted him to start taking the lead, and he could have asked for just about anything. Pinched my ass, my boobs, played with my nipples. But he wants one, single picture.

Bailey did her best to keep all expression off her face, hoping she displayed only her Negotiating Face, the clinically detached one she tried to use for all their best discussions.

I don't have to do what he's asking, but let's see what he's asking.

"All my clothes off?" she prodded, testing to see if he'd cave.

"Right," Kent answered, only the slightest quaver in his voice.

"Pose?"

"In profile," he said and pointed at the foot of the bed, "Kneeling over here."

Bailey turned to her left to look at the offered spot.

"Body stretched out this way," Kent waved towards the head of the bed, "Stretching your arms out above your head. You can hide your face that way."

Her heart pounded in her chest. She could try to pretend to herself she had negotiating room, that she could say 'No' and be done with it, but she already felt the surge of energy rushing up her spine to make her whole body tingle.

I want to do this for him. There's no going back.

But Bailey also knew she had to push back a little, if only to make Kent understand how the importance of his request.

"Where will you take the pic from?" she prodded.

"Just... over," Kent drifted off to her left, holding his joined thumbs together to frame his potential image, "... here."

It'll give him a nice shot of my butt without getting right up it. Fair enough. But he'll still own a naked picture of me.

"I see," Bailey tried to control herself, the impatient urge to strip her clothes off for him threatening to derail every attempt at rationality and safety.

"Do you?"

"Here's my offer," she said. "You take the picture with my phone."

"Okay," Kent shrugged.

"In fact, you can take several if you want," Bailey went on amicably, "Then we pick out which one is the best."

"Still with you."

"Then I edit it so my face and anything else identifying is gone," Bailey reprimanded, her voice becoming severe. "Then I'll find a way to give you the picture."

"That sounds fair," Kent said.

"I'm also going to assume that I have a promise of confidentiality from you," she added, her eyes levelling with his. "This isn't some game. I mean that."

"I will neither tell a soul, nor ever share the image," Kent promise, meeting her gaze evenly.

Committed now. Let's do this.

"Alright," she let her voice turn playful, "Turn around. You're not paying for a show, just a pose."

Kent smirked, his body loosening up with laughter as he stood up and turned his back.

I don't know what I expected when I dropped that ultimatum on him, but it wasn't this, Bailey smiled as she unbuttoned her jeans. This is better than anything I could have hoped for. Clever bastard.

"Let me know when you're ready," Kent called over his shoulder.

She tossed her jeans on the chair he had just vacated and took off her shirt next.

"Kent," she called out as she unfastened her bra, "I'd feel better if you could take off your pants and shirt too?"

"Sure," Kent said instantly, unbuckling his belt and sliding off his own jeans.

Solid legs, Bailey noted as she exposed her breasts to his back, the little butt on him. He still runs, doesn't he? Look at those calves.

Distracted by her first uninterrupted look at his body, she forgot her own mission.

"You done yet?" he asked when he'd taken his shirt off.

"Oh, right," Bailey coughed and hurriedly slipped out of her underwear.

Okay, naked. Here we go.

She climbed up on his bed and knelt near the foot, her toes wiggling off the end. The morning sunlight coming in through the high window warmed her back from shoulder to thigh, giving her a strangely cozy tingle. Leaving her cheeks up in the air, she bent at the waist until her breasts touched the bed sheets and then stretched her arms like a diver, tucking her head as deep down below her shoulders as she could.

If I had his shoulders, I'd be a lot more effective at hiding my face. Right now, all the picture will show is my hair.

Bailey knew, however, that the reddish brown tint of her hair, and its shoulder length cut, might prove more than enough to identify her. She still had sense enough in her head to want to avoid that.

I can blur that part of the picture out.

"Okay," she called out, looking at Kent over the barrier of her arm.

"Whoa," Kent gasped as he turned around.

I guess I've never hit him like this before, she felt a thrill of delight rush through her at his reaction.

"C'mon," she said, "take your pictures."

"Right."

She heard Kent moving to roughly the place from which he'd promised to take his shots. As the first click went off, Bailey felt a little piece of herself breaking away, flowing into the phone. She heard her phone, click after click, stealing a little more of her with each image. When Kent had taken about a dozen shots, from various angles, Bailey felt as if she'd given away every piece of herself.

It's still on my phone, though, she reminded herself, listening to Kent sigh and fall into his chair.

"Done," he announced, holding out the phone expectantly.

Without moving her body, Bailey looked at him and rolled her eyes, causing him to echo her eye roll before rotating in his chair to face away. Bailey took up her shirt and threw it on over her head quickly, hoping its length covered her far enough.

"Alright, lessee!"

Kent rotated back around and she dropped into his lap, forcing a gasp from both of them.

That's next. First we'll take care of these pictures and -

"Jesus!" she swore softly as she caught sight of her first image.

Every function of her brain ground to a halt when she saw herself stretched out on his bed.

"That's the best one, I think," Kent's voice had gone defensive at her gasp, "Maybe one of the other-"

"That's -," Bailey stammered. "That's... nice, though."

Kent stopped, then, too.

"Well," he swallowed hard. "Well, yeah. Of course, it is."

Bailey realized Kent had chosen the pose and the precise location to place her body in the sunlight. The slanting rays of light lit her body from her elbows, through her shining red hair, down her arched back all the way to her reddened rear. Even her thighs and calves, in stark relief, looked nice in the shadows of the image.

I wanted to blur out my hair originally. But now? she looked at the picture, aware that her mouth hung open, it would just ruin the whole thing.

"Did you-?" she stammered, turning to look at Kent, "Did you set it up like this on purpose?"

"What?"

"The sunlight, the -- the -- everything?"

He shrugged, "Just seemed about right to me. Like this morning at breakfast."

The breakfast pictures had looked pretty good, too, but she hadn't felt like this about those ones.

"Kent," she turned back to start flipping through all of the images, "I had no idea..."

She vaguely heard him reply as she came to the end of the pictures and hit the ones he'd taken of them together at breakfast.

Even these are nice. I didn't notice before, but he got us in just the right position so all the muscles are accentuated and sunlight hits at a nice angle.

"Wow," she breathed, "which one was it you liked best?"

"Here," Kent answered, flipping back through until he found it.

"Your phone do NFC?"

"Yeah," he answered.

Bailey felt herself gulp involuntarily as she met his eyes, "I'm trusting you here, okay? Keep this safe?"

"Promise," he said, and laid his hand on her breastbone.

Her heart lurched at his touch.

It's like I'm made out of nothing all of a sudden, like my body became tiny and fragile when he put his hand there.

Bailey took a deep breath as she switched the NFC on her phone and began the process of transferring the photo to Kent.

"You're sure you don't want to edit it?" Kent cautioned.

"Oh, right," she muttered.

Quickly, she cropped the photo down to remove most of the evidence of the location. Bailey saw no need to make any of that information available to anyone. She then went to touch the phones together again.

"I meant to crop out your head or something," Kent pointed out. "Just in case."

Bailey shook her head and shrugged, "Can't do it. It would wreck the picture."

The transfer completed and she turned to look at Kent again.

"Thanks," she said as she stood up. "Um, I guess we're all evened up, then?"

"Yeah," Kent replied slowly.

"Alright."

She turned away from him to slide her panties on and yanked up her jeans after that, then slipped out of his room.

Feeling like I forgot something. Can't imagine what it is, though.