underestimated my star salesman.' He chuckled softly, then leaned forward across his desk again. 'Now come on, boy, give a little. Did you get some good cheesecake shots or not last night?'
Howard moistened his lips uncertainly. Ralph had put him in an awkward position: what he and Cindy did in the privacy of their own home was their business and no one else's — but then again, Ralph was a good friend and his boss, as well; and he was in a position to do Howard a great deal of future good. After all, hadn't Ralph been instrumental in getting him his last promotion and pay raise from the company president? Besides that, Ralph had more or less put this business of picture-taking on a masculine-pride level; Howard was one who would never admit to being a lesser man, much less to being naive in the ways of the world.
It wouldn't do any harm, really, he thought, to tell Ralph about the photos he had taken of Cindy the night before. It was all innocent anyway; Cindy would never approve, naturally — but she would never have to know.
Howard managed a smile, licking his lips again. 'Well,' he said, 'as a matter of fact, Ralph, I… I did get some pretty good shots, at that. Some… some cheesecake, as you say.'
'I thought so,' Ralph beamed. 'Pretty hot, eh?'
'Sure,' Howard said, having committed himself. 'Sure, they were pretty hot ones, Ralph.' Ralph laughed. 'Nude shots?'
Howard felt himself flushing again. 'Well… well, not exactly. But they were pretty good anyway. Cheesecake you know.'
Ralph opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a small manila envelope, which he placed on the glass top in front of Howard. 'Not anywhere in the neighborhood of these, I'll bet,' he said.
Howard frowned, looking at the envelope. 'What's this?'
'Open it up and take a look, my boy.'
Howard did that, extracting several glossy full-color photographs which had obviously been taken with Polaroid cameras. They were blown-up five-by-seven prints, and Howard sucked in his breath sharply as he saw what they graphically depicted. 'My God!' he managed to whisper.
The top photo was of a lithe, buxom brunette with an angelic face. She was lying completely nude on her back on a rumpled bed, her slender legs raised and wide-spread so that the whole of her naked loins were displayed to the eye of the camera. Her hands were cupped teasingly around her pubic triangle, framing the wide-splayed splendor of her softly hair-fringed cunt. She was smiling coyly between her ruby-nippled, alabaster breasts.
Howard blinked and looked at the second photo. Another sharp intake of breath, and a small gasp. The same angelic brunette was in this one, but with her also was a dark-haired, handsome male. The brunette was straddling the man's loins, her widespread loins lowered down on the man's hardened penis, so that fully half of its huge length was sunk into her open vagina. She was holding its base between her thumb and forefinger, her small pink tongue held tightly between her full red lips and her eyes squeezed tightly shut in ecstasy. Her other hand was squeezing her left breast, very hard, so that the jutting nipple seemed to point directly at the camera.
Quickly, with beads of sweat lacing his forehead and a rising harness in his loins, Howard thumbed through the other pictures. One showed a different, gray-templed man kneeling between the opened thighs of a petite blonde with pear-shaped breasts, his long tongue snaked out so that it touched the swollen bud of her pink clitoris nestled between fleece-like blonde pubic hair. Another depicted a voluptuous raven-haired girl barely out of her teens with her coral-colored lips voraciously encircling the erect, swollen prick of a muscular hirsute man while he used the middle finger of one hand in the wet, glistening area of her soft pink cunt, her leg being raised so that the full extent of her womanhood was presented to the viewer's eyes while she sucked the man's cock and toyed with his sperm-heavy balls. Still another photo showed two couples, both in their mid-thirties, engaged in an orgiastic group session which Howard could not believe upon first sight, since it involved cunnilingus, fellatio, sodomy all at the same time. The final snap was of two blonde girls and a huge German Shepherd dog, the animal's long hot lolling tongue probing the pubic region of one of the girls while his wet red penis sawed into the upthrust cunt of the second.
Howard was sweating profusely, his breath coming in short gasps as his own genitals tingling with arousal, when he put the group of photographs back on Ralph's desk. 'Good Christ, Ralph,' he managed, 'where did you get those?'
'They're really something, aren't they?' Ralph asked, snickering softly.
'I've never seen anything like that in my life!'
'And these're just one small example of what can be done with a good old Polaroid camera, Howie,' said Ralph. 'I've got other ones at home — wilder ones, if you can believe it.'
Howard wiped his forehead with the back of one hand. His throat felt dry. 'But where did you get them, Ralph? They… they don't look like model-posed pornographic pictures…'
'They're not,' Ralph told him. 'All the people in these photos are just like you and me, Howie average American citizens just out looking for a few kicks. They all belong to an exchange-photographic organization — the Polaroid Club. Norma and I are members ourselves.'
'You… you are?' Howard could scarcely believe what his boss was telling him; he had thought he knew most everything about Ralph Taylor, his likes and dislikes, his interests and directions. He had never suspected for a moment that Ralph would be involved in this… this… well, this dirty picture club. Still, the photos were extremely stimulating, more stimulating than anything he had ever seen before. Just thinking about them made his prick tremble and begin to rise again…
'The way it works,' Ralph was explaining, 'we subscribe to this monthly newspaper the club produces. Couples write in, describing themselves and their photos, what they'd like in return, and so on. Then we exchange pictures.'
'You mean this Polaroid Club is a nationwide thing?'
'Sure. There are four chapters — one in New York, one in Florida, one in Chicago, and one in San Francisco- Los Angeles. The New York Chapter puts out the newspaper. Hell, you can buy a copy of it right here in Morriston, under the counter of course. Costs a buck a copy.'
'Here in Morriston?' Howard was incredulous.
Ralph laughed. 'Uh-huh. Why, you'd be surprised at some of the locals who are members of the club; you really would be, Howie.'
'You… you just exchange photos, that's all you do? I mean, you hear so much these days about wife- swapping…'
'That's not our bag,' Ralph said with a slow smile. 'We're strictly out for our own kicks, together. Oh sure, some of the others undoubtedly go in for that sort of thing — witness some of those pictures you just saw — but that's their business, not ours. I mean, what the hell?'
'Sure,' Howard said.
'There's not a damned thing wrong with this picture exchange that I can see,' said Ralph. 'We're being faithful to our wives, aren't we? Those of us who are in the club for personal gratification, I mean. All we're doing is getting ourselves and our wives turned on watching some other people doing it, and they're doing the same thing watching us. And it does get you turned on, Howie boy, believe me.'
I believe you, all right, Howard thought. I can remember how excited I got last right, taking pictures of Cindy — and they weren't anything more than some harmless cheesecake. I wonder if I dare…
He shook his head, as if to clear it. No, there was no use thinking about trying to carry his thoughts past the pure day-dream stage. Cindy would never allow him to take pictures of her stripped completely naked, even though she had agreed to the cheesecake photos of the previous night, and she would most definitely never allow anything as lascivious as self-photos of the two of them making love. For God's sake, even if she did agree to go that far, she would certainly not agree to let anyone else, much less strangers, see the photos.
And he shouldn't expect her to, damn it; what was the matter with him? Cindy was a sweet, moral girl, faithful and passionate and able to satisfy his every need up until now — so why was he thinking about asking her to do something which fairly shouted of perversity and lack of respect for privacy and personal intimacy? Why should he be so excited at the possibility of seeing more of these photos which Ralph had just shown him? Why should the thought of watching other people making love and performing perversion on a regular basis bring the sweat out on his forehead, and bring a tightness to his chest and loins? Well, he couldn't explain it; it was beyond his comprehension. He knew only that the idea of seeing Cindy in a provocative position in a photograph, as he had for the first time last night, turned him on like he had never been turned on before. And the sight of these photos of
