"What?" I surfaced from some deep place. My nipples tingled and I'd grown aroused at the images of the naked young woman.

"You've got great judgment, Dani. Can I improve anything?"

"You plan on taking more like this?"

Jack suppressed a smile. "I guess. If Sara still wants to. It's not like I forced her or anything."

He sat across from me, opened the folder and drew out the other photographs. He held them toward me. "I took these too."

I didn't want to take them, but found myself doing so anyway, the prints dry unlike the one in my hand. All showed Sara, two of them only partially unclothed. Jack had captured Sara as she slid from her dress, bending over in bra and panties, gazing directly into the camera which caught a light in her eyes that sent a thrill down through my belly to lodge between my thighs. I sighed, shook my head.

The other five prints showed Sara naked, posing against a tree, leaning forward against a rock, glancing back over her shoulder, hair flying in a breeze, legs parted, the stance opening her sex to the camera, a teasing pose, partly shrouded, partly displayed.

"Well...?" Jack prompted.

"You expect me to give an opinion on this... this smut?"

"Come on Dani, people do this kind of stuff all the time. I want your opinion. I value your opinion. Are they any good? As photographs. Ignore the subject, what are they like as photographs?"

"Ignore the subject?" I stared at another print, Sara reclining against a bank of grass, one hand cradling a breast, the other covering her pussy. Beautiful; cool and welcoming, at the same time erotic and sultry, her pinched features only adding to the eroticism of the image.

"If you can."

I wanted to put the photograph aside but it demanded my attention "It's overexposed," I said, without a hint of irony, only belatedly realizing what I'd said.

Jack smiled, quicker than me, nodded. "Uh-huh. I can fix that. And?"

"You need more backlight to catch her hair. You've almost got it here," I pointed at where a shaft of sunlight came through trees and framed an area of grass, but Sara stood only half in the fall of light making the exposure too high on one side of her body, too low on the other.

Jack nodded again. "I can see that. I guess I wasn't being too cool when I took that one."

I smiled. "Why's that, Jack?"

He smiled back at me, shrugging. "Well... you know."

"You're going to have to get rid of these."

"I can hide them. Don't worry, Dani, this won't come back on you."

"Too right!" I tried for outrage but we both knew I'd capitulated now. "It'll come back on you if you get caught."

"Ah, well... If I get caught. And I won't."

"You can't be sure."

"I guess not. But I won't get caught. Not unless you're going to give me away. Are you going to do that, Dani?"

Jack sat across from me, his muscular body an animal presence, not threatening but impossible to ignore.

"I hope you know I wouldn't do that."

"I do."

He seemed closer without moving, his magnetism enfolding me, the same thing Sara must have experienced, what made her want to get naked for him. I pictured the scene in my head, pictured the two of them, Sara naked on the grass, Jack leaning forward, aroused, showing his arousal to her, and I wondered if Jack had done more than take pictures.

Of course he had. Of course.

"You've got to get rid of these."

"No one'll find them." He reached across and took the prints from me. His fingers touched mine and lingered and I wondered what he was thinkingawondered exactly what I was thinking before I pulled my hand away, uncomfortable with this, uncomfortable with myself. All I wanted at that moment was for Jack to leave so I could think about what this meant and whether I had to do something or not. I needed help, and the only person I could think of turning to was Cherri.

Chapter 12.

I found Cherri at the lakeside beside the usual campfire, a small group of kids around her, some joining in with their own guitars. A few of the kids were good, most clunky, but they all tried. When Cherri saw me she grinned and patted the picnic bench beside her, the flow of chords and finger-picked runs hardly faltering.

I slipped onto the seat beside her, enveloped by her scent, instantly forgetting all my resolve. I don't know how she managed. Whatever we were doing, whatever time of day or night, she always smelled fresh and clean with just a hint of some perfume I could never pin down. I'm sure I stank to high heaven a lot of the time, knew for a fact many of the kids did. Pinecrest wasn't the kind of camp where everyone did active sports all day, but it was still camp and kids skipped showers, did a lot of walking and riding. The growing heatwave didn't help either. Both Cherri and I had stopped wearing the camp sweatshirts and now only the dark green t-shirts with the small lettering across the front identified us as counselors. I wished I'd brought more than the one pair of shorts, wondered why I hadn't considered the weather. Perhaps being in the foothills of the Rockies made me forget it got as hot as LA here. The previous two years at camp had been baking. A warm wind came down the hillsides, baked for days over the Midwest, only marginally cooled by passing through Rockies.

I sat next to Cherri, her leg occasionally brushing against mine, smooth bare flesh pressingashe had thought to bring almost only shorts and tiny skirts.

Cherri finished the song and leaned back, easing muscles and said, "Okay Suzie, you wanted to show us what you learned today. Go ahead, honey."

A pretty fourteen year old wriggled a big jumbo closer to herself and stared down as she formed a barre chord. She looked up at Cherri with a gaze of complete adoration that made me suddenly hot as I wondered if that wasn't the exact same expression I often wore on my face too.

Suzie started into Dolly Parton's Jolene, fluffing the intro and going bright red.

"Okay, honey, we all do that. I bet even Dolly messes up sometimes."

Suzie's face showed disbelief, but she started in a second time and made it through the first intro. Her voice wasn't quite strong enough to carry the song, but she stayed in tune and at the end everyone in the small group clapped.

"Good, Suze, really good, but when you get to the bridge you might want to try throwing in a different D and F shape, like this..." Cherri played four chords, singing over them, picking up the song in mid-flow, her voice slightly raspy, slightly hoarse, with a catch way back and even the few phrases she sang made my arms prickle into gooseflesh. She slowed down and showed Suzie how to add an extra finger to the D chord, making the sound richer so the contrast when she moved from F to C complemented the words.

Suzie tried the change, working slowly as she attempted to master the tough F barre chord and Cherri showed her another way which meant she didn't have to lay her first finger across the entire fretboard. Watching them it occurred to me how much I'd picked up over the weeks. I couldn't play, never would be able to play, but I understood most of what Cherri taught the kids. Cherri had patiently tried to get me playing guitar, shown me the half-dozen chords she said was all I needed, but my fingers wouldn't behave, were too weak to hold down the strings and the tips hurt like hell after a few minutes. I understood the theory, even remembered all the shapes, but as for actually playing... well. And then when she asked me to sing, Cherri wrinkled her nose and said I'd just have to be a brilliant photographer and leave the music up to her.

Two more kids wanted to show Cherri what they'd learned, and after they finished and earned their round of applause she held her hands up to indicate time for bed which was greeted with a loud groan and pleas for one more song. Full dark had fallen hours ago, the heat of the day fading so I grew chilled sitting on the picnic bench on the lakeshore. After she'd herded the still complaining kids away, with a word of encouragement for almost every one, Cherri returned and sat beside me. Not across the other side of the table, but right up against me, slipping her arm around my waist.

"So you gonna tell me what's wrong, Dan?"

How did she know? I thought I'd been acting the same way I did every evening when I joined her for these impromptu sessions, but Cherri always seemed to know what I was thinking. At least, some of what I was thinking. I hoped she couldn't see all the thoughts crashing around in my head.

"I've found something out I guess I'd rather not've, and now I don't know what to do about it."

"Uh-huh. So what is it?" Her fingers lay spread just above my shorts. I felt each one individually. I told her what I'd discovered, what Jack and Sara had been up to. Cherri listened me out, a smile on her lips most of the time, obvious what her take would be. Maybe that's why I wanted to tell her.

"That's it?" she said when I finished.

I nodded. "I think so."

"No jealous edge to this, Dan?"

"Jealous edge?" I feigned innocence, aware Cherri understood me too well to get away easily.

"You and Jack are pretty close. Sure you're not upset he took pictures of Sara instead of you?"

I laughed. "As if I'd let him!"

"Why not? Were they hot?"

I nodded, answering her second question and ignoring the first. "Pretty hot, yeah."

Cherri giggled. "As in make you wet hot?"

I glanced at her, pretending shock, but once more Cherri read my mind and I grinned. "I guess, a little," I said, admitting the truth.

"Mm. D'you think Sara got turned on, posing for him? It'd turn me on. Oh yeah... I can't get the idea out of my head now. Thanks, Dan."

"What for?"

She nudged against me. Her top finger wormed under my t-shirt and started a slow exploration of my bare skin, not meaning anything, just Cherri being Cherri.

"Haven't you ever wanted to do something like that? Throw all your clothes off and pose for someone?" Cherri said.

I laughed, nervous. Hidden back home were pictures I'd taken of myself using a self-timer and extended trigger, but no way I was going to admit those to Cherri.

"I'm the one who takes the pictures, remember?" Not exactly a lie.

"Of course. How could I forget? So you've never thought about it?"

I shrugged, unwilling to admit to anything.

"I'll take silence as a yes shall I?" Cherri said.

"Would you ever do that? Have you ever thought about posing naked?"

"Once or twice, but I know I'm not pretty enough."

"Sure you are." I said it too fast, a little too strong, because Cherri laughed.

"Ohh, let's do it, shall we?" She came back at me far too quick. She must have been thinking about it for a while.

"What?" Seemed to be my stock phrase around Cherri these days.

"Let's take some dirty pictures of our own. I bet you could take aem a hell of a sight better than Jack. Shit, now I'm getting wet just thinking about it. God!"

Her fingers continued working my bare skin and she pulled me closer. I offered no resistance.

"I'd like you to do that for me, Dan."

"Do what?"

"Take my photograph. Will you?"

"Shit Cherri, I came here to ask what I ought to do about Jack, not for you to talk me into doing the self-same thing."

"Why not? Who's gonna know? Anyway, what's wrong? It's not as if it's porn... or is it?"

"No, of course not."

"Well there ya go then."

"You'd really let me take your photograph... like that?"

"Not let you, Dan, want you to. You've seduced my head now, honey, I can't stop thinking about it. I'm gonna have to go back and bring myself off right now."

Cherri always said stuff like that. I was never sure if she deliberately tried to shock me or was just so open she never considered some things might be private. I still considered jilling myself something I wouldn't tell anyone else about. And certainly not how I brought myself off almost every single night now, lying in my narrow, hard bed, thinking, trying not to think, about Cherri across the hallway in her bed. I needed a boyfriend to take my mind of her. After witnessing Greg and Sara I thought perhaps that could be Jack. But now Jack had done what he had I wasn't so sure.

Cherri's fingers moved further inside my t-shirt, her whole hand stroking my back and I offered no protest at all, allowing her to continue upward, leaning back against the pressure.

"So you will?" Cherri asked slowly, her face turned toward me, her breath warm on my shoulder.

I nodded. "If you really want me to."

She rested her chin against my shoulder. "I want you to, Dan. When?"

"One day soon. We'll need the light. Can't do it at night."

"You could do anything, Dan, you're clever that way."

Oh God. Cherri's fingers played beneath the strap of my bra and I wanted her to unclip me, wanted her to reach round the front and touch me. She could have done anything she wanted at that moment, anything at all, I had become her willing slave. Brian saved us. I'll never know what might have happened, too lost in my own arousal to tell whether Cherri intended going further or not.

We both heard footsteps, boots on gravel, and Cherri's hand slid out slowly, my mind interpreting the move as reluctant.

"You're out late." Brian perched on the edge of the table close to Cherri. If he suspected anything had been going on he showed no sign. He wore his usual faded and ripped jeans, a non-standard tee and battered leather jacket. He liked to act the bad boy, but since I'd gotten to know him better I discovered most was a front. Brian was a sweetheart. Tough, loyal, resilient, incapable of backing down from a fight either mentally or physically, but the way he acted around Cherri was exactly the way I did and because of that I liked Brian a lot.

"We were just about to turn in," Cherri said, and her expression made my stomach flip.

"I thought we might go for a stroll along the lake."

"The three of us?"

"Uh. No. Me and you. I thought you might like a walk before turning in."