Dad came home for an extended stay in mid-December, full of himself because his team was closing in on isolating a new element. As usual, he let Mom assemble the celebratory tray before dragging her into the bedroom for what he, half proudly, half apologetically, explained as “celebrating their collision.” Very particle physicist. That night I made love to myself over and over to the accompaniment of their celebration music, thinking all the time of Ella’s sweet, willing body.

For Mom, the shine wore off Dad’s prolonged visit quickly, and it being a vacation, I escaped the fringes of their dissonance by repairing to Ella’s place as often as possible.

With picnics in the bedroom curtailed, Dad turned to his new enthusiasm, photography. Hours in the locked dungeon in the basement that I soon discovered was a fully tricked-out darkroom. One day, in a generous mood, Mom was away on a protracted shopping trip, I asked if he’d teach me to make photographs.

“Does black-and-white interest you?”

Oh my yes! Mom’s love for Georgia O’Keefe had led Ella and me to discover the sensual B&W nudes of Imogen Cunningham. In our buttoned-up 1960s world, Imogen’s life and Arts & Crafts lifestyle showed us that even for women, independence and freedom were possible.

Dad loaned me his second camera, an Exacta, and a light meter, loaded in a roll of Tri-X, gave a quick demo, and said “The best way to learn is to do. Everything’s an experiment. You’ll figure it out. Shoot the whole roll and we’ll develop it tomorrow.”

Framing the luscious curves of a Calla Lily, I got so turned on I had to change panties. Even the interplay of a volunteer fern and a rusty hinge on the toolshed door aroused me. I couldn’t wait to tell Ella, and I saved a couple of pictures at the end of the roll to expose with her.

“Oooo, a nice camera. Let’s make some pictures,” said Ella.

“Pictures?”

“Yes, silly, pictures. Of us. You don’t really know what you look like, do you?”

“Well,” and I was thinking there were ‘pictures’ in my head that I couldn’t imagine sharing. “I guess... why not... but we’ve gotta be, um, modest?” I had no clue what “develop” meant in terms of film, but I knew it involved a dark room and wasn’t sure if my father would see all our photos. Modest wasn’t exactly what Ella was imagining – I think she had an even less clear idea than I did of how easily a ‘picture’ could become ‘public.’ Glowing after urgent love-making and wearing robes that covered fully, she standing halfway behind me, her hand on my shoulder, we composed a sweet photo of ourselves in her Mamma’s big pier glass mirror. Good soft light from all around. I pushed the button. Click.

“I think I blinked,” Ella apologized. “Take another.”

“Last one . . . you sure?” She nodded assent, I checked the exposure, counted down, clicked, and wound. “Oh! I think there might be one more.”

“Take us again,” Ella urged, and without looking through the viewfinder, I clicked. Just as I snapped, I realized she’d dropped her robe from her off-hand shoulder, and was teasingly half-revealed beside me, her most salient feature prominently in the frame.

“Oops,” she said, but I was pretty sure her revelation wasn’t accidental.

– o –

“Did you slip your robe off on purpose, do you remember?”

“You’re asking me 60 years late?” Ella queried with a big smile. “Of course, I remember, and of course I did! You know I didn’t keep a journal like you did, but I wrote about that whole episode. Want to read what I wrote?” Without waiting for an answer, she was up, saying “Let me go find my memory book. ”

From Ella’s memory book, “New Year's Day 1967”:

New Year. New me, I guess. I continue to surprise myself.

This episode began when G brought the camera. No secret – I love the way she looks at me, and maybe I was only thinking a picture of us with me bare would give her something to treasure. Back of my mind, I knew that photos take on lives of their own, and my bare boob might be seen by others?

Two days later, I’m over at G’s place, and her Dad’s there, and he’s looking at me with a new intensity. Had he seen the photo already? G cleared that up when she took me to her room and showed me her contact sheet and 4-by-5s of us in the mirror. The last one, Angelic Grace in her modest robe, and this small incandescent brown person just behind her, small gamin face, impish smile, big glowing boob from just below the dark erect nipple. Even I have to admit, beautiful. Only way it would’ve been better? if G had dropped her robe, too!

Was I turning into an exhibitionist? Because I felt a new meaning in the way Jack, G’s dad, looked at me – and it made me hot. I unbuttoned two more buttons on my blouse and pushed my tits up higher in my bra before we went out for dinner. Jack made a fool of himself trying to see. The power!

– o –

All the time Dad was showing me how to snake the film out of the canister and into the developing tank, adding chemicals, agitating, timing, and draining, I was visualizing only that last image, hoping it would stay secret. After a quick look at the first few frames, Dad said, “negatives are hard to read,” showed me how to hang the film to dry, told me we’d “print a contact sheet” later, and went off to pester Mom. I took around the tidy dark room, the chemicals, trays, enlarger, and a row of binders on a high shelf. Some were labeled, ‘Family Vacation 1965’, ‘Second Honeymoon, Baby pix’, ‘Holidays 1965’, one unlabeled almost hidden at the farthest end. Of course that was the one I wanted to see. Opening it under the work light, was I ever surprised! No way my Dad took these. But he must have because there in the front were the negatives in a protective sheet.

By 2023 standards, they were pretty tame. A series of a well-preserved middle-aged woman – Mom’s age – with a generous body in increasing stages of undress. Not my mother: fuller but still firm. My mother would never submit her body to this kind of exposure. Viewing the photos, I felt a twinge of heat; there was a flirtatious quality to the woman’s postures that implied tension with the camera and, presumably, the photographer. Several rolls of what I’d classify now as R-rated: nice swelling curve behind a silk blouse, a hint of bralessness and erect nipple; light from behind illuminating slender legs through a sheer cotton robe, a bright bead of light right where the thighs come together. Open blouse with a glimpse of a ripe areola and nipple. A hand covering the escutcheon, a forefinger suggestively curled. And then, Pow! A whole roll of Naked Maja; the same woman, reclining, gloriously unclothed, arms and legs variously arrayed, breasts held together, nipples pinched and stretched, fingers deep in the weeds, legs apart, coyly revealed labia . . . and in every one, a ‘come hither’ look right into the camera. If these were my Dad’s work, I could not imagine how he hadn’t then put the camera down and done what this woman so clearly wanted to do.

I’d seen enough. I considered snipping the last negative from my roll, but at the last minute decided to leave it alone and see what happened.

Well, what happened wasn’t at all what I expected. When Dad said, “Let’s go print your pix,” I happily followed him to the basement. A contact sheet on a light box, and both of us sharing a magnifying glass, we examined my roll. “Hmm,” he said to the first few. “This one” – the rusty hinge – “shows some talent. See how you framed the corner with the fern fronds? Nice.” Or something praiseful like that, I can’t remember. My heart was beating fast, as I had already scanned with unaided eyes to the end. A couple more images received comments, and then came to the last row. A busy intersection. A crowded newsstand. Ella’s front steps. Ella’s and my upper bodies and faces filling a frame got a “Cute.” “Good looking girls . . . hmmmm.” Dad looked at me sharply. “This is your Ella?” Guilty as charged. “My oh my, she’s spectacular. Is she as smart as you, too?” Dad cleared his throat, clearly non-plussed. “Not that you aren’t spectacular, too, just . . . I don’t know what to think about this. I think it’s illegal.”

“Should we destroy it?” I asked, torn between wanting to keep it for my very own secret album of memories and being concerned that it might put my friend, me, and even my Dad, at risk.

“No, no, no. But don’t show it to your Mom.”

We ended up printing several of my pictures, Dad saying I might be a real photographer, including two of each of the last ones. Ceremoniously, Dad gave me the 4-by-5 of Ella and me, warning, “Keep that one close.” I wish I still had it, but I’m afraid I wore it out over the years, holding it in my left hand while pleasing myself with my right. I imagine getting it sticky from my own juices didn’t help.

Telling this to Ella after reading her New Year's awakening made us both reflective, thinking back all those decades. Ella took my hand and squeezed it. “I have the picture,” she said. “You gave me a copy, remember? Along with a warning. Look in the back of the book.”

There we were, on the brink of eighteen years young, and yet both of us were so womanly. Our love for each other, our loving each other up, had burnished all our girlishness away, and there we were, my robed self every bit as full of life as Ella’s full-breasted self. Still in possession of my hand, Ella stood and pulled me up. “I’m still pretty gorgeous,” she teased. “Let’s go to the bedroom and I’ll show you.”