PICTURE ME NAKED
Velvet Moore
I slide my leg across a worn patch and circle a finger around a cigarette burn etched into the faded magenta leather, toying a bit with the piece of foam poking out. It’s now that I wish I had a picture of myself. I’d fold it neatly and slip it between the seat cushions with enough of a corner peeking through to get noticed. I’d hope the next stop after me would be at a hotel where a businessman in a wrinkled gray suit would be catching a ride to the airport for a red-eye flight back to parenting and paperwork. He’d find the picture and toy with it like the seat foam, running fingertips along the image. He’d store it in his carry-on bag and pray he wouldn’t be asked to pull it out at the security screening. He would be embarrassed to have to publicly reveal a photo of my slick, spreading thighs and have to explain it to authorities. I’d pray that he does.
These thoughts excite me from my brain stem to my bottom, and I consider moving the toying fingers from the seat to work their way down my pants and rub one out right here in the back of this cab. Weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been so brave.
Weeks ago, I picked up a bag of items I had left at my ex’s after moving out. Having been a jerk, he had left my stuff on his front porch in a plastic grocery bag with my name scribbled in with permanent marker. I shifted through its contents at the coffee shop a few blocks from his house: my phone charger, cracked turquoise earrings, clothes and a coffee cup with the corner of something poking out of the rim. I tugged the corner and it popped out like a rattlesnake snapping from behind a rock. And there I was, nude, sprawled on his bed, pink nipple in hand, begging him forward. A moment captured in privacy, unexpectedly revealed in public.
I wore my irritation for him like a weight belt the rest of the day. Why did he leave my stuff on the porch in a bag that could have easily passed as garbage? Anyone could have grabbed that bag. I slowly rotated my head, letting the hot beads of water from the showerhead roll down my shoulders. The thoughts consumed me as I soaped. Not even the liquid heat was helping to reduce my tension. What if someone had picked that up off of his porch? Why didn’t he warn me so I wouldn’t open it in a public place? What if someone had seen it over my shoulder? Would it have been a happy surprise with their grande latte? Would they think my milky cream skin was a lovely complement to coffee?
My soapy hands rounded along my full breasts making quick swipes then slowing, molding me like his had done when he put the camera down. I slid one hand down and squeezed my inner thigh and dragged two fingers along my lips as my other hand worked its way back to my chest. He always had the most talented hands. I looked down, seeing my nipples perky despite the shower’s heat. I rolled them each between my fingers. This is what he saw. My nipples like life rafts floating in a sea of flesh, surrounded and begging to be tugged. This is what the trash man would have seen. This is what the coffee drinker would have seen. I twisted my tight little nipples until the pressure tingled its way down to my center.
After my shower, I found myself one part irritated, two parts intrigued. I couldn’t clear my mind of the thought that someone could have seen that photo of me, and what that person might have felt after finding it. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the fact that I might have interjected the idea of sex into his or her day. I slipped out of bed and grabbed my digital camera from my purse. Climbing back under the covers, I clicked on the camera and switched off the light. I shimmied out of my panties and threw off my gown. Then I lifted the sheet and snapped a shot of the length of my nude body, stretched out and bright white from the flash.
In the morning, I printed the picture from my home computer, folded it twice and traveled with it back to the coffee shop near my ex’s house. The barista handed me a tall hot chocolate and a muffin and when he wasn’t looking, I dropped the picture into his tip jar.
That night, the camera got a little closer, with my knees bent, tenting the bedsheet and the lens pointing directly between my thighs. That one I posted on the coffee shop bulletin board, hidden partially behind a flier offering dog-walking services. A shot of me on my hands and knees would have been more suitable, I mused.
Imagination is the ability to form mental images, sensations and concepts in a moment when your senses fail you for information. You can close your eyes and imagine how a woman might appear embarrassed to find a photo of your naked breasts when she opens her dinner menu. Can you see the confusion creep across her face, then the blush trickle to her chest, flushing bright against the plunging neckline of her black dress? Then see her forehead crease as disgust sets in. Picture the way her husband pretends to agree with her dismay as she shoves it his way, him trying not to look too closely at this seemingly disgusting image. See him pressing his wide palm against his awakened crotch as his wife yells for the waiter’s assistance.