Intimations of Mortality - 14

Being a series of random but loosely connected musings on my life, the world I have lived in and what the future - what's left of it - may hold.

I returned to the Camera Club the following Saturday afternoon. Repeated my routine. Collected my money. Went to do my bar shift.

The third Saturday, I noticed that a couple of extra cameras were in place for my appearance. I thought of them as cameras, inert objects, impersonal. But, of course, they were really people. New men, extra men, there to record and enjoy my nakedness.

I thought of asking for a raise. I was bringing in more money to the club. But I was young, naïve, unsure of my power. Well, except my sexual power. I had no doubt about that.

At the end of my fourth session, as I was collecting my money, the Club Chairman asked me if I still had any of my old school uniform. If it still fitted.

I stopped myself blurting out that it had fitted six weeks ago. Just nodded, yeah, I think so.

"Could you wear it next week?"

"I can't wear it. I could bring it with me. Change here."

He smiled.

"If I can still find it all," I added hastily.

He smiled again.

"Proper school knickers?"

I shrugged, thinking about the contents of my underwear drawer.

"I don't know if I can find them."

"Try your best. There's a bonus for a costume session."

So started the second phase of my modelling career. Being paid to pose wearing clothes rather than without them. Of course, it did involve removing those clothes in a planned, progressive manner, until I was as naked as I had been at the end of my first session.

I had no trouble re-assembling my old school uniform, glad that I had not followed my initial instinct to take a pair of scissors to it in its entirety. I had my skirt and blazer, blouse, tie, knee socks, bra and full knickers. Even my summer sandals.

I packed the lot in a hold-all and stowed it under my bed, ready for the following Saturday.

I got through my week of boutiques and bar work. Avoided trouble at home, so much easier now that I did not spend my days getting into trouble at school.

I didn't have much of a social life, too busy concentrating on building up my escape fund. I didn't really care. The things I had in common with my schoolfriends were mostly school centric. School was no longer a part of my life. Nor were the people I had known at school.

I had left school at 16 and overnight become, in many aspects of my life, 18. My "boyfriends", my companions and fellow explorers in the realm of intimate personal relations, were now children to me. Our dalliances in that secret place behind the old municipal cricket pavilion now childish games. Sixteen was the age of consent. I was ready to give my consent.

I did not have a particular target in mind. No young man that I fancied. I just wanted to get it over and done with, so I could get on with the rest of my life.

Pregnancy was not, for me, a career move. Fortunately, the National Health Service had, a couple of years earlier, decided that contraception was a sexual health issue and made the pill available on free prescription to unmarried, as well as married, girls over the age of consent. My GP was an enthusiast for planned parenthood and I had no problem persuading her to prescribe for me.

I was ready to go. I just needed someone to go with.