CHAPTER TWO

Amid The Dust Of Fallen Leaves

       I'd been with them three days. It was morning, and I was sensing some routine. Waiting in the living room, I expected Laura at the piano, Edward and Celeste writing in the den. For me, I'd wait until afternoon for a session with my camera and their lives. For the moment I enjoyed the quiet of the house.

       Laura choose my time of calm reflection to bounce down the stairs from the loft. I looked up to see her voluptuous breasts wiggle and jiggle loosely inside a red knit sweater.

      "Stop," I called to her, picking up my camera.

       She leaned over the rail, the sweater pulled tightly against her, a smile danced across her twinkled face. She was rarely like this, often melancholy for reasons never explained. A half dozen melancholy filmings of rapturous moments at her grand piano playing Chopin, Bach, Scott Joplin and her own sometimes sappy pieces, and not one smile like this. I was told she never smiled during concerts. That was too bad, she was beautiful smiling.

       I snapped three pictures of her leaning over the railing and then she bounded down the remaining stairs.

      "No Chopin?" I asked, as she whisked past me.

      "No, a day off. Can't you see it's Indian Summer," she exclaimed.

       I followed her into the kitchen.

       She popped three green grapes into her mouth.

      "You know wine grapes, the ones with seeds have the best flavor. These are sweet but not full. I like a little tang, don't you?” Her eyebrows knit up expressively.

       I realized listening to her that this was the first time I'd really noted the sound of her voice. She spoke so little. It was tuneful and resonant like her music.

       She was pulling food from the refrigerator and bread from the bread basket. With a butcher knife, she whacked off a piece of salami from a foot long stump, then tore a loaf of French bread in half and washed several apples. Wrapping the food in plastic, she stuffed everything into a denim backpack.

       Celeste, droopy eyed, walked in.

      "A picnic," she stated as she watched Laura's busy hands. From behind the blond, Celeste surrounded the woman's torso with her arms and laid her head on her back and closed her eyes. She remained there for a moment, and then with her teeth pulled the sweater away from Laura's neckline.

      "Wait!" I charged in, raising my camera clumsily, still not having the finesse to be ready when the right instant arrived, knowing that it could be at any moment. I didn't want the perfect picture to pass me by and already I'd missed thousands. I was content to know that there would be thousands still to come. The two glanced over their shoulders, with similar lust filled eyes, twin eyes. And then in the fleeting instant as Celeste pursed her lips and completed the kiss to the back of Laura's neck, I snapped another picture.

      "You're agitated," Celeste told Laura, as the two broke away from each other.

      "I need you, I need the picnic," Laura asserted. I saw some faint longing in her eye, but was not quick enough to film it.

      "Then you'll have one," Celeste said, with a loving smile.

       By then the camera was ready again.

       I watched as Celeste removed a brick of Swiss cheese from its wrapper and carefully shaved several perfect slices with quick neat movements of a paring knife. One she popped in her mouth, the rest she gathered into a ziplock bag, squeezing the top until it was sealed. She tossed the cheese into the backpack with the rest of the food and a half used roll of paper towels.

       We were down the stairs seconds later, the three of us breaking free into an effervescent day, as blue a sky as blue can get, contrasted with the thousand oranges winking down from overhead. Indian Summer, the temperature was nearing eighty degrees, the musty smell of leaf dust rising as we hiked.

      "Where's Edward?" I asked, to break the silence.

      "Writing," Laura answered.

      "Writing what?" I asked.

      "Poetry," Celeste replied.

       We hiked silently. I could spend weeks in the heaven of senses around me, shooting nature shots; though on this go round I was resolved to shoot passion and lust. Celeste and Laura vibrated with it. I could sense it building, fires lighting in them and in my loins. I watched them as I walked behind them, shooting their rear ends as they disappeared and reappeared in front of me. Their tight jeans outlined perfect curves. Laura's hair flew wildly behind her, the redhead's tousled locks bobbed.