Showing posts with label intense black and white photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intense black and white photography. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Between Her Legs

Some men like to spend their evening working hard on a piece while other men seem to love to spend their evenings getting hard with a little peace between some girls legs. There's nothing wrong that but don't count on love if that's all you like to spend your time doing. Which one are you? Here's a story that a lot of people love while others seem to think I went a little too far when I wrote it. Perhaps a bit of peace between my character's legs would have been better to their liking? 

Enjoy! 
Kisses, m. 


Peace between legs c/o Tyler Shields


Between my legs

Between my legs. Lies a hope for the future. Safety. Love. My insecurity? The reason he strayed is between her legs. The reason I stay is between mine. Infidelities he shouldn't have. We're both crying. Both aching. Knowing it’s too damn hard to watch him leave each time. Welcoming him back into my arms despite these flaws. Into the warmth, the depths where he’d linger too long. Falling and fading quickly, taking me down with him. Consumed by desire. A dark desire that is delicately hidden but ever so welcoming. Watching him savor the taste like drinking a hearty pinot noir as the flavor deepens into a meaningful experience. An exceptional wine, meant to be slowly enjoyed down to every drop.

Disappointment. My weakness. Inadequacies as a female. The one thing that sells you short as a woman is there between your legs. Never being taken seriously. As a woman it will keep you weak if you choose. Deprive you of love if you let it. Or allow the true nature within to become empowered by it. Controlled. Demanding. Eve in the Garden of Eden with that convincing apple. Damned is the man that believes he is manipulating a woman. A woman is a cool calculating creature never to be trusted or taken lightly despite what lies between her legs.

Waiting for him to return one more time. Deep down knowing that the game never changes, yet I’ve been foolish enough to continue this way. Sitting carefully, naked in the cold dark kitchen at the small table I trace my fingers carefully along the Formica surface. My bare skin is alive with the anticipation of his return. Element of surprise. It is my very intention to seduce and distract. The pressure of cool metal steel is nestled against the inside of my thigh as I wait. Looking down I can see the invention of death between my legs. Just as I continue to think he hasn’t returned soon enough the front door moves. Quickly my hand reaches in pushing aside the revolver where his eyes can not see. Nothing but my smile and open invitation.

Carefully the dark room masks his face as he moves closer to me. Only his eyes are visible as he makes his way forward. From the looks of it, he’s quite pleased to find me unclothed and honest. Standing over me his hands reach down into my hair and along my neck. An extraordinarily hard kiss as he makes an effort to lean in. The roughness of the moment is intoxicating as his grabbing hands continue to trail along my bare skin. Hands around my hips and in the small of my back as lips move downward, tracing their way from neck to breasts, then further. My ambitious efforts have me fumbling through his clothing, unclasping and removing, as he advances. As he reaches my navel I continue to reassure him by gently stroking his hair; beautiful hair, dark, thick and lush. Head movements find a balance as he nears my thighs. Tug at the back of his head to make eye contact. Lifting eyes meet mine in a piercing stare. Shh! He calms me with a smile before reaching between my legs.

Slowly I part my legs further and give way. Sliding the gun out from its hidden place, ever so silently, with a scoot of my thigh. Removing the cold steel instrument of death as he bends forward to kiss the inside of my thigh. Lips continue to softly caress my inner thigh as his hands come around to circle my hips and pull forward. Silently I find a place beneath his temple. Bare. Visible to my aim. Rocking my hips forward to meet his increasing movements, with my target in sight, I squeeze the trigger tenderly releasing death. Between my legs.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

White

White Lines

(Ooh White Lines) Vision dreams of passion 
(Blowin’ through my mind)


Walking the line.  2012.

Lines.

Arrogance isn’t a pretty shade of lipstick. Take it off.” This is what he says to me. So I’m taking it off. I’ve excused myself to the bathroom and actually wiping this color off along with my attitude.

He’s been here for ten minutes I can’t tell what he wants exactly, but he always wants something. It’s never that deep.

While he flips through a copy of Italian Vogue he becomes a bit nostalgic and is telling me about his trip to Italy if you can call twenty-four hours of binge drinking, drugs and anonymous whores a trip. Anyway he says that there’s this mosque that I have to see… “Oh but Jemma, it’s best if you do a line first.”

This morning I woke up promptly at 7:15 am to the sounds of Spandau Ballet dancing in my head before the alarm went off. Of course it’s early… Fred said to be ready to jump into character by 11:15 am. That’s the time for my callback. It’s some flat around the corner on the fourth floor at a leased out building. Of all places, it’s probably the nicest meeting I’ve taken in a while. 

And I’ve spent this morning listening to 80s music for my 80s book. This is me calling it ‘getting into character’ when it's not really like that at all. But what else is it like? It’s all for this 80s script that my agent sent over in a flash three weeks ago along with the book. A book I haven’t read until now. I know enough dialogue to pose for the audition, but the director saw my tape and wants to meet me. I’m completely wrong for the part, but they keep telling me otherwise. Tell me how does a pasty brunette play a sun-tanned blonde? So I keep telling myself that the book is better at identifying motivation than the script. Through reading it I will understand the how’s and why’s of this person and looking in the mirror means nothing about becoming her. This is how I get into character.

Why do they make movies about books? Because people are too lazy, of course I mean too busy, to read. It’s like a public service for those who aren’t able to find the time to read.

As I wipe off the lipstick and reach into the medicine cabinet to get his coke I decide that I’m dumping it down the drain. Down, down, down while the water runs. I hum a line of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire while stopping to fix my eyes. He can wait. If this is why he really came, then there’s no reason to come back again.

“So what are you doing here?” I ask him while re-emerging with a smile.

“Jemma, you look really good, have you gotten some sun?” Always changing the subject. And of course back to where we started.

It is always an awkward conversation between awkward people who haven’t seen each other in six months. He’s thinking that I’m thinking we’re still sleeping together. I slept alone last night.

It all started when he came in. The moment when I answered the door and almost didn’t let him in. Hello’s that are forced out with an imaginary gun to the back of your head. Hugs that might feel less uncomfortable if it were a stranger. Then there’s a pause. That kind you make only for the Witnesses handing out flyers. You never let them in. No matter what. But I let him in. Smiling and laughing a cracked out grin that smells of tequila and gin at 10am with his awkward greeting.

It’s not that his story about Italian mosques wasn’t fascinating. But I find it necessary to try cutting through the red tape of the last fifteen minutes and get to the point before he starts telling me about the viewing of street art in Paris subways during the middle of April.
“Adrian to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
 “What?” He looks at me with irritation.
“Darling what do you want?”
“My gram.”
“It’s been six months… it’s gone.” Is he hard up? No one carries anything like that. He couldn’t have possibly come for a gram let alone remembered he left it.
“Wow Jemma, that script looks massive. Big part? Little part?” The sidestep to avoid.
“It’s a part.”

And he stops to look around before telling me about driving on Sunset last night. Telling me that there’s a faded line in the middle of the lane that causes him to feel like he has to make a choice. I tell him that’s not Sunset and that he should have just switched lanes. It sounds more like there’s another story I haven’t heard. I stop to wonder how Adrian has a car. But he interrupts me before that becomes an inquiry.

“Jemma, can I? He waves his hands up at me while pointing towards the sink.

 I nod and he heads into the newly painted kitchenette. His voice raises slightly as he rolls up the sleeves on his button-down brilliance before starting to wash his hands. “Don’t worry about the gram I have more. You don’t need? Cause I can…” With a flick of the wrist and the perfect timed punch line of a comedian he produces a small object.

“That’s quite alright Adrian.” Away it goes. Poof. Thin air.

The whole time he’s watching me try to cover my pages and hide the book. Washing and washing longer than is humanly necessary he asks me to tell him about the script and my basis for portrayal. I know he doesn’t care, but I start talking.

It isn’t long before I realized I’ve given him too much and it sounds like bragging. I wasn’t but it doesn’t matter. It’s enough.

Arrogance isn’t a pretty shade of lipstick. Even on you Jemma. Take it off.

This is where we are now.

Lines are like the things that people might say or do only they don’t but you might understand why they might say or do them.

On page 26 my character is having an existential crisis. “Who am I?” she cries in the middle of it all. Between the black characters in front of the white background she can not find herself. Today I know who I am. Arrogant and wearing the wrong shade of lipstick. At least I know it’s not me and that it’s really the bleach blonde tanned bimbo trying to find herself in between the pages while listening to really bad music.

“Have you seen Alex?”
“Alex? Isn’t he up in San Francisco? You must see him more than me.”
“No. He’s here in town. We’re supposed to catch up. I just thought…”
“Adrian. How long have you been here?”
“15 minutes.”
“It’s been more like 25, but I meant in town. How long?”
“I don’t know. How long have you been a superficial stuck-up starlet faking tans with lines to read?” He smiles and laughs. This is the part where I’m supposed to have a sense of humor and smile.  But I just can’t today.

I put my hands through my hair with a feeling of overwhelming frustration. There’s got to be a point to his damage, I just can’t figure it out. I think I’m going to be late and there are still 15 pages left.  I want to get angry and scream at him when he does this. I want to scream aloud and tell him that I may be a superficial starlet but at least I’m really being me. I want to scream and tell him that he’s a poor man’s shadow, excuse for someone who used to be real, someone who is faking their way through everything. But I don’t. Cause I wouldn’t mean it.

“You don’t mind?” He looks at me with his eyes bugged out and waves a pocket mirror. Adrian is always prepared in a crisis. I wonder what he’d do in the event of a water landing. Take it chilled or on the rocks?

I just shake my head. He knows I don’t care. And I’m supposed to be the arrogant one.

He does lines, like I learn them. With the exception that sometimes his escapades land him in the bath room of a cherry colored bar doing lines of blow off a naked stripper’s bare breasts whereas my performance might land me a part in the next big picture from the next big hot-shot director.

 “Let’s do lines together!” He announces. To this I can smile and giggle.

He does a line. I read a line. He does a line. I read a line. Then another. And another. Until I decide… “I can’t do this.”

“Come on, Jemma. What’s wrong? Want something? It’ll make you feel better. Loosen you up.”
“I’m good. I just can’t. Not now. I have to go to this callback and I think I’m going to be late.”
“Cattle callback?”
I laugh and tell him, “Why yes, with other superficial stuck-up starlets whose teeth and mouths are too wide.”
”Why? What? When?”
“In like 20 minutes.”
“Oh fuck. Let me call the driver. I can have you there in 10.”
“It’s only just around the corner. You can come if you want.”

Adrian is too pretentious sometimes. All morning he’s been riding around in a town car with a driver called Chaz calling it a stretch. The driver barely speaks English and prefers to call us for directions instead of talking or turning around. Adrian has already taken out his mirror to offer the driver a line after telling him about it on the phone. I’m more surprised when the guy doesn’t take it. I keep reading lines. I must look pissed. He won’t make eye contact and now he’s taking out that small object again. Shit. We’re going to pass the place. I’m getting out even though the car is still moving.

On page 27 my character has a breakthrough moment. A door opens and she walks through it. This is the scene the director wants me to read. I keep thinking back to Spandau Ballet and how the only reason this is a movie is because someone wrote a book. Playing my part as a public servant. Helping make the population literate.

This is ‘The Director’ a million girls want to work with and will accommodate in anyway. I should have done the line. But I didn’t. I understand why I said no and may have wanted to. ‘The Director’ likes my face. He told my agent this. This man that a million girls want to work with likes my face. I want him to like my acting. Take me seriously for this part. Because this is why I’m here. Instead my face got me here.

All of this is me ‘getting into character’ while I’m trying to remember my lines. Remembering those things that I might say or do only don’t so that they might understand why they are said or done.



We’re in a stretch. Although it isn’t. This is what they call a stretch in the city; here it’s a town car. It’s almost 11:00 and the driver keeps calling my cell for directions.  I’ve made this arrangement with the driver and offered him something for the road.  He declines. Jemma looks pissed, but I can’t help that she’s in a bad mood today. I offered her some candy. It’s too bad she doesn’t want to play. She’s so much more fun when she falls in the water. Maybe she will after this cattle audition for mindless blonde bimbos with superficial tans and weekend Daddy’s to pay their bills. Jemma is too good for this. I wonder if she still thinks we are sleeping together. I’m thinking of taking another hit as she opens the door. The stretch hasn’t quite stopped. This is what I’m thinking… I’m going to call Alex again.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Revisiting The D Chronicles - (Men): See

Thursday Morning. 2012.

Simply fog or smoke filled landscape? It's not what you see... it's how you see it. It's a bit of perspective. You're only sinking if you choose to be sinking. everything is a choice. here's a story from the series of D Men. enjoy. kisses. m. 

Deadweight.
(2-28-2011)

Gryphon Teller is sinking. Sinking like a stone to the very depths of the sea and in this moment he’s taking me along with him. Gryphon once told me he loved me and I believe that to be true. I believe very much that he loved me. But whether or not his love for me remains is yet to be seen.

And his grip locks tighter as the watery bottom nears closer.

Gryphon Teller isn’t a complicated man. At least he didn’t used to be. Unlike other men, he was satisfied by the little things in life. In fact he was quite the type of man that enjoys retelling the same story over and over without thinking a thing about it. And most often he still does.

Today he wears the same brand of jeans that my Dad and his Dad wear while talking about the price of gasoline in a story about the lawnmower. It’s a story from last week that doesn’t quite fit the mood or feel of the day but he tells anyway. Just like he told it last week over breakfast. Between his story and another cup of coffee, he tells me about testing his diving equipment. A test that requires a short dive and a couple hours on the boat. Before he resumes the same story, Gryphon tells me to “Come along for the ride. You’ll enjoy it.” And like so many times before I couldn’t see the harm in it.

Soon after we first met each other, I believed that Gryphon was the most interesting person I’d ever come across in my life. I’m not sure what it was that made him interesting. It might’ve been for his sense of fashion or how he talked about music or science. Perhaps it wasn’t any of those things, but I knew that there was something about him.

Simply put, Gryphon Teller is the kind of person you meet on the street once and never seem to forget. His charm never lacked for energy. Often people mistake that energy for something else when it isn’t that at all.  And just like so many others, I mistook that energy for something else.

Sometimes I’ll wake up at night. Snap right up out of a dead sleep that feels like falling. I can’t ever remember the dreams. The dreams aren’t what’s important. What’s important is that I know where I’m at. And how that feels.

It’s the same with Gryphon. Sometimes, I’ll find myself snapping. Sitting up and coming to attention. But instead of falling it’s sinking. And seeing how he really is before slipping back under the guise of unknown.

My life with Gryphon has become a bit like quicksand. Everyday we sink a little bit deeper. I used to like the feeling of sinking with him.

I can’t breathe anymore.

As I’m suiting up Gryphon tells me about the human brain. He tells me that the brain can survive without oxygen for a short time before telling me the tank only holds an hour’s worth of air. With a smile he puts the tank on my back and turns to his own equipment. It seems like an eternity that I’m staring at his back before swinging my legs over the edge of the small boat.

When he first told me about diving I was completely captivated. Listening to his stories about dives made accepting his invitation easy. Dive after dive sounded so amazing in his eyes. The world through Gryphon’s eyes was something so incredibly beautiful that I couldn’t help but contemplate seeing it. And then I finally conceded to.

When I first agreed to go with Gryphon he told me it would be a simple dive. They were always simple. And even this final one was supposed to be no different. But that first time when he said there would be “nothing to it” he was so very right. Gryphon’s words couldn’t be truer because there was nothing to it.

It was always nothing. And the only thing that changed this morning was my participation. His plan has always been the same. From that first time, I knew what diving alongside Gryphon entailed. It meant my trust.

Trust like love is something that you simply give. And when Gryphon gave me his I returned mine without question. Some people might tell you that love is full of twists and turns before you know what that means, and I couldn’t begin to disagree with them more.

Disagreeing at the depths of the sea is the last place you want to find yourself. Yet it’s where our argument finds its temperature to be perfect. The last minutes of air in the tank are counting backward on the dial as I move myself towards the surface. Gryphon hasn’t behaved like this before.

It had only been fourteen minutes since we left the boat when I couldn’t reach the valve on the spare tank. Three extra tanks he dragged down 50 ft with us. Beneath the blanket of dark I can still see his eyes in the thick mask. They’re letting me know that I’m not doing something right.

And I was wrong when he followed me back to the surface. Within minutes his legs coiled around mine as my hands pulled at the line alongside the boat. The thin cords attached to the extra tanks find themselves firmly wrapped around his legs. I can see the new look in his eyes when he can’t grab onto the boat. With a pull that releases the tanks. There’s panic.

Panic is as panic does.

Once Gryphon told me he wanted me to leave him. Because he couldn’t leave me. He needed someone to be there for me, he said. To reaffirm what he wanted he told me that I shouldn’t question it ever again. I knew this wasn’t what he wanted but he said it to me anyway. It hurt when he said it and I couldn’t imagine ever having to. Deep down, I would never leave him because he didn’t want me to.

Let go.” I mouth the words as Gryphon’s panicked hands pull at my suit and hang tightly onto the cords weighted by the tanks that drag us down.

We’re sinking and he can stop us. The weight of the extra tanks pulls tightly against my waist. I want him to calm down enough to realize he can stop this. There’s not enough air to last another trip up to the surface for two of us. Foot by foot rushes past us in the darkness.

I can’t breathe and this moment feels more like the same dream.

Over and over again there’s a chance for release. In any situation there’s a chance for escape. Even in quicksand, there is a chance you can get out. You have to reach for it though.

Closer. 

Closer to the bottom my love drags me. It’s when I start to think he doesn’t care that his actions change. Gryphon finds a moment in my eyes and stops. His tight grip loosens from my waist and pushes. There’s no more sinking as his hands untangle from the cords. We’re not going to die.

In a moment of effortless calm, Gryphon Teller looked into my eyes, realized that he was only sinking because he chose to and simply let go of the unnecessary weight.



Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The D Chronicles Vol 1 - (Men): Dancer


Joaquin Cortes - Flamenco Dancer



Dancer

Hector Reynoso was a careless man that couldn’t ever pass up the chance to dance. Even when the dance took him through the fire he couldn’t help but dance right through it. Out of bed and into the fire is exactly where Hector found himself dancing for the last time.

Hector wasn’t naturally a graceful man when it came to the dance. However he couldn’t find himself contained without it. From the time he was a small boy he liked to dance. Hector was absolutely preoccupied with the rhythm of life and constantly moving to it. As far back as he could remember he had found himself drawn to the movement. To see Hector move, a person might believe he had been trained in the fine art of dance. He could find himself lost to any rhythm. Deep down in the sound of the music he would let the feeling take hold.

You see Hector wasn’t a man that moved to the beautiful music with one partner. Like a bee he would pass from flower to flower in an unbridled movement. Many women had found themselves falling in time to his tango, salsa or rumba before tumbling into his bed. Time and time again Hector found himself moving from partner to partner whenever the rhythm changed. And when it was over he found himself never knowing more than a woman’s hip sway or her waist spin.

Understand that as a true dancer it should never be need for a partner as much as the need to dance. Yet with Hector it wasn’t the case.

Hector’s need for a partner eventually overcame his need to dance. A need that was filled with no particular string of women. He had no type set when it came to a new partner. Some spent a considerable amount of time seeking attention. And others were not getting attention otherwise. Some simply liked the idea of man that could dance. And of course Hector took them right up in any way they desired.

So many times the dance came and there were different women. Some flavored by the variety of a heel kick. Others with the rounded tilt of their hip. Most of them desiring nothing more than his complete focus. And he gave it without question.

To Hector women represented the beauty in the music. And he rarely passed up the opportunity to share that beauty in the dance. He felt that any woman could be molded into a fine partner. Even those lacking the grace and understanding of movement could find peace of mind in the rhythm. As long as the woman felt strongly moved by the sound and beat, her movement would fall into an expression without flaw. And it was perfect because it came from directly within and she was possessed by the movement in his arms.

When two people find themselves coupled in a moment of passion such as the uninhibited movements of a dance there’s nothing but expression being released. They know in that combined movement that they share a variety of emotions that connect them further. As dance is an expression of emotions it can be tied very closely to the sensitivities of a person. By these emotional connections, Hector would find himself completely expressed. For every woman that would find her way into Hector’s arms he would find himself into her bed.

Now whenever you’re about to do something for the last time you never realize it’s going to be the last of anything. It’s the same ol’ thing just like any other until it’s over. And the same can be said about Hector Reynoso. He never saw it coming.

Hector met a partner that he couldn’t entirely absorb, Grace.

Grace was simply something he had not planned upon. Most importantly she was a woman that belonged to another like so many others had before her. Their dance led them exactly where Hector had always been with his partners. Into the bedroom.

But unlike the others, Grace was different. It was like playing with fire, and he couldn’t help enjoying how much it burned. Especially the passionate dance that came after each dance. A lustful dance that took place in the sheets, upon the floor, and against the walls.

Hector had found his match in Grace, on and off of the dance floor. Grace changed when the rhythm did not. She anticipated his moves and kept the beauty in the rhythm constantly changing.

Taking a new partner had always been easy. It had lacked for a challenge and seemed to be endless. Until he met her, he had never wondered about an end. An end that could possibly bring the rhythm to a dead halt and he didn’t mind. A small thread of restraint built deep within that relatively carefree head of his. And he couldn’t help but question his own motives when it came to Grace.

That last dance coupled by an unbridled emotion state sent him spinning carelessly towards his new partner. Not knowing more than the lock of her eyes, Hector followed the lead of her movements across the floor and toward the one thing that could bring it too an end. The passionate dance sent them straight into a waiting rage that couldn’t be stopped.

At the end of their passionate rendezvous waited a jealous man fueled with a rage and a gun. A man that heartlessly intended to get his square retribution. Although Grace had never hidden her husband from him it was something that Hector hadn’t prepared himself for. Staring into the aim of a gun while dancing with a beautiful woman for the last time.

Much to Hector’s dismay, a jealous man rarely sees things with a level head. The yelling started slow and grew louder as the gun hovered. Grace without a thought attempts to cool a convinced man. As Hector watches Grace cry, beg and slap at this man with a gun he is dumbfounded by the situation. To him there was no need for the pain of it. The man still had his wife and soon the time would come when she would find herself still dancing to the same rhythm that did not involve Hector.

In the end nothing can be said as the last time winds itself down to a matter of a finger pull. Soon enough the crosshairs of the rifle hold their target upon his forehead and sooner rather than later they’ll find their mark realized.

When the careless Hector Reynoso found himself in bed for the last time you have to wonder if he thought it was worth the dance that he couldn’t pass up.


Dance. Finding a groove is harder than it looks. This has very little to do with that but it’s been on the desktop since before the crash. Thinking of Matisse. Decide for yourselves. Enjoy. live, laugh, love, breath and… dance. Kisses. m.