Double Exposure

She also knew she was naked except for a tiny pair of underwear, so she couldn’t explain her odd reaction to him other than the obvious—she was trained to equate nudity with sexy times. That was the only explanation for why her nipples were suddenly as hard as the steel that had once been shipped in and out of this warehouse. Why her insides were molten and her fingers itched to reach out and give his erection a hard squeeze to see his reaction.

It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Kyle himself.

Which she knew was a total lie. She’d been attracted to him since the day she’d met him two years ago, when he had been led around the office by Claire and introduced to the drooling staff. Even the men liked him—they saw Kyle as a man’s man, a golf buddy.

But none of them were standing here covered in body paint, bare leg squashed against his, staring at his erection.

“Emma.” His voice was tight, pained.

She dragged her eyes off his briefs and forced them upward. “Yes?” she asked breathlessly.

“Do you think—”

But whatever he’d been about to say was drowned out by the sound of the man with the megaphone, yelling for their attention.

“Okay, I need everyone to stand still in the positions you’ve been given. Ladies along the back wall, I need your arms up to form the letter “I” in front of your chest, got it?”

“That’s you,” Kyle murmured.

Emma moved her arms automatically, feeling a little stunned. Why did she have the feeling that Kyle had been about to ask her out? Why would he do that? He wouldn’t. He wasn’t attracted to her. Or at least that’s what she had always thought until today. But he clearly was attracted to her, as was evidenced by what she had seen hiding beneath the green.

That didn’t mean, however, that he would ask her out, so why had she jumped to that conclusion?

Because she wanted that conclusion.

Ugh.

It was a relief to cover her green breasts. Not that anyone would have been able to see much of anything, given that she was one of two hundred people and she was slathered in paint, but it still made her feel better. She would no longer be on display for Kyle or for future internet trawlers.

“Mr. Bainbridge wants to thank all of you for participating. He’ll only need to shoot for a few minutes, and when you all see the results, I think you’ll be pleased to see how he has captured the sense of people being reduced to the walls of a crumbling manufacturing economy.”

The words jolted her out of her musings about Kyle and back to the real business at hand. Was that an official statement? Emma repeated the words back in her head, wondering if she could quote that in her article. But unless this guy was the photographer’s spokesman, she had to tread lightly.

“There’s the man of the hour,” Kyle muttered. “It’s about freaking time. My paint is starting to crust and flake.”

“Where?” But the words were barely out of her mouth when she finally saw the photographer, Ian Bainbridge, as he climbed onto a platform set up on the other side of the warehouse. His camera and equipment were already there, ready to use immediately. Emma had of course researched the artist. She knew he was originally from New Zealand, and that he looked like a former soccer player who had gotten in touch with his emotions. He wore a lot of black rocker T-shirts with blazers and tweed bowler hats. He also had funky black glasses that appeared in some photos of him and not in others. Today no glasses and no blazer adorned him, but a hat jauntily perched on his head as he made adjustments to his camera.

There was also very clearly a bodyguard behind him, which was no surprise given that the attention of his stalker had escalated in recent months, as reported by the Pittsburgh paper where Ian had shot the month before. Emma wondered what sort of desperation drove someone to follow another human being around and pretend you were in an actual relationship with him. Fantasizing about Justin Timberlake at age twelve was normal, but creating chaos at his concert was not. And this had the makings of a celebrity-crush stalking.

The shoot itself lasted all of ten minutes, if even. It seemed like Ian pushed a few buttons, then he was climbing back down off the platform. Emma felt a little let down, frankly. You stripped to your undies and were dolled up as an alien—you expected the occasion to feel momentous. Instead, she just had a cramp in her calf from the position she had been standing in, and her nose itched. She was already lamenting the loss of the panties she was wearing, even if they were plain white from the discount store. They were comfy, with strings that didn’t dig into her hips. Now she had to toss them.

Plus there was clearly no way in hell she was going to be able to get anywhere near Ian. He disappeared behind a bevy of handlers. There was no one who looked like a stalker, either, whatever a lovesick crazy was supposed to look like.

“Someone thinks he’s a rock star,” Kyle said with an eye roll, pulling off the wall and moving his arms back and forth. “Man, I’m stiff. That took forever.”

“It was ten minutes.”

Kyle bent over and scooped up his hat and keys. “Ten minutes I’ll never get back. I don’t know. I mean, I dig photography, but this all seems a little...melodramatic. And I’m still not sure why we’re green.”

Emma kind of agreed, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “Who are we to say what is art and what isn’t? And ten minutes ago you were saying the exact same thing.” She joined the line that was forming to reenter the tent and collect their belongings. The other attendees were chattering all around them, an air of excitement buzzing about the cold warehouse. It was June, and yet despite the season and the dozens of warm bodies, there was a definite bite in the air. “I’m cold.”

“I noticed.” He eyed her chest.

“What?” Emma looked down at her taut nipples and flushed. “Seriously?”

“I can’t help it! You’re not wearing a bra. It’s bullshit if anyone thinks men and women can take off their clothes and not be tempted to look at what everyone has got. It’s human nature. I call bullcrap on these shoots. I think Bainbridge is just a perv who wants to see naked bodies.”

Emma wasn’t sure if Kyle was joking or not. “This seems like an extreme way to go about it. The internet is full of images of naked people.” But she did agree with him that it was hard not to be curious in the face of mass nudity. Which was why she was more than ready to put her shirt back on. She did not relish standing around in line with a crowd. At that very second, as she averted her eyes from an older gentleman’s droopy derriere, someone could be looking at her behind and coming to the same droopy conclusion. It wasn’t natural. Inevitably, it was bound to bring out the middle school in at least a few people. Like her. Kyle wasn’t really doing any better.

“You were the one who said you were looking forward to stripping in public,” she reminded him.

“I know. Which just proves my point—men and women should not be naked in groups together.”

“You’re contradicting yourself! You told me this wasn’t an orgy.” It didn’t feel like an orgy. It felt cold and itchy.

“It isn’t. But it seems like it should be. Like this is just a way to skirt the issue.”

Emma sighed. “I can’t think about it anymore. It’s stressful. I just want my bra back.”

“Hey! Seems like there’s some sort of commotion in the tent,” Kyle said, up on tiptoes to see over the heads of those in front of them.

Emma was a good six inches shorter than him and she couldn’t see anything at all. The voices had gotten louder, and word started making its way down the line in an audible buzz of shock until it finally reached them.

“Some people’s bags of clothing got stolen,” the woman in line ahead of them said with no small amount of excitement.

“What? Stolen?” Emma automatically crossed her arms over her breasts tighter. “What do you mean?”

“Some nut stole everyone’s clothes.”

Her clothes were gone?

Emma felt like she was going to faint.

* * *

KYLE GAVE A short laugh, amused because it seemed so obvious. Why wouldn’t someone steal clothes? It was the perfect prank. As a “prankster” himself, according to Emma, he should know. “Holy shit. That figures.”

But when he saw Emma’s face, he cut off his laughter. She looked like she’d had a piano dropped on her foot. “It’s okay. I have my keys, remember? We can at least get out of here.”

“Naked! We’ll have to leave naked!” She squeezed her arms tighter across her chest, like that was going to alter the facts. “This is awful! How does something like this happen? What good does security do if someone can just—” she waved her arms around madly “—steal your clothes!”

“Emma, it’s okay,” Kyle said, hoping he sounded reassuring. She was clearly starting to panic and people were looking at her, including one guy in his sixties who leered at her chest. “I’m sure I have something in the car you can cover up with, and hey, we don’t even know that our clothes are missing. What are the odds?”

But the odds were not in their favor. It figured. As organizers bustled around trying to sort out the situation and quickly process people whose possessions were intact, it became clear that they were two of about forty people whose bags had disappeared. Kyle felt more than a little annoyed now that he had confirmation it was their stuff, and now that he had time to think about it. Those were eighty-dollar jeans in that bag, plus his favorite blue T-shirt, which chicks said brought out the blue in his eyes.

It was kind of like when the airline lost your luggage or the dry cleaner stained your favorite dress shirt. But those were accidents that all fell under the umbrella of Shit Happens.

This was a nutter intentionally trying to ruin their day. Or rather, Ian Bainbridge’s day. So if Kyle wanted to look on the bright side, this would make his column that much more interesting. Not to mention, he begrudgingly supposed, this would be an entertaining story to tell for years to come. He might even find it funny, later, when he’d showered and his eyelids weren’t crusty with paint.