The Good Girl

"Anything for you." He kissed me again. "My brother said it will come in handy for projects. And when you're able to register for classes, if you can't get any of his classes, let me know."

"Who said I'm going to want to take his classes, much less stay with them?" I tried to sound coy, but when he tweaked my nipple and his other hand slipped between my legs, my voice cracked and I moaned deeply. "Okay! I accept! I accept!"

###

The summer seemed to fly by. My parents were gone the whole time, so I lived with Dave. At first, I was afraid it would feel like playing house—especially, since I cooked and cleaned for him, albeit at my own request. But he treated me with such care and maturity, never implying that I should feel obligated to do anything around the house...or with him, in or out of the bedroom. I wasn't sure about the longevity of our relationship, but my doubts about this being a fling slowly dissipated as the weeks went on.

When I'd expressed my concerns about getting pregnant, Dave had admitted that he was the reason he'd never been able to have children. After years of trying, he'd taken a test to prove it, as had his wife. Which made us both cry a little because we thought of Mallory. And then we'd had the most passionate sex while trying to console each other...to convince each other that what we were doing was right.

Dave kept up his photography appointments through the summer months, and I attended several weddings and class reunions with him as his assistant. I enjoyed every minute with him—even when we weren't between the sheets. The closer we approached September, though, the more I thought about leaving him behind. I would have to move out west and attend an orientation session for three days, then I'd be starting classes soon after. I didn't want to do it all on my own anymore.

One Saturday in early August, I wandered into my old bedroom in Dave's house and curled into the window seat. I reflected on how I'd done the same thing just a few months earlier. Before Dave and I started having sex.

I no longer felt like the little girl who had grown up in this room. In this house. The good girl I'd been raised to be.

The tears started slowly. By the time Dave found me, I was bawling, my cheeks flushed and tear-stained, the collar of my T-shirt damp.

"Zoe, honey, what is it?" He started to sit beside me, and I had to turn to try to fit him in the small space.

"I-I don't want to leave. I can't leave. This is all I know."

"Shh." He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me against him, which only made me sob harder. "You will be fine."

"Not without you!"

"We talked about this. I still have obligations here. And the new part of the business. My brother is counting on me."

I shuddered, tucking my head under his chin. He was right. I knew it. I was just being...a teenager. It didn't matter that I was legal now to be independent; I was still not an adult. I was still naïve to the rest of the world. As much as I was used to it, I knew I couldn't remain as sheltered as I had been for my entire life thus far. But I didn't want to be like my parents, either.

"This will be good for us both, Zoe. It's time for you to experience life, to experience college and all it has to offer. Gary and Helena will take very good care of you. Do you trust me?"

"I do."

"Good girl. I'll go out with you to get you settled. Then I'll be coming to California at Thanksgiving and will stay all through the winter with you. In the meantime, call me any time, day or night." A sly smile crept onto his lips as he said intimately, "I'm looking forward to some phone sex with you, honey."

I giggled through my tears. We'd discussed that, too. The thought had made me anxious at the time, but Dave had reassured me that he'd help me through it. That it could be very enjoyable.

"University is going to be a great experience for you, Zoe. Just wait and see."

###

On our flight out west, Dave explained that Gary and Helena knew all about us and were very accepting of our relationship. However, I was to treat them with the utmost respect as they were my authority figures while on campus. My temporary guardians. But Dave had no worries for me. He knew we'd all get along just fine.

I spent my first night in California making love with Dave in the attic rooms of his brother's house that would be my sanctuary for at least the next year. I cried in his arms until I fell asleep. In the morning, Dave said his good-byes to all of us after breakfast.

We lingered on the front porch, holding each other, exchanging soft kisses and a few tears. Before he turned to leave, he slipped a small box into my hand and told me to wait to open it until that night when he called at eight o'clock. In my new time zone. I'd have to remember we would be a couple of hours off.

I spent the day with Gary and Helena, who gave me an in-depth tour of campus and showed me their two studios, both of which I would be working at once they'd learned I knew about Dave's new endeavor with his brother. The first was on the university grounds and was used by students for classes. The second was their private business and was held in an upper level of a privately-owned warehouse downtown under the guise of a modeling agency.

That night, I lay on my new bed and waited for Dave's phone call. I smiled at him through FaceTime and tried to prevent my tears. But the sound of his voice undid me. Especially when he said I was being such a brave, good girl. My gaze was a little blurry when I opened my gift to reveal a tiny vibrator.

Just as he'd affirmed, I had nothing to be nervous about when it came to phone sex. He did all of the talking, directing me what to do. And his own moans and groans in response to my reactions urged me on until I was writhing on the bed, the sheet gripped in my teeth and the vibrator buzzing away between my legs. All while he watched on the screen of my phone.

###

Once the semester started, I quickly got into my new routine of attending college classes in the morning and working in the afternoons at the main photo studio under Gary's tutelage. It was definitely more hands-on work than I'd been used to with Dave. But then again, I hadn't been trying to gain experience to earn a living when I was back home. And we hadn't been working on shoots for more artistic endeavors, like modeling.

Not to mention, we didn't have Zach, the hot grad student with the perpetual five-o'clock-shadow, who made work worth showing up each day, even with the knowledge that he'd be gone by Christmas when he finished his Master's degree in digital photography.

Zach had a hands-on approach. As in, his hand was always resting on your shoulder or back when he was giving one-on-one instructions or observations. Even with the male students. A certain group of females flocked around him during breaks. And more than once, I saw several intentionally mess up a project so he would come assist them personally.

I didn't have much interaction with Zach myself. I wasn't really interested, though the way he styled his facial hair reminded me of how Dave wore his and always made me smile. Which had apparently caught Zach's eye a few times because I caught him watching me before giving me a wink and going back to whatever he was working on.

I didn't start in Gary's private studio until my second month at UCLA. I think he wanted me to get settled in first. When I had been there before, it had just been him and Helena with me. On the surface, it was just a posh pad with minimal furniture and decorations. It reminded me of Dave's basement after the renovations. Probably where the inspiration came from.

The main living-room area with several arrangements of couches and chairs was framed with exposed-brick walls on three sides and floor-to-ceiling windows on the fourth. The latter of which looked out onto the roofs of more warehouses below and provided plenty of natural light while preventing anyone from looking in due to the height. In the other spaces—four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and even a couple of kitchens—I saw the familiar, excessive ceiling lighting and the bare necessities when it came to accessories. Gary had explained that the actors were to be the focus of the films, not the backgrounds, which should remain neutral. And smaller spaces required more lighting, which could be harder to get special photography lights in so the ceiling lights could be adjusted to the right ambience.

On my second visit, the place was bustling with men and women in various stages of dress along with make-up artists, hair stylists, cameramen, and somewhat surprisingly, Zach. He was talking to one of the actresses who wore only a red teddy, so he hadn't seen me. And I had hurried past, following Helena who brought me to a production room much like the locked one in Dave's basement, albeit three-times the size.

Inside, Gary was seated at a wall of small monitors that returned images of every room in the studio that had been made up to imitate a real room in a house. The scenes for each film, as previously explained to me. Two larger monitors sat side-by-side in the center of the others, and several keyboards and control boards lined the desktop spanning the length of the wall under the screens.

"Come in, Zoe! Please, sit!" Gary patted a chair next to him and reached for a set of headphones, which he handed to me. "Put these on."

I obeyed and watched him type away at the nearest keyboard. The large monitor changed from black to one of the living room arrangements.

"Less light from behind the couch this time. And watch the angle on camera four," Gary said into his headset. The angle of the view on the screen changed while his fingers flew over the keys again. He covered the mouthpiece and leaned toward me. "Some of the ceiling lights aren't all lights. Many are cameras. And we can control both from here. Zooming in and out as we want, making it darker or lighter. The living room areas are the worst, though. Natural light is great and the furniture makes for great scenes, but you can't control the sun. Sometimes we have to make modifications to get the right shot. And then there are the handheld cameras for those hard-to-reach, up-close shots. We can splice different parts together to create the exact result we want overall."

I nodded slowly, understanding more and more how Dave's set up would work back home. A miniature version of his brother's studio. But a little more inconspicuous.

"Dave said you were helping him with scripts?"

I started to nod again but caught Helena's slight frown from behind her husband. So, I swallowed and said, "Yes, I wasn't impressed with the videos I've seen. The acting was exaggerated. It looked too much like...well, acting."

Helena's smile returned. She kissed Gary on the forehead and patted his shoulder, leaning down to say something in his ear before she left us alone.

"I'd be interested to see what you were working on, Zoe," Gary said, adjusting his headset. "Could you write something down?"

###

My second working-day at the warehouse, I showed Gary some of my ideas. He said he thought I had potential. I'd thanked him. And then we'd moved on to discussing the differences of camera angles in films compared to still photography with him showing me examples on the main screen.

The following Friday after a grueling exam, the last thing I wanted to do was go to work at the private studio. Classes were going fine, but I was missing Dave something awful. I just wanted to go home to my attic space and cry until I knew I could call him. Thanksgiving still seemed so far off being almost two months away, but I was counting down the days until he'd be here.

I considered calling in sick, but my boss would know I was faking it when he came home tonight, so I pulled up my big-girl panties and made my way over to the warehouse. My greetings to familiar faces seemed robotic. I hoped I could just hide away in the control room for the necessary time to get paid and then get out of here.

"Zoe! Good, you're here!" Gary stood when I entered and smiled down at me. He was slightly taller than his younger brother, which made me feel even younger in his presence. He put both hands on my shoulders, and for a moment, it was a little awkward while I wondered what he was going to do. But he just grinned wider and gestured to my normal chair. "I've got a surprise for you."

I'd just sat down when Matt, who helped produce, instructed Brett on the computer-guided cameras to bring up one of the bathroom scenes on the main monitor. I recognized it as the one on the other side of the control room wall. There were a few adjustments of lighting, and then absolute stillness.

A minute later, Zach, the grad student, entered the view on the main monitor wearing a black hoodie and a pair of gray shorts with ragged hems around his defined thighs. He was barefoot and stepped over to the sink. Then he hung his head and froze.

Before I could ask what was going on, Matt whispered, "Action!" into the microphone of his headset and a camera closed in on Zach's back.

Holy crap! They were filming live! This was my first viewing of one of Gary's movies...apparently starring Zach. I glanced up at my boss—who was grinning broadly at me—and then back at the main screen.

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CHAPTER 6

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I blinked then gulped while Zach turned on the faucet and ran one hand under the running water before sweeping it over his face then back through his hair while he watched his reflection in the mirror. His posture was slightly bent over with his other hand propped up on the countertop so that his ass stuck out toward the camera currently focused on him. And it was a very nice ass, in spite of the sweats. I'd seen the same stance and action in "Top Gun" after Maverick lost Goose, with the exception that Tom Cruise was only wearing skivvies in the movie...and Zach was ten-times more handsome than Tom.

There was another moment of watching Zach's ass—at least for me. He stood upright and slowly pulled his hoodie over his head, revealing blue and green swirling ink across his left bicep and shoulder blade. Another design with some sort of red scales on the opposite side of his back started at his hip before disappearing below his waistline.

I gulped, licking my lips. And I had to adjust myself in my chair when he stepped over to the large, glassed-in shower. When he turned on the water.

His arms. His chest. His legs. He was ripped. Every move he made seemed to make his muscles ripple.

I bit my lip to suppress a moan I could feel creeping up my throat.

"Take notes, Zoe," Gary whispered in my ear with a soft chuckle. "I want to know what you think of Zach's acting, okay? Any ways we can improve the scene? This is his debut, and we want to make it as good for him as possible."

I nodded slightly, blindly grabbing for my notepad and pen. I swallowed and said hoarsely, "Yes, Sir."

Gary just chuckled again.

I kept my pen poised over the paper, but I had difficulty concentrating.

Zach had his back to the camera again, his head lowered once more while he leaned against one wall of the shower. I was wondering what he was waiting for—the water to warm up?—when a moment later, a blonde woman wrapped in a short, white towel entered and stopped behind him. She traced her left hand over the tats on his shoulder. Appeared to press her lips against the back of his neck.

"Pan around on Tara," Matt said, and the camera angle slowly changed to catch both actors from a side view while Brett played with various buttons and levers.

It was surreal watching Zach and Tara, knowing they were just a few feet away and their actions were being recorded for us to watch in the privacy of our booth.

Tara's hand smoothed over Zach's back then slid around to his front side. He straightened his posture but didn't turn around. She leaned in and clearly kissed his inked-shoulder this time, her fingers running up and down his arm. He leaned his head back finally, and they kissed. She kept up her caresses for another minute.

I found myself leaning forward and sitting back repeatedly while they continued their action on the monitor. A drop of the towel so Tara's backside was flashed to whatever cameras were capturing them before she moved around to face Zach. A closer view from the front now when she knelt, lowering his shorts and her bared breasts bounced slightly. I briefly wondered where the camera was located for that shot...if there were any employees with handheld cameras in the room with them.

The sight of Tara holding his cock in her hands erased all other thoughts. She was stroking him, holding him to her lips and teasing him with her tongue before sliding him into her mouth. Zach leaned forward then against the edge of the glass wall, his hips moving occasionally while her right hand stroked his ass and thigh. His free hand roamed from stroking her hair to her cheek, tilting her head up so the camera caught her looking up at him while his cock thrust lightly between her lips.

My heart was beating so fast in my chest by the time that she stood and coaxed him to follow her into the shower stall. My mind drifted to wonder how big the water heater was here and if they would still have hot water after all this time. But once more, I focused when Zach kissed Tara roughly, pushing her backwards under the water. Against the wall beneath the showerhead. Apparently with a little more force than she expected because their kiss suddenly broke and she leaned her head back with an obvious gasp. Then they were kissing again, his hand cupping and stroking her breasts while water cascaded down his back.

I licked my lips and heard my own quickening breath when Zach turned Tara around to face the wall, her mouth dropping opening in apparent surprise again. He stroked his hand down her front side and over her hip before pulling her right leg up. I leaned forward at the same time that he bent slightly and the camera zoomed in to catch the moment that Zach's marvelous-looking cock teased Tara's pussy.

Then I sat in a trance while he slid inside her and they fucked on the screen. The cameras moved to catch Tara's facial expressions then Zach's. The placement of his hands on her breast...her throat...her hip. The way his ass clenched with each thrust of his cock. The way her body arched away from his or pressed against him, her fingers splaying and clenching on the wet tiles. And finally, how his fingers played along her clit and her folds from the front, catching each withdrawal and penetration of his swollen cock.

On the monitor, the camera slowly zoomed out and Zach continued for another minute before pulling out, releasing his hold on Tara. She turned to face him. Just when I thought she was going to kneel and suck his cock again and stroke him for that 'money shot' I knew most porno movies aimed for, they proved me wrong.

Zach kissed her sensually, his left hand planted on the side of her head against the wall while he stroked his cock with his right. Tara ran her fingertips lazily up and down his right bicep. After he shot his cum across her belly that was dotted with water droplets—of which a camera zoomed in to catch—he pressed his fingers between her legs. They continued until she was gripping his neck for support, her body undulating under the streams of water like a flag in a rainstorm.

The screen faded away after a full-length image of the two of them embraced in a final kiss, Tara's left hand gripping Zach's flexed bicep. His inked hip faced us, revealing a deep-red dragon with unfurled wings—the tips of which I had seen above his waistline earlier—shooting fire toward his groin and its spiked tail wrapped around his thigh.

There was absolutely no sound in the room for what seemed like several minutes, but it was probably only a few seconds. Then I heard Gary's voice from far away.