My son the photographer, Mother poses for her son, “Hi Mum,” I heard my son’s voice call out. “I’m home.” I turned and looked up from the flower bed I was weeding to see Andy clicking his camera. Andy’s always been keen on photography but it is such an expensive hobby with all that processing and printing so, for his birthday a couple of months ago, I bought him a mid-range digital camera. Now he clicks at anything in sight. You should see some of his flower close-ups: he has a knack of getting them just right.
I brushed an errant lock of hair back from my face and smiled, “Look at the state of me!” I was aware that I was wearing an old pair of jeans and an old shirt – both of them now smudged with soil marks but that didn’t seem to bother him: he just clicked away.
“That’s fine, Mum,” he assured me. “Looks good, looks natural.”
“I’ll show you natural,” I said, standing up and going towards him waving my muddy hands towards his face.
He shrieked in mock horror, “Don’t you dare!”
“Then don’t you dare takes pictures of me in this state! I’m about done anyway. Let me get cleaned up and we can have our meal out here in the sun. Sandwiches and cola OK?”
“Sandwiches and wine would be better. And put your glad rags on if you don’t want me to photo you in those old things.”
I went up to the bathroom, stripped and jumped under a cool shower – I was all hot and persipring from working under the hot sun all afternoon. I towelled down then looked at myself in the long mirror. “Hmm,” I thought, “not bad for 37.” My tummy was tight and my C-cup boobs were still firm. Just a couple of extra pounds around the hips.
Andy’s father had left me for a ‘younger model’ five years ago – leaving me with a 13-year-old boy to raise. Fortunately I had a small private income from a legacy which, with the maintenance I was getting from Andy’s father, left us reasonably comfortable. The house was mine, from my parents’ estate: a modest place but with a large secluded garden which was my love.
I threw my bathrobe around me and returned to my bedroom where I selected plain white cotton bra and pants and a light knee-length summer button-through dress with an open neckline. I had made the sandwiches earlier so I only had to retrieve them from the fridge. I grabbed a bottle of wine and took it all out to the picnic table in the back garden.
Andy joined me after a couple of minutes with a couple of pages of pictures he’d printed off. He passed them over to me and I handed him the bottle to open. I looked through the pics and realised that they were very good. We sat down and Andy poured the wine. I passed him a plate of sandwiches and continued to look over the pictures. I had to chuckle at the sight of me with a streak of mud over my face where I had brushed my hair back and I told Andy not to take any more pics of me like that.
“OK,” he said, “when we’re finished you can pose for me as you are. You’re pretty enough like that. Deal?”
“Deal, you flatterer!” I smiled.
When we finished the sandwiches, Andy cleared the detritus of the meal away then moved my lounger away from the table. He had me sit in the chair and took a couple of portrait-type pictures from the front and sides. He adjusted the back of the lounger so I was half-reclined and told me to lie back and relax as if I were sunbathing. I could hear his camera clicking away.