"I… I don't know what you mean, Ralph." Howard was fidgeting nervously in his chair, his face flaming now.
"Oh come on, Howie," Ralph said, leaning back in his chair again. "There's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. Almost everybody who gets his first Polaroid-with-timer has the same ideas and does the same things. They're great little intimacy arousers. Get you hornier than hell, especially if you use the timer so that you get shots of you and the wife making it."
Howard stared at his employer with widening eyes. He had known Ralph was open and frank to the point of coarseness at times, but never had he expected to hear such personal comments coming from the man. Why, he was practically suggesting that he, Howard, engage in lewd practices like… well, like voyeurism, for God's sake! Self-voyeurism, at that!
Ralph opened the walnut humidor on his desk and selected an imported cigar. He snipped off the end with a tiny pair of gold scissors, lighted it with a gold lighter, and blew a cloud of blue-gray smoke at the ceiling. "You're not going to tell me you're less of a red-blooded man than I thought, are you, Howie? Especially after our little talk in the kitchen last night."
Howard bristled a little at that, feeling some of the heat leave his face. "What do you mean by that, Ralph?"
"Why do you suppose Norma and I gave you that Polaroid, my boy?"
"I don't know," came the reply. "Why did you?"
"Because I thought you'd appreciate the potential of such a gift, Howie, that's why. I got my first Polaroid four years ago, from Norma's sister, and I appreciated the potential right away. You seemed like the same kind of fun-loving, new-frontiers type that I am; if you hadn't, I wouldn't have allowed our friendship to bond as tightly as it has. Hell, I figured: why should I be having all the kicks, just because I've got a little more money in the bank than old Howie boy."
"You… you mean, you and Norma have…?"
"Taken pictures of one another? And together, fucking? Sure we have, boy. Why, thousands of people do the same thing all over the country these days. It's the in-thing with those in-the-know." He paused, measuring the younger man candidly. "But, of course, you already knew that, didn't you?"
"Uh, well, sure I did, Ralph. Sure I knew that."
Ralph allowed his smile to widen. "That's what I thought. I didn't really believe for a minute that I'd underestimated my star salesman." He chuckled softly, then leaned forward across his desk again. "Now come on, boy, give a little. Did you get some good cheesecake shots or not last night?"
Howard moistened his lips uncertainly. Ralph had put him in an awkward position: what he and Cindy did in the privacy of their own home was their business and no one else's — but then again, Ralph was a good friend and his boss, as well; and he was in a position to do Howard a great deal of future good. After all, hadn't Ralph been instrumental in getting him his last promotion and pay raise from the company president? Besides that, Ralph had more or less put this business of picture-taking on a masculine-pride level; Howard was one who would never admit to being a lesser man, much less to being naive in the ways of the world.
It wouldn't do any harm, really, he thought, to tell Ralph about the photos he had taken of Cindy the night before. It was all innocent anyway; Cindy would never approve, naturally — but she would never have to know.
Howard managed a smile, licking his lips again. "Well," he said, "as a matter of fact, Ralph, I… I did get some pretty good shots, at that. Some… some cheesecake, as you say."
"I thought so," Ralph beamed. "Pretty hot, eh?"
"Sure," Howard said, having committed himself. "Sure, they were pretty hot ones, Ralph." Ralph laughed. "Nude shots?"
Howard felt himself flushing again. "Well… well, not exactly. But they were pretty good anyway. Cheesecake you know."
Ralph opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a small manila envelope, which he placed on the glass top in front of Howard. "Not anywhere in the neighborhood of these, I'll bet," he said.
Howard frowned, looking at the envelope. "What's this?"
"Open it up and take a look, my boy."
Howard did that, extracting several glossy full-color photographs which had obviously been taken with Polaroid cameras. They were blown-up five-by-seven prints, and Howard sucked in his breath sharply as he saw what they graphically depicted. "My God!" he managed to whisper.
The top photo was of a lithe, buxom brunette with an angelic face. She was lying completely nude on her back on a rumpled bed, her slender legs raised and wide-spread so that the whole of her naked loins were displayed to the eye of the camera. Her hands were cupped teasingly around her pubic triangle, framing the wide-splayed splendor of her softly hair-fringed cunt. She was smiling coyly between her ruby-nippled, alabaster breasts.
Howard blinked and looked at the second photo. Another sharp intake of breath, and a small gasp. The same angelic brunette was in this one, but with her also was a dark-haired, handsome male. The brunette was straddling the man's loins, her widespread loins lowered down on the man's hardened penis, so that fully half of its huge length was sunk into her open vagina. She was holding its base between her thumb and forefinger, her small pink tongue held tightly between her full red lips and her eyes squeezed tightly shut in ecstasy. Her other hand was squeezing her left breast, very hard, so that the jutting nipple seemed to point directly at the camera.
Quickly, with beads of sweat lacing his forehead and a rising harness in his loins, Howard thumbed through the other pictures. One showed a different, gray-templed man kneeling between the opened thighs of a petite blonde with pear-shaped breasts, his long tongue snaked out so that it touched the swollen bud of her pink clitoris nestled between fleece-like blonde pubic hair. Another depicted a voluptuous raven-haired girl barely out of her teens with her coral-colored lips voraciously encircling the erect, swollen prick of a muscular hirsute man while he used the middle finger of one hand in the wet, glistening area of her soft pink cunt, her leg being raised so that the full extent of her womanhood was presented to the viewer's eyes while she sucked the man's cock and toyed with his sperm-heavy balls. Still another photo showed two couples, both in their mid-thirties, engaged in an orgiastic group session which Howard could not believe upon first sight, since it involved cunnilingus, fellatio, sodomy all at the same time. The final snap was of two blonde girls and a huge German Shepherd dog, the animal's long hot lolling tongue probing the pubic region of one of the girls while his wet red penis sawed into the upthrust cunt of the second.
Howard was sweating profusely, his breath coming in short gasps as his own genitals tingling with arousal, when he put the group of photographs back on Ralph's desk. "Good Christ, Ralph," he managed, "where did you get those?"
"They're really something, aren't they?" Ralph asked, snickering softly.
"I've never seen anything like that in my life!"
"And these're just one small example of what can be done with a good old Polaroid camera, Howie," said Ralph. "I've got other ones at home — wilder ones, if you can believe it."
Howard wiped his forehead with the back of one hand. His throat felt dry. "But where did you get them, Ralph? They… they don't look like model-posed pornographic pictures…"
"They're not," Ralph told him. "All the people in these photos are just like you and me, Howie average American citizens just out looking for a few kicks. They all belong to an exchange-photographic organization — the Polaroid Club. Norma and I are members ourselves."
"You… you are?" Howard could scarcely believe what his boss was telling him; he had thought he knew most everything about Ralph Taylor, his likes and dislikes, his interests and directions. He had never suspected for a moment that Ralph would be involved in this… this… well, this dirty picture club. Still, the photos were extremely stimulating, more stimulating than anything he had ever seen before. Just thinking about them made his prick tremble and begin to rise again…