A Shoot For All Time 
by Steven Rudd

The sixth-generation scion of an otherwise respectable
Alabama family, Steven Rudd holds down a daytime
job practicing medicine in Birmingham. The
doc’s certified by both the American Board of
Psychiatry & Neurology and the American Board
of Legal Medicine. His pals and kin who’ve read his
crime stories and (as-yet unpublished,but hey, his
agent’s on top of it: see www.wrayagency.com)
novels wonder where ol’ Steve went wrong. Rudd
doesn’t pay ‘em any mind, though. The man lives for
pulp. Feel lucky? Shoot the guy a line at
steverudd@aol.com.
©Copyright 2001
Steven Rudd

As soon as he slipped into the airport-motel room with his bags
in hand, Tim Weems sensed he was going to make some art here,
of a rare quality indeed. Just as they’d agreed on the Net, his
prospective model was waiting for him, standing by the bed. She
put out her hand to greet him and seemed to size him up on the
spot, then burst out laughing.
“Oh, I am like so sorry,” she twanged as her big, warm, longjointed
country-girl’s hand overlapped his. “But I mean, whoa now.
Are you Mr. Eroto, like you said, with www.Lens-of-Desire.com?”
In the flesh, he noted, she was even more a goddess than those
JPEG snapshots she’d e-mailed to the Web site had suggested. Largelimbed,
exuberantly curved and molded, her frame was as heroic
about the breasts, hips and shoulders as a classical Venus, but there
was nothing marble-like about this creature. Her hair was thick and
lustrous, dark as nightshade as it hung in long, smooth waves past
her shoulders. In tones of pale-olive merged with cinnamon, her
skin was flawless, and her eyes were blueberry-bright.
Standing there in faded Levi’s, a Charlie Daniels Band concert Tshirt
and block-heeled red-vinyl mules that made her loom close to
a head taller than he was, she looked very young to him.
“Ah, yes, that is my professional name, ah, Ms. Destany,” he
replied, well aware of the figure he cut for himself and long since
resigned to it. “And now if you please, may I see some proof of
your age before we proceed?”
“Oh, I’m eighteen all right,” she insisted as she pulled a wallet out
of the Delta Air Lines flight bag she was clutching in front of her.
“Yessir. Here we go.”
In the dresser mirror across the room Tim caught a glimpse of
their image together, and couldn’t overlook the ridiculous pair they
made. He was a pasty-faced, wispy, dish-water-blond man, much
closer to five feet tall than six, and the bristly, indistinct mustache
he cultivated, like his typical outfit of a tan golf shirt, pressed chinos
and loafers, served to make him all the more forgettable.
“I see.” He bobbed his head over the Arkansas driver’s license she
showed him, which gave her name as Kelli Ann Smith and a Hot
Springs address. “Very well. Let’s-”
“Hold on just a minute, ‘Mr. Eroto,’” she cut him off, sticking her
hand back in her bag in a way that made him wonder if she was
packing Mace, a straight razor, or perhaps a handgun for safety’s
sake. “How ‘bout you show me some ID?”
“Very well.” He took out his billfold and let her see his own
license, adding dryly, “I am also, ah, of age. Thirty-one, to be
exact.”
“‘Timothy Wayne Weems,’” Kelli Ann read aloud, then looked up
with a wary, suspicious frown. “You live right here in Atlanta? Hey, I
thought this high-class porn deal’s supposed to have its
headquarters out in LA somewheres, close to Hollywood?”
“It does,” he explained patiently. “But I choose to work freelance
for Lens of Desire. I also have, ah, a day job.”
“Hang on there, lemme see,” she demanded, snatching the billfold
from him and flip-ping through the pictures inside before breaking
into a wide, deep-dimpled, big-sisterly grin. “Hey, is this your little
girl here? She looks just like you but cuuute, I reckon. And-this your
wife, here? She looks…smart.”
“Thank you. Our Cynthia is just starting second grade, and Mrs.
Weems teaches high-school English.” Tim cleared his throat and
snapped open his bags, looking around the close, over-lit space.
“Before we begin the shoot, I have some forms-to do with fees,
waivers and copyright-and-use boilerplate, and so on-for you to
sign, ah, Ms. Destany.”
“Aw, you’n just call me Kelli Ann,” she muttered as she took the
brand-new Bic pen he offered and scrawled her signature on the
papers. “‘Lezlee Destany’s just this fancy ol’ name I thought up, t’use
on-line.”
As he voiced no comment, Tim considered that at first he’d
thought it was either a vulgar attempt at the theatrical or a case of
abysmal spelling, but now he could see some-thing more complex
in the girl’s imagination, with not a little pathos in it.
“Awright now,” she said, handing the forms back to him and
grabbing hold of the hem of her T-shirt as if to strip it off. “Let’s
have at it, man. What d’you say?”
“Very well.” Tim had taken out his photometer and was unfolding
a set of light stands and reflecting shields from his bags, and as he 
looked up, he inclined his head toward the bathroom. “Why don’t
you use that for changing, Ms.-ah, Kelli Ann.”
“‘Changin’?” Having kicked off her shoes, she paused with her
shirt halfway over her head. “C’mon, Timmy. I’m just gone git
nekkid here, right?”
Then she seemed to study his face. After a moment or two, some
of his own intently impersonal, professional, focused-to-the-max
manner seemed to rub off on her. Straightening her shoulders,
lifting her chin, and picking up her shoes and bag, Kelli Ann put on
a studious face and padded into the bathroom.
At end of the shoot, the results seemed to take even Tim’s model
by surprise.
“Oh my God. Oh, Lord. Oh, sweet Jesus.” In the nude and
gaping, she sat on the foot of the bed and scrolled through the
frames on the LCD screen of the little digital camera he’d used for
backup. “Holy…Tim, you couldn’t’ve-you didn’t make me look
like…this-did you? I’m…beautiful, like crazy. Like to die for, and
then some…damn.”
“Through sufficient practice and diligence and with a modicum of
skill, any photo-grapher can take pictures of that which is not really
there,” Tim said with his habitual precision while he changed rolls
in the portrait-model Leica, which hung from a strap around his
neck. “However, I assure you, Kelli Ann, in your case such an
exercise in, ah, visual casuistry was not at all necessary.”
“Which means, in English…?”
“You are beautiful. ‘And then some,’ as you put it.” He took a
quick look over his equipment before he faced her again. “If you
wish me to submit these photographs to the Lens of Desire site, I
predict that quite soon you will be, ah, famous as well.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Biting her lip and nodding with vigor, she stood
up and handed the digi-cam back to him, then shook her head and
asked, “What you mean, ‘if I wish,’ Tim?
“If you prefer,” he said, “I am prepared to do another, ah, briefer
shoot with you.”
“Right here,” she pressed him. “Right now?”
“Yes.” He took a breath, then went on softly and evenly, “I must
inform you, Kelli Ann, that an offer such as this is one which I am
prepared to make to very, very few of the models with whom I
work. No more, in fact, than one in a hundred.”
She rested her hands on her hips, tilted her head to one side, and
put on a broad, jeering smile that let him know without any words
that she’d already heard every come-on in the book and could see
this one from a mile off.
“Very well.” He shrugged easily and turned to pack up his gear.
“It has been my, ah, very great pleasure to work with you.” 
“Hold on.” She put a hand on his arm, and with the same
expression as before asked, “Why don’t you just fill me in on this
‘special offer’ you got to make, Tim.”
“As you wish,” he sighed, shifting back around. “Have you given
any thought to, ah, immortality?”
“Yeah, right,” she laughed with no trace of amusement. “You fixin’
to start in trying to save my soul, or what?”
“I assure you, Kelli Ann, I have no designs whatever on your
soul.” Taking care to keep his eyes fixed on hers, he explained,
“Due to my professional role, I can see to it that your photographs
are posted in such a venue as to ensure you a place in the public
eye for perpetuity-altogether a, ah, different order of fame, that is,
than my sometime employers at Lens of Desire have to offer.”
“For…?” Still scornful but now appearing to him to hang on his
words in spite of herself, she probed, “That ‘in perpetuity,’ like you
said, is that like…for all time? Huh?
“Hey, just what are you, Tim?” she burst out when he merely
nodded without looking away. “I seen that beeper you got on,
there. You a doc, or what? ‘Cause you sure’s hell carry on like you
some kind of life-and-death pro or other.”
“No, I am not a physician,” he admitted. “I am but a, ah, humble
civil servant.”
“C’mon,” she persisted. “You workin’ for some bunch of rich
weirdoes or some-thing, that get off on looking at stuff you can’t
even get off the Web these days?”
“I must inform you,” he responded in earnest, “I am sworn to
uphold quite a stringent degree of, ah, confidentiality due to my
position.”
“Yeah, uh-huh, whatever cranks your tractor, man.” Tossing her
head back and folding her arms in front of her, she rolled her eyes
and mugged at herself. “Okay, say I go along with this special
shoot, or whatever. Just what’ve I got to do for you, Tim?”
It was not the sight of the young paragon’s undraped form that
came close to over-powering his senses, he mused. Nor was it her
face, which he found even more unsettling in its perfection. Rather,
what struck him most deeply about her was intangible, a sense of
ambition and the need for escape from the life she’d led that rayed
off her like August heat on a blacktop road.
“The other, much less protracted shoot I referred to is of…” He
paused longer than usual for the word. “Of rather a, ah, fetishistic
nature.”
“Fetish, uh-huh.” Grinning knowingly, she leaned closer to
inquire, “You mean like fishnets and dog collars and boob clamps,
stick a baseball bat up my butt, or what?”
“Nothing of the kind, I assure you,” Tim said primly. “It will,
however, involve some degree of, ah, personal restraint.” 
“Bondage, okay. Just give it to me straight, man,” she requested.
“You want a hogtie, ball-tie, suspension, crotchropes, handcuffs,
straightjackets-?”
“Please, excuse me,” he broke in quietly when her list threatened
to go on at length. “The pose requires that your wrists and ankles
be secured with soft but sturdy nylon rope to the four legs of the
bed while you lie supine. Which is to say, ah, face-up.”
“Spread eagle, check.” She brushed back her hair with both hands
and returned his nod. “And…?”
“A, ah, gag is also in order.”
“A gag.” She repeated it, he noted privately, as if he’d just
requested fries with his hamburger. “We talkin’ cleave, ball-gag, Oring,
penis-gag, harness, pony-style-?”
“Merely functional gauze and tape.” He hastened to tell her, “Nonallergenic,
of course.”
“God dang,” she laughed and hugged her ribs while he watched
her eyes soften from scorn to something like reverence. “Tim, I sure
didn’t think I’d ever say this t’any guy I just met in a motel room,
but okay, boy. Go on, tie me up.”
“Very well.” His gaze unwavering, he advised her, “There is one
other thing.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said impatiently. “I got to sign something else?”
“That will not be necessary, Kelli Ann.” Discreetly he indicated
the door behind them. “But I must ask that you, ah, put your
clothes back on.”
“Tim, Tim, Tim,” she chided him, then gave him a hearty buss on
the forehead before turning and marching into the bathroom. “Now
you really gettin’ kinky on me.”
“Is that all right? Are you quite comfortable?” he asked like a
dentist as he finished taping her mouth and straightened up beside
the bed. “Very well…”
He’d pulled his lighting props back to the corners of the room,
and now he meticu-lously put his cameras away before shaking out
an ankle-length scrub gown and slipping into it. In well-drilled
order he fitted paper shoe covers over his loafers, donned an OR
cap and mask, put on clear-plastic splash-guard glasses, and
snapped on a pair of latex gloves. Then as he unzipped his
instrument case and took out the surgical-steel knife, retractors and
clamps, Kelli Ann began making muted, panicked noises at his
back.
“Please,” he urged her softly as she began to thrash and strain like
the others but with a beauty all her own. “Please try to understand
that this is quite necessary, Kelli Ann, and that I do not look
forward to this, ah, procedure any more than you do. Please…”
“Looks like we got us another ‘un, lieutenant,” Det. O’Riley of
Atlanta PD said to his superior as he held up the black-printed
yellow tape for him to cross. “Like the others, only worse…if
possible.”
Det. Lt. Judson grunted as he ducked under the crime-scene line,
then took a handkerchief out of the pocket of his rumpled
seersucker jacket and ran it over his bare, sweating brown scalp. In
the black sky overhead, yet another big jet rumbled down the glide
path to Hartsfield International next door. Straightening up tall and
gaunt, the lieutenant caught himself bracing tight at the threshold of
the motel room.
“Bubba,” he muttered to the junior detective working
Homicide/Assault, “I ever tell you just how much I hate serials like
this? Cute sons of bitches gets on my nerves is why.”
“Victim this time was only eighteen, chief,” O’Riley clucked at his
shoulder as they moved inside. “Had ‘er a round-trip ticket from
Little Rock in her bag…Don’t look like she’s gone be using the
return.”
The lieutenant started to say something, but then he saw her face
and stopped cold.
Why in the name of Christ does he leave ‘em like that? he asked
himself, not for the first time. As he looked into those wide-open,
eternally fixed blue eyes staring out of that untouched, angel’s face,
he knew he’d never forget her. Especially, he pondered, since all
that was left of the victim otherwise was a tiger’s meal of shredded
flesh, ripped-open guts, pooled blood, and stripped-down bone.
“Matt,” called McKean, one of the assistant pathologists from the
Fulton County ME’s office, a lanky, auburn-haired, freckle-faced
young woman with a thoughtful air. “Obviously we’re not going to
be able to move the body without substantially altering the
evidence. That’s why I’m waiting until we can get a good, fresh set
of stills in situ, here.”
“Good evening, lieutenant, detective, Dr. McKean,” the clipped,
nasal voice of the crime-scene photographer spoke up, just about
on cue from behind them. “I beg your pardon. The traffic on the
South Expressway was quite, ah, insupportable tonight.”
Matt nodded greeting and stepped back. In spite of his other,
brooding thoughts he couldn’t help looking on in admiration as the
cameraman set to work. Say what you want about that fussy, dorky
little guy, he told himself recurrently, but when it came to taking
pictures that’d stand up in anybody’s court, Tim Weems was damn
near an artist.