Chapter 13 - Suzanne's Studio

By the middle of October Jason and his friends were fully adjusted to the routine of the university. They already had passed their first midterm in Burnside's freshman class, all of them with high "B's". They had a clear understanding of the material presented in class to date and seemed well-positioned to pass the class on the first try and get one of the university's most difficult requirements out of the way. Jason's confidence in himself went up as he pushed Ken, Mike, and Lisa to learn the material that Cecilia was pressing on him.

Jason continued to model for the afternoon drawing classes. The thrill of standing or lying naked in front of a group of strangers had diminished over time because he was doing it on a routine basis, but it was something he still enjoyed. As he continued to work out, Jason became increasingly proud of his body and liked showing it off.

The week following the autograph signing session, the photographer Suzanne Foster developed the pictures and delivered them to the Tri-Alpha fraternity. There were several boxes of 8 x 10 photos, all of them pictures of Jason and Lisa posing with various fans and people who had attended the nude 10-K race. The fraternity already had stacks of envelopes prepared to stuff and mail to the charity donors. As soon as Suzanne delivered the pictures the fraternity was ready to mail them to their buyers.

In spite of her busy schedule, Cecilia decided to make herself available to help Suzanne carry the pictures to the fraternity. She wanted to see Suzanne again and get to know her better, so helping her with delivering the pictures was a perfect justification to get together with her again. Suzanne gladly accepted and the two women headed over to the fraternity house in Suzanne's dilapidated old car.

Going into the fraternity was a rather strange experience for Cecilia. She and Suzanne were greeted by the sight of several naked 18-year olds running around the house, busy doing chores and keeping the place clean. Most of the pledges had red marks or bruises on their bottoms from constant paddling. All of the freshmen present had shaved their pubic hair, which was another requirement imposed on Tri-Alpha pledges.

It turned out that the fraternity had a rather severe system of hazing freshman pledges. The Tri-Alphas prided themselves on not using alcohol as part of their initiations, but the lack of drunkenness meant hazing had to take a different form. Instead of drinking contests, the fraternity imposed a semester of sexual servitude on anyone who wanted to join. Pledges were required to be naked any time they were in the frat house. They also were required to visit Tri-Alpha's sister sorority on a regular basis to clean it up and submit to whatever humiliations the girls chose to impose on them. Like the fraternity, whenever the pledges were working in the sorority or submitting to its members, they had to be completely naked. Upper classmen from the fraternity had the right to paddle a pledge at any time for any reason, as did members from the fraternity's sister sorority. If an upper classman or sorority girl wanted to fondle or humiliate a pledge in any way, they were perfectly free to do so. It seemed to Cecilia that there were plenty of sorority girls floating around the house, taking special delight in dominating the pledges.

As Cecilia and Suzanne carried boxes to a back room that served as the fraternity's main office, they passed a patio where three sorority girls were spending "quality time" with a naked 18-year old. One of the girls was relaxing on a lawn chair. She had taken her shoes off, but otherwise was fully dressed. The pledge was on his knees licking her feet and sucking her toes while another sorority girl was smacking him with a belt. A third sorority girl was taking pictures of the pledge with a digital camera. Cecilia noticed the girl with the belt was not using good technique: she had not doubled it and was not smacking effectively.

While Suzanne and the fraternity president sorted through the pictures to place into their proper envelopes, Cecilia decided to return to the patio and watch the foot-worshiping session. She rolled her eyes as she saw the sorority girl deliver one weak ineffective swat after another, on a victim who obviously was not feeling the punishment properly. Finally she decided to intervene and do something about it. She introduced herself to the sorority girls and asked to borrow the belt. Rather surprised, they agreed and the girl wielding the implement passed it to the fraternity's new guest.

Cecilia addressed the kneeling guy, who continued licking the feet of the sorority girl in the lawn chair. He kept his tongue on her feet, because he had not been instructed to do anything else.

"OK, little pledge. I'm gonna smack you good, and you'd better stay right where you are, or I'll get the paddle."

With that Cecilia delivered a crisp SMACK to the exposed backside at her feet, leaving a white stripe that quickly turned deep pink. The pledge shifted uncomfortably as his hand involuntarily went to his bottom to protect it.

"Hey! I didn't say you could do that, little pledge! Just for that, I'm gonna give you another!"

CRACK! Cecilia let loose a fearsome blow as the three sorority girls looked at her in amazement. The freshman gasped from the shock of the smack and the pain tearing into him, but he managed to stay still, as required by the rules he had to follow as a pledge. Cecilia handed the belt back to the girl who had been using it.

"There. Now, that's how you spank a naughty pledge! You double the belt and you put your body into it, just like you was playin' tennis! Now you try it."

The sorority girl followed her guest's lead, and managed to deliver a respectable swat. The freshman began to sweat. His afternoon was about to become much more difficult. Cecilia, still not completely satisfied with the other girl's performance, took back the belt. She then placed her foot between the freshman's thighs to force them apart.

"Come-on, boy! Spread 'em! Let's see what you got back there! Let's see it, spread nice and wide!"

The freshman complied, exposing himself completely as he spread his knees apart. Cecilia paused long enough to get a good look at the pledge's bottom-hole, the backs of his testicles, and the lower part of his penis. Once she had her victim properly positioned, Cecilia twisted her whole body back and delivered a blow that was much harder than her first two.

CRACK!!! The freshman jerked to the side and rubbed his bottom as he gave the Dominican a very frightened look. Cecilia's next comment was not addressed to him but to the sorority girls.

"Well, I think we can see why you got a problem here. You're not disciplining this pledge properly. If you'd trained him right, he wouldn't be lookin' up and jerkin' around like this! Now, either you train him right, or I'm gonna tell your chapter president you're not doin' your job with this guy!"

The girls' expressions changed with Cecilia's last comment.

"No...please...don't! If you say anything, we'll all get it! She'll spank us, like...I mean...bare-assed...right in front of all the guys!"

"Then do your job!"

The sorority girl administering the punishment gave Cecilia a nervous look as she took back the belt. She doubled the leather, positioned herself, tightened her lips, and laid into her victim full force.

CRACK!!!

The freshman groaned and gasped as he tried to absorb the shock of the latest swat. Unfortunately for him, the girl in the chair got into the spirit of Cecilia's lesson.

"Hey, pledge! I didn't tell you to stop licking my feet! You get your tongue back between my toes, or we'll really give you something to cry about!" She looked up at her friend. "Give him another, Heather...and make it a good one!"

CRACK!!!

With difficulty the guy continued licking the sorority girl's toes, as one fearsome swat after another marked his unprotected backside. Tears began rolling down his cheeks, but he had to obey the three sorority girls or get kicked out of the pledge group. Of any given Tri-Alpha pledge group, there always were guys who were eliminated or disqualified because they couldn't handle the physical punishment or please the sorority girls enough. He was determined to stay in, and was willing to do what it took to please his three tormentors.

Cecilia was very turned-on, feeling the familiar warm, wet sensation build between her legs as she watched the pledge's ordeal. Her heart pounded in her chest and her eyes lit up with an intense, hungry expression as she studied the suffering teenager in front of her. She badly wanted to take up the belt again and deliver some more swats, but not being a sorority member, she decided it was not a good idea to participate any further in the guy's hazing.

A few minutes later Suzanne came back to the patio, chatting with the Tri-Alpha chapter president. She looked over at Cecilia as she stood watching the hazing. Suzanne then looked at Heather, the girl wielding the belt. The expressions on the faces of both Heather and Cecilia fascinated Suzanne's instinct for photography. She pulled out her camera to take some pictures, not of the spanking itself, but instead of Heather's concentrated focus and the aroused, hungry look in Cecilia's eyes.

Once her camera was unpacked and the lens adjusted, Suzanne became all business, taking advantage of a unique moment to get some intense facial shots to add to her professional portfolio. Suzanne snapped several pictures of the girls on the patio, but only photographed their faces. She was not interested in photographing the hazing scene itself, but rather the expressions of the participants. She snapped several close-up shots of the wide-eyed pledge as he continued to lick the set of toes in front of him and wincing as Heather's belt made contact. She turned to Cecilia, took some more photos of her clearly aroused expression, and finally told her companion it was time to go.

Cecilia resented being pulled away from the hazing, but at the same time realized Suzanne was right. They were not sorority members and to have stayed any longer would have worn out their welcome. As they left the fraternity, she was bewildered by Suzanne's detached interest in the spanking scene unfolding on the patio and the intense, but unemotional manner in which she took her pictures. Suzanne was not aroused, nor shocked, nor sympathetic, nor offended. It seemed as though she were photographing nothing more an inanimate object. What also interested Cecilia was the strange contrast between Suzanne's quiet personality and her interest in taking pictures that would have controversial content. She relayed her curiosity to the photographer.

"I'm not sure how to answer that," responded Suzanne. "I guess when I take pictures, what I'm looking for is emotion and mood. I'm also looking for...I suppose I'm searching for what's strange and what's erotic in everyday life. I think that's the best way I can describe it."

"So...you do artistic photography?"

"I don't know if you could call it that, artistic photography, I mean. The way I look at it is that I'm not trying to create art. It's more like I'm trying to capture emotion. That's what I'm really after in my photos."

Cecilia and Suzanne talked a bit more as they made their way back to the art department. Their conversation turned to the Tri-Alphas and the fraternity's odd influence on the university. Suzanne explained that she had been the unofficial photographer of the Tri-Alphas since the previous spring semester. She had taken pictures of several charitable events, displacing a professional photographer who was charging extortionately and reducing the profits going to the intended causes. Suzanne charged nothing for her work, but hoped that her connections with the Tri-Alphas and her growing artistic portfolio eventually would help her break into the field as a serious photographer.

The fraternity was different from any of the others on campus. The members prided themselves on being risk-takers, but always in unique and unexpected ways. The Tri-Alphas were the only fraternity that did not feature drinking at their events. Instead they focused on a variety of other daring activities and physical competitions. The annual 10-K run was only one example of some of the unusual things its members liked to do.

The Tri-Alphas' taste for adventure attracted a certain type of personality and made the fraternity rather hard to join. A key goal of the initiation was to get members to completely get rid of any personal inhibitions. Prospective members had to spend an entire semester as pledges and undergo constant hazing, which eliminated about half of the applicants any given year. The hazing was in itself an adventure, of which the 10-K run, being kept naked for a full semester, and submitting to constant spankings were only part of a much larger journey of sexual servitude and erotic experiences. Pledges were specifically prohibited from touching any alcohol or drugs, because the fraternity wanted its prospective members to be fully aware of everything that was happening to them. As a result, the annual drinking scandals that plagued the other fraternities never affected the Tri-Alphas.

The Tri-Alphas and their sister sorority were blatantly sexual in what they enjoyed doing. There were sexual games and other nude or erotic events throughout the year, of which the 10-K run was by far the most public. There were non-sexual activities as well, including the annual Spring Break adventure and trips to exotic locations such as mountain climbing in the Chilean Andes. The fraternity and its sister sorority were very health-conscious, which was another important reason drinking was not a part of Tri-Alpha life.

Cecilia, as a dorm Resident Advisor, was well aware of the various fraternities on campus. The other fraternities claimed to be "wild", but in reality, for all of the others, "being wild" meant being constantly drunk. Apart from drinking, preparing to get drunk, and recovering from being drunk, the pledges from the other fraternities really did very little. For any male student who wanted active adventure instead of lying around in a sick, drunken stupor, the only real option was joining the Tri-Alphas.

Suzanne invited Cecilia to see the pictures she had taken as a freshman the year before. There were numerous large and medium-sized prints preserved in several large folders. Two things immediately struck Cecilia about Suzanne's work. First, the pictures, every last one, were excellent in their quality and the manner in which Suzanne had composed the shot. She seemed adept at capturing people's expressions and the inner workings of their emotions. Second, many of the pictures were blatantly erotic. Suzanne seemed interested in straightforward figure photography, but also had taken many pictures of models in a wide variety of sexual situations. She had done photo shoots of gay and lesbian couples, of older couples, of people in erotic poses by themselves, and artistic figure studies of ballet and jazz dancers. The eroticism in the pictures surprised Cecilia. Suzanne's savagely sensual work hugely contrasted with the artist's quiet demeanor and conservative appearance.

Apart from the erotic figure studies, Suzanne had taken many pictures around both the university and throughout Chicago. There were photos from numerous athletic events, including two Tri-Alpha nude 10-K races. There were some landscape shots and a few photos of animals. Cecilia was very impressed. She spent more than an hour going through her friend's work without realizing the passage of time.

Suzanne's photographs excited Cecilia almost as much as watching the freshman getting punished on the Tri-Alpha patio. She decided to ask the photographer do a couple of photo shoots of Jason, but also decided that she wanted to have a photo shoot done of herself. Cecilia never had taken any nude pictures of herself nor allowed anyone else to photograph her, but suddenly decided she wanted to add her own body to Suzanne's artistic portfolio. She had no idea why she would want to do such a thing. The idea scared her as much as it excited her.

Hesitantly Cecilia brought up the idea of posing, asking if Suzanne was interested in having her pose for a figure study series. Suzanne readily agreed, enthusiastic at the thought of having her dark-skinned exotic-looking acquaintance as a model.

Suzanne surprised Cecilia by suggesting they do the photo shoot right away. She had photographed enough people to gauge their emotions prior to a modeling session, could tell that Cecilia would become very nervous if she had any time to think it over. It was possible she might have reservations and be tempted to back out. Suzanne did not what to force or trick Cecilia into posing, but she felt that a successful photography session might help Cecilia see the beauty in her own body and boost her self-esteem. The photographer was aware of her ability to capture the essence of a subject's personality on film, especially when she was doing a figure series. No matter how reluctant a model might be to be photographed nude prior to a photo shoot, the reaction always was extremely positive once the subject saw his or her figure rendered in the developed pictures.

Cecilia's heart pounded as they entered the art department's photography studio. There was a plain white backdrop already set up. Suzanne explained what she had in mind. The pictures would be a stark contrast of Cecilia's dark body standing alone against the white background. There would be no other objects in the photos; the session would be focused entirely on her bare and unadorned figure. To Cecilia the idea seemed a bit simplistic, yet at the same time a bit scary. Cecilia's body and soul, standing out on that white backdrop, was to be starkly and unabashedly exposed to the viewer.

Before setting up, Suzanne told Cecilia to get undressed. "I want your clothes off for at least 15 minutes before we start shooting, so that you don't have panty-lines marking your waist. This photo shoot is all about you, not about what you were wearing before we started."

Cecilia stripped and faced the photographer with her hands at her sides as the studio fan blew cool air against her exposed body. She felt incredibly daring, even though Suzanne had done the same thing with dozens of other people over the past year and a half. The Dominican began to feel sexually aroused at the thought of being so exposed to her new friend, a sensation which mixed with fear to make her feel both very vulnerable and very submissive to the photographer. Cecilia had never felt this way before. She wanted to surrender herself to Suzanne, and in fact, had the art student wanted to seduce her at that moment, Cecilia would have been perfectly willing to comply and let her do whatever she wanted. She began to feel wet between her legs, and worried that Suzanne might pick up on her sensual mood.

Suzanne wanted her model to be in a sensual mood for the session, but also wanted her mood to be manageable. Upon sensing how aroused her model really was, she calmly told Cecilia to go to the studio locker room and take a quick shower.

"It'll help calm your nerves, and also finish off those pressure marks from your underwear."

Cecilia showered, but avoided getting her hair wet. It turned out Suzanne was right, showering calmed her nerves without ruining her over-all mood. Once she dried off, Cecilia returned to the studio, where Suzanne was waiting with her camera and backdrops ready for action.

Suzanne planned to take some very sensuous and revealing photos of Cecilia, but would work up to that as the session progressed. She began with a few simple standing poses. Cecilia at first was clearly tensed up, but finally managed to relax and stand naturally. Suzanne then she had Cecilia walk around the room, snapping the camera whenever she walked across front part of the backdrop. Next came sitting and kneeling poses, taken from both the front and from behind. Suzanne told her model to arch her back and spread her legs, capturing the submission in her face and arousal in her dark eyes. As Cecilia became more comfortable and more aroused, Suzanne began pushing for the photos that she really wanted. The model stood confidently, with her legs spread and the most secret parts of herself on full display. She knelt, facing away from the camera and exposed herself even more.

Once she had her model in the right mood, Suzanne pressed the play button on an old cassette player to fill the room with the sound of New Age instrumental music that featured fast drumming. Cecilia quickly got into the spirit of Suzanne's selection, imagining herself dancing naked in the tropics below a full moon at midnight. She danced passionately on the backdrop, only vaguely aware of the click-click-click of the camera.

Suzanne rapidly took pictures, reloaded film into her camera, and adjusted the lighting. She worked feverishly, but knew better than to interrupt her subject and risk spoiling her concentration. As a result, she missed some good shots, but got plenty of others. After the fast drum-piece ended, Suzanne switched to a much slower piece, hoping Cecilia could make the change from dancing to a fast piece of music to dancing more slowly. Switching music worked with some models, but not with others. With Cecilia it worked just fine. Cecilia moved slowly and passionately in front of her photographer, now completely distracted and not paying attention to her surroundings at all.

Within 40 minutes Suzanne had shot several rolls of film on her new model, who now stood in front of her exhausted and sweaty. The spell lifted, leaving the Dominican shaken that she had been able to surrender herself so completely to her friend's camera. As Suzanne unloaded the final roll of film from her camera, she was very satisfied with her new friend's performance. Cecilia continued to stand against the backdrop, catching her breath and sorry to see the modeling session end. Yes, this was something she truly had enjoyed.

She could see why Jason enjoyed modeling for the art department, but she was convinced modeling for a photographer and being able to move about with passion had been much more fun than anything Jason had done to date in the art classes. She definitely wanted to get him into the studio for some sessions posing for Suzanne. She wanted her boyfriend to have his body properly documented on film by a gifted professional photographer.

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Several days later Suzanne invited Cecilia back to the art department to see the developed pictures. Cecilia was impressed by the images' beauty and unabashed eroticism. Cecilia saw a part of herself she had not really known existed in images that were quite sensual. The pictures were so well done that Cecilia was aroused...looking her own body of all things. Suzanne gave her copies of all the pictures, and then did something standard for the profession, asked her to sign a model's release. Once Suzanne took back the release, the Dominican's body became an important part of her artistic portfolio.

The two women spent the next hour getting to know each other better as they ate at a natural food restaurant Suzanne liked. When the restaurant played a song by the banned group "Socrates' Mistresses" the conversation turned to the band and the fact that Cecilia had corresponded enough with Kimberly Lee-Dolkivna to consider her a friend. It turned out Suzanne was a fan of the group as well as was very impressed upon finding out about her friend's connection with the Danubian band. Upon finishing dinner they returned to Cecilia's dorm room so that Suzanne could hear the newest CD in its entirety.

Back in Cecilia's room the two women opened up to each other, sharing personal secrets that neither had shared with anyone else at the university. The friendship between them deepened as they discovered even more details about their lives they had in common. They were somewhat surprised to find out they came from similar family situations and that both were estranged from their parents.

Cecilia was much less forgiving of her family than Suzanne seemed to be of her father. For some reason the words "fuckin' bitch" sealed Cecilia's heart against not only the brother who spoke them, but also against her mother and her entire neighborhood. She had no intention of allowing anyone from her family back in her life, to the extent that during her freshman year she bought a phone with a caller ID function to screen any calls coming from New Jersey. If a call came from area codes 201 or 973, she simply did not pick up. Eventually calls from the two area codes diminished and ceased, and with that Cecilia made the final break with her life prior to college. She had not had any contact with anyone in New Jersey since the beginning of the year.

Cecilia talked at length about her family's apathetic attitude over her academic success and her mother's complete opposition to her studies in Chicago. She went on to describe, in bitter detail, the scorn and contempt heaped on her by her brothers and her female classmates year after year as she struggled to get through high school. She repeated the final words that pushed her to run to catch the departing bus to Chicago. The Spanish accent and bad grammar from her Dominican childhood came out in her speech as the deep anger in her character surfaced:

"They called me a 'fuckin' bitch'...my fuckin' brothers did, and even my mom. That's what they called me, Suzanne, a fuckin' 'puta', and I ain't never gonna forgive 'em! I ain't no bitch, but I ain't gonna do what they want!"

Suzanne, who was a much quieter person than Cecilia, was a bit taken aback by her friend's sudden display of temper and bitterness. However, the Dominican's unpleasant memories about her family matched Suzanne's own about her father. Suzanne confided the grim recollection of seven years of terror she had endured being physically and mentally abused after her parents got divorced and her mother mysteriously left. The physical abuse from her father lasted from the time Suzanne was eleven until she was fourteen. She did not go into details, but related that the physical abuse abruptly stopped, only to be followed by continuous verbal abuse, insults, and put-downs that continued up through the day Suzanne graduated from high school. Suzanne, like Cecilia, did very well in her studies, but that was in spite of, not because of, her father's role in her life.

Finally the two women finished talking about their pasts. It was quite late and Suzanne needed to get to sleep. Cecilia handed her a recorded cassette of the "Socrates' Mistresses" music from the latest CD. Ordinarily Cecilia would not have dreamt of recording her Danubian friend's music to pass out to anyone. However, she trusted Suzanne not to give it out to anyone else, and besides, "Socrates' Mistresses" was not allowed to sell anything in the US anyway. Suzanne departed back to her own room, taking with her the tape.

As she lay awake thinking about her past, Cecilia realized something important from her conversation with Suzanne. What she realized was a detail that, over time, would help her come to terms with her own unpleasant memories. It seemed Suzanne's father treated her with complete hatred and malice, while Cecilia's family treated her the way they did largely out of ignorance and the street's disdain for formal education. Whatever their faults, Cecilia could never claim that her family actually hated her while she was growing up. Instead, they rejected her because she was an outsider to the values and social demands of the neighborhood's subculture.

The Freshman - Chapter 14