-- And be there
A photographer explores his trade -- and his instincts -- when the wolf finds himself with time to kill, a gorgeous setting, and an unlikely companion.
A photographer explores his trade -- and his instincts -- when the wolf finds himself with time to kill, a gorgeous setting, and an unlikely companion.
This idea kinda just popped into my head and I wrote it over a nice, happy weekend. It's a nice, happy story! Plus, it's got a cute bunny in it and it's not even Zootopia fanfiction! Also there's some porn! And you learn about photography! And you learn French! Everybody wins! Thanks to Spudz for his help with everything <3
Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.
"-- And be there," by Rob Baird
Calm waves rippled over cobalt water, just enough to bend the light of a cloudless spring morning -- just enough to shatter it into glinting sparks, hot beneath a turquoise sky. The waves rose gently, until at last they broke against the pristine sand of a flawless beach.
The sound of the surf was a burbling, relaxing white noise, and the irate shouting that rose above it had to fight to make its displeasure known. At last it succeeded: the bull was clearly unhappy. Actually, if Tim thought about it, the bull had been unhappy all the way from Los Angeles.
First it had been a mix-up with the flights; then he had been denied an upgrade at the hotel the night before. Their driver that morning had been late. The roads were bumpy. The batteries were half-charged.
And now, the weather.
"You told me I would have fucking clouds, Angie. You fucking told me! You promised me scattered fucking cumulus. Well, where the fuck are they?"
Tim ran his fingers through his hair, pinning his lupine ears to muffle the worst of the bull's irritation -- directed at one of Jason Lyles's assistants at the other end of the phone. Guess you get to talk to people like that when you run Lyles Studios.
Not just ran Lyles Studios, but -- as Tim had been told on several occasions -- had built Lyles Studios from the ground up. "No, goddamnit. There's not one cloud! Not one, Angie!"
"Sounds like Jason's not happy?"
Tim glanced over to see who had joined him. "No. Sounds like it."
"Means none of us are happy."
But there were different levels of 'none of us,' and Tim knew it. Murphy was a bull like Jason; Tim didn't know if he was actually related to the Lyles, but even if he wasn't their herd instincts were strong. Nobody on the team was to blame for the weather, of course... but they would look for a convenient outsider anyway.
Sure enough, Jason hung up the phone -- flung it into the sand, actually -- and stamped over to join them. "Well?"
Tim splayed his ears. "Any news on the weather, sir?"
"Yeah. It's fucking beautiful, isn't it? Isn't it, Tim?"
"It's... alright..." Tim answered, cautiously; he knew there was no good way to answer. The sun seemed particularly hot against his black fur. "Maybe it'll change, though."
"Yeah. Maybe you can just fucking huff and puff a warm front our way, right?"
"Well, technically, a warm front would --"
"Fuck off, Tim." Jason twitched and kicked his foot with a grunt and an angry spray of sand. Tim understood why the bull was unhappy, of course: their client, a major software company, had been quite specific in the creative brief for the photoshoot. That creative brief included a beach scene. The beach scene included clouds.
Now they were wasting time, and because Lyles had agreed to a fixed bid they weren't even running up billable hours. He was so enthusiastic about winning over the software giant that he'd volunteered to come out to the shoot himself -- displacing Tim.
The wolf had been on the conference call for that one, and even if nobody had been named when Jason promised "I'll come out there myself; you won't be getting the 'B'-team'" he could read between the lines. And he knew that they were putting on a bit of a show, too: nothing about the affair needed more than one person, and certainly not a team of four.
And yet there they were, trying to use the sand to put some distance from the pair of vehicles they'd come down to the beach in. One van had carried the crew from Lyles Studios and their equipment; the other had a trio of suits from the software company itself.
Jason had invited them, so they could see his studio at work. Which, without appropriate scenery, they were not doing. And Jason Lyles was in the business of making his customers happy, not in appreciating landscapes -- picturesque as they might have been.
One of the people from the software firm was walking over to investigate. "Take care of this one," the bull muttered to Tim, stalking off with Murphy to find Lena, their lighting specialist who had gone in search of a charger for her batteries.
"Uh. Hi," he told the suit.
Despite cocktails at their hotel the night before, he didn't know the rabbit's name -- he'd been tired from the trip, and from listening to Jason yell at people. It was some French name, he recalled, and probably pronounced sniffily. Sophie? Claire? Sophie-Claire? She glared at him expectantly, and when he didn't answer she folded her arms over her chest.
"Uh... yes?"
"What is the delay? We are here, okay, as you ask of us -- now the big Jason Lyles, he is just stomping around and yelling? What is this?"
"It's part of the... the creative process?"
"Why are you not taking the pictures?"
"Well, we're waiting for the clouds. That was in the brief."
She narrowed her eyes. "The brief? What part of this brief was you waiting? I've read this brief!"
What with her accent and her Paris-chic jacket, she might've been cute -- for a rabbit -- but Tim felt his adversarial instincts flaring up. Wolf and rabbit, client and server, it was all the same thing. So instead of cute, her tight black jacket looked rather haughty, and her scarf seemed like an affectation, and he let her accent grate on him.
Zees breef, hon hon hon.
"Look. You specified what you wanted, and we're going to deliver. We've got a low-pressure front moving north right now, which means the scene will be right just in time for the light we want." It sounded dumb, even playing it back in his head immediately -- like he, Timothy Dunn, had somehow been responsible for the front.
"The way you want?" the rabbit echoed. "We have paid, how you say it, hmm, the 'big bucks' for your Jason Lyles. Not his, euh, his American husky pet." Americaine 'oosky, as she put it, with a scowl that showed off her own big bucks.
"I'll have you know I have an MFA in photographic direction and an MBA with a focus on product image design. So yeah," he shot back, adding a silent bitch to the end. "We brought out the big guns for this. We'll make it happen."
"Ninety thousand dollars, monsieur husky, that is what we've already paid to your Lyles. Thirty thousand dollars a day! We want to get our money's worth. If my boss is not happy, none of us are happy."
She turned, striding off, and Tim was left wondering why 'none of us are happy' always seemed to mean 'you, specifically, are unhappy.' Perhaps it was a subtle quirk of business speak that he'd yet to pick up on.
Tim's father, who'd gone straight from the Marine Corps into working as a lumberjack foreman, had tried to warn his son about that. Say what you want about us wolves, Master Sergeant Dunn intoned, but at least we know how to talk straight. Not just with words, either.
Then he would've flashed his teeth in a grin, or raised his gnarled fist to show the sharp-edged claws. Despite initial skepticism, Tim was growing to believe that his dad probably had a point. And hell, maybe they all had a point. I'm clearly missing something, and it isn't just the clouds.
On the one side, he had Jason pacing back and forth, all but blaming the wolf for having the audacity to cause a clear tropical morning. On the other side, he had the clients in their crisp black jackets and Hugo Boss trousers and all the superiority that hiring an agency brought with it.
Oh, of course we brought on Jason Lyles to shoot this. It wouldn't be the same, otherwise, he imagined them saying to a rival from another company, as though either of them knew anything about the photographer who had won two Clios and been involved in teams with a dozen Cannes Lions awards amongst them.
Maybe they even imagined notching up another Grand Prix. That would come later, though; for now, they relaxed in the knowledge that they had an agency to boss around, and that if something went wrong the agency would be taking the fall for it.
"Well?" Jason demanded.
"She said they're not certain why we're waiting."
Jason grunted, kicking angrily at the sand. "Yeah? And what'd you tell the dumb broad?"
"That we're not amateurs, and we know weather patterns, and it's all part of the plan to get the perfect picture. They didn't get the 'B-team' out here, remember?"
No, Jason showed no signs of remembering. "Good boy," he said.
An hour later, and with no progress having been made, the rabbit returned. "Monsieur Lyles. We must know: what it is you're doing?"
"Well, as you know, ma'am, this is a complicated piece. We want to make sure everything's right. So..."
"What's complicated about it?"
"Tim," Jason ordered him to explain, and went off to find one of the other suits before the wolf could react to being appointed fall-guy-in-chief.
He flattened his ears, and prepared to be yelled at. "Partly, it's a question of lighting. The reflections, for example. I mean, when you think about it --"
She cut him off with a shake of her paw. "You're doing a lot of thinking. Not so much with the" -- she pantomimed taking a picture. "I don't understand how it is so complicated. Not for the money we're paying to you, monsieur husky."
"Tim." He scrounged up enough dignity for that bit of protest, and rallied for another explanation. "You wanted a particular look, okay? It's not just the clouds; it's the light off the clouds, it's the rays cast from the clouds -- changes the temperature, changes how we want to shape the reflections..." He rattled off as many things as he could, although nothing would change that it was now early afternoon, and no clouds had yet found the decency to appear.
She left unsatisfied, which at least meant neither of them were having much fun. Tim's phone buzzed, and he held it up carefully. "Yeah?"
"Wolf! How are ya, puppy?"
"Hi Angie. What's up?"
"Well, I haven't been able to get through to Jason..." The bull's phone hadn't fared well after he'd thrown it. "Got some word on some changing weather. I know things can be kinda chaotic out there..."
Jason, he wanted to tell her. Jason can be chaotic, that's what you mean. But she liked the bull, despite his yelling. The rumor mill said she was in for some kind of promotion, and the rumor mill went on to describe how she'd managed it. It was not an option for Tim.
"Anyway, let him know I'll call back with travel details. See ya, puppy."
"Tim," he growled into a dead line.
Lena had found her chargers; the doe was busy setting them up from an inverter that looked to have come from somewhere back in the Cold War. The Jason Lyles team huddled, feigning an interest in Lena's work so they had an excuse to look busy. "What do we do if the weather doesn't come, boss?" Murphy asked.
"We wait."
They'd done a lot of waiting, though. One of their drivers had already wandered off; the company suits alternated between glancing at their laptops and glancing at their watches.
"Could we maybe... take some pictures now, while we're here, and then..."
"Then what, Tim? Impress me with your photographic genius, wolf."
He gritted his teeth. "That's not what I meant. But for this, considering the time spent... maybe we could composite something in. I'll get a nice cloud, and --"
"Again: and what? You'll just cut and paste it in? Jesus, you fucking half-wit."
"Look, boss, with the time we're spending here against a --"
"Hey. Hey, Adobe Creative Cocksucker. You want to Photoshop your résumé into a different company?"
"No, but --"
"Then shut. Up. This is how we do things here! Maybe that's not how they do things out in the sticks where you're from, but here we do -- what is that?"
Tim's phone had gone off, with Angie's name on the screen. He held it out for the bull to take, and cracked his knuckles to work the irritation from them. Jason's outburst had caught the attention of the suits; they'd all wandered over to see what was up.
"-- that's your fucking jo --" Jason saw the clients, and cut himself off. "Yeah, okay, what did you want Angie? Uh huh. Yeah. Okay. At... six-thirty? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, got it. Yeah -- you're beautiful, Angie."
And he tossed the phone back.
"We're in business! Look, change of plans," Jason fast-talked at the suits. "This beach wasn't right. Not with the clouds, the water, you know." He talked with his paws when he was in full-on sales mode -- like a magician showing off a trick. "The right beach is two islands over. We've got a plane leaving at half past six. That means we need to move!"
"A new island?" one of the suits, a slick-looking fox, asked.
"Anything for you, man," the bull assured him, patting his shoulder congenially. "No cost for the plane. You'll get some sun, some cocktails..."
"On such short notice! You guys really are the best."
"You know it. The weather's really chaotic here -- gotta be flexible." He was looking around. "Where's your driver? We gotta get going now. Driver! Drive boy!"
The rabbit pricked up her ears. "Euh? Oh. Monsieur," she beckoned the team's driver to them. "Où est l'autre? Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" They conversed briefly, and the rabbit turned around. "He said there was a problem with the van. It does not start. He went to find a battery."
"No time, then. Well, we've got room for five here. You guys are three... hm. Well, Lena has to come, that's for sure, so... Tim and Murph, catch up later?"
"You should have your team," the fox countered. "You don't need all of us to come along. Your people are important, and we don't all have to go. Just Pat and me. Rita, it's been great meetin' ya."
He pointed to the rabbit with a snap of his fingers. The accompanying wink suggested he intended the gesture to be self-aware of its condescension. Mere self-awareness, however, didn't keep it from being insulting. Her ears wilted. "Euh, well, but..."
Jason saw no reason to object. "Great. Murph, let's go!" He'd already helped Lena throw her gear into the back of the van. "See you back in LA, Tim."
Tim was no more excited about being left behind than the rabbit had been -- and even less excited about being left behind with her. He filed a quick appeal: "Shouldn't you... have a photographer?" Instead of Murphy, who was mostly there to manage schedules and carry things.
"Or Photoshop," Jason reminded him, calling over Murphy's shoulder. "F/8, pup, right? We'll manage." With one final smirk the door slammed shut, and then they were gone.
He looked over at Rita, whose ears were still drooping. She looked just as surprised as he did. "Well," the rabbit said, as if to continue the objection she'd been making earlier. "This is... awkward."
Zees ees... 'ow you say, 'oosky? Awkword. Le word de awk. Probably, Tim realized, the 'awkward' part was her being stuck with the hired help. "Right," he snorted. "I'm sure it is."
"Eh?"
"Awkward. I'm sure you'll manage."
"Like you managed with the weather, eh, monsieur husky?"
"I'm a fucking wolf," Tim snapped. "Yeah, I know. We don't do 'arts.' We don't do 'creative.'" He used his fingers to quote the words, which could just as easily have come from his well-meaning junior high school counselor. "Well, get the fuck over it."
"Wolf," the chastened Rita agreed. "Apologies. Not any better with the weather, though."
"Well, they'll be fine. I'm sure you will be, too. Get another driver, charter another plane -- easy enough."
"Ah, bien sûr," she chuckled, and when she saw his sour expression the rabbit's laugh darkened. "Just that easy?"
"I'm sure you and your thirty thousand a day can stretch to cover it." Rita was smiling at him. "What? It is easy. You're the one with the expense account." She was still smiling, and he felt his ears going back. "What?"
"Do you know who I am, monsieur not-an-husky?"
"No. Somebody from the Paris office."
"Mais non. You don't know, it's fine." She jerked her thumb to point up the road the van had taken. "Neither do they. I'm, ah... not an, mm, what's the phrase? A 'big shot,' yeah? I'm from our office in Toulouse, not Paris." Rita paused, first to let the distinction sink in, and then to laugh ruefully. "I'm an intern."
"What?"
She shrugged. "I am studying the international business. This internship is supposed to be, ah... business relationships. Client negotiations. Technically, I'm a liaison -- nice official word, eh, monsieur? But really they just want me as a translator."
"But... we all speak English."
"You and I, yes. Your company, yes. My company, yes. The rest of the island, that is more uncertain. As a French citizen, it is very easy for me to get around, but maybe not for my bosses."
"Why 'as a citizen'? We're not in France."
"Mais oui, monsieur." Without the others around, her accent was at least a little cute. Twenty percent cute, maybe. "Martinique is part of France."
"But it's in the Caribbean. And France is..."
"Eh? Eh? Is what, monsieur? Martinique and Guadeloupe are départements, just like Hawaii."
The way she pronounced it was good for another ten or fifteen percent. "Oh," Tim said, starting to regret his attitude. "Well. Okay, I didn't know that. Look, I'm sorry. We got off on the wrong foot. I'm Tim Dunn. I'm the photographer. Or... I was."
The rabbit doe shook his paw politely. "Rita -- Marguerite-Françoise Gattolin. There is enough to take pictures of, I suppose? Most people, they come for this, I think -- everything they take, it look exact like a postcard."
"This was a, uh..."
Tim turned, and looked at the beach behind them. The sun was still fairly high, baking the ocean to shimmering sapphire that melted into soft green-blue until the shore cut a sharp white line along it.
There were still no clouds. "It was a special assignment."
"What was it, anyway?"
For the next release of her company's flagship product, Tim explained, they were introducing some online features -- 'the cloud,' they called it, in technical lingo. "Apparently some big designers came up with an icon for it... and then hired Jason Lyles to take some photos for them."
"That looked like the icon."
"Yes."
"With a cloud."
"Yes."
"For thirty thousand dollars a day."
"Yeah."
Rita whistled. "I would think, that they could have used Photoshop. Or is that what Mr. Lyles said? Then he said... ah... eff... eight? I presume the 'f' stands for something obscene."
"Nah. It's a..." Tim shook his head. "Dumb photography thing. I don't even know what I was thinking, really."
"At least you look professional," Rita offered, gesturing to the Nikon he had bandoliered to his chest. "Right?"
"Well, so do you. I mean -- I guess. I thought you were an executive. Vice president of something... I was pretty drowsy for cocktails yesterday..."
"Me too. It's a long flight from Europe. But the company had a spare ticket, and if they take me they do not have to pay a translator, so..."
He nodded. "At least the scenery's nice, right? You been before?"
"No..."
"So that's something."
"You, too. You could take pictures." Once again she pantomimed the act of clicking a shutter, although this time Tim found it rather more charming. The doe had a patently winning smile. "Beautiful beach. Maybe you get into National Geographic."
"Nah, they're for real photographers. Savannahs and dusty technicals in war-torn countries and shipwrecks and stuff like that. This is strictly travel-ad territory, I'm afraid. Or like... an exotic perfume or something. Be nice for that..."
"With no clouds?"
He shrugged. "It wouldn't matter, either way. You'd want to focus on the product. Or the model, more likely; nobody's going to complain about clouds. Anyway, they touch everything up so much it doesn't matter."
"I heard that. The ice cubes are fake, the food is fake; the models are fake."
"Ah, yeah." And of course he'd learned enough to help make the problem worse -- all the software techniques he'd picked up in school were designed to make a real scene just a little more real. "It's not lying, exactly, but... pretty close. Some of it's artistry, though, don't get me wrong."
The rabbit smiled wider. "Do you think of yourself as an artist, monsieur?"
"I did. Do. I mean." It wasn't worth explaining to her how many times someone had asked him if he really thought it was a career, or if he wouldn't be happier working with his hands, which seemed to be code for haul stuff and build things or break things or both, with a touch of like a real wolf added in for good measure. "If this was what you guys had wanted, we could do great stuff here. But it wasn't."
"That wasn't your fault..."
"Nah. I know. No more than being stuck here is yours. Could've been worse, right? Hey." His ears perked with a reckless notion, and since they had nothing better to do he let the idea build. "Come here, I'll show you."
"Show me?"
Tim checked around. The other van, whose driver was still nowhere to be seen, was a battered Astro and not much good for anything but salvage. A palm tree, though... yeah. That could work. "Stand up against that tree."
"Eh?"
He pointed, and slid the camera up to where he could grab it, flicking the power switch and reviewing the settings quickly. "I'll show you how it works."
"Shouldn't you have a model?" Rita was still hesitating.
"Just for demonstration purposes," he assured the rabbit. She turned to make sure that nobody was looking, and made her way over to the tree.
And stood there.
Through the viewfinder, he tried to compose the picture. Rita's peppery grey fur didn't contrast much with the tree's bark, and her pose suggested more of an impromptu mugshot than anything else. "Come on," he told her. "You have to give me something to work with."
"Well..."
"I know, I know. You're a translator, not a model. Or -- wait. You're an intern, not a translator. You can be what you want. That jacket looks good on you! Show everybody else!"
She put her paws on her hips, and shifted to the side a few degrees. "Like this?"
"We're not documenting a crime scene, here, Rita."
He watched her look around again, hesitantly. Then, satisfied, she turned further, arching her back to lean against the tree behind her. Her ears lifted; the soft pink called itself out in subtle velvet against the coarse trunk.
It wasn't a bad effect, particularly with the tight jacket snug against the rabbit doe's curves. Only one thing was missing: "Smile?"
"Like..."
He looked up, over the body of the camera. "That's not a smile. That looks like you got caught with your paw in a cookie jar. Smile. Like this!" He flashed his teeth, knowing they'd be sharp white against his fur. When she didn't get the message, he reached up with one finger to nudge his smile lopsided.
She started to roll her eyes, then settled on the absurdity of it all and laughed openly. There. He was shooting fairly wide, with the 50mm lens he'd had on the camera at the time. Good enough to capture her from the knees up, and to give some body to the rabbit girl -- a bit of accent to her irresistible little nose, and those big, long ears...
"There you go," he said, and flipped the camera around so that she could see the results on the viewfinder. Not half bad, for snapshots -- a bit of effort and some more of that enthusiastic giggling and he'd really have something to work with.
"That looks professional," she told him, her eyes widening.
"It is professional. After a fashion. You want to do some more?"
She looked over her shoulder at the tree. "N... nnnn..." she let it trail off, humming.
"That means yes. Non? Or oui? Which one is 'yes'?"
Rita glared at him with teasing crossness. "Oui. Non sounds exact as it does in English, monsieur Dunn."
"Well, either tell me non or get back there, how's that?"
Rita bit her lip, shrugged, and hopped over to the tree. It was only a few steps, but her back was to him for long enough to see the puff of her tail, and as a professional he had to admit it was one of the cutest he'd seen.
With every shot the rabbit became more casual; more relaxed. She tossed her head back, her smile stretching into a grin that walked a perfect line between adorable and alluring.
Considering the heat of the afternoon sun, she looked like she was thinking about taking the jacket off; she had one button undone when they both caught the sound of footsteps and turned to find their driver had, at last, reappeared.
"Allo. Où sont les autres?"
"He wants to know where everyone went," Rita explained. "À l'aéroport. Où étiez vous, monsieur? La voiture est reparée?"
The driver, an old bear, shrugged limply; Tim guessed that they hadn't really been paid enough to care -- certainly not Jason Lyles rates, at least. "Eh. Non. Mais j'ai une moto. Quelqu'un peut m'accompagner."
"Seulement un?"
"C'est une moto, lapin."
She tapped her foot and sighed. "He says the car is broken still. But he has a motorcycle. He could take one of us to the airport. The other would have to stay here."
"Let me see. I guess I could..." He pulled out his phone to check the time and mentally calculated whether he'd be able to get to the new location before morning. Angie could charter him a plane -- or perhaps there'd be a boat, even, some overnight ferry.
It might be close, but he could do it. Good way to show his dedication to Jason. Good way to get back into the action, instead of fucking around on some desolate beach with...
With someone else who had been left behind and didn't deserve for it to happen twice. Keeping his ears up, he met her expectant look. "Stay," he finally finished. "I could stay."
"But the shoot..."
"Might not be able to make it, but so what? There'll be others. And hey, who knows what'll happen here, right? I can stick around. If you want to go..."
She shook her head. "We're in it together, then, monsieur." Not looking particularly disappointed, Rita resumed her conversation with the driver. "Nous restons ici, je pense. Si vous savez un hôtel, il faut que nous --"
"Oui, oui. Il y a un hôtel fantastique à la plage. Mon frère y travaille."
"He says there's a hotel; his brother works there."
"Good 'otel," the bear confirmed to Tim, in broken English, then turned back to the rabbit. "Vous et votre petit ami pouvez une chambre, peut-être. Avant la tempête."
"Pas petit ami, monsieur. Nous sommes collègues -- il est, euh -- il est photographe."
The old man laughed at something. "Oui j'ai vu."
"Ah, tais-toi!"
"Mm-hm. Mademoiselle, vous savez... un loup; un lapin... Loup et lapin, eh, nous savons bien comment cette histoire se termine pour le lapin. Mais, euh, si vous ne voulez pas venir avec moi a l'aéroport... euh, bref, je pense que vous voulez découvrir cela vous-même, ne c'est pas?"
For some reason, Rita crossed her arms and glared -- a pretty fierce glare, for a rabbit. "Photographe, monsieur. Il est photographe."
"Ah, oui. Peut-être il veut ne prendre que des photos. Peut-être il veut aussi pren --"
"L'hôtel?"
"D'accord, d'accord. Moins d'un kilomètre."
Tim glanced back and forth, utterly lost. Rita caught him looking at her, and flattened her ears. "Sorry. He says there's, uh... there's a hotel, and we can stay there."
"That was it?"
She tapped her foot lightly against the sand. "Mm. He says also, uh... snakes. Dangerous snakes. Fer-de-lance. If we go into the woods. We should walk along the water. He'll show us."
It was close, sure enough -- half a mile; they could've spotted it by walking a little further up the beach to where it was hidden by a bay. For some reason the clerk at the front desk seemed to think they only needed one room; Tim wouldn't have argued, but the way Rita's blush darkened the bunny's ears made it clear that only went for one of them.
At least she'd managed to guilt their driver into getting them their rooms for free; by the heated argument between the clerk and the driver, the brothers had caused such trouble for one another before. The brief excitement faded, he got his key, and a crisp bellhop took him to the door.
And then -- alone in a sumptuous room -- Tim was forced to take stock. The rabbit was gone, off to do her own intern things somewhere. Jason was gone, with the rest of the crew. His bag was packed with lenses and batteries and flashes and all the things that now meant precisely nothing.
"Well. Fuck." He said it out loud to himself, kicked the edge of a very soft bed, and retreated to the bar for a contemplative and far too expensive beer. The hotel, which was really more of a resort, was perplexingly empty; the bartender didn't speak enough English to explain.
An hour went by. Jason and the crew would have landed, scoped locations, and been ready to start shooting the next morning -- if they hadn't already wrapped up. By now, with the light having waned too much for the shot, they'd all be back at their hotel, schmoozing over mojitos.
And Tim...
Maybe dad was right. Photography's a dying art anyway. Wasn't worth the degree -- certainly wasn't worth two. A year at Lyles and Jason's still treating me like shit. They kicked me to the side of the road like garbage, and... He groaned, and thumped his head onto the bar.
"Long day?" Rita had taken the seat next to him.
"Hey. You're back..."
"Turns out there is not so much to do here. Swim in the pool, except I have no bathing suit; go to the spa, but here is the exact same problem. I don't have clothings..."
"Yeah. Me either."
"You look very sad." He still had his muzzle pressed flat into the bar. "You should try smiling. Non -- that's not a smile. That looks like you caught your paw in a cookie jar."
Hearing his own words thrown back at him -- mostly -- fetched a weary chuckle. "Sorta? If the cookie jar is a career, sure. I don't know what I'm doing here..."
Rita waved the bartender over and ordered a drink, then prodded Tim's arm gently. "To tell you the truth, I was surprised to see you. It made sense of some things, yes? I heard un photographe loup, and it seems strange, no? I thought maybe they were talking about une loupe. It's, uh... a tool you use for..."
"Sure. A jeweler's loupe. I know."
"Right. But it's similar to the word for wolf, no? Un loup. But I think, 'a photographer wolf; that's strange.'"
Tim rolled his eyes. "Yeah. I know that, too." He groaned again, puffing out his muzzle. "We don't do creative work. Too precise and delicate for these deadly things."
He'd held up his paw, wiggling the fingers, and Rita grasped him to lower it gently back to the bar. "Look on the, ah, 'bright side,' non, monsieur? At least someone hired you."
"At least." He grimaced, straightening up; the bartender came back with Rita's drink and Tim ordered another beer. "Just kinda rough: this was supposed to be my first assignment on my own, you know? Jason swooping in wasn't the worst part -- it was being... thrown away. I... guess, though... you're right, they did trust me enough to give me the job."
Rita gave him a knowing wink. "Isn't it so? Well. You're a good photographer, wolf."
"You're a good negotiator. You got us the rooms, right?"
She paused, and he watched her nose twitch counting down the seconds until he would have to do something drastic to take advantage of its cuteness. Six... five... four... She spared him with a reply: "I suppose that's right. Maybe it will count for the internship..."
"Maybe. If you look at it that way, this wasn't so bad. I got some great pictures. You got some great pictures. We both got some work experience. We get a night at a resort; in the morning, we catch the plane back and then..."
"True." Rita took a sip of her brightly colored drink, and Tim noticed again that twitching nose. How do they even get away with being so damned adorable? "You're in a hurry to get back to... San Francisco? LA?"
"LA," he confirmed. "Not as such. I mean, work's there. My apartment. Whatever. Angie wouldn't want me staying out here, that's for sure." He could already hear her, as a matter of fact, guilt-tripping him the way she always did about his work travel and the way it took him to exotic places.
The rabbit's head tilted. "Angie? Your girlfriend?"
Tim made a face. "Not girlfriend. We're colleagues. She's an assistant."
"Oh. Yes, I heard. Okay."
"What about you? Eager to see Toulouse?"
"It is..." She set her drink down to waggle her paw. "Like so. I don't even have colleagues, really... the interns, we get moved around much by our schools to show off how important the program is. Before Toulouse, I was in Frankfurt, then Stockholm... Madrid."
"Madrid's beautiful," he remembered aloud. "Stockholm, too. That's pretty cool."
"I like parts of it. Parts, not so much. For a master's degree, I put up with it. I do love traveling. My friend... 'boyfriend,' I mean... he said I couldn't be happy in one place. He said I'm always hopping, you know? He did not like that."
"Shame. You hadn't been here before, though?"
"No. And in America, only New York, Chicago, and Toronto."
"Toronto's in Canada."
"Oh. Geography lesson: learned. I should see more. I want to see California. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Hollywood. The Hollywood sign."
"The what sign?"
"Hollywood. You know -- Hollywood!" Ollywoot. Yes, her accent was definitely worth listening to when she was all perked up. "I know, of course, of course; it is cliché. What can I say? I want to see it."
He turned to her, and closed one eye. And then he held up his paw, spreading his thumb and index finger. "Hm."
"What are you doing?"
"Thinking of how I'd frame you with the sign in the background. Maybe even with that jacket, although..."
"Although, monsieur?" Her smile was just coy enough that Tim felt certain she'd picked up the hint that maybe things would be better without the jacket. Maybe without the shirt, too.
"What do you say we go enjoy what's left of the sun?"
Despite being so close to the beach, the resort had a freshwater pool; once more, nobody else was around. Tim dragged two chairs together, and watched Rita sit with an artist's eye. Her ears were almost as expressive as her nose. And her tail, for that matter, though when she reclined he could no longer see that.
"Why Hollywood?" he asked. "Why California?"
"I want to see if it's like the movies."
It was never like the movies, though; nothing was. "Is France?"
Tim knew that he was not above stereotyping. There was something, he decided, European in the graceful precision of her lithe body, even relaxed in the chair. Something in the cut of her trim jacket, and in the style of her sunglasses, and the scarf she wore in defiance of the Caribbean sun. Exotic, honestly -- again, for a rabbit.
"I mean," he went on. "I don't know much of it except the Eiffel Tower. You can see the Eiffel Tower from out the window of every building in the city, according to the movies."
Rita laughed. "Ah, no. It is not quite like that. You should visit. I'm sure you'd find some beautiful pictures there."
"I'd probably have to learn French, I suppose."
"You don't know any?"
The wolf stopped to think. "Non. Oui. Excusez-moi." After a second, he added bonjour, although the word for 'goodbye' escaped him.
"Hm. Well that is a start. Try this. Je m'appelle Tim."
"You're not teaching me to curse, are you? First thing you learn in any language is the dirty stuff."
She lifted her sunglasses up, so that he could see her eyes roll. "No. It means 'my name is Tim.'"
"Je m'appelle Tim?"
"Bien. Okay, hm. J'ai un appareil photo Nikon." He repeated it, carefully; Rita grinned. "J'adore prendre une photo."
"Is 'adore' the same as it is in English?"
An approving nod: "Oui. So it's like the song. That must be you, monsieur, ne c'est pas?"
"Song?"
Again the sunglasses came up; she stared at him like she wasn't sure if he was being serious. "Yes?" It sounded slightly familiar, but not enough to place -- not by those words. Still staring, the rabbit leaned over to pull her phone from her bag. Her finger tapped daintily for a few seconds, and she turned up the volume to the sound of an acoustic guitar.
"Huh -- oh!" He had it figured out by the first chorus, which Rita started to sing along with, in that impossibly cute accent of hers. Kodachrome: they give us those nice, bright colors. They give us the greens of summers; makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah --
"'I got a Nikon camera; I love to take a photograph. So mama, don't take my Kodachrome away.' Oui? You know now, monsieur?"
"Sure!" If you took all the girls I knew when I was single, and brought 'em all together for one night. I know they'd never match my sweet imagination...
And everything looked worse in black and white. Out towards the sea, the sun had sunk low enough to add a soft touch to the colors of the pool, and the stone, and the rabbit's soft fur.
"I'm gonna get my camera," he told her. "Be right back."
The memory card wasn't even ten percent full; all his spare batteries and lenses had amounted to so much useless weight. He settled for the 50mm and a mid-telephoto, trusting in his model to make up the difference.
It looked, he decided, like a photo shoot on the Riviera: the classy, elite jet-set, taking an evening to relax. When he stopped down, narrowing the aperture to take advantage of the abundant light, the beads of condensation on her glass sharpened into crystals, jewels that reflected crisp, dazzling rays of sun.
Rita sat up to inspect the results with him, tapping the LCD screen with a manicured claw. "It's much... clearer? Is that how you say it? It is much clearer than your earlier ones."
"Mm-hm. It's what happens when you change the aperture. If you hear anybody talk about f-stops, or f-numbers? That's what they mean. At f/1.4..." He unscrewed the lens so she could see through it while he closed the aperture ring. "At f/1.4 -- well, say, f/2.8; this thing is pretty soft wide open -- a very shallow area is in focus. So it's good to call attention to, say... someone's super-cute face."
He couldn't see her eyes behind the sunglasses. "Someone's?"
"I don't know how to say it in French," he teased her. "At f/16, you get more in focus, but you see -- it's smaller, so it lets in less light."
"You have to take slower pictures."
"Right. So it's a balancing act. Need to decide what you're going for."
"I see. What's that?" She pointed to the other lens. "More zoom?"
"Oui." He put it on, and then held out the camera for her inspection. With her shorter muzzle, she didn't even need the viewfinder extension that Tim's lupine snout demanded. "It's not a zoom lens, exactly. It's fixed at 100mm. Twice the other one."
Glancing behind himself to make certain he wouldn't accidentally walk into the pool, he stepped back to see what the narrower field of view looked like. Amazing -- though her smile was still a bit too reserved for his tastes.
"C'mon. You're not selling those glasses. I don't want to have to do this in Photoshop..."
She laughed, and immediately the Riviera look disappeared. He noticed for the first time the way she carefully hid her teeth when she smiled. Not now: her grin was open, and warm, and while it might not have sold the glasses it was more than good enough for him.
A few dozen shots later, and with the light fading crimson, he sat down on his knees next to her to explain. "See, so, at wide aperture --"
"Mon dieu," she gasped. "I look so silly."
It was the teeth that had caught her attention. "You don't."
"I do." A slight frown followed. "That must be what the assistant said when she told me they didn't think I had the right look for negotiations..."
"Really? That's fucking stupid."
Rita felt over her teeth with her thumb, and wrinkled her muzzle in a scowl. "Well, it's mostly stupid. I'm obviously not a fox; that's the 'professional' look they want. Would you take me seriously?"
"Sure!"
"Did you, monsieur?"
His ears went back. "Well. I was kind of stressed. We didn't have a great first encounter. But I mean... I'm kinda glad I got left behind, you know? I'm... kinda glad you did, too."
"This was your big break, though, the picture-taking."
Tim shrugged, and flicked the camera off. "Yeah, but... whatever. I can roll with it. There will be others, you know? I'm, uh... I'm sorry about the way I met you, though. Excusez-moi."
"I thought you were kind of a typical American, anyway," she admitted. "Also not fair."
"If it's all the same, I'd be okay with forgetting that part, then. It doesn't have to be part of the official record."
"Remove it in Photoshop?" she asked with a smile -- another genuine one. Her nose was back to twitching. Tim set his camera aside, and leaned in to investigate it closer. They were almost touching when she suddenly froze. "Tim. Wait."
"Eh?"
"Behind you."
Behind him, the sun was a silky glowing disc a finger's width above water darkening to ultramarine with the last of the day. Brilliant orange light tore the sky into soft ribbons of orange and gold, caressing the coming dusk and putting a comforting glow on the underside of a few puffy clouds and the outlines of sails in the bay. I should say something sappy, he thought. A beautiful sunset, shared with a great person. After all this, we --
"Tim," she insisted again. "Les nuages."
"The --" Oh for fuck's sake. There they were. A handful of billowing cumulus clouds, every contour and curve picked out from within in soft light. "I mean that wasn't in the brief, but..."
"Take it."
And he already had the camera in his paws, switching back to the 50mm and twisting the smooth, heavy manual focus out to infinity. It would take some work in postproduction -- shooting into the sun was always dicey -- but he could see the image developing in his mind's eye.
His tripod was upstairs, so he settled for propping the camera up on the beach chair to steady it, snapping pictures in quick succession in case Jason wanted to combine them later.
Or in case I do.
"Well?"
"Maybe," he told Rita. "I'll have to see..."
"I'd like to, too." She flipped up her sunglasses and wiggled her eyebrows at him. "I am your client, am I not, monsieur?"
On his laptop, they turned out better than he'd expected. It was clearly not high noon, nor a blue sky -- but artistically, it worked. And there were options: the sun over the clouds, under the clouds; partially hidden, shafts of light piercing the cloud that shielded it...
"This one," Rita pointed. It had the sun obscured behind a yacht's sail; he'd stopped down as far as he could and the light shot out in bright, straight, sharp rays.
He exported a smaller copy, with a few alternatives, and waited for the hotel's glacial Internet connection to upload them to the studio's file server. As a wolf, he still had some sense of hierarchy: although Rita suggested it, he didn't send the pictures directly to her supervisors.
Instead he wrote a short E-mail to Jason, offering them as an alternative in case there had been difficulties at the team's shoot. And he added that the pictures had already been blessed by the company representative acting as his liaison. That was good for a smile -- and he couldn't imagine how anyone could think it anything less than professional.
As soon as the E-mail was sent, his phone rang. Curiously, he answered the call. "Hey, Angie. What's --"
"There you are! Puppy, I swear to God you are impossible sometimes! I've been trying to reach you since -- well -- anyway, Jason doesn't have his phone, of course..."
"And?"
"Where are you?"
"Beats me. Wherever Jason stuck me. The rest of the team left without me, in case none of them made that clear. For your other location."
"So they left?"
He gritted his teeth. "Yes. Again. Without me. Which, speaking of, I'm going to need transportation arranged, so if you --"
"They left?"
And he, it emerged, would not be doing so, because there were no flights out for at least another two days and probably more. Tim held the phone further and further away from his ear as Angie fretted and went through the details. By the time she finished, with no clear answers, he found he didn't care.
Rita was leaning against the wall, watching with some amusement. "Ça marche?"
"Angie wants my 'corporate liaison' to smooth things over with the company. How are you with negotiations?"
She laughed. "What needs to be smoothed?"
"The airstrip at the new location is shut down. Guess the clouds got a bit more serious -- turned into a storm. You know the weather can be pretty chaotic." That was how Jason had put it, and the wolf was willing to indulge a bit of schadenfreude. "It was supposed to come here, instead -- I guess. That's probably why the resort is deserted."
"Shouldn't your assistant have known that?"
"Well, she asked about the weather, but, uh... none of us speak French."
That tickled the bunny as much as it had tickled him, but she agreed to talk to someone in management. She stayed in his room to take the call, and while she was on the phone he pulled out the camera, fidgeting with it. Maybe you could be a photographer, after all.
He did love to take a photograph. Perhaps Jason would come around, if the sunset pictures worked. Perhaps he wouldn't -- smug prick that he was. F/8, pup, right? We'll manage, he remembered the bull's mocking voice.
So we will, he thought.
"More?" Rita's voice stole his attention. "The moonlight, now, eh?"
Tim chuckled, shaking his head. "Oh. Well -- I hadn't thought of it. It's getting late, anyway. Figured you'd be, ah... tired. Goin' to bed."
"You're not."
"Not yet."
"Long day... but you're an artist! You suffer for your art, non?" She had, if anything, moved even further from the door.
"It is a sacrifice. Of course, if it's for the sake of art... you could stay." He felt his tail wagging at the way her ear lifted. "Hm. Let's see what we should do here. That'll be fairly dark, in this kind of lighting. Your jacket, I mean."
This time, there was no need for any sort of negotiation whatsoever. She slipped it off, hanging it up and then turning to look at him over her shoulder. "Better, monsieur?"
Honestly with just the blouse and skirt, and the scarf knotted loosely around her soft-furred throat, she looked less Parisian and more like a stewardess. "Yes," he said, and took a few quick pictures just to capture her smile. Indoors and underexposed, they'd take a bit of work to clean up -- but the smile made it worthwhile. "Though I have to say..."
Twisting all the way around now, the bunny put her paws on her hips with a look that said she knew where he was going. "Monsieur, if it's not better without my jacket..."
"Perhaps we could try a different pose. Maybe different lighting. Or maybe..." He pretended to play with the controls of the camera, twisting the focus ring and eyeing Rita like he was reframing the shot. "Maybe try taking the shirt off, too."
"I don't have anything else to put on."
"I know."
"So if I am to take off my shirt, then..."
"I know."
She started unbuttoning the blouse anyway. "I'm only doing this for the art, Tim. Of course."
"Yep." Tim focused on the way her fingers worked, slipping the buttons free and letting the shirt open up to show her white-furred belly. She watched him observing her and slowed down -- pausing with half the button undone just below her breast.
Her head canted, and she grinned. "Monsieur husky?"
Rita's smile had brought it all together. He took the shot, and gave her a thumbs-up with his free paw. "Waiting for the right moment. Entirely aesthetic reasons, I assure you."
"So I can stop, then?"
"Not a chance."
She didn't bother to hang the shirt up; instead it fell away, catching for just a second on her diminutive little tail. Tim only saw that from the corner of his eye; his attention was elsewhere. Her fur seemed mostly to be soft brown, with ash-grey ticking that gave it a nice, subtle texture -- save for the white of her chest and belly.
He wanted to know how far the white went; it was hidden under her bra. "That, too," the wolf said, and pointed. "It's for the composition. I want to see how the light reflects off you. That should be examined, ah... very closely."
"Such an exacting, professional artist..." Now, with her fingers carefully unfastening the bra, Rita was clearly just teasing him. "I am of course happy to help..."
So they were both happy, then. She tossed the bra at him; it snagged on the lens of his camera. I'll deal with that in a second, he thought; until then, he pointed the rabbit towards her bed. "Take a seat."
Smiling, all the shyness gone, she started to walk past him. For a moment he saw a glint of the moon in her bright eyes -- caught the way her smile seemed to lend a vibrant, playful energy to the whole of her face, from her nose to her soft ears. It was a perfect picture.
His finger dropped from the shutter and he took her paw instead, turning her and pulling her nose to his. Rita tensed up in surprise -- some natural prey response, no doubt -- but as soon as their muzzles met, the bunny melted in his arms, her ears laying back and her eyes closing.
His tongue worked through her lips to skim her adorable buck teeth and taste the hot, crisp sweetness of her mouth. Unconsciously, he set the camera down so there was no barrier between them when he tugged her to his chest, drawing her smaller frame warm and snug against the wolf.
The skirt came away easily, gliding over her supple rear. And since he hadn't had the chance for a proper photographic investigation he took it in by feel, instead. When her silky pelt ended at her panties he did a poor job of hiding his frustrated growl -- but a decent one of removing them.
That puff of a tail was just as cute as he'd figured, and it flicked against his paws when he gave a playful squeeze. Bunnies have lots of twitchy parts, he realized. Her nose, too, quivered against his like a little motor had animated it. Wonder if...
He groped her cute little butt in both paws, and sure enough the twitching only grew stronger. Rita gasped, and crushed her lips to his hungrily. As their tongues came together she slipped one leg behind him -- and squeezed, with all the strength of a rabbit's long, athletic limbs. It had the effect of shoving her against his crotch: he could feel her warmth; the enticing hint of wetness even through his jeans.
And she could feel the hard bulge her hips pivoted against, for her eyes brightened and she did it again, sharing the wolf's moan and letting it draw their kiss apart. "So about the photo, monsieur..."
"Oui?"
"I have... a better idea."
Moonlight had darkened the hazel of her eyes, but not so much that he didn't catch the hint of mischief. She started to squeeze him again and this time he bucked against her to meet it -- she shuddered and lost her balance, falling back from him and onto the bed.
Where she stayed.
It was a hell of a tableaux. The rabbit was sprawled, clad only in the loose scarf that just drew more attention to the rest of her luscious, bare fur. Soft in the pale evening; inviting. Velvet, broken only by her eyes and her telling smile... and the dark flesh of her pert nipples.
And she knew the effect it had on him -- visual thinker, artist that he was -- because at just the right moment, just as his eyes drifted along her smooth belly, she spread her legs to let the dusky fur of her thighs frame the silky, wet lips of the bunny's pussy.
It would be so easy to give in, as a wolf was wont to do. Except. He took a deep breath -- but all that did was to fill his muzzle with her scent, and that hardly made things more bearable. The rabbit cottoned to his reluctance. "You're hesitating?"
He grinned apologetically. Once again he'd come prepared for everything except the thing that mattered. "I don't, like, have a condom in my wallet or anything. Is why I'm... hesitating."
Rita nodded, and then beckoned for him to come closer. He got up on the bed, leaning into her, and she encircled him with her arms to pull him firmly down against her chest. "We'll be okay." She kissed his nose softly. "I think you should show me what happens when a wolf gets his prey, hmm?"
That was that. What was he supposed to do? He'd already been enough of an artist for one day. Couldn't be expected to manage it all the time. So what 'appened when a woolf got 'is prey was that Tim growled, and locked his muzzle against hers to steal a deep kiss. He kept himself propped on one elbow, letting the other do the work of getting his pants and boxers off -- growling again in frustration with how long it took.
She giggled at his eagerness, and her dainty tongue teased at his lips in a distraction that only made disrobing that much more important. He kicked his jeans away hurriedly, and when their hips came together and her soft fur met the wolf's thick black pelt the laugh shifted into an abrupt, low moan.
When a shift of his hips dragged slippery, satiny warmth along the base of his shaft and he felt himself nudging just barely into her he pulled back from her muzzle. "Figure I'd ask now, uh -- as a wolf, I..."
"Oh, I know." There was neither daintiness nor innocence in her smile. "That's why you canines are so fun. You're not getting out of this without tying me, monsieur loup." It was phrased as the sort of order a very competent negotiator, indeed, would give.
And he wasn't about to make a counteroffer. Tim nipped her nose, with the gentleness belied by canine teeth, and slowly pushed forward -- watching her eyes roll back in the moonlight as his pointed canine cock parted her folds around him, sinking in inch by increasingly tense inch.
She was gasping by the time he'd managed all of it -- shuddering, gripping his length in wet, hot silk. Tim pulled back to feel every quiver it took to give him up, and when they were both aching for it he thrust again. This one was sharper: a swift, sudden plunge that arched her back and pulled a grateful moan from her lips. "Oh, c'est bon... c'est bon, loup..."
Even as he repeated it a few more times, building in pace until the bed was jarring against the wall of the room, he knew his self-control was going to hit a limit sooner rather than later. He gritted his teeth, swiveling his hips as fluidly as he could, trying not to growl when he hilted into his panting lover.
Of course, that was what they said about wolves. Rough kind of animal, wolves. Physical kind. Why, they'd pounce on a cute little rabbit and pin her by the shoulders. She tensed at the shock of his paws on her, pressing her down to the bed, holding her still -- and locked her legs around him.
No sense of delicateness, wolves. The kind to growl when they take their prey. He muffled it in her slim shoulder -- nuzzled lower, panting raggedly into her fur; losing a second growl against her nipple, and the lush fur of her breast. Rita squealed, a giddy sound rising in counterpoint to his canine snarl.
No restraint, wolves. He knew it -- abstractly. He was fucking her now, pounding his hips into the rabbit heedless of his thickening knot, and the quick unmistakable thump-thump-thump of the bed that left little to the imagination of their neighbors.
She tried to meet his powerful thrusts until the pace grew too much for her and then she was just taking him, digging claws into the wolf's jet-black sides like she was spurring his fierce rutting. His movements were getting shorter now; more urgent, slamming his canine length into her and grinding sharply to let his swelling knot catch.
Rita groaned as his knot forced itself into her with conspicuous, acute tension. He had a moment to consider if he might've been too enthusiastic, wolf that he was; if she might not've been ready. She yelped: "Loup! Prends-moi!"
"Can't -- speak --"
"Fuck me," she begged, in case the neighbors had any lingering doubts. He jerked his cock back before driving into her again roughly -- the squelch of his knot slipping in almost louder than her cry.
There was no pulling out now and he gave up everything to his instincts, hips a blur as he fought for every bit of leverage, every bit of friction with his trapped cock grinding into the walls of her snug pussy.
"Loup! Plus fort! Loup! Wolf!" He recognized the word by now, but she was using it as an oath, a command, a husky shout that went completely unmuffled. No point in holding back, then. No howling -- thank God -- but as his thrusts went all erratic and short and he felt the rising pressure sweep over him he didn't try to keep quiet. Groaning -- each groan getting louder and hoarser -- he let it happen.
He sunk into her as deep as he could, one last time, and locked up, teeth bared, letting out a feral snarl all at odds with the rush of aching pleasure that gripped him. His cock throbbed and jolted, pumping his cum into her in rhythmic, quick pulses.
By her moan, if she'd taken a canine before she'd never been with a wolf: he felt her start to quiver as the hot splashes steadily claimed her with his seed -- and then she yowled, wrapping him up in her arms and legs too so that every part of her was squeezing him as tight as she could.
He bucked convulsively in the taut grasp of her limbs, through his peak and hers, the tension draining into her right along with his warm essence until he fell atop her chest and they were finally still. Breathless. Spent.
Her voice filtered into his ear thick and sweet like honey. "Tim... ah, comme c'est bon. Plus d'un photographe... vraiment... mm, tellement mieux qu'une photo aussi. Ah, mon loup..."
"My French is not great," he reminded her, muzzy with the exertion and the afterglow. Not that it mattered; anything was beautiful, the way she said it. He wanted to be next to her forever, feeling that velvet fur under his fingers...
"You'll learn."
"I will?"
She took a deep breath, and sighed happily. "Oh, yes. I'll start teaching you."
"Kinda did. First thing you learn in a language is the dirty stuff, right?"
Rita's answer was a dreamy giggle.
"I can try to learn. I mean... we're stuck here for --"
"Ten to thirty minutes, yes, wolf; I know."
Tim snickered -- that line from the canine portion of health class was apparently an international cliché. Reassuring your partner the first time. How to avoid unpleasant surprises. When not to knot. "Yes, but that wasn't my point. A couple days, at least, until the storm blows over."
"Ah, of course! Lots of opportunities for practicing then -- so you'll be ready!"
"Ready for?"
And so they talked about Toulouse. And about Hollywood, again. They made no commitments, but when Tim said that he had time off saved up and had always wanted to visit Madeira the bunny girl perked up, squirming against him so excitedly he already wanted to start looking for tickets. She groomed the fur of his cheek, and he ran his fingers over the luscious velvet of her long ears.
In the morning she was gone; the space next to him on the bed was still warm. He ran his fingers over it, trying to convince himself it hadn't all simply been a dream. Then he caught the noise of a tap running, and smiled.
He sat up, and leaned forward just enough to snag the strap of his camera and pull it onto the bed. Listening to the water, and the sound of someone humming softly, he looked back through the pictures they'd taken. He was half expecting to be disappointed with them, now; for it all to have been some trick of the moment.
But no. And Rita had picked the right version of the sunset, he decided. She had a good eye. Among other things.
The door to the bathroom opened, and Rita ambled back into the room. At the sight of the wolf, she grinned: "morning."
"In French?"
"Bonjour is fine; you don't need my help there," she said, laughing. Then she made her way to the sliding door that led to the balcony, opening the drapes so that the brightness of a clear-skied dawn flooded in. She started to turn.
Brilliant orange light, filtered through her soft fur, gave the impression of a halo -- a glowing aura softening the outline of her body. All he could see was a silhouette but the perk of her ears and the tilt of her head suggested a smile; her arms were still on the curtains, spread wide, inviting the morning in.
He raised the Nikon and squeezed the shutter. I love to take a photograph. The sound caught her attention -- the rabbit's ears pricked, swiveled, and she twisted around to face him. "Good?"
Tim patted the bed next to him. She hopped easily onto it and cuddled up against his side. When she was good and comfortable, he slid an arm around the bunny, and used his other paw to bring the camera up. "Here, what do you think?"
She tilted her head, looking at the image on the tiny LCD. Then she took the camera itself, tugging it over for a closer investigation. Twisting to face him, Rita stretched up suddenly to give him a kiss. "Beautiful," she declared. "How did you do this?"
Impulse and intuition? "Stopped down a bit to get all of you in focus, mostly. You were backlit, and amazing. I could've used a flash to expose you prop --"
Rita kissed him again. "You make it look easy, is what you mean. As you did with the sunset also. And... yesterday, even, with the tree. I wasn't expecting that."
"Well, I..."
And he started to laugh, as a particular irony hit him. Confused, Rita tilted her head: "I pronounce something funny? It's something I say?"
"Not you. Jason. What he said when he left."
He saw her eyes cast upwards, searching her memory. "'Eff eight, pup.' Ah! C'est -- it's, ah -- the... aperture, right? That's what it means."
"Mm-hm." He nodded, put the camera aside, and hugged her warmly, marveling at the softness of the rabbit's fur. "But it's a reference to an old photographer. Really brilliant guy. The story goes that somebody asked him: how do you do it? How do you take these gorgeous pictures? 'Cause when you're trying to learn, it's like... shutter speed, film speed, flash sync, aperture -- all this technical stuff. Crazy. Like I said."
"Of course." She shifted, snuggling close. Her finger stroked his ear, making it flick and flutter. "And what did he answer? F/8, I guess."
"Yes. But that wasn't all of it. He said..."
He'd laughed because the wolf had realized what Arthur Fellig had known, half a century before. And suddenly it no longer seemed so trite; so dismissive, the way Jason meant it. The answer did not lie in rules and formulas, and never had.
Tim kissed the rabbit's nose and finished the story. You wanna know the secret? Here it is: f/8 --
And be there.