Chapter 3

My carefree days as a coed came to a tragic end with the death of my parents. When it happened it seemed as though my whole world had fallen through, that everything I'd ever been or had stood for had ceased to exist. They'd been visiting my sister and brother-in-law over in Germany, where he was stationed. The plane had crashed upon takeoff, and it was all over. Just like that.

The accident didn't happen until my sophomore year at Edgar. While my grades hadn't been outstanding, they'd been good enough for me to continue. I had just started the first week of my sophomore year when I got the news from my sister, and my world, as I'd known it, went to pieces.

The rest of my second semester at school had continued to introduce me to new delights, and when I went home for the summer, I'd found Phoenix to be pretty dull. To kill time and help with expenses (even though my father had assured me I didn't need to), I took a job as a waitress to get through till Fall when I'd return to my new friends in L.A.

During the remainder of that second semester, I'd gotten it on with Betty on a pretty regular basis. She showed me all there was to know about girl-girl sex, and I really ate it up, having no guilts about it. I also began getting it on with another older girl she'd introduced me to, who had an apartment off campus. I also got it on with a couple of guys I'd met at some of the parties, but there was no steady person as I was enjoying the freedom I'd found. I smoked grass whenever I could get ahold of it, and this too played a part in reshaping my thinking.

All of this activity, to say the least, did little for my work inside the classroom. About the only thing I really dug was photography, and I began to think that I might want to follow this up . . . if not in a professional capacity, which was difficult for most men in a male-dominated field, but perhaps in a teaching field. Of course, I'd have to bring my grades up, but all that seemed to be so off in the future, too vague for my present state. My grades in art kept me in school, but I'm afraid that everything else turned out worse than the first semester. Only my love for photography-learning how to develop my own prints; how to do double-exposures; experimenting with new techniques like polarization . . . kept me interested in school. Most of my interests took place after hours.

I was really glad to be back in school, although disappointed that Betty had transferred to Berkeley, up where the action was. I started going to the old parties again, smoking dope, and having a good time in general, settling into the new semester when the news of my parent's accident shattered everything.

I took an emergency absence from school and rushed to Phoenix and the funeral. My older sister had flown over from Germany to take care of the arrangements, and we spent several days trying to comfort each other. It was then that we realized how much trouble my father had been in financially. The lawyers advised us that there would be little left for my sister and I to share, even after selling the house and so forth. If he hadn't taken out an insurance policy, we would barely have been able to settle accounts. As it was, we were each left with a couple of thousand dollars and that was it . . . what a waste. I don't mean the money. It's just that a man works his whole life . . . for what?

I went through a tremendous period of guilt, feeling that all this wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have done all the things I'd done at school. For the first and only time in my life I thought of going to a shrink. But my sister was able to talk some sense into me and make me realize that it was all a horrible coincidence, that no matter what I had done, it had nothing to do with the accident. Well, at least they died thinking that I was doing what they wanted me to do.

I had wanted to drop out of school, but my sister worked a little logic on me, reminding me that they wanted me to finish school. True, I wouldn't have their money to put me through, but tuition for this semester was paid up, and if I got a job and worked starting the next semester, the small amount of money I'd received from the will might help me make it.

"Maybe you can land a scholarship," my sister reassured me just before we parted.

I didn't want her to know just how badly I'd been doing in school from an academic standpoint, so I didn't bring it up. Yet once I was back at Edgar, looking over my meager resources, I did approach the photography teacher and tell him of my plight, hoping that he might be able to pull off a miracle.

My teacher promised to look into it, but he told me not to get up my hopes. If I really wanted to get through school, I could make it by working part-time, but I was just walking around in a fog, not sure really what way my life would go. All those things that I'd assumed were gone, so I knew I'd have to make my mind up soon. I had the rest of the semester, and I could go another semester after that, but that would blow my savings.

I dropped down to only three classes that semester, including my photography, of course, as the burden of the tragedy was just too much for me. I checked into the possibilities of a loan, but found that it would be difficult because of my grades. That's when I realized that it wouldn't work-the scholarship thing. If I didn't even qualify for a loan due to my grades, a scholarship was out of the question. Shit, I couldn't even cut down on the out-of-state tuition fee since I wasn't twenty-one. This, I realized as I sleepwalked through my classes, would be my last semester . . . for awhile at least. I did have a desire to finish for the memory of my father. I still felt pretty guilty about that.

I lost myself in parties as before, only this time I really had something to run from. I think it was the most desperate time of my life when I look back on it. Everything I did seemed forced for those first couple of months after their death. I went at everything hard, drinking harder, balling harder, doping harder.

By chance, I met this photographer at a party one night. He wasn't associated with the school, but knew a girl who owned the pad where the party was. I chatted with him briefly, and he seemed like a pretty nice guy, but I thought little of it when he told me he'd like to take some pictures of me.

I was flattered, especially when he offered me some money to pose, but I didn't have too much time to chat with him as my date was ready to leave. A couple of days later, I saw the girl that knew the photographer and mentioned to her what he'd told me about posing for him.

"Oh, Herb," she laughed. "Well, get ready for this. He makes a lot of money out of what he does . . . but I should warn you, he does mainly nudes."

"I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"You know-girlie stuff. He poses girls for nude layouts in men's magazines. He hangs out around my place because he's always looking for some young girl who needs a buck. I guess most of the girls he gets look like . . . you know, hard. He's trying to break into the slick magazines and he needs girls who look really wholesome and all. The girl next door thing."

With this information in mind, I met Herb at a party again that week. This time I didn't have a date, so I had time to talk with him. He told me he'd been doing straight photography for a few years and hadn't been able to make it, so he'd gone into shooting nudie cuties. Those were the kind of things they were into back then . . . no frontal nudity or anything. Usually just a shot of tit or ass, the girl partially clothed.

I really dumped on him, telling him I really needed money and all, about my parents and everything, and he seemed really sympathetic. He said that he couldn't offer me much, but that he'd be able to pay me about fifty bucks for a session with him.

I told him that I wasn't sure that I wanted my picture in some magazine, but he told me that it wouldn't be bad. Besides, he told me, I was an especially good-looking girl, and if he sold my photos to one of the really big magazines, I'd be able to get some more money out of it. If they just went to one of the small-time outfits, however, the fifty would be all he could afford. He seemed really interested in having me pose, promising me that he'd give me a percentage of what he'd be paid if he sold it to one of the big magazines. Really seeming to want me to do it.

"It's worth a try, a girl who looks like you," he said, leaving me with a card when I told him I'd think it over.

To tell you the truth, I'd never considered doing something like that before, but necessity can make you think along different lines. I mulled it over, stowing his card in my purse, then got back into the swing of the party. Feeling pretty good about the compliments he'd given me, I really exuded my sexuality that night, forgetting all about what my parents might have thought about their daughter posing nude. My guilts were beginning to recede into the past by this time.

A sharp young black dude picked up on me that night with a: "Hey, foxy mama," and we soon headed to his place.

This was another first to me, and I quickly dispelled some myths and got down to the serious business of human-to-human contact. It was sort of a charge feeling his darkness on top of me, the contrast of my white hands against his dark back.

But other than that, it was just the same as it would be with a white guy . . . a white guy who was good anyway. By the time he was through with me, I'd had my fair share of comes and was ready to forget all about my problems for awhile.