Read All You Could Ask For: A Novel for Free Online Page B

he said, “you’re the debutante, so you know about these things. What’s the etiquette here? Because if that was a guy I would punch him in the face.”
    “I think that would be a bit much,” I said.
    “Do you mean in this case? Or with a guy? Because if it was a guy I would punch him in the face.”
    “Sweetheart,” I said, “you do realize we can hire this photographer for three hundred dollars less than this, don’t you?”
    “That isn’t the point,” he said, and he was right. It wasn’t the point.
    In the end, it turned out Pamela was at the party and saw what happened and she agreed to accept our bid as well and couldn’t have been sweeter about it. We had a drink with her that night and began a friendship that has meant everything to me. And now here I am, giggling with my friend as I explain to her that because she has shot my children and my husband and me so wonderfully, and produced four sensational holiday cards for us, now I want her to come to my house and take pictures of me naked.
    We planned it for a Tuesday—as it turned out, we had to wait a few days after my waxing to allow the redness to fade. (Nothing has ever hurt like that did, by the way. I would rather deliver triplets drug-free in the back of a taxi than go through that again.) Once the children were on the bus, I set about trying to create the proper atmosphere in the house. The first decision to be made was selecting a room. The bedroom seemed the obvious choice, but ours is not the sexiest bedroom. Our bedroom is comfy and very cozy, and I love lying in bed talking with Scott with a fire going, but the bedroom is the place where we have most of our sex, and most of it isn’t fabulously romantic. Mostly it consists of quickies on weekend mornings before the children wake up, and it can never be especially spontaneous, as I have become obsessed with locking the door first because I simply cannot handle the idea of being caught in the act.
    “Sweetheart,” he breathed heavily into my ear one time, “the kids aren’t at home.”
    “What if Lucy comes in?” I said.
    “Lucy is a golden retriever.”
    “I am aware of that but she does barge in here all the time.”
    “But she’s a dog.”
    “I cannot have sex with the dog watching,” I said, sitting up, “it’s inappropriate.”
    Since then he’s never balked when I demand the door be locked. Pamela laughed hysterically when I explained all this, by the way, and suggested the sexiest photo of all might just be me, nude, beside an unlocked door.
    But so much for the bedroom. I next considered the kitchen, which is where we spend most of our time as a family, usually me cooking or puttering around and the kids eating or doing their homework at the table or curled up watching television on the sofa in the family room, which adjoins it. Scott has repeatedly told me he never finds me sexier than when I am cooking, but frankly I think that is just an effort to get me into the right frame of mind for a quickie after dinner. It often works, by the way—I’m not complaining—but I’m still not sure it’s the right room for the photos.
    Neither, then, is Scott’s office. Aside from the desk and chair, the only things in there are a computer, a fax machine, a copier, a printer, two telephones, a small television monitor, and a Bose radio. There is nothing in the room that is not connected to a power cord.
    The kids’ rooms are obviously out of the question, as are the bathrooms, even the master with the whirlpool tub, because if even a hint of a toilet is in the picture it ruins the effect completely. And I’m definitely not prepared to do this outside by the pool, because if my social-climbing, nosy, never-keeps-her-mouth-shut neighbor should get so much as a glimpse of my naked ass, it would be pretty much the equivalent of showing it on the evening news.
    So, I am left with a really strange problem. It’s like being all dressed up and having no place to go, except it’s