Read Selected Stories by Fritz Leiber for Free Online Page A

behind the screen and get into it and she did, without getting flustered as I’d expected, and since we’d gone that far I figured we might as well shoot the beach scene to round it out, and that was that.
All this time I wasn’t feeling anything particular in one way or the other except every once in a while I’d get one of those faint dizzy flashes and wonder if there was something wrong with my stomach or if I could have been a bit careless with my chemicals.
Still, you know, I think the uneasiness was in me all the while.
I tossed her a card and pencil.“Write your name and address and phone,” I told her, and made for the darkroom.
A little later she walked out. I didn’t call any good-byes. I was irked because she hadn’t fussed around or seemed anxious about her poses, or even thanked me, except for that one smile.
I finished developing the negatives, made some prints, glanced at them, decided they weren’t a great deal worse than Miss Leon. On an impulse I slipped them in with the pix I was going to take on the rounds next morning.
By now I’d worked long enough so I was a bit fagged and nervous, but I didn’t dare waste enough money on liquor to help that. I wasn’t very hungry. I think I went to a cheap movie.
I didn’t think of the Girl at all, except maybe to wonder faintly why in my present womanless state I hadn’t made a pass at her. She had seemed to belong to a, well, distinctly more approachable social stratum than Miss Leon. But then of course there were all sorts of arguable reasons for my not doing that.
Next morning I made the rounds. My first step was Munsch’s Brewery. They were looking for a “Munsch Girl.” Papa Munsch had a sort of affection for me, though he razzed my photography. He had a good natural judgment about that, too. Fifty years ago he might have been one of the shoestring boys who made Hollywood.
Right now he was out in the plant pursuing his favorite occupation. He put down the beaded can, smacked his lips, gabbled something technical to someone about hops, wiped his fat hands on the big apron he was wearing, and grabbed my thin stack of pix.
He was about halfway through, making noises with his tongue and teeth, when he came to her. I kicked myself for even having stuck her in.
“That’s her,” he said. “The photography’s not so hot, but that’s the girl.”
It was all decided. I wondered now why Papa Munsch sensed what the Girl had right away, while I didn’t. I think it was because I saw her first in the flesh, if that’s the right word.
At the time I just felt faint.
“Who is she?” he asked.
“One of my new models.” I tried to make it casual.
“Bring her out tomorrow morning,” he told me. “And your stuff. We’ll photograph her here. I want to show you.
“Here, don’t look so sick,” he added. “Have some beer.”
Well I went away telling myself it was just a fluke, so that she’d probably blow it tomorrow with her inexperience, and so on.
Just the same, when I reverently laid my next stack of pix on Mr. Fitch, of Lovelybelt’s rose-colored blotter, I had hers on top.
Mr. Fitch went through the motions of being an art critic. He leaned over backward, squinted his eyes, waved his long fingers, and said, “Hmmm. What do you think, Miss Willow? Here, in this light. Of course the photograph doesn’t show the bias cut. And perhaps we should use the Lovelybelt Imp instead of the Angel. Still, the girl… Come over here, Binns.” More finger-waving. “I want a married man’s reaction.”
He couldn’t hide the fact that he was hooked.
Exactly the same thing happened at Buford’s Pool and Playground, except that Da Costa didn’t need a married man’s say-so.
“Hot stuff,” he said, sucking his lips. “Oh, boy, you photographers!”
I hot-footed it back to the office and grabbed up the card I’d given to her to put down her name and address.
It was blank.
I don’t mind telling you that the next five days were about the worst I ever went