1. A Polaroid of Kristina, part 1


    Date: 11/3/2014, Categories: Seduction, Author: Oncearunner1974, Rating: 2, Source: LushStories

    I found the picture unexpectedly, as you often do when you’re not looking for something. It was in the pages of an old book that had traveled with me more than half my life, even though the presence of the old polaroid there was proof that I hadn’t opened the book since I had used it as a hasty hiding place right before going to college twenty-five years ago. Christina. Kristina. Khrystina? It was mortifying to realize I didn’t even know how to spell her name. And now I’d likely never know. This struck me as overwhelmingly sad, even though I knew as I had the thought that the sadness about not knowing how to spell her name ran far deeper. In my mind, at least at the age of eighteen, I had spelled it with a K, as that seemed to match her obviously European background. I also realized to my dismay that I didn’t know where she was from, except for a general sense that it was somewhere like Switzerland or Austria, or maybe even Hungary. How could I have not known, not asked? I should back up. Kristina --I’ll use this spelling-- was my first lover. She never loved me in the boyfriend-girlfriend sense, and I think if I am not careful telling the story people might say that she used me. If she did, she gave me as much as she “took,” and I know she had a great deal of affection for me. That was never in doubt. For several weeks, I had loved her (or at least I thought I had), and I had even mustered the courage to tell her once. She had turned serious, and told me that she would never ...
    forget my words as long as she lived (little did I know!), but that it wasn’t right that I should love her, that I would soon meet any number of girls in college, and that it was better that I forget her and move on. And somehow I did both, to my shame. I had been hurt by her words at the time. That I remember. It was the end of the summer and she had been resting her head on my chest in her apartment after we had made love. My move to college was imminent, and other than the sneaking around I did in order to be able to see Kristina, it dominated most of my thoughts. In fact, the fact that I was leaving soon was what had led to the picture. Kristina had no doubt been able to see that my pride had been hurt by what she said, even though I now realize she had chosen her words carefully, taking into account things I had no idea about. So she had elected to defuse the moment by jumping up and, naked, rummaging through a drawer under her bed. She had emerged with a camera that even in 1989 looked like an antique. “So that you don’t forget me too quickly, perhaps you would like to take a picture of me to remember me by when all the young eighteen-year-old girls are beating down your door.” She had handed me the Polaroid camera and told me that she would let me take one picture of her, nude, in any pose I wanted, for me to keep, as long as I did not show it to anyone. I was surprised by this, but her plan had worked, and the excitement provoked by her offer made me forget the sting ...
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