Developed

Asher Coleman was trying to keep cool and get his job done at the same time, which in the middle of summer in Los Angeles is damn near impossible. Like any job, being a crime scene photographer had its good days and days where all you wanted to do was stay held up in your apartment and pray that there was something decent on television. Thing is, for Asher, he
needed
to go out. 

He usually
developed his pictures in the darkroom he set up in the small space that separated his bedroom and his bathroom. That day though, he had tripped over his last tub of developing solution, and was without a way to get his crime scene photos printed and ready to bring to the station by the time the detectives went on the late shift.

The only store left in Los Angeles that still sold that kind of thing was clear on the Westside,
but he was on Beverly and Vermont in an old building that once had Bing Crosby singing in the lobby. Now it held those who were living out the rest of their lives in anonymity in the harsh landscape that Hollywood casts over Los Angeles.

His best bet was to brave the last bit of sunshine
and head down to Western Boulevard to see if he could find a shop that could develop his pictures on the fly. He’d worry about the poor sap who was behind the counter and had to look at the bloody reality that’s not shown on the news.

Out onto Beverly Boulevard, Asher put on his fedora and straightened his tie, perhaps to make himself feel like a bigger man than the men who were always drunk leaned up against the liquor store wall even though he knew his night would probably end drunk up against some wall somewhere.
No shame in that.

His tanned face wasn’t young, but it had that perfect age to it – lines deep enough to hold the weight of knowledge, but not heavy enough to sag the skin. His frame was broad and impressive – old school powerful
in its movement and tone. He turned left down Berendo Street, where the apartments were amazing duplexes with incredible exteriors shaded well by the palm trees that always blew nicely during this time of the day.  In one of the windows from the second floor of a Spanish style duplex, a woman watering her plant noticed Asher walking past and nearly knocked her plant off its ledge. He looked up, smiled and tipped his hat, but just as she was about to wave back, a strong arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her back into the house. Husband. Asher moved on, knowing that there were more women on second floors in Los Angeles than there were husbands to bring them inside.

On his stroll, he bought himself a shaved ice
from a small pushcart and gave the little kid a dollar more than he was charging. It cooled down his tongue, and made his style of suit look even more perfect against the old style buildings. Asher couldn’t for the life of him figure why young men were so obsessed with wearing sagging jeans and tennis shoes.

He made
a right down 1st Street and headed towards Western Ave., which he knew had one of the few places left to have pictures developed. He’d never used it before because he’d always done it himself – something about using his hands in all of those chemicals and producing a physical object that he could hold. There was a satisfaction with sliding the pictures he developed himself across the detective’s desks and picking up an envelope filled with cash. The world was no longer a place where such tangible pleasures could be found so easily.

He crossed on to Western
Ave. where his suit, skinny tie, dress shoes and argyle socks were no match against the mini-mall reality of the day. The store he was looking for was situated right next to a 24 hour tanning salon. Asher shook his head at why anyone in Los Angeles would want to tan when the sun never relents from doing its thing.

As he got to the window
of the shop, a young woman on her cell phone was about to turn the OPEN sign around to CLOSED just as he reached for the door. Both of them stopped for a moment to look at each other through the spaces of the Venetian blinds, letting whatever might have been flashing through their minds take its course.

She opened the door a crack and talked through the space.

“We’re closing,” she said. “I can help you if you’re just dropping off though. Cool?”

“
That’s not going to work for me dear,” he said, taking off his hat and wiping the sweat from his forehead that he just realized was there. “I’m going to need some of your time if you want to help me out. If not, I’ll have to find somewhere else to go, though by the looks of things in this city, this might be my only chance.”

Standing there with his hat in his hand, A
sher looked to Jessica Preston like the men she always watched late at night on Turner Movie Classics that she wished would step through the screen and teach the rest of the man-boys out there how to act and dress.

“
Well, I’ve got plans tonight,” she said, smiling at how much she wanted to blow them off and open the door from the man who seemed to come out of the past for her. “Though, I suppose I should help out someone in need. That kind of thing usually ends up coming back around, right? That’s what they say.”

“I don’t much listen to what people say,” Asher said
, looking at Jessica enough to let her know he was looking, but not enough to have her slam the door in his face.

“
How much film do you have?” she asked. “I haven’t shut the machine down yet.”

“I’ve only got one roll
,” Asher told her, noticing her shape that didn’t come across at first but now was starting to show its form.  “I need someone who knows what the hell they’re doing though. These are important.”

“That’s the hardest thing these days, isn’t it,” she said, opening the door a little bit more. “Finding a person who knows what they’re doing. Me – I know what I’m doing in here. Come on, I can get those done for you in about an hour.”

She opened the door and let him walk in, though not allowing much room to move past her. “Now, you better have interesting pics for me, keeping me away from my plans. I spend all day in this shop developing and touching up pictures of people refusing to get old. I hope you’ve got something stimulating in that bag of yours for me.”

“Ev
eryone’s looking for excitement, huh,” Asher said, finally able to take a good look at her. “What’s your name?”

“Jessica,” she said, extending her hand with an open palm and motioning towards the bag. “The film –“

“Asher.”

“The film
, Asher. You know, this is exactly why people use digital cameras these days. Makes things much faster.”

“What about taking your time,” he said, handing her the film
and allowing his finger to touch the bottom center of her palm. “There’s something to be said about letting what’s going to happen, happen. Don’t you think?”

She smiled, and he saw her for the first time. Her skin appeared young and untouched, but her eyes looked older than his
.  Her tight black stretch pants outlined her tender legs and shapely backside, while her tight ring armed t-shirt reached just to the top of her pants, showing off all of her curves and movements. Her clothes wrapped around her like they were part of her body. She had on a pair of maroon, low cut Doc Martins with tiny ruffled socks shooting out of the top. Her hair was pulled back so that she had a ponytail coming off the back and bangs that reached down to her eyebrows. Her lips were freshly painted because she thought she was about to go out.

Being a photographer, Asher
’s eyes clicked over every inch of her. She was for sure the cleanest thing he’d seen in awhile, and part of him felt bad that he was the one that would be dirtying her up with the crime scene photos that he had just handed her.

Now it was her time to look at him. How manly he looked right there, wearing a shirt and pants with a tie
– shaped by life and not the gym. Maybe he had one of those chin up bars in his doorway and he took his lonely nights out on that, building up his arms so that he’d fit well into his suit.

How many men still did that? All of the boys she went out with always made that same sound when they unbuckled their jeans and undid their belt. There was no reveal there. No layers to peal away.
They all just talked about jobs and money or how they were going to change one and get more of the other.

T
he sun gave its last burst of light through the blinds.              

“Come on,” she said, turning away but making sure he kept his eyes on her. “You need these done tonight, right?”

She made herself comfortable in the chair and set the machine to start developing. Asher grunted a bit, not liking to see the enemy he had always stayed away from. She didn’t hunch over like most people do when they sit at a computer. Her back was straight, and her eyes focused with interest at the screen in front of her. Even the way she handled the mouse was delicate and careful. The hint of the outline of her breasts made the sounds of the machine starting up a bit more bearable for Asher to listen to. Soon, those sounds faded out and all that was left was her movements. Jessica knew he was looking, but he wasn’t stealing glances, and didn’t look away when she turned quickly and caught him looking down at the small space between her pants and her shirt where the tip of her panties showed.

After all, she spent an hour in front of that specials bin at Victoria
’s Secret picking out the perfect bra and panties, so she might as well get some attention for it. How many women spent so long on choosing their undergarments only to have them either go unseen or just ripped off when they were seen.

“
You want 8 by10 in black and white, right?” she said, not moving so that he could continue to look at what he wished. “I’ve seen enough movies with men like you in them to know what you’re looking for.”

“I think I’m a little shocked that you’re not a little shocked by
what these pictures contain.”

“There’s nothing to be squeamish about when looking inside the human body,” she told him, leaning in closer to the screen to make sure the
settings were right. “Violence is a part of who were are. Love is part of who were are as well, it’s all about what part you choose to listen to.”

“
You’re pretty amazing to still have that perspective on the world,” Asher said.

“Must be amazing to have seen so much,” Jessica replied. “In fact, you’ve got my heart racing just a bit. Can you hear it?”

He was aroused by her intelligence and the deepness of her thoughts. Each of her words made him want to see more of what was underneath her clothes. She loved the way he looked in the layers of his suit. Neither of them wanted to make a move because the anticipation of it all was so excruciatingly exciting.

Jessica
moved first, walking over to the printer, leaving only an inch of space between herself and Asher as she passed. The heat between them made him feel as if her backside was rubbing against him. Sunshine from outside tried its best to fill that space between them, but the tension would not allow the light to get through. After pulling out the tray to make sure the photos didn’t fall, she walked back over to Asher and sat on the table opposite him.

“It’ll take about a half hour to print,” she said. “Might as well take off your jacket and make yourself comfortable. If you hadn’t noticed, the AC is on a timer – and it shut off when you walked in here.”

“I’m comfortable in these clothes,” he said, loosening his tie and finally noticing that he had sweated straight through his shirt. “I like the weight of the clothes I wear. It leaves me less exposed to the world. Too much can go wrong. My lord you are pristine.”

His honest words ran through her. She opened he
r legs no more than a fourth of an inch. It was a subtle movement – something unperceivable unless you were concentrating on her every movement as Asher was. The outline of her openness revealed itself.