I read and loved The Lost Video by Mrs Marcus Volturi. It gave me the idea for this one, and I wanted to acknowledge that up front, though this is a different story. I hope you enjoy it. Gregg.
Disclaimer: I don't own, or profit from, these characters or franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Will walked into Magnus' office and saw her pulling out what looked like two picture albums from her carry bag. Curious, he walked over and gave her a grin.
"More books?" he asked, knowing they weren't books, but making the joke anyway considering all the books in this massive manor home.
Helen smiled and turned to him. "Actually, no," she said calmly. "They are the photographs I had taken of me during my 113 year vacation."
Will's brows rose to his hairline. "Pictures?" he asked, his voice conveying a massive amount of curiosity.
"Yes, William," she chuckled, knowing that she was about to change their relationship significantly. One hundred thirteen years was a long time to reconsider some boundaries, and this was one of them. "I had two pictures taken of me each year, one casual and normal, the other personal."
Will tried to imagine a casual Helen Magnus and nothing came to mind, but then his imagination turned to the word personal. He may be a nice guy, but he was, after all, a guy. Personal had some meaning he was sure.
"Personal?" he asked, emphasizing the word just enough to question the use of that specific word.
"Cheeky bugger," she laughed, giving him a playful slap on the arm. "How would you like to sit down with me over some wine and look at my pictures?" she asked.
"Sure," Will replied, trying to hide his eagerness. He was, after all, still stuck on the word personal.
Helen took both albums and brought them over to the couch. Then she went and got a bottle of very fine wine, of an excellent vintage, and two wine glasses. Pouring them each a glass, she brought it back to the office and handed him one, while taking a seat next to him.
"Very nice," he commented when he took in the bouquet and had a tentative sip.
"It's nice to know I still have some nice vintages left after Nikola's last visit to Sanctuary," Helen remarked.
"Please don't mention him," Will requested. He mentally winced at the sound of that. It made him sound like a jealous lover, even though he had no reason to.
Helen laughed. "While I admit Nikola is not the best of men, he is an old friend," she commented. She leaned in a little closer. "And for your information I've never slept with him," she added in a slightly hushed, but amused voice.
"That's good to know," Will perked up a bit. Anything related to Tesla put him on edge it seemed.
"Not that the idea hasn't crossed my mind on occasion, as he is quite handsome and anyone who can flirt so expertly must be an amazing lover," she teased a bit. "The kind of man who can make a woman's body sing with pleasure."
"Now there's an image I did not need," Will frowned a bit disgustedly. "Tesla naked with a woman."
Helen laughed. "Don't worry, William, there's no chance I will ever be with Nikola," she assured him.
"Thank God," he muttered under his breath. "So, the albums?" he brought them back to the main topic at hand, and away from Tesla.
Helen brought over the first album, the one where she was pictured casually, enjoying the days. She was pleased to hear the underlying jealousy in Will's voice regarding Nikola. The idea of having an expert lover, one who took the time to learn her body and what brought her the most pleasure was definitely appealing, and she was sure that the one who could do that for her was Will, not Nikola. Over the last 113 years of virtual seclusion, she had had some casual lovers as she was not about to deny herself personal pleasure for such a long time, but it had brought her mind to focus on when she would one day be back to when she left. Her boundaries no longer made sense, and while the thrill of casual lovers, which she had enjoyed for most of her life when the urge struck her, was enticing, she was ready to leave that behind and focus her life with one person. Will was the one she wanted.
Opening the album, she showed him the first picture. "Here is when I first found a place to stay and decided to have a picture done," she told him.
Will took in the dress. It was clearly from the late 1890's. The dress showed off her bust well, and he knew it was from a corset. The full skirt settled and actually looked good on her. The hair, though. Full of curls and shaped, with a hat on that highlighted the style, but not concealing. She had a matching umbrella in hand, holding it as a cane for the picture. It was impossible to make out colors as the picture was in black and white. The background was unremarkable, but it was outside somewhere.
"Where were you?" he asked curiously.
"Maybe someday I'll tell you, or better yet, show you," she said with a certain amount of evasion.
"No secrets, Magnus," he reminded her, but in a good natured way that told her he was only kidding.
"That's professional, William, but a woman's got to have a few secrets," Helen chided playfully.
"Fair enough," Will chuckled.
For the next hour they looked through the best of the photos, in Helen's opinion. They showed her enjoying a vacation in various locales, and the attire changed as the eras did. Will especially appreciated the beach photos and made some comments on the changing styles of bathing costumes as Helen termed swim suits in her anachronistic vocabulary which came out at times. Will liked the final photo the best. It was of Helen, in a chair on a covered deck with a mountain vista in the distance. She was wearing white linen pants that came down to mid-calf, a white linen button down shirt that hung loosely on her, and sandals. In the picture she was reading a book.
"Very nice," Will remarked, noticing that she was not wearing a bra in the picture, her nipples showing through the linen shirt.
Magnus smiled. "I thought you would enjoy that one," she told him. "I had it done as a lead in for the personal album."
Will raised a brow. "Really?" he asked, still fixated on the word personal.
"Well, I'm hardly a prude, Will," Helen said with a twinkle in her eyes. She closed the first album and pulled over the second one. "You aren't offended by risqué photography, are you?"
Will spent a moment deciding how best to answer that without sounding like some sort of pervert. Shrugging mentally, he shook his head. "Nope," he told her. "I like risqué as much as any guy."
Helen leaned in and spoke in a sexy tone. "Just to let you in on a little secret, Will, women enjoy risqué, too," she told him.
"I'll definitely remember that," he said, his voice going up a half an octave.
Helen smiled as she opened the second album. She smiled, remembering when the picture had been taken. She was in lace and cotton pantaloons, a white corset with a little cotton across the top of her bust and half shoulder pieces. She was laying across a long divan, her head propped on the arm rest and she was smiling a sexy, come hither smile. It was very sexy, but also quite tastefully done.
Will felt his mouth go dry. Magnus was beautiful! He was reminded of the old, late Nineteenth Century racy French postcards that were like the Playboy of that era. "Wow!" he exhaled. "Sexy," he remarked.
"Thank you," she replied, not even giving a hint of a blush. Men had commented on her beauty so much in her life that she was well beyond the blushing stage. "I decided that if I was going to be having an annual photograph taken in a casual setting, then why not do something a bit daring and have a racy photo taken each year as well?"
"No complaints from me," Will told her, wishing that he had been the one to take the photo. He could imagine other things as well, but was not about to mention that. He was unsure of the closeness Magnus was presenting, however subtle. If he was misreading this, then he could kiss his manhood goodbye courtesy of Biggie. No sense in getting Magnus upset which would in turn royally piss off the Big Guy.
"I somehow didn't think there would be," she told him, flipping the pages to one taken in 1925.
"Oh, my!" Will said, his shock showing, despite what he had assumed would be showing up sometime in the album.
There in a beautiful black and white photograph was Helen Magnus nude. She was in the same pose as the first photo, but this time nothing covering her gorgeous body. Her breasts, full and supple, were nicely displayed, her nipples erect. She had her left leg folded over her right, leaving her womanhood hidden, though he could see the upper edge of her dark pubic hair peaking out. It was a very classy photo just like the first. Simply more revealing.
"Like that, huh?" Helen grinned. She had deliberately turned to the first nude photo of her. That had been an interesting photo to pose for, and it had felt very liberating when she'd done it. "That was in 1925 and the Roaring Twenties were in full swing. I took advantage of that to indulge in such a photo."
"Somehow I doubt anything embarrasses you much, Magnus," Will commented.
"I've never been a shrinking violet sexually, Will, but there is a difference between enjoying sexual play and indulgences on the one hand, and having ones' self photographed nude," she informed him. "I don't know how to explain it, or even if I understand the truism myself. It just is."
"I guess I'm caught up in thinking of this in more modern frames of reference," Will shook his head. "There is so much amateur photography like this, and much more, readily available on the net and in print that it seems tame and blasé. "How risqué was a photo like this in 1925?"
Helen chuckled. "Not so much as you might think," she told him. "Pornography was alive and well even back then, though it was much more underground in those times. A picture like this was definitely one to raise brows of surprise, but it wasn't anywhere near what was out there if one knew where to find it."
"And you knew where to find it?" he teased, enjoying the bantering humor, as well as the good conversation.
"You cheeky little...," she started and then noticed the twinkle of humor in his eyes. "I think you've been around Nikola way too much, William. He's passing on bad habits."
"Like blatantly flirting with the most beautiful woman in the world?" Will couldn't resist.
"While I enjoy the flattery, I wouldn't be so egotistical and vain as to agree with such a sentiment as to my beauty," she replied, almost blushing. "Do you know why I made this second album, Will?" she asked.
"Not really," he replied. "But I'm certainly not complaining."
"For the first time in my life I was able to just settle back and enjoy life, Will," she explained.
She turned to a picture taken in 1945 just after the Allies had won the war in Europe. She'd been at a small cottage she owned in northern Scotland. The picture was a full frontal of her nude, holding up her right hand with the famous two fingers held up in a Victory symbol. She was smiling widely, and showed a genuine happiness that rarely graced her features when she was in the real world and not on vacation. A casual lover who she had just made love to before this picture had been taken, celebrating the victory in Europe, had taken the picture. The faint flush of a very satisfying round of sex shown in her face. Her hair was tousled and looked beautiful. The picture had been taken with an early color camera.
"The photographer was a lover who I had for a few glorious days as WWII ended in Europe," she told him, knowing he was not terribly interested in any lovers she had had. "When I had pictures taken of me of a sexual nature, I was expressing myself as completely free and loving life. No constraints, and no rules. As the years went by, the more I let loose when it came to the pictures and expressing in them how I felt. In essence this album is a record of just how much I needed this vacation, unknowingly, and also how much it benefited me."
Will was not thrilled at hearing about any of the lovers she'd had during her 113 year vacation, but at the same time he had known she would have had lovers. Magnus was a passionate woman who would not allow her needs and desires to go unfulfilled and live like a cloistered nun for that long. Besides, he was hard pressed to argue with the obvious results staring him in the face. There was Magnus looking truly happy, and without a care in the world, it seemed. In addition to that, she was showing him these pictures, which there could be no doubt genuinely deserved to be labeled personal.
Magnus could see the inner workings of his mind as he worked through what she had told him. Once she sensed him come to terms with it all, and what she had left unsaid, she decided it was time to make her move. She closed the album and set it aside.
"I had a lot of time to think about decisions I've made, and boundaries I've set over the many years I have run the Sanctuary," she told him. "Professionally, I can't really say I would have done anything different as I don't believe in second guessing my professional decisions from the benefit of hindsight. I learn from my mistakes, and move on. Personally, though? I've made a few, and have paid the price for them on occasion. One is setting boundaries that have prevented me from becoming closer with my colleagues. One colleague in particular, and the boundary in question is not getting involved intimately with a working colleague."
"I'm sure Biggie is going to be thrilled to finally know what you feel for him," Will joked, his mind spinning at the revelation that Magnus was seriously considering a relationship with him.
"For that I should tell Big Foot that you are secretly desiring him and have used fake relationships with women to hide your latent homosexual interests in abnormals," Magnus shot back, smiling in amusement.
"I take it back," Will said, holding his hands up in innocence.
"I thought you might," she said dryly. "You do know what I am getting at, don't you?"
"Showing me the personal photo album is a pretty big clue in, Magnus," Will told her.
"True," she said, a soft smile gracing her features. "Then the question remains, are you interested?"
"Interested in exploring a personal relationship with a woman I've admired, and, to be perfectly honest, lusted after for the last three years?" Will asked rhetorically, though admitting the lusting after part. "Hell yes!"
Magnus breathed a sigh of relief, though she'd known when he'd shown such an interest in thee second album that it was highly unlikely that he would turn down her offer. Standing up, she offered her hand.
"Shall we take this to my bedroom?" she asked. "I don't know about you, but I believe spending the evening making love is just what is needed."
Will stood up and took her hand. "You'll get no argument from me," he told her, a look of lust, but also of love, in his eyes.
Magnus laughed. "You men are all alike," she commented as she led them out of her office.
Several Hours Later
Helen and Will were laying on her large king sized bed, fully sated after spending the last five hours doing nothing bu making love in almost every position imaginable. Helen had found that her estimates of how incredible of a lover Will would be had been understatements by far. The man was a master at playing a woman's body to orgasm and delicious orgasm. For his part Will had never known a more voracious woman in bed. There was no denying that Helen Magnus was truly spectacular in every sense of the word. He had only one question, though.
"Helen?" he asked.
"Mmm, yes?" she replied lazily.
"Have you ever thought of perhaps doing some personal videos?" he asked, a mischievous smile on his face. He got a pillow in his face for that one.
A/N: Well? Any good? If there is some interest I can make a revised version that includes the sex scene that I omitted in this one when they went back to her room. I hope you all enjoyed this fun interlude. Gregg.
