"Oh, that's beautiful, Lily! Ab-so-lutely beautiful. Now, hold it!" There followed a series of clicks as Artemus Gordon operated the shutter of his new camera. Beaming, he lowered his latest technological toy and winked at his wife. "These photographs will be just great to illustrate the posters for your upcoming play!"
"But, Artemus," said Lily doubtfully as she broke her pose, "you used your TARDIS to go - when? to the twenty-first century? - to get that camera you're using. Won't the pictures it takes look too… well, too perfect?"
"With you as the subject? Of course they'll be perfect!" He grinned and bobbed his eyebrows.
A little blush lit her cheeks. "Oh now, Artie darling, you know that's not what I meant. You've shown me photographs taken with cameras like that one, cameras of a kind you tell me won't be invented until over a hundred years from now. Those pictures look so much better than anything I've seen from today's cameras. Why, that little device of yours doesn't even use film, much less glass plates! Won't somebody get suspicious?"
"Not a thing to worry about, Lily my love. I'll be very careful when I develop the photos in the darkroom to make them look suitably grainy - and of course I'll print them in black and white, not color." He chuckled. "Not that I really need a darkroom to deal with digital photos, but I do like the old-fashioned, traditional setting for producing photographs. Ah - which reminds me…" Again his eyebrows bobbed at his wife. "Care to come into the darkroom with me and see what develops?" He leered fetchingly.
Lily's response was to drop her face into one hand. "Oh, Artemus! We're married now! You don't have to use those cheesy old lines on me anymore!"
"Cheesy? Cheesy!" To Lily's dismay, her husband's lips drooped into a hangdog look as he said in wounded tone, "You think my lines are... cheesy?"
She gave a soft chuckle and shook her head, her slim hands coming up to gently adjust his collar. "Oh, Artie darling," she purred, "you know you're my champion of cheese!"
There was a brief pause, followed by a sidelong glance, one eyebrow arching while the other drew down low. "I'm not quite sure how to take that," Artie muttered.
Again Lily chuckled. "Then take it in the spirit in which it was offered," she said with a smile. And she kissed him.
Some time later, after the two finally came up for air again, Artie tipped his head to one side, gave again the bob of the eyebrows, and offered, "So... you wanna retire to the darkroom and see what develops?"
"Oh, you!" Lily exclaimed with a laugh and a swat on his arm. "Artemus Gordon, you are positively incorrigible!"
"But of course I am!" Artie replied brightly. A second later a pensive look settled over his face as he added, "Well, incorrigible until I regenerate, that is. Once that happens, all bets are off. But in the meantime, ah, shall we?" Favoring his wife with a connubial leer, he crooked his elbow and offered it to her. Once more she blushed.
But then she slipped her hand through the proffered arm. And off the pair strolled to the seclusion of the darkroom deep within their TARDIS.
Exeunt, stage left.
FIN