Ralph: Breaking free - 28. Wandering hands and risqué pictures

“Well, that seemed to go OK. No major disasters, Edward Hirsch was most professional, and Morrie seemed happy. There wasn’t…”

It was the evening of the photoshoot; Ralph was already sitting in bed whilst Nolan got himself ready for bed. The man looked at Ralph oddly.

“What?”

Nolan gulped, “Morrie patted my bum. Twice.”

“Shit. No! When? During the shoot?”

“Yeah. I’d wondered whether it was accidental, at first, but his hand lingered.”

“Your naked bum?”

“Yeah. But he didn’t follow up or anything. It was as if he was acting in automatic response.”

“To a cute naked bum?”

“Mmm. Then during the meal, when we were all milling around, he did it again. The second time might have been accidental.”

“Might have been. Except…”

“He’d already done it once. Testing the water?”

“I know he’s a client and all that, but what he’s said about his personal life might not be, well…”

“Might not be true.”

Nolan gave a rueful smile, “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Hey, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault that I’ve got a client with wandering hands. Do you want me to say anything?”

Nolan wrinkled his nose, “Not at the moment, at least not yet. Just…”

“Let’s be aware and try to minimise opportunities.”

Nolan gave an ironic laugh, “If Morrie is what he seems to be, then he’ll take advantage, no matter what.”

“Perhaps he just likes patting bums.”

“Really, you can’t be that naïve.” Nolan grinned, and Ralph pulled him into a hug.

“Shit, I wonder about Ivor.”

“You mean Morrie patting his bum?” Nolan frowned, “On the one hand you’d think he’d say something pretty sharpish, on the other…”

“He did get dressed pdq and wait outside.”

“Will you say anything?”

“What? And publicise that one of our best clients has wandering hands. I’ll check that Ivor was comfortable with at shoot and leave it at that.”

“Open enough that he can say something.”

“Of course, Ivor might have decided just that. To ignore it because Morrie was a client and that there was little chance of him getting near Ivor’s bum again.”

Nolan laughed at that.

Next morning Ralph managed to get Ivor on one side.

“You have any problems at the shoot yesterday?”

Ivor wiggled his eyebrows, “What, besides stripping off and cramming my junk into ridiculous pieces of fabric?” He shrugged, “Not really, why?”

Ralph was torn; having thought about the Morrie issue overnight, he felt that Ivor as an employee was entitled to know. Morrie was a client after all, client first, friend second.

“Morrie seems to have wandering hands.”

“You?”

“No, Nolan. Morrie patted his bum a couple of times.”

“And? Anything else.”

Ralph shook his head, “Not. Just a sort of bit of experimentation?”

Ivor grinned, “And no follow through. Well, you’d have known if he’d tried it on me.” Ivor shrugged, “Tricky one, though. What are you going to do?”

Ralph sighed, “Leave it?”

“In the hope that having tried and got no response, he’ll move on.”

“He’s also having relationship turmoil.”

“So, isn’t in a good place. OK. I’ll go with that. For now.” Then Ivor looked serious, “But, only for now. Any more incidents of wandering hands syndrome or similar and we need to say something to him, sharpish.”

“Understood.”

---

Things moved rather quicker than he’d anticipated. On Saturday morning Ralph got a folder of images from Edward Hirsch and Nolan did too. Of course, it wasn’t possible to look at them. Ralph was busy getting the twins to football practice, and once he had spare time, he was reluctant to be downloading large quantities of pictures using coffee-shop Wi-Fi, not to mention browsing images of semi-naked men in public.

So, they were parked and left for later. Mid-afternoon, whilst Ralph was having a brisk walk with the girls, Ivor sent him an email with the title ‘I can’t believe I’m sending you this’. It was one of the images from the shoot, Ivor’s bits crammed into a tiny scrap of red that left little to the imagination and some of his pubes overflowing. It was completely graphic, and evidently Milly was threatening to have the image for the lock-screen on her phone. But Ralph sensed that Ivor was pleased too, it was a striking image and clearly his relationship to Milly was strong enough to take it.

It was later on Saturday before Ralph and Nolan were able to properly explore the photos. Each downloaded the images to their laptop, and then had an enjoyable time exclaiming over the results. There weren’t that many, Edward had selected just the best ones irrespective of what they were wearing. Morrie would get final say in what was selected for the website, but Ralph had to admit that the images looked good, once you got over the graphic quality of the rather in your face bits of junk. Nolan had gone bright red when he’d seen his, but as far as Ralph was concerned, they made him look cute.

“Perhaps I should have one on my phone?” Ralph grinned at Nolan.

Nolan gave an embarrassed nod and then turned his laptop to Ralph, “Then perhaps I’ll use this one.” It was Ralph, clearly bollock naked but with his junk hidden. Ralph was laughing at the camera because, as he remembered, Nolan had just appeared unclothed and announced his intention of joining Ralph. It was a nice photo, and Ralph’s nudity was simply incidental. He tried to imagine the discussion with the twins, ‘Daddy why aren’t you wearing any clothes?’, ‘Can we be naked too?’ It hardly bore thinking about.

Nolan seemed to guess what he was thinking, “You’re only naked, it’s not rude. They have to learn some time, and your daughters are not stupid.”

“And they are curious.”

“You mean they’ll find out?”

Ralph shrugged, “What’s the betting. I leave my laptop open, or they see your phone. That sort of thing.”

“Then ask Therese.”

Ralph nodded, poured them both another glass of wine and set to before he chickened out. At the same time, Nolan pored over his photos and chose a small selection for his company website. But, to give the man credit, he sent the entire folder to Verne with the comment that she deserved a good laugh!

Ralph typed and re-typed the email to Therese, emphasising that the images were for the adult section of Morrie’s website, and that the photos would include ones of Ivor, Nolan and other local businessmen, even Morrie himself. The nude ones with Nolan had simply been a bit of private fun, and they planned to keep it that way, but he was worried that the twins, being curious and inquisitive, would discover them by accident. He could lock everything away, but some people suggested there was no harm in showing them. What did she think?

Ralph had no way of knowing what she’d reply. He had long ago stopped trying to second guess her.

Then he typed another email, harder yet easier.

Dear Mother and Father

My partner, Nolan and I were doing a photo shoot for one of my clients, Iverson’s, as they want to have images of ordinary men, of all shapes and sizes, wearing their products. There was time left at the end, so we had the enclosed done. No doubt you won’t approve, but we like it and think it is lovely image of the two of us.

Your loving son.

Ralph

“I can’t see that that is in any way offensive”, Nolan was looking over his shoulder.

“You’ve never met my parents. They would find a way of objecting even if the picture were of the two of us in dinner suits.” Ralph shrugged. “No doubt they will create a fuss, but I’m damned if I am going to spend my life tying myself into knots for them.”

Nolan smiled, “Another of Ivor’s grand gestures.”

It seemed to be the time for things to move, the next morning whilst Ralph was dealing with twin tantrums and appalling weather outside, the one exacerbating the other as they were marooned inside, he got a quick message from Nolan to say that the video for his firm’s website was ready. So, the twins got to admire themselves, again, albeit more fleetingly this time, and they agreed that Nolan looked very handsome too.

By Tuesday morning, the video various images were not only up on Nolan and Verne’s website, but on the crowdfunding page too. Beth, who masterminded that, swore that the images of Nolan looking cute (her word) in his football gear had caused a surge in interest in the crowdfunding. Ralph was pretty sure this was because one that she’d used was Nolan in Iverson’s gear, tighter, shorter, and showing off more than his regular kit would. Nolan looking nervous yet cute. That was the image Ralph had on his phone, too.

Wednesday, he had his regular lunch with Therese. They settled in what was often their regular table. She looked rather po-faced, got out her phone and started scrolling through the pictures Ralph had sent.

“What are you actually planning on doing with these?”

“The clothed ones.”

“Clothed?” One elegantly raised eyebrow.

Ralph sighed, “The ones wearing Iverson’s new range of products will be on their website, behind an 18-only blocker.”

“That’s something, I suppose.”

“And there’ll be plenty of other people in the photos too; Morrie, the guy who owns Iverson’s, has arranged for all sorts of local guys to do it, from Nolan to Russ Kahn and some of his mates, beefy guys from Ares security.”

“Russ Kahn and a bunch of security guards?”

Ralph laughed, “Not in the same picture.” Though he was pretty certain that the two guys from Ares that Russ Kahn had talked into doing a shoot must be Gordon and Brian as those two seemed pretty tight with Kahn, but Therese didn’t need to know this.

“OK. Fair enough. What about wider publicity?”

“Possibly, but the novelty is the gallery of ordinary guys, I suspect that most publications will be more eager to display images of svelte models.”

“Probably right, and besides, any pictures are hardly going to be in places the twins will see.”

“And if they do…”

Therese had the grace to laugh, “We’ll have other problems, and lots of other questions.”

“Not just, why isn’t Daddy wearing any clothes?”

Therese sighed, “What about the other images, the naked ones.”

“That’s private, just for fun.”

“You’re not planning to circulate them or display them, then?”

“Hardly. Mind, I have sent a copy of one to my parents.”

“Your parents!” Therese’s laugh was a real belly one, causing people to turn around to look.

“How did that go down?”

“A furious phone message that I’ve not bothered to answer.”

“Brave of you.” She was almost sarcastic; Ralph had never been very brave when it came to his parents.

“Come on. If I’d sent them a photo of Nolan and I dressed to the nines, it would still have offended them if we’d shown any iota of affection.”

“So, you’re not planning on putting it up on your bedroom wall?”

“Not yet. It’s a bit too early days, isn’t it.”

“We’ll it’s not ideal, but we are where we are, I suppose.” She glared at him. “I don’t think you should do anything. If they find out, see something, deal with it as matter-of-factly as possible. ‘Daddy is wearing a swimming costume because Daddy’s firm is working for the man who sells them’, that sort of thing, and the nude one”, she shrugged, “Daddy and Nolan took the picture because they love each other. It’s special and private. I certainly don’t want a big deal making of it.”

“Fair enough, I think I can do that.”

“Other people might make a fuss, but its better if we treat it as ordinary. They’ll be ten next year, and goodness knows when they’ll start thinking about sex and relationships themselves.”

Ralph half laughed, half groaned, “Don’t, that’s something I dread dealing with.”

Therese smiled, “Daddy’s precious little poppets becoming young girls with boyfriends.”

“Poppets? Tearaways, more like.”

“Heartbreakers, I bet you.” She sighed. “It’s going to be hell, isn’t it”, but she had a smile on her face.

Just as she was leaving, she turned and showed him her phone again, it was displaying one of the pictures of just him, in a thong, half turned away from the camera so you could see one naked buttock and no dick, but he was looking at the camera with a wry grin. Ralph vaguely remembered doing it, Edward had suggested something and both Nolan and Ivor had made contributions, Ralph’s expression was a reaction to them. But it was still priceless.

“I think I might have that one on my phone.”

“That one!”

She nodded, “You’re not the only one embracing things. ‘Yeah, that’s my gay ex-husband’” and she walked out laughing in a very non-Therese way.