The Medb Wine Club Pt. 02

"And you," I reminded her. "There are plenty of great pictures of you. Which ones are you going to show to the Club?"

"I'm not sure yet," Barbara said. "I'm going to have drinks with Cynthia tomorrow, and we'll go through them then. I want her input before deciding. I think that we need a neutral judge. You want to come along?"

I thought for a minute about my wife and her friend pouring over explicit pictures of me jerking off. "No. I think I'll let you take point on this," I answered.

"Thought so," she said. "I'll let you know what she says. No matter what, you and I will make the final decision together. After all this is our work."

***

I was watching TV (an episode of Dr Who to be exact) and enjoying a glass of scotch when Barbara came back from her meeting with Cynthia.

"How'd it go?" I asked and turned off the TV so I could concentrate on her.

"Really well," Barbara answered as she took off her coat and put her laptop down. "Cynthia liked what we did even more than the first time. She said that most of it was excellent. We culled through the pictures and narrowed them down to shots that she thought the group would like. I gave her a copy of all of them on a thumb drive. " Barbara opened the fridge and poured herself a glass of white wine and sat down on the couch next to me.

"Cynthia is going to enlarge five or six of them. Some to sixteen by twenty and some twenty-four by thirty-six. Can you believe that? Poster sized." Barbara said. "That's huge! But she said that its art and our shots were good enough to be printed that large."

I whistled softly.

"Yeah. I know," Barbara said and took a drink of her wine. "I had no idea, but she's done things like this before, you know."

"What?" I asked

"Erotic art," Barbara answered. "That's why she wanted us to do a theme. She wanted to see if we could create a coherent and complete collection of photos."

"And?" I raised my eyebrows.

"Cynthia said we did really well, better than she thought and that we had more than enough quality material to put on a real show if we ever wanted to." Barbara took another drink.

"Wow," I said. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," Barbara sounded confused. "This whole thing was all for a little excitement; just exploring, pushing some boundaries, experimenting together. I don't know about the whole erotic art thing. I only wanted to have some fun with you."

I laced my fingers into my wife's and held her hand. "It was fun. And I'd do it again in an instant ... with you if that's what you want to do. You are so creative; first the videos, now the photography. You have a natural talent (I'm not too bad either) and if you want to take this to the next level, I'll support that. And," I added, "I'll go there with you."

Barbara leaned into me and sighed. "I'm so glad. I can't imagine being with anyone else, doing all this with anyone else, except you. Let's see what happens at the dinner. I doubt there will be anything more than polite interest, and I really don't think anyone is going to want to see an art show of our photos."

The same eerie tingle that I felt when we'd first gotten the invitation to the Medb Wine Club party ran up my spine.

The days until the girls' night out dinner went by in a blur. Work kept me very busy, and I'd put in a substantial amount of overtime (unpaid of course) and had to bring a lot of it home with me most nights. Barbara and I had managed to squeeze in some time together, but not much, and we hadn't talked at all about her upcoming dinner and the photos she planned to show there. When that Friday night finally came, I reheated leftovers in the microwave and broke out my laptop planning a working dinner alone at the kitchen table.

Barbara seemed very nervous.

"Have fun," I said. I kissed her and hugged her tightly to me, "You look terrific. Remember, we had a ton of fun making those pictures. And we did it with a ton of love for each other. I think that it shows in every single photo. That's all I care about. Enjoy your meal with the girls, and don't even give the pictures a second thought."

She pressed herself into me and said, "I love you so much." Then she left.

Many hours later, after I'd finished my work and gotten through the first part of a bottle of red wine, Barbara came back home.

"Wow, it's late. Must have been a good dinner," I said rising to greet her.

"I guess you could say that," Barbara answered.

"Tell me all about it," I replied.

"Open a bottle of that good stuff we got, pour us both big glasses and I'll give you all the details after I make a pit stop. I'll meet you back in the living room." She headed to the front hall powder room. "Oh. And bring the bottle with you."

I couldn't tell what is was, too much wine, fatigue, anxiety, or what, but I could hear something funny in her voice. I reached for our best bottle of wine, the corkscrew, and two fresh glasses, prepared for anything she might tell me. I was wrong.

"Aaah. Thank you," Barbara said as she dropped herself onto the couch next to me. "I'm so thirsty." She took a big swig of the white wine that I'd opened. "And hungry. Do we have any more leftovers. I'm starving."

I topped off her glass and got up to go into the kitchen. "There's a helping of stir fry left. Is that okay?" I asked.

"That would be great," she said.

I reached into the fridge and began putting together a plate for her. "I thought it was a girls' night out dinner."

"That's what Cynthia called it," Barbara said. "But it wasn't like any that I've ever been to."

I came around the corner from the kitchen back into the living room with the plate of warmed food and saw Barbara with her feet up on the couch. She had untucked her blouse, unbuttoned the waist of her skirt, and pulled off her stockings, which lay in a heap on the floor. At least half the bottle of wine was gone and she was refilling her glass. In my head, I did a low pitched whistle. "Must have been a rough night," I thought silently. I handed her the leftovers and sat down without saying a word.

Barbara dug into her food quickly eating it one forkful after another without speaking. After she finished, she wiped her lips with the napkin, set the plate down on the coffee table, and leaned back into the cushions. "Thank you," she said. "I was famished."

I drank some of my wine and said, "Okay. Tell me all about it."

Barbara began, "Like I said it wasn't a typical girls' night dinner, at least not any that I've been to. I'm used to eating at TGI Fridays, or a nice Italian place if we want to splurge. Cynthia had set this up at one of those upscale, rehabbed warehouses near the business district. You know, the part of town where all the young, hip professionals are gentrifying things."

I had a pretty good idea where she was talking about.

"Anyway," she continued. "The place was gorgeous, like Minji's spa. All polished hardwood floors, cathedral ceilings, halogen lights, and so forth. She said that she used it for professional gatherings, meetings, workshops, and the like."

"I thought you were going out to a dinner," I said.

"So did I," Barbara responded then continued. "Cynthia called it 'flexible' space and said that she'd bought it because it was in a great location and because she could do so many different things in it. "

"Bought it? That's an extremely high rent district, if it's where I'm thinking it is." I whistled out loud.

"Yeah. Bought it. She said it was less expensive to do that then continually renting and re-renting entertainment space. And that owning it gave her the privilege to do whatever she wanted there without answering to a landlord. According to her, it's all part of her business expense accounts," Barbara took a sip of wine."I think she's more well off than it appears."

I got up and pulled another bottle of wine from the fridge. "I guess business is good."

"Guess so. Oh and she has an Audi sedan too," Barbara added. "We drove there together after meeting at Minji's. Cynthia was worried that I might not be able to find the place and she didn't want me to be late." She sat back in the couch and sighed. "It's a really nice car."

"Tell me about the dinner," I prodded.

"Well I can't tell you anything about the food. I never got a chance to actually eat any of it. It certainly looked and smelled good."

"Huh?" I said surprised.

"Cynthia had the whole thing catered. I have no idea who did it, but there were servers circulating around with trays of appetizers and wine at the start. There was a big buffet off to one side, tables for people to sit at, and an open bar that saw a lot of action," Barbara described.

"With all of that, why didn't you eat?" I asked.

"I just didn't get a chance. Cynthia introduced me to one person after another, and I wound up talking with so many people that I never got around to it. If she hadn't kept handing me glasses of water, I'd probably have died of thirst. She really did keep me going." Barbara sighed again and took another swallow of her drink.

I refilled her glass again. "Doesn't sound like much of a night out dinner to me. "

"I don't think Cynthia ever meant for it to be that at all. It was an opening party," Barbara answered.

"Opening party?"

"Yeah. An art show exhibit opening party." Barbara said that and paused. "She set this whole thing up as a gallery opening for our work."

My jaw dropped open at Barbara's revelation. "You're kidding, right?"

"No I'm not," Barbara's tone made it clear that she wasn't joking." Cynthia kept calling it a 'little get together' with her girlfriends. Well there were Wine Club members and their friends. And it was all women like she said, but there were at least fifty or sixty people there, all different ages and all very well dressed I might add. I felt way outclassed in that arena," Barbara smiled. "Cynthia said that it didn't matter, artists can dress any way they like. It's part of the image."

I was still trying to absorb what my wife was telling me. "You're shitting me about all of this aren't you?"

"Honestly I'm not," she said. "The walls were covered with our photos, all mounted, some framed, some printed on canvas. Most were poster-sized or larger all the way down to eight by ten. She had also set up a few projectors so that there were rotating slide shows of shots."

"I thought she only printed six." I said.

"Yeah, well, that," Barbara began. "After I got inside and saw everything that was up on the walls, I asked her about that. Cynthia said that after the two of us had drinks, and she saw our stuff, she was really impressed. She decided to enlarge more shots than we talked about and put on an exhibit Like I said she's done this kind of thing before."

"How many are we talking about?" I knew how expensive it was to make quality photo prints, especially oversized ones.

"All thirty of the ones we picked, plus a few more that she liked," Barbara answered.

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed. "How are we ever going to pay Cynthia back for all of that?"

Barbara looked at me over the rim of her wine glass and smiled. "From the profits."

"Profits of what?" The tingle I'd felt before bloomed inside of me.

"From the sale of the prints of course," Barbara said.

Time seemed to stand still as the enormity of what my wife was telling me hit home. Our friend, the one whom I'd first met as she used me to learn about blowjobs, who ran a swinger's wine club, and who apparently lived a high-end life unbeknownst to us, had arranged an erotic art show and sale of our photographs. My mind reeled at the implications.

"I don't want to be crass, but how much are we talking?" I asked.

A small frown crossed Barbara's face as she concentrated. "Well the price tags Cynthia put on the really large prints started at seven fifty and went up depending on the shot. By the way, the one of you sucking your fingers was the biggest."

"What do you mean by biggest?"

"I mean that it was blown up least four feet tall and it had the highest price tag," Barbara answered.

My skin flushed with a mix of embarrassment and pride as I thought about someone looking at me licking cum off of my fingers.

"And a few of the smaller ones were around two, but most of those were three fifty to five," she finished answering.

It took me a minute to realize that Barbara was talking about hundreds of dollars. "Wow!" I exclaimed. "Did you sell enough of them that we can pay Cynthia back?"

"About that also," Barbara started. "Cynthia and I talked for a long time after it was all over. That's why I'm so late getting back home. She said that it was standard in the industry for the exhibit organizer to charge a flat fee to arrange a show, contract with an artist (that's us) for exclusive rights to represent him or her, and take a commission on every sale. Because we're friends she wanted to something different for the show charge."

"Okay, I trust that whatever you agreed to with her is fair. What did she want?" I asked.

"Instead of the show fee, she wants us to agree to join the Wine Club," Barbara answered.

"That's it?" I was incredulous.

"Yep. That's it. She said she really likes us and that a lot of other members did too. She really wants us to be a part of it all."

"They're not expecting us to 'perform' for them are they," I asked nervously.

Barbara laughed. "I asked exactly the same thing, and Cynthia almost fell down in hysterics when I did. She reassured me that was not the case, but said that she was sure everyone would enjoy it if we wanted to. She did hint that she might ask something special of us in the future."

Relief washed through me. The night we spent at the Club meeting had been extraordinary, and the sexual experience we'd had there had been amazing. It had opened doors for Barbara and me; ones that I knew we'd only begun to walk through. But I wanted us to do that in our own way, and on our own schedule. I felt very comfortable with Cynthia, and had come to consider her a true friend. I was glad to know that our relationship was based in that and not just sex, and definitely not on our actions. Cynthia's price was way more than fair. It was a gift.

"What about the commission?" I asked.

Barbara took another drink. "I had no idea what the standard is, but Cynthia asked for twenty percent. By the way I looked it up on my phone before I came home. The norm is fifty percent. She said that art sales aren't her main business, although she has an international clientele and expects that she can help us sell around the world. I guess there's a large appetite for what we've done."

"Wait a minute. Are you saying that we're going to do this again?"

"Sure," Barbara said with a smile. "While we were talking afterward, Cynthia and I came up with a couple of other themes for shows. How about 'Boys and their Toys' with shots of naked guys next to cars, planes and such? Or 'Suzzy Homemaker'? I can envision a bare butt with apron strings and a pair of cuffs or a whip handle at the edge of the shot. How about 'Wet and Wild' or "Get a Grip"? I'll bet you can think of something good for either of those."

Those were all great ideas, and I automatically began composing shots in my head.

"Cynthia said that she could get us of models who would be willing to pose if we didn't want to do it all ourselves. She also said that she has a lawyer who's a whiz at intellectual property rights, copyright, and publishing. He's apparently done some work in erotic arts before." Barbara was grinning madly. "Cynthia made an announcement at the show and had a sign posted that said that we, that's you and me, own the exclusive rights to how and where the photos, including digital images, are used before and after the sale, and that any violation will (she put that in bold) be punished to the full extent of international law."

"That's cool. I like that," I said.

We had finished almost two bottles of wine as we talked. I was sitting back against the couch cushions and Barbara's feet were propped in my lap as I rubbed them.

"So how many did you two wind up selling?" I asked still worried that we hadn't made enough to reimburse Cynthia for all the reprints.

"All of them," Barbara answered.

"What?!" I sat bolt upright.

"And a slew of digital images (Adobe and copyright protected of course)," my wife was smiling so wide I thought she'd break her face. "And I took orders for more. People were fighting over them and a few got into a bidding war over the prints and drove the sale price up way above the list on a couple of them. You're cum shot and the finger licking good one went the highest." She patted me on the knee. "You're a star."

"Holy shit. That's amazing," I exclaimed.

"You really are a star as far as I'm concerned. We do have a bunch of work to do to get all those extra prints made and shipped. Cynthia gave me contacts for both." Barbara lowered her glass. "And she said that we need to set up a formal business, open a bank account, and get one of those credit card thingies for our phone so that we can take plastic. It turns out that most people don't like using checks very much. Tonight was cash or credit only," Barbara got up and retrieved her purse. She pulled out a wad of bills, at least three inches thick, most of which looked liked hundreds. "Cynthia took all the credit card transactions into her account and will transfer it to ours once we get it set up."

"Oh my god!" I was otherwise speechless.

"I know," Barbara said. She sat down and hugged me. "I love you so much."

***

It was several months later, around lunchtime at work, that I got a text message from Barbara. Like the one that had started our whole adventure, it simply said, "Don't forget about the wine tasting tonight." When I read it, I immediately remembered everything that had happened, how we'd reunited with Cynthia and begun a sideline business in erotic art photography.

"How could I forget?" I texted back.

My phone rang. Barbara's voice came through as I answered. "Too much to text," she sounded a little rushed. "I got everything organized, but it will take two of us to load it up and get it to Minji's. Will you be home on time so you can help me?"

I smiled hearing the nervousness in her voice. It matched mine, and knowing that she felt the same way I did instantly calmed me. "Of course. I'm on my way out to the parking lot right now."

"Good," she answered sounding on edge.

"The last time I did this, came home before going to a Club tasting, you practically made me cum in my pants," I quipped trying to get her to relax. "You planning on doing the same thing today?"

"Ha, ha. Very funny," she said. But I heard her playful tone, the one I absolutely love, creep back into her voice. "We need to deliver on our promise to Cynthia first. Then who knows what might come up after that." Barbara not very subtly emphasized the word come. "See you soon."

"Hey," I interjected before she hung up. "I love you more than I can possibly say. Let's have some fun with this tonight. Okay?"

"Absolutely," she replied. " I love you too." She paused, "And I'm going to put on that purple G-string that you like so much." The line went dead.

When I pulled into the driveway of our home, I saw a rental minivan parked in the driveway. The doors were open and the seats had been folded down, leaving a large empty space in the back. Several hard-sided cases were piled in the garage, two boxes of set items, and large rolls of paper backdrop that were wrapped in protective plastic. The folding stands for the lights and flashes (we had gotten proper photo strobes) as well as for the backdrops rounded out the pile of equipment that we were taking to Minji's Ta Diesu Spa where the Medb Club was meeting.