Chapter 1 – Part 2
Joanna sat at the conference table in her office with two other women. Onella and Alice Hwang, the director of Sales Enablement.
“How about this one?” Alice asked, handing a photo of a woman wearing a skimpy looking set of lingerie. This one was red and white stripped and included a G-String bottom and the bra had a small bow nestled between the breasts. Joanna merely glanced at it before passing the photo to Onella.
She was more interested in how much skin would be revealed when wearing such an outfit than she was of the outfit itself.
“How much?” Asked Onella?
“Should be $50.” Alice said. Onella wrote it down and added it to the stack.
It had been like this the past three times they met. Alice would present a stack of pictures of women in their underwear, Onella would jot down the cost, and Joanna would wonder if she could really wear something like that where people could see her.
Within a day after reposting the Lingerie Calendar suggestion, three names appeared on the signup sheet. Onella, Alice and Miriam Brinton, the facilities manager. None of the three volunteered to be a model however.
Onella was a bit of a surprise, considering Joanna was pretty sure Onella didn’t like her. But it seemed that she wanted to make sure that this project stayed under budget. Miriam wasn’t really a candidate for being a model either. She was in her mid-50’s and was built like, well a facilities manager. She had rough hands and a strong back. If anything, her potato shaped body would probably have had a negative effect on company morale.
Alice on the other hand, looked like she had been designed by a man who loved looking at voluptuous women. Her breasts, hips and waist were perfectly proportional and her face made Joanna question her own sexuality. Not only that, but her favorite hobby seemed to be keeping up with fashion and design. That was what made her want to be part of this project. She wanted the chance to help researcher the clothes and set designs that they would use for the calendar.
As it turned out, Joanna was just as glad for this help too. She certainly had no interest in such menial knowledge, such as which clothing designer worked best for her body type and which materials would be better in the printed calendar compared to which would look better in a digital format. Joanna’s only real interest was in how much she had to expose to make this calendar work.
It wasn’t that Joanna wasn’t pretty or didn’t have a nice figure. When her son Isaac was born 15 years ago, she went on a diet and exercise binge to bring the baby weight back to her pre-pregnancy state. After that, she just kept it up and now spend a minimum of two hours on the treadmill and takes three palate classed every week.
At 5’2, she was shorter than most of the women she worked with. She also weighed a scant 90 pounds. Her B cup breasts would look small on a normal woman, but on her, they were perfectly proportional.
The problem wasn’t that she was embarrassed of her body, she just didn’t like other people seeing her that way. She had spent her entire life trying to be taken seriously. She had grown quite accustomed to wearing very conservative outfits at work. She normally couldn’t find clothes in adult sizes that fit her, so for her casual wear, she often shopped in the teen or even pre-teen section. Boy’s medium sweatpants fit her the best.
For this, she had never even owned a set of lingerie. Not only because finding lingerie is a child’s size is problematic, but she never really was interested in that sort of thing. Now, she was being pressed into a situation that would take her way outside of her comfort zone.
Joanna had grown tired of looking at these naughty pictures. If she had her way, every pair would start at her neckline and continue on to just above her knee. She wasn’t going to have it her way and didn’t want to think about it anymore.
“What about the photographer?” Joanna asked. Not that she had much more to offer on this line of the conversation, but at least she had one demand that she wouldn’t back down from.
“We have nailed it down to these three.” Alice said, pulling out the list. All three were women. That was her one and only demand on this project. If she had to be photographed like that, at the very least the photographer and everyone associated with this shoot would be a woman.
At least so far as the logistics of the photoshoot, that was what she was mostly concerned with. In the area of privacy, however, she had additional demands. In that regard, she at least was an expert in putting together work contracts and knew the ins and outs of legal verbiage. In a nutshell, she had prepared a contract between the company and herself that stated:
- 1. All images collected by the company on the date of the shoot would belong to the company and not the photographer.
2. All images collected by the company on the date of the shoot would be solely for use in the calendar and in promotion of the calendar as part of a larger employee morale. No other use would be permitted without her consent
3. All images collected by the company on the date of the shoot that were no used for the calendar or promotion of the calendar would be treated as secret intellectual property, and no images would be permitted to be sent outside of the company for any reason
She had prepared this contract in hopes that it would help persuade other women to feel comfortable enough to be part of the calendar. It didn’t work, but at the very least it would allow her to feel like she still had some control over this project.
Joanna decided to let the other three women handle the details of the shoot itself. She had had her say and gotten all she felt she could out of the arrangement. Besides, the more she looked at these photos, the worse her anxiety over it grew.
Best not to think of it until I have too. she thought.
Over the next two weeks, Joanna was aware that four other planning meetings were held. She was aware because they were on her calendar. She insisted they have them in her office, and always found reason to be elsewhere when the meetings actually took place. She knew what she needed to and that was enough for her.