Chapter Text
This is her second time photographing The Beatles, the first was two years ago in 1965, a completely different era to how the boys look now. She’s very precise, getting multiple angles on her Mamiya RB. John has always admired her, well always as in the two times he’d seen her, but he remembered very well. He remembered her hair, dark and long. It had grown even more since the last time. Now it’s just barely grazing the waistband on her dark bootcut jeans. He remembered how quiet and focused she was, despite being a young woman who would be the bands usual target audience for freaking out in their presence. She was also very talented, John remembered seeing the photos she took the last time in print and thought that it was some of the best he’d seen. The best without having to hear someone gush or bother him in the process.
Her quick but smooth movements and big black eyes, sometimes looking up to make sure everyone was in place, as well as her soft but firm voice if she directed anyone to change pose or facial expression was just the kind of thing to turn John on, she was so naturally sexy, just the thing he had heard he was since his rise to fame, and now he understands the appeal.
After she was done she nodded and went off a bit to the side of the large field they were in, everyone goes in different directions, the manager of the photography company goes to speak to Brian, Paul follows and George and Ringo light up.
She puts the camera on a table that was set up to the side and opens a thin silver cigarette box. As John walks over to stand opposite her, he notices that her lighter is struggling to ignite and he immediately takes his own out and holds it in-front of her face.
She looks up a bit, again with those big eyes, and leans forward so the cigarette could light. The action is innocent in of itself, but the actual image of her looking up, mouth occupied, brings a filthy image into John’s mind. He beckons it anyway and slightly clears his throat, his adam’s apple bobbing as he does. When the cigarette lights, she nods and bit and took a drag, John closes his lighter.
“Cheers.” She says to him, smiling a bit politely but it isn’t overdone or exaggerated, if anything it’s a bit awkward.
“Sure.. Hello.” John replies, in his typical scouse manner.
“Hello”
“Alright?” John asks. nodding to the camera
“Yeah great I reckon.”
..
“Do you remember when you photographed us couple years back?”
She laughs a bit
“Course I remember, surprised you do.” She quips as she takes a deeper drag.
John copies her small laugh and raises his eyebrows a bit, looking down slightly at her. It could’ve been seen as condescending, but to her it felt strangely intimate for a famous rockstar she’d barely spoken to.
“You were very good last time. Are you a professional?”
John asks, curious but again he seems condescending.
“Yes I am”
“Quite young to be a professional aren’t you?”
She raises her eyebrows a bit and nods slightly as she takes a drag.
“I guess so”
“How young are you then?” John asks, a bit softer. His eyes are wired on her mouth as she exhales thin veils of smoke, and the sheer plum red lipstick that transferred onto her cigarette.
“I’m 20”
“20 and so talented?” He says, nearly teasingly flirtatious.
“You was talented at 20.” She states bluntly, like it isn’t a compliment but a fact.
John laughs a bit, not expecting her to bite back. He also found that sexy.
“I suppose I was.” He manages to reply smoothly, eyes grazing over her figure.
At that, her manager beckons her over. She looks around and then takes the camera on the table. She must have to go, she nods at John as to say goodbye and puts out her cigarette, but right before she can leave, John hears himself call out-
“Will I see you again?”
The strange intimacy and pathetic nature of the question makes him cringe inwardly, it strikes down his nonchalant and nearly arrogant manner in which he was flirting with just now.
She smiles a bit awkwardly, the question making her blush slightly.
“Erm- hopefully if I get another job with you lot.” She didn’t laugh or get too giddy, but she said hopefully. She wants to see him again. John doesn’t quite know why that affects him so much, now he’s the one getting giddy.
He just nods and lets her leave. He watches her leave actually, and only when she’s fully gone and he’s being rushed into leaving himself along with the rest of the band and Brian, he lights his own cigarette and rubs the side of his face a bit, hoping nobody will notice the redness of his cheeks.
John dreamt about her that night. He doesn’t even remember the plot of the dream or the context in which she was in it, he just remembers her electric nature and quiet concentration. He wakes in the middle of the night with a hard on.