Awkward posing

Click.

The next image loaded. Unsurprisingly, Mia was nude again; Mia wasn’t sure whether she preferred that. It was certainly more revealing than the last few, but equally it was starting to become old hat. Just, very embarrassing old hat.

She was outside. It was a second before she recognised the setting, and immediately squealed.

“Is that Lian Yu?” Dinah said.

“They liked person-specific shoots, I told you!” Mia said.

Technically speaking it did just look like a regular island, the foliage and trees around, the rocky surface and water source behind her, but the types of plants were familiar to anyone that had been there. For that matter, as a water source, anyone who’d been to the island would probably know the exact location.

There was a cliff in the background; if memory served it didn’t go up much higher than where the top of the photo cut off, but the grey rock nonetheless made up the bulk of the background, with water flowing over it and into a river on the bottom of the picture in a weak, narrow waterfall.

There was a small dip in the rock behind the waterfall, giving Mia something to stand on as the water cascaded over her. She stood with her side facing the camera, technically speaking decent because of the more distant shot obscuring her nipples, but there was no hiding her nudity. One leg was on the ground, while the other stuck out behind her for balance; she was leaning forward, giving the impression of being a compressed T, arms outstretched to either side so that she could stay up.

The water came down on her lower back, the spray acting as a poor form of modesty. Clear water trickled down her sides, past her breasts, while more ran in rivulets down her back and over the curve of her ass, tracing each contour of her body.

Her hair was pulled back just enough to show her grinning face, though she was looking down, her torso and one leg along a single plane.

“Still,” Dinah said.

“More fun than the last time I was there,” Laurel said.

Zoe said nothing, raising her eyebrows at the picture.

“Alright,” Dinah said suddenly. “We agreed to start doing poses, when it’s doable, didn’t we?”

“Wait,” Mia interrupted.

“No, she has a point,” Laurel said. “Maybe it’ll jog your memory. Mia, you’re up!”

“That wasn’t just an excuse to justify what I walked in on?” Zoe said.

“No!” Mia yelped, blushing. She hesitated. “But this one, I don’t think…”

Okay, maybe she was just trying to make excuses. It was easy to internally justify that this sort of thing would help, and honestly it had been easier to do the pose with Laurel because at least then it felt like she could blame someone else, it was a whole other matter to just start posing nude for her friends.

“Yes?” Dinah said.

“The big detail of that one is the waterfall,” Mia said, thinking quickly. “Not the pose. I only agreed to this to help get back in the old mindset, not for the sake of it.”

There was a pause.

“Okay, she has a point,” Laurel said.

“And you don’t have a waterfall handy, so next one!” Mia said quickly.

“Not so fast,” Laurel said. “I think we can improvise.”

Mia wilted.

“You did agree,” Dinah said. “Help you get used to having the nude photos out there. This is to help you.”

“I know,” Mia grumbled. “I still don’t see…”

“Dinah’s got a shower,” Laurel said. “Basically the same thing, or at least close enough. Don’t you think so?”

Mia hesitated.

On one hand, she could back out and say no. She was pretty sure they weren’t exactly going to manhandle her into various postures (don’t think about it, don’t think about it), but if she didn’t go through with it then what was the point of all this? They could go through every nude of her there was and by the end of the evening, she might still be in the same position she was at the start.

Fuck. Mia closed her eyes, taking a second or so to steady herself.

“Fine,” Mia said. “Where’s the shower?”

A little cautiously, she stood up. She kept her arms raised, more for comfort than anything; she was well aware that everyone in the room had seen her completely exposed anyway. A sharp glance from Laurel was all it took for Mia to reluctantly drop her arms to her sides, accepting the wisdom in exposing herself, even if the blush wasn’t going away.

Dinah looked at her, paused, cleared her throat, and then stood up.

“Right. Other side of the lounge,” Dinah said. “Guess we should watch. For. Usual reasons.”

Dinah and Laurel left the bedroom first, leaving the door open. Mia took a step towards it, and faltered.

There was a huge window over to one side of the apartment’s main room, covering almost the whole wall. She could see the sky, only just beginning to darken, and see the streetlamps outside. Her feet froze, refusing to move from the doorway.

Dinah followed her gaze. She sighed.

“We’re a floor up, relax,” Dinah said. “No one can actually see in here.”

“And even if they could, they’ve probably already seen you naked,” Laurel said. “So don’t worry.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t help,” Mia muttered.

Still, she made herself take a step forwards. Just the presence of the glass made her feel like she was much more out in the open; she quickened her step, unable to help lifting up her arms again, hurrying down the length of the window and only coming to a stop when she was in the bathroom.

Zoe followed along behind her, eyes glued downwards.

“Huh, that hasn’t changed too much between universes,” Zoe said.

“Really?!” Mia said, turning around and blushing even more.

“I’m trying to help!” Zoe said defensively.

“How is that helping?!”

Dinah coughed, distracting the two from their brief argument. Laurel was already adjusting the taps. Mia remembered why she was in there, and she slowly turned back around.

The bathroom was a pretty basic affair. It was a classic bathtub-and-shower, the showerhead set over the back so she had plenty of room to lean forwards.

“How hot do you like it?” Laurel said.

“It’s not an actual shower,” Mia said. “As hot as a natural waterfall on an island in the North China Sea.”

“Doesn’t sound fun,” Laurel said. Still, she adjusted the taps. “If you say so.”

She was used to cold showers. Well, the part of her that was a vigilante was, the part of her that was a socialite was used to long and hot bubble baths. It was part of the contradiction that had left her in this whole mess.

Maybe she could better trigger the old mindset by having bubble baths. Alone. Yeah, that would be so much nicer. Though at the rate this was going, those three would probably want to watch that too.

Taking a deep breath, Mia got into the tub. She braced herself and backed into the stream of cool water; at least that was something of a distraction from her situation. She waited for a bit to adjust to the water’s temperature, then tried to recall the pose she was meant to do, and leaned forwards.

Laurel adjusted the showerhead so she could be far enough forwards to stick her leg out behind her. She wasn’t quite even yet, but she shifted slowly, sticking out her arms for balance.

There wasn’t enough room for that, at least not without one resting against the wall, but it was a start.

She was just in the shower, Mia told herself. There was nothing weird about being naked in the shower. That might be something that would help her adjust. Okay, normally there weren’t three friends staring at her when she was in the shower, but that was just details.

Mia closed her eyes, focusing on just the pose, the strain in her leg muscles and the cold as it ran down her back. At least that was distracting.

“Jog any memories?” Laurel said.

Mia opened one eye, reddening already. She lifted her leg up a bit high, and leant further forwards.

She was clearing up her memories of that shoot at least. She remembered gasping as she’d gone under the waterfall, and remembered researching the place; they were only there because it was a big deal to her father, and she’d wanted to know a bit more about why.

Then she’d gone skinny dipping in the pool by the waterfall, not long after the shoot was done. That was a memory she could do without. The socialite version of her apparently really didn’t care about who saw what.

Mia felt the heat rush to her cheeks at just the three people looking at her. Well, apparently she couldn’t say the same.

Her leg got up a little higher until she was doing a better job of mimicking the pose; slowly, she drew her arm in from the wall, wanting to imagine she was back on the island.

She lost her balance. Mia yelped, flailing and splashing for a second, and toppled sideways, the bath slippery with the shallow water filling it; she fell over the side of the tub and crashed into someone, knocking them to the floor.

She reached around blindly for a second, pushing herself up a little way, still dripping water, only to find herself collapsed across Laurel.

“At least buy me dinner first,” Laurel said.

Mia quickly rolled off of her, trying not to think too hard about where the wet handprints and faceprints had unwittingly been left on Laurel’s clothes. Laurel sat up, wringing her shirt out slightly; Mia didn’t meet her eyes.

“Accident!” Mia said quickly.

“Yeah, that didn’t look intentional,” Dinah said. “How did it go?”

Mia reddened, crossing her arms as she sat up. Laurel sighed.

“That answers that,” Laurel said, sighing. “We’ve still got ways to go.”

Dinah turned the shower off as Mia quickly pushed herself backup to her feet. She went to grab a towel, only for Zoe to move in her way.

“I need to dry!” Mia said.

Zoe paused.

“If it’s just for that,” Zoe said.

She moved aside. Mia gratefully went forwards and grabbed the towel, using it both for cover and to dry herself off. She moved closer to the wall, scrubbing her back first, where the shower had it, letting the towel drop just enough to cover her butt.

It last maybe a second for Laurel snatched it away.

“That’s enough of that,” Laurel said. “If you keep trying to cover up, you’re never going to adjust.”

Mia really hated that she had a point.

“Let me,” Laurel said, brusquely rubbing the towel down the backs of Mia’s thighs, wiping up the last few drops of water. Mia yelped. “Then we can get to the next photo.”

“I… sure,” Mia said.

She was blushing, but starting to accept that they were doing this for a reason. Maybe that counted as progress? She honestly wasn’t sure.

Laurel turned her around, running the towel over the rest of the damp patches on Mia’s body, not drying her completely but at least making it so she wouldn’t be trailing so much water throughout the apartment on the way back to the computer.

Dinah quirked an eyebrow, just watching. Mia’s blush deepened considerably in the time it took Laurel to finish.

“So, shall we go?” Laurel said.

She only seemed a little out of breath. Mia whimpered, and before she could talk herself out of it, ran back past the wide-open window as quickly as she could.