Under the Leather Jacket

Some places look like a postcard, right up until you show up with red heels in your bag and a plan nobody but you should know about.

I found this wooden bridge by accident a few weeks earlier. Dark, heavy beams, concrete posts covered in moss, and behind it a forest that in autumn looks like someone spilled gold paint over the trees. Back then it was empty and quiet, just wind and leaves. I thought: perfect. I’ll come back with a camera and do something these beams have never seen.

I came back. And the first thing I saw was the parking lot. Packed. Car after car, someone parked on the grass, someone else on the shoulder. Apparently the whole town had the same idea I did, just with a little less leather in their wardrobe.

I sat in the car for a long while, watching people through the window. Baskets, walking poles, dogs. I looked at the bag with the red heels on the seat next to me. At the jacket with almost nothing meant to be under it. And I asked myself a very sensible question: do I really want to do this here?

The answer came on its own when I got out and breathed in. Cool air, smelling of leaves and damp earth. The sun was already low and everything had that honey color no filter can fake. It would have been a shame to waste it. Fear is fear, but the light won’t wait.

I started out well behaved. Leather leggings that creak with every step, a white crop top with a lace trim, the jacket, and red heels that are about as comfortable on a forest path as on an ice rink. I sat on a concrete post, spread my legs in those heels, looked into the lens. Click. The concrete was cold, I could feel it through the leather, and it was actually a rather pleasant feeling.

That’s when I heard the first voice. A man, somewhere around the bend in the path. Laughter, then a second voice, a woman’s. I froze with my hand on my thigh. Footsteps on gravel, getting closer. I pretended to fix my shoe. They walked past, a couple with a dog that looked at me with more interest than its owners did. He said “good afternoon,” she looked at my heels as if she’d just spotted a zebra in the woods. I answered politely. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure they could hear it on the other bank.

Under the Leather Jacket

I waited until their voices faded. Counted to thirty in my head. Then I took off the top.

Underneath I had a red lace bra, the same color as the heels. I stood by the railing of the bridge, hands on my hips, jacket open. The wind instantly found every inch of bare skin. Cold, but not the unpleasant kind. The kind that makes everything sharper. Every gust, every rustle, every sound from the forest.

And there were plenty of sounds. A branch snapped somewhere. Further off a dog was barking, maybe the same one, maybe another. At one point I heard a bike. That’s a very particular sound: first nothing, then suddenly the hiss of tires right behind you. I managed to zip up the jacket in one move, like in an action movie where the heroine has two seconds to hide the evidence. The cyclist shot across the planks of the bridge, which drummed under him. He didn’t even turn his head. I stood there with my jacket zipped to the chin and a face so innocent I wouldn’t have believed it myself.

And that’s where it got interesting. Because with every moment like that, the fear changed a little. It was still there, but it was mixing with something else. With a shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature. With that twisted feeling that all these people were so close and none of them had any idea what was happening a few dozen meters from their walk.

I unzipped the jacket again. The bra stayed in the grass, by the post.

I took the last shots with my arms raised above my head. The jacket slid open and hung only on my shoulders, leather against skin, cool, heavy, with that smell. The sun filtered through the leaves and painted golden patches on my stomach. For a moment I heard nothing. No voices, no dogs, no bikes. Just my own breath and the quiet click of the shutter. That one moment when the whole forest seemed to hold its breath with me.

And then footsteps again. Much closer this time. Someone was walking straight toward the bridge.

I don’t know how fast you can zip up a leather jacket when your fingers are cold and shaking a little. I only know I made it. Someone stepped out from the trees, an older man with a basket full of mushrooms. He looked at me, at the red heels, at the leggings shining in the sun. He nodded with the kind of approval you give a well-arranged shop window, and walked on. Ten seconds earlier and his mushroom hunt would have ended very differently.

I picked the bra up from the grass after he was gone. It was wet with dew and ice cold. I put it on with a quiet hiss and swore that next time I’m bringing a spare.

Walking back to the car, I passed the same people. The couple with the dog, the woman with the walking poles, a family with a thermos. I smiled at them like someone who had just been out for a walk. I carried the heels in my hand, and under the jacket I could still feel that cold and that shiver that didn’t want to leave my skin.

The best photos don’t happen when everything is under control. They happen when you hear footsteps around the bend, and you unzip your jacket anyway.

More photos from this shoot are on my channels, and each one gets its own version of that afternoon. On Instagram and X you’ll see the autumn colors, the leather and the red heels. The shots that made my heart race the most are waiting on Fansly.

Instagram: instagram.com/electric_joanna_selfie
X: x.com/electric_Joanna
X: x.com/VoltageMuse
Fansly: fansly.com/electric_joanna

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