Pose For Me

Transcript

It's a fine photograph, I say. You turn when you hear my words. The heat was already in your cheeks, but now, knowing someone else is looking at the picture, you can't stop the blood rising to your neck and chest and the rest of your exposed skin.

If your eyes could blush, they would. Instead, they just tingle in an uncomfortable way. You say thank you and nod and look for the wine table.

You're not a professional model, I say. No, you say quickly, eager for that to be the end of it. It was Sherry who talked you into posing for her project.

She had the resources to ask for a real model, someone used to exposing themselves on camera. But for some reason, she said she imagined you there at the window at the break of dawn in just a quilt, nothing too risqué, but naked nonetheless. The side of your breast and your stomach visible, your head turned and your hair loose over your shoulder.

You had to admit when you saw the final image it was pretty, but you didn't realize this would go in a gallery, on a wall, for everyone to see. Your bare neck, a hint of eyelash as you gazed into the distant trees. I'm working on a series about a perfect woman.

For the first time, you make eye contact with me. You don't know my name, but you've seen me on campus when you visited Sherry. I don't look like a student, so maybe I'm a professor or just someone who works here.

I tell you my name and extend my hand. My fingers are warm and dry and my grip is firm but not painfully tight. I have dark eyes, dark lashes, full lips and I am looking at you with calm, measured intent.

Would you be willing to model again? Model for me? You tell me no.

I give you a card. I'd pay you well and I have a waiver. I don't publish anything you're not comfortable with.

You take the card. Sherry didn't pay you, but Sherry's a friend. Still, there isn't enough money in the world to get you to put yourself out there again, especially not for a man you don't know.

You've heard stories of naive girls getting into all kinds of trouble for men who claimed to be artists. Thank you, you say, but you're still not interested. If you change your mind, I tell you.

I am. You're warming your hands on a cup of tea in a cafe off Maple Avenue. You see me when I walk in, but I don't see you until I have my coffee in hand.

May I sit down, I ask. I ask you how you are. You remember my name because of the card.

You kept it. You don't know why. I'm working on a series about a perfect woman, I say.

You're not a perfect woman, you reply. Nobody's perfect, I agree, but art is and I see art in you. Does this scam usually work on glassy-eyed co-eds, you ask? I shake my head.

I haven't asked anyone else. But it is nude modeling, you say. You looked up my work when you got home that night.

I'm not an amateur, you know that much. Yes, I say. It's a series, some clothed, some partial, some unclothed, but you would be naked by the end of it.

You could never do that, you tell me. Do you still have my card, I ask. That's not who you are, you say.

You're standing under a bus stop in the pouring rain. Sherry's graduating this week and the two of you went out celebrating. You're tipsy, warm all over but also cold as hell.

You keep checking your phone for the bus schedule. It's still late and you're still wet and all you can do is pray for headlights. The car makes a languid U-turn and sidles up to the curb.

The window lowers and you see my face. Give you a lift, I ask. You laugh.

Of course it's me. But you don't hesitate. Remember the last time you saw me, you told Sherry about my offer.

She was jealous. She likes my work, very much. You think she has a crush.

You asked if I'm a weirdo, if I'm a creep. Definitely weird, she said, but not a creep. He's a professional.

He means what he says. You're cold and you're wet and my car is warm and dry. I can drop you near your house if that makes you more comfortable, I say.

You're staring at me. Just as before, I look perfectly composed, dark and in control. From my long lashes to my powerful fingers.

You wonder what I would look like behind a camera pointed at you. You ask to see my studio. At the stoplight, I give you a side-long glance.

How much have you had to drink tonight, I ask. Not much, you lie. You wrap your arms tight around your body as you survey the open space.

You feel like a lost forest creature wandering over a tarmac, an artificial space so removed from nature it's practically an alien world. It's astonishingly clean and soundproofed. You can barely hear the rain drumming on the roof.

A seamless white backdrop curves from the floor up to the high ceiling. Umbrellas and lights and delicate-looking equipment decorate the tables pushed up against the walls. There's a large TV monitor, video cameras and regular cameras, and me leaning against the doorframe, watching you.

You sniff and drag fingers through damp hair. You ask me why I want to photograph you. I'm working on a series about a perfect woman, I say.

You know that. That's not the answer. It is, I say.

My footsteps echo in the enormous room as I wander to where you stand. You gaze up at me. What do you see when you look in the mirror, I ask.

You shrug. What anyone else sees. May I, I ask.

You're not sure what I mean until I raise my hand. Instinctively, you flinch. But then, maybe it's because you're drunk, you nod.

I reach out and gently slide a few loose hairs that have been captured by your wet eyelash. I rub my moistened fingertips together and show them to you. Art isn't only about what you see.

It's about the story of these raindrops and what they felt when they touched your skin. It's about how the rain belonged to the sky and now, here, in this room, they belong to you. It isn't about you seeing perfection in the mirror.

It's about that perfect moment between you and the camera. The story of how the camera feels when it finds you. An echo of how I felt when I saw you in the gallery.

In Sherry's photograph, you say. No. You tell me you're not a model.

I'm not looking for a model. You tell me you don't know how. I will tell you what to do, I say.

You tell me you're scared. I tell you that's good. People benefit from being scared once in a while.

It makes peace sweeter. You know my work. You know the kinds of photos I take.

I'm not sexy, you whisper. I strongly disagree. It's the weekend.

Saturday morning. Early Saturday morning. You asked me for two weeks.

Two weeks to get into fighting shape. Two weeks to change your mind. Two weeks to ask yourself if you agreed to this because you were drunk at the time, or because of the way I touched your hair.

Two weeks. Plenty of time to make other plans, or catch a cold, or move to Cincinnati. Two weeks to end up right back here, standing in my studio, a fawn on an alien planet.

The video camera is set up. The live feed plays on the enormous monitor on the opposite wall. The cyclorama is so white that the television seems as frozen as a field of snow.

I didn't exaggerate about the payment. There's a substantial check in your purse. You sign the waiver, granting you full rights to refuse the publication of any photo I take today.

And you're shaking. You're shaking as I wander the studio fiddling with lights and setups. Shaking as I calibrate one camera after the other.

Two hang around my neck. Another sits ready at a table. One perches on a chair.

The video camera rolls on, the live feed showing the blank backdrop. You're shaking as I take your hands and gaze down at you. I'm doing a series on a perfect woman, I say.

A real woman. A woman who makes a man feel like a man. Who makes a man want to be a man.

A woman who draws light to her and makes the air useful because she breathes it in. It passes her lips. It resides in her lungs for a moment before leaving and regretting that forever.

It's a preposterous thing to say. You let out a nervous laugh and I smile. I'm not asking you to be perfect, I say.

I'm asking you to let me watch you live. You swallow around the lump in your throat. You don't know why your eyes burn.

You want to tell me, no, one last time, that you can't do this. But I squeeze your hands and my eyes pull you in and lift you up. So you nod.

You lick your lips and you nod. And you go where I lead you. It's like exercise.

It's a stiff, uncomfortable, cold thing to get started. But as you move, as you warm up, as you sweat, your limbs remember what they were made for. The camera doesn't flash because I've arranged my lights the way I want them, but it does click.

Bend for me just here. Click. Face away from me over here.

Click. Look at me. Click.

Open your mouth. Click. Imagine everything you have to do today, tomorrow, this week, this month, has been done.

Every one of your notifications has been cleared. Your email inbox is empty. Your boxes are all ticked.

It's done. It's all done. Think about that.

Think about it. Click. And it's a little like dancing.

We trade places on the floor, me circling you, you using your hips and shoulders to tell a story. It's a dance of words, too, because I'm learning how you like to be told. At first it's, that's beautiful, thank you, could you try this, please? But the pleases and thank yous melt away, become implicit, when praise works so much better.

Could you be a good girl for me and sit just here, on this plinth? Oh, you're a quick study, aren't you? You were made to be adored.

Look down at me, like you're the queen of Egypt, deciding whether I should live or die. Just like that. Good girl.

Now decide, one way or the other. You don't have to tell me which. Oh, oh, that's very good.

That's a woman who knows she holds the power. Maybe it's that. Maybe it's the heat.

Maybe I told you and you just don't remember, but it feels like your idea, when the clothes start to come off. You watch yourself on the big monitor, blown up, larger than life, and feel like you're floating above your body. Is that your body? You see it, but you don't believe it, because you don't hate it.

You love it. The camera clicks and I drop it to fetch another. There's a smile on my face that's not a leer and also not polite.

It's not a fun smile shared between friends or a gentleman's smile in mixed company. It's the smile of the man who's still taking pictures of you, because one or two or three or one hundred were not enough. You don't know how much film is loaded into these things, but their hunger mirrors your own.

You raise your arms up, behind your head, not caring what your breasts do, not caring about the creases here or there, simply moving your hips, moving to the music that now echoes through the studio. The music you told me you liked, the music you'd almost forgotten to request. I'm making a series about a perfect woman, you hear in your head.

She's the last woman on earth who cannot be taken by any man or men. She is blessed by the gods. She walks alone, choosing her mates very carefully.

Only the men deemed worthy are allowed to profane this sacred woman. It is only through her that the land will grow fertile and bring forth new life. That kind of woman.

Your arms are still aloft, your eyes closed, your hips moving, moving to the beat. You feel this power enter you, the power to create, the power even to destroy. The camera clicks.

You know exactly what you're doing, don't you? Maybe. You feel more than you know now.

You understand why I'm getting closer and that I want a shot of your backside. I kneel beside you like a knight for his queen and calibrate my lens. And then it is sweeping over your thighs, your buttocks, your tailbone, your spine.

And you twist, you tease. That's not you laughing, Shirley. You could never love something like this.

It's just that look on my face, that smile, hungry and happy and hopeful that has you feeling a certain way. You grab my tie and flip it in my face. You stick out your tongue.

You strut toward me, challenging me to get out of your way. You think about every year before this one, every poster you ever saw in a mall, on a billboard, in an airport terminal. The mixture of awe and jealousy and yes, sometimes anger at the models for Chanel, Versace, Dior.

What does a model do, you thought? What is her life but being told what to do, where to walk, how to look? But picking up the satin dress I gave you, holding it between thumb and forefinger and raising it between us, pretending to hide behind it, inviting me to push it down.

But lying on the floor now, eyes just above your forearm, smiling for the clicking camera, smiling for my adoring smile. But rolling now, like an idiot, like a child, and rising up and waving me off and holding your body in an embrace, loving your body in this moment. You have a taste of it, what it feels like to be the perfect woman.

You are kneeling now and I'm standing above you, camera angled, my dark eyelashes fanning my cheek as I take the shot. That's it, I say, you've done it. There is no more to be said, because you've said it all.

The whole world is in that smile right there. Heaven starts and ends.