“You’re in my sweats.” I tug on the waistband
“Because you told me to put them on. Said you didn’t care if I ruined them in here.”
“Yeah.” I run my hands up toward her breasts. “Let me ruin them.”
“Oh my god! I’m going to kick you out,” she scolds, though she can’t hide the trace of laughter in her voice.
I skim my thumbs over her nipples. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would. You’re basically trying to fuck me in the middle of a science experiment, so, yes, I will kick you out if you mess this up.”
I burst out laughing. Jo, dropping an f-bomb? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it out of her mouth before, so I know she means business. I sit back in my seat like a good little boy, and she moves the paper to the next tray.
“Stop bath,” she says. “It halts the developing process.”
After a few seconds, she moves it to the last basin.
I jut my chin toward it. “And that is?”
“Fixer. It makes the image permanent.” She glances at me, a flirtatious smile playing on her lips. “Want to do the next one?”
“Can I?”
She hangs up the print on the line to dry then enlarges the photo on a new paper before handing it over, standing right next to me, telling me what to do. Her soft curves rub against my arm when I move it, and I think she’s punishing me.
But we go back and forth like this, developing more of herfilm, clipping them to the line on the other side of the room. I don’t know how much time has passed; I don’t care all that much, but eventually, Jo takes in our work and nods. “I think that’s it.”
I join her, snaking my arm around her shoulders to tug her back against me, both of us admiring her photography. I’m not sure if I was so focused on Jo that I didn’t really care about what was on the prints, but for the first time, I really take them all in.
Two dozen or so black-and-white photographs of me.
Or of things that represent me.
There is one of my face, taking up almost the whole frame, a crooked smile slanting my mouth.
Then there is one of Gus, nestled on the back of my couch, right against my shoulder and neck.
My haphazard sneakers next to a pair of shorts and underwear on the floor, almost as if they’d been removed in a hurry.
A dog-eared paperback, though the point of view is only so the audience can see the pages, with hockey gear out of focus in the background.
There’s one of my hand tugging on the neck of my T-shirt, my lower jaw and Adam’s apple prominently centered.
Half of my face reflected in the mirror in the hall.
My empty living room, overexposed by the sunlight coming in through the window.
Sunflowers covering almost every inch of her apartment.
The scar on my forearm from a skate blade in middle school when I collided with another kid and got tangled up is mostly invisible, but it’s in stark relief in the photo.
My sleeping face hidden by my bicep, my arm wrapped around the pillow on her bed.
My lower torso, an inch of skin revealed, as if I’d been adjusting my shirt, and the upper part of my leg, including the shorts she calls slutty because they reveal my thigh tattoo, which she captured. But it’s all off-center, so it’s revealing and yet soft…?
Is that how she views me?
Bright sunshine and sex? Masculine yet tender?
