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“Should we take another?” he asks.
I spin around. “Now?”
“No, not now. Or, maybe now. If inspiration strikes.” He half-smiles, almost smirking.
I wonder, if I were wearing the stripe-y tights, would inspiration have struck us down already? Would he have crossed the kitchen, impatient to see the bows? Lifted up my skirt and bent me over the counter for a better look? I curl my hands into balls, an ache forming between my legs. I don’t know what I want more, to fuck Finn or pose for him. “If you were to feel inspired . . . what might you do?”
“Hmm.” He circles me, looking me over. From every angle. I fight the urge to cover myself or hide. Finn hasn’t given me any reason to be self-conscious. His perusal is both intoxicating and distressing. I want him to drink me in, but what if he doesn’t like how I taste? The hair on my skin prickles as I wait for his assessment. “The white collar of your blouse makes you look so sweet.” He says sweet with an edge that weakens my knees. “Like a good girl. It makes me want to turn you bad.”
My legs are going to give out, and he hasn’t even touched me yet, not even close. He’s put enough distance between us to ensure I couldn’t even reach out and grab him if I wanted.
“You can do that with a photo?” I ask. “Turn me bad?”
“I can certainly try.”
I nod breathlessly. I want to say, “Try! Please try!” but I don’t trust myself to speak without begging.
He stops in front of me and picks up something from his desk. “Do you have words for that?” he asks, holding my journal out to me.
I didn’t even notice it before. I take it. The feel of the leather is the only thing that’s ever come as close to comforting me like my mother’s embrace once had. I open it and flutter the pages, playing the edges like the strings of an instrument. My hands tremble, and I’m certain Finn notices.
I only know what I’m looking for once I find it. “Here,” I say, giving it back to him.
He shakes his head. “Read it for me. It sounds so much better from your mouth.”
I’m already blushing profusely. I’m sure he notices that too. “I hate reading it aloud.”
He grunts. “Then don’t, not for anyone but me. Don’t read it, don’t show it, don’t even mention it to anyone else. Just me.”
My heart thumps. He wants exclusive access to this part of me. I want to give it to him, but that means stepping outside my comfort zone. Sharing my journal is more baring than his eyes on my body, than having my photo taken. I think I could strip down to nothing with less effort than it takes to read to him.
“Please,” he says.
My fear melts, just a little. He wants this, and don’t I owe it to him for loving my words enough to want to hear them? Luckily, the passage I chose is short and clean. It’s fairly innocuous—until you really start to think about it . . .
“‘Make me a woman,’” I read. “‘Let me be your girl.’”
I keep my eyes on the page, but I feel his gaze on me. Is he waiting for me to continue? That’s all there is. The meaning isn’t obvious at first, but I thought he’d understand. If he doesn’t, that choice will sound weird to him. It’s not the sexiest line, I admit. And maybe too nuanced for what we’re doing.
I open my mouth to tell him I can pick out something else. I don’t speak, though. This caption feels right for the moment. I’m not sure if I’m more nervous that I’ll have to defend my choice or that he’ll like it and want to use it. When it feels as if a full minute has passed, I close the book, squeeze the leather for reassurance, and finally look up.
“Perfect,” he says.
“Perfect?”
“It’s subtle, like your words, and at the same time, straight up sex.”
“You get it?”
“She wants to be handled tenderly, almost like a child. To surrender to someone more powerful than her. And when she does, when he has his way with her, then she’ll be a woman.”
My heart is in my throat. I shouldn’t’ve doubted that he’d understand. Not everyone would, and maybe that makes it a bad choice for a caption, but Finn does. “I think every woman feels like a girl and a woman at some point during sex.” I pass the book back to him. “You don’t think it’s too vague? Or weird?”
“Obviously not.”
I don’t understand why that’s obvious until I drop my eyes to his crotch. I look away just as quickly, but not before I notice the bulge in his sweatpants.
“C’mere,” he says.
Butterflies light up my insides, an eruption of fluttering wings, as if I’d spooked a bird sanctuary. This is it. I’m going to do this. Finn will be the fourth man I’ve ever slept with, and I don’t want to mess this up. I want it to be right, to be good, better than good.
I walk to him, closing the space between us. He reaches up and moves my hair over my shoulder, resting it against my back. He looks at the neckline of my blouse, his eyes trailing the curve of my neck up to my mouth. He never meets my gaze, but circles around me, so he’s at my back. “It’ll be simple,” he says. “Just undo the top button of your blouse.”
He leaves me where I am. I look over my shoulder. He turns the camera equipment around. My thoughts jumble. I don’t understand what he means. Or what he’s doing. Or why I don’t go stand in front of the camera instead of him moving everything to face me.
I look forward again and my eyes land on the couch. The couch? He’s aiming the camera there? If he thinks he’s going to record us having sex, he’s delusional. He saw how hesitant I was about taking photos while fully dressed, does he think I’d let him video us while he strips me, lays me down, kisses me?
It occurs to me—I don’t know. I have no idea what he expects, because I don’t actually know him at all.
I asked to come up here. I read to him from my journal. Maybe I’ve made him think I’m looking for danger, thrills, sex. Aren’t I, though? Isn’t that what it would be to record something so intimate? Dangerously thrilling, taboo, wrong?
I inhale sharply as I imagine performing for the camera—and then him watching me after I’ve left.
“Doing okay?” he asks.
I look back at him. “Are you . . . are you going to record it?”
“Record what?”
“Us?”
He stops fiddling with the camera to stare at a spot on the floor. He seems to think hard about his next move, then comes over and looks me straight in the eye. “Halston?”
I try not to fidget. “Y-yes?”
“We’re never going to do anything—anything—that makes you uncomfortable. I wouldn’t record something like that without talking to you first. To be honest, it never crossed my mind.”
I exhale a long breath, relieved. Or am I? A small part of me likes the idea of Finn savoring this later. “Good,” I say.
“And another thing.” He looks me over. “We’re not going to sleep together.”
This time, I know exactly what I feel. Disappointment
. “We’re not?”
“No.”
I try to pinpoint what might’ve happened the last few minutes to extinguish his desire, but my mind is reeling too fast. It wasn’t easy for me to decide to do this. Did I imagine his interest, from the earlier fire in his eyes to the bulge in his pants? “Why not?” I ask.
Even though I’m already looking at him, he lifts my chin slightly with his knuckle. “Don’t lie to me. Ever. I’ve had enough secrets and sneaking around for one lifetime.”
“When did I lie?” I ask. “Everything I told you was true.”
“You didn’t break up with him.”
“We . . . we’re as good as—”
“That’s not enough. That affair I had was a nightmare. I won’t do it again.”
“Then why’d you bring me up here?” I ask, embarrassment igniting my temper. I’m already as uncomfortable as I’ve been in a while. I don’t need to be spurned after I’ve put myself so far out there.
He sighs. “I believe you if you say you’re not in love with him—”
“I’m not.”
“But on this one thing, I won’t budge. I will not sleep with you unless I know you’re mine. Really and truly mine, until there’s no chance you’ll ever go back to him. Until he knows it’s over too.”
My entire being aches for Finn, as if I’ve been holding off my need since the night I met him on the sidewalk, and just now let it flood me. Only to be rejected by him. “I want to be yours. Isn’t that enough for tonight?”
He takes a few steps back, rounds the camera, and looks through the viewfinder. “Come closer.”
My pulse beats at the base of my throat. I walk toward him until he holds up his hand, until I’m close enough that my face won’t be in the photo. I take the hem of the V-neck sweater I’m wearing over my blouse and pull it off. I look slimmer without it. My hair frizzes with static, so I smooth it back in place. I drop my sweater at my feet.
“Just the top button,” he says.
My nails are bare, like a good girl’s would be. I unbutton the collar while he photographs me. I watch his hands around the camera, big, strong, skillful. I raise my chin to expose my neck and continue down the middle of the blouse, all without instruction.
