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I get home at around six, and thankfully Robert isn’t back yet. It’s still pretty sunny and bright out, so I grab a blanket and my copy of The Oresteia, which is a book of three plays by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus, and go to lie on the grass in the back garden. The first play, Agamemnon, is one of my favourites. It shows Agamemnon returning home from the Trojan War, where his wife is planning on murdering him as revenge for his adultery and for killing their daughter as a sacrifice to the gods. Exciting stuff.
Whenever I tell people I study the ancient Greeks, they always get this glazed look on their faces, expecting it to be boring. I mean, some of the history is boring, but the literature and the myths are amazing. They portray the human condition in all its dysfunctional glory. I’ve learned a lot about people just from studying this stuff.
I fall into the pages, and the gentle evening sun warms the skin of my arms and legs. I’m almost halfway through the play when I hear a soft clicking noise. Allowing the book to fall to my chest, I shade my eyes and look up. Robert is standing above me, his camera held in one hand, snapping shots of me lying on the grass.
“Hey! Stop doing that!” I exclaim, feeling unusually uncomfortable. Naked, even, despite having all my clothes on.
He fiddles around with the lens, holding the camera at an odd, slanted angle as he continues to photograph me. He’s got a weird look on his face, like he’s so consumed with taking the pictures that he hasn’t even heard me. He kneels down now and leans close, as though taking a picture of my neck.
I reach forward and grab the camera out of his hands.
“What are you playing at?” I snap.
He looks at me like I’m the lunatic. “Calm down. I was only taking some pictures,” he tries to reassure me. I am not reassured.
Furrowing my brow, I shuffle away from him and try to figure out how to find the shots he took. I’ve only ever used cheap digital cameras in the past, so this one’s a little more difficult to get to grips with. It must have cost at least a couple grand.
Robert sits there, not even trying to take the camera back from me, like he wants me to see his handiwork. Finally, I get to them. The first one looks like it was taken from up high. His bedroom window, maybe? The next one is closer up, so I presume it was taken out here in the garden. It’s after this that things start to get a bit…weird.
There are a dozen more shots, but they’re all of tiny parts of me: my wrist, a lock of hair lying against my chest, my ankle, my lips, eyelashes, a mole just below my knee. With shaking hands I set the camera slowly down on the blanket before raising my eyes to meet Robert’s. He’s staring at me expectantly. He doesn’t seem embarrassed, not at all.
“Why do you take pictures like that?” I whisper.
“Because I like to.”
“They’re…disturbing, Robert.”
His face simmers with a touch of anger as he says, “They’re beautiful.”
I laugh joylessly. “They make it look like you want to chop me up into little pieces.”
He looks at me like I’m being ridiculous.
“What?” I exclaim. “They do. Please say something to prove me wrong, because I’m kind of freaking out right now.”
“I like photography. It’s a hobby. Taking pictures relaxes me. Lots of photographers like to focus on small details, Lana. You wouldn’t think it was weird if I had a closeup of a flower or a blade of grass, would you?”
“No, but that’s different.”
“It’s not different at all. Some people photograph nature, some do cityscapes. I photograph bodies. Well, female bodies, to be exact.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, it’s okay. I get it. There’s just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Please take your pictures of somebody else. I don’t want you photographing me anymore.”
“But you’re the only person I want to photograph.”
We stare at each other for several tension-filled seconds before I cough and gather my wits. “Well, I’m sorry about that, but no more. I’m not comfortable with it.”
I pick the camera back up in my hand. I don’t know why, but I flick past the other pictures he took, the ones on the beach, and I gasp. There are more of me. Pictures he took when I didn’t even know he was around. All through the past week we’ve been living together: me eating an apple, me sitting on the couch looking down at my hands, me in the garden watering some flowers, and on and on it goes. I don’t know how he managed to take all these without me realising, but I’m guessing it took a fair amount of creeping. A shiver permeates my body.
Glancing up at him, I see that his eyes are alight with interest. He’s sucking in my reactions like he needs them more than air.
“I don’t…” I whisper and trail off. “I don’t know what to say.”
Robert scratches at his neck. “You’ve, um, become something of a muse.”
“That – that certainly seems to be the case,” I agree, my voice shaky.
Oh. God. There are pictures in here of me sleeping. He came into my room without permission – at night. Jesus.
I drop the camera onto the blanket. My stomach twists and turns in distress. I always dreamed of a world where Robert was interested in me. Now that dream has come true, and it’s not at all like what I expected. I feel ill.
“You need help, do you know that?” I say, confronting him. I pick up my book and get to my feet.
“I’m not going to show them to anyone,” he replies, as if that makes it all better.
His statement outrages me. I fling my dog-eared book at him in sheer disbelief. It smacks off his shoulder and then falls to the grass. “You’ve got problems. Just don’t talk to me anymore, Robert. Don’t even breathe in my direction for the rest of the time I’m here. And absolutely no more pictures!”
