I roll my eyes at her and flinch as fresh snow slaps cold against my face, suddenly coming down harder. At least her hands have a horrible pair of faux-leather gloves trimmed with pink leopard-print fur on them. Since she’s the one who signed me up for this and remembered the actual date and time I needed to be there, my big sister at least had the decency to dress for the outside world, which somehow turned into a winter wonderland in the few hours I was lost in my work.
I’d barely grabbed my jacket and pulled the hood of my sweater over my mess of hair before she dragged me out of my studio. My verywarmstudio-slash-apartment, still holding the heat from bent glass and humming transformers.
“Shut up. I don’tneedto get back to work,” I mutter. “But it’s mid-December. It’s snowing like crazy. We’re right next to the water and I’m freezing my fucking ass off. Don’t you think they canceled the whole thing because of the snow and you just made me leave the warmth for nothing?”
“First of all,” she says, holding up a leopard-printed finger, “youlivenext to the water so you’re used to it. Stop complaining. Besides, the ferries are still operating from central station to the NDSM wharf. See?”
She waves at the little boats for pedestrians dotting the River IJ that cuts the north side of Amsterdam off from the rest of the city before pointing two fingers in my face.
“Second, snow in Amsterdam is basically a limited-edition event. You don’t cancel art because it’s aesthetically inconvenient. You’re an artist yourself. Appreciate this.” She smiles and lifts her face toward the sky like she personally ordered the weather, a stray snowflake catching on herlong lashes. “I think she’ll appreciate it as well. It’s still light out and it’s beautiful. She’d be an idiot not to shoot in this. It’s a gift.”
I consider, briefly, to flick her right on her small, straight nose. Even though she looks all cute and innocent with her big hazel eyes and bow-shaped lips, I know she’s a conniving harpy underneath all that disciplinary ballet posture and the stupid fur hat that matches her gloves.
“A gift my ass. My very cold ass,” I mutter when we veer off the water’s edge and the big industrial building looms up ahead. It’s all raw concrete and steel, its sides swallowed by graffiti and oversized murals. Rusted beams, welded sculptures, old shipping containers turned into studios and cute little diners.
NDSM in all its chaotic glory.
I love it usually—this side of the river, and these former ports-turned artist quarters, where everything is a little rough and unapologetically alive—but the dread settles low in my stomach anyway, heavy and familiar, as we get closer. About what I’m going to do. About beingseen. About putting myself out there. About lining myself up for failure. Again.
“Can’t we just grab lunch somewhere and cancel this stupid thing?”
“And leave your date hanging?” Nika shoots back without slowing down. “I know you get lost into your own world most of the time, but I know you’re not that inconsiderate.”
She’s right. I’m not. And I did consent to it myself, to this sort-ofdate, even if my pushy sister practically held the pen while I signed up. I sigh as she darts in front of me on her silver glittered Uggs, arms wide, snow falling around her, like she’s presenting the entire wharf for my personal inspection.
“And we’re doing this foryou, not me,” she adds. “Be glad I’m coming with you. You need to leave that damn building at some point. There’s more to life than neon tubes and transformers.”
“With ‘more to life,’” I start, deadpan as we close in on the big double doors, “you mean standing in front of a camera while having a blind date and being the center of attention?”
Nika doesn’t even look at me this time. She just reaches for the heavy metal door and smirks.
“Funny,” she says. “That’s exactly what you achieve every time you switch the lights on from one of your little projects. Your work and by extension,you, become the center of attention.”
Then she pushes, effectively shutting me up.
The door groans as it swings open, warm air spilling out to meet us, thick with the smell of coffee, damp clothes, and something electrical humming just under the surface. Heat sinks into my hands, my face, my chest, so suddenly it almost makes me dizzy. The cold peels off me in layers as we step inside, snow melting instantly off my boots onto the concrete floor.
I exhale without meaning to. Whatever this turns out to be—a fluke, like all the times I tried to date before, or a rare success—at least it’s warm in here.
Another plus: there’s the most amazing coffee corner tucked inside, selling dangerously strong espresso and carrot cake I’d kill for. Since I desperately need something warm in my hands, I send my sister ahead to fetch me something to eat and drink.
She shrugs off her metallic blue puffer jacket and shoves it into my chest, revealing a matching jogger-and-sweater set in a horrible flower pattern that completely drowns her petite frame, like she got dressed in the dark and committed to it out of spite even though it’s not the most flattering combination.
“Try not to disappear on me while I’m gone,” she says before doing a pirouette and practically floating away in a blur of flowers and glitter. Yes, an actual pirouette on top of her Uggs. She’s a ballet dancer, after all.
Really. My fashion sense isn’t exactly superior, but still.
I watch her bounce off between the pop-up stores, artsy studios, and makeshift buildings that define this place—some temporary, all creative, most unapologetically unfinished—before drifting to the right, toward the space I’m pretty sure was rented for the shoot.
Yes. A fucking shoot.
Nika made me sign up for a Stranger Session since, apparently,you’re a lonely, broody idiot who needs to get out more. And laid. Have I said laid?
She’s right. Maybe. About the lonely part, at least. I probably need to get out more. I just don’t really get why she thinks I need something like this. This’ll never work. Not for me, at least. Messing around on Grindr would probably get me results faster than hoping it clicks with some rando—which it never really did before. Not fully.
At least I get to pick the guy myself, right? And I know what I’ll get out of it in the end, instead of… well, this.
The concept’s simple enough: two strangers paired up and photographed together without context or backstory. No performance, no posing—just proximity, light, and whatever happens in the moment.
