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My heart dances with a mixture of shock and desire. Who is this young man?
“Hi,” the young man greets me. “I … I heard you do, um … photography?” He clears his throat as his bright blue eyes drop to my bare chest. “A certain … type … of photography …?”
Under normal circumstances, I might answer the young man quickly, getting to the point, telling him my business hours, and dismissing him until a scheduled time we’ve both agreed on. Hell, I would not even entertain a consult with someone until I know they’ve been properly vetted and worth my time—of which I seem to have less and less lately.
But I find myself, in this particularly out-of-character moment, struck with the realization that I haven’t found anyone desirable in years.
I’ve been a lump of stone. A hardened wall.
And in the space of a second, a crack splits its way down that wall—all my defenses, shattered.
I’m stricken. I’m speechless. I’m stupefied.
And I’m very naked under this towel.
“Are you him?” the young man asks. “Are you the photographer? … Dante …?”
The sound of my own name sobers me. I look the nervous little hottie over, sizing him up. I find my confidence again. “That would be me,” I reply, stepping aside to let him in.
He’s still timid when he enters my apartment, as if feeling like he doesn’t belong even after being given permission to come in. His eyes fall on my artwork that hangs from the walls. I wonder if he thinks any of them are mine. He fidgets with his hands in the way some lost student might on the first day of school, unsure where their first class is.
His curious, endearing innocence is something no camera can hope to capture. His striking face is just the kind I always yearned to put in front of my lens—something beautiful, nearly perfect, and with such humanity, it arrests you the moment you look at it. He’s a dream I could be having in the shower right now with my eyes closed.
Yet here I am, eyes wide open.
“I’ve heard … I’ve heard so much …” he starts to say, his voice curious and sweet.
I notice a bit of an accent. It’s subtle, barely there. “Have you?”
“Yes. About your work.”
Hmm, there the accent goes. Maybe I imagined it. “I take it you’re interested in my services?”
He stops at a small table near the wall, where a one-foot-tall replica of Michelangelo’s David carved in wood sits proudly, lit by a tiny spotlight over it.
He studies it, taken. That focus in his brilliant blue eyes speaks to me so deeply. When he looks so intently at something in my home, it’s like he’s looking at a part of me.
I’m behind him. “I take that as a ‘yes’ …?”
He spins around, surprised I’m there. “I …”
And his eyes drop to my chest again.
There’s no sign of hair on the smooth, creamy skin of his cheeks, which warm with the subtlest of pink undertones in my presence. He doesn’t even look like he could grow a mustache if he tried.
I wonder if he’s like that everywhere.
“Yes,” he finally says as he peels his eyes off of my body and takes a step back. “I … need a photo taken. Of me.”
“A photo of you?” I squint at him. “Just one … single … photo …?”
“Yes. Uh, n-no. I mean, isn’t it cheaper …? Do you have a special package … or something?”
This is when I make a dick joke.
A really lame dick joke.
Instead, I resist the humorous opportunity my bud Brett from upstairs would have leapt on. “No. I don’t offer special packages or discounts. You can’t discount art. Who referred you to me?”
“Are you going to—” He clears his throat, lets out a nervous chuckle, then revises his question: “I mean, do you need to get dressed? I feel like I may have … interrupted something.”
“You did. My shower.”
“Oh. I-I’m sorry. I caught the building door on my way in because someone was leaving, and then the door to your place was open, and I—”
“Not your fault. My last client left it open.” I shrug. “The issue is, I don’t take walk-ins. You’d have to schedule an appointment … usually.”
“Usually?” He lifts his eyebrows. “So are you making an exception for me?”
Those hopeful eyes of his.
Those full, parted lips.
His exquisite jawline, high cheekbones, arched clean-cut eyebrows, chiseled nose.
I want him in front of my camera. Now.
“Yes,” I finally answer.
3
Seeing him survey my apartment piece by piece was one thing.
Watching his eyes peel back when I take him into my fetish studio is another.
“What’s this?” he asks, wide-eyed, as he runs his fingers over a prop that hangs on the wall.
I’m still setting up the camera. I have put on a pair of loose gray gym shorts—san underwear—and a white tank. “It’s a cat-o’-nine-tails.”
