Page 124 of The Photograph

He makes a face.

I rub my hands up my face. “Shit.”

“Athousand?” he mumbles, wiping his hand across his mouth. “And I wanted something special, that’s just mine. Oh! I sound like a child!” He tosses his hand up in disgust.

Fuck. How drunk are we both? Is this conversation going to veer into disastrous territory? I grab his hand. “You do have something special, Alex.”

“But how many men have had an identical experience with you that I’ve had? Ugh. They were discussing your penis in there, and I …”

Has the art exhibition really brought out all this? “No one, Alex.”

He snorts.

“It’s not the same with you.” I squeeze his hand. “It’s never been the same. I know I said yes to this”—I gesture at the warm space of the gallery behind us—“but I agreed to it because the only reason those photographs are intimate is becauseyoutook them. It’s both how you see me and how I am with you.” I shake my head. “No one else.” I know this to the depth of my soul.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m just recreating the picture you took of George. And if I am, then does it mean the same as your relationship with him?”

I’ve never regretted a photograph more than I do that one. Actions I take when my feelings are ungracious never turn out well. I sent it in a sting of pettiness.

“It couldn’t be more different.”

“God, that photo wounded me so deeply. It took my breath away. I’d just met you and you were this amazing man and then I got that. It was like a slap across the face.”

Oh, fuuucccck. How long has he been holding on to this?

“When I look at the photographs I take of you, sometimes I think, is this the same for him? A repeat of that night? If I look on your phone, will there be a hundred pictures of George just like mine of you?”

This conversation is killing me. All my past mistakes piling up like a bad traffic accident.

Holding my phone out, I say, “Take a look.” I waggle it at him. “Take a look, Alex.”

“You’re just so blasé about it. I could never do that.”

“What? Pose for someone else?”

He nods.

I press my hand to my chest. “Let me take photos of you, Alex. Let me show you how I feel about you. This isn’t casual, not by a long shot. The decision to do the photographs wasn’t made lightly: I wanted what they revealed about us.”

He scowls down at the sidewalk and scuffs his foot.

“Alex, you sent me a picture of that Tom guy kissing your stomach!”

“Yes, but I didn’t feel about him how I feel about you.”

“Neither did I! That photo was taken after I showed a guy out after a threesome. George, of course, couldn’t even remember his name.”

“A threesome?”

“Yeah.”

“So not just you and him?”

I narrow my eyes on him. “That makes a difference?”

“Of course it does! That photograph is unbelievably intimate. I torture myself with it sometimes.”

What?

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