We walked into the first one we saw, and she kept looking at us and going, well this is just fine, isn’t it? And going as far as to inform me that she was in her element here, really and that sex shops were feminist spaces, in a lot of ways. I remember pointing to the wall of pornographic DVDs behind her, flanked by a mannequin with enormous plastic breasts and a cheap wig, modelling a strap-on and a neon pink bra with nipple cut-outs – what about that stuff, Flo; is that feminist?
She thought for a moment, and concluded that the strap-on was feminist but the mannequin and a vast swathe of the pornographic DVDs probably weren’t. If some of the porn had been made by a woman it would be feminist, but the majority of it probably hadn’t been. However, if we were to buy some porn, it would be a queer and feminist act of disruption.
I’d never seen Frank look so unimpressed. I couldn’t even laugh at Flo, I was so embarrassed.
She looks up at me, with the same eyes – crinkled at the corners now, but still desperately seeking my approval.
‘Yeah. Well.’ I shrug. ‘It’s just… Like. It was his idea. And I’m… cool, with that, if he wants to do that sort of stuff. And we have… things in common. I mean, he really understands my work, and he’s a great model. We’ll see, I suppose. It’s… nice, so far.’ She’s crying again. ‘What?’
‘I’m just so happy for you,’ she sobs.
Eddie from Tesco asks if he can come over after his shift the same night Dennis is due round. I get a bit of a cheap thrill telling him I’ve got a model coming round. I can almost feel the jolt in his stomach through the screen. I can see his cheeks going red. I imagine him sat behind his till, tears prickling the back of his eyes, blaming phantom allergies when a customer asks him if he’s alright.
Have fun! he says, and I ignore it. I watch an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras and a documentary about the Wests while I wait for Dennis. He rings my doorbell just as the police are digging up the patio. I let him into the house, leaving the documentary on. I offer him a coffee, and he says yes, so I make him one. A little begrudgingly, but I always try to be a bit more normal with new models, you know? If you’re nice, it loosens them up a bit.
Coffee in hand, he starts telling me about himself. I keep one ear on the telly while he talks about his middle management job. He has a good jawline, which is softening a little with age. He hasn’t shaved, and he’s still wearing his shirt and tie from work. He’s handsome, but his nose has been broken, maybe twice, and he has a chunk of scar tissue splitting his left eyebrow in half. One of his teeth is a little chipped, and his earlobe is ripped too, forked like a tongue. I interrupt him.
‘How’d you rip your ear?’ I ask.
‘Fighting,’ he says. ‘Had an earring, some Mackem cunt yanked it out on a derby day.’ His accent thickens when he says Mackem cunt. He’s rougher than I’d originally assumed. He shuffles on the sofa, and the white fabric of his shirt pulls tight around his arms – I can see a web of black tattoos through the cotton.
I don’t know how the fuck he gets onto his wife and kids from that, but he does. While I pick up my camera and twiddle idly with the settings, he delivers a snarling monologue about his ex, how she took the kids down to her mam’s in Plymouth to make it as hard as possible for him to see them. There’s a faded N-U-F-C across the knuckles on his left hand, and a tan-line where his wedding ring used to be.
‘Sounds shite,’ I say.
I switch lenses and I take his photo while he talks （and talks）。 I turn the flash on, and he just keeps talking. Honestly, if I’d known he was going to be this much hard work, I’d have had a bump or something.
He asks if he’s boring me.
‘I’m on a tight schedule today.’ I’m not. ‘But it’s great to get some background on you. Shall we head to the studio?’ I beckon, he follows.
He asks again – is he boring me?
I give him a mint. Coffee breath ruins the vibe.
He wants to know if he’s fucking boring me, spitting around the mint, which he still took, despite now looking as if he’d like to skin me.
I sneer. He goes off.
Blah blah blah, jumped up bitch, something about how I think I’m better than him even though he pulls in x-amount of money a year, like I’m supposed to be impressed by his bank balance, which I imagine is exaggerated because I did meet him on a bus. That’s what I tell him. He doesn’t like that.
He slams me against the wall. I feel my head hit the brick. He is so angry that he drools.
‘This is such a massive overreaction,’ I say. My camera is slung around my neck, the lens pressing into his belly. I tell him to chill out.
‘Fucking chill out,’ he hisses. I duck out of his grasp; I lunge. I bash him over the head with my camera.
If we were playing rock, paper, scissors, but it’s camera, toxic masculinity, skull – camera wins. Not a dent in the equipment, but a significant dent in Dennis, who crumples and lies gurgling in a rapidly growing puddle of his own blood. I snap a photo. I snap a few. He glitters like glass.
Glass. Glass in his cheek, glass in his eye. I must have broken the lens. I click a new one on. I sit on his stomach. I take more photos, and with each flash, his skin seems to get smoother, darker. His hair a little longer.
When I pull the shard of glass from his eye, it shifts from a cold blue to a warm brown, and stays that way when I put the glass back. I can’t feel him breathing anymore, and I… I don’t know. I feel sick. I jump, because I hear a bell, but I don’t know where it came from.
It’s fine. It’s fine, because I’ve done this before. I go onto automatic pilot. I dump my camera, and climb off him, rushing to the kitchen for the cleaver （because you can’t quite get through bone with a knife） and rubber gloves, and bin bags.
But when I get back, he’s sat up, and there’s no glass, and his eyes are blue again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Don’t call the police. No ambulance, no 999.’
I tell him to hang on, doing a bit of juggling with the cleaver, the bin bags, chucking them in the cupboard under my stairs while he says something about his kids and his wife’s lawyer, and a police caution for domestic battery.
Christ, I need to start running fucking background checks.
‘I won’t tell if you won’t,’ I say. And he goes what? He rubs his head, his eyes are unfocused, and his speech is slurred. I crouch down next to him. No glass. ‘You need to go to A&E. I’ll get you an Uber,’ I say.
‘No,’ he says. ‘No, no Uber, no one… What if he rings the police? They’ve all got fuckin’ CCTV.’
And I tell him an Uber driver’s not going to ring the fucking police, but he’s not having any of it. He says he’ll just get the bus home, but I don’t think he realises how hurt he is. When he touches his head, his fingers come back bloody. He looks at the blood, and his droopy, unfocused eyes roll back in his head. He flops to the ground again. I slap his face （no glass） and try pulling his ankles. I can move him – he’s heavy as fuck, but I can just about move him. My shoulder makes a popping sound, like a plastic bottle being twisted. I hiss.