I also get a text from Ryan, about midday – a pissy one, with no ‘x’s or emojis, asking me to ring him.
I’m on a six-week paid sabbatical as of today – Ergi insisted. No police, but I’ll have to sign an incident report. Ryan doesn’t even say bye to me when he hangs up.
The group chat arranges the night out for Monday – student night. Flo switches her day off to Tuesday. The students have a Tuesday morning seminar that they decide to skip, on my behalf. For about twenty minutes. Then they drop out, so it’s just going to be me, Flo and Finch. Finch is the least obtrusive hanger-on from that group, anyway. He’s quiet, he always has MD and tobacco, and he always shares.
I’m having a coffee at Pilgrim’s and looking through some old photos. I’m trying to decide what to do for Hackney. One of my models works here: Will with long, wavy hair and a pretty face. He’s a little more conventionally attractive than my usual boys, but he’s just enough on the feminine side that I’m still into it. A lot of fat on his thighs, which I like. Flo once said she thought boys’ bums look like they’ve been shrunk in the wash, and I haven’t been able to un-see that since. I photograph a lot of men other people think are ugly, or weird looking. But, I always try and find a proportionally sized backside – it just makes me sad otherwise.
Will brings me my usual before I get the chance to order it — black americano, two extra shots of espresso. He hovers at my table, trying to force some ‘flirty banter’。 He’s asked me out a few times, and I always say maybe. Sometimes I bump into him on nights out, and he gives me drugs and buys me drinks.
I slag off his new beard. He has a sharp chin, a face shaped like an oval – the beard squares his jaw, and makes him look butcher, and older. He has big lips too, like a girl’s, and the moustache covers the sharp points of his cupid’s bow. I imagine this was quite deliberate.
‘You look like a proper bloke,’ I whine.
‘Yeah. Like a Viking, with the hair, don’t you think?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I don’t think Vikings wear side ponytails.’ He’s got his hair pulled into a pink scrunchy. It swings down from the left side of his head, to his shoulder. He makes a face.
‘It’s a joke,’ he says, as if he’d forgotten. He goes to pull it down.
‘Leave it. It’s adorable,’ I say. ‘When do you finish?’ I ask.
‘In half an hour.’
‘Come play dress up with me.’
I make him drive me home – barista to go.
He drives us back to mine in his new car, a black Beetle he seems very pleased with.
‘You can’t afford a new car.’ He’s a postgrad student. I can’t remember what he studies.
‘It was a birthday present,’ he says. When he’s drunk, his accent is very neutral – I think he’s from the Midlands, or something – but sober, he has a forced, cockney twang. I imagine he thinks it makes him sound more exotic, more working class, but he often over-eggs it and goes a bit Oliver Twist.
We get to mine.
‘Let’s just go straight to the studio,’ I say.
‘You mean your garage?’
‘No, I mean my studio,’ I say, with a sneer. I converted it when I got rid of the car. Garage. Fuck off.
He sits on the sofa – this kitschy vintage loveseat I picked up from the British Heart Foundation – and I start picking through the rail of clothing I keep for them. I have to keep a lot of costumes. Most men dress like shit, you see. I’ve had them turn up to shoots in cargo shorts and ask what’s wrong with what they’re wearing and I’m literally, like, lmao. I pick out a thin cotton vest, and a pair of shiny polyester short-shorts for him. He looks sporty, so I fold him into yoga poses, ignoring the cracking of his bones and the popping of his joints. I change into a sports bra and yoga pants and take a set of timed photos with me in them, snarling as I bend his soft/stiff body into improbable, uncomfortable shapes.
‘Where’d you get that bruise?’ he asks.
I’m surprised he can tell through the makeup.
‘I was trying to chuck out this drunk lass on the close, and she clocked me. It’s pretty cool, actually. I get paid leave,’ I say.
‘Really, a drunk woman did that?’ he says. He looks up at me, while I try and push his ankles to his ears. ‘You know, if a feller did it, you can tell me,’ he says. The bruise must be darker than I thought. Still, that was spoken like a man who has never gotten into a fight with a girl in a Bigg Market takeaway at three a.m. A lass half my size knocked out one of my canines when I was nineteen. My parents had to buy me a set of veneers.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ I say. ‘I don’t know what you want to hear, mate. She was wearing rings.’ I snort. ‘What’s the rule about talking while we’re shooting?’ Don’t speak unless spoken to.
‘Sorry,’ he says. I don’t know what the fuck he thinks he’d do about it, if a bloke had hit me. Beat him up for me? Console me? Will is soft. I do press-ups every morning, and advanced yoga and Pilates twice a week. I push his left ankle closer to his ear, and he grunts, his glutes twinging against my stomach. I make sure he feels how strong I am, how easy it would be for me to keep him knotted up like this.
I let him go and get him to kneel. I wrap his hair around my fist and wrench his neck back.
‘That hurts.’ The timed flash goes off.
I tell him not to be such a baby while he dresses. He invites me to a party at his on Monday night. I tell him I might see him, and I kick him out.
The photos turn out great. I do love his hair. I’ve told him before, if he cuts it, he’ll never work for me again.
I go through his book. I met him when I moved back up north after my MA. Years pass as I flip the pages; I watch his hair get longer, and his outfits get skimpier. I watch him get more and more desperate to please me.
The shoot-comedown hits me a bit harder than usual, and I find myself slinking off to Tesco, after going through Will’s photos for another hour or so.
Eddie from Tesco is, thankfully, here （he wasn’t yesterday） and while he rings up my vodka, I tell him I’d really really like it if he modelled for me.
‘That’s not funny,’ he says. He’s red from scalp to collar. He checks over his shoulder, as if he’s nervous someone will hear. There’s a big, older woman arranging frozen food an aisle away. The manager, I think.
‘Do you think I’m taking the piss?’ I ask, lowering my voice and leaning close enough for him to smell my perfume. ‘I’m not. Look at my website. I’m serious,’ I say. ‘I always am. I literally have no sense of humour.’
He laughs.
He stares when I leave.
I think about Eddie from Tesco at home. Will he be pudgy? Slim? A surprise gym rat? Would his chest be hairy? He looks small. I can’t tell how small, though, as he’s always in a chair behind the cash desk.
He’s my favourite kind of boy to shoot, I think. A nice boy. A boy who works a demeaning job and has the subtleties of his beauty overlooked by glamorous women, and the industries of the aesthetic. The kind of boy who’s bewildered, and grateful, and will gaze down the barrel of my camera and do anything for me.