on, then go over to the windows and open the blinds. I’d like to have a big place, the kind with separate rooms and permanent sets, and an office. Who am I kidding? I’d like to be Annie Leibovitz. But at the moment I’ve just got this place, and it’s pretty cool. It used to be a jeweller’s, a seriously high-end classy place, until one day the police raided it. The place was empty for so long after that that the rent is dirt cheap, which is how I can afford it.
The back of my neck starts to prickle, and it occurs to me that he isn’t picking up his briefcase and leaving. Why isn’t he leaving? I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t want to beat about the bush, either. We’re not strangers but neither are we best buddies. Just because once a month I sit in his office and listen to him tut, and because sometimes when he walks past me in the street, I think about what it would be like to shag his brains out, doesn’t mean that I feel OK being here alone with him.
Because I most definitely do not feelOK. Not scared, more nervous. ‘Do you want something?’ I ask him. I know how rude I sound. I can feel the squeeze of it right in the pit of my stomach.
‘Ah,’ he says, sitting down on the arm of my battered velvet sofa, ‘yeah. Sort of. I guess.’
‘What?’
There’s a slapping sound as he drops his hands onto his knees. ‘Today was unexpected,’ he says. ‘For me, anyway.’
‘Believe me,’ I tell him, ‘it was unexpected for me too.’
‘Seriously? Because Amber told me you do this sort of thing all the time.’
Oh, god. ‘Not all the time. I do plenty of regular photography.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘You did my sister’s wedding.’
I blink. I can’t believe he even noticed I was there, and ‘oh’ is about all I can think of to say.
‘So do you do a lot of…’ He glances up at me. ‘What do you call this?’
‘Erotic photography.’
‘I was going to say porn, but that works.’
‘Hmm,’ I say, not daring to tell him his version is closer to the truth than mine. ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell anyone about it, though. It wouldn’t be good for business.’ I shift my weight from one foot to the other, shamefully aware of the deep, unsatisfied ache between my legs.
‘It might be,’ he says. ‘I can think of a few people who’d beg you to take photos of them with their dick out if it meant getting a little action from Amber Jones.’
I blurt out a laugh. ‘It’s her…’ I wave my hands in the general area of my chest.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘There’s no denying they’re impressive.’
I laugh some more, but I feel a strange kind of pain, and the next words I say tumble out of me without me being able to stop them. ‘Why did you look at me?’
He glances down at the floor, rubbing his thighs again. I wish he wouldn’t do that. It’s…distracting. I mean, as if the blue eyes and the mouth weren’t bad enough, he’s got these bloody thick legs. And big hands. And thick forearms. And the mouth. Did I mention the mouth? All of which were fine before, when I thought he was distant and controlled and safe. He’s not safe now.
He shakes his head a little, pulls in a breath. His hands still. Then he looks up at me. ‘Because Amber didn’t make me hard.’
Fortunately, I’m saved from having to think of a response to that by the early arrival of my 2 p.m. portrait session, Victoria and Paul. Seriously, has the world got it in for me today? They’re newly engaged, and they’ve got that smug, cuddly look about them. I make them wait in the doorway while I light some vanilla-scented candles in a desperate attempt to get rid of the smell of sex, and Victoria eyes me with an I know that smell look on her face and fiddles with her solitaire.
I fluster and flap and plump cushions and make inane comments about how busy things are, and by the time I’ve finished, Tom Hunt has nodded a polite hello to the pair of them and left. I get the two of them in position, the typical lovey-dovey pose, she spends about five hours arranging her hair, then we’re all set.
Only I got so distracted by Tom and his mouth and his hands and what he meant when he said that Amber didn’t make him hard that I’ve forgotten to transfer those photos to my laptop and clear the memory on the camera. So when I turn the camera on, the screen that I use to show clients each photo as I take it flashes up my last shot in all its artistic glory. Victoria is too busy adjusting the position of her left hand on her fiancés shoulder, so she doesn’t notice, but he does.
For a second we both stare at the screen, then my brain remembers how this works, and I press the button on the camera that sends the screen to blue. Paul stares at me with an avid curiosity that I do my very best to ignore, hoping to god that he doesn’t ask me if he just saw what he thinks he just saw, and if I do what he’s now thinking I might do.
‘OKthen,’ I say brightly, before he can speak. ‘Shall we get started?’ I start to move around them, directing the position of their hands, their heads, desperately hoping that his fiancée is as oblivious as she seems to be, and that he’s just well padded in the groin area and doesn’t really have a hard on.
‘Paul,’ she says after a minute or two of frantic snapping, ‘do you seriously have an erection right now?’
‘Of course not, darling,’ he says, watching me over the top of her head as I hold my breath and will this to be over. I’m too horny, too wired, too fricking terrified and confused to handle this. I have got to talk to Tom Hunt. I have got to make him promise not to talk.
‘Don’t lie,’ she snaps at him, and the atmosphere in the room becomes suddenly, shockingly frigid. ‘You’ve got a hard on. It’s obvious.’
And then I do something I’ve never, ever done before. ‘It’s my fault,’ I tell her. I actually say the words out loud. ‘I take erotic photographs. I accidentally put one up on the screen when I turned on the camera. I’m sorry.’ And for the second time today, my secret slips out, only this time I’m the one letting it go.
She turns to me then, all glossy hair and big sparkly ring, and I steel myself, waiting for her to tell me that it’s disgusting, that they’re taking their business elsewhere. Immediately. But she doesn’t. ‘Show me.’
‘Um,’ I reply, ‘I’m not sure I can do that. Client confidentiality.’
‘You showed him.’ There’s enough ice in her voice to reverse global warming. ‘Now show me.’
I don’t know how to handle this. I’m useless at confrontation. When someone tells me to do something, doing it is a reflex reaction. It happens before I’ve even had chance to think it through. It’s how I ended up in this position in the first place. I pull in some air, let it out again, and then flick back to the image. It pops up on the screen, in all its visually stunning, pornographic glory.
For a moment, the three of us just stare at it. Then we all sort of sigh. It really is a beautiful shot. The black and white creates that gorgeous arty look, and most of Amber’s face is in shadow. And she is so stunningly curved, and Tom…
I can’t think about what Tom is. I don’t know what Tom is.
‘Fuck,’ says the woman, and for the second time today, I’m shocked by that word. It’s not nearly as shocking as what she says next, though. ‘God, I’d like to suck on those tits.’
Not Tom’s cock, all eight inches of which are displayed in their full, hard glory, but Amber’s tits. She looks at her fiancé, and some sort of silent message passes between them.
‘Sorry about this,’ he says, as he takes her hand and pulls her towards the door, ‘but