This was the second but last model for the day and Joshua Berg didn’t look up when she entered. He heard her give a little cough which, he knew, was to gain his attention but for now he had to focus on light readings, anyhow, he wasn’t ready to make small talk.
Shuffles around the studio, someone flicking a tape, colours shifting across the window with the passing shapes of the sky, he was aware of all around him, but intent on his art.
“Re-arrange the cloth, I want the blue, get the white chair and angle it diagonally, I want it pristine so wipe it down. Get her sitting astride it with the back of the chair against her chest, I’ll move her when I’m ready,” all this in muttered undertones to his attentive assistant Gavin, a slick individual, willing but not too obviously eager.
Berg pressed a finger on the shutter, a random shot to test the light. Checking the digital screen he saw the girl for the first time. Her oval face had turned toward the window, tilted up with eyes lowered, her neck stretched forward showing the length and curve of her throat. Purple black wisps of hair curled at her sharp jawbone, clinging there as if glued. Her arms made triangles with her hands resting on the back of the chair, one leg outstretched, the other curled beneath her. Joshua couldn’t have placed her better himself.
Removing his gaze from the screen he shot out a surly “good afternoon.” Returning the gaze with a slight smile she repeated the words in a soft posh roll of the tongue.
Plum in her mouth, he thought, nice. So many of these girls looked positively aristocratic and then gobbed out words from the gutter.
Joshua turned her in every direction, zoomed into her navy eyes with his curious and unforgiving lens. Circumnavigated her poreless flawless skin with close ups to make the most perfect wince. He had her legs stretched out forwards, to the side, yoga like, supple poses, hard angles, soft curves. Her shoulders leant to the right, to the left, arms outstretched toward him, behind her head, fingers in her hair, her wide lips in a pout, stretched across arctic snowdrop teeth, lips curled in disdain, a furrowed forehead, anger, bemusement, bewilderment, confusion, self-satisfaction, glory, dreamlike and so it went on. Joshua made her give him everything, every emotion a human can show. Not once did she complain or sigh or answer back.
Later he stroked her hair as he talked to her, much later he stroked her back as they sat together in the pub. “Will you be my muse?” He said.
There began a love story, there began an epic story, the famous photographer and his model became the subject of more photographs than he had ever taken.
