Authors: Faleena Hopkins
Dani walked to the male model
who
had been watching, transfixed.
She
held out her hand, and he reflexively reached out and took it in his own.
She led him silently behind the settee
where she posed him kneeling behind, modestly hidden. “Regal.
I want regal,” Dani said quietly and
left.
Walking to the camera, she released it from the tripod
and looked through the viewfinder.
Adjusting the ISO to 300 for a brighter exposure, she pushed the
shutter.
The strobes flashed and
the image sprang onto the computer screen and Canon’s LCD monitor
simultaneously.
The team took in a
breath. The overexposure of light bounced off the white seamless paper and gave
it a beautiful ethereal effect.
They were surrounded in white light with accents of colors showing
through.
“I love
it!!!” Bruce almost yelled.
Terri
and Steph smacked him.
Julian just
smiled. He could see Dani wasn’t pleased.
Not yet.
She took a few more shots at different angles.
She frowned into the camera display at
the latest shot.
She looked at the
models and her eyes flashed with an idea. “Switch,” she said quietly.
The models looked confused but Dani patiently
waited.
The female woke up
first.
“Oh!
Sorry, I felt like I left my body there
for a moment.”
The male agreed, “Yeah.
It was like I was dreaming.”
They stood and changed places. The
female now stood behind the settee, bent slightly, her bosom nearly coming out
of its confinement.
He lay down
facing outward on his side. Fully exposed.
Dani handed the camera to Julian and walked onto the set
where she asked the female, “What is your name?”
“Josie,” she
answered, more than a little surprised.
Dani looked at the male.
“Robert,” he offered.
“Great.
Josie, have you ever been in love?
Like real love where you can’t stop thinking about him, or her?
Where it’s almost an obsession?
No.
Where it
is
an obsession.”
Josie looked like she didn’t want to admit it, but it was apparent she
had been.
She nodded.
“Good.
When you look down at Robert, he is that
man.
You are finally with him.
He is yours - for the taking.
I want to see that in your eyes.
But don’t act it.
Be it.”
Josie nodded, her eyes a little scared
and a little excited.
She took the camera from Julian and gave him a small
smile. His eyes glinted and he beamed at her.
The team exchanged looks.
Turning back to the scene, she waited.
Robert looked forward, exposed and
relaxed on the settee. Josie’s hand reached toward his face but didn’t touch
it.
Her body responded to her
emotions and shifted to that of desire. The energy was palpable. Dani brought
the camera up, cocked her head to the left and took a picture.
This was her shot.
Her entire team reacted as the image
blew onto the screen and surpassed their hopes.
Dani turned off her camera and smiled, “That’s a wrap,
guys.
Thank you.”
____________________
Dani awoke with her hands gripping the comforter. Her
dream had been awful. In it, Anjelica painted a nude picture of Adrian.
He posed for her, lying on the couch
like Robert had for Dani. The two of them were alone in Anjelica’s apartment
with lit candles on every surface, casting the warmest light. Anjelica paused
to pour a new color onto her palette and Adrian took his opportunity by rising
up and going to her.
He kissed
her.
She objected, but he kissed
her harder.
She gave in to him and
their mouths moved on each other’s angrily.
They weren’t alone. Dani was there, too.
But she was trapped in a cage from which
she was forced to watch.
A cage from which she could not
escape.
She asked them to stop, pleaded and begged them to let her out.
Anjelica turned to her friend and Dani felt sure she would release her but she
smiled slyly instead. Adrian ignored Daniella, or, did he not see her? She
begged and begged to deaf ears to be let out.
Let me join you, she offered, please!
She didn’t want to join. She wanted him all to herself, but she’d do anything
to get out of the cage.
Watching
Anjelica being touched by him sparked off a fire in her that was not safe for
anyone. Adrian wrapped his arms around Anjelica’s waist, embraced her, pulled
her blond hair aside and kissed her neck. No fangs – just a normal human
connection.
Human sex. Dani, in
agony, could not look away.
The dream stuck to her as she walked out into the loft
and crossed to her phone.
She had
three texts waiting for her. One from Julian: When do you want me to come grab
the hard drive? One from Stewart: The bartender…ego and all…likes you. He asked
about you ;) And one from Anjelica: I know Stewart has probably already told
you but Adrian, that bartender, he asked us about you after you left. He’s hot!
Call me.
She didn’t call. She stared at the words “He’s hot!” and
thought seriously about throwing the phone out a window. Instead she dropped it
onto the unmade decoy bed and went into her closet.
She had to see him again. This time she would go to
Nectar alone. The thought soothed her, like a druggie - when he knows he’s
about to score. She thumbed through her closet, settling on a wine colored
dress that fell mid-thigh, a pair of black boots and a silver necklace that
hung to her breasts accentuating her neck beautifully.
She combed her hair, letting it fall
long and straight and put on deep red lipstick and a bit of mascara.
Her eyes flashed with intent as she
looked at her reflection.
Time to
play up those assets.
Best not to show up hungry, she thought. She crossed to
the kitchen and opened the cupboard, moved the evaporated milk, grabbed a
hospital bottle and poured her dinner into a beautiful green wine glass from
Monaco, late 1800’s. She held up the glass and touched the painted vine design
that circled the rim, remembering
In Monaco, she’d lived right on the water, in the heart
of the city – easier to hide among many.
The people, the climate, the buildings and
the water were so beautiful.
She
had wanted to stay, could have stayed for four decades, instead of one.
But, as with every home, she’d had no
choice but to leave.
Her inability
to age drew attention if she stayed longer than ten years, maybe eleven, maybe
twelve.
Depended on how many people
she knew and how much she pushed her luck.
She gravitated towards cities as Elizabeth taught her. Small towns were
lovely but those usually held bored, curious eyes.
Bored people are often the most
dangerous.
Making friends was problematic. Getting close to people
you knew that you’d one day have to say goodbye to, hurt.
It took seventy years and six
relocations to learn to develop a level of detachment.
As she’d get to know people, and tell
them lies that masked her true identity, she would remind herself:
“You’ll have to say goodbye at some
point.
Don’t forget
this.
Keep them a safe distance
from your heart. Protect yourself. It’s easier this way.”
Every time she had to move, she invariably was asked to
explain why she was going.
She
discovered quickly via trial and error that ‘marriage’ was the best, most
palatable answer. It had worked far better than any other excuse did in future
years. People understand a married woman more than they do an unmarried
one.
It’s safer somehow, even to
this day.
When she was human, in the 1800’s, marriage was a
necessity for survival for women.
No matter how intelligent or capable, women were not allowed to own land
or have a job other than that of governess or servant. And if you were lucky
enough to marry, were your husband to die and you gave him no male heirs, your
home and all its property would fall to the ownership of his nearest male
relative.
You and your children
would be at the mercy of this man and could be thrown on the streets and forced
to move in with one of your own relatives, to raise your children the best you
could.
The best solution, in this
scenario would be that the new landlord wished to marry one of your
daughters.
Then all would be saved.
It was also quite common for a man
to marry his brother’s wife if his brother were to fall prey to the reaper’s
scythe, and she would be glad of being rescued from poverty.
In the year 2012, she could say whatever she pleased when
she moved. And also thanks to Botox, Restalin and face-lifts, she could stay
twenty years in one place if she liked.
Maybe longer.
No one aged, not if they could help it,
especially not in Los Angeles. Her current job of photographer served two
purposes quite well.
Being a night
owl was normal. Looking perfect – also normal.
She picked up the remote, opened her curtains, walked to
the window and looked for the moon. “Where are you?” she asked aloud,
searching.
The sky was covered in a
cloudy haze of light purple, refracted through smog and what looked to be the
promise of rain.
Rain would be
nice.
Her eyes fell to the street
below. The only person there was a drug addict, mumbling to
himself
.
The only people she ever saw in
the streets near her building were homeless people and crack addicts.
She lived in one of the dead parts of Downtown LA and the
building was mostly empty.
It had
only eight large lofts and was four stories high. Dani’s floor – the 2
nd
- was empty but for herself.
She
kept it that way by paying for both apartments even though she only used
one.
She thought of opening up the
other loft, using both, but all that space would have made her feel lonely.
Julian lived one floor above, on the opposite side,
overlooking the parking lot. A married musician couple lived next to him, who
no one ever saw thanks to their traveling schedules and predilection for
heroin. The first floor was empty since the old Japanese lady passed away a
year ago. On the top floor lived an agoraphobic writer who had his groceries
delivered to his door and his garbage removed.
The loft next to his was empty. Rent was
fairly cheap because they were so far off from the center of the new Downtown
scene and it remained largely disregarded due to the seedy
neighborhood.
Perfect for someone who wished to remain
anonymous.
Dani sipped again from the glass and watched the addict
amble along the street below her window. He didn’t see her. He was white,
around twenty-nine with sandy brown hair. Odd. He was dirty but looked like
once he had come from the middle class. He was definitely an addict and on his
own now. He bobbed as he walked, looking around for something she couldn’t see,
something that was probably only in his mind.
She noted that he didn’t look
scared to be walking alone in a bad neighborhood. Then he disappeared from
view. She reluctantly decided it was time to go, and shut the curtain.
She washed out her glass, made sure the secret fridge
remained secret and picked up her phone to send Julian a text: Later.
I’ll call you.
She grabbed her bag, her keys, her lipstick and
left.
Upstairs Julian had been making a sandwich and, when the
text came through, he’d jumped for the phone on the couch.
He read it and set the phone down.
He picked it up again and read her other
texts from other days.
He put the
phone down again and looked at it.
He walked back to the kitchen and put the sandwich fixings away, put the
knife and plate back in the cupboards.
He grabbed a beer and went back to the couch and sat down.
The elevator was empty when she got on. She rode down,
humming to herself. The door to the elevator opened and she walked into the
foyer.
Her footsteps echoed against
the tile. She stepped on something sharp and hard, and stopped, bending over to
check the bottom of her boot. A small screw had lodged itself there and she
pulled it out, tossed it aside where it loudly rolled into a corner.