Shutters of Light

The Photoshoot

Anna caves in her stomach, revealing the fleshly valley of bones. Her body is nearly frozen, yet her stretched lip corners twitch. The wet air hissing through her teeth ruptures the humming of the AC in the room. I wait for a perfect moment where her eagerness meets my unexpected capture. Slowly her lips release their hyper-extended pull, crawling back down her mouth. Her belly receives back the breath of life, refilling her natural shape. I press down on the camera, propelling it into a cascade of images. Thirty images of perfection.

"Why'd you wait so damn long," she says, sitting up off the chaise.

"Because," I say, viewing the camera screen, "that pose was so forced." She kicks off her shoes, making them skid across the wooden floor, then walks over to me.

"Hmm, I don't look half bad. Let's do another with my hair down."

I walk with her back over to the chaise, then jump on it. She lays on the pillow, looking to her right with her left hand under the pillow. I stand over her, trying to decide whether if I want half of her body in the shot or close up on the face. The viewing screen on my camera shuts off, then flickers in and out. A white screen appears, barely showing me the image of her.

"Are you going to take the picture?" She says.

"Give me a sec. I'm having issues with the screen." The camera comes back, showing her squinting at the camera and her mouth open with only her two front teeth visible. I freeze. Why is she giving me that face? She leans closer to the camera, biting her lower lip with her whole upper teeth.

"So, do I look like her?"

"Huh?" My camera screen flashes as if the camera flashlight is facing me. Explosions of stars dart in every direction like the sparks of someone wielding. I wipe my eyes with my palms, then, for some strange reason, I'm across the room with my back against the wall and the camera back on the stand. Anna is gone.

I look through the viewfinder, seeing my old friend Sherry combing her bleached blonde hair with her fingers on the chaise. Her red dress is tight around her body. The folds of her waist protrude out, and her face is layered with foundation. Some of her pimples poke out through her makeup, creating a whiteish rocky hill across her face. She throws the left side of her hair behind her and the other side forward. When I back away from the camera, she's physically there.

"I'm ready, Damion. How's my face?" She looks towards the wall to her left, with her mouth slightly open. I zoom in to her neck, viewing the separation of the color of her peachy neck and whiteish face. "Is it hideous?" I zoom back to find her looking straight into the camera. I fear she'll gag at the sight of the battlefield on her face.

"Just stay still, Sherry. I can always edit them in post." Her body slightly slouches, then her eyes move down a few centimeters.

"Mhmm."

I take her picture. In the flashes of light, she vanishes in a blink of an eye. A loud thud that sounds like boots slapping wood makes me look to my left. Sherry is tapping the floor with the tip of her boot as she looks out the window. Her hair is now a dark brown, short, resting over her shoulders. She's petite, wearing a glittery black sweater, jeans with a black colored crucifix stitched on the back pockets, and brown pointed-toe boots. I barely can see her thin jawline, alongside her bulging cheekbone. The skin around her knuckles tightly adheres to her bones.

"Sherry?"

"Yes, Damion?"

"I'm ready for your picture." Her boots clap the wood, making them echo in the room. She sits in a metal chair, leaning back with her head over the backrest with her hand over her stomach right behind a table with various prescribed pill containers. Colorful pills, varying from tablets, capsules, lay around the bottles. "Are you okay?"

"Starving." I reach into my pocket, pulling out a half-empty bag of peanuts, present it to her, then she puts her hands under her forearms. "No, thank you." Her hands pull the sleeve down, exposing more of her shoulder, revealing three vertical cuts in the skin.

"You've been cutting again."

"Just," she says, exhaling air out her mouth and covering her shoulder, "take the picture, please, Damion." I aimlessly press down on the camera, curious to know what'll happen if I don't look through the viewfinder. Unfortunately, it's the same momentary blindness. My eyes fade back into focus. The room is empty, and the window blinds are closed. Suddenly someone behind me grabs me with their right arm over my shoulder, while their left arm wraps my stomach.

"Whoa!" I say.

"Did I scare you?"

"Sherry?'

"Uh, who else?" She turns me around, then pinches my cheeks. Her hair is long, blonde, but her brown hair is growing out of her roots, plus her skin is a light color goldish bronze. She has gained back some of her weight in her face and body. There aren't any bulging bones emerging through her skin. I can't keep myself from looking up and down, viewing her white bathing onesie. "It's been a while. Three years I think." She says.

"Yeah! You ghosted me. Where'd you go?"

"Sorry, I was going through some shit, but now I'm back." Out of nowhere, two men come in the room, both wearing yellow-tinted aviators and dawning the same purple swimming trunks. Their facial hair is short, and the edges are sharply trimmed. I don't know who they are, yet I'm already annoyed by their presence. They remind me of Instagram models who attend lavish parties with a plethora of drunkards and stone heads in them.

"Sherry, who are these guys?"

She doesn't reply but lightly holds my hands. "I'll see you later, then?"

"Please, wait." I watch them walk away with her, heading towards a bright white doorway. The doorway's light swallows them, then consumes me back standing over Anna. My camera goes off, making her cover her eyes with her forearm.

"Hey!" She says, frowning with her arms crossed. "Wait till I'm ready."

"Sorry, my finger slipped."

The image isn't bad, but I erase it for her sake. I aim the lens vertical, just barely getting enough of her upper body. I can't get enough of her beauty. Her hair, body, and face remind me of Sherry. But Anna's snappy attituded is a pain to deal with. I take two photos and present them to her.

"They're perfect," she says. She takes a light hold of my arm and repositions to a sitting position. "Hey."

"What?" I say, a bit loud and quick.

"I've noticed you haven't been your usual hyper self at all today."

"Sherry is deep on my mind." She lets go of my arm and tucks her hand under her leg.

"Should I leave and come back later?"

"If you want to." There's a silence between us. I walk back over to my camera stand to place the camera back on it. When I turn around, she's still sitting. "You're not leaving?" She looks at the window then comes over to me.

"Come with me."

"Where are we going?" She laces her fingers in my hand. I hesitate to close my fingers down on them.

"Maybe we'll go walk in the park or eat lunch at some random restaurant. I think you should stay out of the studio for a while." While we walk away from the room, I turn my head slightly to look behind me. She gently pushes my face forward with the index finger of her other hand. "Yeah, maybe a few weeks will do."