I was supposed to be checking the histogram but all I could see was the way the sweat pooled in that little dip above her tailbone.
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Voice Memo 001
Timestamp: 02:14 AM
[Sound of a heavy glass clinking against wood, the rhythmic creak of a porch swing]
I’m recording this because if I don’t then by tomorrow morning I’ll have convinced myself I made it up or that it was just another storyboard for a client who wanted something with a little edge but it wasn’t edge it was a cliff and we all just walked right off it. My hands are still shaking so bad I can’t even hold a pen to write in my logbook and the air out here on the porch is thick enough to swallow like it’s trying to choke the truth out of me. It’s that Savannah humidity that feels like a wet wool blanket and normally I hate it but right now I need it to keep me grounded because my head is still up in that studio where the light was too white and the air was too thin. I can still taste Maya on my tongue. It’s sweet and metallic like a peach that’s been sitting on a silver tray in the sun and I can still feel the ghost of Gideon’s hand on the back of my neck where he gripped me like he was trying to steer a runaway horse. I shouldn’t have let them come over. I knew when I signed the contract for their anniversary portraits that there was something vibrating between them that didn't have a place in a standard suburban frame but I’m a professional and I thought I could handle a couple of pretty people who looked at me like I was the main course. I was wrong. God I was so wrong and I’m sitting here drinking this bourbon like it’s holy water but it just tastes like fire and shame and I want to go back. I want to go back to three hours ago.
Voice Memo 002
Timestamp: 10:05 AM (Twelve hours earlier)
[Sound of studio fans humming, the sharp click of a camera lens locking into place]
Okay testing the levels for the Whitaker session. Maya and Gideon are due in ten minutes. The light coming through the north windows is perfect—that soft milky Georgia morning light that hides the wrinkles and emphasizes the bone structure. I’ve got the seamless grey paper down. I want this to be clean. Minimal. They’ve been married five years and they told me they wanted something that captured the ‘truth’ of their relationship which is usually code for ‘make us look like we still want to fuck each other’ but with them I don’t think they need the help. I saw them at the gallery opening last month and the way Gideon stood behind her—not touching her just hovering like a threat—it made the hair on my arms stand up. He’s got these hands that look like they’ve done real work but he wears these tailored linen shirts that cost more than my first car. And Maya. She’s all soft curves and sharp eyes. She looks at a camera like she’s daring it to see something she hasn't already given permission for. I need to keep it professional. Focus on the f-stop. Focus on the composition. Don't look at the way her silk dress clings to her thighs when she walks. Don't think about what’s under the linen. Just take the damn pictures, Callum.
Voice Memo 003
Timestamp: 02:16 AM
[Sound of a long, shaky exhale]
It started with the light meter. I was standing too close to her trying to get a reading off her cheek and I could smell her. She didn’t smell like perfume she smelled like skin and something warm like toasted sugar and I could see the tiny little pores on her nose and the way her eyelashes tangled together. She didn’t move. She didn’t flinch. She just looked up at me and her eyes were the color of the marsh at low tide—that deep mossy green that looks like it could pull you under and keep you there. And Gideon was right behind her. I could feel him watching me. Not watching her. Watching *me* watch her. It was like a circuit was completed and I was the fuse that was about to blow. I remember my thumb was on the dial of the light meter and I was staring at her mouth—her bottom lip was just a little bit fuller than the top one and it was wet because she’d just licked it—and the silence in the studio was so heavy it felt like it was pressing the air out of my lungs. I said something stupid about the exposure being too high and my voice cracked like a teenager’s. I’m thirty-two years old and I’ve shot models in Paris and Milan but I couldn’t get a simple reading without my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Voice Memo 004
Timestamp: 11:30 AM (Then)
[Sound of a camera shutter firing in rapid bursts—click-click-click]
Lean in closer Gideon. Yeah just like that. Put your hand on her waist. No higher. Under the ribs. Maya tilt your head back. Close your eyes. Good. That’s good. Keep it there. [The shutter clicks again] The chemistry is—it’s intense guys. You’re doing great. Maya can you unbutton the top two of that dress? I want to see the line of your throat. Gideon move your other hand to her shoulder. No—touch her neck. Like you’re claiming her. Yeah. Perfect. [Shutter clicks] Stay there. Don’t move. The shadows are doing something incredible right now. I’m going to come in for a close-up. Don't look at me. Just look at each other. Like I’m not even here. [Sound of the photographer’s heavy breathing] Just ignore the camera. Act like you’re alone in your bedroom. Gideon whisper something to her. I don’t care what. Just make her react.
Voice Memo 005
Timestamp: 02:20 AM
[Sound of ice rattling in a glass]
He didn't whisper something sweet. I know he didn't because I saw her face change. Her eyes flew open and they went straight to mine. She wasn’t looking at her husband. She was looking at me and her pupils were so blown out her eyes looked black and I knew right then that they had talked about this. This wasn't an accident. This wasn't a spontaneous moment of passion. This was a trap and I was walking into it with my eyes wide open and my camera in my hand. Gideon’s hand moved from her neck to her breast—right there on the grey paper with the strobes flashing—and he didn't look away from me either. He watched me as he squeezed her through the silk and I saw her nipples harden through the fabric and I forgot how to breathe. I forgot about the contract and the gallery and my reputation. All I could think about was the fact that my jeans were suddenly too tight and the air conditioning in the loft had clearly failed because I was sweating through my shirt. I should have stopped it. I should have said 'okay that’s a wrap' and packed my gear but I just kept hitting the shutter. I wanted the proof. I wanted to see how far they’d go and I wanted to be the one who captured it. It was like a fever. A Georgia swamp fever that gets into your blood and makes you hallucinate. Only I wasn't hallucinating. I was watching Gideon slide his hand down the front of her dress and I was watching Maya’s head fall back as she let out this low sound—not a moan but a growl—and she reached out her hand toward me. Not toward the camera. Toward me.
Voice Memo 006
Timestamp: 12:45 PM (Then)
[The sound is muffled, like the recorder is on a table nearby. There is no shutter sound anymore. Only the low hum of the fan and the sound of heavy breathing.]
Callum: (Voice is thick, strained) We—we should stop. The light’s changing.
Gideon: The light is perfect. You know it is. Come here.
Maya: (Breathless) Look at me, Callum. Look at what you’re doing to me.
Callum: I’m just—I’m the photographer.
Gideon: You’re a man with a pulse. And you’ve been wanting to touch her since she walked through that door. I’ve seen you staring at her throat. I’ve seen the way you look at her mouth. Don't lie to me. I don't like liars.
[Sound of fabric tearing or sliding. A sharp intake of breath.]
Maya: Gideon, please. Tell him.
Gideon: Put the camera down, Callum. Set the timer if you have to have your precious 'truth,' but put it down and get over here. Touch her. Touch what I’m touching.
Voice Memo 007
Timestamp: 02:30 AM
[Narrator’s voice is frantic, words tumbling over each other]
I set the timer. God help me I set the Nikon on the tripod and dialed in the intervalometer so it would fire every ten seconds and then I stepped out from behind the lens and it felt like stepping into a furnace. My boots sounded like thunder on the hardwood floor as I walked toward them and Maya was already half-undressed her silk dress was pooled around her waist and she was wearing these tiny lace things that didn't hide a damn thing and her skin was glowing like pearl in the studio lights. Gideon didn't move. He stayed right behind her holding her hips and he looked at me with this challenge in his eyes that said 'show me what you’ve got' and I didn't hesitate I couldn't I reached out and my hand found the side of her neck and she was so hot she felt like she was burning up. I kissed her and it wasn't a polite kiss it was a collision of teeth and tongue and hunger and she tasted like the bourbon we’d had earlier and like something deeper more primal. Gideon’s hands were everywhere. He was stripping my shirt off before I even realized I’d stopped kissing her and then his hands were on my chest his palms were rough and calloused and the contrast between his touch and Maya’s soft mouth on my throat was enough to make my knees buckle. We were on the floor on that grey paper and the camera was clicking away every ten seconds a rhythmic heartbeat that kept time with the way Gideon was unzipping my fly and the way Maya was arching her back against my chest.
It was a mess of limbs and sweat and the sound of skin hitting skin and I was lost in it. I was buried in her. She was so wet and she was making these small broken sounds into my ear while I worked two fingers inside her and I felt her clit pulsing against my thumb and I was watching Gideon watch us. He wasn't just watching though he was part of it his mouth was on her other breast and his hand was reaching down to find me to wrap around my cock and pull me toward him. He gripped me so hard it almost hurt but it was the kind of hurt that makes you want to crawl deeper into it and he started stroking me in sync with my fingers inside his wife and I’ve never felt anything like it. It was like being pulled in two directions at once. I was the center of their universe and they were both trying to consume me. Maya reached back and grabbed Gideon’s hair pulling his face down to hers for a hard fast kiss while I was still inside her and then she looked at me and whispered 'now' and I didn't need to be told twice. I shifted her so she was on her back her legs draped over my shoulders and I pushed into her. She was so tight and so hot it felt like my skin was going to melt off and I heard the camera click and I knew it had caught the look on my face—that absolute total surrender to the moment. Gideon was right there behind me his chest pressed against my back his cock hard against the crack of my ass and he was whispering things I can't even repeat things about how good I looked inside her how much he’d wanted to see me break and then he reached around and started working his thumb over my balls while I hammered into Maya and I just lost it.
I was coming and I couldn't stop it I was shouting her name and Gideon’s hand was there to catch me his fingers slick with my seed as he pulled me back against him and I felt him coming too his body jerking against mine and Maya was screaming her climax into the empty loft and the camera just kept clicking. Click. Click. Click. Recording the wreckage of us. The way we were all tangled together like some kind of human knot that could never be untied. Gideon’s teeth were on my shoulder and he bit down just hard enough to leave a mark a brand that I’ll have to explain to someone someday but right then I just wanted him to sink his teeth in deeper I wanted to stay there on that grey paper forever in that white light where nothing else existed but the three of us and the smell of sex and the sound of the fan.
Voice Memo 008
Timestamp: 03:00 AM
[The sound of the porch swing has stopped. It is very quiet.]
They left an hour ago. They didn't say much. Gideon just squeezed my hand—hard—and Maya kissed my cheek and told me she couldn't wait to see the proofs. The proofs. God. I have a memory card sitting on my desk right now that contains the most beautiful most obscene things I’ve ever seen. I should delete them. I should take that card and throw it into the Savannah River and watch it sink into the mud. But I won't. I know I won't. I’m going to go back inside and I’m going to pull them up on the big monitor and I’m going to look at the way the light hit Gideon’s back while he held me. I’m going to look at the way Maya’s eyes were rolled back in her head. I’m a romance novelist’s dream and a professional’s nightmare. I’m a man who just found out that 'truth' is a hell of a lot dirtier than I ever imagined. My skin still smells like them. I don't think I’m going to shower. I want to keep the smell of the loft on me for as long as I can. I want to remember what it felt like to be the third point in their triangle. I’m sitting here on this porch and the crickets are screaming and the air is like soup and I am more alive than I’ve been in a decade. I’m going to have another drink. And then I’m going to go look at the pictures. I’m going to look at every single frame until I can feel them again. Every. Single. One. [Sound of a heavy swallow, the glass being set down, and then the recording ends.]
