by Eliza Clark
This is something she’s totally made up: that I used to do nice drawings, and that she ever liked them. She told me once that a picture I drew of Galadriel looked like a burns victim (I was, like, twelve). She told me if I was naturally gifted, I’d be better at drawing, and you can’t really do anything with art if you’re not naturally gifted with it.
I grafted my arse off through GCSE, and she was shocked at how much I improved. Like yeah, no shit, when you put loads of work into something you get better at it. She was always like, Irina, you just give up if you’re not good at something straight away, as well.
The shit with Lesley absolutely would not have happened if I’d had a little bit more encouragement at home. My therapist at the time said so, more or less.
‘Yeah, well, Hackney Space is a pretty big deal, anyway. It’s good news.’
‘I suppose. It’s been years since you had an exhibition. I’ve never heard of them, though.’
‘I have print sales. I don’t need an exhibition it’s just… Well, it is a big deal.’
‘It can’t be that big of a deal if I haven’t heard of them. I’m not stupid just because I don’t know all the weird little galleries in London.’
‘I never said you were stupid, I just said, it is a big deal. Because it is.’ I hiss, ‘What is your problem, Mam?’ I’m furious again, and she’s just sat there. She lifts an eyebrow, with great difficulty.
‘Problem? I’m happy for you, darling. You needn’t take everything so personally! I just said I haven’t heard of the gallery.’ I sulk in my seat.
She offers to buy me an outfit as a treat. I accept, begrudgingly. A lifetime with this woman has taught me that I can be bought. Quite easily, in fact. She treats me to a little black dress from the sale at the soon-to-close-down branch of Westwood, and I’m just as giddy as a schoolgirl by the end of the afternoon.
I get off the bus a stop later and go to Tesco. I imagine I cut a strange image, with my Westwood bag and my basket full of red wine and bag salad.
There’s a new boy. He’s sitting behind the counter – staring.
Eddie
Customer Assistant
Checkouts
Joined the team in 2012.
He must be new to this store. Perhaps they were hiding him in Kingston Park or Clayton Street.
He has a gap between his front teeth – his tongue winks through when he smiles at me. It’s awkward. I smile back, but I’m not good at smiling off-hand like this. I generally need more prep, a moment with a compact mirror to practise.
He has curly black hair, brown skin, freckles. An earring – I love girly shit like that. He’s a vision in polyester, a checkout movie star; he’s the Oscar Isaac of random boys who work in Tesco. He reminds me of someone else too, an old model.
Eddie from Tesco has a little anime clip on his keychain, one of the characters from Madoka Magica – which I remember Flo being very into.
I drop some phallic vegetables into my basket, for the sake of it, and approach him at the counter. He says hullo and stares directly at my tits. He doesn’t make eye contact, and his eyes flick from my tits to my lips, to the boxes of tampons over my shoulder. He makes pleasantries, and he has quite impeccable manners, but he is still looking at my tits every few seconds.
I’ll scout him. I’ll be able to get him to do some weird stuff – beta males like this are usually nasty. When you don’t get any pussy and spend your teens falling down the free porn rabbit hole, you end up like one of those freaks with an ahegao profile picture on Twitter and an internet history that’s seventy-five per cent bukkake, twenty-five per cent tragic Google searches.
How do you know if a girl likes you?
How to casually flirt with women.
How to make a lasagne for one person.
How to feel less lonely.
Gokkun schoolgirl.
How do you get semen out of your carpet?
I realise he’s just asked me a question.
‘What?’
‘I asked if you live nearby,’ he says. Which is a good sign. It’s definitely a weird thing to ask a customer, so that implies he fancies me enough to risk asking me inappropriate shit. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I just feel like I’ve seen you around.’
‘I’m in here all the time. I live just round the corner.’
‘Cool,’ he says. ‘I— I like… your shoes.’
I hope he doesn’t have a foot fetish. Maybe he’s just into high heels, or huge women – possibly both. I hand him my business card, give him my spiel – blah blah blah photographer, blah blah blah street scouting.
‘I don’t pay, but, if you’re interested, I need models for a new show I’m doing. Heard of Hackney Space?’
He has heard of it. Which surprises me, on account of the fact he’s about my age and he works in a fucking Tesco.
I have an email from Mr B when I get in. He’s one of the private buyers I sent the previews of ‘Deaniel’ to. My best customer, in fact. I groan. The subject line reads: More? And he’s asking about the little redheaded creature. He has noticed those same teaser shots are gone from my website. I groan again.
Mr B just popped up one day – he got my personal email, and I still have no idea how. His custom is always generous, if slightly sporadic. He buys originals and large-scale prints, and he always tips. The more explicit the image, the more open his hand. He likes younger men, feminine men. He likes it when I’m in the photos. It was stupid to think he might not take me up – Deaniel’s photos tick all his boxes.
B,
Yeah, about him. Found out he gave me a fake ID. Already dumped the files and the stuff’s obvs off the website, (even the stuff behind the paywall) ((especially the stuff behind the paywall)). I’ll hit you up w my new shit soon. Sorry.
I have an exhibition coming up soon – Hackney Space. Very exciting.
Irina x
His replies are automatic. My phone buzzes before my shopping is even away.
Dearest Irina,
First of all, my darling, let me congratulate you.
Now, let me decry this sudden showing of a dark-ages morality. We should align ourselves with greater men than fuddy duddies in robes and wigs. Hadrian, Confucius, da Vinci. Why deny Zeus his Ganymede? Olympus is so heavy with treasure.
Alas, it is illegal. I will mourn for my Antinous.
Mister B
B,
Sorry. I’ll send you some freebies? Outtakes from some of the experimental webcam photos i took w that blond, skinny, girly looking boy frm April? Can’t remember his name but attached as an apology. Panties! V cute.
Irina x
Dearest Irina,
As lovely as you are fair. You are an artist in your photography as much as your seduction. Remember: Mister B is an omnivorous creature, and he delights in your participation as much as theirs.
Mister B
I sort out ten prints. Flo sneaks me into the college after hours, and lets me use the big, fancy printers there. I handle the photos with a pair of latex-free gloves, and post them on my way to the bus. I’m sending it first class to his ‘contact’ address: a Benjamin Barrio in Belmopan, Belize. Stupid. He generally pays as soon as he knows something’s in the post, so I drop him a cryptic email.
I shop around for a while and end up giving my card to a Hot Dad on the bus.
It’s a slow evening otherwise. I aggressively encrypt Deaniel’s image files, and store them in an encrypted folder, deep in the bowels of my laptop, where all of my other dodgy shit lives.
I’m woken up early the following morning. B sends me a fat wad of cash by special courier, who leers at my dressing-gown-swaddled chest (despite my unbrushed hair and teeth) when I accept his package. At least B didn’t try to pay me in fucking bitcoin like last time.
I also get a text from Ryan, about midday – a pissy one, with no ‘x’s or emojis, asking me to ring him.
I’m on a six-week paid sabbatical as of today – Ergi insisted. No police, but I’ll have to si
gn an incident report. Ryan doesn’t even say bye to me when he hangs up.
The group chat arranges the night out for Monday – student night. Flo switches her day off to Tuesday. The students have a Tuesday morning seminar that they decide to skip, on my behalf. For about twenty minutes. Then they drop out, so it’s just going to be me, Flo and Finch. Finch is the least obtrusive hanger-on from that group, anyway. He’s quiet, he always has MD and tobacco, and he always shares.
I’m having a coffee at Pilgrim’s and looking through some old photos. I’m trying to decide what to do for Hackney. One of my models works here: Will with long, wavy hair and a pretty face. He’s a little more conventionally attractive than my usual boys, but he’s just enough on the feminine side that I’m still into it. A lot of fat on his thighs, which I like. Flo once said she thought boys’ bums look like they’ve been shrunk in the wash, and I haven’t been able to un-see that since. I photograph a lot of men other people think are ugly, or weird looking. But, I always try and find a proportionally sized backside – it just makes me sad otherwise.
Will brings me my usual before I get the chance to order it — black americano, two extra shots of espresso. He hovers at my table, trying to force some ‘flirty banter’. He’s asked me out a few times, and I always say maybe. Sometimes I bump into him on nights out, and he gives me drugs and buys me drinks.
I slag off his new beard. He has a sharp chin, a face shaped like an oval – the beard squares his jaw, and makes him look butcher, and older. He has big lips too, like a girl’s, and the moustache covers the sharp points of his cupid’s bow. I imagine this was quite deliberate.
‘You look like a proper bloke,’ I whine.
‘Yeah. Like a Viking, with the hair, don’t you think?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I don’t think Vikings wear side ponytails.’ He’s got his hair pulled into a pink scrunchy. It swings down from the left side of his head, to his shoulder. He makes a face.
‘It’s a joke,’ he says, as if he’d forgotten. He goes to pull it down.
‘Leave it. It’s adorable,’ I say. ‘When do you finish?’ I ask.
‘In half an hour.’
‘Come play dress up with me.’
I make him drive me home – barista to go.
He drives us back to mine in his new car, a black Beetle he seems very pleased with.
‘You can’t afford a new car.’ He’s a postgrad student. I can’t remember what he studies.
‘It was a birthday present,’ he says. When he’s drunk, his accent is very neutral – I think he’s from the Midlands, or something – but sober, he has a forced, cockney twang. I imagine he thinks it makes him sound more exotic, more working class, but he often over-eggs it and goes a bit Oliver Twist.
We get to mine.
‘Let’s just go straight to the studio,’ I say.
‘You mean your garage?’
‘No, I mean my studio,’ I say, with a sneer. I converted it when I got rid of the car. Garage. Fuck off.
He sits on the sofa – this kitschy vintage loveseat I picked up from the British Heart Foundation – and I start picking through the rail of clothing I keep for them. I have to keep a lot of costumes. Most men dress like shit, you see. I’ve had them turn up to shoots in cargo shorts and ask what’s wrong with what they’re wearing and I’m literally, like, lmao. I pick out a thin cotton vest, and a pair of shiny polyester short-shorts for him. He looks sporty, so I fold him into yoga poses, ignoring the cracking of his bones and the popping of his joints. I change into a sports bra and yoga pants and take a set of timed photos with me in them, snarling as I bend his soft/stiff body into improbable, uncomfortable shapes.
‘Where’d you get that bruise?’ he asks.
I’m surprised he can tell through the makeup.
‘I was trying to chuck out this drunk lass on the close, and she clocked me. It’s pretty cool, actually. I get paid leave,’ I say.
‘Really, a drunk woman did that?’ he says. He looks up at me, while I try and push his ankles to his ears. ‘You know, if a feller did it, you can tell me,’ he says. The bruise must be darker than I thought. Still, that was spoken like a man who has never gotten into a fight with a girl in a Bigg Market takeaway at three a.m. A lass half my size knocked out one of my canines when I was nineteen. My parents had to buy me a set of veneers.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ I say. ‘I don’t know what you want to hear, mate. She was wearing rings.’ I snort. ‘What’s the rule about talking while we’re shooting?’ Don’t speak unless spoken to.
‘Sorry,’ he says. I don’t know what the fuck he thinks he’d do about it, if a bloke had hit me. Beat him up for me? Console me? Will is soft. I do press-ups every morning, and advanced yoga and Pilates twice a week. I push his left ankle closer to his ear, and he grunts, his glutes twinging against my stomach. I make sure he feels how strong I am, how easy it would be for me to keep him knotted up like this.
I let him go and get him to kneel. I wrap his hair around my fist and wrench his neck back.
‘That hurts.’ The timed flash goes off.
I tell him not to be such a baby while he dresses. He invites me to a party at his on Monday night. I tell him I might see him, and I kick him out.
The photos turn out great. I do love his hair. I’ve told him before, if he cuts it, he’ll never work for me again.
I go through his book. I met him when I moved back up north after my MA. Years pass as I flip the pages; I watch his hair get longer, and his outfits get skimpier. I watch him get more and more desperate to please me.
The shoot-comedown hits me a bit harder than usual, and I find myself slinking off to Tesco, after going through Will’s photos for another hour or so.
Eddie from Tesco is, thankfully, here (he wasn’t yesterday) and while he rings up my vodka, I tell him I’d really really like it if he modelled for me.
‘That’s not funny,’ he says. He’s red from scalp to collar. He checks over his shoulder, as if he’s nervous someone will hear. There’s a big, older woman arranging frozen food an aisle away. The manager, I think.
‘Do you think I’m taking the piss?’ I ask, lowering my voice and leaning close enough for him to smell my perfume. ‘I’m not. Look at my website. I’m serious,’ I say. ‘I always am. I literally have no sense of humour.’
He laughs.
He stares when I leave.
I think about Eddie from Tesco at home. Will he be pudgy? Slim? A surprise gym rat? Would his chest be hairy? He looks small. I can’t tell how small, though, as he’s always in a chair behind the cash desk.
He’s my favourite kind of boy to shoot, I think. A nice boy. A boy who works a demeaning job and has the subtleties of his beauty overlooked by glamorous women, and the industries of the aesthetic. The kind of boy who’s bewildered, and grateful, and will gaze down the barrel of my camera and do anything for me.
It’s like discovering a new flower no one else has noticed. Pressed in a photo; preserved and filed away forever, ageless and lovely and all mine.
I think about him all evening. I even pull out a sketchbook and scribble some ideas for photos. I try and find him on Facebook, and fail, without a last name.
I text Flo.
U were sooooo right about the new boy at tesco omg
Gave him my card the other week
Basically totally besotted
Yeah ha ha i thought you’d like him
See what i meant tho he is cute isn’t he??
I’m gunna see how his shoot goes but i actually get a really interesting feeling from him.
Might let him take me out for dinner, who knows?
Oh?
I thought you werent dating atm
I’m not
But maybe I’ll make an exception this time.
We’ll see.
Hmm okay.
Be careful, i guess?
About an hour later, I check her blog. She’s posted I fucked up, in isolation
, and does not respond to her concerned orbiters.
Occasionally, she needs a wake-up call. I can date anyone I want. I can make friends.
JUVENILIA
Hackney Space want a little bit of everything for the photo book – including old work I think might serve as an ‘interesting artefact’ to accompany the short biography at the start of the book.
I pull out my entire archive. Albums and portfolios, sketchbooks wrapped up in tissue and plastic, kept in boxes beneath my bed, in my wardrobe, and stacked up in my studio.
I have a digital archive as well, but that’s more of a best of. It’s a lot more recent, too. There are things I’ve deleted, things I’ve forgotten about and, at the end of the day, it’s a good excuse to look through my work. It’s good to get your hands on a physical archive, sometimes, to rip it to bits, and put it back together again.
I remember being six or seven and getting immense satisfaction out of lining all of my My Little Pony dolls in order by colour – starting with the red and pink ones, ordering them as close to the rainbow as I could, and finishing with the purples. I feel just like that, almost giddy, as I get the boxes stacked into chronological order.
I sit on the floor in front of the oldest box, labelled A-LEVEL/FOUNDATION, 2006–2009. I don’t know if I’ll end up pulling anything from here – it’s a lot of drawing, of greatly varying quality.
The early AS stuff is ropey – really ropey. There’s a lovingly rendered watercolour of Galadriel in there, and a lot of drawings of Brigitte Bardot, and, later, Pamela Anderson in Barb Wire. I did a whole project where I tried adapting Barb Wire into a graphic novel without realising it was a comic first, and the upward quality curve in my drawing is surprisingly steep.
My second sketchbook for that year opens with women but closes with men. I open the book – Barbarella, Dita hanging from her prop Martini glass, Jayne Mansfield and her impossibly tiny waist. Wishes – Wife Goals, or Life Goals? as Flo is wont to say when confronted with a beautiful woman. It’s funny the way my work changes – like a switch flipped. I turn a page and find a study of a grown man’s chest – headless, flabby and spattered with hair – next to a chest which is young, and androgynous. Typical for me, the line work is very good, but the shading is a bit half-arsed.