Slash: A Slay Series Novella

by Laurelin Paige

  It makes me all the more eager to figure out the fix, not just because it’s Hendrix who is facing this potential torment. I would be equally motivated if it were any of my students, but also, admittedly, this torment will also haunt me if not resolved because it is Hendrix.

  I twist my lips, studying, thinking. I flip through the last images. I flip back. “I need to see something,” I say. Without waiting for his response, I march through the classroom door—propped open since it’s the kind that automatically locks when shut—to the computer at my desk. I wiggle the mouse to wake it up, type the title of the photo I’m looking for in the browser search bar, and hit enter.

  It isn’t until the image is full on the screen and he leans in to look with me that I realize that he followed me in here. That I realize that we’re practically alone. That I realize that I’ve made an awesome mistake.

  My heart quickens its pace.

  “Leopard, sleeping,” he says, repeating the name of the photo before us. “That one won me the BWPA. Almost four years ago now. Flattered you knew it by name.”

  Sure, he’s flattered. I’m...well, I’m a bit embarrassed, of course, but not as badly as I would have imagined I’d be. I’d forgotten that about him, that he has a way of easing me like a fragrant balm against sliced skin.

  “It’s worthy of the award, though not my favorite.” I’m not sure why I’m being so honest. Probably because I’ve gone completely nutters and have lost all control.

  “And which one is that? Your favorite.” He’s closer now, his head lowered so that I can feel his exhale at the side of my cheek.

  “Elephant playing in black and white,” I admit.

  “That one is a favorite of mine as well.”

  As it should be. I’d be beside myself cocky if I’d taken that shot or anything near it. It’s complete magic how he captured the animal spouting water from its trunk at its companion, the droplets of water catching the sun like diamonds. It’s playful and charming and poignant, capturing a kinship between two animals that is rarely caught among humans. Or perhaps it’s that I have been so rarely playful myself.

  I’ve spent endless hours with it, and still, every time I see it something blooms inside me.

  But I didn’t rush in here to fawn over his art.

  I nod toward the screen. “This is nearly identical to that photo of Kaila.”

  “I’m not sure she’d appreciate being compared to a wild animal, but go on.”

  “Not the leopard itself,” I sigh. “The composition. The angle, the way you’ve framed it, the direction of the light. Do you see it?” It’s his style epitomized in both shots.

  “Are you worried I plagiarized myself? I promise I’m not going to issue a complaint.”

  I shoot him a look that says would you please understand me? Sometimes I find that works as well as explaining myself, if not better.

  This time it seems to do the trick. “All right, I see what you’re seeing,” he says. “This shot is much better than any on that camera you’re holding though.”

  Exactly my point. “So what’s the difference?” I’ve had mentors ask me similar questions. I always assumed they knew the answer when they asked and just wanted me to find it for myself, but now I wonder if they just realized the only person who can really say what’s missing from a piece when it’s that near perfection is the person who sees it best of all, the person who saw it from scratch before it was a moment or a story or art. When it was raw and living.

  Hendrix straightens, and I follow like I’m tied to him with an invisible string because I know he knows the answer, and I’m eager to have the mystery solved.

  “Easy,” he says. “My subject today wasn’t the most fascinating thing in the vicinity.”

  It’s a loaded statement, one that has me rejoicing and melting and panicking all at the same time. It’s a relief that he doesn’t like that twit, which isn’t a fair thing to call her at all since she has not demonstrated any reason to be labeled as such except to exist. And it’s exactly what was missing from the photo. It’s a breakthrough when a person can identify the flaw so succinctly, and always deserves to be acknowledged as such. Which makes me want to give him a high five or a fist bump or whatever it is that’s the current way to express congratulations. Makes me feel almost playful enough to do so.

  But his answer was also pointed, and while I’m quick to self-doubt, I’m perceptive enough to know what he’s saying, and now I can no longer cling to any confusion about why he took this class. He’s here for me. He took this class for me.

  “Camilla…” It’s the same way he said my name the other night at the bar, an invitation and a warning that whatever follows will be hard for me to hear. A pause to let me decide if I can bear it.

  Frankly, I’m not sure that I can. It’s a lot to process. And the clock is ticking in the back of my head. Two more students to get through. No time to acknowledge this. No desire to deal.

  “I have to get back to the others,” I say dismissively. I hand him his camera and, like I did at Nightsky, I head for the door.

  He follows this time, though. Because that’s where he’s supposed to go, not because he’s chasing after me, yet it feels like being chased, and while I wanted to get away from him that night, I don’t feel that desperation today. Turns out I sort of like the feeling of being chased, a surprise to me since I dreaded anytime Frank came after me. Different circumstances, of course. Frank rewarded me with beatings when I was caught, convincing me I deserved it because how dare I run? It would be understandable if I had permanent PTSD from it. I definitely did for quite some time. Perhaps that’s why I’m always running from lovers who I am absolutely sure will not follow.

  Hendrix, though.

  Is it possible I like that he’s come for me? Is it possible that I could enjoy what would be waiting if he caught me? Is it possible that I could try?

  I’m not sure. There’s a hopeful buoyancy in my limbs, though, as I conference with the last two, and a smile dresses my face as I wrap up the class and give the homework for the week. I’m nervous for the class to end, knowing Hendrix will surely approach me, but I’m excited too.

  Which is why I’m crushed when he doesn’t stay after to talk. He lingers to gather his things, letting everyone else leave ahead of him, but then he slings his camera bag over his shoulder and starts for the door, a door that will lock as soon as it swings shut behind him, and he won’t be able to come back in, and I’m so scared by that metaphor that I call out after him. “Hendrix!”

  He turns without hesitation, his brown eyes warm like melted chocolate. “Yes?” he says, and he doesn’t sound at all annoyed. Rather he sounds as desperate and anxious as I am, and the pressure to say the right thing is there, pressing against my trachea as if to block the possibility of words in case they are the wrong ones.

  “I…” God, what are the right ones? I know how to seduce a man, but I don’t know what this is, and I sure as hell don’t know how to do it.

  But Hendrix does, and like I coached the class today, he coaches me. “Say it, Camilla. Say what you want, whatever it is. Big or small.”

  I close one eye, like I do when I’m behind the camera, and zero in on the shot, barely breathing in case I lose it. Then I shoot. “I find you the most fascinating thing in the vicinity too.”

  He smiles and nods, as though he already knew, before I even did, and maybe he really did because I said it, and I mean it, and he isn’t surprised. His smile fades now, and he grows somber, and I brace myself for the seriousness of what he’s about to say. “Dinner tonight?”

  I laugh, the tension relieved by his simple request. Or not so simple since it’s not the easiest thing for me to agree to on most occasions, but it’s so much easier than whatever else I thought he might say, which is silly because what could he say that would be so frightening?

  Actually, a lot.

  But all he’s asked for is this, and wanting to live my life, I tell him yes.

  Chapter
Five

  Concentric: Two or more things having a common center. - MoMA Glossary of Art Terms

  The perfect photo creates a memory.

  It’s the same the other way around. The most important moments, the ones that feel crafted and composed and perfect, those are the ones that stick with you. A lifetime is a collection of those moments, collected like snapshots in the scrapbook of your mind.

  There are a lot of photos in my past that I don’t like to look at, entire albums of memories that I’ve stored away on shelves. They’re dusty and faded now, and even when I do pull them out to look at, I’m not sure anymore that what I’m looking at is accurate. They’re too yellowed, like photos from the past, the kind taken on Kodak paper that wasn’t meant to endure through time.

  The evening with Hendrix, seven incredible hours, fills a memory book all on its own. Like so many others, I try not to look at that one very often. I sneak it out on occasion, usually in the dark when Freddie’s asleep and the house is quiet, when the presence of the album flashes like a neon sign in the dark. I regret it every time, tucking it back on its shelf in the morning, promising not to touch it again. Sometimes that promise lasts a week or two. Sometimes I don’t make it more than a day.

  The problem with looking at this particular album is how happy it makes me feel. Sunshine peeking through the trees on Tarr Steps kind of happy, which, in my opinion, is the ultimate pinnacle of happiness. That’s what the night was like last autumn.

  It’s funny how sometimes joy can hurt as much as pain. Because it’s fleeting, perhaps. Because even when you’re in the middle of it, you’re aware that it won’t last. It’s a bubble of a feeling, buoyant and light and free. The kind of feeling you want to chase after, even knowing that once it’s caught it will pop.

  And, oh, that pop is always such a surprise. Where once there was something and now it’s completely gone.

  In the space of time between class and my date with Hendrix—no, not date, I refuse to call it that when it’s merely a meal we’ll be sharing—before I get fussy over my attempt to get ready, I allow myself to take the album out and look at it in the daylight. It’s heavier than I remember, divided into four distinct series, each containing their own arc, and each individual photo memory is as vivid and bright as the day it was taken.

  I wear a smirk as I study the first series. I’d been part of the final conference event of the evening, a panel discussing the current trends of photography in the corporate field. I’d been nervous about the whole thing and needed a drink when it was all over, but in the end I’d been pleased with my contributions, pleased enough to accept the invitation to go to a local restaurant with the other panelists and a group of conference attendees.

  I’m not sure how Hendrix got in the mix. He’d known one of the speakers or had nothing better to do with his night and had popped into the panel out of curiosity. However it happened, I found myself seated next to him at one of the several tables our group occupied, and with the buzz of the event being over and a job well done, along with a dirty martini already in my system, somehow idle conversation among many turned into a heated discussion between just the two of us.

  “Of course branding should be considered art!” My exclamation came in response to his suggestion that graphic design didn’t have a place in the community. “There is just as much sweat, blood, and tears invested in the pieces that come across my desk as there are on any of the prints hanging in the Foam. More so even, considering what’s on the line for the designs if they don’t do the right job.”

  “But that’s just the thing,” he protested. “They have different goals. Branding is meant to get people to spend. Art is for people to enlighten and enjoy.”

  “As if you aren’t looking for a payday when you’re trekking through the wilderness. There’s a reason they call it a money shot.”

  “Of course I’m hoping to get paid, but the shot is the end product for the consumer. It’s not a bridge to something else.”

  “Isn’t it?” I fired back, enjoying the debate. “When National Geographic uses one of your photos, they’re expecting it to draw people into the accompanying article. Exactly what branding is meant to do, except that branding is honest about it. And more practical. It should be rewarded.”

  “It is rewarded. With a paycheck.”

  “It should be rewarded in the galleries too, as far as I’m concerned. It’s an outdated notion that a creation is either profitable or it’s art. I promise you, it can be both.”

  He paused then, studying me before a grin appeared, the first full grin I’d seen from him, and it was electrifying. Literally. I still remember the shock that jolted through me at the sight of it. “It can be both,” he repeated, as though testing out the idea.

  “It most definitely can.” I smiled back, and yes, I was flirting. The conversation had moved from a discussion about something I found interesting with a stranger to a discussion about something with a stranger I found interesting. That didn’t happen very often for me. I found a man I was attracted to easily enough, but I was never interested beyond the endgame. The conversation was the branded design leading to the eventual fuck.

  With Hendrix, though, I was interested in being in the moment. I was interested in more than what he had hidden under his clothes. I was also interested in what he had hidden in his brain. He was engaging and arresting, and I was undeniably charmed.

  He was too, it seemed. It was in his eyes, in the tilt of his head. In the words that came next from his mouth. “Want to discuss it over a drink in the lounge where it’s quieter?”

  Maybe I hemmed and hawed about it a bit before saying yes, but it was already decided in my mind. I knew that I would spend every last second of the night with him, whatever it took, even if it meant only the drinks and the banter. Even if it meant accompanying him to his room. I remember knowing that. I don’t remember the details of actually moving from this sequence to the next, but I do remember knowing I was all in for the night.

  Mostly, I remember the warm glow of happiness. He made me smile.

  The next series of memories picks up in a dark corner of the lounge, the rest of our group abandoned along with my dirty martinis. Instead, he’d ordered negronis for us both, and I was instantly in love. With the drink, not the man.

  Well. The man too.

  It seems naïve to say that I could use such a bold word to describe my enamorment so quickly and be certain that it was accurate, but I am certain. I’m not romantic about it. I don’t pretend to believe that he would feel the same or that I would want him to feel the same or that it would ever be more than just that one evening together. I only know that sometime between the first sip of the Italian cocktail and when Hendrix paid the tab, I fell in love.

  It might have been when he confessed that he still carried a film camera with him on location along with his digital or when he thoughtfully traced across the back of the hand I’d rested on my lap like he was painting it into being with his thumb. I’d definitely realized it by the time he was describing what it was like to burrow in a forest and hide for hours at a time waiting to capture a shot of an elusive lynx.

  “It’s a constant adjustment of position,” he said. “Always subtle so as not to disturb the environment. Just enough to wake up the limb that’s fallen asleep in the previous position.”

  “That sounds like it takes tenacity.” I’d been in awe. I wasn’t a big fidgeter, but I certainly wasn’t great at being still. Except, perhaps, when he spoke.

  “Patience is probably one of my strengths.” His cheeks might have got red at that. It was hard to tell in the dim light of our corner, but he was humble enough about it that I imagined the heat in his face at the self-recognition. “It’s worth it though. Waiting and waiting and waiting and sure you’re going to be disappointed and then suddenly, there it is—a creature wild and uninhibited and free. And that specific animal has likely never been seen by another human. It’s deeply profound and quite personal. I don’t
usually talk about it, to be honest.”

  My first impulse was to say he didn’t need to talk about it with me then—it’s the instinct I’ve learned, to detach myself from another’s possible regret. But he and I were already past that, and I wanted to linger in the intimacy of his sharing. The feeling I got when I realized I’d been in his confidence. “That sounds beautiful,” I said, my voice hushed as though I were in the forest with him.

  “It’s the most I feel alive. When I’m face-to-face with something fierce and feral. Not that everything I photograph is dangerous by any means. In fact, most animals I shoot aren’t. I photograph a lot of owls, for example—they’re so expressive, I can’t help myself. But the fierce ones have the most impact. The lions. The tigers on the prowl. The bear defending its cub. The hippos—any encounter with a hippo is memorable. The wolves.”

  “What’s your favorite of them all?” I asked, my gaze darting to his lips.

  “Of all the wild animals I’ve encountered?” His tone said I’d asked him an impossible question, and yet he didn’t hesitate after my nod. “You.”

  I left for the lavatory then, and he followed after me, which I had hoped he would do. This series of memories is filthy and frenetic—my trousers pooled on the floor around my ankles, my hands braced on the sink, the rip of the condom packaging, the slapping of his thighs against mine as his cock pounded rhythmically into me.

  The end of this sequence would normally be where I walked away. There hadn’t been a man since Frank that hadn’t received a goodnight from me seconds after the disposal of the condom.

  That wasn’t the case with Hendrix. When he finished zipping up his slacks, he turned me around and pressed his forehead against mine. “This can’t be all I have of you,” he pleaded, as though he suspected my usual habit to run. “Please, please let me have more.”

  I wondered if that was his prayer in the rainforest, when after waiting for most of the day for something incredible to show itself, a jaguar crept into view only to immediately turn and flee at an accidental sound made by Hendrix in his excitement to capture the animal on camera.