The Photographer

Snap.

I pull away from the camera, peering at my shot. Tragically normal.

Snap.

Eh, a little creepy.

Snap.

No, not right either. Something wasn’t working.

I place my camera down on the table next to me. Maybe it was the setting. Just a hard wooden floor, scratched and scraped at like a hundred wild dogs had been let loose. Maybe if I placed a mattress in the centre…

My model stirs gently. His breaths become heavier; his eyelids flutter.

I sigh and grab the cloth with the weird stains from my past models.

Ugh. I hate this part. The dramatics royally piss me off.

I shove the cloth in his mouth, glancing at the ropes on his wrists. They’re tighter than usual. When I saw him in the vegetable aisle, I noticed his muscles were big and bulging. He was tall, as well. 6’2, 6’3. He could easily kill me.

But not like this. I step back and examine my model. He’s a pretty man, while somehow being extremely bulky and boyish-looking. I think it’s his eyes. A hazel green with thick, dark eyelashes, comically like a doll’s.

A flash of green meets my gaze. I straighten my back, making myself taller. I’m not afraid of him. Of course not. He’s the one on the floor, tied up and gagged; I’m quite literally above him. I love the feeling of elevation - you can’t catch me now.

He opens his mouth, a muffled sound coming out. I raise my eyebrow in response. I have to bite back a laugh when they try to talk; it would ruin the atmosphere.

He starts to pull on the ropes, making his wrists raw and red. I let him continue - red wrists are quite eye-catching to most buyers. The most violent pictures are the ones that sell the most, after all.

After a few minutes of futile struggling, he finally realises the hopelessness of his situation. I can see it in those green eyes - they widen, they glaze over, and finally settle on me, hard as a rock. Hard, like what would be between my legs right now if I were a man.

They always stare at me like that. With uninhibited anger in their eyes. It’s funny. They think it’s threatening, forgetting I’m not the one who’s tied up.

He stares at me. I stare back. I can hear his pulsating breaths. I remain silent, relishing in the quickening of his heartbeat and rising breathlessness.

He says something incoherent, and I decide not to respond.

I loom over him for a few more minutes. I like this position. I can see the fear in their eyes, and they can barely distinguish my face.

They’re afraid, but they aren’t terrified. They’re on edge. Uneasy. Uncomfortable. They never think a woman could kill them.

Yet, they’re here; naked, tied up, gagged, and a thick piece of rope digging into their skin, their warm blood staining my pretty tiles. I got a specific shade of sage green to contrast the red.

I pick my camera back up and take a shot from this angle. Snap.

I steal a look and decide to take it again, but from an even higher angle. Snap.

In the photo, you can see him crouched on the floor, his vibrant green eyes the focus of the piece as darkness surrounds the rest of the scene. His brown, shaggy hair falls loosely over his forehead, giving him a male model-esque look. You can’t see the red of his wrists, but you can make out my shadow, tall and dominating, a threatening presence, not in the background, but the foreground of the photo. The contrast of the shadow with his eyes is quite… beautiful. I’m proud of myself. That’s some of my best work to date.

I stare at the lustrous olive skin of my model, in awe of the glow his sweat has caused.

So soft. Duvet cover, bunny fur… man’s flaccid penis staring you directly in the eye, winning the award for the least impressive looking thing ever. It asks me, ‘Why the fuck would you want to touch me?’ I say, ‘It’s my rite of passage. As a thing with breasts and a gaping hole between her legs, society expects me to be physically and spiritually inclined to touch a penis. To marvel at it. To go, wow. To compare it to the seven wonders of the world. To go utterly googly-eyed over the caveman’s genitals even though I think it is absolutely, positively the most heinous, unsexiest thing ever to exist.’

He whimpers, snapping me out of my penis-driven trance.

He holds out his wrists pleadingly, and I notice the blood beginning to ooze onto the floor like rain droplets falling from an umbrella.

His wrists are still lifted as if he expects me to put on some scrubs and start stitching him back up again. I frown at his stupidity.

I have the photo I want now. His moss green eyes gifted that to me already. It would sell fast and for a lot of money. I could easily replace my broken coffee machine with those green eyes. I could buy a nice velvet blanket to snuggle up in on nights when ‘The Bachelorette’ was playing. Velvet. Purple and plushy, just like the carpets the Royals trample over in rain-sodden boots after a night at the Opera with Hugh Grant and Tom Cruise.

Purple velvet.

Royals.

Hugh Grant.

Tom Cruise.

Purple velvet.

Royals.

Hugh Grant.

Tom Cruise,

Purple Velvet.

Royals.

Hugh Grant.

Tom Cruise.

Tom

Tom

Tom

Tom

Slice.

And his head lay at my feet, wide green eyes staring desperately up at me, pleading from beyond the grave.

Please, I’m too young to die.

The Axe doesn’t care about age. The Axe acts on instinct, fear, and excitement. The Axe has no moral compass, only a free spirit.

The green is so vibrant, it is blinding.

I search in the dark for my camera before I feel its familiar black, sleek surface.

Ah.

The green eyes. So beautiful. So unique.

This will certainly sell for a lot.

Snap.