Posturing

"A little to the right. Just a hair more. Yes. Yes! Right there. Now don't move, just purse your lips-- no, not that much. Yes, like that. Well, close enough. No!"

Jaime sighed, rolling her eyes. She didn't mind humoring Galen, but this was a little over the top. He was a damn good photographer, she had to concede that, and Jaime didn't have much of an eye for art. She had managed to convince him to let her wear gauzy fabric draped over her-- "like some kind of Greek goddess, you know." He had wanted to take nudes. It wasn't that he just liked to look at her body. She knew Galen; he was a romantic, he thought clothing ruined the beauty of humanity. He had often told her with earnest conviction that he belonged in the era of the Renaissance. "When are you going to take the shot already?"

He shook his head and snapped a photo reluctantly. "That one won't make it into the collection, you know. Becuase your head was off. It all has to be perfect."

"I'm not a statue," Jaime said.

"You're a living, breathing model and that is where the magic is in this thing we call photography." Galen stuck another canister of film into his camera and adjusted his thick, black-rimmed glasses. "If I were a painter, it wouldn't matter. I could make up your posture. But photography is about things that are real and those who look at these photos will know that you actually moved your head like this, that you actually were in this pose. It's real. Non-fiction. Let's try it again."

"Galen, I need a break." Jaime turned her back, shrugged off the gauze, pulled on a T-shirt. "This is exhausting. It's so much easier just to look through the, the viewfinder and press that little button than it is to manipulate your whole body, you know? You should try modeling sometime."

Galen laughed self-deprecatingly. "Not me."

"Why don't you get your girlfriend to do this?" she asked desperately.

"She doesn't mind me having you pose for me."

"So? Why can't you take pictures of her instead?"

Galen put the camera down on the table, like a precious thing, and faced Jaime. He lifted a hand, ran his thumb down her cheek. She froze. "Because although Melissa is gorgeous, she's not beautiful the way you are. You are so goddamn photogenic, Jaime, you have no idea. Lissa... her beauty is in the way she moves, the way she lives, and it doesn't hold in photos. Yours does. It's in your lines."

Jaime colored. "My body isn't that great." She was tall and slender, with small breasts and a jaw just a bit too prominent.

"Your body is amazing," he scoffed. "It's not perfect, of course, but no one is perfect. If you were perfect it would ruin everything. You're just right, believe me."

She relented and smiled a little, looking at him. He looked like Buddy Holly, with those glasses and that curly dark hair. He really did belong in another era. Most of his photographs were black and white, yet another testament to that. She liked hearing his sincere praise; his speaking habits were so clear, with so little hesitation and stumbling over words. That was the thing about Galen. He was so literate, somehow, and he always knew what he wanted to get across.

A knock on the door. "Come in," said Galen, and Melissa entered. She was curvy, thick-waisted, with chin-length curling brown hair and a lipsticky grin. She was more or less the opposite of Jaime's blond delicacy.

"Not working, I guess?" she said conversationally.

"We're taking a break," Jaime enunciated. She wiped her mouth and glanced down at herself: her legs and feet were bare. Sometimes she wished Melissa wasn't so trusting.

"How goes the photography? I brought you some apples." She was, Jaime saw, carrying a brown paper bag, and set it down now (precariously by the camera). "Green apples in there. Your favorite, Galen."

"Thanks, love." Galen moved to her and they kissed, in the carefree manner of lovers. He picked up the camera again, to protect it from the bag, and Jaime couldn't help but smile. "You are thoughtful," he said. "Here, Jaime--" he handed her an apple-- "once you're done with this we can start up the picture-taking again. All right?"

"Okay." She wanted Melissa to leave, with her overbearing dresses and hair and makeup and God knew what, she just wanted her to go.

Something up there answered her prayers, because Melissa said, "I'm gonna go unload the rest of the groceries from the car. I'll leave you two alone."

"No, you don't have to," Galen began, but Jaime cut him off.

"Okay, go ahead, Melissa."

They made eye contact for a moment. Then Melissa nodded and left, shutting the door of the studio behind her.

There was silence for a moment. Galen looked at Jaime.

"She could have stayed, you know. We're not working. It wouldn't have done any harm."

"I didn't want her being around," Jaime mumbled, looking down. She wasn't hungry, and her apple was soft, which she hated. She set it down on the table. Then, with ferocity, she jerked her head up and gazed into Galen's blue eyes. "You know what? I'm ready to go back to work." She took off her T-shirt boldly.

Galen, always willing to shoot, gestured toward the gauze.

"No gauze. Forget it. Go ahead and take your nudes."

His eyebrows rose for a moment; he looked as if he were having a fascinating internal conversation, and Jaime, unabashedly naked, watched him. Galen.

"All right," he said as if to himself, nodding a little. "All right. We can do that."

"Okay," said Jaime.