Page 28

“You’re always catching me crying.” I try to laugh.
“The exhibit not what you thought?” he asks, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing at my cheeks.
“Some of them flustered me, I guess.”
“Who are you with?”
“Zane, Stella—”
“Your date?”
“Yeah.”
“They should’ve known better.”
“It’s not Zane’s fault. I tell him to treat me like a normal person, and he does. He probably didn’t think to check ahead.”
“Still—”
He doesn’t understand. “There’s no ‘still.’ If he would’ve known how provocative the exhibit was going to be, he would’ve changed our plans and that’s exactly what I don’t want. I want to be normal. I wanted a simple night out.”
Gage nods. “I get it, but perhaps a little warning would have been nice.”
“Maybe, yeah.”
He pauses and folds the handkerchief into a neat square. “Can I show you something?”
“What?”
“One of the pictures out there? Then I'll help you find your date.”
He mutters something that sounds like “Lucky bastard” but I'm not sure. He's staring at the floor and he shoves the damp handkerchief into his pocket.
“Okay.”
The photos are lurid and beautiful in a crass way, but I don't know what he wants me to see.
He doesn't touch me as we step out of the back hallway and join the exhibit. The guests are casually roaming from picture to picture like I just didn’t almost have a nervous breakdown, and the photographer, a slim man wearing glasses, his beard shaped in a goatee, accepts congratulations. His work is close to selling out.
Gage stops in front of a couple in a dark corner. I can see why this one is hidden away.
The grainy black and white photo is of a man and woman like most of them in the showing. She's backed against the wall, the man trapping her wrists above her head. He has his other hand wrapped around her throat, but not hard. Like he only wants to touch her. He’s shirtless. Jeans slung low on his hips. She's wearing a dress or a nightgown, I can't tell which, and her right breast is exposed, the material ripped in what we’re supposed to think is desire.
And I do. There isn't violence in the photograph. The looks in their eyes conveys passion, lust, and love.
“Do you see?” Gage asks. “Sex doesn't have to hurt. He's claiming her because he loves her, and she's letting him because she loves him, too.”
“Right before that shot, he asked her to marry him and she said yes.” The photographer stands next to us, his hands in his pockets.
“She’s beautiful,” I murmur.
“He said it was love at first sight.”
“Is this picture still available?” I ask, surprising myself. This is not the kind of photo I would have purchased even before what Ash did to me.
“This one? Yes.”
“I want it.”