Innocence

by Lucy St. John

Chapter 20

  Imperfections are a photographer’s friend. They love them, because through their lens, all those things that make our faces and our bodies unique become character. In shadow or striking light, things like wrinkles, large noses and pursed lips become interesting. The photographer’s lens has a field day feasting upon them.

  Just don’t ever turn the tables on the shy shooter behind the lens. No photographer wants those powers of perception turned upon him or her. This is why they raise the camera to their faces. It is why they peer at the world through the peephole of their lens. It is why even the longing looks of a lover can cause discomfort. And when the lover is a fellow photographer, well then his or her stare is all the more disconcerting.

  What does he see? What is she looking at? Surely, my lover is seeing right through me. All my faults, flaws and pretentions. I am naked in their eyes. I am small and scared and shy. I want to shrink away. I want to run. I want to hide. I need the security blanket of my camera to protect me.

  Over the course of that evening, Amanda Livingston felt all of these things. But she stayed anyway. She even relaxed. She let down her guard. She put away her camera. And she shed her clothes to stand naked before him. A professional photographer with one of the best eyes in the world. An eye that had witnessed great beauty and absorbed utter ugliness that only warlords, soldiers and medical staff usually see. And even many of them cannot handle it.

  Dinner at the old, oaken table was languid. The jazz, the garlic mussels drenched in butter and olive oil, the wine, it all combined to free Amanda. She was floating. Here he was, the still handsome, if worn, Vic Connelly, feeding her morsels from his fork. Here he was pouring her glass full of wonderful red wine. Here he was staring into her ice blue eyes with his lidded orbs.

  At first, she could not hold his stare. She let her eyes fall to the table, which glowed in shadow and light from the candles dripping wax between them.

  He reached out with his hand, gently cupping her cheek and lifting her face to his. She raised her eyes.

  “There,” he said, staring back. “That’s better. The only thing more exciting than seeing the truth through your lens is showing your truth – the truth inside you – to another person.”

  Her face felt hot in the dimly lit room. The heat of his gentle hand seemed scalding on her face. Her heart pounded. Her muscles twitched in fight or flight response. Her nervous system thrummed with excitement. The thrill of exposing one’s closely guarded self to another.

  This was the moment of truth for Amanda. She stared into Vic’s eyes, those all-seeing eyes.

  “So is this how you seduce all your students?” she asked.

  Vic’s serious expression never altered as he shook his head, solemnly.

  “You’re nothing like any of my other students,” he said. “You’re the real deal. I know, because I’ve worked with them. I’ve had the privilege to shoot alongside some of them.”

  “You don’t need to flatter me,” she said, blushing despite herself.

  “I’m not,” Vic insisted, his hand still holding her face, her soft, beautiful face.

  “I haven’t done a damn thing,” Amanda said. “How is that the real deal?”

  “It’s knowing that you would do anything for the story,” he said. “Those photographers I mentioned? The true greats? They put the story above their own lives. The truth was the only thing that mattered, all other considerations rescinded. So many of them are gone now because of it. But their work--”

  Vic’s voice broke and his words trailed off. Emotion, rare emotion, overtook his handsome features.

  “Their work will stand forever,” he said.

  “So will yours,” Amanda offered.

  Vic shook his head. “My stuff is good,” he allowed. “But it’s not on the same level. It’s not immortal.”

  He shrugged his head, then frowned. “Maybe that’s why I’m here, instead of over in some hot zone. I never really laid it all on the line. Not really. Not the whole way. That’s the cross I bear. But you.”

  He stared at her and she didn’t flinch. She didn’t look down. She held his eyes, allowing him to see. Allowing him to look right inside of her and glimpse the things that she couldn’t see in herself.

  “You would do it,” he said, nodding with certainty, his strong jaw set. “You’d go all the way. I’m certain of that. And seeing that in you stirs something in me. Something that’s been cold and still for a long time.”

  “What if I never get the chance?” she asked, her voice sounding small, strained and unconvinced.

  “You will,” he answered. “But don’t think you have to travel halfway around the world for the truth. Sometimes it is closer to home. The power is seeing what no one else chooses to see. The strength is exposing what others are more comfortable ignoring. This is how another of my young protégés won the Pulitzer. She saw ungodly child sexual abuse where others saw only football gods. And she worked like hell until she exposed that ugliness, hypocrisy and hero-worship bullshit to all the world.”

  “You admire her?” Amanda asked.

  “Hell yes,” he answered. “And I beat myself up that I didn’t have the strength to see what she saw, right under my nose. Goes to show how much my skills have eroded, I guess. Comfort is the enemy of good journalism. Remember that. Hell, just think of me. I’m the poster child for that particular affliction. You saw it the moment you stepped into my lecture hall. And you didn’t give me an inch of slack about it, either. I never had a student do that before. And from that moment on, I never saw anyone but you. Just you. I wanted to prove myself to you, Amanda.”

  “You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone,” she answered. She was light-headed with all he was revealing to her. All his imperfections that only made him more attractive to her. But could she reciprocate?

  “Maybe not,” he said, reaching for the wine and taking a drink. They had been talking and his mouth was dry. Perhaps it was dry for other reasons? Perhaps he thirsted for her. The young, special student so fearless and so full of potential. If only he could go back. If only he could try again. But he couldn’t. He could only reach out to this young woman who made him feel what had withered inside him these long years away from his true passion, photography.

  And adventure.

  “I’d like to prove it to myself, though,” he said. “And I need to prove something to you.”

  Amanda shook her head. “No.”

  “Not about me,” he said. “I need to prove to you something about yourself, Amanda. I need to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to see what I see,” he said. “In you. In your eyes. Your face. Hell, your whole being. The way you carry yourself. The way you hold the camera and see the world.”

  “How?” Amanda asked this even as she feared the answer.

  “I want to shoot you,” he said. “I want us to spend time together. I want you to relax and be yourself. Your true self. And I will have my Lycia. And when you least expect it, I will capture the real you. If I’m still any good, that is.”

  “You are, Vic,” Amanda insisted. “You are good. Always were.”

  “Then let me try,” he said.

  She looked down at the table in shyness. But then something inside of her protested.

  She raised her head and looked directly at him.

  “Okay,” she said. “But if we’re going to do this, I need to come out from behind more than my camera.”

  She pushed back in her chair and stood beside the table in the flickering candle light. Standing just before him, she began unbuttoning her blouse. He motioned to stand and help her, but she held out a hand to halt him.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head and resuming her undressing.

  “I want to present myself to you,” Amanda offered, her voice strangely purposeful to her own ears.

  “I need to.”

  He uttered not another word. He remained still as a statue. The only movement was his kind
eyes, taking in her beauty, as Amanda shed what she showed to the world and stood naked, imperfect yet proud, in front of the all-seeing photographer.

  She showed him her truth. The moment was both beautiful and powerful.

  Amanda never felt stronger – or more sexual.

  She stood for a long time before him. Finally, he reached for her Lycia, there on the table. He raised it to his eye, squinted through the viewfinder, then snapped pictures in the muted candlelight.

  They would be beautiful images. And Amanda would see. She would see her full potential as a fearless, truth-seeking photographer in those lush, yet understated images of a heady woman about to come into her own as a journalist.

  And when he lowered the camera from his face, Vic rose.

  He stood before her looking down at this young woman who had somehow restored a fleeting feeling of his own youth. Then, he swept Amanda into his arms, her bare skin warm and soft to the touch. And they made love.

  They made love on the sofa. On his worn-leather reading chair. In the bedroom amid a sea of white sheets. And in the shower, afterward.

  The exquisite experience would change them both. But these new selves were still coming into focus.

  What would Amanda do with all her new-found confidence and sense of purpose?

  How would Vic harness his rekindled passion for photography and journalism?

  These were open questions. And in truth, only events could answer them. Yet neither could have expected this. Nor would they have wished for such a story.

  The terrible, brutal rapes would begin in less than a week. And the entire campus would fall under a curse of fear and suspicion. And it would be her story.

  Amanda Livingston’s story.