Slash: A Slay Series Novella

by Laurelin Paige

  Which is neither here nor there.

  I would have told him my name anyway and with no regrets. The conversation that had led to the tryst in his hotel room had been rather remarkable, and a lot of it had centered around the fact that we were both notable photographers, so anonymity wasn’t ever going to apply between us.

  And why would famed wildlife photographer Hendrix Reid be registered for a portrait course, in London, of all places? He’d told me he was wintering in the savannahs, and while spring is definitely upon us now, there is not much in the way of wildlife here beyond the hedgehogs and kestrels at Regent’s Park. Certainly nothing to attract him. The idea it’s the same man is ludicrous.

  Except, hadn’t he said he was sure that we would see each other again one day?

  I bite the inside of my lip so that I won’t audibly groan.

  I was stupid not to go through the enrollment form earlier. Strike that, I was cowardly. I’d been nervous about the prospect of teaching the class in the first place. Almost immediately after agreeing to lead the advanced course, I’d wanted to back out. It had been my brother who had convinced me it was a good idea, for reasons I can no longer remember, and why am I listening to his advice about how I live my life these days when he’s practically settled in New York with his new wife and child? It’s not like he knows what I need now any more than any of the other times we’ve been apart over the course of our lives, and he’s halfheartedly tried to parent me from afar.

  I listened to him, though, because while I am well into adulthood and a single mother/career woman who doesn’t need governing, I also sort of do.

  “Do you actually live your life?” he’d asked, and how dare he, but also maybe thank goodness he dared because I didn’t have a good answer to the question, and though I very much objected to his right to know, it was probably something my therapist would want me to consider. Just. There was a reason I didn’t see her anymore, and it wasn’t because I’d achieved mental clarity.

  Rather, like in all things that scared me, I was the type to lower my head, as I had with Hendrix. As I had with this class.

  One and a half minutes to go.

  One minute.

  I watch the seconds tick by on the analog clock hanging on the wall, one of those old-fashioned kinds that dictated time in every class I’d attended through secondary school.

  Forty-five seconds.

  Thirty seconds and there are now twelve students bowed down over their mobiles. None of them are Hendrix, and my confidence bolsters. He chickened out. He registered as a joke. He registered by accident. Whatever the reason, he’s not here, and I’m calmer by the second.

  And then the big hand is on the twelve, the little hand perfectly pointed to the ten, and it’s time to begin this ludicrous teaching experiment.

  With a deep breath, I gather my stack of papers and approach the podium. “Good morning, fellow photographers. As you likely already know, I’m Camilla Fasbender, art director of Accelecom Media, which is a rather fancy title to say I get final approval of the company’s branding materials while other more talented artists do all the work and get none of the credit so thank goodness this course isn’t meant to instruct in that arena because, really, I know nothing.”

  The students chuckle—is that an appropriate word for adult learners? It seems so odd when at least three of the faces I’m looking at appear older than me, reminding me how unqualified I feel to be standing before them.

  Which is silly. Because I am qualified. “Find the proof,” Dr. Joseph used to say, and the proof is that, while it isn’t my day job, my portrait photography is revered in some circles, and I do have things that I can share. A whole lesson plan, in fact. I’d managed to pull my head out of the sand long enough to put one together, fortunately, and it wasn’t as hard as it might have been because I do know what I’m talking about.

  But just as I’m about to confidently plummet on, the door swings open and a tall, muscular figure slinks in, taking the last available chair and sending my heart up to my throat even before his eyes meet mine, and I’m locked in the gaze of Hendrix Reid. My Hendrix Reid.

  Bloody hell.

  That four and a half minutes did nothing to prepare me. Even if I’d spent it actually believing I might come face-to-face with my one-night stand, I still would have been breathless from the shock of seeing him. His sun-tanned face and light brown eyes are quite breathtaking all on their own. Add to that his broad shoulders and sculpted jaw and a muscular frame that somehow moves lithely despite its bulk, and seriously, how can anyone be expected to bother with oxygen when looking in his direction? He’s the kind of man who is beautiful enough to model and yet too spectacular to photograph. The light hits him too evenly. There aren’t nearly enough shadows to tell a story that isn’t about how perfect he is to look at, and stories about perfection become boring really fast so I avoid using my lens to tell them like the plague.

  I can’t imagine ever getting bored gazing at that face without a lens between us, though. His perfection is captivating in a way that can’t be captured. There’s something about his features that reflect what they see, but it’s only interesting in real life, when the elements around him are present. He doesn’t work cropped down to just him. He’s meant to be seen in context.

  I, on the other hand, prefer to not be seen at all.

  Which is why I’m mortified that he’s here. It would be one thing if there were a one-way glass between us, where I could look and look until I’d had my fill—if I’d ever have my fill. It’s quite another when he’s here with nothing between us but this podium, and my looking is met with his looking back.

  Obviously, I lose my train of thought.

  I have notes, but all the words seem to blur together, and I can’t make meaning out of any of the pen strokes. My pulse takes off like it’s a locomotive without a destination, my hands are clammy, and thirteen pairs of eyes are staring at me, waiting for me to say something worthwhile. Imagining them all naked is not helpful when I actually know what one of them looks like in the buff.

  Well, my hands know, anyway. I did mention the lights had been off.

  “Enough about me,” I say, as though I’ve said anything about me at all. “I want to hear about you. What made you decide to enroll? What do you hope to learn? Let’s start over here, shall we?” I look at the chair farthest from Hendrix and his perfect everything. “Tell us about yourself.”

  “Kaila Morrison” seems glad to take the baton. She gives us all a spiel about her photographic aspirations and her career ambitions as well as providing us with a not-so-brief resume. It is an advanced course, after all. No one was allowed to enroll without submitting a portfolio, all screened by the London Academy of Art, thankfully, or not so thankfully since I would have been able to avoid the Hendrix disaster had I been involved with curating submissions.

  What would I have done if I’d come across his registration form? Would I have tossed it out immediately or reached out to him or...what? I dwell on that when I should be more attentive to Kaila.

  Then, instead of listening to the next student as he speaks, I berate myself for my preoccupation which doesn’t get any better by the time the third student is introducing herself.

  Needless to say, by the time we’ve reached Hendrix, I’ve learned very little about the people I’m meant to be teaching, and, worse, I’m no better prepared to actually teach them.

  When he speaks, though, I’m completely present. Time slows down and the room is suddenly quieter as it disappears into background, and all there is to capture my focus is him.

  “I thought it was time to widen my scope of the art,” he says, and it feels like he’s talking only to me. “I know how to capture an animal as it moves stealthily in its habitat. I know how to adjust my camera for all versions of natural light. I don’t have a single clue where to begin when it comes to photographing a person in a studio.”

  I haven’t commented on anyone’s introduction thus far, and yet I’m
compelled to pry now. “And you’ve suddenly been met with an abundance of requests to shoot portraits? Don’t tell me National Geographic isn’t giving you work anymore.”

  “Uh, no,” he laughs. “National Geographic and I are fine.” His smile fades from his lips, but it lingers in his eyes. “There’s more to life than just the job, though. This whole life of mine began for me with snapping pictures of things I liked to look at. Then it became something else, and I love it. I do. But it’s been a long time since there’s been any passion.”

  “And you think that you’ll find that here?” My tone verges on hostile, but it is what it is. The words are already out, and there’s nothing I can do to flower the message after the fact.

  “Yes,” he says, and my next breath comes easier for some unknown reason. “Yes, I think I will.”

  I go through the rest of the class in a daze. I manage to stick to my talking points, for the most part, besides the random time I sidetrack to recommend Nightsky, my favorite bar that happens to be in the vicinity of the Academy campus with decent priced top-shelf drinks and live music and an ambiance that draws me in no matter how terrible the cover bands are. How I got talking about London nightlife is beyond me except that I’m sure it has to do with Hendrix and memories of that dive of a bar that we ended up in that evening last September in France, both of us content because of the company despite the dreadful service.

  Somehow I find my way back to the planned topic after that meandering, and somehow I manage to teach something, though I’m only sure that I make sense because of the nods of understanding coming from my pupils. Twelve of them, anyway. Twelve rapt students who give me their full attention, which I’m certain I don’t deserve.

  I can’t bring myself to give Hendrix any attention. It’s easier to stumble on, pretending that he’s not in the picture.

  Ignoring him physically doesn’t work to draw my mind from him, however. As I lecture about the basics of portraiture and the art of creating concepts, I’m thinking about him and why he’s here and what he said and what it could mean. We did have a passionate night together. Not just in the bedroom, but definitely in the bedroom, where he made me feel for one glorious encounter like my body wasn’t a hindrance or a prison for my soul but instead that it was part of my soul. There, in the dark, with his mouth at my ear and his hands on my skin, he made me feel like the story that needed to be told.

  But it was a one-night stand. Silly to think of it as anything more. Even if I were someone who was in the market for something real or long-lasting, it would be ridiculous to hedge any bets after just one encounter.

  Hendrix didn’t strike me as ridiculous. Or impulsive. Or silly.

  Why on earth, then, would he believe that there could be something worth seeking out with me? If that’s what he meant at all. Which...he did, didn’t he?

  It’s confusing, and confusion makes me hide, on the whole. But since I can’t hide because I’m the fucking teacher in this class—seriously, how did this happen?—and for some reason the educator is expected to stay present, I find my confusion turning to anger. It works itself through me until the beauty of our night together is cropped out of my memory and what’s left is trite and fleeting. His presence feels nothing like flattery—which it did feel flattering, admittedly, for a half second there in the midst of everything else. Now, though, it just feels invasive and unprofessional and mean.

  Perhaps I’d confront him about it, if I were a different sort of person, one who isn’t afraid to stand up to a challenge. One who isn’t afraid to live her life.

  But I’m not that sort of person, so after I give out the assignments and send the students on their way, I plan to gather my things and get on my way as soon as possible, so fond of hiding that I am. I was stupid enough to believe—or perhaps hopeful is the better term—that Hendrix would let me do that, as he’d let me leave that night in Paris, not that I’d given him a choice.

  He doesn’t, though, of course. Of course. He approaches me, his leather camera bag slung over his shoulder, a man satchel underneath.

  “Camilla,” he says in that American accent that makes me both cringe and swoon all at once, and for the briefest of moments I find myself considering something different for a change. I consider staying.

  But underneath my long sleeve polo neck, my skin throbs with an intensity that equals the blaring of a car alarm, and I think of Fred waiting for me at home to take him out for ice cream and the dead husband who hurt me as much as he loved me and the ugliness that marks me inside and out. And in the chaos of those thoughts, there is no option to stay.

  “You being here is in bad taste,” I say before he has a chance to say anything else. “Don’t do this to me.”

  I brush past him then, and with the heat of that brief contact following me in radiating waves, I rush outside to disappear among the Saturday-morning Londoners who are out enjoying the early signs of spring.

  Chapter Two

  Color: The perceived hue of an object, produced by the manner in which it reflects or emits light into the eye. - MoMA Glossary of Art Terms

  I stare at my empty glass, wondering if I should order a second negroni. Wondering if that will be enough to douse the thoughts of Hendrix. I refuse to look at them, but he’s there at the edges of my mind, stirring like the late embers of a fire, or perhaps they’re early embers.

  I don’t want them to be. God help me if this is just the beginning of this spiral.

  It’s cause to consider that second drink.

  But when the bartender passes by, I don’t flag him. Not yet. I will, eventually, because I always do. A trip to the bar is never just a one-drink sort of experience. I suppose that some might say I’m an alcoholic, and maybe I am, though I don’t tend to crave booze in any form, and I can easily go weeks without a drop.

  I have other vices that are much more tempting.

  And when those temptations become more vivid, when they transform into foes that have me in a wrestling match, pinned to the mat and about to give in, that’s when I find myself sitting in front of some sort of cocktail. It’s not the healthiest distraction, but it tends to work. And when it doesn’t, sex is another useful diversion.

  I hate to think of what impression I might give to a stranger who spent a significant amount of time observing these habits of mine. What would be said of me? What conclusions would be drawn? Does my behavior tonight color the rest of my actions? Would I be slapped with one of those derogatory labels that tend to say as much about the person labeling as the one being labeled?

  Lush.

  Slut.

  Poor excuse for a mother.

  No, I won’t entertain that last one. I’m a good mother. I’d give my life for my son. If Frank hadn’t died, I would have left him for Freddie’s sake. No questions asked. I never would have considered leaving before getting pregnant. Back then, I took what I was given. I didn’t even run, and hiding always did more harm than good.

  That was more than six years ago, that little voice says in the back of my head. It’s a nasty nag of a voice, one that tends to love to bully and belittle and is especially loud on the days that I find myself sitting in a crowded bar.

  I know how to speak to her, though. Where’s the proof?

  I fiddle with the orange peel dressing the edge of my glass as I count the motherly actions I’ve performed in the past week. I worked. I earned an income. I got out of bed.

  That last one is sometimes frighteningly the hardest.

  And though I’ve left him with the weekend nanny, who arrives at nine AM Saturday morning and doesn’t leave until nine AM the next day, I always, always, always spend all of Sunday with him. I deserve this one night to myself. How I use this time bears no reflection on the kind of mother I am. Bears no reflection on the kind of human I am.

  Say it enough times, maybe I’ll believe it.

  The volume of the environment drops significantly as the band quits for a break. The quiet amplifies the noise in my head, but a
lso makes me more aware of my surroundings. I feel the figure sidle up beside me before I see him, and when I look, it’s only a quick glance out my periphery, noting the strong forearm protruding from a rolled-up sleeve leaning on the bar at my side.

  “Negroni, stirred, on the rocks,” he says, and then I have to look more closely, even though I already recognize him. If his thick American accent hadn’t given him away, the order surely would have.

  I forget to breathe before I lift my eyes, which is a mistake, because as always, the wind is knocked out of me at the sight of him. He’s dressed himself up since class this morning. The same jeans maybe—hard to tell without standing back and fully ogling him—but now he’s exchanged his T-shirt for a crisp white dress shirt and a waistcoat that shows off his trim build. His face had been smoothly shaved earlier. Now stubble peppers his jaw and I’m slammed with a haptic memory of the burn of his rough jaw against the sensitive skin of my inner thighs.

  I blink the thought away and raise my eyes to his.

  “Make that two,” he says to the bartender, his gaze locked with mine.

  I like being the focal point of his gaze. Whatever he sees when looking at me reflects back, and it’s like he’s turned on a light in this dark section of the bar. It’s like that light is me.

  But I didn’t come here to be light. I didn’t come here to be seen.

  Once again, rage courses through my veins. He’s already infiltrated my professional life, registering for my class like he did. Now he’s trying to steal my recreational life as well?

  He can’t have it. He can’t have any more of me than he already has. I won’t let him.

  It’s only the intensity of my need to protect this one sacred space that gives me the energy for an outburst. “No,” I say clearly. Firmly.

  Not helpful, really, since I’ve put the word out there without any context.