Bare Horizon

The camera is a Nikon D850 and it belongs to my roommate, Marcus, who is currently in Cabo with his girlfriend and has no idea I have it. I know the serial number by heart. I know the click of the shutter like I know my own heartbeat, which is currently doing something unpleasant against my ribs.

Her name is Delia and she's standing in the doorway of my studio apartment with a duffel bag in one hand and a look on her face like she's about to either kiss me or kill me. Possibly both. The afternoon light coming through the window behind her turns the edges of her hair into something that would make a lesser photographer weep. I'm not a lesser photographer. I'm just a guy with a borrowed camera and a problem.

"You said you'd think about it," she says.

"I did think about it."

"And?"

I set the camera down on the kitchen counter, which is also my desk, which is also where I eat cereal standing up because I haven't owned a chair in three months. The apartment is four hundred square feet of bad decisions and good light. That's why I took it. The light. The rent. The fact that Marcus needed a roommate and I needed somewhere to put my mattress.

"I think it's a bad idea," I say.

Delia steps inside and drops the duffel on the floor. The zipper is half open and I can see the corner of something black and lacy. I look away. I look back. I look at the wall, which is painted the color of old teeth.

"You think everything's a bad idea," she says.

"That's not true."

"Name one good idea you've had this year."

I open my mouth. Close it. The refrigerator hums. Outside, a bus groans past and shakes the window in its frame.

"That's what I thought," she says.

Here's the thing about Delia. We met six months ago at a party in Bushwick where I was photographing the host's dog for money and she was drinking cheap rosé out of a coffee mug because all the cups were dirty. She told me I had sad eyes. I told her she had rosé on her chin. She wiped it off with the back of her hand and asked if I wanted to split a cab home. We didn't split a cab. We walked forty blocks in the rain and she talked the entire time about her ex-boyfriend, who was a sculptor, and how he made her feel like a piece of clay that never got fired. I remember thinking that was the saddest thing I'd ever heard. Then I remember thinking I wanted to be the one who fired her. Which doesn't even make sense as a metaphor. But there it is.

We've been circling each other ever since. Coffee that turns into dinner. Dinner that turns into her falling asleep on my mattress while I edit photos on my laptop and pretend I'm not watching her breathe.

Now she wants me to photograph her naked.

"I found a buyer," she says. "Online. Some collector in Berlin. He pays three thousand for a series. Five photos. Black and white. Natural light."

"Three thousand dollars."

"Don't say it like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're doing math in your head about how many months of rent that is."

I was doing math in my head about how many months of rent that is. Four. Almost five if I skip groceries and eat the ramen that's been in the cabinet since February.

"Who is this guy?" I ask.

"His name's Dietrich. He has a website. He's legit."

"You've never met him."

"I've emailed him. He sent references."

"References."

"From other photographers."

I pick up the camera again. Not to use it. Just to have something in my hands. The weight of it is familiar. The grip is worn smooth where Marcus's thumb sits. I think about Marcus in Cabo, probably drunk on a beach, definitely not thinking about his camera or his roommate or the fact that his roommate is about to make a terrible decision.

"Let me see the emails," I say.

Delia pulls out her phone. She scrolls. She hands it to me. The screen is cracked in the corner and the brightness is turned all the way up, which is how I know she's nervous, because Delia never turns her brightness up. She says it hurts her eyes. She says it makes her feel like she's being interrogated.

I read the emails. Dietrich writes in complete sentences with perfect punctuation. He uses words like "composition" and "tonal range" and "the honesty of the unguarded moment." He says he's looking for work that captures "the architecture of vulnerability." I want to hate him. I want to find something wrong. But his references check out. His website is clean. His prices are real.

"He's a pretentious asshole," I say.

"He's a paying pretentious asshole."

I hand the phone back. Our fingers touch. Hers are cold. Mine are not.

"Why me?" I ask. "You know other photographers. Better ones."

Delia looks at me for a long time. The light has shifted. It's golden now, the kind of light that makes everything look like a memory you're not sure you actually had. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and I notice her hand is shaking. Just slightly. Just enough.

"Because I trust you," she says.

That's the moment. Right there. The moment where I could say no and we could go back to coffee and dinner and her falling asleep on my mattress and me pretending. We could stay in the safe place. The place where nothing happens and nothing gets broken.

But I'm tired of the safe place. I'm tired of cereal standing up. I'm tired of photographing other people's dogs and other people's weddings and other people's lives while mine sits in a duffel bag on the floor, half open, waiting.

"Okay," I say.

Delia blinks. "Okay?"

"Okay. But we do it my way. Natural light. No direction from him. And you get final approval on every shot before anything gets sent."

She nods. She's already crying a little, which she does when she's relieved, which I know because I've seen her do it three times. Once when her cat came back after being missing for two days. Once when she got the job at the bookstore. Once when I told her I'd walk her home in the rain.

"Thank you," she says.

"Don't thank me yet."

I pick up the camera and check the battery. It's at sixty percent. I'll need to charge it. I'll need to clear the memory card. I'll need to figure out how to look at her through a lens without falling apart.

Delia unzips the duffel the rest of the way. Inside is a black slip dress, a pair of heels, and a silk robe the color of champagne. She looks up at me. The apartment is too small for this. The walls are too thin. The neighbor downstairs is watching TV and I can hear the laugh track through the floor.

"Where do you want me?" she asks.

And there it is. The question. The thing I've been avoiding for six months. Where do I want her. On the mattress. Against the window. In the light. Everywhere. Nowhere. Here. Right here.

"By the window," I say. "Start there."

She walks to the window. She doesn't change yet. She just stands there, looking out at the street, and I raise the camera and look at her through the viewfinder and everything else falls away. The rent. The ramen. Marcus in Cabo. Dietrich in Berlin with his perfect punctuation and his architecture of vulnerability. All of it gone. Just her. Just the light. Just the click of the shutter and the sound of my own breathing and the terrifying knowledge that I've just agreed to something I can't take back.

The first frame is out of focus. I don't care. I take another. And another. And another.