All characters belong to Mater Glorioso, and Helmut Newton belongs to
himself, of course, and the title I got from one of my favorite Smashing
Pumpkins album.

Dedicated to everyone who cares to read.

Hi you guys! I'm back, and with yet another spec. This one came to me while
on vacation for two weeks with my best friend in New Orleans. We had a
blast! Except for the three days we ran out of money and had to starve.
*grin* But even that made me laugh.

Anyways, I was discussing "Bedknobs" with her one night, telling her how I
would love to see Louis as a student, all nerdy and cute with his glasses
(only a disguise of sorts, of course) and a tan leather bookbag, in one of
the future posts, except my problem was I couldn't think of why he would be
taking classes at Tulane anyway. Well we began discussing Louis in general
and came to a conclusion that Louis might take a course on some sort of
artistic impetus--photography being one of the prime candidates, since
painting has already been so overdone. Well the more we thought on it, the
less likely someone as beautiful as our ethereal dust-bunny would be
overlooked by any professional photographer. And so our little artist
becomes the subject himself. And thus, a new spec was born.

I hope everyone likes it.

Love, la fillette revolutionnaire,
Artemis of the Wild

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"Why are you doing this?" June whispered, shaking her head until several
strands of grey hair slipped from her bun. In the glow of several candles
her face looked lovelier and more serene than ever, but also strangley
remote; her voice detached, a little strained. In her hand she held a
drooping hibiscus flower.

"God knows we don't need the money . . ." she trailed off and reclined back
into the leather cushions, closing her eyes so that for a moment I could see
where the kohl and eyeshadow bled into the violet labyrinth of broken
capillaries. I stared at her as I leaned into my cane. She seemed as much a
part of light and shadow as the gleaming array of Art Deco and Kitsche
furnishings surrounding us.

"She opened her eyes, still intense and brilliant as a young girl's. "And
why Tulane of all places? You've had better offers--NYU, for one--"
She had broken the hibiscus. Her fingers looked bruised from its stain:
jaundiced yellow, ulcerous purple. As I watched she leaned to place it on
the coffee table.

With a sigh I turned away from her, walking toward the liquor cabinet. I was
weary of arguments. "Call it boredom, or even stupidity," I said to her,
deliberately averting my gaze from the silver-leafed mirror hung directly in
front of me. I knew too well what I would see: a jaded old man with sunken
cheeks and a mouth hardened by time; hair that had once been dark and thick
as an otter's, now thin and snow-white, raised blue veins like rivers on a
relief globe. But it was the reflection of my own eyes that I refused to
meet, brooding and sable, dry as if all the dreams had been sucked from
them.

Where was the passion, the joy, the recklessness of my youth?

"I need a change," I muttered and grasped the nearest bottle of cognac and
poured myself a drink. "New Orleans is a change." I shrugged and tipped my
head, pressing the wine glass to my parched lips and drained it of its
contents. I grimaced and readjusted my spectacles and turned to face my
wife. She was still beautiful and elegant despite her age, glamorous in her
cream, hand-knit sweater and sleek trousers so deep a blue it all but
dripped in a pool upon the white carpet at her feet. Her pearl earrings
caught the light and gleamed silver-rose.

She sighed and moved forward slightly so that for an instant I glimpsed the
tiny crow's feet that feathered the corners of her large eyes, and the
delicate creases that framed her soft mouth like quotation marks. She turned
away and stared out windows so tall they reached the ceiling.

"You're too old for this, Helmut," she murmured more to herself than to me.
"You're not a young man anymore--" She glanced at me askance and I flinched
under the sweetness and worry I saw in her expression. "If anything were to
happen to you . . ."

I threw my hands up almost impatiently. "I'm not an invalid yet,
June."

"I know, I know." She slipped from the couch, her silk trousers sliding
against the leather cushions, and came towards me, curling her arms around
my neck and pressing her cheek to my breast. "But I still worry about you."
I could smell her all around me--a fresh, powdery scent like Chanel N. 22.
She drew back slightly and regarded me with a teasing smile that made her
look--well, not young--but certainly not her age.

"I love you," she said in a low voice. "You've always been stubborn and I
know nothing I say will have the slightest effect on you--" She closed her
eyes and tilted her head as though listening to distant music; after a
moment she continued: "Go then. You have my blessing. I'll remain here,
waiting for you as always." She smiled further and kissed my cheek, then my
lips. "Now come, or we'll be late for the movie . . ."

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I took the elevator up to the third floor, straightening my tweed jacket
before stepping out through the austere, double doors and into a long,
narrow corridor. The glare of fluorescent lights upon stark-white walls and
dappled tile was almost unbearable, broken every now and then by rows of
dull grey lockers or message board, colored posters and announcements faded
and threatening to fall off. As I rounded the corner I nearly bumped into
Maggie Rising, my student aide.

"Mr. Newton! There's someone here to see you--" She flushed and ran her
fingers through her yellow hair. "He said he'd talked to you over the phone
last night--made and appointment or something--"

I sighed and touched my temple. "Ah, damn. It completely slipped my
mind. Has he been here long?"

"No, not really." Maggie turned an even darker shade of red, so red, in
fact, her freckles appeared luminous in contrast. She lowered her gaze and
pressed several textbooks to her chest. "Fifteen minutes tops, I think,
but--"

"Thank you." I interrupted and stepped past her before she had the
chance to say another word, her blue eyes wide, questioning. "I'll see to
him."

I swept into my office. After the harsh, sterile lighting of the outer hall,
it seemed positively luxurious. A single Tiffany lamp and several
mismatched, aromatherapy candles--courtesy of my aide--cast a warm glow over
the tiny chamber: an oxblood armchair and ornate ormolu desk adrift with
papers, a Turkish Oriental rug and oak bookcases that reached the ceiling, a
handful of unpolished amethysts, pictures of my wife, and tens upon tens of
dusty tomes adorned the shelves; a pair of 50's retro-chairs and two Andy
Warhol prints of a young man with very long hair, alternately colored green
and blue, and another of Marilyn Monroe.

I ran my hand across my brow with a hankerchief and set down my briefcase,
breathing deeply as I slipped the coat from my shoulders and readjusted the
long sleeves of my silk shirt. For a moment I closed my eyes and caught the
strong musk of vanilla and mulberry wax. When I opened them again I was
startled to find a slight figure gazing out the window.

Surely it was the visitor Maggie had previously mentioned.

He was tall, long-limbed and angular in such a way that it would have been
difficult to discern his gender without furtive observation. There was also
something unsettling about him, his stillness perhaps, or the shimmer of his
white hand as it crept to touch a single windowpane until the glass fogged
beneath his fingertips.

Uneasy, I hovered behind my desk, annoyed at being caught so unawares. "You
must be--"

He turned, slowly, the light from the single lamp igniting his features so
that it was as though I gazed upon an exquisite Venetian Carnaval
mask--smooth white skin, cheekbones so high and sharp you'd cut your lip if
you tried to kiss them, a strong though delicate jawline, and skillfully
arched brows, black and thin as though they had been sketched upon his skin;
his nose, too, was beautiful, short, almost pinched, its tip rounded and
slightly up-turned.

Yet it had been they eyes, framed as they were by the ugliest pair of thick,
black, plastic spectacles I had ever seen, that caught my full attention.
They were long, narrow, set wide apart, and curved upward at the ends in a
slant, so that they gave him the sly, feral look of a wildcat.

"Louis. Louis de Valois--" He held out his hand, the fingers very
long and slender for a man. He had a beautiful throaty voice. For an instant
I had been put off by the accent, and something else, the texture. The
manner it seemed to slip and slide like silk against silk in a low baritone,
almost a purr. It could easily charm the teeth off of an snarling Doberman,
let me tell you.

"I'm in your Intermediate Interest class. We talked over the phone?" He took
another step forward and tilted his head, his cheeks were hollowed, touched
with violet where the light struck them. Bewilderment grew soft in his eyes
and he bit his lip tentatively.

It was a gesture: the moment before a beautiful young man reaches out to a
wild animal and touches him. I stared at him--the shrunken black cardigan
and checkered Oxford shirt, a tan leather bookbag that had seen better years
and beat-up Doc Martens. If it wasn't for his exotic features he could have
been just another brooding prep-school boy in a customized uniform, or an
eccentric young artist.

No wonder Maggie had been so unnerved when I ran into her. He was quite
simply--and I do not exhaggerate when I say this--the most gorgeous creature
I had ever beheld. And believe me, I have seen it all, working for
several years as I did for Vogue magazine.

"Yes--" I said softly. My voice cracked, and I stopped, clearing my throat
and took his hand, marveling at the length, his grip. "Um--well then. Won't
you have a seat?" I tipped my hand, gesturing to the chrome chairs behind
him.

He smiled, widely, a rapturous smile that made you feel lucky just to have
glimpsed it. My heart thundered in my ears and I felt faintly dizzy. He
shifted his bag to the other shoulder and pulled up a seat, waiting until I
sank into my armchair before settling down himself.

"So--" I began, feeling a little more at ease, now that I had the chance to
grow more or less accustomed to his startling beauty. "What's the problem?"

He sighed, meeting my gaze with eyes the impossible color of leaves in
shade. "Well," he began, leaning forward and pressing his lips together for
a fleeting moment. "I received a 'C' on the last assignment," he paused and
ran his fingers through his hair, thick and black as a cat's. "I believe I
deserve better."

That simple, that direct. No bickering or beating around the bush.

I laughed, startled once again.

"I have the photograph and evaluation sheet right here--" He dug into this
knapsack, shifting through several textbooks, leaky pens, three new
notebooks already soiled with ink before settling upon a stained manila
folder.

He handed it to me and I opened it. It was a black and white picture of a
young woman, her hair and features unusually pale against the backdrop of
indifferent strangers. She was glancing at her watch, her hand exquisitely
small and fine-boned, her face pretty and nearly incandescent in the
shadows. She might have been waiting for the St. Charles streetcar or for
the light to change to cross a busy road. It was a lovely photograph, too
perfect in content and contrast, the lighting and subject acutely rendered.
But it had not been what I was looking for specifically.

I tilted the eight by ten card and raised an eyebrow as I looked at the
young man in front of me. With his huge eyes and long fingers he had the
startled expression of a nocturnal creature, just rousted from an orgy in
the rainforest; and his lips, which parted in anticipation, took my breath
away. "Do you remember what the assignment had been exactly?"

"Yes, of course." His thin brows came together, and he frowned a little, so
that for an instant I glimpsed the shadowed depressions of two tiny dimples
in his gaunt cheeks. "You told us to photograph something or someone very
close to us, something we find personal."

I nodded and leaned back in my chair, taking the picture in my hand and
pressing it to my chin absently. It smelled faintly of river mud and fennel
stalks. "Very good--" My chair creaked and I continued. "Yet all I see
here--for all its beauty and perfection--is a girl lost in a crowd, and I
can't help but come to the conclusion that she is a stranger to you and vice
versa." I sighed and leaned forward. "Overall, it projects a feeling of
isolation, detachment." I closed my eyes and pressed my folded hands to my
mouth. "It's impersonal."

He said nothing, then, quite to my confusion, he smiled, his dimples stark
black against his white skin, his hair fell over his slanted eyes and he
batted it impatiently. I found myself staring at his mouth suddenly, the
blossom-heavy lips plump as though kiss swollen. They were long, full, and
inviting as the curve of an overripe plum. The philtrum, too, was exquisite,
short and tiny as it was; it gave his upper lip it flared shape and size,
and yet the lower was no less formidable for it.

"You're wrong," he whispered, matter-of-factly.

I looked up, surprised at the confidence and amusement in his tone. "What?"

"You're wrong," he repeated again and motioned for me to give him the
photograph. "Here, let me explain it to you--" The burnished light touched
his brow and chin with gold, the tiny cleft there almost disappearing
entirely as the shadows were cast away from his long, angular face.

"Look at her--" he pointed to the blonde woman, her tangled hair and scarf
forever wind-tossed. "She's young, beautiful, has an entire life
ahead of her. Yet look at her! Gazing at her wristwatch. Perhaps she's late
for work, a date, a movie. Time is vital. Time is her enemy. Time destroys."
He sighed and moved his hand until his forefinger settled on a pale-faced
man with dark hair staring directly at the the subject, his expression far
from what would be considered friendly. "And him, he's a predator, that's
obvious. He could rape her, beat her, kill her if the opportunity came up.
Her life extinguished in a blink of an eye. Mortality, death, helplessness,
those things have always been a part of my life, and at times, my only
companions. While other students chose friends, family, an object they
cherish--I chose a theme, a concept, something that has left an undeniable
mark upon me." His voice grew wistful, more resonant. "I may not know her
but I do know her struggle, her anxiety, and sorrow. We share a
common blight."

Speechless, I collected myself and met his gaze. "Well, if you put it
that way--" I squinted at the picture and tapped it thoughtfully,
shaking my head. It's not often that I meet someone bold enough to
contradict me, much less prove me wrong. I thought my wife was the only one
person capable of it, and now this . . . this boy. "Well then," I
smiled and readjusted my spectacles. "I stand corrected. I assume a change
in grade would be appropriate."

We looked at one another for a long moment, oblivious to the footsteps in
the hall, the soft lighting, the objects in the room. Candles, lamp,
reflected light--it was all melting around us. He looked so young,
yet his gaze betrayed a consciousness much older. His beauty maddened me. I
could hardly stand to gaze at him and not want to know him more intimately.
Everything about him was a mystery--his accent, his beauty, his profound
intellect and sensitivity. Suddenly, I was struck by the most amazing idea.

"Look," I said, impulse working on me like a drug. "I know this will sound a
little crazy and unprofessional, but you must understand I'm being perfectly
sincere when I say this--"

He tilted his head and the light shone in his eyes like an animal's. When
you took his features apart they were almost too exotic, at least to someone
accustomed to seeing men and women polled neatly and expensively as bonzai
trees. "And what is that, Mr. Newton?"

"I want to photograph you," I said. "I would like to do it very much. I'm
willing to pay you for your time. I have plenty of money. I could give you
the address to my studio or even my current home--" I looked at him
beseechingly. "I want you to be my subject. I--I haven't felt this way in a
long time, and for some while I even suspected I never would again, but
you--you--" I stood up and splayed my hands across my desktop.

"I feel as though I have waited my entire life for you, for this
chance, this opportunity, to capture you on film in a way I have always
dreamt of--" I choked and threw up my hands, turning away and crossing the
room until I reached the window. "God, it sounds crazy even to me." For a
moment I paused, staring out at the brilliant winter sky, the moon like a
pale shuttered eye gazing down upon me, towering oaks shedding their leaves.

"I have to try," I whispered, leaning my brow against a windowpane. "I
thought the muse had left me . . . believe me."

"Why would I doubt you?" Came the whisper, the rustle of clothing. "I know
all about you, Mr. Newton. I've read all the biographies, seen all
your work . . ."

I felt my heart somersault into my throat. Even with my back turned, I could
still feel him staring at me with that intent, dark gaze. There was a long
pause.

"I don't know what to say or how to react--" A long drawn-out sigh. "But
I'll give it some thought. You deserve that much. I would hate to oppress
such an artistic vision for the sake of timidity, though what you see in me
I will never know . . ."

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Part 2

The house stood on Prytania street, a mock-Tudor fantasy of stone and stucco
and oak beams. Waves of ivy and cream-colored roses spilled from the upper
eaves; toppling ramparts of hollyhocks grew against the lower story. Massive
oaks and sycamores studded the grounds, and formal gardens that had been
more carefully tended by the mansion's previous owner, a New York fashion
designer recently dead.

It was nothing like my apartment complex in Monte Carlo with its
contemporary furnishings and glass and chrome stillness, yet it was
beautiful, lush, and almost savage in its decay. The air felt dank and
chill, and stone nymphs and cherubs peered out from a jungle of oaks and
wisteria, feral tangles of bougainvillea.

I stretched across the hammock, dozing, to lie here was to suffer a slow
painless death. Leaves spilled across my hair and torso, and cigarette butts
lay scattered across the pine floorboards, moths beating against the porch
screens. I couldn't work. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do anything. Louis
had disappeared. I had not seen him in days now. He had missed an entire
week of classes. No matter what I did to distract myself I kept thinking of
him, the way his hair tumbled over his shoulders in loose curls and how deep
shadows clung to the hollows of his cheeks and tinged the delicate skin
there lavender-grey.

He had been so thin and so pale, yet there had been no sign of sickness in
him, no sign of drug abuse; his movements had been natural, graceful, and
his gaze fierce and direct. Had I frightened him? Made him uncomfortable? He
had looked so sincere and understanding jotting down my address in his
notebook.

The wind rattled the remaining leaves in the oaks. A sweet smell seeped
through the air, the odor of a million roses masking the chemical stench of
diesel and car exhaust.

When the bell rang around midnight I almost didn't answer. I had no idea who
it could be and at the moment I felt like being left alone. Through the back
porch columns the sky gleamed a soft metallic grey, more pewter than silver,
streaked on the horizon with undulating bands of purple and pitch black. A
bird sang somewhere in the emerald dark and a dog howled and barked in the
distance. The air was so still and cold I felt my lungs tighten.

The bell rang again, very short and polite, and a shiver of apprehension
passed through me with such conviction I found myself sliding from the
hammock and walking back inside the house. Beneath my bare feet the wooden
floor was cold and smooth and the lace curtains billowed behind the open
kitchen windows.

The living room was illuminated by a single lamp. It was a splendid room. A
rich burgundy-colored wallpaper stamped with golden poppies covered the
walls. In places mildew had eaten away at the pattern, but that only made it
lovelier, more of a miracle that it had survived so long. A huge Persian rug
covered the floor, woven with plumes and arabesques of green and red and
gold. The edges had worn so thin that you could see the carpet's weft, and
beneath it the wooden floorboards shining with oil. A chandelier hung from
the ceiling, some of its crystals missing.

Third ring, and I peered through the rectangular, diamond-faceted crystal
inset built into the front door. There was a figure standing behind the
wrought-iron gate, its height accentuating its narrowness, and seemed to
glow slightly against the tropical flora.

It was Louis.

The sharp angles of his face were nearly incandescent in the shadows, and
grape and ivy leaves tangled in his hair. His beauty stole my breath away;
try as I might I could not grow accustomed to it--the full-bodied lips and
feline tilt to his eyes, the hollowed cheeks and cleft chin. It was as if I
were seeing him again for the first time. Such exquisite symmetry and bone
structure. The porchlight touched the hard line of his jaw and high
cheekbones, the broad plane of his forehead, and reflected back from eyes as
green as the foliage surrounding him.

I opened the front door and punched in the security code that unlocked the
front gate simultaneously, running across the lawn through sodden limbs of
juniper and ilex just as he was walking away, his tan leather bookbag
hanging limply from his shoulder.

He wore his hair loose and careless, and his eyes were still hidden behind
those ridiculous, plastic spectacles. Young and beautiful he looked, and
effortlessly provacative in stone-washed jeans frayed at the knees, a hooded
grey sweatshirt much too big for him, and scuffed converse sneakers.

There was also something unguarded about him, his long neck and limbs, his
enormous eyes and underlying shyness, the sorrow that tinged his emerald
gaze. For a moment I stared at him, at the ample curves of his mouth and the
tiny indentation above his upper lip. He was only a little more than a
delicate shadow, clothed in pale grey and denim.

"Mr. Newton," he said, smiling so that my heart pitched against my chest,
his teeth were very straight and very white, and his lips--Oh God, those
lips--ever at a perpetual pout, they were meant to be kissed. "I hope I
didn't wake you . . ."

Part 3

He closed the door behind him before crossing the room to the far wall, a
wall taken up by an enormous bay window with many small mullioned panes. The
night surrounded him like crumpled velvet, soft and cool and fragrant with
the scent of narcissus and wild iris. He had taken off his sweatshirt and he
looked all the more angular and graceful in a wrinkled t-shirt faded from
blue to grey.

Around us the study still had its beginning of summer smell, mothballs and
the salt sweetness of rugosa roses blooming too close to the Mississippi's
edge. Dark paneling covered high walls glistening with lemon oil that
scented the room further. Burgundy winged chairs, their leather veined and
cracked with age surrounded a long and intricately carved desk adorned with
marble pen holders and an ancient Royal typewriter, black and gleaming and
segmented like a scorpion.

"You haven't been to class," I said, balancing a cup of Earl Grey tea on my
knee and glancing at the gilded arabesques of an Art Nouveau floorlamp, the
bronze bookends shaped like inscrutable sphinxes.

"I had problems," he answered, in that thoroughly masculine voice. "--with
my roommate. I had to move out."

He rocked back on his heels and the shadows settled into the hollows of his
cheeks and throat, the vertical crease parting the middle of his lower lip
and the faint cleft on the chin below it. With his broad forehead and
sharply angled jaw he reminded me somewhat of Shalom Harlow, he had that
very same mute intensity, that very same keeness of bone structure.

It was almost as though hunger and sorrow had molded him, sharpened him. His
hair is black, almost blue, and sleek as a cat's; and his skin is white in
contrast. He's tall, around 5 feet 11 inches, which only accentuates his
narrowness; he's seeming even in decomposing jeans. His eyes appear
heavily-lidded, but his gaze is penetrating. He's beautiful, but in a
cutting, dangerous sort of way. He looks like a tall, dark razorblade.

I frowned and jabbed a spoon into my tea. Just above his left shoulder I
glimpsed a full moon, not silver or even the sallow gold I had seen on
summer nights in Monte Carlo, but a color I had rarely witnessed in the sky
before, a fiery bronze tinged with red. The eerie radiance made Louis look
as though he were made of some semiprecious stone, fluorite or azurite or
agate, something that filled his veins so the he glowed like phosphorous.

"So what brings you here at this time of night then? Do you need a place to
stay?" I waved the hand holding the spoon, sending green droplets raining
onto the oriental carpet in front of me. "I'm sure I can arrange
something--"

"No, there's no need. I managed to find a new place," he swallowed and gazed
directly into my eyes, unflinching. He looked wild and formidable to me
suddenly, despite his delicate build.

"I came here for a different reason altogether," he continued. "I thought
over your proposition . . and if your offer is still open, I accept."

Delight crested over me with the strength of a tsumami and I chuckled as I
placed my teacup aside. "We start tomorrow then. Eight o'clock sharp,
directly after class." Standing, I smoothed the wrinkles from my black
slacks and navy blue sweater.

His mouth lengthened as he regarded me, it was amazing how his lips never
appeared to thin even when he smiled, they were simply too thick, too
robust. "That sounds like a deal, Mr. Newton."

He moved across the room with unparalleled grace, his strides long and
confident, if not thoroughly relaxed. He reached for his sweatshirt, which
had been flung over an opposing armchair, and slipped it down over his head.
His hair had been wonderfully tousled by it, and with marked impatience he
tucked several unruly strands behind his ears. He had beautiful ears, if
ears could be considered beautiful. They were tiny, the lobes attached and
so taut they were almost nonexistent.

He lifted his bookbag from the floor, slipped it onto his shoulder, and
leaned forward to extend one long pale hand to clasp my own. The shadows
immediately closed in on him and revealed only the gleaming outline of a
cheekbone and the prescient eye above it so that I felt as though I were
gazing at the subject of a Rembrandt portrait.

"Tomorrow then?" he pressed the long curves of his lips together and
moistened them with his tongue.

"Count on it," I answered and gestured for the door.

Still grinning, he pivoted in retreat before hesitating at the door,
glancing at me askance. "Oh, and one more thing--"

"And what is that?" The air shimmered around him.

"Thank you."

Part 4

"My reflection, dirty mirror
There's no connection to myself
I'm your lover, I'm your zero
I'm the face in your dreams of glass
So save your prayers
For when we're really gona need 'em
Throw out your cares and fly
Wanna go for a ride?"

--Smashing Pumpkins (Zero)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the dream we were young again and she walked right up to me, her hands
touching my sides, and I drew my arms up to hold her, run my fingers through
her hair until I looked down at her, moved to kiss her and whisper her
name--

"June . . ."

I woke up just as the grandfather clock chimed ten. The digital clock on the
bedside table told me I'd slept just over an hour. Quickly I bathed and
dressed casually--white oxford shirt and charcoal slacks, wing-tipped shoes.
I had loaded both cameras with black and white film the night before. Taking
one last glance in the mirror and leaving a note taped to the front door I
proceeded to the attic studio.

It was an enormous room, cool and silent as an ice locker. The outer walls
were plastered pale green with runnels of cream and chocolate where cracks
appeared, the floor unpolished wood and very cold. There were no rugs or
furniture, save only two oversized armchairs set in front of a fireplace
where graying embers gave off a fitful warmth. There was a row of candles on
the mantelpiece, and a half-dozen votive candles on the floor.

I lit a cigarette, one of those nasty American brands and smoked it,
thankful for the sudden rush of nicotine in my veins, then took my lighter
to every candlewick I could find.

It wasn't long before I heard footsteps coming from the stairs and then the
tell-tale knock.

"Come in, the door is open."

Louis stepped inside, his hair gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck
in a somewhat desperate attempt to tame it and sporting the type of dress I
like to refer to as "liverpool gutterpunk": loose-fitted leather pants,
black t-shirt, and a threadbare cardigan the color of pea soup.

"I locked the front door. I hope you don't mind," he said, returning my
gaze, his eyes glowing and nacreous as the husk of a scarab beetle. He
rocked back on his heels, looking like some feral androgyne toppled from
some Tudor dome of a Gothic cathedral.

"Good. Good--" I said and tipped a hand toward the hearth, the beeswax
candles dripping onto the floor. As he passed me I noted his thumbs were
hooked through the frayed tears in his sleeves, and haphazard safety pins
held the cardigan closed where buttons had fallen away.

He crouched in front of the blazing fire, warming his hands. "This must be
one of the coldest winters we have ever had in New Orleans," he whispered
and smiled. Where the light touched his hollowed cheeks it left dappled
imprints of gold and black. A faint warm scent of moist wool hung in the
room, pleasant and slightly doggy, and the sweet incense of burning cedar.

"I'm sure it is," I said and shut my eyes, then opened them again to focus
on the slender figure hunched at my feet.

Suddenly I felt as though I were staring at one of those starved-refugees in
a National Geographic magazine: those prominent cheekbones and thin bony
wrists, the long hands splayed across the air as though to ward the fire
away, his pale face streaked with tiger shadows. Then it struck me. I was
afraid for him, protective even; and I found myself playing the part of the
father.

"Can I get you anything? Some warm milk perhaps? or hot cocoa?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm fine, thank you."

"Are you sure?" I insisted. "Because I have plenty of soup and
crackers in the kitchen--"

He laughed. "I'm fine, really," he made a cast-off gesture with his
left hand. "I had something before I came." A sudden flush had spread across
his cheeks. "Though thank you anyway." He stood up and slid into an
armchair, his eyes glittering only an arm's length away.

Outside the wind tore at the dormer windows. A soft clitter marked where a
mouse made its way somewhere within the walls. Shadows washed across the
floor, scattering the wood with dark roseates.

"Here." I motioned for him to lean forward. "Let me get a good look at you
then--" He drew himself up and I tipped his chin upward toward me. The
firelight ignited his features, the delicate bones, filled the hollows with
light. He swallowed and bit his lower lip, a movement which seemed oddly
child-like and endearing.

His eyes were huge as they regarded me, the heavy lids as smooth and tight
as the skin covering his cheekbones. I was close enough to smell the musky
fragrance that clung to the curling raven hair brushing the nape of his
neck. His skin was the bluish-white of skim milk, his throat lavender-grey,
traces of pale rose sat high on his cheeks and forehead, the tips of his
ears.

It was an impossible beauty. It occured to me that perhaps he wasn't a human
thing at all but a creature of fantasy, suspended somewhere between sleep
and awake, made up entirely of humanity's dreams and humanity's desires. I
touched the jutting bone of his lower jaw, where it angled sharply just
below his ear; and withdrew, turned and took a step toward the fireplace.

His eyes never left me.

"I know I'm odd-looking," he whispered, his voice boyish and low, the fire's
crackling all but drowned it out. "Sometimes, I find it difficult to blend
in--"

My hand closed on a handheld mirror. I made a small incredulous sound. "So,
is that how you percieve yourself?" I laughed. "As . . . odd?"
His eyes narrowed, strands of lank hair falling across his brow. Confusion
dominated his expression, and something like reluctance.

"Now what do you mean, Mr. Newton?" Speckled gold flecked his skin, set his
eyes aflame like new leaves under a vernal sun.

I handed him the mirror, the tarnished surface gleaming as he cradled it in
his two hands. He studied me for a moment, uncomprehending, and a deep well
formed over his left eyebrow signalling distress. Again he bit his lower
lip. "I don't understand . . ."

"I want you to look inside it," I said, scratching the faint stubble on my
face. "And I want you to tell me exactly what you see." He looked startled.
He didn't answer; then his face went blank and it seemed he swallowed.
Slowly, reluctantly his gaze drifted toward the gaper. His hair cascaded
into his face but he let it stay there.

Moments passed and it seemed a light tremor went right through him. "Well?"

"I see my mother's eyes," he murmured. "Her cheekbones." A tense pause. "And
perhaps a trace of my father . . . his jaw . . ." His hand lifted toward his
mouth. "His lips . . ." He looked up fleetingly, pulled his fingers through
his hair and glanced down again. "I used to have a scar right here--"
He touched his chin. "From a tree-climbing accident." He swept a hand across
his forehead. "And a little wrinkle over my left eyebrow from lifting it so
much . . ."

He shook his head and his voice caught. "They're gone now . . ." He peered
up and his eyes went dead, and somehow it terrified me. All color drained
from them, the way leaves fade from green to gold when stripped from a tree,
and he stared vacantly into the air between us.

"I'm sorry," he said finally, his voice listless as his eyes. I knew he was
seeing something else in the room's shadows I would never glimpse, and
whatever it was my skin prickled to see it mirrored in his face. He looked
burned out and exhausted and younger than he'd like to admit. "I haven't
been feeling like myself lately." He drew his lower lip into his mouth and
closed his teeth on the corner of it. He tucked the handglass into the
leather seat cushion, the stillness of his face a little unnerving. In the
chimney the wind roared and sent a flurry of ash and glowing embers into the
room.

"Well," he said, faking a smile and sweeping the hair from his eyes. "I
didn't come here to burden you with my sorrows, I came here to model for
you--" His smile grew wider, more genuine. It was the type of smile that
made old ladies on the street melt and young women swoon, the type of smile
that other men envy. "So let's begin."

* * *

"Two of us
That's dangerous
It's all inside our heads
Givin' in for nothin' less
Leavin' me for him
Try to understand
The one I love
And their demands
It's so unfair
When they can't see
That I'm a boy
Who really needs
Their love."

--Smashing Pumpkins (Frail and Bedazzled)

I spent most of the morning in the basement darkroom, and by midafternoon I
had a sizable sum of remarkable snapshots. While the rest of the house had
an old liven-in ambience, down here it was more like someone just moved in.
There were boxes and bags piled against the walls. Amplifiers and speakers
and other sound equipment loomed from dark corners, trailing cables and
coils of wire. Only the photographs had been attended to, neatly hung on a
long cord of nylon in front of me, some of them still dripping from the
water bath.

I had been justified in assuming Louis would be unlike anything I ever
experienced before. Louis was all best angles. The boy definitely had
something. It went beyond his unusual features, thin wrists, and long
legs. It wasn't just his beauty but the entirety of him, his uncanny
ability to channel his emotions into a single look, mannerism, or
impression.

He could dance from one casual moment to the next without missing a single
step, as though his feet never really touched the ground, and suddenly
plunge into something so intense I felt like the guy from the Memorex
commercial with the wind blowing on my face. The kid was definitely a
Nicholson, or a Pacino--he had that power, that charm, that sexuality. And
although he suggested someone who was apart from things and had seen and
done things that others could never imagine, he seemed more heaven-sent than
hell-bent.

It was almost a shame he hated being photographed and I had to practically
chase him down and tie him up just to get him through the rest of the shoot,
yet he never once posed or froze on me.

There was one series I enjoyed in particular, and it had him barefoot and
spread across the armchair like a rag doll. The first image displayed him
with one leg outstretched and the other dangling from the armrest as he
draped an arm over his eyes, his lips parted and unnaturally erotic in their
shape and bounty, chin and jawline distinctly sharpened in the shadows.
Another was a close-up of his eyes when he had turned to peer over the top
of the cathedra, like a kid playing hide and seek. An additional print had
him curled like a cat on his side, knees drawn up to his chest and his hair
covering most of his face.

The shots of him out on the balcony looking in through a closed set of
French doors were the most impressive. Here he really did look like a child.
Again something obstructed a full view of his face, one saw his left eye and
his mouth, pressed firmly against a diamond pane; his left hand splayed to
touch the glass beside his cheek. And the second snap merely depicted fogged
glass, the lip and handprint left behind.

There were thirty-six in all, and from those thirty-six, two had been
damaged, four still lay in the stop bath, and thirty hung out to dry. All in
all it had been a particularly good night. What intrigued me though was the
unconscious manner in which his facial features were never revealed
simultaneously in a single photograph; they were, like him, elusive,
glimpses of a private life one must piece together. Here were his eyes and
forehead, the bridge of his nose; there his mouth and chin, the hollow of
his cheek; but never the whole of him, never enough to implicate him as the
subject.

And though he had started out passive and almost timid, in the end he used
himself as a weapon, a double-edged sword. Each close-up was a challenge, a
clash of wills, and at times a fight to the death. And there was something
secretly exhibitionistic about him, and it was also strange that while in
life he appeared a cool apathetic creature, on camera he was the epitome of
youthful rebellion.

It made me shiver just thinking about it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued . . .