Ingela Bohm's Blog, page 45

Anatomy of a cover

So this is my new Rival Poet cover, and I just wanted to share how it came to be – because seeing the constituent parts of things fascinates me, so perhaps it also fascinates someone else.

Fair warning though, it’s the equivalent of telling people how a magic trick is done, or how a poem was put together. Some people hate that. They want the magic to stay intact.

But being an INTP (analytical, dreamy over-thinker extraordinaire), I think there’s a special kind of magic in knowing the nuts and bolts, because in the end, the sum is so much greater than the parts. (Not to toot my own horn… :P)

Anyway, the images that went into this cover were the following:

The red one is the wallpaper in my writing room, the second one is a mound of dirt in the basement (there’s a part of the house that hasn’t been “excavated”, so it’s basically mud), and the final two I bought from iStock. The software I use is paint.net, which is free and therefore not super advanced, but then neither am I, so we riff off each other pretty well.

Now, obviously I flipped the guy so he was facing the other way, and I cut the candle, but that’s not the interesting stuff. The interesting stuff is LAYERS. Ah, the beauty of layers. The things you can do! Also, metaphor. This time around, I wanted the cover to better convey a few things in the story, such as the theme of water. Thus the blue-green bits.

But none of the images are blue, are they? Well, that’s where both “hue/saturation” and “layer properties” come in. As you can see in the image below (of my finished, not-yet-flattened cover), there are tons of layers. I’ve never learned to do them from a tutorial, because I’m rubbish at following instructions, so I’ve trial-and-errored my way to a level of proficiency I’m happy with.

I always work intuitively, too, so I don’t have much of a plan to start with. The reason I’m telling you that is that this is not a tutorial, since I have no idea what I did! I’m sure there are much easier ways of getting the same effect, but this is my method: import a load of images into the programme and play around with hues, contrast and layer properties.

So this text should rather be seen as some kind of inspirational post. Which I guess I should have said at the beginning, but the INTP is also the original “distracted professor” type, so why not let that show? (Actually, maybe this is the sort of scatterbrained tutorial I would personally be able to live with, so maybe there are other instruction-abhorring intuitive thinker types out there just gagging for a rambling post on paint.net, and this is actually the Holy Grail.)

The image above shows that I used the “additive” layer property for the photo of my wallpaper (which I obviously also turned blue-green with the help of hue/saturation, shown below).

For the basement mud (turned green), I randomly used the layer property “overlay”. I don’t really know what that means, but there you go. As long as it works, I’m happy.

As you can also see from the images, some layers are cut, or rather they fade away. I did this when they interfered too much with some other image, mostly with the guy’s face. If there was too much dirt up in the right hand corner, he looked… well… dirty. And Kit might not be God’s best angel, but he’s not a slob. (Unless he’s in a bad mood, but look at him – if they’d had cameras back then, this would be him gazing in post coitus stupefaction at Will the photographer. He’s not in a bad mood.)

Brightness/contrast is also a fun thing to play around with. As you can see from the original photos, most of them were brighter than they ended up in the final picture. There’s a reason for that too, of course. I wanted half of Kit’s face (oh, and apologies to anyone who prefers to see the guy as Will – that’s fine!) to be shadowed, because he’s such a secretive character, with this hidden side to him, and obviously a literal double life. So. Contrast way up. (Not all the way up, or the picture will turn black and white, but you know. Use your judgment.)

Finally, the lettering. I’ve been mooning forever over covers with gold relief text, thinking it’s really really hard to do, but then I remembered this:

If you write the text in Word, you can make it gold with the click of a button! Then copy and paste onto a new layer in the paint.net document, twiddle for a bit with hue and contrast, and hey presto: olden times on tap.

So… I guess that’s all?

Oh, wait, a tip! I actually did watch a few tutorials by a fun guy on Youtube, and he was the main reason I was inspired to learn more about the programme, so a big warm round of applause for Yakobelt, please!

Just testing a new cover

 

Goodnight kiss (deleted scene, Just Playing)

When Jamie was finally done with tonight’s escalatingly stupid make-you-feel-better charade, Michael hoped to mark the end of it by rolling something to smoke. Nothing like a little post-photographic ritual to make them move away from fucking nude pictures. Christ, did he look that desperate? Did Jamie think ogling his own scrawny chest would make him feel better about his marginally improving bass playing?

Seeing the joint, Jamie gave a small chuckle and then a nod. Michael relaxed a little and hurriedly lit it. Sitting beside each other on Michael’s bunk, legs spread out, feet almost touching on the floor, they shared the sweet burn and gradually, gradually cooled down.

When Jamie seemed to be becoming comfortably numb, Michael dared to ask, “So how are you, Jamie?”

Jamie looked up in surprise. Then he shook his head. “Trust you to notice.”

“Well, you’re not exactly looking happy either.”

Jamie pursed his lips. “I’m happy.”

“With touring, with finally making it, yes. With making friends, having fun.”

Jamie fidgeted, grimacing. “Just leave it. It’s nothing you can do anything about.”

“Still. It might help to talk.”

Jamie glowered at him and stubbed out the joint. “It won’t.”

“Okay,” Michael immediately retracted, hands in the air, signalling his backing off. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

Jamie shrugged and crawled into his bunk, turning his back and switching off his lamp.

Okay…

Michael fluffed up his pillow and lay down too, staring up at the greyish underside of Jamie’s bunk. So that was off limits, was it? Jamie wanted him to buy into the glittering guitarist persona that fooled everyone else? Don’t you think I know you by now?

Offstage, Jamie was a ghost. Michael wasn’t so wrapped up in his own failures that he didn’t see. The whirlwind of big arenas and new faces had started to wear off, and the quietness that ensued was so very… quiet. Only the rumbling of the bus wheels over greying asphalt hummed its constant playback. It seemed to have moved into their very music. It was part of them now, as much as the playing. Their days were divided between the blinding lights onstage and the darkness outside the bus windows.

And Jamie was withering in the blast. He’d sit hunched in corners, staring into space, or covering up with smoking too much. His skin was grey and brittle like paper. His eyes were mere hollows, empty sockets where sparkling jewels had once sat. Of course, even in this washed-out, decayed state, Michael loved him. Loved the fire that had once sung in those ashes. Because he could still see the flames that weren’t there. Still felt the warmth that had waned, the light that had gone out. Like deposed royalty, Jamie was beautiful in his ruin.

He did his job, no doubt about it. He played his heart out up on that ever-changing stage, surpassed himself again and again. Ravaged place after place, conquered hearts that weren’t even theirs for the taking – Entropy’s army of fans, startled into listening to the opening act by that honey-haloed, nimble guitarist. No inch left untouched. He lived the dream, and all went down before him.

But he seemed not even to notice. Afterwards, he drank himself unconscious and passed out in his current bed, with or without company. Michael knew that he rarely did anything. Beneath the varnish of gossip, he had heard the groupies complain. Between themselves, they could impart the truth: that behind that golden exterior, there was nothing. He might be a sight for sore eyes, that Jamie Gardiner, but where they expected a young stud full of life, there was an old man crawling towards the grave. Most of the time he couldn’t even get it up. Just forget it, girls.

Should that make Michael happy? It didn’t. He might still love the shadow of what had once been his best friend, but he wished for the real Jamie back. The carefree guy who didn’t give a toss about anything, who put his heart on a platter for anyone to see. Who lived life to the full.

The bunk above squeaked faintly as Jamie rolled onto his back with a demonstrative sigh. “Alright! I know we don’t usually talk about these things, but I…” He paused to breathe in, as if preparing to jump off a cliff. “I miss sex.”

Michael started and frowned. Then he chuckled uneasily. “I thought you made the most of our so-called fame.” He immediately regretted saying it. He, of all people! He should know better. But that word… sex… It made him dizzy. Couldn’t think straight.

“Well, I’m not interested in some bimbo who hates our music, thank you very much.”

Heart beating hard, Michael decided to tease. “You want it to mean something?”

He could almost feel Jamie’s dagger-stare from up there. “Well, what if I do?” A pause. Then, “No, it’s not really that. Or it’s not just that. I’m… I’m just… lonely, I guess.” The word slipped like a frightened bird from Jamie’s tongue, and Michael’s heart pulsed with a sudden pain.

“Lonely?”

Jamie was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was very soft. “Yeah, you know… we’re on the road all the time. And I know I haven’t got anyone at home either, it’s just… it feels worse on a bus, you know? To sleep alone.”

“We don’t actually sleep alone,” Michael pointed out.

“We sleep alone. There’s no one to put your arm around at night. To remind you of home…” Jamie paused briefly, and then added, voice boyish with too much sincerity, “… you know?”

Michael willed his hands to stop fidgeting, his chest to stop shuddering. “I know.” He managed a wasted smile at the underside of Jamie’s bunk. “I’d let you put your arm around me, only it’s not exactly a substitute, is it?”

Shit. It was meant as a joke, but Jamie’s silence told him he’d overstepped the boundary. Again. Well, of course you did, you fucking idiot. Offering him to put his arm around you? What kind of gay crap is that? Jesus!

Jamie’s eventual chuckle sounded forced. “Guess not.”

Another eon of silence.

Then Jamie’s breathing changed. “You… you would?”

Breath hesitating in his throat, Michael stared wildly at the dull grey plastic above him. “Well…” It was stupid. Dangerous. He mustn’t get more hooked than he already was. If Jamie so much as caught the briefest flutter of a racing pulse, he would push him away in disgust. And Michael had already made a fool of himself, forcing that stupid fucking kiss on him. It wasn’t as if Jamie had made his views on physical favours extremely fucking clear.

But apparently that didn’t extend to simple spooning.

“Uh, well yeah, okay.” Michael gripped the edges of the bunk. “Why not? We could… I don’t know, be home to each other.” He bit his lip, waited for a response. Or would the rushing in his ears drown it out?

Jamie’s voice was very soft. “I’d… uh, I’d like that. I think.”

Sitting up slowly, fearfully, Michael rose to his feet and turned to look at Jamie where he lay. Crystal blue met his flickering gaze, and he climbed up and quickly crept between the sheets before either of them could change their mind and get weird about it. The bunk was unbelievably narrow and he had to scoot really close, but Jamie – unbelievably – didn’t seem to mind. Maybe he really was homesick. As Michael snuggled into the covers in an effort to relax, he felt Jamie’s arm slide around his waist and pull him close, resting his head close to Michael’s on the pillow. In the warm silence, Michael gradually unknotted his muscles, and after a long while, he heaved a deep sigh.

Michael dropped to Jamie’s pink mouth where it met the pillowcase. They were lying so close…

Realizing that he was staring, he turned back over.

“Goodnight, then,” Jamie mumbled, still sounding strangely forlorn.

But it was a long time before Michael slept.

Tormenting Ben Whishaw…

… seems to be a favourite pastime among film directors, and I kind of get why. It really pays off, you know? I’m rewatching Criminal Justice, and I think the people who produced London Spy must have watched it and gone, “I haven’t had enough of watching that guy run the gamut of negative feelings, let’s put him in an even worse situation!”

We’re voyeurs of pain.

The Pax IV writing process

For the pathologically curious. This is long (ca 20 mins). And rambly. And not very interesting at all.

 

Rant about torsos and Mulholland Drive

Me being snotty and irritated about torsos and about people liking Mulholland Drive the wrong way. Warning: I use the word ‘moron’ in it, since this was before my Tumblr days and I didn’t know that some people object to it.

PAX EXTRAS

Deleted scenes

Naughty photographs (Just Playing)

Tour bus shenanigans (seriously NSFW, Just Playing)

Popcorn and a heart-stopping moment (cute rather than racy, Just Playing)

Part of the original short story

Music

Pax playlists

Pax demos

The writing process

Cutting Edge and moral panic

Why you may not be able to apologize to a victim of bullying (Cutting Edge)

Should art be censored? (a major question in Cutting Edge)

Throwing your hat over the fence so you have to retrieve it (Cutting Edge)

Oh, the horror of realizing how ignorant you are! (Cutting Edge)

Musicians don’t eat (Cutting Edge)

Chapter one of Cutting Edge

Swansea revisited

New edition, new blurb, newish cover – and new price! Just Playing has just been revamped and discounted, and yours truly is reeling from her reconnection with the early days of her favourite boys.

Between two passions, which one do you choose?

Michael has never really had any friends, so when Jamie starts spending time with him, he’s suspicious at first. Sure, they share a passion for music, but Jamie’s golden good looks seem destined for something bigger, better. Not that Michael is noticing Jamie’s beauty or anything…

Jamie is the first to realize that something is happening. Spellbound by Michael’s talent and fey-like softness, he’s powerless to resist. The thrill of playing together slowly turns into something else – something that, in 1975, has only been legal for eight years.

They have to stop it. The pleasure of touches as blissful as they’re terrifying can only end in disaster. When things finally start moving for Jamie’s band, it seems like the perfect way out, but the choice he faces is brutal: what’s more important – Michael, or the music?

Angsty and poetic, this slow burn romance charts every push and pull of a young love that isn’t exactly forbidden – just not allowed.

Author’s note: contains a cliffhanger.

Naughty photographs (deleted scene, Just Playing

Michael is insecure about his looks, and Jamie tries to do something about it, but ends up doing it for himself.

***

“Maybe, uh…” he began, uncertain of quite how to put it into words. “Um… you could be… that is… Look, I’m taking this course,” he lied. “A photography course.”

This jolted Michael out of his miserable ruminations. “What? You never said.”

“Just to while away the time on tour, you know,” Jamie explained, feeling sheepish and translucent. “Distance learning sort of thing, you know.” His mind lighted on the object he’d seen in Cal’s bag the other day: a state-of-the-art camera, just waiting to be ‘borrowed’. “Wait a minute.”

He went to rummage around in the absent drummer’s luggage, and the camera wasn’t difficult to find. Back at the window, he waved it in Michael’s face. “Our first assignment is to take a picture in… um…” He looked around him. “Oh yeah, in near darkness! It’s some kind of light and darkness thing, you know…”

“A claire-obscure?”

“That’s the one,” Jamie smiled, relieved that there was a fancy word to back up his crazy story.

Michael seemed unconvinced. “Why didn’t you tell me about this course before?”

“Oh… well, there’s been so much, you know, with the tour and…” Jamie spread his hands. “Anyway, you’d be the perfect object for the assignment.”

Object? Did photographers call them objects?

“What, lots of sharp angles that make for interesting shadows?” Michael muttered sullenly.

“No, but you’re my friend. You’ll be natural. I won’t have to work as hard as if I’m photographing someone I don’t know that well.”

Michael shrugged. “So take your damned picture.”

“Not just one,” Jamie said carefully. “I have to do lots… you know, so that I can learn and… um, get better.” And, deep inside him, he dared the thought, And this might just be the way to tell you. A safe way.

Michael groaned. “You’re going to torture me throughout the whole tour, then?”

Jamie laughed, knowing that he’d already won. “That’s the idea.”

Michael leaned his head in his hand and gazed out of the window again. The weak light over his head glimmered in his hair, and his bangs threw an ominous shadow across his cheek.

Claire-obscure…

Moving slowly, Jamie raised the camera to his face and peered through the lens. He pressed his finger down, and the shutter clicked. Michael started and looked at him.

“Jeez, you don’t waste time, do you?”

Jamie hung his head in boyish mock remorse, and Michael lost a brief battle with a smile. Oh good, he’s already distracted, Jamie congratulated himself. It’s working! And as Michael gradually relaxed, he let the shutter work its magic, committing image after image of his sweet friend to film.

For his sake, he reminded himself, ignoring the tiny voice that said, And mine.

 

***

 

The photos were developed at their next stop. Red hot and burning, they lay in anxious wait beneath the shirts and the socks in Jamie’s bag until the evening’s concert – a little better this time – was finally over. Clutching them with equal parts excitement and fear, he retired to his bunk on the bus to screen them before presenting them to Michael. It wouldn’t do to include any botched pictures with weird grimaces and eyes at half-mast in his all-important persuasion campaign. Those would just mysteriously disappear before Michael even got to have a look.

Lying on his stomach, Jamie ripped the envelope open. He pulled out the small pile.

And then he just stopped.

The rumbling of wheels against asphalt receded behind the rushing in his ears. It’s just Michael, he told himself. My… friend.

But the face in the photo was… He grasped at words of poetry, completely alien to him. Shimmering? Intense?

Breath-taking.

No. He tore his eyes from the image. Not breath-taking! Christ, no. But… He looked back at it, held his breath. Michael was half turned away, his chin in his hand – a slender, graceful hand, draping itself across his cheek. His hair was shielding half his eye, and his long lashes threw fuzzy shadows on his skin. And his mouth… it was moulded by a master, all the lines perfectly juxtaposed to form the prototype for mouths everywhere.

Christ! Jamie threw the pile down, but the pictures just spread out, revealing Michael’s gradual, almost cinematic transformation from oblivious to surprised and then on to laughing and happy. Every image a perfect moment, stolen from the clutches of time. Not a single one of them messed up or blurry. Just a string of masterpieces, caught on film by a freak accident. Jamie was no photographer, and Michael was no model, and yet between them, this world of beauty had been created.

Swallowing, Jamie gathered the pictures and once again went to sit opposite Michael by the window – the very place where the pictures had been taken. Michael was looking a little happier tonight, but he was still tired, exhausted from another show where he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.

“I’ll play better tomorrow,” he said as soon as he saw Jamie.

“We all have ups and downs, Mike.”

“I’d prefer to be magnificent all the time.”

Jamie chuckled. “Forget it. Did you take a look at the audience? Most of them were so high that we could have played one chord all night and they’d have been lyrical about it.”

Michael sighed. “I… I don’t know what I’d do without you, Jamie.”

A current raced through Jamie’s body, making everything tingle. He forced a laugh to play it down. “Anyway, the photos are done.” He tried for lightness, but instead he sounded completely freaked out. Michael noticed, and visibly braced himself for the torture to come.

“Alright, hit me with your worst.”

Knowing that nothing would convince him but the truth, Jamie just handed him the pile. Seeing the first picture, Michael grew very still. His lips parted slightly, as if on the verge of saying something, but he didn’t make a sound. Jamie held his breath and watched him as he leafed through the pile, growing stiller by the second.

When Michael finally looked up, his eyes were glistening. “This is how you see me?” he whispered.

Jamie choked. What kind of question was that?

Michael seemed to realize his faux-pas and waved a hand to erase it. “I mean, you really have an eye for…” he fumbled, cheeks reddening. “You’ll do well on your course,” he finally mumbled and handed the photos back.

“So can I continue? You know, taking photos of you?”

Blushing deeper, Michael just nodded.

Not wanting the moment to slip through his fingers, Jamie grabbed the camera, charged with colour film this time. Michael’s eyes widened at the sight, and then he composed himself, gazing straight at Jamie through the lens. Feeling a fine trembling start in the pit of his stomach, Jamie hurriedly pressed the button and let the machine capture the soul of his friend in a series of miniature explosions. Michael kept his countenance for a few seconds, but then the tension caught up with him and his lips pulled apart in a helpless, embarrassed grin. Willing his heart to stop beating so fucking hard against his ribs, Jamie kept the button pressed down, to catch that glorious smile in unblurred glory on film.

“Okay, cut it out now,” Michael muttered and stood up. “Don’t waste it all on me.” Clumsy with self-consciousness, he made for the sleeping compartment, out of the view of the lens. But Jamie wasn’t done. Drawn by something stronger than himself, he followed. “You’re going to document that too, or what?”

“What?”

“I’m undressing,” Michael explained. “You going to snap a photo of that, too?”

Jamie wanted to say no, but couldn’t formulate a thing.

“Okay, do what you like,” Michael shrugged, all but batting his lashes at his would-be paparazzo. Then he started worming out of his jacket and shirt. Unable to move, Jamie just looked at him, hand still clutching the camera. Michael glanced over his shoulder and met his gaze, shy and provocative at once. His cheeks were flushed, setting off the lion-tawny of his eyes. Jamie wanted to turn away, but had no power over his limbs.

Before long, Michael stood entirely naked in the narrow compartment, back towards him, not a thread on his body. After all this time, Jamie couldn’t stop his eyes from raking shamelessly over those curves and lines, tracing the graceful male figure that was his best friend. Everything about him was beautiful. Absolutely everything. Shapely calves transforming to tight thighs, muscle curving into abdomen and stomach, the hint of a backlit smudge of dark hair.

Jamie wanted to travel further upwards, to take in Michael’s arms and chest, the soft mass of hair tumbling down his back… but he came no further. Couldn’t coax his eyes away from that shapely ass. He traced the curves with mental fingertips, feeling his jeans shrink on his cock.

Hands strangely steady, he saw himself lift the camera. This is not why Cal brought it with him, his brain pointed out, but there was an empty space where his ability to process rational thought used to be. And when Michael half turned to say something, Jamie’s finger squeezed what he almost thought of as the trigger. The shutter clicked, and Michael gasped. His eyes locked with Jamie’s. Dropping the camera on his bunk, Jamie spread his hands in a mortified ‘whoops’ gesture and then turned away to hide his burning cheeks. He was going crazy. There was no other explanation. He’d completely lost it.

But even as he scolded himself, the one thing that dominated his mind was the day when this film would be developed and he would be holding the picture of naked Michael in his hand.

His left hand.

A final deleted scene from Just Playing

Michael is insecure about his looks, and Jamie tries to do something about it, but ends up doing it for himself.

***

“Maybe, uh…” he began, uncertain of quite how to put it into words. “Um… you could be… that is… Look, I’m taking this course,” he lied. “A photography course.”

This jolted Michael out of his miserable ruminations. “What? You never said.”

“Just to while away the time on tour, you know,” Jamie explained, feeling sheepish and translucent. “Distance learning sort of thing, you know.” His mind lighted on the object he’d seen in Cal’s bag the other day: a state-of-the-art camera, just waiting to be ‘borrowed’. “Wait a minute.”

He went to rummage around in the absent drummer’s luggage, and the camera wasn’t difficult to find. Back at the window, he waved it in Michael’s face. “Our first assignment is to take a picture in… um…” He looked around him. “Oh yeah, in near darkness! It’s some kind of light and darkness thing, you know…”

“A claire-obscure?”

“That’s the one,” Jamie smiled, relieved that there was a fancy word to back up his crazy story.

Michael seemed unconvinced. “Why didn’t you tell me about this course before?”

“Oh… well, there’s been so much, you know, with the tour and…” Jamie spread his hands. “Anyway, you’d be the perfect object for the assignment.”

Object? Did photographers call them objects?

“What, lots of sharp angles that make for interesting shadows?” Michael muttered sullenly.

“No, but you’re my friend. You’ll be natural. I won’t have to work as hard as if I’m photographing someone I don’t know that well.”

Michael shrugged. “So take your damned picture.”

“Not just one,” Jamie said carefully. “I have to do lots… you know, so that I can learn and… um, get better.” And, deep inside him, he dared the thought, And this might just be the way to tell you. A safe way.

Michael groaned. “You’re going to torture me throughout the whole tour, then?”

Jamie laughed, knowing that he’d already won. “That’s the idea.”

Michael leaned his head in his hand and gazed out of the window again. The weak light over his head glimmered in his hair, and his bangs threw an ominous shadow across his cheek.

Claire-obscure…

Moving slowly, Jamie raised the camera to his face and peered through the lens. He pressed his finger down, and the shutter clicked. Michael started and looked at him.

“Jeez, you don’t waste time, do you?”

Jamie hung his head in boyish mock remorse, and Michael lost a brief battle with a smile. Oh good, he’s already distracted, Jamie congratulated himself. It’s working! And as Michael gradually relaxed, he let the shutter work its magic, committing image after image of his sweet friend to film.

For his sake, he reminded himself, ignoring the tiny voice that said, And mine.

 

***

 

The photos were developed at their next stop. Red hot and burning, they lay in anxious wait beneath the shirts and the socks in Jamie’s bag until the evening’s concert – a little better this time – was finally over. Clutching them with equal parts excitement and fear, he retired to his bunk on the bus to screen them before presenting them to Michael. It wouldn’t do to include any botched pictures with weird grimaces and eyes at half-mast in his all-important persuasion campaign. Those would just mysteriously disappear before Michael even got to have a look.

Lying on his stomach, Jamie ripped the envelope open. He pulled out the small pile.

And then he just stopped.

The rumbling of wheels against asphalt receded behind the rushing in his ears. It’s just Michael, he told himself. My… friend.

But the face in the photo was… He grasped at words of poetry, completely alien to him. Shimmering? Intense?

Breath-taking.

No. He tore his eyes from the image. Not breath-taking! Christ, no. But… He looked back at it, held his breath. Michael was half turned away, his chin in his hand – a slender, graceful hand, draping itself across his cheek. His hair was shielding half his eye, and his long lashes threw fuzzy shadows on his skin. And his mouth… it was moulded by a master, all the lines perfectly juxtaposed to form the prototype for mouths everywhere.

Christ! Jamie threw the pile down, but the pictures just spread out, revealing Michael’s gradual, almost cinematic transformation from oblivious to surprised and then on to laughing and happy. Every image a perfect moment, stolen from the clutches of time. Not a single one of them messed up or blurry. Just a string of masterpieces, caught on film by a freak accident. Jamie was no photographer, and Michael was no model, and yet between them, this world of beauty had been created.

Swallowing, Jamie gathered the pictures and once again went to sit opposite Michael by the window – the very place where the pictures had been taken. Michael was looking a little happier tonight, but he was still tired, exhausted from another show where he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.

“I’ll play better tomorrow,” he said as soon as he saw Jamie.

“We all have ups and downs, Mike.”

“I’d prefer to be magnificent all the time.”

Jamie chuckled. “Forget it. Did you take a look at the audience? Most of them were so high that we could have played one chord all night and they’d have been lyrical about it.”

Michael sighed. “I… I don’t know what I’d do without you, Jamie.”

A current raced through Jamie’s body, making everything tingle. He forced a laugh to play it down. “Anyway, the photos are done.” He tried for lightness, but instead he sounded completely freaked out. Michael noticed, and visibly braced himself for the torture to come.

“Alright, hit me with your worst.”

Knowing that nothing would convince him but the truth, Jamie just handed him the pile. Seeing the first picture, Michael grew very still. His lips parted slightly, as if on the verge of saying something, but he didn’t make a sound. Jamie held his breath and watched him as he leafed through the pile, growing stiller by the second.

When Michael finally looked up, his eyes were glistening. “This is how you see me?” he whispered.

Jamie choked. What kind of question was that?

Michael seemed to realize his faux-pas and waved a hand to erase it. “I mean, you really have an eye for…” he fumbled, cheeks reddening. “You’ll do well on your course,” he finally mumbled and handed the photos back.

“So can I continue? You know, taking photos of you?”

Blushing deeper, Michael just nodded.

Not wanting the moment to slip through his fingers, Jamie grabbed the camera, charged with colour film this time. Michael’s eyes widened at the sight, and then he composed himself, gazing straight at Jamie through the lens. Feeling a fine trembling start in the pit of his stomach, Jamie hurriedly pressed the button and let the machine capture the soul of his friend in a series of miniature explosions. Michael kept his countenance for a few seconds, but then the tension caught up with him and his lips pulled apart in a helpless, embarrassed grin. Willing his heart to stop beating so fucking hard against his ribs, Jamie kept the button pressed down, to catch that glorious smile in unblurred glory on film.

“Okay, cut it out now,” Michael muttered and stood up. “Don’t waste it all on me.” Clumsy with self-consciousness, he made for the sleeping compartment, out of the view of the lens. But Jamie wasn’t done. Drawn by something stronger than himself, he followed. “You’re going to document that too, or what?”

“What?”

“I’m undressing,” Michael explained. “You going to snap a photo of that, too?”

Jamie wanted to say no, but couldn’t formulate a thing.

“Okay, do what you like,” Michael shrugged, all but batting his lashes at his would-be paparazzo. Then he started worming out of his jacket and shirt. Unable to move, Jamie just looked at him, hand still clutching the camera. Michael glanced over his shoulder and met his gaze, shy and provocative at once. His cheeks were flushed, setting off the lion-tawny of his eyes. Jamie wanted to turn away, but had no power over his limbs.

Before long, Michael stood entirely naked in the narrow compartment, back towards him, not a thread on his body. After all this time, Jamie couldn’t stop his eyes from raking shamelessly over those curves and lines, tracing the graceful male figure that was his best friend. Everything about him was beautiful. Absolutely everything. Shapely calves transforming to tight thighs, muscle curving into abdomen and stomach, the hint of a backlit smudge of dark hair.

Jamie wanted to travel further upwards, to take in Michael’s arms and chest, the soft mass of hair tumbling down his back… but he came no further. Couldn’t coax his eyes away from that shapely ass. He traced the curves with mental fingertips, feeling his jeans shrink on his cock.

Hands strangely steady, he saw himself lift the camera. This is not why Cal brought it with him, his brain pointed out, but there was an empty space where his ability to process rational thought used to be. And when Michael half turned to say something, Jamie’s finger squeezed what he almost thought of as the trigger. The shutter clicked, and Michael gasped. His eyes locked with Jamie’s. Dropping the camera on his bunk, Jamie spread his hands in a mortified ‘whoops’ gesture and then turned away to hide his burning cheeks. He was going crazy. There was no other explanation. He’d completely lost it.

But even as he scolded himself, the one thing that dominated his mind was the day when this film would be developed and he would be holding the picture of naked Michael in his hand.

His left hand.