Sins of the Flash Read online

  Christian cherished the time in the darkroom. Only when the snooping eyes of the rest of the world were not trained on him nor watching over his shoulder could he enjoy what he had created. He could sit for hours and study the way a difficult bit of lighting had come out, or how he'd gotten a particularly dense young model to tilt his or her head just the right way.

  This day had not been a good one, and it had left a particularly bitter taste in his mouth. Maybe it was the insistence of that last woman that her little "angel" was the most photogenic piece of flesh to every grace film. Maybe it was the way the little shit had toyed with him, sniffling, even crying once, turning her head away coyly, then broad siding him just as he was getting frantic with frustration, letting loose the smile that would make it all worthwhile and only letting him catch the last, waning seconds of it. Showing him that in her eyes, he wasn’t as important as a dingy stuffed bear.

  She had known; they all knew. They taunted him. They recognized his talent and were jealous of it, and they did everything in their power to prevent him from succeeding. The girls, and the women they grew into, were the worst. They always knew just how to take that edge of perfection off of his work, no matter how diligently he planned or how quickly he acted.

  His thoughts darkened a shade, and he thought again about the little girl, Chastity, and the lost smile. Mother's little angel. He would have liked to make her into a little angel. If she hadn’t kicked around so much, or hadn’t been so damned cocky, he'd have been able to do his work.

  He closed his eyes and imagined how he would pose her, given the chance. In his mind, he tilted her head to the side, the smooth skin of her face as cool and pliant as porcelain. He applied the makeup just so, bringing out the highlights of her cheekbones and accentuating the depth of her eyes.

  He sat her further back on the divan, pulled her small legs up so that her knees bent, and leaned them to one side, her tiny saddle shoes tucked up beneath her.

  He released her hair from the constraints of the pigtails her mother had trapped it in and let it cascade over her shoulders in an elegant but innocent shower of gold. Christian brushed the bangs up and over so they fell coquettishly over one eye and brought out the contrast between youth and future beauty, ravishing and innocent. Heart-stealing.

  She was a perfect model. It was unfortunate that God had given the power to them, the mother and the daughter. They had the power to destroy his genius in their vindictive little hands. All it would take was one trapped moment of control, and he could create a masterpiece. He was so close he could taste the success, could see the admiration in the eyes of his colleagues, and could feel the adulation of his public.

  A trickle of sweat rolled languidly down the side of his face, starting at his forehead and winding past his nose. He licked it from his upper lip, tasting the salt. His day's work came back into focus slowly. He reached into the vats and lifted each print carefully with his forceps, attaching them to the clips that suspended them for drying. Now that he was relaxing, his mind cleared, and the rest of the day played out for him like a stop-motion film.

  There had been another girl earlier that afternoon, a girl of about fourteen. She wasn’t beautiful, but there had been something there to work with, something perhaps better than the mundane beauty of super models.

  Christian had read pain in the girl’s eyes. She was young, but with eyes so sad and far away that she might have been thirty, or forty, living on the streets. The girl’s mother had the same look, but her expression was battered into her face, sunken and developed to graphic proportions that would have rendered any photo too honestly caustic, and too brittle. Her features had Piccassoesque linearity – too much a caricature for film. She was chiseled from pain and touched by the disintegration of her spirit.

  The daughter was different. Sparks still jumped in the depths of her eyes, and not so deeply that a perfectly timed photo couldn’t catch them. Ice chip sparks of pain, fear, and even of hope danced there.

  Christian had sensed that there was a man behind those sparks, probably the father. He didn't know a lot about families, but he knew about fathers. He could imagine the atrocities that created such expressions of hopelessness and servility as well. Sweat leaked through to stain his collar as he pulled out one of the shots from his tray and stared at the girl’s tragic countenance. The motion caused his thigh to press that warm lump in his pocket against the flesh of his groin, and he held very still for a moment, suppressing the urge to slide his hand into his pocket and pull it out. It wasn’t time.

  The girl had been dressed in a gown much too old for her and had worn makeup beyond her years. It looked out of place, almost ridiculous, and she hadn’t been comfortable with it. A dress-up doll for daddy, Christian thought. The two women had exchanged glances as they watched his reaction, the mother's empty and lost, the equivalent of a mental shrug, the daughter's reaching out, searching for help, or for support.

  Christian had tried his best to put the girl at ease. Her name was Dorinda. Not a common name. He’d commented on it, and the mother mumbled something about it being her husband's choice. Not surprising. Christian figured the dress and the makeup were the father's choice, as well, and wondered how long the daughter had been the choice, while he was at it.

  Dorinda had squirmed, twisted, and resisted his every attempt to get a true smile to cross her face, so he'd given in and settled for the wistful, trapped expression she provided so readily. The mother, watching like a spectator at some grim sacrifice, tried only once to get the girl to smile wider before backing away to the wall and standing against it. She had looked as though she were afraid of being caught by surprise.

  Christian let his mind drift to the girl’s waif-like figure, to the remnants of the image he'd been tying together in his mind as he'd photographed her. He'd imagined her compliance directed at himself, not at the father.

  He would have made her up, too, but differently. Her hair was a light reddish color, matched by her eyebrows, which had been so light that they barely showed, giving her an ethereal aspect. Christian would have played on this, using golds and yellows, lightening her complexion still more. He would have brushed her hair back and tied it in a ponytail in the center, so that it sprouted from her head and spilled back down.

  He would have slid her dress from one shoulder and let it drop down so that one tiny, budding breast showed for his camera. He would have moved to her side as he readied her, tilting her head a little this way, caressing her nipple so that it stood out, proud and defiant against the world of pain reflected in her eyes. Not to sate his own hunger, but for the camera – always for the camera.

  He would have pulled one leg in close, almost a cross-legged position, but the other he would have let bend behind, spreading her legs just enough to get a shadow gap between, a dark contour to break up the monotony of her "light" appearance.

  Her portrait would have been that of a melancholy fairy princess, a desperate, clinging work of art that grasped at the eye and tore at the heart. Christian could have captured that pose, worked with it, changing the hues of the makeup as he did with his painted masks, perfecting and sculpting her until the image was beyond reproach.

  With a sigh, he drifted back from the daydream and moved down the line of prints to the next model. The thought of transforming the monotony of his drudgery into the glamour of a real studio – the family portraits into something for an uptown gallery – all of it excited him, bringing an erection that was nearly painful in its intensity. He had to focus. There was work to be done before he could drift away completely.

  Chastity and Dorinda would still be with him when he was home and alone. They were part of him; the photos he’d never taken and would never see would always be with him. They were stolen moments from a history that never was, and they belonged solely to the world in Christian’s mind.

  The day’s next subject had been a little boy with curling blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes. This child had been a marvel, and had prov
en to be the one truly bright spot in a day of disappointments. The boy seemed instinctively to choose the proper angle for his smiling face to glow in the eye of the camera. Both parents had been there, standing proudly to the side as their child hammed it up for the camera. He hadn’t even needed the stuffed bear to keep his attention.

  Christian half-heartedly suggested that the couple might consider letting the boy do some modeling. It was not the type of fame he'd hoped for, but the child was a natural. They had laughed, thanked him, and declined. The boy was their treasure. They would never put him under such pressure. He was such an angel.

  The image of the little girl, Chastity, without her sniveling, uninspired mother tagging along, no longer kicking and fussing, but pliant and submissive to his whims returned. It would be so damned easy if they would cooperate. He put the last of the prints up to dry quickly and made his way to the door, carefully dousing the lights beyond the darkroom before exiting.

  Christian was careful about everything. He was careful about his business, his car, and his home. He was careful where and when he went out. He was even careful where he shopped for his food. There were just too damned many people out there waiting for him to make a mistake, waiting to take what was his. He had never met most of them, but he knew they were there all the same. He’d known for years.

  As he locked the door and slid the dead bolt over with the heavy key, he turned quickly. He had a slender briefcase with his day’s work tucked neatly into one pocket, and he carried this under one arm and clutched tightly to his side.

  There was nobody in sight, as was usual at that hour. Lowering his head, Christian made his way quickly down the side of the building and into the private lot where he parked his car. It was situated between the rear wall of his studio and that of a bookstore specializing in holistic medicine and other forms of metaphysical crap. He could never pass the front of the store without shaking his head in disbelief as he scanned the titles in the window.

  "Healing Stones, Gems and Their Spiritual Properties," "The Wisdom of the Ancients," "The Witch Tarot Revealed." He couldn't understand what would possess someone, anyone to purchase such a book. He saw the people who frequented the place, watched them from the small window at the front of his studio, and was even more dismayed. Young people, old people, beautiful young women and huge fat men, all of them trundled in and out that door every day, most with a purchase under their arms.

  They had money for books about nothing, but they had no time or money to spare for his work. Idiots. He kicked at a loose soda can and watched it skid across the gravel and bang into the wall with a clatter. He kept his eyes on the ground until he reached his car, in no mood for even a chance encounter at that point.

  He caught sight of an advertisement in an old newspaper flattened against one wall of the alley, and he stopped. The photo on the ad was remarkably well done, for what it was. He stooped to pick it up without thinking.

  "Models, dancers, entertainers . . .The Gates Entertainment Brokers present San Valencez's finest artists and performers. Single party shows, modeling appointments, bachelor parties and more. For information, phone The Gates Entertainment Brokers . . ."

  Christian stared at the ad for a long time. The photo was of a young woman. She wore a silky white dress draped tightly about her body, showing off the curves of breast and thigh to perfection. The highlights on the silk were artfully done, and the expression on her face was very nearly inspired, lips pouting, eyes demure, belying her obvious experience. She was perfect. The photographer had known his business, and even the grainy reproduction of the newsprint couldn’t hide it.

  Gates must have found some new stock, he thought. He tucked the paper under his arm with his briefcase and continued on to his car. The photo intrigued him, and he thought that the new model was worth looking into. He was definitely tired of spoiled children and arrogant teens; it was time for a change of pace.

  He reached his car, an ancient Dodge Dart, unlocked the door quickly, and tossed the paper to the passenger seat. Then he slid in behind the wheel and carefully closed and locked the door. Something itched at the back of his mind, something significant, and he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. For some reason the image of the little girl, Chastity, the older girl, Dorinda, and the blue, blue-eyed boy kept resurfacing to disturb his chain of thought. The lump in his pocket pressed into his waist, trapped by his thigh, and it seemed to pulse with his heartbeat. It felt so warm.

  He pulled slowly out into the traffic on State Street and slid in between a large shiny Cadillac and some sort of flashy convertible. He looked into the rear-view mirror, and the woman in the convertible smiled back at him.

  She was looking at his car, and she was looking at him, and she was smiling – laughing behind his back. He tore his gaze from the mirror and stared straight ahead, wondering if the man in front of him were watching through his rear-view and laughing as well. You couldn't be too careful with people. None of them could be trusted, but most of the time you could slip past them unnoticed.

  He edged the Dart around the Cadillac as soon as the light turned green, cutting off an old Ford full of teenagers. He zipped down the block and turned onto Grisham. The apartment complex where he lived was small, not flashy, but the security was good, and people there left him alone. He had a safe place to park his car, a grocery store within minutes of his front door, and privacy. It was all he needed.

  The manager had let him turn the back bedroom into a temporary darkroom so he could work at home, and that was where Christian created. The rest of the apartment was an extension of the darkroom in his studio; the hallway served as a full-size version of the bookshelf in his office.

  Masks and faces, paintings and mannequins lined the walls and filled glass display cases, overwhelming the few isolated pieces of furniture he owned. Eyes watched his movements and stared at him from every inch of free space, wide eyes, slanted eyes, oval eyes, eyes of every color and hue, lips to match and contrast, to seduce or repulse. He'd developed the images, one by one, from memories stolen during the days of drudgery, from brief stops at supermarkets and Laundromats, and from watching the moronic clientele of the bookstore beside his studio.

  They filled his world.

  The darkroom was the core of his creativity. It was inviolate. Nobody but Christian had ever entered that space, and nobody disturbed his time away from the world. He needed that time to free the images from his mind and from the developing fluid before they piled up too deeply and crowded out coherent thought. Other men would have had a study, or a den. Christian had a darkroom.

  There was no television in the apartment, and there was no phone. There was nothing but the darkroom, an old AM radio, and some spindly, second-hand furniture he'd picked up at a yard sale.

  All of the walls that did not hold his masks were plastered with photographs. He had some he'd taken as far back as his days in high school, others taken at the beach, or the zoo, with a telephoto lens and the privacy of distance between himself and his models. Most of them were of women.

  Christian loved to look at his women. Their shape was the most pleasing on film. Their curves could be highlighted to perfection with the right lighting. Their hair glowed and their eyes beckoned and scorned. The emotion they could put into a smile was a blazing fire next to that of even the most animated of male models. He knew that capturing their beauty was meant to be his life's work.

  As he studied the photos, he added the images to his mental collection. When one struck his fancy or cried out to him for completion, he molded a mask, or sculpted a face to match, drawing the image forth through his fingers. He'd learned a lot about the use of makeup from watching his mother, more from books and magazines. One corner of his bedroom was stacked high with piles of fashion magazines and makeup advertisements.

  Christian carefully hung his jacket on its hook by the door and lined his briefcase up against the wall, the edge exactly even with the frame of the door. If there had been any dust i
n his apartment, it would have formed around the contour of that case eventually. It rested in exactly that same spot every evening until he was ready to open it and begin his work.

  Christian walked to his kitchen, got himself a cold can of beer from the refrigerator, and sat down at the table with the page of newspaper he'd found spread out in front of him. Nothing else on the page interested him but the advertisement.

  He wondered if the woman in the ad worked there, or if she'd just been hired for the session? Such a ploy would not be beyond Hiram Gates, he knew. It would, in fact, be just his style. Money was the only factor that came into play in Gate's thoughts, money and the next scam. He did have some amazing models, though.

  In fact, there was very little that went on in the city of San Valencez with any sort of profit involved that Hiram Gates didn't have his hands in, one way or another, very little that involved good-looking women and entertainment, in any case. There were other, smaller agencies, but none with his scope and variety, or with his scrupulous lack of attention to morality.

  Christian sipped his beer and stared at the woman's eyes. He studied the pose, the lighting, and as he did so, things came together in his mind. Images of the girl he’d photographed that day, Dorinda, surfaced, and his mind painted her haunted eyes onto the beautiful, mature features of the model. He stroked the paper gently, as if his finger could blend the two, or shift the ink and paper to match his vision. He stared at the number at the bottom of the advertisement, and for the first time in years he wondered why he'd never gotten himself a phone.

  He tore the number from the page, being careful not to rip any of the photos, tucked it into his pocket and continued to drink his beer. He had called the man so few times that he'd forgotten Gate's number. It was providence he'd found the ad, or fate. All of Christian’s attempts to use professional models had ended badly, but he thought, just maybe, this time would be different.