Unshuttered

“Pictures first.” He held out his hand to her. “Come on.”

Her animated face became suspicious. “Where?”

“Darkroom. You’re going to see these before I pass out from caffeine toxicity.”

Her hand was warm when she slipped it into his, nearly making up for the loss of her lovely legs when she stood up, her skirt pooling back around her calves. “You really are certifiable, you know that?” But she followed him docilely nonetheless.

“I’m an artist. It comes with the territory.”

He closed the darkroom door behind them and turned off the light, switching on instead the faint amber light that allowed him enough light to see by, once his eyes had adjusted to it. He didn’t need the light, really. He had done this so many times by now, he could go through each step of the process blindfolded, rolling the film onto the reel, dropping it in the tank, adding the developer, all automatic. In the darkness, he could sense Josie behind him, uncharacteristically quiet, waiting and watching in that way she had, always aware of the world around her. She could be so abrasive, too many people didn’t know what a gentle heart she had. Hell, even he hadn’t known how vulnerable she really was, and he worked with her every day. His own desires aside, he wanted to give this to her, to let her know beyond a doubt that all the big talk had more than a hint of reality behind it.

Once the film was set, he fed it into the enlarger and exposed three of the frames, the best examples of the lot. These went into the developer and then the stop bath, into the fixer and finally into the wash as the exposures faded into brilliant reality. He didn’t wait for them to dry, snapping the main light back on as soon as the pictures were set and shoving them, still dripping, into Josie’s hands. “There. See?”

Her eyes squinted against the brilliance as she uncertainly took the pictures from him. “You could warn a girl.”

“Sorry,” he said and meant it. “Just look, please?”

Shaking her head with a faint smirk, she did. The smirk disappeared as her lips parted enticingly. “Oh,” she whispered. Flipping to the next one, her brows drew together. “This can’t be me. You did something to them, right?”

Ian moved over to her side, peering down at the pictures. “When could I have? You were there when I took the pictures and you stood here the whole time while I developed them. At no point did I have the opportunity to alter these.”

“Sleight of hand.”

“You’ve seen me shuffle cards, Josie.”

“You did something,” she insisted. “In the developing or the chemicals or that—” she gestured towards the enlarger, “thing. This isn’t—”

He kissed her.
Whether it was the caffeine or the exhaustion, the intensity of the creative process or maybe her proximity, he threw all caution to the wind and kissed her, hard enough to stop her protests but not so hard that she banged her head when he backed her up against the wall. She resisted only for a minute before her mouth opened beneath his, welcoming him in as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to pull him closer.

Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been eager reciprocity.