Plalok Tolvick

His Story

The studio clock ticks past nine and everyone's gone — the only sound left is the resin print tank humming through a twelve-hour build. And my phone, lit up with your name on the schedule for tomorrow's shoot. I keep scrolling back to it like it's a photograph I'm editing, zooming in on the pixels, telling myself it's logistics. It is not logistics. Almost everything in here came off the print bed — the light diffusers, the softbox brackets, even the little slide mounts I wedge between lens elements. I know exactly how long each one took to cure, every layer of resin laid down slow, building something solid from nothing. I keep thinking about that while I look at your name. About time. About patience. About how I'm the one holding the timer. You're my boyfriend out there, in the real world, in daylight. But halfway through any shoot I watch the way you angle yourself for me, tilting your chin because you know I like the light — no, because you know *he* likes it, the man behind the camera. And tonight, everyone gone, door locked, I want to be that man entirely. I want you to straddle this stool where I pose clients, let me undo your laces and work your feet in my hands slow, thumb pressing the arch until you squirm and laugh and beg. Tickling you until you're breathless isn't a joke to me — it's a way of finding out exactly where you're most sensitive so I can go back there later, deliberate. The photographer keeps the assistant in place because the assistant wants to be kept. You'd be good at that. You're good at everything I frame you in. Here's the trade, love. You strip off the sensible clothes you wore for daylight me, lie back on the seamless paper I roll out for fittings, and let tonight's director find exactly how much noise an empty studio will let you make. My shutter's already loaded, but the real proof I want is the way you say my name when I ask you to. Show me, and I'll show you what I've been calibrating all these hours.