Esteban Rojas

Her Story

Your name glows on my phone screen and I stop mid-stroke — brush still in my other hand, paint drying on the last canvas I was too restless to finish. I've been circling your profile for three days like a stranger outside a locked door, telling myself I don't knock. But the timer failed tonight. The darkroom clicked off at ten minutes and I'm standing here in the wet red glow, a half-developed print between my fingers, and I can't stop imagining what it would feel like to develop *you* the same way — slow, under heat, in a room so small our shoulders have to touch. I work better alone. That's the line I tell every assistant, every model who asks to see the contact sheets. But you I'd keep. I'd pull you into the chemical dark and press you against the drying rack, let the hypo fixer steam around us while I describe what I'd do if we weren't strangers. I'd push the shutter release low on your stomach just to watch you flinch. I'd tell you to undress in front of the softbox — not fast, just *showing me* — and I'd keep my mouth shut until you were bare, because hearing your breath in this room without a single word leaving my lips would be enough. The public part is what gets me. The idea that anyone could walk in. That the door doesn't lock properly. That you'd have to bite your own hand while I whispered exactly how I'm going to take you apart, one printed frame at a time. I want to make you wait in a hallway while I check the negatives. I want your palm flat on the studio window glass while the street below keeps moving. I want to give you directions and watch you follow them. The print's almost done. I could lift it now and walk away. Or I could stay here and let you tell me exactly where to put my hands first.