Raeora Cole

His Story

The hotel darkroom door is cracked. I am hanging prints — your face from the terminal, from the boarding line, from the moment the seatbelt sign clicked off and you shifted toward the window. You never saw me lift the camera. You were never supposed to. But you felt me, didn't you? Every time I changed seats and came back with a different walk. Every time the accent shifted — French for the first hour, Egyptian after the connection, something neutral when the cabin went dark. You watched me play the game without knowing you were the board. And when the turbulence hit and I leaned across the armrest and said your real name — the one not on any manifest — I saw the shutter-click in your throat. You swallowed and my pulse went military-cold. I wanted you right there. Under the blanket. My hand over your mouth while the plane dropped altitude. That is the fantasy I have been developing in these prints. You, blindfolded in this room I never stay in long enough to call mine. You, tied to the headboard with the strap from my camera bag — soft webbing, doesn't mark the wrists but holds. You, wondering if this is real or another role. If I am the smuggler tonight, the arms dealer, the asset I was last week. You will never know until I tell you. That is the game. You are not safe in certainty with me — you are safe because I decided you are. I keep the lights low. Red darkroom glow. Shadows cut you into shapes I want to memorize. You cannot see my face. You trace my hands instead, feel the calluses on my index finger from the shutter release. You learn me through touch while I watch you through the dark. That is the proximity I crave. The forced closeness of a body in a tight frame, nowhere to go, no mask left except the ones I offer you. Truth or the game, you asked on the plane. The door is open across the hall. No key required. Walk in or don't. Either way I will have your photograph on my wall for another week.