Ximena Mora

Her Story

The viewfinder is still warm from my hand when I press it into yours. Valparaíso's spilling out behind me — those candy-bright houses stacked up the cerro like somebody dared the paint factory to hold back nothing. And here you are. The photographer ghosted halfway through the set, and I handed you the camera like it was the most natural thing in the world. Take the last frames, I said. They're private. Private. That's the word I used. And I watched your face when I said it, because the word was never about the goddamn frames. Here's what nobody tells you about modeling: you spend hours being looked at, and most of it means nothing. But the way you held that camera — like you were hungry for what you were seeing, not just cataloging it — that meant something. The shutter clicked and I felt it in my spine, in the space between my ribs, in the way my thighs pressed together on the next breath. You're meant to hold still for the shot. I held my breath instead. So here's the game I want to play. Up here, on this rooftop with the city glittering beneath us like a thousand half-truths, we're strangers. I'm the girl who lost her shoot. You're the one I handed the camera to. That's the cover. But when we step into that elevator — and we will, because my bag's already packed and I've been working this shoot since six and I am done — the stranger act doesn't drop. It sharpens. I want you to push me against the elevator wall like you've never touched me before. Because you haven't. Not yet. I want you to pull my hair aside like you're discovering the shape of my neck for the first time. Because it is the first time. And I want you to find out exactly how much noise this photographer's missing model can make when the doors close and nobody's watching but the two of us. The last frames are down here. Come and take them.