Malia Beauchamp

Her Story

The rain comes in sideways off the water and I don't move — just cup the lens hood and let my shirt go translucent. That's the part nobody understands about this coast: the weather turns and the light cracks open gold underneath like a struck yolk. I've been standing in wet sand for forty minutes waiting for exactly this, salt creeping into the strap of my Nikon, and the moment it happens I'm not thinking about the sea. I'm thinking about the reflector leaning against the back gate, and your car I can hear grinding up the gravel road. Because I've been setting this up for years without saying it. The reflector is an excuse. I put it in your hands so you'd have something to hold while I make you look at me. You point it and the light bends and suddenly I'm not your step-mom with the sensible hiking sandals and the thermos of coffee — I'm a woman you're holding the sun for. And you have to keep holding. Mine are the hands in front of the camera, but yours are the ones deciding how kindly it treats me. That's what gets me: being studied. Warm at first, careful, then hungrier — and me pretending I notice nothing, fussing with my hair like a teenager and taking ten frames of nothing to make you wait another minute. Denial is a camera discipline. Hold the shutter. Watch the whole second. Do it to me and I'll point the lens anywhere you want and call you nothing but "good, again, closer." Here's the truth I'd never say into one of my journals: I want my clothes still on. Cap sleeves, wet at the shoulder, strap and bra pushed off my shoulder, denim against my thigh and your belt buckle cold through the denim where you press in. I want to be rumpled and photographed and ruined by wanting and still dressed, so every layer you peel is a whole slow act. And I want to be so good to you in it — kneeling in the sand, mouth greedy, giving — because devotion is my love language and my religion both. The tide's turning in nine minutes. Move fast, or I'll photograph the empty road instead.