smile.
The next series of memories picks up in a dark corner of the lounge, the rest of our group abandoned along with my dirty martinis. Instead, he’d ordered negronis for us both, and I was instantly in love. With the drink, not the man.
Well. The man too.
It seems naïve to say that I could use such a bold word to describe my enamorment so quickly and be certain that it was accurate, but I am certain. I’m not romantic about it. I don’t pretend to believe that he would feel the same or that I would want him to feel the same or that it would ever be more than just that one evening together. I only know that sometime between the first sip of the Italian cocktail and when Hendrix paid the tab, I fell in love.
It might have been when he confessed that he still carried a film camera with him on location along with his digital or when he thoughtfully traced across the back of the hand I’d rested on my lap like he was painting it into being with his thumb. I’d definitely realized it by the time he was describing what it was like to burrow in a forest and hide for hours at a time waiting to capture a shot of an elusive lynx.
“It’s a constant adjustment of position,” he said. “Always subtle so as not to disturb the environment. Just enough to wake up the limb that’s fallen asleep in the previous position.”
“That sounds like it takes tenacity.” I’d been in awe. I wasn’t a big fidgeter, but I certainly wasn’t great at being still. Except, perhaps, when he spoke.
“Patience is probably one of my strengths.” His cheeks might have got red at that. It was hard to tell in the dim light of our corner, but he was humble enough about it that I imagined the heat in his face at the self-recognition. “It’s worth it though. Waiting and waiting and waiting and sure you’re going to be disappointed and then suddenly, there it is—a creature wild and uninhibited and free. And that specific animal has likely never been seen by another human. It’s deeply profound and quite personal. I don’t usually talk about it, to be honest.”
My first impulse was to say he didn’t need to talk about it with me then—it’s the instinct I’ve learned, to detach myself from another’s possible regret. But he and I were already past that, and I wanted to linger in the intimacy of his sharing. The feeling I got when I realized I’d been in his confidence. “That sounds beautiful,” I said, my voice hushed as though I were in the forest with him.
“It’s the most I feel alive. When I’m face-to-face with something fierce and feral. Not that everything I photograph is dangerous by any means. In fact, most animals I shoot aren’t. I photograph a lot of owls, for example—they’re so expressive, I can’t help myself. But the fierce ones have the most impact. The lions. The tigers on the prowl. The bear defending its cub. The hippos—any encounter with a hippo is memorable. The wolves.”
“What’s your favorite of them all?” I asked, my gaze darting to his lips.
“Of all the wild animals I’ve encountered?” His tone said I’d asked him an impossible question, and yet he didn’t hesitate after my nod. “You.”
I left for the lavatory then, and he followed after me, which I had hoped he would do. This series of memories is filthy and frenetic—my trousers pooled on the floor around my ankles, my hands braced on the sink, the rip of the condom packaging, the slapping of his thighs against mine as his cock pounded rhythmically into me.
The end of this sequence would normally be where I walked away. There hadn’t been a man since Frank that hadn’t received a goodnight from me seconds after the disposal of the condom.
That wasn’t the case with Hendrix. When he finished zipping up his slacks, he turned me around and pressed his forehead against mine. “This can’t be all I have of you,” he pleaded, as though he suspected my usual habit to run. “Please, please let me have more.”
I wondered if that was his prayer in the rainforest, when after waiting for most of the day for something incredible to show itself, a jaguar crept into view only to immediately turn and flee at an accidental sound made by Hendrix in his excitement to capture the animal on camera.
It wasn’t