“Because of the amazing sand dunes. I took lots of wonderful pictures!”
“There aren’t any sand dunes in these two photos,” Irene pointed out.
“No. Marcus chose the pictures he wanted to have. He wasn’t at all interested in the sand,” Bolin answered knowingly.
“I’ve seen another picture of Marcus. Where he’s leaning back against some large pillows. He’s a little fuzzy but his—”
“Oh, that old picture. We took that one here in the studio. It was one of the first naked studies I did of Marcus. Personally, I didn’t like it but Marcus loved it. I enlarged it and gave it to him as a Christmas present. I took it at the beginning of our friendship.”
“What were the photographs used for?”
“What do you mean?”
“Were they going to be printed in magazines or did you make posters or . . .”
“Come,” said Bolin.
He got up quickly and went out into the hall and then led her farther into the large studio. He gestured toward the walls.
Framed black-and-white pictures hung all around them. Some were of naked people, both men and women, but most of them were portraits. All proved Irene’s first thought correct: a very skillful artist had taken them.
“I take a lot of commercial photos since I work with advertising. It feels like a great privilege to work as an artist sometimes. I’ve had some exhibits that have gotten good reviews. The pictures from Løkken were displayed at my last exhibit half a year ago. I called it Affirmations. It was shown at the Pic Ture gallery.”
Irene felt completely uncultured.
“Come,” Erik Bolin said again.
He went over to a door that was built into the white wall. When he opened it, Irene caught a glimpse of frames lined up in the closetlike space. He started flipping systematically. Occasionally, he stopped with a soft triumphant shout and pulled out a picture, which he leaned against the wall. When he had finished rummaging and selected six of them, he seemed satisfied.
“These, plus five more, which are hanging on the wall behind you, were part of the exhibit,” he said.
Irene heard the pride in his voice, and in her estimation it was justified.
All of the pictures were very sensual. The picture of Marcus was somewhat different from the one Tom had on his wall. Here he sat leaning forward more, with his arms freely resting on his knees. His left hand loosely held his right wrist, and his right hand obscured most of his genitals. He was smiling a confident, sexy smile and looked right into the camera with eyes glittering mischievously. The wind was tousling his damp hair, and the sun glittered in the sea spray on his body. A perfect body, thought Irene. The body of a Greek god. Which Emil and his partner had turned into a torso.
One of the pictures represented a young woman sitting on a chair with two small children. The smallest child appeared to be almost a newborn and slumbered, leaning against her chest. The older child stood with his head leaning against her knee and looked directly into the camera. At the most, he was two years old. All three were naked. The woman was a stunning beauty with Asian features. Her long black hair billowed around her and the children. Without doubt she could sit on her hair. The whole picture breathed love and warmth.
“My family,” Erik said with pride in his voice.
Irene’s chin dropped. She had thought that Bolin was gay. But now, if the woman and the children were his family—! She asked, “Is that really your wife and children?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know about . . . you and Marcus?”
Erik Bolin suddenly looked serious.
“She knew that I was bisexual when we got married. With Marcus it was a short-lived passion. Though he and I kept in touch afterward.”
Irene would have loved to have continued to dig into their relationship but she suspected that his answers wouldn’t be completely truthful. Instead, she concentrated on the picture of the backlit man. It was the same photo that had hung on Tom’s wall.
“Did you take several pictures of this man?” Irene asked.
“Yes. But there wasn’t much time. This was the best picture. It’s the kind of picture you dream about being able to time just right. With the sun rays spreading out from his glans. Wonderfully sexy! I named it Penis Power but the gallery didn’t think it could be called that, so it was changed to Manpower.”