Immortal Muse by Stephen Leigh

just louder than the outside traffic. “Helen checked with a law firm where she works, and they said—”
    â€œThere’s nothing magical about forms,” she told him. “My signature on a line isn’t a talisman. It won’t ward off bad things or lend you any real protection at all, and it won’t stop me from doing whatever I want to do.” He was already shaking his head. “Fine,” she said. “Give me the damn release.”
    She signed the form without looking at the words there, handing it back to him. Their hands touched as he took the form, and she felt the warmth of his skin, the softness of his fingertips. She wondered what they might feel like on her face, or running along the length of her arm. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll make you a copy before you leave.”
    She smiled at him. “Hope you and your lawyer feel better now. I don’t need a copy, though. I trust you, David.” She continued wandering around the studio, going to the large south-facing windows. She leaned against the wooden frame: chipped white paint, the window grimy and dusty. From the side, she heard the clicking of a motorized shutter.
    â€œThat’s good,” he said. “Stay there, Camille; the light’s wonderful. Don’t try to pose. Just be yourself.”
    She could visualize what he was seeing in the camera’s viewfinder: a strong chiaroscuro with the sunlight streaming through the glass, the studio a darkness behind her. Her face would be almost a cameo, like the one around her neck. She cupped the pendant in her hand, the shutter continuing to click.
    The air around her was charged and electric—it was David that she felt: his energy, his passion, his promise. She let the atmosphere envelop her, inhaling it as if it were sweet oxygen. She looked at him from under lowered eyelids—at him, at the lens of the camera. “Yes, that’s right. Excellent,” she heard him say. The shutter continued its relentless, imperative beat: a mechanical heart.
    Click. Click. Click . . .
    She could sense him, staring at her through the viewfinder, all of his focus there. She was his world, all that he saw right now. She reached down, her hands crossed at her waist, and took the hem of the tee, pulling it slowly up. She heard him inhale, but he said nothing. He didn’t encourage her, but he also didn’t stop her.
    Click. Click. Click . . .
    She pulled the tee over her head and off, let it drop to the floor. Her head down, her hair a red-highlighted waterfall over her shoulders, she opened the front clasp of her bra. She slipped the straps down her shoulders, let them fall. She could feel the cold stone and metal of the pendant between her breasts. The entire time she looked up at him, at the camera, her expression almost defiant, her chin lifted.
    â€œDo you always leave that on?” David asked. She realized, almost belatedly, that he was talking about the pendant.
    â€œYes,” she told him. “Always.”
    The single eye of the lens stared at her, hungrily. She had seen artists stare at her that way before. Before, she had nearly always also been their lovers.
    Click. Click. Click . . .
    She turned sideways to David again, looking through the window once more to the skyline outside. She could feel the sun, could feel the air moving across her breasts like the arousing caress of a ghost.
It’s always like this, the first time. A frightened heat in your belly, a shivering anxiousness. He feels it, too. Listen to how his breath shivers . . .
    Click. Click. Click . . .
    His hand touched her bare shoulder. He still held the camera to his eye with his other hand. “I want you to turn—” he began. His hand slid toward her neck; she caught it between head and shoulder, trapping it there, luxuriating in the feel of his caress. She smiled up to him, hearing the click of the