If I'm Honest - Picture Perfect - Chapter 4 (Patreon)

Santiago, Chile

If I wanted to understate things, I’d say that Chile was a bit of a blur.

Part of me had hoped to get a little further afield than backpacking in the Americas, but Lydia had loved what I’d sent back from Colombia and wanted more like it, so we arranged for me to spend most of February working around Santiago. Not that it took much for her to twist my arm into visiting a place I’d wanted to see since I was a kid in 8th grade Spanish class, nursing a formative queer crush on my Chilean teacher. And professionally it somehow managed to be more than I hoped, as I attempted to throw a spotlight on the city itself rather than the Andes and surrounding country - a riot of concrete and glass splintered up through the mountains, climbing over the old colonial shell. I took my time wandering the different barrios, from the towering edifices of wealthy El Golf, to the diversity of Patronato, and the hot swathes of colour painted across the city, through Bellavista and Yungay. I was managing to still insist to myself that whatever else was going on in my life, my photography wasn’t going to suffer and somehow I managed to stick to that, fighting the distractions to take photos that stand well enough alongside any others I’ve taken.

But god, after Gabi and Luisa did I let myself get distracted. 

I slept with more women in my first week in the country than I’d done in my entire life up to that point, some better remembered than others; a succession of wet lips and warm, olive skinned bodies, sweltering beneath ceiling fans in the lurid summer heat.

There was the manager of my hotel; and the street artist, selling paintings a couple of blocks over, who practically needed to be dissuaded from burying her face between my legs right there on the sidewalk. The owner of the tiny bookshop tucked away in the quaint Barrio Italia, her curses as pretty as the district’s streets; and the shy girl on the bus who turned wild the moment she had her third glass of merlot. I was even brave enough to test out a latin dance class at the recommendation of one of my hook ups. And, while I ended up sharing a bed with two of my fellow students in the following weeks, it was the teacher who cornered me after my first session, feeling like something teenage fantasy as she peeled the sports bra away from her dark chest and fucked me possessively on the studio floor until she gushed. I’m pretty sure I barely slept, and after a few days my time there began to feel like a fever dream of work and sex, blistered in patches across my memory.

There was one day in particular however, somewhere in the middle of it all, that stands out more than the others, even if I didn’t quite understand the little ways it would come to shape me at the time, or how a single picture I took that afternoon would change my life months later. But it started with me finally managing to video call with Anton.

It’s odd which little things stick with you. I can barely remember the name of the girl who was still sleeping in the ‘modern,’ whitewashed bedroom of my Airbnb apartment, but I can vividly recall the taste of the Brazilian coffee that, in hindsight, was probably the one thing still keeping me on my feet. I’d taken my macbook out onto the balcony as I nursed the drink, enjoying the brief period where the sun was up but the breeze was still cool and with the Andes visible in the distance, through the gaps between the tower blocks, I listened to Anton’s voice through an earbud in one ear, and the sounds of the city with the other. There were two things we had connecting us. One was Alice, but she was easy, and it was the second, looming personality that I was calling to discuss. 

“Wait…hold on a second Riley,” a boyish face filled my screen, a look of amusement quirking at the jawline he’d still not quite grown into in response to something I’d said. “You’re making it sound like Harvey’s a ‘she.’”

“Sure, given everything, why is that the weird part?” I asked.

We’d only just started talking, and I’d made a point of trying to hint at my pronouns for Harvey almost as soon as the pleasantries were out of the way, having worked out that the bracelet manifested subtly differently for each of us and hoping it would go some way to breaking the ice. I’d spent weeks putting all sorts of weight on the conversation and now it was here I was desperately attempting to make it feel as casual as humanly possible, the same reason why I’d pulled my bare feet up onto the seat alongside me, as if my body could be tricked into thinking it was relaxed. Anton gave a thoughtful look, framed in soft focus by Alice’s living room, the reminder of their relationship feeling both a world away yet still bruising. I don’t do homesick, but it felt a little more loaded than I expect he had intended. 

“I don’t suppose it is,” he said after considering his reply. “It’s just I spent months with him and hadn’t even thought about the idea that he might be able to change his voice.”

“Her voice. Sexist much?” I joked, perfectly deadpan, hoping that Alice’s claims about how similar our senses of humour could be weren’t over-exaggerated. It took him a moment to catch on, but when he did he gave one of the easy laughs that my best friend had fallen for. Or been made to fall for, I still wasn’t completely sure. 

“It does make sense. He-”

“She.”

“He,” Anton emphasised, pushing back against my interruption with a small grin of his own, “did make a point of trying to explain to me once how a lot of what I was hearing was being manifested through my own subconscious. He insisted that he had his own personality, but I never did quite figure out how much was coming from the bracelet and how much was coming from me.” 

The more he spoke the more I could see why Alice would like him. He looked every inch a college sophomore, with dark features originating from the Caucasus that even I could tell were going to be objectively handsome the moment they stopped seeming youthfully ill at ease with themselves. But there was a quiet, intense maturity to how carefully he spoke and, even having had Harvey’s help, the intelligence behind his brown eyes came out with a shyness that made him seem warm rather than arrogant. Apparently he’d dropped out of law school shortly before meeting Alice and was going back to university in the fall to study nursing instead, and it was hard not to see the idealism in him.

My cynicism was one of the few things we didn’t share it seemed.

“What does he sound like for you then,” Anton asked, with both of us seeming to accept that we were each going to refer to Harvey however felt natural and allow the size of the bracelet’s personality to do away with any ambiguity.

“A bit like Charlize Theron with a hint of Emily Haines from Metric,” I replied, doing my best not to roll my eyes when I saw his blank look and realised he was too young to have heard of the act I’d spent my own college life obsessing over. “Seriously? They’re a band from Toronto. You?”

“Clooney.”

It was my turn to laugh at how obvious that was. Of course that was how Harvey sounded to a kid like him, full of casual, hetero assurance. “Ok, yeah, I definitely got the better deal there.” 

A sound from inside the apartment drew a flicker of my attention, my lover from the night before awake and moving. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to glance down at the silver looped around my wrist, reminding me of the half dozen questions I knew needed to be asked and that Harvey, somewhere in the back of my head, could doubtlessly hear intolerably loudly. I pretended to pluck at one at random, but knew it was the thing I’d wondered the most since this had started.

“Where did she come from anyway?”

“Originally?” Anton straightened up a touch, his voice turning with the interest of someone who was trying to underplay how much time they’d spent on this exact question. “I tried my best to do some research, but you can’t really find books on this sort of subject on Amazon. I did some digging though, contacted a handful of historians and antique dealers. There’s a couple of Byzantine mosaics and paintings from the Renaissance where you could convince yourself he’s been depicted. Likewise there are some obscure diaries by a Swedish Prince in the 17th century that seem to have been written off as fictitious but that are definitely talking about him. I think on the whole he’s done his best to keep unnoticed though. It’s either that or he spent a lot of time in the far east and I never got as far as trying to learn Mandarin to figure an exact timeline out. My best guess is that he really has been around since the early Roman Empire. Which would make sense given the inscription and who he claims to be the servant of.”

I reached down and ran a finger across the silver plate, and the etched words, ‘Solam Veritatem.’ Something about the bracelet felt plausibly ancient, and it would certainly fit with my impression of Harvey to take great delight in disappearing in plain sight like that for centuries at a time. She radiated smugness beneath my touch, letting me know she was awake, and listening.

“And you think Roman gods actually exist?” 

It surprised me to hear myself earnestly make a statement like that out loud, but even I had gotten as far as reading about Veritas, the goddess of truth who Harvey claimed had created them. Even so, I got the impression that keeping me with only the most superficial knowledge of classics was how she preferred things and so far I’d been happy to oblige, as if doing so let me continue refusing to humour what should have been fundamentally insane. 

The appartment’s patchy wifi connection hung for a second as Anton shrugged, forcing it to keep up with the sudden movement. “I don’t know. If you’d asked me before last year I’d have told you magic bracelets didn’t either and the guy who had Harvey before me seemed to think he’d met her. I don’t know how much of that was creative licence but I trust he at least believes he did.” 

“So, what,” I replied, frowning to myself slightly. “You’re telling Veritas actually did create Harvey and she’s just been passing from one person to the next ever since?”

“I think so. Bringing a little truth into the world one person at a time as he might put it. Honestly, I can’t really rule out that it’s not something else, but I don’t have many more answers either so I decided ultimately it wasn’t important.”

My gut disagreed immediately. Of course it was important. Given what I was experiencing I couldn’t avoid that magic was real, no matter how much I wanted to, but there were all sorts of metaphysical implications tied up in the idea that she was sent by an actual fucking deity that weren’t so easy to just accept. But more than that I hated the lack of control that answer gave me. How were you meant to compartmentalise and plan around what was happening to you without knowing for sure where she’d come from or why she was doing it. Harvey wasn’t about to let that one go without comment however.

‘And this is why he’s smarter than you.’

I might have snarked back, but she’d chosen her moment to coincide with my guest wandering out of the bedroom. From the other side of the open balcony doors, I watched as she made her way into the kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of white panties retrieved off the bedroom floor. Her name was Charlotte (or Colette, or something close to it) and she was a tiny thing. An exchange student from France abroad on her own for the first time, with creamy skin and the prettiest accent to her Spanish, as well as barely there tits and cute, pink nipples I’d spent the previous evening appreciating at length. I’d been sure I was just an experiment for her, something she’d confirmed with Harvey’s honesty and that would normally have been a deal breaker for me long before we made it to bed, but then I suppose my attempts at being open minded were a sort of experimentation too. And I knew from the start she wasn’t The One.

But that wasn’t what caused my embarrassment as I looked at her again in the pale light of day. Rather it was the realisation that the mess of red hair and the smattering of freckles on her shoulders had reminded me of Alice. She turned, realising I was on a call and flashed me a smile rather than risking interrupting, but it took me a second to give her a wave in return. Shame’s never been something I’ve been great with.

“Still got company?” Anton asked.

I looked back to the screen, finding an expression that could only have come from someone who’d been through this before me, and I couldn’t help but give a knowing smile back.

“What gave you that idea…”

“Do you need time to sort things out?”

“No,” I said, grinning a little wider. “She can wait. I want to hear how you ended up with Harvey.”

The question was enough to quickly focus him again. “He belonged to a man named Deke before me, before him was a man named Christian and before that a woman named Eline, although I’ve never managed to track her down. Deke was a friend of my Dad’s, they worked together on some film sets up in Vancouver and got talking over the novels my Dad was reading. Apparently at some point it came up that my love life was…less than how I would have liked.”

“And that was it? This Deke just passed the bracelet to you to fix things, without ever having met you?”

Anton gave a stuttering nod as the connection lagged again. “I’m sure you have an idea of how Harvey does things by now. And you’re stuck with him until you figure things out together." 

Charlotte finished fixing her coffee and retreated back towards the bedroom, and I told myself I had more than an idea of how Harvey worked, conceited enough to not realise how clueless I still was. What I couldn’t work out even then however was why someone would send something like Harvey to someone they’d never met. 

“I just thought you’d keep something like this a little closer to home than that.”

“You would think so, but it doesn’t really work like that,” Anton agreed. “Once Harvey finds you the person you’re meant to be with, and he will find them for you, the bracelet comes off and the last trick he seems to pull is leaving you knowing who you’re meant to pass it to next, if you’re honest with yourself. I’d never met Deke before, but apparently he’d heard enough from my Dad for Harvey to give him that little push in my direction. A little later I got a package with the bracelet, and an audio recording telling the story of his time with it. From the moment my turn was over I knew, somehow, that it was only ever going to go to you.”

Clearly I was enough of a tragic mess that even a total stranger could sense it.

‘I prefer to think you’re just in need of a little work,” Harvey corrected, internally, picking up on my thoughts. Although her reassurance only lasted so long. ‘But it wasn’t exactly hard to notice you needed help either.’

‘Wow, thanks,’ I thought back sarcastically.

‘Hey, it might be painfully slow, but at least we’re heading in the right direction now. You’re getting there.’

Was I getting there? I glanced in the direction of the bedroom and felt something I couldn’t quite put words to, and turned my attention back to Anton as I quickly did my best to try and ignore it.

“You just decided I didn’t need to know anything straight away?”

“Alice insisted,” Anton said, carefully, and for the first time on the call, he looked contrite over the situation he’d put me in. “She said you’d have gotten unreasonable if we’d tried to explain it to you too early.”

I had to concede that he was probably right, and that as much as I’d acted out in New York I’d have been even more obnoxious if I’d realised just how much had been pushed on me without being asked. At least now I could see some of the humour in it. “Dude, I tried to hack the bracelet off with a kitchen knife.”

He gave another short laugh. “I bet Harvey loved that. That’s what you consider reasonable?”

“Apparently! I’ve not entirely ruled out that she’s not still punishing me for it somehow.”

Anton shook his head. “I doubt it, if he’s punishing you, you’ll know about it. You can trust me on that one.”

I gave a mental glance towards where Harvey was lurking at the back of my thoughts, probing to see if she wanted to elaborate, but got the gesture-less impression of a shrug in reply. ‘You don’t want to go there.’

It was casual, but in a way that only seemed to underscore just how little of her power she’d been showing me and behind it I thought I caught a glimpse of something much deeper that I could barely see the surface of.

I did push Anton for a few more details and found that his own path to Alice was far from smooth, but it’s his story to tell, not mine. And you aren’t really here to hear about his awkward self discovery and how he had to stop worrying about other people’s expectations, any more than you’re here to hear how Deke before him needed to stop being defined by his past. What’s more important is to understand how I still wasn’t quite ready to notice the lessons I could have taken there - about what sort of honesty Harvey’s actually here to help with, or how she might even tell me what she was trying to do if she was feeling generous and I had wanted the answers, but there were a couple of extra points Anton did lay out for me a little more plainly as we talked.

Some were obvious, like how the bracelet couldn’t compel people who wouldn’t normally be interested in me, it instead worked by churning up buried desires and smoothing over inhibitions, without all the usual little doubts that came with that sort of thing, something Anton described as ‘stopping them getting in their own heads.’ The irony there being that I’d never been more aware of what was going on in mine. But there were also tidbits I might have missed, such as how no-one seems to come to serious harm while bearing Harvey, with circumstances always seeming to bend around her until the job is done. There were no more guarantees than anyone else had the moment the bracelet came off, and there were a couple of stories she’d told about the matches she’d found which had been painfully fleeting, but she’d never failed to get someone to that point first.

I was also surprised to find out just how much of a person Harvey could see and understand, as she screened possible partners. Far more than I’d realised. For some reason I’d been working on the assumption that she’d been viewing much of the world through my eyes, but Anton made it clear she was able to pick out details with a potential partner’s personality or beneath their clothing that might be of interest (or prove an issue), as readily as she could judge their hair colour. I could just have done without learning this by discovering that in addition to the tattoos I already knew about, Alice was sporting one just below her pantie line that had particularly appealled to Anton, giving me a mental image that was accompanied by an uncomfortable warm flush.

However, the more our conversation drew on the more I considered Harvey, not as the bracelet but as a trace of personality all of her own. If what Anton was saying was right, she’d been labouring at the same mission for millenia, and I could only begin to imagine what she’d seen in that time. How much she’d watched the world change, who she’d met, or what any of this was like for her. But there was another question in particular I found my mind dwelling on more loudly than the others.

‘Do you ever get tired of it?’

Get tired of us. All of us - small, fleeting and imperfect.

‘Now THAT is an interesting question.’ I could practically picture some sense of Harvey leaning back as she responded, considering my thought with the slow deliberation of a barfly pausing to spare words between the slow sips of whisky and smoke. But I could also feel the smile in her voice, as if I’d finally cared to find something worth saying. ‘No. I don’t think I do. You’re wondering how I could ever put up with more than one of you, but lucky for me there’s only one of you, Riley. There’s only one of any of you. And I get to see the real you, in a way you rarely see each other, there’s a charm to that. One or two of you even bother to surprise me now and then.’

‘You don’t mind helping me then,’ I replied. There was a lot I was still trying to keep below the surface then, too used to leaving negative thoughts unacknowledged until the problems they caused became too big to ignore; but in the moment that old doubt that there was something about me unfit to be inflicted on others exposed itself for long enough that I knew Harvey had to see it. ‘I know I can be-’

Harvey didn’t let me finish. ‘-far more endearing than you realise. I like you Riley, really, so don’t tempt me to see how many other ways I can end that sentence for you.’

Her honesty went a little way to placating me, but what actually stopped me from pushing any harder at the idea that I was probably terrible to be stuck with was noticing that Anton had stopped speaking, and was watching me with a soft but intent smile. I must have looked like I’d spaced out entirely as I stopped to talk with Harvey and gave a quick apology, but Anton wasn’t about to take it either.

“It’s fine,” he replied, and it was only as he spoke that I realised how wistful his expression was. “You’ll miss him when he’s gone.”

Would I? I didn’t know if I found that hard or easy to believe. Instead, it simply made me realise that I still couldn’t picture in my head as to what my life would even look like for Harvey to be able to move on, and the lack of vision frustrated me like a shot I couldn’t quite frame.

Back inside, Possibly-Charlotte had long since finished fixing herself coffee, and was perched patiently watching me, still topless but with a now empty mug. I caught her eye and saw an uncertainty behind the playfulness, wanting some sort of acknowledgement of her first encounter with another woman before she could bring herself to leave. 

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible to just be stuck with Harvey forever,” I asked, without looking back at the screen, holding up a finger to gesture to her I’d only be a minute longer.

“Maybe,” was all Anton said in return, and he let the tone of his voice give away what his words didn’t. 

After that he understood enough not to keep me much longer than it took for us to say goodbye. Heading inside, I found my redheaded french girl waiting for me and the taste of roasted coffee somehow made her lips seem even more appetising to my sleep deprived self than they had the night before. There was no tug from the bracelet as I led her to the shower, to eat her delicate little pussy out below the spray. Neither of us needed its help, and I think by then we’d had enough of its honesty to understand that this was a last bit of fun and affirmation before we both stepped out of each other’s lives. 

She wasn’t The One, but if anything knowing that made it easier, letting me act as if I would be happy with living my life like that; half in focus.

My heart sank later when she finally left and I turned back into the apartment to see where my gear bag was still waiting on the counter, forgotten from the night before. The knock on effect of my little tryst was that I’d lost the time I’d promised myself to clean up the increasingly full SD cards I’d been shooting to. You might have figured out just how particular I am about my process by now, and I knew I was going to have to sit down and curate that mess of files before I ventured out with my main camera again for any of the shots I had planned out carefully in my notebook. My mood that morning however was one where the last thing I wanted to be doing was allowing myself to sit still, cleaning up files. Instead, I used it as an excuse to turn to my second bag, full of spare lenses, and on a rarely indulged whim grabbed the smaller, less-appreciated film camera I kept there.

I’d always found working with film to be a little less precise than I liked, and the camera’s fixed prime lens limited the sort of shots I could take, but it was perfect for impromptu street photography and the occasions where I wanted to explore and let the little imperfections be artistic. And it was for that, slightly pretentious, reason that I decided to only take black and white film with me, something even further out of my normal comfort zone as I challenged myself to escape into the city without a plan and see what might happen. Although the point was to immerse myself in the city, at first nothing quite worked out how I would have liked. I spent several half-dazed hours getting lost down side streets, with the heat cracking the concrete, while regretting opting for a second coffee instead of lunch; but only the picture I took of an older Maupache woman selling jewellery from a parkside stall gave me much enthusiasm of being worthwhile once I got it developed. On another day I might have given up in frustration, but there were other reasons why I wasn’t ready to slow down and instead my stubbornness was rewarded as I got to Bellavista. 

The barrio sits to the north of the city, where a narrow-grey river is drawn like a trench, acting as a boundary between the central districts and the low-rise grid of street art and painted shutters. Each of the units on the squat terraced streets stood out as their own stripe of colour, individualised veneers over the top of the previously poor neighbourhood. And the multitude of bars and takeout joints caught my personal sweet spot between pretence and disrepair, flanked by thin, dry trees and plastic seating. It was late afternoon by then, and the place was busy with people grabbing food from trucks on their way home, or beginning to venture out for drinks as the light drifted lower. Suddenly I felt like I had no end to the things I could point my camera at and as I tried to pick out which were most interesting, the monochrome film I’d been struggling with all day quickly felt like the ideal choice, as it forced me to take my time and do more than just fall back on the colours of the buildings.

Of course, by that point it wasn’t just my creativity that was beginning to stir through the haze. Harvey had spent the day sluggish with disinterest, but the growing activity in Bellavista had caused her attention to start wandering, alighting on several women as I continued to work, each one drawing a glance in my direction. Almost as quickly however, Harvey seemed to decide they weren’t what she was looking for, dropping her interest even as I strained and tried to will the bracelet helplessly in their direction. For the first time, I remember realising how much more eager I was to find another encounter than she was.

‘Why not her,’ I asked mentally as I caught the eye of a pretty local in a light leather jacket, stood on a graffitied street corner with several friends, her attention evident more through my own gaydar than the bracelet. She was the fourth woman I’d asked that about in as many minutes, and Harvey merely gave a wave of mental annoyance at me as I made my way over for a picture of the group, getting nothing but flattered embarrassment and a shy smile as I clicked the shutter. I was about to try and strike up a conversation on my own when a man joined them, greeting the object of my fleeting interest with a kiss.

I took another picture of them to be polite, and felt Harvey shrug.

‘Ok…what about her?’ I tried again, shifting focus to where a skinny convenience store worker, barely out of her teens, was sweeping the dust-covered sidewalk outside a shop across the street. She saw me looking, but presumed I was scouting for more subjects for my camera, and waved her hands to decline.

‘You do know we’re meant to be looking for a match for you,’ the voice in my head reproached. ‘Not just getting you laid for the sake of it. Believe me, I could have left you on your own back in Canada if that was all you needed.’

I shot back. ‘You told me to keep an open mind.’

‘I did, but that doesn’t just mean-’

‘And that’s what I’m doing.’ I rarely cut Harvey off, it’s surprisingly difficult to speak over one thought with another, but I was feeling stubborn enough to try. I wasn’t ready to slow down, and I was still several days away from being ready to admit to either of us that I knew why. I caught the shape of her considering telling me to go back to the apartment and rest, and my own reply was felt, more than thought. ‘Please Harvey.’

Harvey hated being interrupted, but the sigh she gave had just enough concern mixed in with the exasperation for me to notice. ‘Fine,’ she said, with no little indignation, ‘fine, we’ll do things your way. If you want to insist on making this harder for yourself, who am I to stop you.’

Back on the other side of the street, the convenience store worker was still stealing unsubtle looks at me, her curiosity in tall Canadian women apparently all her own rather than anything that needed helping along with magic. Again, I attempted to see if I could nudge Harvey’s attention and considered heading over to flirt regardless. 

‘But still not her,’ the bracelet managed, dryly, before I could take my first step towards her. ‘Not unless you want to still be dealing with clingy and obsessive behaviour long after you’ve worked through all this.’

I trusted Harvey enough when she said something like that to avoid being too frustrated, even if for a second I felt obstructed enough to try making my own mistakes anyway, once again threatening to stubbornly ignore a problem in plain sight. The voice had shifted to something more sympathetic however and her focus spread elsewhere as she did her best to humour me. 

‘I’m not going to get you to admit what you’re actually after here, am I? I can make things work if you head a couple of blocks over, before you go and get yourself too badly burnt.’

Following her direction took me off the main stretch of bars and pizza joints, where the crowds became a little more sparse. There were still restaurants, but the pace felt less demanding and the music coming from open doors alongside the smell of asado felt less garish, as the vibes shifted subtly to the sort of places you’d have to know to look for, rather than being able to easily stumble upon. I had Harvey to guide me however, and she caught me gently, as if tugging at my shoulder, to make me pause as I walked past a place I’d otherwise have risked missing.

The sidewalk was narrow enough that there was only space for four small tables to be set outside the single storey restaurant, hustled together under a pair of faded umbrellas, and even then I’d still had to step into the road to walk around them. A sign gave its name as ‘Lienzo 13,’ set above a flaking mural of pink and purple flowers that covered the wall. And as Harvey caused me to turn and look back, the first thing to catch my notice was how bold the spray-painted work was. I was given a moment to chide myself for missing how good a backdrop it would make for pictures, with lines that were thick and stylish enough to pick up well even in monochrome; but the thought only lasted until the waitress stepped out of the door seconds later.

Her hair was the first thing to stand out about her, a sunkissed blonde, that despite her broad, hispanic features, I couldn’t tell if it was natural or had come out of a bottle. More striking than the colour however was how it was bundled up into thick dreadlocks, then pulled above her head in a casual ponytail, making her look decidedly alternative despite the pressed white blouse and smart pants that made up her uniform. Her sleeves were rolled up, showcasing a geometric patterned tattoo running up a forearm that was toned just to the point of definition, her figure fit without having lost any of her curves.

My immediate instinct was to raise my camera, snapping a picture as she carried a drink to the only customer, a middle aged local man who barely looked up from his phone as she approached his table. And it was only as I did that she finally looked up in my direction, giving me a slightly crooked smile that suited her perfectly.

I could probably have probed and pushed and found some way to engineer a situation to have fucked her right away, something that definitely happened more than once in Santiago, but it’s not really what I enjoy. Half of the appeal of travelling comes from meeting new people, and I’m wired to enjoy the slow drawn out flirting with pretty girls that leads to that final pay off. I was looking for a connection almost as much as a distraction, and she was more than happy to oblige me with both as she let me pick out a table outside and we did the first steps of the dance through introductions and signalled interest.

Her name was Emmy, although I never learnt whether that was taken from Emma, Emilia or something else, and I was surprised to learn that she was the owner, despite barely looking older than I was. Lienzo 13 (or Canvas 13 in English) was her already attempting to up-size from a smaller, successful place on the outskirts of the city, and she told me at length about how the name came from her belief that food and art came from the same place, exactly the sort of hipster bullshit I’m a sucker for. She spoke a lot with her hands, constantly seeming to be in a charming state of motion as regulars arrived and I took pictures of her working, confident that she was the most interesting subject I’d found all day. The only time she seemed to pause were in the moments she lingered by my table, and the instant I attempted to read the menu of small plates and Chilean comfort food she was there, leaning in close enough that I could have kissed her as she whipped it out of my hands with an easy, uneven grin. 

“You don’t need that,” she declared, confidently. “Relax. Sit back. Let an expert take care of you, ok?”

“The last time I let an owner tell me that I ended up with a bill large enough to bankrupt a small country. Don’t let me end up with a debt I can’t live up to,” I joked, thinking back to an evening in Greece years earlier that had ended on much less friendly terms.

Emmy spread her arms in a playful shrug, already walking backwards towards the door and the restaurant’s interior. “Start thinking creatively about how to pay then, I’ve already told the chef your order.”

“Are you this presumptuous with all your customers?” I asked, leaning back in my plastic chair, play-acting at needing to be won over.

“Just the ones I really want to impress. Trust me.”

There was a sense when she disappeared back inside however that I was missing something. The bracelet’s influence was obviously at play, but it didn’t quite feel the same as it had done with all my liaisons to that point, in a way I couldn’t put my finger on. A little bigger, a little broader. Nor could I shake the idea that there was some unknown at play, just on the other side of the doors, waiting among the sounds of clattered dishes and other diners talking. When I tried to check with Harvey however, she was silent, almost as if signalling to me that she’d done her part and I was on my own now. That was still enough however to leave me making exactly the sort of second guesses I was doing my best to avoid, and I surprised myself with just how uncomfortable the return of uncertainty felt. Of course, knowing Harvey, that was definitely the point.

When Emmy returned a short while later, it was with several plates, giving smaller samples of some of the kitchen’s dishes, all restrained in size with the exception of a skillet full of fries, buried under meat, eggs and peppers I’d learnt was called Chorrillana and that alone might fed me for a week. The look on my face as I saw it must have amused her however and she laughed.

“I know. Val insisted. The Chorrillana’s what people come back for and she wasn’t going to let you eat here without trying it. Personally I think her tamales are better but who am I to tell her that,” she asked with animated sarcasm, before placing a familiar hand on my shoulder as soon as it was free of the plates. I let it rest there for a moment, allowing her to know I was very ok with being touched, and caught her gaze as I looked up, her eyes suggestive with intent she wasn’t attempting to hide.

“Val’s the chef?”

 “Valentina’s my girlfriend. Who also happens to be my chef. Or maybe it’s the other way around.” She said it so simply, given how thick the air was with our flirtation, as if this was a dynamic she navigated every evening, but it was enough to make it obvious what the extra complication I’d been sensing was. Immediately, I could feel the pull of the bracelet not just on Emmy, but on another person, unseen within the building, massaging two sets of inhibitions at once. 

Again, I tried nudging at the point where I could feel Harvey’s personality resting in the back of my mind, looking for a little guidance on how I was meant to navigate things, but again she stayed silent. 

“You would think one of those two things would give my opinion some weight when it comes to her food,” Emmy continued, still smiling. “But the woman can be impossible.”

Anticipation worked its way up from my core, warm and cloying, as I felt a charged buzzing from my wrist and the sense of any control over the situation already spinning away from me, certain in the inevitability of where this was going to end. I’d never had a threesome before. I’d come close, once, with my ex, driven far more by her than me and the hot, jealous argument that particular exploration had resulted in almost ended the relationship several months sooner than we eventually did. With hindsight though, I can see how it was less about her wanting to be with other people than it was a desperate attempt to try and shake my expectations out of the rut I was putting us in. It was a memory that I’d thought I’d managed to move past, only…

Emmy saw enough to offer me another smile, pulling me back to her with the curl of her lips. “Try not to look so scared, she only bites when I ask her to.”

“And you do that often,” I flirted back, still determined to keep out of my own head. 

She plucked a fry, playfully, from my plate, and pretended to deliberate the answer. “Maybe. If I’m in the mood.” I didn’t need her to tell me if she was now. The eye contact she made a point of finding would have made it clear enough, only to linger on me as if she was trying to decide between leading me away and working out what I was thinking. For a moment, there was a hint of concern in her gaze as she tried to read something just beyond her notice, and I wonder how empathetic she might have been if I’d let her. Instead I forced a grin, and reached out to brush her arm, as if moving the bracelet towards her might increase its pull.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about how good you’re going to look in my pictures,” I deflected obviously, with what was only half a lie. 

Emmy humoured the line with a laugh, in the way you would only do for someone you were eager to fuck, but before she could reply a bell rang from the kitchen, signalling that another food order was waiting to be served. And with it I allowed myself to appreciate the magical tug at my senses from inside, and the direction of her unseen girlfriend.

“Duty calls.” She stepped back from me, briefly tangling my outstretched fingers with her own and only ended the touch reluctantly. Her own eagerness was palpable, but it was also as if something she’d seen had made her worried I might take the chance to run off. “Promise that I’m not going to come back to find you gone before we close.”

It was an easy promise to make. I wanted her. Badly. I’d have wanted her even if she was on her own or I wasn’t still acting like this was what Harvey meant by keeping an open mind. There was a delirious sort of freedom to that lie, to knowing that whatever was about to happen I was never going to unroot myself to a new hemisphere to fall into a poly relationship and I wanted that feeling to boil over and swallow me.

I caught her hand again, pulling her back in until I wasn’t sure if I was just going to try and kiss her, only for the bell to ring again.

“Promise. I have to thank the chef, right?”

She nodded, giving me a wink as she headed inside and the rest of the evening fell into a half-spoken rhythm. Val’s food was delicious, honest and packed deftly with flavour, but appreciated less than it deserved as we circled the building tension and Emmy kept returning to talk or steal bites from my plate, while I stole pictures of her in reply. And as she did, the second, pull towards the kitchen only grew heavier and the anticipation built until it was practically all I could do to stay in my seat with the occasional rub of my thighs against each other. It was only once the shadows grew long and the street lights flickered on that I found myself the last customer remaining and a pocket of stillness fell about the restaurant, amidst the growing sound of music from nearby bars. 

I was down to the last couple of shots on my roll of film, vaguely aiming the camera in the direction of Emmy as she cleaned down the adjacent table and appreciated my attention with unsubtle glances as we talked, when I finally got to see the other half of what I’d been feeling. Val emerged from the doorway, her tall stature matching the vaguely imposing sense of her I’d built in my minds eye, and with soft, round, features that could have belonged to a model. Her hair however was cropped short, shaved back to almost a buzzcut of dark fuzz across her head, that did its best to reclaim an edge from how conventionally feminine she’d otherwise have looked. Likewise, the patina-tinged apron she wore seemed as intended to hide her curves as it was functional, while one hand was recently bandaged from some recent cut or burn.

Val didn’t look at me at first. I knew her attention was on me, I could feel it, practically screaming at me, but she made a point of ignoring me as she walked towards Emmy, courting my attention as she pulled her girlfriend in for a possessive kiss beneath one of the parasols.

The pair stood, their faces pressed together, with Emmy’s back to me and her girlfriend’s arms slung low around her waist, and I raised my camera on instinct. I was too distracted to be quite fast enough to catch them in the kiss however; the shutter only clicking as their lips parted and Val looked over the short woman’s shoulder, towards me for the first time.

In the months since, I’ve heard more people talk about that one photo more than any other I’ve taken, about what makes it special. They pick up on the composition of the two women standing before the restaurant, with the flowery mural in soft focus monochrome behind them, Emmy’s face mysteriously unseen as they embrace. They talk about the lighting and the heavy contrast, throw around words like timeless and striking but I know what it is that really sells it. It’s the expression on Val’s face, as she gazed at the lens, the one no-one’s ever quite managed to put a word to but that I saw dozens of times with that first, fleeting eye contact every time the bracelet helped me find someone new. It was the same one Dani had given me as we hailed our cab and Cassie had given me as she sang. Intense, wanting, expectant and unguarded.

Honest.

I lowered the camera, and as I did, I saw a flare of jealousy in her eyes that came a second after the picture, the emotion hot and forward. Not enough to dissuade either of us, I was in far too fucking deep for anything to scare me off at that point, but there wasn’t much softness behind the gaze, or as she spoke. Rather it was a promise of something tempestuous and the knowledge that I was inviting it upon myself.

“I suppose you must be Riley” she said huskily, with bare arms still wrapped around her girlfriend. “I’ve been hearing about you all evening.”

Emmy’s demeanour had changed, subtly since the other woman had appeared, some of her composure having torn apart in her lover’s embrace. She stroked a hand against Val’s leg, picking idly at the hem of the top the other woman was wearing beneath her apron, cajoling with little touches as she played to the obvious assertiveness of her girlfriend. “I told you she was your type, didn’t I?”

There was naked desire in Val’s gaze as she made a point of sizing me up in response to the statement, causing my pussy to twitch with a look. I’ve always enjoyed women who know how to take what they want, and she seemed ready to chew me up and spit me out. 

“I’m flattered,” I said, leaning on the table as I tried to play things cool, even as the noise and colour of the city seemed to fade to a dull smudge around us. “Your food was incredible by the way. Emmy was right about your tamales.”

Val smirked, finding humour in how I was still trying to make small talk she had zero interest in. She watched me a moment longer without bothering to reply, before once again shifting her attention back to her girlfriend as if I wasn’t there, drawing Emmy’s lips to her for a fleeting kiss.

“Are you sure you want to do this Bébe,” Val asked, in a way that seemed to expect Emmy to say yes, but that still wanted to give her the chance to say it.

“Please.” Emmy’s response was breathless, punctuated by yet another kiss, the pair barely able to keep their hands off each other. “As long as you’re ok with it.” 

My mouth dried as Val silently stepped away from her girlfriend, letting her confidence speak instead of words, and closed the distance towards me. I fidgeted with the bracelet, warm against my skin, before taking the hand she extended towards me and let her pull me to my feet. I was a couple of inches taller than her, but there was an intensity in her eyes that still left me feeling as if I was the one looking up at her. She leaned in, close enough for her chest to press me backwards half a step and for me to smell the smoke that lingered on her from the grill, as she murmured low into my ear.

“I don’t flirt like my girlfriend. Right now, I don’t care if you liked my food.” Her hand slipped low, cupping my crotch and rubbing me firmly through my jeans until my panties clung to the wet heat. “But she wants to watch me fuck you senseless. And I always give her what she wants.”

I think I might have whimpered, but before I could actually reply she’d already let me go, and was striding back towards the door. With a brush of the hand, she collected Emmy as she passed her again, and left me to follow after the pair of them, forcing me to measure my steps to not appear too desperate in my haste to keep up. The interior was an unfussy sort of stylish, filled with unmatched furniture and the work of local artists decorating the walls, but we didn’t linger. A couple of other staff remained, still cleaning down from the shift, but failed to spare me their attention as we passed through the open kitchen and disappeared into the back, to a staff room barely large enough for the lockers that flanked one wall or the faded couch pressed against another. 

Despite only being a couple of paces behind them, Emmy was already pressed up against the lockers by the time I’d closed the door behind me, with her girlfriend’s tongue demandingly claiming her mouth. There was almost an aggression to the kiss, a sense of pressure that had built up and finally split apart at the seams, laced with jealousy and desire from each of them as the short haired woman sought to remind Emmy who she belonged to. And to remind me. It felt illicit to watch, almost pornographic in the display, and I bit my lip as Val’s hand worked its way beneath her partner’s blouse. Their lips parted, but only so Val could shift her attention to Emmy’s neck, and graze at it with her teeth until she was rewarded with a soft mewl.

“Valentina…”

After several long breathless moments, Val finally relented, and glanced back over her shoulder towards me. She smirked again, and I imagined hot smoke billowing in the dark brown of her eyes as she stepped aside, unpinning Emmy and wordlessly guided her in my direction.  

I didn't need encouragement to kiss Emmy, but I got it anyway, as Val pressed her into me so insistently that I thought I might melt. She was an incredible kisser, and every roll of her tongue felt hungrier and more shameless than the last, and I had to cup her face with my hand to try and steady myself before I could return her enthusiasm. And as I did, she moaned, desperately, into me, driven on by Val’s hands roaming her body from behind.

Eventually we broke apart, leaving me to appreciate how Val had moved away, the chef’s apron already lying discarded on the floor. Beneath it, the white top she wore was much tighter than I had been able to realise, although I barely had the chance to appreciate just how pronounced her curves were before she reached down and began to slowly, teasingly, performatively, peel it away.

I felt my breath catch. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath, and placed her hands on her hips as she tossed the top away to stand provocatively in nothing but a pair of jeans. Either Emmy or myself gave an appreciative groan, but I couldn’t tell you which of us it was. Her chest was beyond generous; round mocha peaks I immediately pictured my hands upon and spilling around my touch. I could see why her instinct might be to hide them, to minimise her femininity in favour of some other version of herself, but exposed, there was just enough thickness to her curves to drive my imagination wild. Her hands moved to her belt next, and repeated the tease as she lowered her jeans and underwear in a single slow motion, down across the broadness of her hips.

Val’s crotch was bare, the swell of her outer lips a shade darker than the surrounding skin and I was quickly given an even better view as she moved to the break room’s couch and sat. Her legs spread. Her fingers traced their way down and quickly left slick as she exposed herself, and parted her folds to show off the delicate pink that waited there, before once again fixing her eyes on mine. 

“Get on your fucking knees.”

Any of the thoughts from earlier that I was still running from were left behind entirely as she ordered me, the words running through me in a filthy little pulse towards my own crotch. She beckoned me forward with her free hand, and I obeyed. Sinking to the floor between her legs, I found my more submissive tendencies quickly laid bare at the surface, and savoured the controlling yet appreciative touch of her thumb against my cheek. Val stroked herself almost idly for me, the tips of the fingers giving a brief massage of her clit, although I didn’t dare move forward to taste her until she gripped at my hair, and drew me to her.

I wish I could say I was particularly considered or seductive in return with how I ate her out, but I can’t. I didn’t have enough left in me, just the final stripped back shreds of arousal and desperation as I got my first taste of her pussy on my lips. Not that Val seemed to mind. I buried my tongue in her, with deep, greedy strokes and toyed in snatches against her proud clit like some lust-drunk whore, the fingers bunching more firmly in my hair with each passing moment until I wouldn’t have been able to pull back even if I wanted to. 

Behind me, I was dimly aware of the sound of Emmy’s clothes hitting the floor, and the whimpering little gasps that came as she touched herself. I’d never been watched having sex before, only the gratifying little experimentations into showing myself off on my phone to Dani, and I wasn’t ready for what each sound she made did to me. I loved it. Loved the feeling of her eyes, watching me as a debassed myself. Loved knowing that the sight of me was helping her get off. Loved feeling like a slut who was pushing past her limits in front of someone else, my decency left discarded. I fed off her arousal, a lurid little thrill buried in my core, burning bright enough to notice even with everything else running through me. I reached for it, snaking my own fingers down inside the hem of my pants, and curled them inwards, finding the feeling deep and white hot.

“You like that Bébe?” Val asked her girlfriend, seeming to read my mind in the process. “You like seeing what she’s doing to me?”

Emmy’s response was ragged. “Fuck…Val…yes…” 

“Her tongue’s so good. You’re going to love what she does to you.”

“...yes.”

I drank in the complement and tried to increase my efforts, only for Val’s thighs to draw together slightly, and her grip on my hair relax. 

“Up,” she ordered me, pulling at my shirt. And hurried to obey her without question, an attempt left clumsy by how her hands pawed at my clothing. I found myself in her lap, unsure whether I was meant to be kissing her or helping her undress me. Her tongue was more demanding that Emmy’s, leaning into me hard enough that I had to cling briefly against her to save myself from toppling backwards, but we eventually managed to free me from my shirt and practically tear away my bra. 

It was only as I raised my ass enough for my jeans to be yanked down, that my attention was able to find Emmy a few paces away. She’d managed to half undress while I was between Val’s legs, her top half left bare but with her pants bunched around her thighs, just far enough so that she could lean back against the lockers, with one hand frantically working her pussy. Her figure was similar to my own, though a little shorter and a touch more toned, with cute little tits I appreciated more on her than myself. She had the thinnest strip of honey coloured hair visible between her legs, but it was the sight of a silvery bar through one nipple that caught my attention. I managed to think back to what I’d discussed with Anton, about Harvey being able to pick up on those sorts of aesthetic touches, and the thrum of gratification I got from watching her toy with it between slender fingers was enough to make me question whether my appreciation for Luisa’s went beyond the fact they belonged to her. 

The thought only lived as long as it took for Val to cup my own tits with both of her hands, positioning me in her lap as if to show me off. The touch was good, but the sensation of Emmy watching me as her girlfriend roamed across my body was better, heightened further when she spoke.

“Look at her, Bébe,” Val said, punctuating the breathless words by leaning forward, and grazing my nipple between her teeth. “Look how fuckable she is.” She reached behind, squeezing my ass firmly until she left marks beneath her fingers and spread my cheeks, showing me off almost as an afterthought. “You want to see what I do to her, for you?”

Emmy’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment as she nodded eagerly and ran circles across the tucked in little nub resting above her folds. There was a performative aspect to all of this, with Val despite being the dominant partner, wanting to show just how much she belonged to Emmy in turn. That Emmy could at a stroke tell her to stop, and she would and how the dreadlocked woman’s gratification mattered to her above anything else right now. 

For an instant, I felt something uncomfortable and needy stir inside me, only for Val to shift suddenly, throwing me backwards onto the couch as she positioned herself above me. She leaned in, and the sensation of her tits, pressed against my own, followed by a fierce kiss drove anything else away. 

Val’s hand found one of mine and insistently moved it towards her pussy, making it clear what she wanted before reaching between my legs in return. Fingers pressed against my entrance, three digits all at once that found only the briefest resistance before gliding inside, wet with my own arousal. I gasped, my head falling back away from her and she bit at my neck the way she’d done with Emmy earlier, all while I stretched around her, doing my best to accommodate her but clenching in spite of myself, delighted by the fullness. Her thumb grazed my clit, her teeth nipped harder, and I bent myself towards her as she spoke.

“Fuck me.”

Our eyes met, inches apart and I did as she asked, finding her tight enough that I had to ease slowly inside her over several strokes, only for her to flutter around me when I finally did so and pour hot-breathed curses into my ear. 

When Val had promised to fuck me senseless, she’d meant it. We bucked against each other, our hands working in time with the roll of each other’s hips while we did our best to find as much of the other as we could with fingers and lips; skin on skin. It didn’t take much more me to cum. I’d practically been edging myself with anticipation all evening and, now the sex was finally there, it almost felt feverish, with everything about me stretched thin until I was floating barely tethered to myself. The sounds of Emmy’s watching moans driving me faster. 

My body strained and shuddered against Val’s touch. I tensed. Keened. Then came apart in what felt like stop motion, with each ripple of my orgasm a long, slow pause between the frames where my breath caught and I could barely move. But she wasn’t going to let me stop. Almost as soon as my first climax had finished she was moving to press her cunt against mine, tangling me up in her thighs and riding me hard, for her own pleasure. I did my best to press back against her, tried to be more than just a warm toy for her to fuck herself against, and managed at first, pushing through the haze to match her pace and find the spots with my hands that made her curse. She was holding out for Emmy though.

Even at the time, I wasn’t sure which of them set the other off. Emmy’s voice rose into a steady stream of ‘mierda’ repeated until her knees buckled and she slid down the lockers, rattling the metal against the wall as she shook. Even then, she strained to keep her eyes open, heavy lidded and unwilling to look away as her girlfriend came with her. And Val, Val fucking preened. She tensed, stretching her back out with her hands on her own gorgeous tits, wanting to let the other woman see every second of her pleasure.

It felt like there was barely any pause however before Val was on me again. She slipped lower this time and I managed only the barest of protests as she forced me up the couch, ordering me into a position where she could take her turn between my legs. I felt exhausted, over sensitive, with each lick and touch just barely more than I thought I could stand, but not enough that I could bring her to stop. It was too much. But too much was what I’d wanted, and I did my best to try and hold on, literally, gripping to the cushions. And before long, I found Emmy kneeling beside me, no longer content with just watching. The bundle her hair had been pulled up in had come halfway loose, with several of the dreadlocks hanging endearingly messily about her muscled shoulders as she leaned in and kissed me. There was a delicate sort of hunger to the gesture, demanding in her own way that I have her whatever I had left, and I let her take it.

“Enjoy the view,” I asked, appreciating the return of her uneven smile almost as much as the way her hands began to ease their way tenderly across my skin, a hint of her own wetness still palpable on her fingertips.

“Yes.” Her response was dreamy, still wrapped up in the glow of an orgasm that must have been harder than I realised. “You were beautiful with her. But I think I’d like to do more than just watch now.”

The rest is a blur. My memories are a little smudged at the edges, unable to unpick which of them was doing what and when, except for little points of clarity among the most incredible sex. I remember the trail of kisses Emmy left up one thigh on her on way to claiming her own taste of my pussy, and the delighted noise she made as I tugged at the bar in her nipple with my teeth. She liked her girls assertive, although it was really Val who took charge of both of us, choreographing things, with each of her orders to me leaving goosebumps on my skin. I know I came at least twice more, although for the final one I don’t know which of them it was who rimmed my asshole with her tongue while her partner ate my pussy, just that the finger which joined it became too much and toppled me helplessly over the edge. I think I returned the favour to one of them. And I definitely remember the way Emmy’s cunt twitched as she came riding my face, but not whose fingers were strumming in her at the time. 

But most clearly of all, I remember lying, utterly spent, as the pair continued, practically on top of me, coming together as a couple to wring one final climax from each other.  I  can still see how gorgeous they looked together. How perfectly they fit. They each knew exactly what the other wanted and Val pulled Emmy up on top, more comfortable being rough with her girlfriend’s familiar body than she had been with mine, groping hard enough to leave pink marks as each of them moaned. But it was Val that ended up begging to come, reaching her own peak a little before Emmy did and refusing to climax until her girlfriend joined her, holding on with strained pleasure etched across her face. It was only was Emmy jerked, and fell forward against her that Val dared to let go. She was in charge, but it was only ever going to be about what Emmy wanted.

I remember watching, as the room finally seemed to settle and they uncurled against each other, and saw the way that Val’s eyes softened when they met her girlfriends, looking at her in a way no-one had ever looked at me. 

I remember being happy for them…

Emmy was the first one to speak, after we’d finished and I’d spent long enough staring at the ceiling of the restaurant’s break room for the grey to fade from the edges of my vision and my chest to stop heaving. I was propped up, on one arm of the couch, with the two girlfriends together on the other. Emmy’s feet sat in my lap, but the rest of her seemed much more comfortable in Val’s. 

“If I’m honest,” she mumbled, as if to no-one in particular, but reaching out to stroke the back of my hand as she did. “I would like to do this more, just maybe not right away. And not with you Riley. I get the sense that there’s more going on than you’re willing to show, and I would be scared of what this sort of emotional intensity would do to us.”

She glanced over, empathetic enough to be concerned about what the sudden declaration would do for the mood, or my feelings, but I was already hiding from myself behind the fatigue. I’d been waiting for the let down before we’d even started, knowing with them it was going to be the price I’d pay for the sex we’d just had, and that her words didn’t have to bother me if I didn’t let them. I could tell myself it had been worth it.

I sat up enough to smile at her, doing enough to placate any of her guilt, and did so just in time for Val to take her turn.  

“And if I’m honest, I’d try something more if Emmy really wanted, but it would be for her. I love her, and I don’t trust you not to make me jealous. I’m not ready to make a relationship like that work without fighting, and I don’t think you are either.”

I couldn’t argue with that either. 

“No, it’s fine, I get it,” I replied, as casually as I could manage, unsure of why I’d turned from them, and returned to staring directly upwards as she spoke. “This was only ever going to be a one off, nothing wrong with that.”

“It was very hot at least,” Emmy offered, playfully, with enough of a question to the statement as she tested the edges of how I felt. There must have been enough that she thought she saw to worry, but I laughed, and leaned over to give Val a small kiss for Emmy’s benefit. I’d have been lying if I’d said I hadn’t loved it.

“It was, two women like you is enough to stop a girl thinking straight.”

I lingered a little longer, but only enough to argue over Emmy’s insistence that the food was on the house, and for them to order me a solitary cab ride back across town to my hotel. Anything more and I’d have worried about intruding between what they had more than I already was, or risking anything souring my memory of them. 

I told myself I was thrilled by how things had gone, still riding high on how it was as wild and unrestrained as I could have hoped, and only seemed to fuel my desire to not slow down and I almost managed to convince myself to find somewhere else to go rather than my apartment. I was exhausted enough that I did go back, just, but even that was to share the details with Dani as soon as I could, messaging her until the small hours and I couldn’t escape sleep any longer. I just couldn’t figure out why Harvey was suddenly so quiet, her voice silent for the next few days, as if she was leaving me to stew in the afterglow.

What I did know for sure, is that when I finally got my film developed weeks later, and saw the black and white image of Val looking straight at my camera, I realised what I had. I’d allowed the pair to fade a little from my thoughts by then, but the picture took me back so firmly to that place and feeling that I knew it was the best shot I’d taken in my career, possibly that I’ll ever take, caught on an impulse and helped along by Harvey. It was good enough that I was even scared to show it to anyone at first, worried not just that I would never be able to live up to it, but also that I might have caught some of the bracelet’s magic on film somehow or that I was sharing something unspeakable that should have remained private. But her expression is something only a handful of people on the planet would ever recognise or understand, and I eventually felt comfortable enough to slip it to my editors with another batch of photos.

If I hadn’t the path I took might have ended up looking very different, but to say why would be skipping ahead, and I still had a lot of miles to cover, past some of my hardest bumps. And before I could even get to those I still had the rest of my time in Chile, slowly losing parts of myself in the unrelenting heat.