Photographer and Model by Stefani Nellen I'm not built for this kind of thing anymore. The black lace bites into my skin, and the bra forces my soft breasts into grotesque black cones. I bet my buttocks look like old cantaloupes. But Harold insists. "Come on, be wicked!" His camera clicks. I lean over the back of his recliner, stroke the worn brown corduroy in need of a dry cleaner, and shake my cantaloupes. It's how we met. He needed a model. I needed the money. We both found love, decades of it. He whistles. "Baby! You're still as scorching hot as a bucket full of Chili Peppers!" We laugh. I turn around and catch him putting a new film into the camera. "You and your old-fashioned thing," I say. "Why don’t you get a digital camera? Everybody has one." "Don't care what everybody has." He clicks new photos. I tousle my graying hair and make my lids titter. "Besides," he says, "I'm not shooting you to put you on some internet site. The photos are for me." Click. "When it's time, you put as many as you can in a nice, white envelope. And you put that white envelope into the coffin with me." Click. "Now come," he says, "where's your smile? It's not so bad. It's only death, hon. A glitch." The sun sneaks through two layers of thick curtains and makes a halo out of his white hair. His freckled fingers hold his camera, so still without me posing. "Here," I say. I undo my bra. The straps fall over my shoulders. My liberated breasts spread over my ribs. "Take everything then." He never took nude photos of me. He's never seen me naked. We always made love in the dark. He swallows and lifts the camera to his face. His mouth a thin line. Click, click, like touches of his hard fingers and palms. I slide my hands into my pants, push them over my soft hips, and feel them brush past my knees. My crotch is cold. The black lace thing lies on the carpet, irrelevant like dust. He steps closer, cheeks sucked inwards, a skeleton with a camera. Click. Click. He pecks me, nibbles parts of me. He's too close for portrait shots now. He clicks my right breast, my left, the mole on my ribcage, the long bellybutton. He samples me, documents me. His shoulders strain underneath his shirt. He's down on his knees, photographing my thighs and kneecaps. I spread my arms and stand still. If I could, I would peel off my skin and let him have all that's underneath, and underneath that, and everything there is to me. Anything to keep him here longer. All content in SmokeLong Quarterly copyright 2003-2008 by its authors.
	Stefani Nellen is a psychologist-turned writer living in Pittsburgh and the Netherlands with her husband. Her short fiction appears or is forthcoming in VerbSap, Bound Off, Hobart, and Apex Digest, among other places. She co-edits the Steel City Review. Read the interview.
	Issue Sixteen (March 15, 2007): Heaven by the Highwayside by Mike Amato «» There Swells and Jets a Heart by Rusty Barnes «» Miss Hempstead's Brother by Myfanwy Collins «» This Is What You Left Behind by Tod Goldberg «» Ten Very Short Stories by John Leary «» Photographer and Model by Stefani Nellen «» On Mondays, Francesca Takes the Stairs by Cami Park «» Seven in the Morning by Max Ruback «» Baby in a Jar by Tom Saunders «» The Color of Moths by Holly Selph «» The List by Paul Silverman «» Glasgow Lullaby by Rob McClure Smith «» Night Birds by Craig Terlson «» Quake by Beth Thomas «» Deep in the Heart of Texas by Robert Travieso «» Disappearances by Jeff Vande Zande «» This Is Just Another Yarn by Ann Walters «» Travel by Nancy Zafris «» Interviews: Mike Amato «» Rusty Barnes «» Myfanwy Collins «» Alicia Gifford «» Tod Goldberg «» John Leary «» Stefani Nellen «» Cami Park «» Max Ruback «» Tom Saunders «» Holly Selph «» Paul Silverman «» Rob McClure Smith «» Craig Terlson «» Beth Thomas «» Robert Travieso «» Jeff Vande Zande «» Ann Walters «» Nancy Zafris «» Cover Art "A Gathering of Matisse" by Marty D. Ison «» Letter From the Editor