“I’m shaking.”

He made J a cup of coffee and mentally stripped him. Good: the two of them would suit each other.

The previous afternoon, when he’d shown J the tape, the younger man had been incredibly excited.

“I can’t believe it…it’s magical! I mean, how did this sort of idea come to you in the first place? You know, for a while I actually thought you were a pretty average guy…ah, I’m sorry…” J’s voice, the look in his eyes, were filled with an almost suspiciously excessive enthusiasm. Was he being sincere? “This is so different from anything you’ve made before. This is…it’s like something’s lifted you right up to a completely different level! These colors!”

Though he balked at J’s hyperbole—typical of young people—overall he had to say he agreed. It wasn’t as though he’d previously been blind to the beauty of color, but still. It felt as though his body were brimming with their intense hues, all this latent energy inside him—it was almost unbearable. He was living with a new intensity.

“I used to be dark”: There were times when he wanted to express it this way. I used to be dark. I was in a dark place. The monochrome world, entirely devoid of the colors he was now experiencing, had had a calmness that was beautiful in its way, but it wasn’t somewhere he could go back to. It seemed the happiness that had enabled him to feel that quiet peace was now lost to him forever. And yet he found himself unable to think of this as a loss. All of his energy was taken up in trying to cope with the excitement, the heightened awareness of living in the present moment.

Encouraged by J’s praise, though he couldn’t prevent his face from flushing, he eventually managed to get out the words he’d planned. But when he showed him his sketchbook and the dance performance program and asked him if he would do him the favor of modeling for him, J became flustered.

“Why on earth are you asking me? There are plenty of professional models out there; you could hire a theater actor, or…”

“You’ve got the right kind of body. Anything too gym honed would be all wrong. You’re just the thing.”

“No, I’m not the one for this job—to pose like that with this woman. I can’t.”

“No one will know. I won’t show your face. And this woman, don’t you want to meet her? Wouldn’t you like to be part of the inspiration for such a piece?”

After being given just the one night to think it over, J had called the next morning and agreed to be the model. Of course, there was no way the younger man could guess what he really wanted: to film the two of them, J and his sister-in-law, actually having sex.