Beautiful Bones

“You have beautiful bones,” he says in a soft whisper from behind the camera. She smiles up at the lens. He takes her picture. He develops all the pictures in darkness, highlighting the delicate turn of a wrist, the perfect angle of a cheekbone. He makes them black-and-white, he wants to show each one of her fragile bones.


“You have beautiful bones,” he says in a soft whisper in her ear. He stands behind her as she looks at her pictures. He papers the walls with her pictures. She looks up at herself, the curves and angles of her bones cloaked in soft pale skin. She turns and smiles up at the lens. He takes her picture.


“You have beautiful bones,” they say, looking at her pictures. The darkness of each picture frame stands out in sharp contrast to the crisp white walls of the gallery, like the curl of her hair against the paleness of her shoulder. She smiles at them now, and no one takes her picture. They all keep it in the albums of their minds.


“You have beautiful bones,” they say, repeating themselves over and over. They glance from the photographs to the real thing, as if to reassure themselves their judgment is correct. They look at her and he looks at them. They look at her and suddenly she is theirs, too. It’s not right. All of her pictures should be his.


“You have beautiful bones,” he says in a soft whisper from behind the camera. She smiles up at the lens. He takes her picture. He chooses a poison. He doesn’t want to accidentally break a single one of her bones.


“You have beautiful bones,” he says in a soft whisper from behind the camera. She doesn’t smile up at the lens anymore. He takes her picture. These pictures he develops in color. The red of her lips painted with the red of her blood against the white of her skin and the black of her hair: that is just too beautiful a contrast to hide in black-and-white. He papers the walls with these new pictures. “And now your beautiful bones are mine.”