The Photographer's Wife by Nick Alexander Read Free Book Online

and then closes and as Brett’s hard shoes echo away down the corridor. She bites her lip and thinks about Brett.
    Because somehow, without any decision having been taken, they have ended up dating. For a month now, they have seen each other almost every night and she wonders again how this could have happened.
    Brett is so far from the image she fostered of her ideal man. She always imagined herself with some dreadlocked artist in paint-spattered clothes, which, let’s face it, is about as far from Brett’s Republican suityness as anyone could manage. Then again, the paint-splattered artists she has dated have all proved to be far from ideal. She had also hoped for someone younger. Someone funnier. Someone fitter.
    But the strange truth is that she fancies Brett. Despite herself, she thinks he looks sexy in his suit, almost more than sexy. Seductive. Somehow naughty. Pervy perhaps. And there’s something about the way he pulls his cock – his unfeasibly large cock – from his suit trousers without even getting undressed, something about the way he expects her to – no, assumes that she will – worship it, that despite everything she has ever believed about men, about women, about gender identity, about roles and feminism, she really rather enjoys.
    Intellectually, she would rather she didn’t but that’s just the way it is. She wrinkles her nose and refocuses on the screen where she has switched to Safari and is googling, “Milly Colley.”
    Colley’s fashion shots aren’t that much better than her own, she decides. Yes, Colley has access to better models wearing better gear, because, well, she’s hip at the moment, but the photographs themselves are nothing Sophie couldn’t manage. Technically, she’s just as good.
    But then Sophie clicks on “Fine Art” and her heart sinks. Because Milly Colley has that magical, elusive thing she has been hunting for ever since she went into photography, has the same kind of “eye” that propelled her father to stardom.
    She clicks through a few photos, then, imagining a speech bubble above her own head containing the word, “Grrrrr!” she quits Safari and the screen is filled, anew, by the man in the shiny sportswear.
    “So, track-suit man,” she says out loud. She looks at his bulge now, then zooms in on it and nods. “Yeah, OK, that is a bit O.T.T,” she mumbles.
    She wishes she had spotted this during the shoot and removed the sock, or used a smaller sock, because now she will have to spend fifteen minutes massaging his package into a smaller state. She grins at the thought of this and, as she starts to do just that, thinks about doing the same thing to Brett, tonight, only for real.
     
    When Sophie gets to Brett’s place, it is his flat-mate who opens the door – a permanently stoned satellite-dish installer called Raoul.
    “Come in, come in!” Raoul says, grinning sheepishly as if perhaps he doesn’t often see women, before hurling himself rather spectacularly over the back of the sofa to continue watching The Simpsons.
    Sophie checks the kitchen and, finding it empty, heads on to Brett’s room where she finds him wearing boxer shorts, lying face-down, typing on his laptop.
    “I’m here,” she says.
    “Yeah, I got that,” Brett replies without looking up. “Just let me send this copy and...” he mutters.
    “You’re looking very summery,” Sophie says.
    “It’s the heating in this place,” Brett says distractedly. “It’s ridiculous.”
    Sophie pulls off her coat, then sits in the armchair and stares at Brett’s back as she listens to the clicking of the keys. She runs her tongue across her lips and tries to decide whether or not to be offended by his lack of welcome. Are we already at this point? she wonders. Are we already at the point where one’s arrival doesn’t even merit a glance? Wasn’t that supposed to take just a bit longer than a month?
    She stretches and groans as Brett, with flourish, hits the send button and rolls onto