Eyeliner

by Spencer Roman



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"Left, please, Darren? Can you turn to the left?"
Big sigh. But he turned to the left. Snap of an unenthusiastic Darren.

"Darren, honey, I get the feeling you're not ... overly into this, at the moment." The photographer put down his camera. He was shooting for Cream magazine, and had tried to make the shoot look nice; really simple with a white backdrop. Darren was dressed rather blandly, but attractively, in white pants and a red long-sleeved shirt. It wasn't too creative, but everyone was running a little low on energy.

"Uh, no, it's ok. Keep shooting." A smile plastered itself across Darren's face.
"Great." Snap snap snap snap snap. "Can we have you in the Jesus shirt now?"

The smile dropped, and Darren's shirt came off. The photographer reloaded, glimpsing at his subject before the Jesus shirt could conceal his figure. A slight ache at the sight of him, but professionalism won out. "That's lovely, Darren." Several billion snaps later, "Alright, we're done. I know you don't enjoy it, but you're a good sport about these things." The photographer patted Darren on the back, put his camera away, and minced out of the studio. Darren sat down to rest for a few minutes. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy photo shoots, he'd just had a Very Long Day.

"Are you done here?" Daniel appeared on the set. "Everyone appears to be leaving."

"Yeah, finally." Darren ran his hand through his hair, messing it up into even spikier spikes.
"Boring shoot?" Daniel guessed.
"Same as usual." Darren picked at the design on the Jesus shirt. "I want to do something different."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Look at all these stark backdrops. Bare surroundings, no energy. No interest."
"No danger." Daniel smiled.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Darren raised an eyebrow curiously.
"Darren, Darren, Darren. Ever the curious one." Daniel took him by the hand, which Darren thought odd, and led him to the makeup chair in the corner of the now-empty studio. "Sit," he instructed.
"What are you doing? The last thing I need is more pancake makeup, Dan."
"Oh, I know." He said nothing, but found a black kohl pencil on the table and picked it up gingerly. "Close your eyes."

Darren closed his eyes with a suspicious giggle, and let out the odd complaint as Daniel proceeded to outline his eyes, trying his best to keep his hand steady. When he was finished, Darren's eyes fluttered open, and Daniel could hardly look. He was still standing in the way of the mirror, blocking Darren's view. He reached for a tube of mascara and leaned in to apply it to Darren's eyelashes. He felt oddly nervous, with his face so close. It's just a joke, he thought. I'm just kidding around.

 Darren blinked and Daniel moved out of the way. "Whoa!" said Darren. "God, I look dead."
"No you don't," said Daniel, smiling. "You look ... pretty!" And he laughed, to punctuate the awkward compliment. Darren stood up and looked around, as if he expected things to be outlined in black now. "Hey," he said, noticing something on a stand across the room. "Did that photographer leave his camera here?"

"Ooh," Daniel remarked, picking it up. "Strike a pose." He snapped a picture of Darren rolling his eyes.
"Daniel! I don't think you should be doing that ..." Snap. Another one of Darren protesting. "Relax, I'm sure he took the film out." Coy smile. Snap of a worried look from Darren. "Oh, look at those," Daniel motioned to the wardrobe rack. There was a pair of black leather pants hung over the top. "Hey, put those on! Put them on!"
"No, don't be ridiculous! I'll look like a ..."
"Like a what?"
"I don't know, like a slut."
Daniel nearly doubled over in giggles. "That's the idea, mister prissy. Come on, it'll be hilarious."
Darren eyed the rack and eventually went over and held up the pants. "They're kind of nice," he admitted.
"On with them! Don't make me force you."
"You couldn't, anyway." Although Darren had a sneaking suspicion Daniel was in the mood to follow through with that kind of thing. Darren quickly pulled off the white pants and zipped up the black ones. He struck an exaggerated pose, with his hand on his hip and his lips pursed emphatically.

"Yeah, work with me, baby!" Daniel exclaimed, nearly in hysterics for lack of a better response. Snap of Darren the model. It was truly funny, but beyond that, the laughter briefly relieved the underlying tension. The two of them paraded around for a bit, camera clicking ceaselessly, until Daniel got Darren back in the makeup chair.

"I just want to see something," he said, and found a tube of slightly pink-tinted lipgloss. "Open your mouth a little." He applied it to Darren's strangely unprotesting lips and immediately stole a picture. Snap of an achingly chaste expression. "That's great," he smiled, and Darren shifted in the chair.

This is so embarrassing! Thought Darren, with a smile. Does he have to hold that thing so close? Snap of Darren's shy eyes. And really gradually, he found Daniel's knees in contact with his own, and then sort of over him, and then straddling his lap, and then ... oh, my, how did this happen?

Daniel looked at him through the camera lens and put a finger to Darren's lip, touching the glossy surface. Darren, in a moment of inspiration, bit down playfully on the finger. Snap of Darren's beautiful mouth. Daniel slowly let the arm holding the camera drop to his side. He looked at Darren as if he'd never seen him before, and Darren was quite speechless.

What followed was only natural. Daniel leaned in, hesitantly, and kissed him softly. When he met no resistance, it was like a surge went through him and he began again, kissing harder, and Darren put his arms around his neck. Snap of the mirror, and two people in a deliciously compromising position.

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A couple of weeks later, the photographer stood in his dark room developing the film from the shoot with Darren Hayes. How careless he'd been to leave his loaded camera in the studio overnight. Luckily it had been returned to him the next day. He used tongs to remove a picture from the solution, and stared at it curiously.

"Holy," he said aloud. "Why didn't I think of that?"

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