You can’t see it here. You really can’t see it. It’s hard to describe, though, and that’s a kicker because I shouldn’t have to explain. I shouldn’t need to use words. Click, then a picture. And that should be it.

Her hair, when untamed, is the size of the Moon. But I always have Suzie scrape it back like that, and oiled, like black iron. The better to see her face. Her forehead: Suzie smoothes out the three, paper-edge lines, but I make sure she leaves that single small pockmark above the left eyebrow. You see it? And oh, that eyebrow – look how it’s more arched than the other (that’s why I leave the pockmark; it looks like a pinball kicked up by a flicking bumper, a dot of fun in a face of seriousness). Let me cover up her eyes, here. Now that arch is disdain, it’s cruelty. But if you see the eyes. Here.

Ah, but it’s no good. See? No good at all.

We’ll come back to the eyes.

Pebble-brown skin, sleek and glowing. When she comes to do her make-up, Suzie barely has to do anything to her skin. Covers up those lines on her forehead, yes, and a few around the eyes. Adds a soft bit of something on the cheeks. Then Suzie pretty much leaves her alone. I capture the sheen on the skin, see? That’s just light, though, I mean that’s what photography is. At its most basic, of course.

A wide nose, but not so wide. A clear line down its centre. It catches the light, shows itself.

The lips, so full they barely meet, hiding salt-white teeth. (She rarely smiles, though, at least not with her teeth.) And the curve of that jaw, the plump, protruding globe of her chin. Round shapes. Clear edges, definition.

So, you can see that, here, in the photo. A model’s face, and a very good one. Suzie always prepares her well for the photographs, and I get a dozen shots we can sell like that. She’s a reliable model. No. Better than that. Of course, better that that. She’s a great model – the offers are going to come flooding in, any day, and she’ll be out of my hands quicker than you can blink.

She’s beautiful. But you can see that. You can see it, right? It’s in the photo, right there. Isn’t it?

Ah, but it’s a photo, you’re saying to yourself, and you know how these things work. Before the digital artists have even had a chance to wave their airbrushes at it, before the pixels have been smoothed and polished like quartz, it’s still a photo. As much as the camera never lies, their photographs are just slices of the truth. The pose, the lighting, Suzie, and the hundreds of shots erased before they even catch sight of a hard drive. It’s a very soft type of truth.

But she…

OK, so back to the eyes. Pools of sparkling, sapphire light, right? That’s the kind of thing you say about eyes like that. Beautiful. Scorches of kohl that Suzie hates but she insists on. Dark and deep and inviting.

But that’s not her eyes. I mean, yes, they are all those things. But in the flesh, in the actual, her eyes… The camera misses them. I miss them. I can’t catch them at all. The depth, the shade, the cool pull. Those eyes are the pillars, the supports. A foundation to the temple of her face. You’d see it up close, you stare at it for hours like I do, and you would want to worship, too.

I take off my shoes. Did I ever tell you that? I take off my shoes when I am photographing her.

She is a beauty I can never hope to capture in a frame. Her beauty is deeper, stronger, more magnificent than I can say. And it drives me crazy that the one skill I have – and, you know, I can do this normally, it’s not hard – is not enough to translate that beauty into a form that others can see.

I want to take a photo of her that captures her properly. All of her. Complete. There needs to be a photo like that. For people to absorb. Understand. Appreciate.

She is a queen. I can see it. I need people to see it too.

A queen, she is. She is Nefertiti. She is Aset. She is Cleopatra.

I just want people to see her like I see her.

And you’re sure this stuff will do it?

* * *

Later that day, Gordon pulls down the blinds, covering the tall windows of his studio with black fabric designed to devour the sunshine. He kicks a loose plug into its socket and the studio lights bloom into life.

He checks his camera, checks the backdrop, all good.

Suzie will be here in ten minutes, then she’ll follow a little while after that. He said two o’clock, and she’s never once been late.

There’s a table, set up with half a dozen plastic bottles of water and some chilled Sancerre in an ice bucket. And next to that, a broad, blue dinner plate carrying a small mound of cocaine.

He pulls a little Ziploc bag from his jeans pocket, shaking the tar-coloured dust inside, holding it up to the light. Brick’s friend seemed a bit sketchy, but then Brick hung out with all sorts of weirdoes. Anyway, this guy swore this stuff would work. Mummia, he called it. A hundred years ago or more, people used it like it was protein powder or something. Miracle stuff, health benefits, all that. He sniffs it, but it doesn’t smell of much. Earthy, maybe. Or something cool, like camphor. He holds the bag over the plate and tap tap taps its edge.

A shower of the dust falls, speckling the cocaine. He tugs a credit card from his wallet and shapes two lines. (Suzie always says no.)

His mouth is dry, so he clicks open a bottle of water and takes a deep swig. And it’s then – with his face all puckered up, sucking from the nozzle – that she walks in. The bottle gurgles and he mops water from his chin.

She stares at him, and the studio lights dim to candles.

He offers her the plate and the stub of a straw and, later, when Suzie arrives, they get to work.

* * *

The hours pass in a flickering black-and-white roar. Later, after she’s gone and Suzie’s made him a cup of tea and made sure he eats something, Gordon collapses on to his bed. He clicks off the lamp, pulls his laptop over from the bedside table, plugs in his camera and imports today’s shots.

He rearranges himself in bed, shuffling up so his shoulders are barely propped on his pillow. He rests the laptop on his chest, tips his chin down to see the screen, his hand held up like a monster’s claw over his heart, hovering over the keyboard.

His fingers graze the touchpad, first left, then right, but his eyes can’t get any purchase on the tiles fluttering across the screen. Here and there, he gets a glimpse of her – the her he sees – but the image slides by before he can be sure. When he flicks back, he can’t find it. Only fragments. Her eyebrow twitched upward at him, mischievous, hiding herself just off the edge of the screen, just out of his reach. His fingers follow, try to pull her back to him, but she demurs, and is gone.

Gordon rubs his eyes. They’re dry and hot. He closes them and wonders if he should get a drink of water. He tips his head back on to the pillow and takes a deep, tired breath, feeling the laptop wobble, but that’s the last thing he feels before sleep swallows him whole.

* * *

He knows she’s standing there. He can see her shape in the dark. That tall line, barely troubled by curves. Her hair, untamed by Suzie, is wild, and wider than her hips. Her head slips to one side and he sees her smile, perhaps for the first time ever. He sees her teeth glint in the dark of his room.

He tries to sit up, to speak to her, but she steps forward, leans down and puts a hand on his chest. She pushes him back to the bed, and it’s all the weight of the world, and he’s not Atlas. He’s held there, pressed. He laughs, but the laugh catches, running out of breath.

He smiles up at her as she sinks to the bed, one leg craning over his hips. Is she naked? All he can see is the dark. And her smile. It glints again as she leans forward.

Another weight on his chest now, a warmer, softer weight. And her lips on his lips.

He rises to meet her, but still he is pressed down. He wants to speak, but her mouth is on his. He wants to gasp as he feels himself taken inside her, but his lungs have no space to swell. He wants to sigh as he gives himself up, but he has no breath to lose.

* * *

When he wakes, it feels like he’s broken a rib. His chest is sore, and his breathing is noisy and hot. He sits up, forgetting himself for a moment, and the laptop slides off his chest. He manages to grab it before it tumbles over the edge of the bed. He lays it to one side, stares at it, rubs his chest.

Sunlight hammers at the windows, but Gordon is too scared to let it in.

* * *

He is whispering to Suzie on the phone. ‘I’m serious,’ he is saying. ‘She was here.’

But he even doubts it himself. The weight on his chest, the laptop. The soreness in his system, the cocaine. And God knows what that mummy dust was doing to him.

‘I don’t know. All I know is, I woke up – I mean, I felt awful – but yeah, I woke up and there she was. By the bed.’

Suzie laughs at this.

‘No, I’m serious.’ He lowers his voice to a whisper again. ‘She got in with me. She climbed on top of me and…’

Suzie’s angry now.

‘I know, I know. You know I’m not like that! But… It just happened. She came to me.’

Suzie’s going to let this drop for now. And then she asks the million-dollar question.

‘What? No, the photos were…’

He glances over at the laptop, remembers her beauty hiding at the edge of the screen.

‘No, no good, they’re still not right. Yes. I know. I know, I know. She’s back next week, so maybe then. Yeah. Yes. I know. I will. See you on Monday.’

* * *

That gives him three more days to figure out what to do. Maybe he’d not used enough of the dust the first time? Maybe he needed to use it in a different way? He knew a couple of models – well, former models – who could get hold of syringes and some stuff to put in them. Maybe mix it with something harder? Maybe she’d like that?

He shakes his head, to clear it and to chide himself. He might be losing his mind, but he isn’t crazy.

He’s got lunch in an hour with a friend. He wanders round his flat, not thinking of anything other than how to capture her. His breath is something like normal now, but there’s still an ache in his chest, like he’s pulled something. He briefly wonders if it could be a heart attack but then he remembers they’re meant to start in your leg. Was it your leg? He doesn’t watch his hands as they pick up the plate and, with a fingertip, scrape together the last of yesterday’s coke and push it into his gums. No. Not your leg. Your arm.

Ah, he’s fine, he decides as he grabs his jacket and his bag and sweeps out of the door, his heart throbbing as he goes.

* * *

Lunch turns into cocktails turn into dinner and now Gordon is at home lining up some more coke for his friend and thinking why not as he crumbles some more mummy dust on to the plate. ‘Oh, you should see her,’ he’s saying and his friend is asking why he can’t just look at a photograph and then Gordon’s explaining everything and thinking of her. He’s pulling out the laptop and scrolling through the pictures again, saying, ‘Look, look. It’s just not right, you just can’t see what she really looks like. How beautiful’ and his friend is saying, ‘but she looks good, man, she looks great, I can see that’ and he’s saying back, ‘no, she’s better, she’s better than’ and then he’s wonders has he forgotten who this friend even is who calls him ‘man’? and his friend is rubbing his eyes and saying ‘I think I better go’ and meaning he doesn’t feel well and Gordon doesn’t feel well either and the friend stands up and Gordon is asleep now and there she is again.

Her mouth lowering to his. Those glossy, glinting, wet teeth. He is pushed down, weighed into the bed. Pinned. A second of terror – where’s that from? Then her mouth closes over his, her warmth pulls him in, and he sighs into her. The breath escaping his lungs makes his chest sink further, and she sinks with it, pushing him down and down.

He tries to speak, but her mouth won’t let the words out.

He tries to ask her, ‘Why are you here?’

He wants to ask her, ‘Do you love me?’

But all he can do is kiss her, give her his breath, and more.

* * *

When Gordon wakes, he has lungs full of lava. His breath burns, and his chest is heavy, crushed. It’s Friday, or at least he thinks it is. There’s just searing black-red where his memory should be. Fragments of the evening he spent with his friend come back, and a recollection of a shadow above him while he slept.

There’s a clunk from next to him and he starts, sucking in a painful breath, rolling to follow the sound. He squints and groans. It’s Suzie, centred in a corona of grey sunlight from the open curtains. Did she open them? Or did he forget to close them? He pushes at his forehead with fingertips to squeeze out even a tiny scrap of remembrance. But nope.

He tries to say her name, to say hi, to say anything, but the lava has seared away his speech.

She’s pointing at the thing that made the clunk – it’s a mug. ‘Coffee,’ she says. ‘Get the fuck up, Gordon. Thirty minutes till Irena gets here.’

Oh, shit, Irena. The Czechoslomanian ice queen. Under normal circumstances, just looking at her is enough to give him a headache. His stomach lurches and he manages to say, ‘Did you… is… breakfast?’

He can see Suzie’s face properly now, well enough to see she’s squinting at him and smirking. ‘I’ll see if I can rustle you up some toast.’

And as she leaves, she adds, ‘And for fuck’s sake, pull up the duvet. Unless you want to see my breakfast.’

* * *

By the time Suzie comes back, Gordon is at least sat up, his bare legs over the side of the bed, a scrunch of duvet around his waist to spare any blushes.

He’s breathing more clearly now, but his head is hanging down like it’s made of lead, his shoulders folding in like broken elastic. When she sits on the bed next to him, the waves in the mattress set him bobbing back and forth. He lets the movement go, soothed by the rocking.

‘What did you get up to last night?’ she asks softly. But she knows the answer – he heard her clearing away the wine glasses and the plate from the living room.

‘How long before Irena gets here?’ he asks.

‘I called her. Told her you weren’t well. I said it was probably best not to come.’

He can’t even find the energy to argue.

‘What time is it?’

‘Gone twelve. You really should get up, get some food.’

He nods, and the motion of his heavy head crosses the motion of his gentle rocking, cancelling it out. He sits still, quiet, eyes closed.

He takes a deep breath and nods again. ‘Okay.’

Suzie stands. ‘I’ll get you something,’ she says. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes. Then we can have lunch and I can stay until you’re feeling better.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Sure you are.’ She’s holding back a laugh. ‘I won’t be gone long.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m fine. You just… I’ll see you on Monday.’

‘Gordon.’ Now she sounds like his mum and the lava is rising again, burning away the coolness in his chest and he welcomes it, he wants it. She’s saying she ‘can’t leave you like this, you’re a mess. Let me look after you’ and then the lava crests and spills over itself, bubbling like a cauldron, red on grey on black and red again, pulsing up from below, from the depths, bursting in circles of bloodorangefire and he sees her eyes and that never-smile that mouth that mouth on his and he’s saying, ‘Call her for me.’

And Suzie seems to know who he means because she says, ‘I don’t think that’s a great idea.’

‘Call her. I need her… to see her, I mean. I need to see her.’ He looks up now, heaving up his head and fixing his eyes on Suzie. ‘Please.’

‘Gordon, no. I can’t do that, you know I can’t.’

The redongreyonblack the burstingbubbleofblood and he’s in the pool sucked down beneath its crust. Slate grey sheets of cold lava shift and close over his head.

‘Get out,’ he’s saying.

‘What?’

‘Get out. You heard. Call her, or don’t call her – either way, just get out when you’re done.’

He stands up and Suzie takes a step back. He doesn’t notice the shock on her face, the quiver of sudden, surprised fear, because he refuses to see it.

‘I’m not going to call her, and I’m not just going to…’

‘Suzie. Get out.’

And he’s shouting, ‘get out get out get out!’, he knows he is, but he can’t hear it. He’s racing towards Suzie and she’s staggering backwards, but he can’t feel the motion. She’s saying something, maybe screaming something, and she’s furious, screeching, but it’s not even noise to him. All is still and warm and dark to him, here, beneath the crust. He thinks he’s smiling but that doesn’t matter. Because after Suzie goes – snatching her coat from the back of the couch and her bag from next to the door – he grabs the leftover coke from the night before and he dives back into the pool of lava.

The molten red rock burns away his flesh and there she is, at the bottom, waiting for him.

Waiting for him, with open arms, with open wings of charred leather, and at last, a smile. An open smile. At last. At last.

* * *

I remember I read somewhere that older women should cut their hair shorter. You know, like Judi Dench. A dignified version of a pixie crop. Not that Suzie’s that old, but she’s too old for that frizzy business. It’s the kind of hair something might use as a nest. I wonder if it smells? I’m screwing up my nose looking at her, I know I am, so I stop myself.

I can hear myself telling Eton and Richie about this later: ‘And I thought, “I wonder if it smells?”’ And they will say, ‘You’re such a bitch, Leicester!’ And I am, I am such a bitch.

Mind you, at least she knows one end of a make-up brush from the other. I suppose I’m quite fortunate to get her, considering her CV. But then, considering what happened… Brick said some friend of hers – another photographer – had just died. Said she was all cut up about it, apparently – but the basic fact is, she had a gap in her books and I needed a make-up artist.

She looks a little nervy as I look at her now. Twitchy. Probably still grieving. I make a big show of fixing the tripod and the lights, but I’ve got one eye on her all the time. She’s on her knees on the floor. She’s opening up her bag, folding its lips back like it’s a giant, clattering mouth. It’s a carpet bag, the kind of thing a stage magician might pull a ladder out of. She’s poking around through all the little chinking bottles and the rattling tubs, with fingers that bend at deeply lined knuckles. She bites her nails, I think. That’s what it looks like from here.

The hair, the twitches – she seems the kind of woman who would bite her nails.

She keeps her eyes away from me, hiding her face behind that crinkled drape of hair, but what I’ve seen is unspectacular: little grey-green dots held in folds of slightly pudgy skin. I know it sounds mean, and it’s not like she’s fat exactly, it’s just all up there in her face, around her eyes. A puffiness. She could have been crying, I suppose.

Whatever it is, all she seems to care about is her bag of magic potions. I shrug and sniff, I mean whatever. As long as she does her job, I can do mine, and we’ll be out of here quick enough.

I go to the windows now and pull down the blinds, one by one. The light in here changes from the bright wash of daylight to the blank glare of the spots. She glances up to take it in and I smile at her. She smiles back, but it’s a weak, flat line with little feeling in it.

‘How are we coming along?’ I ask.

She nods as she roots around in the bottom of her bag. ‘Nearly ready, I think. When does the model get here? What did you say her name was?’

‘I can’t remember.’ I really can’t. ‘Is that awful of me?’ I look at my watch. ‘Any minute, I should think.’

I look at the stuff she has laid out – the bundle of lip gloss pots, the palette of coloured powders, the tubs of fleshy creams – and start planning the first gin and tonic with Steven. I check my phone, make sure he’s not texted to cancel again. But no – and good. I don’t put on my best underwear without expecting to get it seen.

I look up from the phone and Suzie’s fished out a little plastic pouch of pale grey powder from her bag. It’s about the size of a teabag. She’s carefully opening it, poking in her fingers to pinch out a little bit of the dust.

Oh, hello.

I step over to her, grinning. ‘And what have we got here, then?’

She laughs now, and there’s a flash of something more lively in her eyes at last. ‘No, it’s nothing like that.’ She sprinkles the dust into a pot of foundation. ‘It’s just a little something so the make-up doesn’t look too obvious under the lights.’

I nod, impressed. Never seen this before.

And then the doorbell rings. It’s the model. I show her in, offer her a glass of wine, and we chat for a bit. Always good to get to know the subject. She’s serious, quiet, doesn’t smile. I haven’t seen her around much, I tell her, and she shakes her head sorrowfully. Not found the right photographer yet, she says, as Suzie reaches up to scrape her hair back into a more manageable shape. A smaller shape. Who wants an afro nowadays?

‘Right,’ I say, ‘if you want to stand over there. Suzie, if you can finish her make-up when she’s under the lights, then we can see…’ I stop listening to myself. I’m not saying anything that anyone here doesn’t know already. We’re all on automatic. The model seeks the spotlight, and Suzie lifts her brushes to her canvas. I busy myself with setting up the camera and tilting the lights this way and that until they’re just right.

Suzie swirls her pot of foundation with a gummy cocktail stick. I grimace a bit. Still, everyone’s got their methods, and Brick did speak very highly of her. She sticks her ring finger into the goo, then lifts it to the model’s cheek. She smears the mixture across the skin, and it takes me a second to notice because my mind is all f-stops and mm and EV for a moment, but Jesus Christ she was right. The make-up – her special powdery mix, whatever it is – is like magic.

The model’s skin is alive with warmth and depth and light and I can’t explain it. I could spend all day trying to tell you how it looks, but I have a job to do – and if I do my job well, you’ll be able to see it too.

I mean, I’m all about the pictures, I’m no good with words. It’s hard to describe. But I shouldn’t need to use words. Click. Then a picture. And that should be it. But the skin… All of her. Her beauty. It’s incredible. Amazing.

No. No, they’re mundane words – see, I told you I was no good with words. I need better words, bigger words. Her beauty is timeless. Ancient.

She’s one of those women who define beauty. She bleeds beauty. She is a goddess of beauty. Those eyes, that skin, the lips. She is a queen of beauty.

A beauty from history itself. Helen of Troy, or something. Aphrodite. She is Cleopatra.

Am I holding my breath?

My eyes flick to Suzie and she must have clocked the expression on my face because she’s wearing this sly smile, eyes twinkling again. She’s nodding, at me and towards her, like she knows.

And how could she not know? How could anyone not know, if the presence of a woman like this?

I hold the camera, trying to focus on the job I’m here to do. But my mouth is dry, and there’s an ache in my groin. Fuck. I’m hard. When did that happen?

I blush, and hope no one has noticed. The model stares straight ahead, and Suzie is back in her bag, fishing out a bottle of water. I try to breathe normally, try to calm down, but it’s impossible.

‘Drink?’ It’s Suzie. She’s crossed the room and is now standing at my side.

‘Thanks,’ I manage to say, though the word breaks in my parched throat. I turn to Suzie and stare at her for a moment, just to focus on something real. ‘I… Jeez, I…’

Suzie laughs. ‘Just take a breath, silly. You’ll be okay in a minute.’

My heart is thumping around in my chest like it’s coming loose, and my breathing is shaky and uneven. I don’t feel like I’ll be okay in a minute.

For a moment, some part of my brain forgets there’s light in here, and all I can see is something dark glide above me, covering me. A shadow, closing over my head. It’s like putting a hand over your eyes on a bright, sunny day. All I see is veins. Red, red veins, pumping blood in a cage around me.

I blink and everything is bright and sharp and open again.

‘Seriously,’ says Suzie, ‘it’s okay. Take a deep breath. It’s all going to be fine.’

I glance at her and she grins at me, her teeth glinting under the studio lights.

---

David Bryher has written short stories, books, computer game scripts, magazine features and blackmail notes. His work has featured in Jurassic London anthologies, Big Finish's range of Doctor Who titles, Six to Start's games The Walk and Zombies, Run!, and his local police station's evidence locker.

This is the first appearance of this story.

More mummy-inspired fiction (including an even weirder story from David) can be found in The Book of the Dead.

Image: "Broken Mirror" by Katherine Evans