Still Picture, a tale of love, crime, and language: BTS

[TheWritingGroup]

This story would be much worse if not for baffling8929. Like I say in the story, any flaws that remain are on me.

Warning: wordplay and period speech.

This was a lot of fun to write. The sesquipedalian sentences and such came surprisingly naturally.

Originally, the female thief/con woman was named "Jennie", but then I had the inspiration to make her Annie. Annie and Eddie (fellow members of the Writing Group) are good friends, and flirt without an actual romantic relationship, so it was a good match. They aren't really thieves or photographers, but then again I'm not actually a teenage criminal with severe mental illness, so ….

… Edwin was being quite reasonable, I felt. Two valuable silvered copper sheets had already been transformed into very precise representations of Miss Barlow's surroundings …

Up until two days before I submitted this story, I was referring to glass plates. Daguerreotypes don't actually use glass plates. Thanks, photography expert!

A shining pearl of perspiration was visible upon her perfect brow, which I would have to delicately dab away before any further photography could be performed. My true desire, not to be spoken at this juncture, was to lick it away.

In early drafts, I wasn't obvious about Jeanne-Marie having designs on Abby this early. I decided it would be fun to have the reader aware of it from the beginning, so they could be looking for her machinations. Looking at it now that it's too late, I should have had a "shimmering pearl of perspiration" on her brow. Or "a perfect pearl of perspiration"? (This is how my writing brain works.)

I learned to speak in this faux-aristocratic manner from Edwin, and I have been told that at times I sound disconcertingly masculine. I find that this fails to discommode me.

This is similar. I wanted to drop in an early clue that "Jeanne-Marie" was not who she seemed to be. Also, she's butch.

Miss Abigail Barlow was quite young, at least by comparison to myself, for she was still short of twenty years of age.

For some reason, she became Abigail Dawson here in the first draft, only to become Barlow again later. I hope I caught all of those mistakes.

The graceful Abigail did just as I asked, sitting most prettily upon the rose-upholstered chair, resting her hands upon the chair's arms, her head turned at an angle against its high back to best display her fetching profile, legs concealed by a long skirt and rather more than one petticoat, slim waist emphasized by the shape of her dress.

Originally, I had Abby wearing a corset, but decided that would complicate the love scene later—removing and relacing a corset would just be extra business to describe.

Miss Barlow at this juncture broke her silence. "But, surely you do not mean to bind me helplessly for the long minutes of the camera's work? Unable to move, except to tremble?" Her voice had risen from the mezzo-soprano she had previously spoken in to a tremulous alto.

I botched the musical terminology here. My esteemed editor corrected me. I had no idea @baffling8929 was also knowledgeable about music.

I permitted myself a smile. "Mademoiselle, I assure you that sitters of all sorts have required this assistance. I have myself so restrained soldiers, seamstresses, solicitors, and one senator in this precise manner."

Edwin does sometimes accuse me of over-indulging in alliteration. I fear it is a just assertion.

Smile, sitters, sorts, so, soldiers, seamstresses, solicitors, senator. I'm oddly proud of this. It's also gently teasing (the Writing Group's) Annie and Eddie, who really like alliteration and assonance. Finally, the reference to "solicitors" is a hint that Jeanne-Marie is English. Americans did use the word in the mid-Nineteenth Century, but we moderns associate it with the English legal system.

Note that Annie is lying. They haven't really done that many portraits, and none of senators. She's a con artist, puffing up her experience to fool the mark.

"Mr. Alderly, would you be so kind as to withdraw from this studio for a time, to assuage Miss Barlow's concerns of modesty while I prepare her for our next exposure?" Since Abigail could not perceive my expression, I permitted myself to smile quite broadly at the camera lens, through which I knew Edwin had been watching us for the past minutes, enjoying both Miss Barlow’s beauty and, I flatter myself for yet a third time, my own widely-complimented figure as seen from behind. To this day, it is not clear to me whether Abigail had understood the double-entendre encapsulated in the word “exposure.”

OK, by this point the reader had better notice that "Jeanne-Marie" is not who she's claiming to be. She's having almost as much fun as me, your humble author, did writing it.

As my clever reader has no doubt anticipated …

I leave it to my current, and assuredly most accomplished, readers to determine for whom Miss Annie Barber is writing this memoir, and for what mysterious purpose.

The result was a most fetching statue of Miss Abigail Barlow, inarguably the most lifelike of all possible statuary because it was alive, yet nearly as motionless as any marble or bronze.

I'm just quoting that because I like it, and I wanted to see it again.

"And are you cooler now, my pigeon?" I asked my prisoner and pet and paramour.

"I fear that I feel still more heated." she declared in a voice so quiet I needs must lean forward to hear, placing my face only a hands-breadth from her own, "Oh, take pity, heartless one, and quench me!"

I hope it's obvious to the reader that while they're both excited by the bondage, there is absolutely nothing nonconsensual happening between Abby and Annie. As we see a bit later in the story, Abby is even aware that Eddie is spying on them and does not protest.

I said to Eddie. "So, Eddie, right, looks like we 'ave a uncle Bob o' work tonight."

I would love to hear from a reader here. This was meant to be very startling, as Jeanne-Marie speaking refined upper-class English suddenly becomes Cockney Annie using rhyming slang.

Too bad you're a tommy. You and me could be a great pair, if you liked the boys.

Old slang for lesbians. Think of "tomboy".

What did you think of "Still Picture"? I hope you got the wordplay! And I hope you liked it.

Please let me know your opinions, good or bad. I need your help to improve my work.

-Billie