How sometimes it’s easier to get yourself off with your mouth on your lover. How sometimes the photos are better when you pull your clothes up instead of taking them off. 

For some reason this photo reminds me of an afternoon in a bedroom with a big, uncovered window that looked out to an overgrown backyard, laying on a bare mattress licking coconut pie meringue off my girlfriend’s breasts and thighs. I left the rest of the pie by the windowsill and ate it the next morning while drinking coffee from a suspiciously dirty mug.

We were living in different states and not seeing each other frequently so it’s likely I took pictures of her then, if not that afternoon than sometime during my trip. It’s something I’ve done many times because she asks. And then poses happily on the bed fully dressed. 

Usually, I pull off one layer at a time, taking a photo in between each with an old pink camera. I’m impatient—it’s never my idea to forestall sex this way—but she’s right, I’ll want the pictures later when I’m alone. I’ll want the memory of how I undressed her, how when I took off her skirt I discovered she was wearing my black underwear and hadn’t planned to give it back. How she kept shaking her hair out so it fell over her shoulders.

I’ve photographed exactly where her tights were torn in a New Orleans cemetery, standing next to untended gravestones and spilled silk flowers. Other photos from the same cemetery: her bra unhooked and her head titled to the side, photos of me, always clothed but with my bare shoulders cooking in the sun. 

She’s braver with her body than I am. She’ll put even the parts she doesn’t like on display for me, let them be permanently cataloged. The one time I took photos of myself to send to her I was so careful. I got made up, put on the only nice underwear I owned, kept only the pictures from the most flattering angles.