Chapter 2

Lori started her business ten years ago, nine of which I had worked for her as a full-time photographer. She graduated from Brown with a computer science degree, ended up jobless, moneyless, and manless. The beginning of her career occurred by accident some eight months after her last day at Brown. She posted twelve wedding pictures on a popular social network. The wedding was recently attended in the Hamptons and was quite striking, uppity, and wasn’t an eyesore. Numerous cyber followers enjoyed the pictures, which created the idea of Wedding Peeks. She came up with the brilliant concept of walking future brides and grooms through visual arrangements of wedding themes. Wedding-related vendors were encouraged to sell their products on her website to the viewers, which supplied her with a paycheck since she made a percentage of their profits.

Also, Wedding Peeks was the place to be viewed by the elite, and raved about by presumptuous social circles, since it was quite popular with over four million members. Long story short, fathers of brides and mothers of grooms were thrilled to pay Lori a hefty chunk of money to have their loved ones’ weddings showcased on her web site. This prompted Lori’s business to be successful from the very start, careening it into something grand. Lori now had a staff of six professional photographers, including me, eight writers, three gays who worked in marketing and advertising, four salespersons, a financial guru named Tina Grotenburg, and others in what Lori called “the operation and guts” of her business.

I liked my job and thought it rather easy. Never did I believe I could make a career as a wedding photographer, but God had blessed me. My work entailed attending scheduled weddings, which Wedding Peeks staff arranged. I showed up at the events, snapped dozens of photographs, passed the photos via email to a four-person team of picky editors, who then chose certain photos to post on Lori’s website. Following my work, I collected a paycheck every two weeks. I wasn’t wealthy by any means, but I was comfortable and happy.

Occasionally, I did side photography jobs outside Wedding Peeks. People hired me for graduations, birthdays, family reunions, and lakeside picnics. Once, I got paid to take photographs of two male jocks making love, which was quite the sum of money. All three of us were delighted with the results, and I chalked it up as a positive adventure. A cougar once tried to pay me to photograph her giving an eighteen-year-old soccer player a blowjob, which I declined, unable to pull off the pictorial adventure as art instead of smut. A small publishing house who manufactured cookbooks had also hired me to pop a few photographs of food, which was a breeze and another wad of cash. A wife had paid me a sum of money to take pictures of her military husband and military sons. God bless the USA. And two male models in their early twenties paid for my services to add pictures to their professional portfolios, once I had slept with the pair, enjoying their beautiful bodies for my carnal craving.

My meeting that Wednesday morning regarded my next assignment. Lori supplied me with the details that I needed: the Robindock wedding was at five o’clock in the evening on the upcoming weekend. It was being held at The Templeton Aviary. A reception followed the event at The Marilyn Bar in a private room. As usual, I was ready for the engagement. Or so I thought at the time.

* * * *

I kept having crazy and senseless dreams at night. A young man with a learning disability was holding my hand no matter where the dreams had taken us. He was more of a boy than a man. He was of a medium height and weight, never smiled, and his emerald-colored eyes always shined. Together, we had visited the Eight Wonders of the world in different dreams: the Holocaust Museum in Washington D. C., the Space Needle in Seattle, and the giant picnic basket in Newark, Ohio. No matter where he had taken me, or where we met, we were barefoot and active. Sometimes we enjoyed a picnic with strangers, driving in a car toward Ocean City, or taking the Metro in London. Never were we inactive. Once, we were aboard the Titanic, sinking in the middle of the night on April 14 in 1912. Another time, we were being carted to a place called Auschwitz or Tribeca. I couldn’t remember exactly as soon as the dream ended.

He was timid and had very little conversation with me in the dreams. Rarely did he make eye contact with me, and he seemed to respond to things in a slow action. Rarely, if ever, was he alert. When he was, he was passive, silent, and almost afraid. Strangers looked at us as if we were father and son, but it was simple friendship. Sometimes we hugged in the dreams like brothers, old and young mixing for a brief period of time. Never was I looked at as a pedophile and he a victim. And never did we become in a questionable position, aligning our chests together, being platonic friends

I asked him once what his name was, but he wouldn’t tell me, although he knew my name. I asked many questions on our travels about his life: Where are you from? Who are your parents? Do you live in Templeton? Why does it feel as if we’re running away from our lives and to these strange places? Why are we together?None of the questions were answered, though. Instead, the young man—a boy that wasn’t a day older than fourteen—kept to himself, silent and uninterested in me except as a traveling companion.