Free Asking For Trouble by Kristina Lloyd

offhand.
    ‘There’s one condition,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to send me a photo of you.’
    ‘I haven’t got any. Not recent ones. They’re all –’
    ‘Have you got a camera?’
    ‘Yes. No. I mean, I have, but it’s fucked. The wind-on thing got jammed. It won’t –’
    ‘I’ll get one to you. A camera, I mean.’
    ‘What? Don’t be ridiculous. If you want a photo, I can just go to a booth. I’ll send you four and –
    ‘No, I don’t want passport nonsense. I want a photo you wouldn’t put on your mantelpiece. I’ll send you a Polaroid.’
    ‘Of you?’
    ‘No. I mean I’ll send you a Polaroid camera. Then you can take the picture and get it to me quickly. Deal?’
    ‘What . . . What sort of picture will you send me?’
    ‘One I wouldn’t put on my mantelpiece. Deal?’
    I hesitated before making my wary reply: ‘OK. Deal. But really, you don’t need to get me a cam–’
    ‘Bye, Beth,’ he said. ‘See you soon.’
    ‘Oh, OK,’ I breathed, shocked by his abruptness. ‘Bye.’

Chapter Four
    FOUR DAYS LATER I got my camera. The postman brought it – and just seeing my address in Ilya’s handwriting was a thrill.
    When I find somebody interesting, for whatever reason, and I don’t know much about them, then the tiniest snippet of information becomes valuable. It was the same at school. I adored a guy in the year above me. I was nothing to him and we never spoke except once, when I seized a chance to say, ‘Oi, you – you’ve dropped your pen.’
    But I knew a hell of a lot about him: shoe size, phone number, date of birth, number of goals scored for the school team and – best of all – his timetable, off by heart. I would live for those changing-classroom moments when we’d pass in the chaos of the blue-blazered corridor.
    I had a shoebox for storing souvenirs of my fantasy-boy. On the lid I wrote his name (beautifully felt-tipped, of course) and inside I kept my diary (‘Saw him today after double Physics. He had white socks on again. He looked well gorgeous,’ etc.). I had a couple of chocolate wrappers, that I, lovesick in his wake, had scrabbled toretrieve when he’d chucked them away; I had bus tickets that added up to 21; I had a cigarette butt, although I was never really sure if his lips had touched it; and – oh – I could have had his pen if I hadn’t, in a spasm of hope, shouted after him.
    I’m supposed to be older and wiser now, but that teenage neurosis returned when I clasped my package, all wrapped in brown paper. Ilya’s handwriting was a delight – something tangible, more proof that he existed – and it added to the little I knew about him.
    I’m no graphologist and I didn’t look for clues in his writing. I was simply satisfied to see it: thin and angular, enigmatically scruffy.
    If I’d had a shoebox, I might have kept the wrapping. But, instead, I hurried upstairs to my flat and tore open the parcel. My new bulky camera came with a note. It read:
    Tease me. Make sure your photo lands on my doormat this Friday. I’ll make sure you receive mine, same time. No waiting to see what the other one sends. Synchronicity or nothing. If you change your mind, don’t want to send anything, then we’ll just forget everything, past and future. I won’t contact you again. Won’t watch you. Promise. And the camera’s still yours. Enjoy.
    Ilya.
    Friday. That meant Thursday post, first-class. Morning post to be safe. Unless I posted it by hand. No. Supposing I met him at the door? It would ruin things, make it all awkward. I read his note again. ‘Tease me.’
    And I remembered what he’d said on the phone: ‘A photo you wouldn’t put on your mantelpiece.’
    I lay naked on my bed, chin cupped in my palms, pondering the lewd photos scattered across the duvet.They were all of bits of my body: close-ups of an erect nipple; my cleavage in a push-up bra; lots of open-leg shots, some off-centre, some OK. It’s tricky when you can’t use a viewfinder.
    I