Striding down the corridor to the room where she was waited he felt the knot tighten in his stomach. His pace slowed as he reached the door and the colour from his cheeks sank to his stomach as the bile leapt into his throat to meet it. He clasped his hand to his chest as if it would somehow suppress the acid eruption. Pausing for a moment he leant forward pressing his hot sticky forehead against the cool rough brickwork. “Come on. What’s wrong with you? You can do this. Its what you’ve been waiting for, working for!” he chastised himself. “Pull yourself together!”

He pulled from his pocket the faded but carefully folded page and opened it with great reverence. He looked down on the image before him and smiled, stroking it gently with his finger. She had always been his favourite. Skin like porcelain, hair like a flowing river in the night. He had followed her career ever since the early days. He had watched her glide from the college canteen to the catwalks of London and Paris without breaking a sweat. He didn’t expect her to remember him. Why would she? She was studying fashion. Glamour and style surrounded her. He was just a techie. The college dogsbody. Mr Invisible. He was nothing to her. They had never spoken. Their only bond was his distant adoration and the burning image of her, which he saw whenever he closed his eyes.

He had thought he would have had longer. He was sure if she had stayed he could have made an impression and made her his. In time she would have realised his feelings were genuine and that she was everything to him. She would have recognised his adoration and rejoiced in it after the tedium of fumbling college boys who seemed to come and go from her social scene but make no lasting impression. It was only a matter of time until his chance arose. He imagined all the ways it might happen. Running through his favourite scenarios like old movies in his head until it felt so real he had to remind himself it hadn’t happened. Yet. But one day, he was sure of that. One day she would notice him. They would connect and it would be real; all he had hoped for and she would then realise it was what she wanted too.

But she didn’t stay. Half way through her second year his lifeline was cut when she walked out of her design course and onto the catwalk. Spotted while clubbing apparently. “The next Kate Moss” Vogue had proclaimed her. Kate Moss. Really! Comparisons infuriated him. She was a one off. An original. A masterpiece of creation and existence. Kate Moss was just an anorexic scrubber with dirty blonde hair. She was his angel. Pristine. Perfect in every way. He thought back to long painfilled days after she left. He could no longer continue to fill the albums and wallspace with photos he had taken of her as part of his daily record of his angel on earth. Instead he had to make do with magazines and newspaper clippings. They were not the same. The grainy, smudged images were flat and fake. They didn’t do her justice. There was no love in the lens. No passion. So the plan formed.

With pious dedication he set about achieving his goal. If she couldn’t remain with him he would find a way to be close to her again. At night once the college day was done he began his studies. He learnt all he could about the fashion business. If she couldn’t share his interests he would share hers. After six long months of work and learning and following her career through the pages of magazines the term ended, the students left for the summer and he felt it was time and found himself work on the circuit. It wasn’t easy but he was happy at the bottom. The main thing was to be there and fashion shoots need a lot of techies. Moving from anonymity in one world to the same in another. In fashion it was even easier to be invisible than in the college. Fashion only cares about beauty, image and style and as he had none of these he found he could wander ghostlike without anyone noticing or questioning his presence. He despised this world more than the last. The college had been full of students living vacuous existences through their parent’s cheque books with the label on their jeans meaning more than the award on their certificate. The glamour industry, he found, was anything but glamorous. At least it brought him closer to her. He had even begun to take photos of her again. With so many cameras around no one noticed. It was so much easier than it had been at college.

Now fate had thrown then together. They didn’t have much time but now his opportunity had arrived he was determine it would be special. Just like it had been all those times in his head. He was finally to have a session with his perfect subject. He just had to keep his composure and remember he had worked hard to get here. Dedication had paid off. She had her moment. This was his. He stepped into the room and held his breath.

In the middle of the room she sat upright on a solitary wooden chair. The light seemed to shimmer and reflect off her smooth, translucent flesh. His eyes crawled down her body, consuming every morsel of the vision before him. Her cold eyes stared, devoid of passion or flare. Below them bleached white teeth seemed to snarl from behind blood red lips. Bones barely dressed in flesh seemed awkward and angular. The evening gown hung loose around her hips. She had lost a lot of weight since college. The pressures of life as a model no doubt. It was all the rage, heroin chic. She was still perfect to him. He smiled “I just wanted to say what an honour it is to be able to do this shoot. Its something I have dreamt of for a long time” he gushed. “You look stunning” She smiled silently. “Ok, lets get started”. He began to take the pictures. His brow furrowed on concentration. They had to be right. They had to be perfect just like her. He knew he wouldn’t get this opportunity again. Soon the moment would be over and they would come and take her from him again. For now she was his. He took image after image; each one branding itself into his memory as it imprinted onto film. She was so compliant, meeting his every request. He would show her how to sit or how to hold her arm and she would stay in that position until he was ready to move on. The perfect subject. Not like some of the models on the circuit who whine and moan at every request as if being asked to do what they are paid for was unreasonable. Eventually he was out of film. “That was great,” he said “perfect”. He carefully put away the camera and sat on the floor at her feet. “It was just how I thought it would be. The perfect shoot”.

He took the vodka from the bag and set it on the floor. “I always hoped we would be together but when you left I thought the chance had gone. I had to work so hard to be able to work here and be near you again. Now we will always be together. I have thought about this a lot and it isn’t quite how I saw it in my head but at least now I never have to be without you. I only wish you could have waited just a little longer so we could have left together.” He ate a handful of pills, washed them down with the vodka and smiled up at her. “You mean the world to me” He stroked her cold fingers with one hand and shoved another handful of pills into his mouth with the other. “When I found you in the bathroom I was distraught. I didn’t know what to do. I was so angry I wanted to destroy everyone, especially those who sold you the tainted evil.” He’d been scared too. Scared what people would think, that they would assume it was him who had harmed her. He knew what people thought of him, the weird bloke who watched but didn’t speak. Well, that was if they even noticed him at all. “I thought I had missed my chance again but now I understand. You were tired too. Tired of this fake world and you were waiting for me so I could do the final shoot and we could be together forever. Don’t worry the photo’s will make you a legend. There has never been a shoot like it. No one will ever forget you. Our stories are linked now and we will always be together.” He reached up and kissed her hand. She smelt like rose petals in the summer rain. “Tomorrow when they open the building they will find us and we will both be famous and you will be forever beautiful, never changing. Immortalised in the last images taken by me. I have left a note so they get the spelling right. I know how lazy journalists can be.” He suddenly felt very tired. He took another drink from the bottle and reached for the pill bottle. His eyes drifted in and out of focus. “I want them to get the story right. If I don’t give them the facts they will just make it sordid. Not perfect and pure as it really is.” He felt dizzy and so very, very tired. He leant against her leg. The coolness of her flesh felt good against his clammy brow. The room had grown dim and he struggled to make his eyes focus, except when he looked up at her and then he could see perfectly. Her beautiful face looked down at him smiling. He closed his eyes and felt as if he was sinking into nothingness. He felt himself pull back fearing the darkness behind his eyes. Then she was there, just as he had seen her a thousand times. This time she was beckoning to him and as his consciousness slipped from his grasp he went to her.