of his time. He clearly understood the intricacies of female attractiveness. His page was popular. He sought out rare photos of people that he was introduced to from his friends or from his own archive, sometimes using popular sources. However, the collages he made were so juicy and thought out that it was impossible not to pay attention to their author. Although he had many opportunities to meet different women, Edward had been so afraid of his wife that he had always suppressed the likelihood of being romantically attached to someone else right in its bud. At sixty, he looked charming. He was always immaculately dressed. He was well-groomed and had traveled all over the world – an interesting man indeed. He was a great interlocutor, but alone, he was an abandoned dog whose owner now and again showed up to kick him or throw a bone. And, despite the chic apartments, houses around the world and a designer wardrobe, this is how Edward felt. He felt like a helpless dog, planted on tranquilizers by his doctors and always under the vigilant gaze of his wife, who, even from the other side of the world, controlled him always and everywhere. As a result, he enjoyed immersing himself in the world of female beauty and photographs. The world of legs, thighs, busts, dresses, eyes, hands, and lips of beautiful women. These were close to him, accessible. He admired them as his own. With all sincerity. How can a prisoner admire the pattern of a flower without having had the opportunity of touching a living plant. Christy often visited his page. She also admired these divas of the past and the present. Once, she even left an admiring comment, which apparently attracted the attention of Edward. On visiting Christy’s page, he was surprised to find not some mundane photos ore ones pulled out of the accounts of celebrities, but a real page of an artist who created, thought and put her soul, brain and body into her work. He began following Christy’s page with renewed interest, each time liking her new photos. When he looked through her most recent photo session, he could not keep himself from writing her a long comment, re-uploading almost all of her photoset on his own page. Christy was extremely surprised. Of course, she considered herself a beautiful woman, but being included among big-time goddesses like Sophia Loren, Catherine Deneuve, Marilyn Monroe and other stars was more than pleasant. People liked her photos as if she was a Hollywood star, and this took her by surprise. This was truly a new thing for Christy. And she, inspired, made new photosets, sometimes re-shooting them from different angles, sometimes using other filters. She photographed herself because she loved herself as a model, and understood that only she had the true ability and knowhow to depict the intent of a particular photoset accurately. Some sort of correspondence began. Edward filled his entire page with Christy’s photos. Black and white, color, shot from the phone. He then branded each of the photos with his “j’adore” signature comment. Edward could not help but fall in love with her. Head over heels. This was obvious to his friends, subscribers, wife, children and family. He fell in love, just as boys fall in love with a photo of a beautiful woman whom they never met. Unlike the celebrities whose photos he had all along been posting on his page, he was friends with, met, or just knew, he had not even seen Christy face-to-face. And this was strange and frustrating. For everyone. Especially for his wife. She urgently advised Edward’s doctors to call him in for full examinations, including a couple of mental health analyses. Edward still owned part of the corporate shares, and who knew how he could dispose of them if he was posting hundreds of photos of some Christy in broad daylight, some girl no one had ever met? He had posted them alright. He had even written something to the effect that he had fallen in love, that he admired her. Here he was in his old age, completely gone crazy. He could even end up writing off his shares to her, and disappear with her into the sunset. “No, this has to stop”, thought Stephanie. She was a powerful woman of about fifty-five years who had been holding Edward in iron grip for the last thirty years. Yes, she loved high heels, expensive clothes, travelling, money and women. She carefully concealed her love for women, but sometimes some information filtered through that was instantly extinguished or, on the contrary, kindled, but from a different angle – either when shooting photos, or making new photosets. All her favorites were taken care of. Everyone knew that Stephanie had a family and carefully kept her moral character in check, so no one was gossiping, and everyone was happy. Only Stephanie was now displeased. How could it be that he had sat under her heel for thirty years, and was now disgracing practically the whole world? He could have kept posting photos of famous women (who have not seen them already?), but not littering his page with photos of some Russian whore. But who was she that got him that interested? No, of course, you could look at her, a woman with talent and brains, and even a nice appearance, but what was she doing on my husband’s page? “No, I will not stand it”, Stefania told herself, turning sharply at the traffic light. She drove aggressively like a man. She had always exhibited some qualities of the male mentality, so she was always the boss and the leader. She liked to dominate, and she adored power. And she was not going to give it away to someone. Edward knew all this. He had long been fed up with being with Stephanie. He was just afraid of her. No, he was not gay. He was only attracted to the female body, but he was soft and pliable and so dominated by Stephanie, that he had already submitted to his fate, and did not expect anything from life.
