Page 51 of An Immaculate Deception

“I don’t understand the perfume,” Joaquina says. “It isn’t going to show up in the photographs, so why must I wear it?”

“You were wearing it that first time.”

“Back then I was only playing dress-up. Like a girl plays with dolls.”

“Aren’t we playing dress-up now?”

She laughs. “Now we have a purpose.”

“What’s that?”

“The photographs.”

“Maybe the point isn’t the photographs.”

“Then what is it?”

“The fantasy. You are a rich socialite and the papers have been writing about you.”

She’s still for a moment. “What does that make you?”

I smile. “An artist at work.”

The lies you tell yourself, Mother sneers. This isn’t about art; this is about wickedness. Whoever heard of a man photographing his female servant?

Twenty minutes later, Joaquina sinks onto the sofa with a dramatic exhale. “My back aches.”

I lower the camera and tell her we can take a break. I don’t voice the thought that posing for the photos is far easier than her paid duties as a chambermaid, although she is also bad at those.

“I don’t understand,” she says as she rolls her shoulders. “Why can’t I wear the red dress now? Or the floral one with the high neckline and double puff sleeves? I tire of this worn gray one.”

“As I explained before, those are too big for this room. They don’t belong here.”

“Then perhaps we go outside.”

“For the groundskeeper and the stable master and Maria das Dores to gawk at us?”

“They have already left for the day.”

I sigh, irritated.

Do not argue with a servant, Mother scolds. It is beneath you. You give her far too much lenience, now look how she undermines your every word. A servant should be neither seen nor heard.

“I wouldn’t want to dirty Mother’s gown by bringing it outside,” I say.

“What if I wear my hair down with flowers in it?” Her voice goes up at the end and she straightens in her seat, as if rejuvenated by the notion. “It’ll look lovely in the photos…”

This strikes me as indecent. Hair down like a harlot. What will be next? She will want to be photographed naked?

“No.”

“No?” She blinks.

“I mean…I like your hair up like that. It reveals your graceful neck.”

She blushes, smiling. Her shoulders relax. Joaquina is quick to obstinance but also easily placated. All I have to do is pay her a compliment.

She remains quiet for the next moments as I take more photos. But her expression indicates that she is dangerously close to protesting again. Then she poses in such a way as to face the camera directly, as though determined to find me behind it.