Portrait of a Young Lady

This story was prompted by a photo posted by Malrik Raithmoor. The full photo is at the end of the story.

Portrait of a Young Lady

There is no getting out of it.

The tidy young man with the new-fangled photographic contraption has arrived and already busies himself setting things up in the lounge for our family portraits.

My mother continues to fuss about me as I sit before the mirror at her vanity: retouching the garish makeup she’s foisted onto my face, fluffing the ridiculous frills of my bonnet and blouse, arranging my freshly curled hair and the gaudy earrings that seem to me more like chandeliers. The oversized necklace hangs, like a spangled noose.

“There,” my mother declares at last. “You’re perfect!”

Perfectly awful, I think. I look like I belong on a wedding cake.

“Now, go downstairs slowly, so as not to disturb anything,” my mother instructs.

I think everything about this is already quite disturbed.

But I go down the stairs with the gentle, lady-like steps that have been brow-beaten into me.

When I enter the lounge, my father and the tidy photographer turn to me as one.

“Well done!” my father beams. Like I’m a prime Porterhouse chop, instead of his daughter.

“Indeed!” the photographer adds. “Splendid!”

I smile a demure smile and bow my head with gracious embarrassment. Because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Though I feel more like throwing up.

The photographer gestures, suggesting “Come let’s have you sit over here and we’ll have the boys gather round you.”

The boys.

My brothers.

The monsters.

“Where are those boys?” my father queries, scrunching his face. Then, shouting in a way I’ve been taught I’m not allowed, he bellows: “Samuel! Wilford! Thurston! Get in here, now!”

Immediately, thunderous rumbles come from the floor above as my brothers scramble toward the stairs. A veritable earthquake shakes the house as they storm down the staircase. I worry one of my chandeliers may come crashing to the floor.

I also envy the freedom they have to move about at whatever speed and in whatever manner they choose. I am afforded no such liberty. Womanhood is a prison of expectations and affectations.

My brothers bound into the lounge and my father corrals them to their positions: one on each side of me; oversized Samuel behind me.

“All right, then,” the photographer says. “Everybody smile.”

My brothers all grin like idiots, bearing their fangs with fiendish glee.

“Come on, Lenore,” my father cajoles. “Smile.”

I don’t.

I won’t.

I want this moment immortalized. I want the world to see how unhappy I am.

Caught in the trappings of my sex.

Surrounded by monsters.

My nightmare.

My life.