Picture Perfect

 12/25

The shutter snapped closed with a click as another picture was taken, and Liam shuddered, knowing that another layer of what remained of his identity would soon be removed. The photograph would be perfect, of course – to the observing eye anyway. They would see a beautiful young women, her tongue stuck out playfully, round breasts pushed out in a cute red bikini, old fashioned camera clutched in one carefully manicured hand and pointed at the mirror – a vacation snap, maybe... To Liam it may as well have been a mugshot taken right before he was hauled off to prison for a crime he hadn't committed.

When discovered, the camera had seemed like quite the find. Like buried treasure, it was hiding between garments and various other knick-knacks on a shelf at the back of Gloria Honeypot's Emporium of Fun and Folly, an new vintage store on the edge of town. As an amateur photographer, Liam had always wanted a film camera, and so the Canon seemed like the perfect find. He had grabbed it at once and carried it to the counter, where he had shoved some bills into the hands of a tall dark woman and, unable to believe his luck, taken his prize home.

Liam's luck hadn't lasted long. Once a film canister had been loaded, he took his first picture of the same thing any young photographer uses for their first snap – himself. As soon as the shutter closed for the first time, there was an odd jolt that travelled up his arm to his head. It was as if something had been transferred into him – a thought, an idea...a compulsion. He had instantly taken another picture. By the end of his impromptu shoot, he had used the entire file, and oddly in the later pictures he had been wearing lipstick.

But the camera hadn't been satisfied. With every new selfie Liam took, the need to look more feminine grew. It was not a want – he did not desire to be a woman. It was a need. With every photograph, the camera was compelling him to look more perfect...more female. Liam was merely its helpless model.

Lip-filler followed, as did hair extensions, but the camera wanted more. Liam found himself buying women's clothing, and then wearing it. When he didn't fill it out, the camera insisted its puppet get breast implants and start taking hormones that would reshape his entire body. In six short months, Liam was transformed from nerdy photographer to someone who looked born to be the other side of the lens.

Liam tried to put down the camera, but he knew by now it was no use. He felt one of his French tipped fingers needle the top of his red bikini briefs and then stroke the final remaining piece of his male form, albeit shrivelled by the rounds of hormones. 'Not that', he groaned to no-one, but he knew it was futile. His other hand reached out for his phone as if guided by marionette strings, and he watched in horror as it began to type “bottom surgery” into the search engine.