Smile
Chapter 3: Undo
By the following morning, the restricted post was gone, but copies of Rachel’s recording continued to spread. Captions named David, listed his studio, and invited former clients to send stories.
Additional consequences arrived before noon. A venue that had recommended him for years removed his name from its list. Another client canceled. Someone had marked the studio door overnight. David cleaned it without reading the words a second time.
He opened the raw footage from his own phone.
The café sequence showed Jennifer laughing across the table. The concourse showed Rachel adjusting the collar of Jennifer’s suit. The park showed the toast and the near-kiss from an angle Rachel’s camera had never captured. He watched the two women lean toward each other, stop, and preserve the unfinished moment.
He began selecting stills from the confrontation: Jennifer’s face as she questioned him, Rachel’s camera raised, his own body turning away. He omitted everything that preceded it. The new sequence started late enough to resemble a dispute rather than the end of a pursuit.
He printed the selected frames and opened a new black binder. On the spine, he wrote:
JENNIFER & RACHEL
He placed the stills inside in order: café, concourse, park, near-kiss, confrontation. The public reposts of his own face went last.
Then he composed the message.
I have the full recording of that day—including what happened before you approached me. Your post has already caused significant professional harm. Before more private material is circulated, I suggest the three of us meet in person.
He attached one image.
It showed Jennifer and Rachel beside the bench, turned toward each other in the moment before they stopped. The frame was close enough to prove that he had recorded them, but gave no indication of how much more he possessed.
He sent the message to both addresses.
Rachel read the email that evening. She forwarded it to the officer handling the report, along with the time it had arrived and the addresses David had used.
An hour later, she and Jennifer sat at Jennifer’s table with the message open between them.
“He’s threatening us,” Jennifer said.
“He’s claiming authority,” Rachel answered. “Full recording. As if his version is the whole day and ours is the manipulation.”
Jennifer wanted every further to go through the police. Rachel wanted to know whether he had already shared the footage and what he intended to do with the rest.
They debated the risks for several minutes, then set the . They would meet him together in a busy café and send the time and location to the officer and to a friend. They would make no private agreement and would not follow him anywhere else.
They wrote the reply together.
We will meet you once, in public, at the café where you first recorded us. Both of us will be there. This meeting does not give you permission to either of us separately.
Jennifer sent it only after Rachel approved the wording.
They arrived early the next day.
The café was already half full. They took a table near the windows, well away from the one David had used, but still in clear view of the counter. Rachel checked that her phone could record from inside her bag. The recording was for documentation, not publication.
Jennifer wanted questions prepared in advance. Rachel preferred to let him talk first and see how much he revealed. They settled it quickly: Rachel would handle the recordings and the false equivalence; Jennifer would draw the final line and end the meeting. Either of them could walk out. Neither would speak for the other.
Jennifer looked at her across the table. “Nothing he recorded gets to define what happened between us.”
Rachel nodded. They left it there.
David arrived on time. He wore a dark shirt under a light jacket and carried no visible camera. He could have been arriving for an ordinary client meeting. He sat down and placed his phone facedown on the table.
He did not apologize.
“Your recording showed only the end,” he said. “The versions people are sharing removed even more. My footage shows the rest of the day—the two of you in the park, the way you moved toward each other, then the moment you turned on me. All three of us now have material that can damage the others.”
He directed most of the statement toward Rachel.
“You understand framing. You understand how a crop changes meaning. The day had a shape—café, concourse, park. You directed it. I only recorded what was already happening.”
His accuracy was deliberate. He listed the sequence of their locations and the shift from formal work to the softer images in the park. He still spoke of Jennifer as the subject and Rachel as the person directing her.
Rachel let him finish. The longer he spoke, the more he revealed: that he had preserved the entire day, studied the near-kiss closely, and treated their decision to stop as something incomplete.
When he stopped, she leaned forward slightly so the surrounding tables would not hear.
“You followed us all day. You recorded both of us, then sat across from us in the park and masturbated while you watched. That makes you a creep, not a photographer.”
David started to say that Jennifer had been the one in front of the camera.
Rachel cut him off.
“You recorded my face. You recorded my work. You recorded every time I touched her with permission. You recorded the way I looked at her when the camera was down. You recorded the moment I moved toward her and the moment I chose to stop. You didn’t just take pictures of her. You took what was happening between us.”
Jennifer had heard most of it the night before. This time, Rachel said it while looking directly at David.
“You filmed me without permission,” David said.
“My camera documented what you were already doing,” Rachel answered. “It didn’t create the conduct. It didn’t follow you through three locations. The recordings are not the same.”
Jennifer spoke only after Rachel finished.
“You followed us through three locations. You waited through the entire session, kept recording after it ended, and ran when we confronted you.”
David began comparing Rachel’s photographs with his own footage.
Jennifer stopped him.
“I chose her camera. I chose when she touched me. I chose which pictures she kept. I didn’t choose you.”
She held his gaze.
“The reposts moved beyond our control. That doesn’t make what you did mutual. The police have the original files. People we trust know we are here. Anything you send or publish will be added to the report. You are not to either of us again.”
She waited until she was certain he was listening.
“No messages. No calls. No pictures. Nothing. Leave us alone.”
Rachel said, “That applies to both of us.”
They stood before he could answer and left the café together.
David remained at the table until the door closed behind them. Then he returned to the studio and opened the binder. The public clips of his own face sat beside the private stills of the women.
Undo could restore a body and close a live connection. It could not pull a photograph from strangers’ phones or erase what people had already seen.
He opened Jennifer’s summit announcement and confirmed the date and livestream information. On the second monitor, he opened the clear café portrait he had taken through the viewfinder.
The cursor rested over Change.
He could activate the image immediately. Jennifer might be at home, at work, or somewhere no one would recognize what had happened.
David looked again at the summit date.
Then he closed Likeness without deleting the photograph.
He wanted Rachel to be watching.