Homoculture exclusive: Justify Our Love

To mark Pride month Homoculture presents an exclusive photo story inspired by love, sexuality, pride, and mystery by Kris Merc ‘Justify Our Love’

Photography and art direction Kris Merc
Featuring recording artist: Jack Collier and artist RichieMoo
Hair and makeup: Nicole Leaño
In collaboration with Creepyyeha and NY lingerie designer MUZA
Shot on location at Manhattan Hotel, Times Square, NYC

“The eyes are strange things, looking deep into a glazed thought, never really know the truth behind them. It was all a memory, we didn’t do much at first, and I barely remember, but I do recall feeling lonely. He was covered in sweat, and with a messy patch of hair, long and unkempt made him feel cruel in the way boys in school yards felt long ago. The harness he wore made his thin lean body contort in ways unexpected. That was all that could control him it seemed, but I welcomed his wild side. It’s just something, I got used to it. Every new stranger seems more beautiful than the last, and I’ve grown accustomed to this story. The spit, the salty taste of sweat, the smell of perfume filling the sterile hotel.

It was a New York night and the manager had already knocked to complain. We had been playing remixed reggaeton music, that kept blaring the words ‘Maldita Puta’. We found this amusing and drank to it, the flash of the camera still hitting us. It was during the course of the evening that the drinks and the movements and the loud music all started to collide. The bed felt good, the recently cleaned sheets against the skin. Once a lover had told me that hotels are where people come to share their sins in secrets, yet somehow drawn to the long shadows New York casts, our flesh found a home. It felt sacred and renewing. It was maybe the spit we shared or the flash of the camera hitting our eyes, but the body intertwined all the same, possibly the drinks. The feeling was so satisfying, we forgot everything was even there, it was just them and the white wall. Just pulling and pushing against that wall. Somehow how that made sense of the world. Madonna’s ‘Justify My Love’ started to play, and our eyes closed together.

The hair now blush pink, I could see in his eyes the wanting, which he hid behind cigarette smoke. Hours later my head leaned into the window of an Uber. Watching the road I contemplated if it was worth Instagramming the morning sun. Tearing up I snapped the photo.”