Mr. CEO is a Psychopath

Fifteenth

The very first time Clay Cassidy had set foot in this city, she could never have felt more different. City of dreams, yet she did not know what to feel about the pace of it, the soaring heights of buildings, people overly dressed, the blinding lights of large screens, billboards, and letters, and even the grandness of it all. Gnawing in her skin, she felt like an alien to this new world, with no one else, but herself. Though when everything was outside her comfort zone, she never felt braver at that moment.

Not until today.

She feels every stroke of paint in her body. Wet and sodden, the paint is not quite smooth and easy like water, but instead, heavier on her skin. More so, when cold air hits the colors and it dries, outlining the texture of her skin, every minuscule c***k and hair that’s invisible to eyes from afar.

The artist feels every brush, and what it must be like to be a canvas. Empty, bare, and devoid of anything, until colors make a sense out of it, and bring her to life.

Clay steps where she is supposed to be, large fabric pasted in the walls, lines up to the four corners of her side wall, like a cover. A glance on the side, and she sees herself in the mirror. Someone so rightfully in place, in the painting- she positions her body to connect with every line she made, and she blends inside as if she is merely, and truly, a painting on the canvas.

Yet everything about it makes her seem so out of place.

The painting behind her depicted a place so crowded, heights soaring for the sky. Every shade of gray and black is present, of beige and of blue, and of people of different complexions, and everything seems so fast that they are distorted. Not everything is within proportions, and there’s an absence of outlines, as she wanted it to be. A place so alluring yet so dejected, so lively yet lifeless, and sophisticated yet so wild.

Green and other colors- all of it seems so far to clarity, too obscure, unimportant strokes to the eyes, just specks of it on her painting that is black and white.

Now her eyes are on herself. She’s naked like a canvas, her curves are the outline, and half of her is painted distinctly, tangible human being, filled with different shades of various colors. On the other hand, the other half of her is the complete opposite, blended into the painting like sooner and later, inevitably- she would blur to its obscureness.

She puts her phone in place, on a ringlight stand, then clicks to the timer. 10 seconds count down as she repositions herself, and there it goes- perfection on screen.

It turned out amazing, Clay thought, azure eyes livelier than ever, passion written all over her orbs.

She opens the app with an icon of a colorful camera, and her account isn’t really much. Clay is new to i********: and she doesn’t have many followers.

Genevieve introduced her to it, quite forcefully actually, as she remembers a year ago, “you don’t have i********:? What kind of stone age era is this-”

“Hey, I have f*******:!” Clay shrieks her complaint.

Genevieve gave her a look of disbelief, reaching one of her arms to ask for Clay’s phone, “give me your phone!”

“What would I even post in there? I don’t do selfies,” the blonde says as she hands it anyway.

“You don’t?”

Clay says after a moment, “I don’t know how to do them… It’s weird, I always look so different in pictures.”

“To that I agree. I look better in person,” the redhead states indifferently as she scrolls though Clay’s phone to find the app and download, “it doesn’t have to be selfies. You do art, right? i********: is one way to show the world that.”

“Maybe important art people will find you.”

Ever since then, her i********: has only been filled with art. Most mundane, some she did only for fun, and some just aesthetic pictures of her tools. She likes how her timeline turned out though.

Clay frowns at the recommended effects the app had offered, making the colors of her piece seem different. She clicks it out and crops her picture to emphasize the painting, and there it goes-

Her greatest work to date- doesn’t mean she’ll stop then. Just as she clicked to upload, various ideas had already filled her head.

She looks at her phone, bold numbers printed on her lock screen.

0:02

And she just turned a year older.

Time for something new.