He was blurring the lines between patron and predator, and I was no longer sure which one I wanted him to be.
The memory of his hands on me, the electric shock of his touch as he corrected my grip on the palette knife, was a ghost that haunted my studio. It lingered in the air, a phantom sensation on my skin that I couldn't scrub away. For three days, I’d tried to work, but every stroke of the brush felt like a reaction to him, to the stormy, unsettled look in his eyes when he’d pulled away. Now we’re getting somewhere. The words were a taunt, a promise of a deeper, more dangerous game.
He’d left me alone since then, a silence that felt more deliberate, more charged, than any of his previous visits. It was calm before the storm. I should have known his next move would be a public one.
T
