I clear my throat. “I’m done.”
“Can I see?” she asks.
“You first,” I say and she smiles, standing up from where she was sitting on the floor and turns her canvas. I can’t help but let out a laugh. It’s her orange cat, only he looks like he belongs on the high seas with his pirate hat, eye patch, and sword with the ocean in the background. Beyond the humor, it’s well done, it looks exactly like her cat in a non-cartoony way.
I swallow as I turn the easel around, and she takes a few steps closer. Her analytic gaze searches over my painting, and she just stares for a long moment.
“I’m not an artist, but I had fun making it,” I say, trying to make sure I don’t sound insecure. The last fucking thing I want is her changing her mind about what she said about me earlier when I saw her painting of Ben and I.
She thinks I’m confident and strong; I don’t want her perception of me to change.
“It looks like shit,” I say, going to grab the painting and turn it around but she grabs my hand.
“It doesn’t. This is you?” she asks as she points to the man sitting at the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. A looming shadow hovering over him.
I shrug and Kate hums.
“I would analyze it as anxiety following you, fears, stress?”
“Something like that.”
“Always so mysterious,” she hums, tapping her chin.
“The composition is great, and so are your proportions. The message is clear. It makes you feel something, it makes you contemplate what it’s about. What was the artist feeling? Are they taking in their surroundings or showing something within themselves?”
“So what was Mikey as a pirate supposed to represent?” I ask, trying to bring some levity into the situation.
“That he’s handsome and a little naughty when he wants to be, of course. Not all art has to have a powerful message. Sometimes inciting happiness in the viewer is all you need. I’d say I accomplished that, just like you accomplished making me feel something.”
“I made you feel something?” I ask.
Her big blue eyes are locked in on mine and I feel like she sees me. All the shitty pieces I try to hide behind one-night stands and pretending I don’t give a fuck.
“Something like that,” she says.
It all feels like too much and all I want to do is cut and run, go the fuck back home, and not worry about her seeing too much. Not stress about her being home alone at this house while that prick is out there doing god knows what. But I can’t, I won’t. I’m trapped here and I’m not sure how to handle it.
Like she sees right into my insecurities, she grabs my wrist.
“Would you be open to a different kind of art?”
“I’m not sure I have it in me,” I admit, hating the idea of being even more vulnerable tonight.
“I promise it’ll be a lot more fun. I bought this stuff a while ago but haven’t trusted anyone to try it with,” she says, dragging me by my hand to her bedroom and then into her closet where she begins rifling through some boxes.
“Have you ever played with wax?” she asks, shocking me.
“Twice. I forgot that was on your list”
“So did I. I had more pressing matters at hand.”
“What kind did you get?” I ask, leaning down as she finally finds the box she was looking for.
“Oh, look, your favorite,” she says, handing me handcuffs and a blindfold. The handcuffs are more restrictive than the ones we played with at Avalon. She has a pair of nipple clamps and she cringes as she shoves those to the side. I suppose those are out.
“Here we go. I got three kinds. All of them are low melting points. Oh, this one is coconut and turns into a massage oil. These two are more for painting and peeling, and then this one…seems more advanced,” she says, tucking the last one away.
It’s late, far too late after spending so much time in her studio, but she’s giving me control. She knows I need it. Is it because she has similar urges of needing control?
