muse

Mia stepped into the shop one gray Friday afternoon and changed my life forever.

She looked like an angel, fragile and pale, swathed in worn denim and creaking black leather, damp with a cool mid-morning drizzle. I'm not one given to instant attraction, but I’ll admit to being quickly smitten. I watched dumbly as she took the place in, moisture sliding from her jacket.

I'd be the first to admit that my shop is less than impressive. Sandwiched between a sleazy porn shop and a towering, glazed marble brokerage firm, it’s often missed or dismissed altogether.

But I make do with what I've got; the rough, light brick interior is dustless and clean, adorned with framed, plexi-paned examples of my work. The less pricey and less exotic stuff is hung at the front, the larger and more inspired pieces shown to the rear, where (in theory) I'll haggle with the customer. I've learned that the ancient real estate adage plays out for my art as well: location, location, location. Keeping the better (and more expensive) work near the bargaining table usually pays off.

She stood at the door for quite some time, silently scanning the near walls with heavy- lidded eyes, dripping on the old hardwood floor. From across the short room I could see the perfection that she was: her small, angular face gaunt but beautiful, elfish even, though I’d never thought of anyone in those terms before. Her skin was as smooth and still as standing milk and almost as white; her unpainted lips were purple from the damp, cool weather.

When she moved it was almost a stumble, and I realized that she was either very sick, or maybe drunk or high. But she didn't seem to notice, or maybe she didn't care, and only went on viewing my work from this nearer vantage.

I cleared my throat and barked, "May I help you?" It came out so harsh that I wished I could take it back.

She slowly turned to face me, a vague smile on her lips. It took a few moments for her pretty eyes to settle on me, and then only long enough for her to say "Shhh...." very softly.

So I waited and watched.

She took her time, lingering on each piece, perhaps contemplating what it might look like on her body. She eyed and dismissed them one by one, working her way back to me. As she got closer, I could discern the little things: dark hollows under her green eyes, a tiny mole on her chin, a charming upturn at the end of her slender nose.

She moved always with that abruptness, that lurch and soft, stumbling misstep. But moving ever closer. Twice, she pointed up at artwork to the right, big, colorful prints that carried like sums. As I opened my mouth to speak, however, that thin, pale girl hushed me with a wave of her slim hand.

The shop was silent. The muted plop of rain water dripping from her jacket and the embarrassing shallowness of my breath were the only sounds. I watched her intently. There was nothing else.

Eventually, she sat on one of the stools before the counter, sipping noisily at stout black Columbian served up in a thick ceramic mug. We talked for just a bit about rain and relentless gray skies. She had a slow, easy way about her, quick to laugh and always smiling. But I could tell that she was sick, and very sick at that; she snapped at breath often, shook as she put the cup to her lips, coughed hoarsely at times. At one point, I asked her if she had a cold, perhaps, or pneumonia. Something like that?

"Anyway," she began then, by way of reply, "All this art on the walls. These all yours, or what?"

Cued, I replied, "Or what."

She snickered, perhaps cued herself, and I went on, "Most of it is, really. Some stuff belongs to the chain. Patented designs, color schemes, etc. Trademark stuff...you know, like that. But generally, I do my own work."

"Huh," she replied noncommittally. She was looking around again, from the stool, and said, "But I suppose just anyone can come in here and pick one of these, and you do it for them. Right? Set price, so many sittings."

I myself looked at the designs on the wall.

"Well, yeah. They pick one...see, I have these all stenciled in back, so it's a breeze to transfer to your skin. With my own designs, a client can pick colors, or maybe make some slight alteration...I give 'em choices like that."

“Okay. But we’re talking anybody, right?" she persisted.

"Pretty much," I answered, not quite sure where she was going with it, "Well, I mean, certain skin conditions, some types of allergic reactions...that might preclude tattooing. Hemophilia. However, if you were HIV positive, you just tell me --- " I noticed her shaking her head negatively at that, but I finished for continuities sake; I'd have to tell her this stuff anyway if we did some art for her, "We can work with it."

"No, no," she shook her head, "I mean...well, these designs are for sale to everyone. Like mass printings, right?"

"Oh," I began to grasp it then, "Well, yeah. Like I'll do any number of, say, print Sixteen over there...any given number per week. But --- " indicating some of the more elaborate stuff in our immediate vicinity,"--- some of these are limited edition, kind of. Three-Oh-One, there? See? The big burlap-bondage-barbed wire one? Limited to twenty-five numbered renderings. Then I'll pitch the stencil."

"Hmm..." she let it ride, long and raspy, "What if I don't want anything that's up there?
Don't care for any of it?"

I felt the sale going; worse, I felt her leaving with it. And even though she'd just taken a jab at my professional pride, still I couldn't be angry with her.

"You got something of your own in mind?" I asked hastily, and immediately regretted it. That meant long hours getting her ideas down on paper to a medium that she liked and that I could work with; making special stencils, special mixes and dyes. Lots of extra work and hassle.

"No," she smiled shyly at me, "God, no. I couldn’t do anything like this. But that’s not what I meant."

I was relieved and more than a bit surprised.

She coughed once; twice, and these were thick, phlegmy, loose sounding things that made me cringe just to hear them.

"I mean...well, you're an artist, right?" she said, swallowing, "Emmett --- sorry --- can I call you Emmett? Okay. Don't you ever get tired of this? You know...same old, same old. Sure, you designed a lot of these, pulled 'em from your head and put 'em down on paper so you could give something of yourself to...your fellow man? Your special clientele, I guess. Okay…that sounds a little lofty. I mean, it’s only tattoos, right? But what you do here is really beautiful, Emmett. Really."

I was at a complete loss. Here she was...what, knocking me and my work? Well, that wasn’t quite right. Maybe implying that I must be bored with my own stuff here because I was looking at it and working it and applying it every day? Even if she was knocking me, she touched on the other part of it, too, the wonderful part. The part where some person off the street likes my own vision enough to wear it out of here.

Except...it seemed like this girl wasn't buying.

"Don't you feel that your creativity is being stifled?" she asked.

And maybe I did, if just a bit. Always yearning to do something a little out of the confines of the ordinary. Something out there and risky. But always time restrictions, and money, and the bylaws and codes set up by the guild and drafted for use by the company. And, of course, there were certain social concerns...

She sighed, drained the last of her java. She stood and stretched, her jacket and shirt riding up just enough to give me a brief, tantalizing glimpse of taut, pale midriff and a slim, silver hoop through her navel.

"My name is Mia," she said simply, offering her hand. I took it as I fumbled from my own stool. And then she went on to tell me about tumors and malignancies, things I knew nothing about, things I couldn't possibly understand without that knowledge bestowed by experience. I was saddened, when she was finished, by the certainty that she was dying. I could have wept, but offered her another cup of coffee instead, marveling at her courage.

And then she told me her idea, her desire: to be the object of another's dreams, of another's desires, just once before she died. To be set upon someone's dream pedestal, fawned over and coveted and protected; and at the same time, to be able to help that person realize a bit of their own dream, perhaps.

"What I really want, Emmett," Mia said with conviction, "Is to let you use my body to make your own artistic dream a reality...."

* * *

I applied a dab of aloe gel to the rounded nub of her shoulder, slowly smoothed it across her milky skin to the slightly muscled ravine of her spine. When I’d worked it in, I did it again.

She closed her eyes as I worked, bit her lower lip with perfect teeth. Her breath became a bit shallower as my fingertips spread the grease along, a bit quicker and less even. When I stopped, she slowly opened her eyes and looked back at me. There was a question in her gaze, almost an accusation, like she was going to ask why I stopped. I felt suddenly uncomfortable.

"I'll shave you," I managed. She smiled.

I rose from my stool and stepped into the shadows at the back of the shop, rummaged around on the small table there, littered with dyes and packets of extra needles. And found the razor.

I picked it up by its long handle, turned it in my hands. It was so normal, the razor, all ribbed metal gleaming dully in the dim light back there. The kind that uses disposable blades, the kind a person can buy almost anywhere. But it seemed somehow so profound at that moment. I had shaved the fine hairs from hundreds of clients with this razor, or at least with this handle; but just this once, I would be cleaning an area for my own use, for my own vision. For my art. I fumbled a new razor cartridge into the handle.

I turned to find her lying on the work table, her bra crumpled, discarded on the tile floor, arms stretched out beyond her head. Long wisps of brown hair vined across her back, and the plump roundness of her breasts squeezed from beneath her.

Sitting, I caught the loose strands of hair and moved them away from my work area. My hand shook slightly, all anticipation. I worked my hands into disposable latex gloves, then set the razor against her skin and pulled it smoothly toward the center of her, making a dry swath through the thin aloe. Beneath the blade, Mia sighed. Dipping the razor in hot water, I tapped it against the edge of the stainless bowl, then pulled it carefully across her back again.

"It feels nice," Mia breathed, "Do it harder."

I hesitated, unsure of what to do, unsure of why she'd make such a strange demand. And how I, as a professional, should handle it.

"Please," she insisted.

“I shouldn’t.”

But I settled the razor against her again, applying more pressure this time, pushing a slight dent into the creamy skin. Slowly, I traced the path again, dragging the indentation along. She softly exhaled when I'd finished the swath.

"I like that," she whispered.

And so did I, in spite of myself. Knowing that I was placing my client at risk; it was exciting in some remote, basic way. In my mind's eye, I could see the paper-thin cut suddenly seep redly, a thin trail across that uniformly pale skin, the contrast exciting.

I pulled the razor across her aloe-slickened shoulder a few more times. I couldn't shake the image of the slice, the bright, rich red, and Mia pushed back against the blade even as I pressed it against her. Her flesh proved to be too slippery, however. That was exciting in itself.

I didn't speak, breathing heavily. Mia made low, long moans, regarding me over the shoulder on which I worked with lazy, half-closed eyes. She moistened her lips often.

When I was done, I clicked the razor from the handle and tossed it into the sealable plastic container next to the table.

"Done?" Mia asked in a low, breathy tone.

"Uh-huh."

She sniffed.

"What now?"

I got up and took the hot water back to the deep sink against the far wall. Dumped the water, rinsed the small bowl and refilled it with hot again. I selected an anti-bacterial soap from a nearby shelf and a fresh washcloth and hand towel from a cupboard on my way back to the table.

I dipped the washcloth, wrung it out, smoothed it across Mia's shoulder, there where I'd
shaved. Soaped the skin and rinsed it again.

She murmured something about enjoying the hot, rough texture of the cloth against the newly shaved flesh. I nodded, only partially aware of what she was saying. I was too busy contemplating what I would do now.

The problem was, I didn't have a full idea to put down, didn't have a coherent, linear concept to trace out and begin with. After we’d hashed out the details of the project that first day in the shop, my mind had been awash with ideas, but I found that I didn’t want to commit to any one as I might run out of time or space and leave another hanging. Therefore, my mind was brimming with disjointed images and vague impressions, colors and contours and angles and lines that somehow realized a perceptible sum when mixed and manipulated. Put together correctly, liberally, and with care and love, these things were me: my person, my dedication, my art and my life.

So where do you begin with something as enormous as that?

I put the washcloth into the water, set the bowl on the floor beside my stool. Water sloshed back and forth.

"Do you start now?" Mia asked quietly, shifting her tiny weight a bit, getting comfortable. A slight adjustment of a slim, white arm and even in the light there the ravages of past needles were not lost on me.

"Presumably..." I answered, feeling lame, "Actually, I should stencil or draw my first design here...only..."

"Only what?" Her voice loud in the blanket quiet, the room close and warm. She looked at me over her shoulder, eye contact.

"I don't know where to begin, Mia," I admitted, and felt ashamed to say so.

"You don't have anything in mind?" she asked, an eyebrow arched in mock reproach, “Maybe I went to the wrong guy…”

"No. I’m the right guy," I answered quickly, "The problem is just that…well, I’ve got so many ideas, you know? I don't know which one to use."

"No problem. Use them all," she said, pulling her left arm under her body to cover her breasts and propping her right under her pretty head. She regarded me with huge, liquid eyes.

“We haven't got enough space here," I stroked the area I'd just shaved, lightly.

"Emmett," her voice was husky and slow, "We're realizing dreams here, right? I thought we discussed this. You get to practice your art here...your true art, not like the stuff out there on the walls. You true art, Emm, regardless of morality, time, or what people might say. Meanwhile, I get a product wholly unique, and the satisfaction of knowing that I've helped you practice your secret art, your life's ambition, before I…die. That, dear, is something rare and precious. For both of us."

I smiled and wondered again at her courage and limitless strength.

"Use it all, if you like," Mia smiled back, "Every square inch, if that's the scope of your dream. My body is your canvas."

And I think that was when I truly began to love her.

* * *

We met most every night for many weeks. She’d show up within an hour of my closing the shop. Once in a while, however, she'd come in as I was finishing up with a client. Then she'd sit up front in the darkened showroom, watching the bustle of the after-work crowd as they made their way home.

One evening, Mia came back and asked if she could watch me work. I said sure, as long as it was okay with the man I was working with just then. Mothball invited her to watch with a gap-toothed smile.

I was branding him with an intricate metal design, a fanciful swooping bird with a flourish of delicate, trailing feathers. The brand was actually a two piece affair, requiring two separate sittings, Mothball's concept and my design.

"You into body modification?" Mothball asked Mia.

She watched wide-eyed as I slowly turned that first stainless brand in the broad, bottled flame, seeking an even temperature.

"Yes," she managed as conversationally as she could. I knew the idea of branding would excite her somehow. As far as I knew, she'd never been branded, scarred, or cut, at least not anywhere that I’d yet seen. I hoped that the demonstration she was about to receive would be enough to convince her that such extreme forms of body art were beyond her.

"There's nothing quite like branding, sister," Mothball smiled, "Tattoos are one thing, one special thing. Not knockin’ tats, of course. That’s where it all starts, after all. But it takes real dedication to get yourself branded."

She nodded slowly, noncommittally, but I knew from the set of her jaw and the look that passed between us that Mothball's veiled challenge was already taken up. Mia could vividly picture that impossibly hot metal searing her flesh.

When I felt that the steel was heated sufficiently, I eased it from the flame and set it briefly against a cardboard test pad. The brand smoked in, would have set the board on fire had I not known just how long to hold it. That graceful, diving bird presented itself to us there, maybe twice the size of the actual brand. I cleaned the char from the metal.

Mia chewed absently on her lower lip.

"Ready?" Mothball asked me, looking from the board to the brand, tensing.

"Couple of seconds, here," I replied, dipping the brand into the flame again.

The truth was I hesitated for her sake. Or maybe for my sake. I wished she hadn't chosen that particular evening to come in early. It saddened me to think that, unless I could somehow talk her out of it, I would probably be branding her pale, perfect flesh at some point. Perhaps the conclusion was already foregone. But then, removing the brand and turning to my client, I realized that I’d been dreaming up some rather bizarre burns and scars ever since I'd started doing them....

I touched Mothball's tight left pectoral lightly, swiftly. Timing and pressure are crucial, for rather obvious reasons. Needless to say, if you don't do the brand just right the first time, you get one pained and angry customer.

Mothball's a veteran, though. He's used to this. I've branded him twice myself, and he has a few others as well. So he just gritted his teeth and locked eyes with Mia.

She stopped breathing, eyes wide, wincing for Mothball. I think that may have amused him; Mothball claims that the pain is nominal, or at least endurable, and there may be some merit to that. Branding produces third-degree burns after all, which destroy nerve endings and thusly may be less painful than more minor burns. Pain, however, is relative to pain experienced, and so I stay on this end of the brand.

"Nothin' to it," Mothball grunted through clenched teeth. The tearing in his eyes matched the beads of perspiration on Mia's upper lip. She smiled, slowly releasing the breath she'd been holding.

Much later, over coffee and grass, she asked about branding, like I knew she would. How was it done? And had I ever wanted to burn something unique and secret into tender flesh?

I nodded reluctantly, busying myself with emptying ink and cleaning the cups, hoping that my silence would end the discussion. But her touch was light, her lips soft: the first time.

And so I found ways to use the brands, too.

* * *

Mia liked when I drew on her. The fine-tipped markers caused her to squirm and itch.
The fat ones made her sigh and coo contentedly. And I drew often…sketchy spirals and thick turns vaguely reptilian in form, strings of barbed wire, and quasi-human figures in distorted positions. These things made sense to me; Mia, for her part, never asked about them. All that mattered to her was that these strange images were what thrived in my secret heart.

One evening she was strange.

She came in at about six, and I'd had plenty of time to lock up and do a bit of tidying in the showroom. She startled me, having let herself in through the back door; I'd been going over some long-neglected paper work. I jumped when I noticed her standing by my office door. Watching me.

"Sorry, Emm," she said in a casual tone that felt somehow forced.

"Not a problem," I replied, smiling.

She stood in the doorway that adjoined the small office and the showroom up front, leaning on the doorless frame there, wearing sandals and cut-offs. There was a strange, twisted flourish of color all across her left foot and calf; one of my designs. She had a different look in her eyes and just a touch of color to her face, like maybe she'd been enjoying the recent balmy summer weather

"You feeling okay?" she asked me.

"Little tired, I guess. Nothing a nap wouldn't take care of," I replied quickly. That had been a lie, of course, as I hadn't been feeling very well in days. I thought that it was a grand testament to how close we were becoming that Mia would notice it.

"Look, Emm," she said, a crooked smile playing across her full red lips, "Maybe let's just skip it for tonight, huh? You look like you can use the sleep.”

I'd have no part of that, though. I was the consummate professional, and I’d been given the perfect, living medium to work my dream. That was the gist of it. But I was actually growing rather fond of her lately too, and I couldn't let any opportunity to be with her slide by.

"You're simply incredible," Mia responded, coming abruptly to me and pushing lank hair from my eyes, "This really means everything to you, doesn't it? This work, I mean?"

"Yes."

I looked into the depths of her eyes, feeling something soften and loosen and drain away inside…will, reality...I couldn't say for sure. Something changed in her expression as well, in response. She felt something turn inside of her, I know she did. She looked away, though, and the moment was gone.

Later that same evening, she pulled her thin tee-shirt on, her slim back to me as always. Things had gone well again. We'd laid on a good amount of ink, across the small of her back and along the rounded curve of a buttock. I'd been enjoying myself, too, etching my dreams into her, but after a relatively short period of time, I'd had to beg off. I was dizzy with fatigue and fever.

"Get some rest, Emmet," Mia told me, turning and wagging a finger sternly.

"Yeah. Okay."

But she looked so ridiculous doing the finger bit that we both laughed. So maternal. She gave me a long, sympathetic look after the laughter. Standing on the other side of the worktable, she suddenly leaned across it, her hands denting its’ padding and supporting her slightness there. I could imagine her lean, muscular legs stretched, the shape of her heel and foot on delicate toe-tips. She closed her bright green eyes and brushed her soft lips against mine, took my shaking hand and held it to her smooth cheek for a moment: the second time.

"I'm sorry, Emmett," she'd said by way of farewell, and she was out the door before I could even think to ask why; noticing for the first time that she could move so swiftly and with such grace.

* * *

The art across her had become more and more elaborate over time. I worked like a man possessed, and I suppose that I was. I scrawled spindly, spider-webbed lines here, used the fat tips there, followed both with the needles. Often, I skipped using the drawings altogether, simply guiding the needles along in freehand fashion, following my inner vision. I seared the delicate inside of a thigh and the smooth ball of a shoulder. I pierced secret folds of skin, places that I’d never done before. When I pulled my colors, I surprised myself by using every one I had. I set colors by colors that I knew would clash; but somehow, if I didn't worry too much about their compatibility, or analyze the scheme too much, well then the colors would work. I mixed hues and dyes and toners, too, until I was working with stuff I'd never before dreamed of. It really was a very exciting time for me, professionally speaking.

But I did manage to work through my fevered inspiration slowly, an excuse, perhaps, to keep Mia there with me. I began to realize that I wanted her to stay, always. Regardless of the art. To verbalize that, though, was beyond me; I tried to show the extent of my feelings with a lingering caress, a warm breath across freshly-shaved skin, conversation.

Mia enjoyed it all. She purred through the countless shavings, cooed and gasped and bit as I needled her, held me tightly through the brandings. She talked of nice things: sun, blue sky, flowers, determined to keep the specter of imminent death at constant bay. I admired her.

She always carried about her a sense of propriety, and even though I'd seen every part of her lovely body, I never saw it unclothed completely. She was shy about that. She'd cover her top as I worked on her legs, often wore both her panties and a bra if I was working on her back or her belly. That part about her, that shyness, was so subtly sexy, so overwhelmingly exciting, that I longed to know the intimacies she hid.

I slept more and ate less, closed the shop for an indefinite period of time, which raised hell with the franchise. But I told myself that it was only for a while, as I nailed down this dream and saw it through to a fitting end. Artistic license and all that. I was able to convince myself that the dream was the reason I was letting other things slide; I was utterly dedicated to the my private craft.

I tried to trivialize the feelings I had for Mia. For poor, sick Mia. I was reasonably sure that I loved her, and that I'd never loved anyone more. But I had no right to trap her and hold her as she lived out the last weeks? months? of her life. It just wasn't fair to her. But if I could steal a bit of happiness for myself while making her happy, well then perhaps I could be content with that.

The closed shop dulled over with a thin coat of dust and cobweb, a muted sadness that matched the inside of my heart, gray and empty the way I felt when Mia was gone.

Autumn had faded away, too, amid festive color, leaving skeletal trees and the promise of cold to come. I realized with somber fascination that I'd missed both summer and fall, couldn’t recall enjoying a single day of either. I was pale and hadn't really felt the sun in weeks, and I seemed to be carrying around one of those early seasonal colds. I honestly felt dead.

Unless she was there.

And I began to realize that wasn't going to last much longer. I'd inked and branded and pierced most of Mia by that time. Both of her slim arms, the tight, muscled expanse of her back, her taut belly and most of her long, lean legs. There simply wasn't much left, and I honestly didn't have much to give anymore. It had become work, and I took little pleasure in it.

But if my passion for the art dwindled, then my love for the girl bloomed, and I'd decided by the day of what was to be our last sitting that I had to let Mia know what I was feeling. That, or I could just let her slip away from me forever, and that wasn't even an option.

* * *

"Mia," I said, toweling the hard inner thigh of her right leg.

She sat unmoving on the worktable, a vital, golden goddess in a baggy tee-shirt and white panties. I slowly looked up from my pale, shaking hand, following the etched brightness of my vision until it disappeared beneath the folds of her shirt.

"What is it, Emmett?" she replied, a note of sadness in her voice.

I breathed hotly once, across the shapely thigh I’d just shaved, and felt her tense slightly. I could feel the humid warmth of her, her special scent. I smiled, giddy with what I would tell her.

On the stool before her, quietly worshipping her; I felt the velvet heat of her skin and the raw power of her femininity. She slid from the worktable and stood before me. Under the thin shirt, I could discern vague hints of the color that I’d put there. I was seated before my goddess, the humble servant.

"What?" she repeated.

I stood, shakily, now looking down at her, noting again with wonder the visible signs of her miraculous recovery, the remission. Natural color suffused her skin, the red rise of hot blood and the uniform brown of a fine tan. So very different from that cold day, months ago, when she'd stumbled into the shop...

"Emmett," she breathed, "You look so sick. Maybe you should sit."

I shook my head quickly.

"No," I said, "Not until I tell you..."

"What, then?" Impatience, unhappiness in her voice.

It rose up from somewhere deep inside, true feeling. It churned things on its way out, twisting my insides with its sheer, limitless strength: those three words, shaping a power as primal as the elements, as world-changing as the elements...

"I know.”

That was what she said. That was all she said, stepping past me and sliding into her worn jeans. She took her old, creaky leather jacket from a hook by the back door.

"I know, Emmett," she smiled weakly at me, one slim, strong hand on the door, "And I'm sorry. You're empty now --- such emotion in those three little words! --- and you'll never thank me for that." She turned the knob, looking back sadly.

"Mia? What --- "

"Don't."

So I didn't.

When she slipped into the night, everything I had, everything I was, went with her. Everything. For maybe a week afterward, I just stayed here, in the shop. I didn't shave, didn't shower, didn't eat or drink much. I did some branding, hoping the physical pain might block the emotional. That didn’t work well. So I smoked a lot of grass and tried not to think.

But I know now what it is to have grappled with crippling emotional pain, choked it and pummeled it and beat it. It’s easy, really, when your emotions have lost their torrential power. When they’ve receded to a slow ebb and finally dried up altogether. I’ve come to understand that a person can endure anything. That's what happens when you put everything that you are into a single cause, a single purpose, a single...person. And then, that which is most important to you just walks away.

I sold the shop and all the equipment, after that week of self-loathing, self-understanding, self-mutilation. There was no point in keeping it, anyway; my creativity, my drive, had ceased to exist.

I have come to understand that not all vampires feed on blood. There are those that feed on desire...on weakness...on inspiration and love. They cultivate these emotions in their victims, nurture them, and they feed on that.

Mia left me empty and unfeeling. She left me emotionally crippled, but she did leave me alive. I don't really think that’s how these monsters normally operate. So, it's just possible that, as I was pouring my heart and soul and ambition and love into her with my art, maybe she was falling in love with me, too. Maybe that’s her weakness. And won't she be surprised when I turn that weakness and love --- the very things she needs to survive --- against her?

And here's the beauty of it: with all that color and ink, she shouldn't be too hard to find.