Tommy stared at his canvas all afternoon. There wasn’t much there yet, just a few sketch lines that had barely started taking shape. It was more than he’d done in a long time, though, and he was eagerly anticipating Emilia’s arrival at sunset.
“Hello?” Jason’s voice called through Tommy’s loft as his agent knocked and let himself in.
Tommy didn’t look away from his preliminary sketch. As curious as he was about Emilia and all the mystery around her, he wouldn’t be able to paint her until he knew more of her until he knew her darkest parts, her sins.
“Tommy, did you forget?” Jason asked, stepping up beside the artist.
“Forget what?” Tommy asked looking at his agent.
Jason groaned and rolled his brown eyes.
“Brunch, Tom, we were going to brunch today,” Jason reminded him.
Tommy grunted and gave a dismissive nod. He looked back at his sketches, then he went over to the couch and started to rearrange the pillows. He’d liked how Emilia had looked last time, but he wanted to have more control of the environment around her. He wanted to fully accent her form with the right colors and arrangement of pillows on the couch.
“Tommy, are you… you’re drawing again, aren’t you?” Jason asked, pointing to the canvas. He walked around it with a big grin on his face.
“I have a client paying me to paint her portrait,” Tommy confirmed with a nod.
“This is huge!” Jason said. “You’re back, man.” He clapped Tommy on the shoulder.
Tommy grunted and shook his head. “It is one painting,” Tommy said. “And it has nothing to do with Bloodborne.”
“It’s like an avalanche,” Jason said with a big grin.
Tommy raised an eyebrow at his agent. “What the h*ll does that mean?” he asked.
Jason smirked. “It only takes one stone to start,” Jason said with a laugh. “Soon the flood gates will open and you won’t be able to keep up with your new ideas.”
“An avalanche and a flood?” Tommy asked, arching a blond eyebrow.
Jason laughed again. “Forget brunch, Tommy, just get back to work,” he said. Jason’s phone started buzzing. He answered it as he headed to Tommy’s door. Jason gave one final wave before he disappeared.
Tommy sighed and shook his head as he watched his agent go.
Jason wasn’t wrong, though. Once he had arranged the couch, the artist went to his drawing board. He put a fresh page down and grabbed his graphite set. It didn’t take him long to have a couple of sketches of Emilia in different action poses.
Smiling to himself, Tommy pulled up the sketches he’d started for the next volume of Bloodborne when he’d first started working on it. He’d hit a roadblock when he’d needed to introduce a new character. He hadn’t been able to come up with one.
Emilia was exactly the kind of mysterious and beautiful that could make a character to carry on the series.
Tommy drew until the sunset. He didn’t even notice it was so late until he had to turn on his desk light in order to see the sketches he’d been working on. Emilia still hadn’t arrived, so Tommy went to his refrigerator to grab a bottle of water.
He felt a strange rush of air. Tommy closed the refrigerator to find Emilia sitting on the couch. He scoffed, pulling his water bottle from his lips. She’d managed to let herself in, get naked, and assume the exact pose she’d sat in the night before.
“You shouldn’t leave your fire escape window open all the time,” she chastised, a golden eyebrow lifting in a challenging gesture.
Tommy smirked, setting his water aside. “Then you might actually have to use the front door,” he teased, motioning to his loft door.
Emilia shrugged with one, creamy shoulder. Her golden ringlets slipped across her skin.
“I’m here, shall we get to work?” she asked.
“All business, I see,” Tommy said. He grabbed a stool from his kitchen island and brought it around to the front of the couch. “I need to know about you.”
“Excuse me?” Emilia asked, leaning away from him slightly.
“All I know about you is that you don’t like to be photographed, you prefer sneaking into my loft when I’m not looking, and you want to be painted so you can see what others see,” he explained.
“Other than my looks, what more do you need?” she asked.
Tommy chuckled. He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. It allowed him to look directly into Emilia’s sapphire eyes.
Her tongue darted out, licking her cherry red lips, both features strongly accented by her pale skin. He’d noticed how pale she was before, but tonight, there was a pink tinge to her cheeks that looked almost warm.
“I need to know your sins,” Tommy told her.
Emilia’s sparkling eyes iced over suddenly. She stood up, the green silk falling away from her body. She was so close, the motion so abrupt, that Tommy’s nose brushed against her abdomen as she walked away.
Startled by her boldness and lack of shame when it came to nudity, Tommy sat up straight, but Emilia was already on the opposite side of the couch. With her back to him, she was slipping a royal blue robe over her shoulders.
“Is something wrong?” Tommy asked.
Emilia glanced over her shoulder at him. “You can’t know me,” she said.
“Then I can’t paint you, at least, not the way you want to be painted,” he explained. “To capture more than your form, to capture your essence and soul, I need to know everything, including your darkest nature.”
In a blink, Emilia turned to face him. Tommy blinked several times. How had he missed her movement?
She looked at him with a cold, hardened mask.
“My darkest nature?” she asked.
With a sultry smile, Emilia walked around the couch again. Contrary to the smile, the look in her eyes was dangerous, predatory. She bit her lower lip, standing right in front of Tommy.
His heart began to beat faster, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead. A beautiful and intimidating woman shrouded in mystery definitely got his pulse racing!
Placing a hand against his chest, Emilia fixed her eyes on Tommy’s neck. He stood perfectly still like she was a wild animal that would startle and runoff, or attack if he made any sudden movements. Everything she did was so unpredictable.
“Can’t you use your imagination?” she asked in a breathy tone.
Tommy chuckled, brushing her hand off his chest. “No,” he said. “You told me you wanted to see what others see when they look at you. I can make that happen, but only if I understand your nature.”
“I can’t show you,” she told him. She took a step back and cast her eyes down to the floor.
It was the first sign of insecurity that Tommy had seen from Emilia. She might not know it, but she was already revealing herself to him.
“Then I can’t paint you,” Tommy said plainly.
When Emilia lifted her eyes to his, they showed anger. No, it was more than anger, it was rage!
Tommy took a few steps back. He knew not to mess with an enraged woman, but Emilia’s eyes, her body language, showed him that she was wild and she would attack if provoked.
“Fine,” Emilia said.
Tommy smiled, thinking she was going to give in and start talking to him.
He nodded. He went around to the canvas and grabbed a pencil.
“You can keep your clothes on for this part,” he said. “Let’s start with your origins.”
Emilia didn’t answer.
Tommy looked around the canvas and found that she had vanished, along with the remainder of her clothes and her shoes. The artist looked around his loft. There was no sign of her anywhere. She’d just slipped away!
Groaning, Tommy set his pencil aside. Who was Emilia?
She was reluctant to tell him, but he was more curious than ever!