She held as still as her body would allow, with her heart hammering too hard. How did the beats not show through her chest? As she sat, shivering in silence her arm draped delicately over her stomach, masquerading  careless comfort. But he didn’t know, no, couldn’t know, that her nails were digging silver crescents into her ribs. The rasp of the brushstrokes hid her treacherous breath, though harder to conceal was the rapid rise and fall off her pert, naked breasts.

 He sat almost as still as she, with smoky eyes burning her skin. His hand, an almost separate limb, the only thing in motion in the time-suspended room. His fingers clamped against splintering wood as her shape filled his page. But she didn’t know, no, couldn’t know, that the strokes were made with a trembling hand.

 The room was bare save for details, overturned paint cans and cloth. And a woman, seated, a desperate dreamer, being stripped of far more than just clothing. Inescapably undressed by a man’s piercing gaze, a gaze far more profound than professional.

 The wood under her flesh was streaked, painted itself with the brightness of  beams. The natural light that penetrated the windows demanded perfection. The likes of which she thought she didn’t have, the likes of which he never doubted she held. But he didn’t know, no couldn’t know, that it was he that she longed to hold.

 He wore an imperceptible mask, drawn tight across his face, with lips never turning to smile. Discipline and restraint dominated his life, the only way he knew to live. Art was the barrier god between himself and the world. His true demeanor only peeked through the colors of his work; And then, only if one squinted and peered hard enough. A lonely existence, but one he had embraced, security from the crashes and falls. So he painted on, seemingly indifferent to the woman he observed so closely.

 For he had realized, as he utterly consumed the vision before him, that the truth in her eyes could never be captured on paper. That his ethereal muse could never be recopied, and his masterpiece, the radiant conclusion, the brilliant culmination of his life, could only be achieved in letting himself love her.