Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 70797 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70797 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
And it was going to be me.
Days went by, and I stayed at his place. He left me a key and the code to get in and out. I didn’t have access to the other floors, and I was curious to know what was there. He worked out, so he must have a gym somewhere. And he killed people, so he must have weapons too. But I didn’t find any.
I worked on my painting most of the time, taking advantage of the morning light to get the best colors for the picture. In the beginning, it was strange to paint myself in a sexy way, especially when I knew what happened after this photo was taken.
We fucked nonstop.
But after a few hours, I got over it.
I worked on all the specific details, treating the image as if it were a random person instead of myself. I spent a lot of time working on every single color to make sure it was as realistic as possible. I had to mix the paints and add different concentrations to get the right consistency. Even the smallest touches were a long process because they required so much time and detail.
The days passed, and I kept working, getting so involved in the painting that I became more invested in it than I was at the beginning. I did my best to capture the right tone, to change the colors a little to set the mood. I painted myself exactly the way he saw me, as a beautiful prisoner that he couldn’t torture—but couldn’t release either.
By the time I was done, I couldn’t stop staring at it.
It was beautiful.
It wasn’t stunning because of me. It was stunning because it captured that moment in time so perfectly. That was the beauty of a painting versus a regular photograph. So much more could be captured with the colors and the texture. It wasn’t identical to the picture, and that was because a picture couldn’t capture the mood.
But a painting could.
Anyone could look at this painting and feel exactly what I felt, understand exactly what I felt. There was so much passion and restrained lust. There was so much affection and infatuation. I could feel his eyes on me as I stared at it, remembering exactly how it felt when he stared at me with that brooding gaze.
I didn’t just capture my presence in the painting—but his.
I set my brushes down and continued to look at it, imagining it hanging in his office. It was hard to understand why he would want a painting when he already had me. Why spend time looking at it when he could just look at me in the flesh instead. He wasn’t an art lover or an artistic person.
So why did he want it?
And then it hit me.
He wanted it because I wouldn’t always be around to look at.
Because I would soon be a memory.
And he wanted to remember exactly how it felt to have me, to have me in his captivity, to feel this balance between passion and hate.
My fingers started to shake, but I forced them to steady. Bones had never misled me about his intentions with me. He enjoyed my body, but he would eventually stop my beating heart. He just had to decide when he was ready to do it, after he was finally tired of me.
Maybe that was sooner than I realized.
There was no time to waste.
The next time he was at my apartment, I would have to pull the trigger.
And kill this monster.
I hadn’t spoken to him in four days.
I returned to my place because I didn’t want to be near his stuff anymore. I didn’t want to paint in that beautiful room because it would only soften my heart. He claimed he only gave me that room so I could make his painting, but I suspected he also did it for me—so his plaything would have something to do.
I took the painting to my apartment because I never intended to give it to him. He would come over when he came back to town, but he wouldn’t leave this apartment after he walked in the door.
I’d kill him then call my father.
He’d know what to do with the body. Hopefully, he wouldn’t ask too many questions.
I couldn’t look my father in the eye and tell him I was sleeping with Bones.
That would be the most uncomfortable conversation of my life.
I wasn’t sure what I would do with the painting. It would be strange to keep it because it was an image of myself dressed in lingerie in a man’s bed. It would be weird to hang it proudly on the wall. I should probably just burn it.
But it seemed a waste to burn something so beautiful.
Something I put so much time into.
Just because it depicted something dark and twisted didn’t make it ugly. It was truthful and honest, transparent in its emotions. Bones had some artistic capability because he was the one who took the photo. I just added the emotion to it.