Her voice didn’t register — not at first. It took two polite “excuse me’s,” the forceful removal of a double-pronged cough from her throat, and a much harsher call out before the sculptor — Ms. Robin Beaumont — forced her gaze away from the loosely face-like lump of clay between her knees and met the set of eyes that waited for her on the other side of her open studio doors.
The rather, uh, beautiful set of eyes at her double doors. Oh, door — dear. Oh, dear.
“Can I, uh…. can I help you with somethin’, ma’am?” Robin slid her leg out from around the small, crooked table in front of her and hiked her back up straighter, hoping to lend some slight semblance of intimidation to her side of the situation: granted, “ditzy, oblivious artist who left her studio doors open to the world because she likes the way the crisp, winter air feels on her hands (and definitely not because of her ongoing, passionate feud with the building’s rather stingy HVAC maintenance providers)” didn’t put her in a great position starting off, but her posture could at least balance out whatever weapon this vixen at her door was planning on robbing her blind with, right? Hell, what did robbers even use nowadays — guns, knives, pepper spray? Probably a little can of pepper spray, in this case, given how little the woman’s cocktail dress left to the imagination. Robin could take a little bit of pepper spray.
Her visitor laughed, shrill along the gentle wind; her hands unfurled from where they sat wrapped in front of her hips, rising to rest before her mouth. Robin didn’t see any pepper spray in her hands — thank god, she was lying to herself and she knew it —but that didn’t stop a sense of unease from bubbling up in her throat. The woman was poised, calculating; she opened her mouth just wide enough to let a laugh escape, but not enough to grant the intimacy of a glance inside. She kept her fingers curled just enough that the sharp, claw-like outlines of them were obfuscated by the small bows that sat glued to the base of each one. Robin’s heart knotted in her chest just looking at them.
“Quite the opposite, lovely.” Her hands moved again, this time to cross in front of her chest. Three-pointed, successive taps of nail on skin passed, then a pause. “You were spittin’ about an expletive a second when I walked by; thought I might get the chance to save a damsel in distress. I ain’t complainin’ though, don’t get me wrong… ain’t everyday you learn your favorite artist has a little potty mouth.”
“Oh, uh, I ain’t in any trouble ma’am, I promise…” Robin’s voice trailed off as her lurching heart got knocked off course, lodging itself right inside the nook of her throat where the thoughts entered and the words left. There was another pause as she stared off into the general vicinity of the woman’s hands — three taps, once more, in quick succession — before Robin found herself leaning forward again, intimidation all but broken. “What was that about a… about a favorite artist, darlin’?”
“Well, you’re Robin Beaumont, yes? The Robin Beaumont. I own your ‘89 collection. The best 200,000 dollars I’ve ever burned, if I’m honest.” She punctuated her praise with the wave of her hand, flipping it out from under her chest and up across her shoulder. Robin noted, however, how closed off she remained, even as her energy loosened. Her hand never strayed too far from her center of gravity, just as her center of gravity never wavered; it was as though the thin, gold bangles around her wrist had been replaced with leashes during one of the rare moments Robin blinked.
She couldn’t let her mind follow that chain for long, though — not when there was a much more tangible tidbit of information hanging in the air for her to grab. She thought back to her peak, to the Robin of each prior decade that didn’t have to chuck paint and clay at the walls in the dim hope that a paycheck might stick; she vaguely remembered that sizable ash pile of money, though lord knows her bank account hadn’t seen a lick of it in damn near fourteen years. She probably should’ve remembered the face that memory was attached to, but she didn’t, to slight concern; how the hell do you forget a woman who threw away the rubber band wrapped equivalent of a redwood tree like it was pocket change?
“Well… ain’t that somethin’. That collection always did stick out to me; I remember being shocked somethin’ so small went for that much.” Her back straightened again, hiding her fleeting memory behind a smirk like how she hid her net worth beneath bar tabs. “Can’t really say the same for you though, darlin’, if I’m honest…”
The woman laughed at that, sharp edges taking on the kind of genuine softness that Robin could never quite tell the tone of. She allowed those mesmerizing red nails of hers to push the limits of her silhouette for another lingering second, long enough to run them down the length of her hair and slip it back off her shoulders; Robin’s breath hitched as the deep, waist-length waves fell back to meet the night behind her. Her own nails — shorter and grimier, tinted grey form the night’s work — gripped the side table into her left, knuckles white.
“I don’t blame you for that, really. I probably couldn’t even recount all the changes this life of mine has gone through this last decade. A few drastic haircuts, a wardrobe change here and there…” The woman’s hand slipped back down over her chest, clawing their way down the side of her neck and lingering on the top lip of her collarbone for just a moment before her arms crossed again. Three taps; a gulp, hopefully inaudible. “…the works.”
Another pause gripped the room, its hand lodged around firm around Robin’s heart, as the woman pulled her gaze away from Robin and towards the wall nearest the door.
“You have a sketch pinned up of one of my pieces— well, one of your pieces from back then; it’s faded, but God, I’d recognize it anywhere. It’s sitting by my own front door as we speak.” Her eyes met Robin’s again. “In case you were curious how I knew you, barring your, uh… vivid use of language.”
Robin only kind of knew the piece she was talking about; it was completely unremarkable, the kind of foot-tall busts of a woman you’d find at any run-of-the-mill home decor warehouse, and it’d been utterly torn to pieces by critics for its rather lackluster finish. It was the worst of its collection by a fair margin, and she was shocked that a woman so generally well composed in her presentation would want it to be the first impression of her home. She’d kept the sketch of it up purely for posterity’s sake, a fleeting reminder of a much richer Robin’s tastes.
“You can take it, if you want.” Robin wiped her hands over the cleaner edge of her apron, a wholly undeserved air of pride beginning to seep into her voice. “Lord knows I don’t need the extra mess, and you seem way more enamored with it than I’ve ever been.”
The woman’s eyes widened, showing something other than gentle amusement or unbridled confidence for the first time that night. She looked giddy, almost. “Really? I can just… I can just come in, and take it?”
It was Robin’s turn to laugh at that, the sound aged and grimy like her nails. Seeing the full extent of the woman’s smile unnerved some part of her, sure — the almost uncanny white of her teeth sending goosebumps up her forearms even from across the room — but where was the harm? She’d ushered far less gorgeous women into her home after far redder flags. “Yeah, sure, darlin’. Just come on in and grab it, I don’t mind.”
For the first time that night, the woman crossed the threshold into Robin’s studio. She could tell she was being extra careful as her pumps met the crumbled, paper-riddled floor of the room, bright red meeting the worn white. Each step was calculated, each moment eerily empty without the ever-persistent tapping of her nails; it was as though each piece of meticulously maintained golden jewelry dangled around her body had tightened, her form curling in on itself just a bit more.
She pulled the paper off the wall with the kind of reverence that Robin had only seen in priests and high shelf bartenders, staring at it like a woman possessed.
Another moment passed, dead silent.
“You’re a real sweet woman, Ms. Beaumont. You always let people into your house without an introduction?” Another beat of silence; another breath — just one.
“If they’re as pretty as you? Hell, without a second thought.” She blinked, and that was it. Half a second with her eyes closed before the wind enveloped her and red silk filled the edges of her vision. There was a hand on her neck, just firm enough to keep her steady, but not enough to choke her outright. Robin wasn’t being choked; she was scared out of her mind, but she could register that much. Nails scraped up her throat and came to rest on her chin, grip lightening.
She smiled. Robin almost wished those bright red nails were back on her throat. She knew how long it took, vaguely, before a person choked to death; she knew nothing about how long it took to bleed a person dry. The small, decorative bow on the woman’s index finger grazed her cheek. Her fangs toyed with the raw, faded edge of her lipstick.
“You should really get to know a lady before you invite her in, Ms, Beaumont. It ain’t polite, otherwise.”
“You… aw, hell, you’re a—”
“Oh yeah, lovely… I know. I’d suggest you save your voice; It’s real pretty, but you’re rattlin’ like a faulty engine right now, and I don’t think those little lungs of yours can keep up.” Her hand left Robin’s face, and she nearly leaned into the absence before her instincts beat out her attraction. The woman meandered around Robin’s workspace — taking in the half finished bust in front of her, the scattered sketches on her walls, the dried clumps of hardened clay scattered all along her hardwoods — before pulling up one of the old storage crates that had been her dutiful project graveyard these past few years. Her ankles crossed as she sat, almost instinctually, delicate and composed despite the clear display of power. Three more taps, this time on her knee in place of her bicep.
Robin was mesmerized again, despite it all. She should’ve been running for the hills, arms flailing, expletives firing on all cylinders as the woman in front of her seemed so fixated on, but she wasn’t.
Robin pulled her worktable closer and snatched a lump of sopping clay from the bucket beside her stool. Primal, unrefined; a balancing act of power, snatched away from the woman — creature? No, that’s cruel — in front of her. She made sure to splash a little of the excess across the floor, landing right before the bright red toe of her polished pumps. The woman smiled again, fangs bared.
“This one, uh… she’s gonna be a full body, once she’s done. I’ve got the pose all sketched out right behind you; she’s modeled after another one of the ladies on this street, frequents the dive bar down the road.” Robin found herself rambling again, her throat the only tool she felt was equal in eloquence to her hands — not that her sentiment held much weight in that regard, especially in recent years, but still: if the woman in front of her had placed her sculptures on such a high pedestal, then perhaps she’d find a place for Robin’s voice somewhere in her collection.
“Did I not tell you to save your breath, Ms. Beaumont?” Another shift in power, yanked away from Robin before she could even dig her nails into it. Three more taps, a shift of her darkened pupils down to the scrap paper in her hand; another moment, gone. Her eyes slipped back upwards for just a second. Robin watched her lips curl before she spoke again, “That’s it?”
“What do you mean, ‘That’s it’?” Robin stopped working for a second, laughing softly to herself as her fingers froze along the sculpted collarbones in front of her.
“You’re basing this whole piece on a pretty face you met down at the pub?” Her smile fell completely, and her face took on that same introspective, wide-eyed grimace from before she’d closed the distance between them. “I guess I just assumed you were the more pretentious type, ma’am.”
“Art don’t need to be pretentious. If it’s pretty, it’s pretty. Hell, that fancy ol’ collection of yours was made up on the spot. It was all the little bits and bobs I thought were cute shoved onto an auction stage together. I was probably drunk while I named it.”
Her red nails nearly pierced the corner of her prized sketch, forcing a disgusted half-cry out of her throat; she rubbed the butt of her palm over the edge to smooth it back out. “I always imagined this one to be… more dramatic, I guess. Some grand love story or somethin’, like all the classics.”
Robin chuckled at that; no one had ever described her work as “classic”. It was charming, almost. Something sweet to offset the bitter aftertaste the conversation had taken on. “Really? I didn’t strike you as the fairy tale lovin’ type, darlin’.”
“You didn’t strike my name, either, Ms. Beaumont.”
She stood, kicking the clay-dusted box back towards the wall. Robin assumed this was the part where she was sucked dry for her hubris, but the woman just… stood there, idly staring at the bust between Robin’s hands. Her eyes lacked the ferocity they’d held thus far; her nails remained starkly still where they sat crossed along her chest. She stared at its sharpened collarbones, at the overt striations of her neck, at the eyes that Robin had hastily carved just a bit too deep into the head. “She looks… familiar.”
“She’s little more than a hunk of clay right now, darlin’.” Robin found that funny; the woman didn’t. She just stood there, nails gripping her arm so hard that Robin thought she’d draw blood — hell, if things like her even could bleed. “Guess her eyes do kind of look like yours, if I squint. That pretty face of yours must’ve been blockin’ out my inspiration.” Robin held up her hands like she was framing a photo, blocking off the woman between her ring finger and thumb. There were tears in her eyes.
Oh.
“You are a fascinatin’ woman, Ms. Beaumont. That’s for sure.” They locked eyes again, and Robin found that all the fear — all the fight, all the instinctual urges to run — had left her. They were equal again, two damsels looking for distress and finding none of it in the others’ eyes. They let that gaze linger for far more than a moment.
The woman ripped the more crumpled corner off the sketch and slammed it onto Robin’s work bench, snatching the pencil out from behind the artist’s ear. She scribbled something Robin couldn’t fully decipher, at least until it was shoved into her awkward, outstretched hands: A number, and a name. Robin could have passed out then and there.
“When you finish this collection — no matter the outcome, or how long it takes, or whatever — you call me, and you name the price. You name a number, Ms. Beaumont, and it’s yours.”
Robin stood, gobsmacked, the crumpled slip of paper still flittering about in her hands. She went to say something — to protest, or to drop down and propose, she wasn’t sure — but nothing came out; she was shaking again, as if there were nails wrapped back around her throat. By the time she looked between the note, and the face, and the way her hands had curled those sculpted lips far more than she’d intended, the woman was gone, and there was nothing left but the wind there to listen to her anguished, half choked noises of exasperation. She looked down at the decade-and-a-half-old scrap paper in her hand as the breeze curled around her fingers; she imagined it was the cold, unyielding grip of her monstrous muse.
She’d better get to work, then.
Emily Rakestraw is an undergraduate student at Kennesaw State University; she is currently pursuing a degree in Mechatronics Engineering with a minor in Professional Writing and plans to enter into the technical writing field following her time at Kennesaw State.