Angel wings. That was his first thought, seeing the pictures strung up, hanging from the ceiling in patterns like feathers. They twirled on their violet ribbons, flashing scraps of peach skin and strawberry hair. And there, glimmering once or twice throughout the scene, was the glint of a blue eye. He rarely captured her eyes – they intimidated him. They were too clear, like a still lake. Anytime she was posing, his gaze would slide away from her face, afraid if he met her eyes, she’d somehow be able to look directly inside him, slicing through his mind and spilling his brain all over the floor for her to dissect.

He knew she wouldn’t get it. She only used him for his camera. She only wanted the stock shots, the same boring poses over and over again. He’d spend hours in the studio with her while she posed against the wall, leaned against the sofa, or laid down in the classic "draw me like one of your French girls". She liked to make that joke every damn session. He always laughed, even though on the inside he wanted to reach out and shake her. He’d suggest a rooftop shoot while coiled in ribbons, or one where all she was wearing was a necklace of flowers. But no, she liked the studio photos, with the same sofa, or the bathtub, because they were “hot right now." Nevermind art, he thought, as he strung the ribbon through another scrap. This one was a shot of her hip: he recognized the dimple in her skin, the shadow that clung to the curve of her thigh. She didn’t do it for the art, unlike him. She couldn’t blame him for making extra copies of the photos, taking scissors to the prints and snipping her body into pieces and stringing them up into a mosaic of his making.

She didn’t get it. He didn’t quite get it himself, why her, out of all his clients. Her mind was disposable; but her body – he knew every freckle, every flush of colour, saw her skin waver behind his eyes as he tried to sleep and in his waking hours, possessing his mind like a welcome spirit. Her body was his muse, his canvas, and he knew under his hands, under the blade of his scissors, he could mold her, finally, into art that meant something, unlike the photos she preferred, the ones that made her look like nothing more than a doll with still eyes.

Red ink dripped from one of the picture scraps. A pool gathered at his feet. If only she saw it like that. She was more alive in pieces than she ever was in her pictures. He picked up another scrap. It was warm in his hands, pliable. He traced the delicate veins of violet under the peach skin. Ah, this was one of her cheek. He wound the ribbon through the edge, another feather to add to the wings he’d created.