“Because that part of my life is over. I want to help people now. I want to help you, Chloe. Which
is why it’s best that I leave.”
“I think I should have a say in what’s best for me,” I answer him. “And it isn’t that.”
He breaks away and paces along the wall, turning his face away from me. So that I can’t read him.
So that he can lie to me without regret.
“What do you want?” he demands.
“I want this,” I tell him. “I want body movement, the human figure, and paint. A fusion. I want
freedom. I love to dance, but on my own terms. Nobody gets that.”
He turns back to me and his eyes are soft. Open in a way that I have never seen them.
“I get it.”
“That isn’t the only thing,” I tell him. “I want you. I want that too.”
He doesn’t speak. Or move. His eyes are on me. Imagining the things his mind tells him are wrong.
The dirty things he wants to do with me. I can see them.
There is no hiding it.
I take a step forward. And then another. Until I am in front of him. Until there is nowhere else to go.
“Do you want to touch me, Mr. Vaughn?” I ask him. “Because you can.”
He swallows and looks away. But he can’t hide the bulge in his trousers. Or the heat radiating from
his body.
“Sometimes we must indulge in the things society would not approve of,” I tell him.
Another quote of his. From another interview. In a past life. One so long forgotten that I do question
if he is the same man underneath.
“Those are the words of someone who was ignorant, Chloe,” he replies. “Someone who didn’t
know any better.”
“You’re wrong,” I argue. “Those are the words of someone who was free.”
I reach out a tentative hand and find his with my own. He does not pull away, even as I run my
fingers over the flesh of his palm.
“How did it feel?” I ask. “To create again? Did it make you feel alive?”
His voice is thick when he replies, and honest too. “Yes.”
“You make me feel alive,” I whisper. “So it can’t be wrong.”
His eyes move over my face, and then his other hand follows. Touching me. Feeling all of the