Page 46 of Possessive Ink

“Ohhh,” Tori says, her eyes wide as her lips curl into an amused grin. “Holy crap, big bro. No wonder Lemon wasn’t bothered about wearing a dress and no underwear at dinner tonight. You’ve dickmatized her into submission.” Laughing loudly, she skips forward toward her shop as I shake my head and follow after her.

EIGHT

LEMON

My chest tightens a little as Atticus follows Tori out of the main warehouse door, leaving Felix and me alone in the huge space he’s made into a studio that feels like he’s been using it for months, not days.

“Come and look,” he urges, sidestepping over to the five easels he has set up in a curve across the back of the room. On the floor below the easels are dozens of discarded papers, some with simple lines on them, others with the start of shapes.

As my eyes scan the floor, I watch as his random sketches start to evolve into more, and as my gaze moves to the drawings on the easel, I gasp. The first sketch is of an angel, the wings spread wide, the details of the feathers stunning, even with the thick charcoal he’s used to draw it.

The next sketch is more wings, only this time they’re ragged and broken, feathers snapped, burned, and falling off. The next is even darker, the wings nothing but bone and torn skin with a single feather hanging by a thread on sinew.

I brace myself for the next picture, but instead of it being sad, the broken wings have started to sprout leaves, tiny shoots emerging from the wreckage of muscle and bone. The fifth easel is the cowered angel starting to stand again, the tiny shoots twining around longer vines that have twisted around the bone, covering the damage and making the wings something new and almost beautiful. A single, solitary flower is half open at the very tip of one of the wings, like it’s straining for a shard of sunlight. Individually, the sketches are both beautiful and heartbreaking, but together they tell a story that makes my thoughts race and tears prickle at the backs of my eyes.

“Then this is the final piece,” Felix says, speaking for the first time since I was dragged into his pictures.

Turning toward his voice, I blink as I notice a patchwork of images taped to the brick on the external wall. Unlike the smaller sketches, this is a huge six-foot image of an angel, its wings a riot of blooming flowers and butterflies. Even though the image is drawn in black charcoal, it’s so realistic I feel like I can smell the floral scent and the mossy forest dew. It’s ethereal, and my heart actually stutters in my chest as I take in every inch of the picture. In the other sketches, I hadn’t noticed that the angel was female, but this picture is a beautiful, curvy woman with breasts and nipples and a vagina. It’s evocative but somehow not lewd. It feels like an ode to womanhood, not an attempt to provoke.

“It’s…” I try to find the words. “Oh gosh, Felix, they’re spectacular.”

“Imagine it in white marble,” he says wistfully, staring not at the pictures but at the shards of moonlight pouring in through the massive windows that I hadn’t noticed before.

“How big would they be?” I question, wondering how he could get all the details he’s drawn in the pictures into a sculpture that would fit on a table.

“The same size as this one,” he says, pointing to the wall.

“Wait, that’s nearly as tall as you,” I say stupidly.

“I’m going to have to import some bigger blocks of marble. The ones I have won’t be big enough,” he says absentmindedly, like he’s talking more to himself than to me.

“You can make a block of stone look like your sketches?” I ask.

Without turning to look at me, he nods.

“That’s…that’s incredible.”

“The light here is so beautiful. I didn’t expect it to be so good. Normally it takes me weeks to plan a new series, but we’ve only been here for two days, and I already have my angels and another two series planned out in my head. I can see them already, a choir of angels,” he says softly, reverently.

“They’re going to be beautiful, Felix.”

Like my voice reminded him that I’m here, he turns to face me. “Do you love my brother?” he asks boldly.

“I only met him today,” I say, shrugging awkwardly.

“He loves you.”

“No…you can’t fall in love that quickly. We barely know each other.”

“You should move in with us,” Felix says, clearly disregarding my words.

“What? No, that’s crazy.”

“Why is it crazy? Att loves you. You love him. I think you should move in. I’ll ask Marcus to help you.”

“No. No…no,” I stutter.

“Are you worried that I saw you naked?” Felix asks, his expression openly curious, not suggestive.