The studio is exactly like him – cold. It’s too big to be kept warm. The ceilings are too high. The blankets too thin and the gas stove too expensive. I am always cold here and I think, maybe he is too. But he must like it. He must be unbothered by it. The brushstrokes must keep his fingers limber and the pale blue of my veins under my sallow skin must be an exciting muse.
            It smells exactly like him – cold. It smells like oil paint, turpentine, linseed, and whatever watered down broth he had for lunch. It smells like sweat and winter. Like cold toes and runny noses and hair that grows warm under hats that have freshly come from a trunk in the attic.
            It’s him. There’s not much to it besides space, an organized emptiness. A tidy stack of books here. There’s an easel. Two easels, plus one more. Stretched canvases. A splintered table for paints and food and fucking, occasionally. A large sink basin. A chest for his clothes. Too many tubes of paint and paintbrushes in sizes I can’t reconcile. Bits and ends for his still life studies that he practices with sometimes. A mirror on the wall so that he can paint himself. A mirror for his beautiful face that he likes to paint with disdain.
It’s just a space that a more enterprising person might call potential. Which is him – empty except for potential. It’s not unlike the studios of his friends. It’s bland and stereotypical. If he isn’t in it, it would be devoid. It would be nothing without him. He is what brings it to life.
            And so, I think it must be like me, too.
            But not in the way that a child is the sum of two parents. I am not enterprising. I must count myself among the items. Brushes, gesso, charcoal, me. It is his domain, not mine. Here, there be artists.
            There’s a coat rack that wears his smock when he doesn’t. He wears it now. I wear nothing.
            I am always cold here.
            Even in a bed where the bedsheets smell so firmly of him. Like paint, turpentine, linseed, and whatever watered down broth he had for lunch. They are loyal. To me. They hang onto him, cling to him where I cannot. It’s desperate of them, but not pitiful. I like that they smell like him. I like that it feels like he is swallowing me where he cannot. They are loyal to him, too. Refusing to smell like anyone but him. Sometimes, I wish they smelled like me. I wish they smelled like what he did to me. I wish they smelled like us. Yet, I’m glad I can’t smell his other models here. I can feel them everywhere, but the bed protects me in a way he does not and I am glad for it. Here, there be muses.
            The sum of it all is William. Firmly, unflinchingly him – cold. Splattered with paint, utilitarian, unconcerned, unbothered. It’s all so him. And the whole of it is flaws and passion and opinions and talent. On full display. Brazen.
            I hate him.
            He’s ruined me.
            Augustus’s studio was warm. Augustus was warm. He made me warm and I was never cold. Augustus was sweet and tender and boring and gave himself over so easily that he wasn’t worth unraveling. I had to be warm for him.
            I don’t have to be warm for William. William is cold and harsh and makes me cold. He is unbothered by it, I think, my coldness. Perhaps I keep his fingers limber and the pale blue of my heart under my sallow skin is an exciting muse. He is undeterred by it. Perhaps, because mine matches his. Perhaps, we are one in the same. Perhaps we are twin flames in Prussian blue. Perhaps this is as much my studio as it is his. Here, there be broken hearts.
            He is so icy, my fingers grow numb trying to unravel him.
It is fun to try. It is fun to see who will be the unraveling of who first. I let him paint me and sketch me and ruin me over and over and I don’t know what else I can give him.
            I stretch out in his sheets that are not as clean as they should be and watch him mix paint on his palette. Even the sound of the knife sounds like him, singular and uncomfortable.
            My handsome boy. William. I watch him paint, I never tire of it. I never tire of the hair that falls into his eyes, the crease in his brow, the line of his nose, the fullness of his lips, and the chin he hates.
            William Newenham Montague Orpen. Rich boy from a rich family. Allowed to sod off to London, here to the Slade, to live in a starving manner in a cold studio heated by a little gas and roundly models and cigar smoke. A spoiled, precious little boy allowed to chase his dream. Allowed to be glad to be cold and hungry and surrounded by like-minds. He doesn’t ever think about it. He doesn’t think about it. He won’t ever have to and I hate him for that.
He is a rich boy who eats poorly. Only, because he can. Soup mostly, with too many onions made by the woman around the corner with an accent and a sweaty brow. She sells it cheaply. To him and his friends. He saves as much as he can for smoking and drinking. It’s a small allowance, but it’s easy to make go far when you eat poorly and are from a rich family. Sometimes he lets Augustus buy his smokes and drinks and other times he buys Augustus’ smokes and drinks. Augustus, another rich boy from another rich family. Little boys who pretend to starve, who are allowed to believe in love and quote poetry and paint and fuck and not think.
            I hate them.
            I have to think all the time. I have to think about food and money and my job and my brother and William. I have to think about William a lot. About how best to unravel the rich boy with the long, rich name who says he loves me.
            My unfinished portrait sits in front of him, perfectly positioned in the light of the day. He is working on the skirt of my dress. He prostrates himself in front of my image, blasphemously. It’s sinfully Catholic, the way he worships the icon of my body. The body he put there. The body he created. It’s a falsehood, you see. It’s a lie I tell myself. It’s not me he repents to, I am merely a woman of flesh. His god is canvas and wood and medium. I could save him, if it were me he was offering himself to, but it’s not and I am powerless here.
            A more enterprising person would know what he is doing isn’t self-flagellation, it’s self-adoration. What is a god to an artist?
            This is my favorite William, here. This is when he looks like a painter and I believe him. Here he is a silly French man in the fields, here he is a Flemish man in a studio full of mirrors, here he is an American looking at beautiful women in beautiful gowns. This is where I buy it. This is where I unravel myself. Here, where he is a painter. Here, where he is a god. Here, where there is no scrutiny in his face. He’s not thinking, he’s just doing.
            He’s chasing a dream and we let him. They let him.
            I hate him.
            I hate him because I’ll never be allowed to chase a dream. I won’t even be allowed to watch him chase his. He’ll leave me. They all do. The models here are paid well. We are compensated for our time. And what the coin doesn’t cover, the men do. How delicious to take a pound of flesh from a rich boy. How delicious to unravel them and take parts of their souls. How delicious to let them know, they aren’t better than anyone else. They are men and they must be put in their place.
            Ah. But they are men and so they always win. They always win unless you unravel them.
            And if you are a woman, if you are a model who takes payment in flesh and soul and extra bits of food, then you have to think. Because if you don’t think, then you lose. And you cannot lose to a man who paints mirrors. Mirrors trap souls, you know? And you don’t have much of one left anyway. You have to win. If you don’t, you will be hungry and cold and ruined, so think. Think and be enterprising.
            He paints and I think. I think of this four-poster bed and the dirt floor. I think about how I might win.
            I think maybe I am gray blue to him. That color he paints my shawl. The color he paints the walls. Prussian blue diluted with titanium white and sometimes black. No, maybe I am just the Prussian. The color of the sea. The color of great depth. Despair. Chill. When it rains in the winter and all the mothers call in their children for an early supper. The color of the Thames at hightide. The color of my veins and my heart and my eyes and the ratty shawl he likes to paint me in. That’s me to him.
            He hasn’t spoken to me since he got out of this bed and donned his smock. I wish he would speak. I wish he would give me something to unravel. Tell me something secret, something you think is safe only for the ears of a lowly unnamed mistress. I know in your letters I am just the model, but here in this room I am your love, your sweet, your Emily. So, go on. Tell me. I am safe. I could never use it against you. Tell me about your mother. Tell me about the color of her hair in the winter and tell me why you think your father hates her. Tell me about your father’s indiscretions and how you think you could never be the same. Tell me about Ireland. Tell me about home and the boy you think you used to be. Tell me why you like the soup made by that woman with the sweaty brow. Tell me, what makes you jealous? Tell me something. Tell me anything. Like you used to.
            But I fear, if he opens his mouth, it will only be to speak about her. Yes, she’s new, isn’t she? Grace. A rich girl from a rich family. She’s smitten with that ginger-haired Augustus John, isn’t she? Oh, we can’t have that. William doesn’t like her, but he doesn’t like that Augustus John has her more. I wish I could tell her to think. Even rich girls from rich families need to think. She has dreams, I know she does. But if she wants to have sons who don’t have to think than she must be enterprising.
            I think he’ll do her portrait to impress her father and her artist sister. I think she will be pale yellow to him. Cadmium yellow and titanium white. Sunshine. Sunshine in the fall. In the warm kitchen of a cottage back home. Sunshine in the past, in your memory with your mother in the garden. Sweaty blonde hair tied back with a pale-yellow ribbon. Buttercream. Milk teeth. A white dress for spring. Gorse in bloom. That will be her. Promising. Sickly.
I am watching him paint. I want to brush the hair out of his eyes the same way he brushes pigment onto canvas. His father paid for those brushes and the paint. It comes together well, it’s puffy and creamy on the palette. It’s an extension of him, the way he handles it, pushing it, pulling it, grinding it to his desire. I want to hold it on my tongue. It looks like stiff-peaked cream. I wonder if it would taste like him. Salty, Cool. Would it taste like the hidden parts of his soul, unknown even to him?
            He must think he is titanium white. He must. Above it all, untainted. Cold. Making everything better. Making everything lighter and prettier. Self-adoration, you see. But he is green to me. He’d hate that, I think. But not green in a motley, patriotic sense. Green in the moody way. Green in the way of the earth, of dirt, and mud, and turf, and solidness. He is temperamental, and wet, and malleable in a way that only works if you are willing to get your hands dirty. He is like a landscape, changed by weather and time and people but not all at once, only in centimeters over decades. Emerald green mixed with too much umber. The irony isn’t lost on me as it might be him.
            What if I am umber? What if I am what taints him? I run a hand over the soft of my belly. No, that’s not it.
            William, I whisper his name. He smiles, only when I whisper it a second time. But the painted version of me still holds his attention and I think she always will, no matter what. And it’s not even me, I remind myself. It’s a god.
I don’t mind, actually, being blue. Being empty and cold and heartless. But what I wouldn’t give to be yellow. A more enterprising person could be yellow.
The palette of my mind turns muddy brown. I wonder if his ever does, if the colors in his head run wild and mix where they shouldn’t, if they go dirty and unusable. Think of me, William, think of me and ask me to be yours.
He won’t. He won’t think to, he doesn’t ever have to think. And I hate him.
            I hate him for that.
            I hate that he doesn’t even have to have a thought in his head and yet he can unravel me so well. He ruins me. He sees into me and isn’t scared. He loves mirrors and I must count myself as one of the many. I am a mirror. He sees a reflection of himself here, but not the one with the chin his mother made him hate. The broken pieces of me reflect back the most beautiful pieces of him, so when he looks inside me, he doesn’t see a room with a dirt floor, but potential.
            And I love that. I love that he unraveled me in a way that lets the light in.             Maybe I don’t hate him. Maybe I hate that I love him. Because loving him hurts. Because no matter how much I love him I will never unravel him. He’ll remain cold and full of potential and he’ll leave me and he’ll leave whoever he needs to in order to follow his dreams. Without care. This is his domain. He rules as a god. Here, there be artists.
            A more enterprising person could be the unraveling of him. I run a hand over my belly once more and I hope it’s a boy. I hope it’s a boy who doesn’t have to think that will be the undoing of William Orpen.
            But I don’t think it will. And I don’t think I will win. I never do. That’s why I am always cold. And cold I shall remain.

Madison Bowman is a writer based in Omaha, Nebraska. As an art historian and graduate of Trinity College Dublin, her creative work is inspired by gilded frames, small galleries, and life abroad.