Chapter 10: Dawn Confessions
Jess swam up from a dream of drowning in warm clay. It clung to her limbs, filled her mouth, shaped her from the inside out. Her eyes flew open to the familiar, water-stained ceiling of her loft. The dream scent—earthy, metallic—lingered. But it wasn’t just memory. It was here, in the room, layered under the smell of drying paint and old wood.
Morning light, filtered through the cracked stained glass panel high on the wall, cut the space into slices of gold and blood-red. Dust motes danced in the beams. Everything was too still. The silence had a texture, a held breath.
Then a floorboard groaned, not under her own weight.
She turned her head on the pillow.
Elise stood at the foot of the makeshift bed, a tall, dark silhouette against the bright window. She wasn’t looking at Jess. She was looking down at the small, rickety table Jess used as a nightstand. Her sketchbook was open there, the pages exposed. Last night’s panic, the frantic lines trying to capture the feeling of the marble woman, of the hands on her hips in the dark gallery.
In Elise’s left hand, held loosely between her fingertips, was a pair of Jess’s underwear. The plain cotton ones she’d peeled off and dropped on the floor last night before collapsing into bed. Elise’s thumb rubbed slowly, thoughtfully, against the fabric.
Jess’s body went rigid. The violation was so complete, so casual, it short-circuited her voice. She could only watch, a frozen witness in her own space.
Elise’s gray eyes lifted from the sketches and settled on her. There was no surprise at finding Jess awake. Only a quiet assessment. “You dreamt of me,” she said. Her voice was a morning rasp, devoid of its usual theatrical edge. It was just a fact.
“Get out,” Jess whispered. The words had no force.
Elise ignored them. She stepped closer, the floorboard sighing again. She sat on the edge of the futon, the mattress dipping under her weight, tilting Jess toward her. The proximity was an electric shock. Jess could see the fine lines at the corners of Elise’s eyes, the faint dusting of pale clay in the dark strands of her severe hair.
“I tasted it in your sweat,” Elise murmured. She brought the cotton fabric in her hand up, pressing it gently against Jess’s lips. The material was soft, carrying the intimate, musky scent of Jess’s own sleep. It was an act so profoundly personal it blurred every line. “Salty. Afraid. Aroused. It’s all the same language here.”
Jess jerked her head back. “What the fuck are you doing in here? How did you get in?”
“The door was unlocked.” Elise said it blandly, as if commenting on the weather. She let the underwear fall to the blanket between them, a small, shameful flag. “A reckless habit for a young woman in this city. You should be more careful.”
“It was locked.” Jess’s mind raced back to the stumbling return, the fumbling with her keys. Had she been so rattled she’d forgotten?
“Was it?” Elise’s lips quirked. She reached out and traced a line in the air just above Jess’s cheekbone, not touching her. “You left in such a state. I worried.” Her gaze flicked back to the sketchbook. “These are better. Unfiltered. The lines are desperate. They’re starting to speak.”
“They’re mine,” Jess said, the words thick. “You can’t just… look through my things. Take my things.”
“I’m not taking.” Elise finally let her finger make contact, brushing a strand of hair from Jess’s forehead. Her touch was cool. “I’m observing the source material. In its natural habitat. The private rituals.” Her eyes scanned the room—the empty coffee mugs, the cheap tube paints scattered like candy, the single easel holding a bland, unfinished cityscape. “It’s so… unguarded in here. It makes you perfectly transparent.”
The scraping sound from last night echoed in Jess’s memory. The sound from the other side of the wall. “Have you been in here before?”
Elise didn’t answer.
Elise moved past the question, deflecting it with her own. She got closer to Jess, holding the panties up like an exhibit. “So what did you dream about me doing to you?” Her eyes never left Jess, gray and unblinking.
Jess couldn’t even answer. A hot flush grew in her cheeks, spreading down her neck.
Elise saw it. She moved closer, the mattress dipping further. “Let me guess.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “They were kinda lurid.” She studied the rising color in Jess’s face, the way her breath hitched. A low, knowing chuckle escaped her. “I can see it. All that quiet observation, finally turning inward. All that polite artist fear, finally getting a taste of what it wants.”
She leaned in, her lips almost brushing Jess’s ear. “Did I have you on the floor? Up against one of my pieces?” She paused, letting the images hang in the thick air between them. “Or was it slower? More like the stone. Me taking you apart layer by layer, just to see what’s underneath all that trembling.”
Jess shut her eyes tight, but it only made the imagined scenes brighter, more vivid. Her own silence condemned her. The warmth between her legs was a traitorous pulse, entirely separate from her screaming mind.
Elise’s chuckle was a soft vibration in the quiet loft. “It’s alright,” she murmured, pulling back just enough to look at Jess’s blushing face. “Dreams are the blueprint. The raw material.” She finally tossed the underwear aside, letting it land on the sketchbook. “I work with worse.”
She stood up abruptly, the sudden movement making Jess flinch. The weight left the bed, the space turning cold where Elise had been. “Get up. We’re going out.”
“What?” Jess’s voice was raw. “No. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You need to eat.” Elise was already at the door, a tall, impatient silhouette. “And I need to look at you in the daylight. See how the sun plays on that blush.” She turned, her hand on the knob. “Five minutes. Or I come back in and we continue the critique of your subconscious.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
Jess stared at the empty space. The scent of clay and her own sleep still clung to the air. The cotton underwear lay on her open sketchbook, a final mark on her private pages. Outside, the city sounds began—a distant siren, the grind of a garbage truck. Normal life, moving on without her.