The night air was heavy when I stepped out of the taxi, damp and warm from the rain that had finally stopped. Lagos had transformed into a slick mirror of streetlights and neon signs, and the city's usual chaos seemed muted, subdued—as if it had sensed what was about to happen inside that building.
The studio door opened before I could knock. Adrian was already there, tall, dark, and impossibly still, framed by the warm glow of a single overhead lamp. The scent of cedarwood and turpentine reached me before I stepped inside, a strange mix that made my chest tighten in anticipation.
"You came," he said simply, and there was no surprise in his tone, only certainty.
"I said I would," I murmured, though my voice trembled more than I wanted.
"Good," he replied. "Sit."
He gestured to a tall wooden stool in the center of the studio, the floor around it scattered with brushes, tubes of paint, and folded canvas. The walls were lined with his work: portraits of women I had never met, faces frozen in oil and shadow, expressions raw and private. And yet, as my gaze drifted across the room, I noticed a thread connecting them all. The curve of a cheek, the angle of a jaw, the way light touched their skin— it was all the same. Every painting had a fragment of me.
I shivered despite myself.
Adrian circled me slowly, the scrape of his shoes on the wooden floor echoing faintly in the quiet room. He didn't speak, but I felt the weight of his gaze on my face, my shoulders, the tendons in my neck. Each step he took seemed to stretch the air, each movement measured, deliberate.
Finally, he stopped behind me, and I felt him exhale, a soft, controlled breath that brushed against my ear.
"Relax," he said. "Do not think of this as posing. Think of it as revealing."
I tried to comply. Tried to let my body feel natural instead of tense. But it was impossible. His eyes burned into me, and with every second, it became clear: he was memorizing more than my shape. He was memorizing the rhythm of my breathing, the faint catch of my pulse in my throat, the way my fingers twitched when I thought no one noticed.
I lowered my gaze. "I'm not sure I can do this," I admitted.
"You can," he said, a statement, not a question. "Because I will guide you. You will not hide anything from me, not even the parts you think are unworthy."
I wanted to laugh. It sounded hollow, caught somewhere between fear and fascination. "Unworthy? You hardly know me."
"I know enough," he whispered. "Enough to see what everyone else misses. Enough to know that you are… becoming."
The word lingered in the air, heavy and impossible to define. I swallowed, feeling an odd mixture of pride and vulnerability.
He set the first brush onto the palette, its bristles stained with deep blues and burnt sienna. The smell of oil paint rose sharply, intoxicating in the dim light. I could hear the faint drip of paint from a previous stroke, the subtle hum of the city outside, the beat of my own pulse so loud I feared it would echo through the walls.
"Sit still," he said, finally lifting the brush. "No need to force anything. Just be."
I obeyed, straightening my back as much as I could, though my limbs felt foreign under the scrutiny of his gaze. And then he began.
The brush moved slowly at first, tentative, almost shy. But the more he painted, the more confident he became. Each stroke was deliberate, a declaration. He was not merely transferring my image onto canvas; he was interpreting me, pulling something from my skin and my posture and my very essence that I didn't know could be seen.
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the sensation wash over me—the brush pausing in midair, his breath measured, the faint scrape of the palette knife against the wood. Every sound became amplified, every motion weighted with intention.
When I dared to open my eyes, he was close, studying the work, leaning slightly forward. His gaze shifted to me, sharp, intimate, like he was unraveling me with a glance.
"You're different," he said softly. "More than I expected."
I felt my cheeks warm. "Different how?"
"Authentic," he murmured. "Unpredictable. Beautifully untamed."
The words should have embarrassed me, made me retreat. Instead, they anchored me, drew me into him like gravity. I could not look away. I could not stop thinking that each stroke of his brush was a map of my soul, every color a secret he had unearthed, and every shadow a reflection of what I had hidden from the world.
Time stretched. Minutes bled into hours. The storm outside had ceased, leaving the city drenched, quiet, and glistening. And still, we existed only in the small circle of lamplight and paint fumes.
He stepped back after what felt like both a heartbeat and a lifetime, examining the canvas. And then he turned to me, his expression unreadable, just as magnetic.
"You will be the most dangerous thing I have ever painted," he said.
I wanted to ask what he meant. But the words lodged in my throat, trapped by the way he looked at me, by the way he claimed the space around me, by the undeniable pull that made me want to surrender even though I barely knew him.
"I—" I began, but he shook his head gently.
"Do not speak. Not yet."
Instead, I sat there, letting him paint, letting him see, letting him own the moment in a way that felt like it belonged entirely to him. And for the first time in my life, I did not care if I belonged at all.
Because in the way he looked at me, I had already begun to belong.