The gallery was all white walls and low lighting, the kind of place that made every whisper feel like a confession. Lila arrived just after eight, the black silk dress swapped for something softer tonight—a deep emerald slip dress that clung like a second skin, thin straps, no bra, the fabric so light it shifted with every breath. She’d chosen it because it felt like wearing desire itself.
The opening was for an emerging painter named Elias Voss. His work dominated the main room: massive canvases of fractured female forms—limbs twisted in ecstasy or agony, skin rendered in violent strokes of crimson, indigo, gold. The paintings weren’t polite. They looked like they had been f****d into existence.
She lingered in front of the largest piece, a woman arched backward, throat exposed, one han
