"Cora." He called, eyes caressing my face in a way that I so badly wanted for his fingers to instead. "Tell me to stop."
I gulped, the words frozen on the tip of my tongue.
"Cora, tell me now." He repeated, growing more agitated as his gaze moved do...
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I let out a rushed exhale as I lifted the third and last canvas into the large van, my arms groaning in protest.
Since when were paintings so heavy?
I dusted my hands and stepped away from the van, admiring the words inscribed on its exterior.
'The London College of Art'
A smile touched my lips.
The day had finally come, and I couldn't ignore the butterflies that I could feel fluttering around in my stomach.
It had been two weeks since my last shift at the cafe since I took a little break to get everything organised for the art exhibition.
The art exhibition that was happening tonight.
Those butterflies grew a little bigger as that thought settled in my head, inciting the kind of anticipation that I could feel down to my toes.
"Bye!" I waved to the random old man in the driver's seat of the van, too caught up in my own excitement to cringe at my behaviour.
The crooked smile that he gave me went perfectly with the cap on his head - both looked a little close to falling off.
He sped off in the van with my paintings in tow, set on his route to the gallery. Since there were only a few hours until it was opening, I assumed that almost everything had been set up already.
My only job - according to the email that had arrived a few days ago - was to 'be there and watch as people appreciated my work'.
I bit my lip as it occurred to me that for the first time in a long time, I'd be able to dress up for it.
The gallery had sold my paintings to an anonymous buyer for a ridiculous sum of money - far more than I had even expected when I agreed.
All I knew was that each of them would be sent to the buyer after the six week exhibition, and I could only hope that they would be loved and appreciated.
The thought of my paintings being displayed in somebody's house put a smile straight on to my face.
But then it fell altogether when I thought about the second half of the email.
They had mentioned that the turnout for today's exhibition could be close to one hundred.
One hundred.
Nerves that I didn't even know I had were suddenly appearing, my heart beating a little faster whenever I thought about it for too long.
I knew that I could paint.
Or at least, I thought I could.
But there was something so unnerving about showing your work to anybody, let alone almost a hundred people.
