Michael’s POV
The first thing I noticed when Kane Anderson walked into my studio was how careful he was. Every step he took and every glance, he was like a man walking into a lion’s den but trying not to show fear.
He wore a navy jacket, plain jeans, and a press badge hanging from his pocket. He looked more like a detective than a journalist.
My studio was quiet, too quiet for people like him. There were no assistants here, nor were there any cameras; it was also very quiet compared to the noise journalists were used to.
There was just a faint smell of oil paint, diffusers, and the faint hum of the air conditioning above. The walls were filled with faces I had painted, eyes that were half trapped in color.
He paused at the door. “Thank you for inviting me, Mr. Rodriguez,” he said. His tone was polite, but I could hear the uncertainty behind it.
I smiled, slow and deliberate. “Please, call me Michael. Everyone does.”
He nodded slightly, his eyes moving over the canvases. “They’re… intense.”
I stepped closer, watching his reaction. “They’re honest.”
He turned to face me. “Honest?”
“Yes,” I said. “I paint people as they are, not as they pretend to be.”
He didn’t answer, and I liked that because most of the time, silence tells me more than words ever do. I motioned for him to follow me deeper into the studio, and we went past unfinished sketches, half bottles of paint, and a single stool under the main light. This was my sanctuary, where I created all my masterpieces.
“This is where I work,” I said. “Where truth lives.”
He laughed. “Truth in paint? That sounds poetic.”
I tilted my head, studying him the way I studied my subjects. He had the kind of face that told stories, sharp cheekbones, tired eyes, a mouth that held more restraint than ease. A man who thought too much before speaking.
“Poetry isn’t far from the truth,” I said. “It’s just the truth that has learnt how to breathe.”
He smiled slightly, looking unsure if I was being serious. “So… the interview. Should we begin?”
I waved, pointing toward the stool. “Sit. I like to talk while I work.”
He frowned. “You’re going to paint me?”
“Of course. In every interview I’ve ever done, I paint the person who asks the questions. It helps me understand them.”
“I wasn’t told that.”
“You weren’t supposed to be.” I stepped closer, enough that he noticed the space between us closing. “Surprises make people honest.”
He hesitated but sat anyway, setting his notebook on his lap. “All right, Michael. Tell me, why do you only paint people you meet once? Why do you never repeat subjects?”
I dipped my brush into the paint, still not looking at him yet. “Because the first meeting is the only true one. Every time after that, they start pretending.”
“And you don’t?”
I met his eyes over the rim of the canvas. “Oh, I pretend all the time. But not when I paint.”
He wrote something down, his pen moving fast. His gaze kept darting to my hands, maybe noticing how steady they were, how sure. Most people feel exposed under my eyes. He was trying not to.
“Alright, so what do you mean when you say your art is about surrender?” he asked after a moment.
“Exactly that.” I stepped around him, studying the light on his skin. “I can’t paint someone who’s trying to control the outcome. They have to let go. Forget how they look, how they sound, how they want to appear.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That sounds… intense.”
“It is.”
“And if they don’t?”
I smiled faintly. “Then I don’t paint them.”
He looked thoughtful, more skeptical. “Do all your guests agree to that?”
“Not all. Some walk out. The ones who stay are the ones who want to see themselves, the real version, not the one they’ve built.”
He looked around the studio again. The faces on the walls seemed to stare back at him, each one painted mid-emotion, as if caught between breath and confession.
“They all look like they’re in pain,” he said softly.
“They’re not in pain,” I replied. “They’re honest and honesty can hurt, but that isn’t pain.”
He met my gaze, his voice sounding low. “And what do you see when you look at me?”
I didn’t answer right away. I let the silence stretch, watching the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands tightened around the notebook.
“I see a man who doesn’t like to be read,” I said finally. “Someone who writes stories about others so he can avoid his own.”
My observation made him flinch, a bit, but I saw it.
“Is this how you always talk to people you paint?” he asked, half laughing to cover it.
“Only the interesting ones.”
He looked down, then back up. “And if I refuse to be painted?”
“Then you’ll never know what I would have seen in you.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. He was trying to understand whether I was serious or just teasing him. That’s the part I enjoy most, the moment someone can’t tell where art ends and manipulation begins.
I walked back to the canvas and started the first strokes. “Tell me,” I said quietly, “why journalism?”
He blinked, surprised at the question. “I like stories. Most especially like to find out the truth.”
“Truth again,” I said. “You think it’s something you can write down?”
He frowned. “Isn’t that what you do too?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t draw the truth. I trap it.”
His breath hitched just slightly. There was tension in the room now, and both of us could feel it. It was the kind of tension that grew between two people who both think they’re in control.
He shifted on the stool, his voice lower. “You make it sound dangerous.”
“It is. That’s why most people don’t come back.”
He tried to smile again, but it didn’t reach his eyes this time. “You make it sound like a test.”
“Maybe it is,” I said, stepping close again, so close I could see the reflection of my own eyes in his. “I can’t paint someone unless they trust me completely.”
“Trust?” he repeated.
“Yes. To sit still, to let go, and to be seen.”
He held my gaze for a long moment. The clock on the wall ticked softly, the only sound in the whole room.
Then he asked, quietly, “And what happens if I let go?”
I leaned in just enough for my voice to drop. “Then you stop being a journalist. You become my subject. A muse.”
He swallowed hard, the sound barely audible. “I didn’t come here to be someone’s muse.”
“Then why are you still sitting?”
He didn’t move or speak. He just watched me with uncertainty and curiosity in his eyes, he looked drawn in despite being conflicted with himself.
I let the silence hang one last time before I asked the question that always comes at this point, the one that separates those who walk away from those who don’t.
“Do you trust me enough,” I said, softly, almost a whisper, “to be painted?”
The brush in my hand hovered, waiting.
And for the first time since he walked in, Kane Anderson didn’t have an answer.