The dragonfly tattoo artist

11

Howe was sane at the beginning of his stories, and almost seemed to have a purpose. After a couple of pages he started rambling, and finally he ended up with a book full of meaningless phrases. Still, Camila had to admit that his words generated a certain attraction.

Moreover, his transition from sanity to complete dementia occurred so slowly that it was really impossible to realize it. Maybe that was his magic.

The change was not felt until it was too late.

"And here Anne, with red hair, said to the horse, 'Kill me,' and poor Owen, who was a dog, finally realized his dream of being a sparrow."

And in that moment, almost knowing that Camila was finally starting to read Howe's book, Lauren called her. The Titanic theme resonated in the room.

"Lauren Jauregui!" She greeted enthusiastically before closing Howe's book.

It was an interesting reading, but it gave Camila a headache.

"Camz?" Her voice was soft behind the line, almost hypnotic. "I can't believe how much I liked your voice."

"Just my voice, huh?"

It had been two weeks since Lauren's apartment and everything was calm. There were no crazy customers, no violent scenes, no screaming, and no crying. They were at a wonderful stage.

"Your ass too, but I didn't want to be so unromantic."

Camila laughed. She really adored that idiot.

Their relationship, unfortunately, hadn't changed much. They spoke more often, yes, and Lauren seemed to have accepted the fact that she was in love with the tattoo artist, but neither dared to take the next step.

They were both starting to get impatient.

"Can we talk about how insane Howe was?" Camila questioned with a smile "I swear that from the eighth chapter the poor guy was hallucinating... And I can swear to that because he forgot to write the chapter eight."

"That's all we've talked about for the past two weeks" Lauren remarked "...I think you read all three of Howe's books I loaned you just to make fun of him."

"Of course not!" Camila refused with indignation. "I do it because I want to understand what you see in these books."

"You won't understand them if you try to understand them."

"This is confusing!" Camila complained "And stressful!" She added.

"You also often stress me when you don't stop talking about a dead writer" Lauren commented behind the line with neutrality "I thought I was his crazy fan, not you."

Camila tried to contain her laugh, but she didn't make it. She had never imagined Lauren as a crazy fan of anything, but now she had a clear picture of the painter screaming like a madman while wearing a T-shirt with Howe's anonymous face.

"Okay, I'm sorry... What do you want to talk about?"

"I'll go to the studio tomorrow to pick you up. I want to paint you a little more..."

They hadn't made much progress on that either. Lauren used to be constantly distracted by Camila's body, and shortly after an hour of work, perhaps less, they would leave everything aside just to talk nonsense with which anyone would have rolled their eyes.

"Okay. I'll wait for you at five."

"I'll go at noon, actually... I want to do some drawings of you while you tattoo other people just because I like you so much that I want to fill my apartment with your face."