My breath hitched. The words on the page didn't just seem printed; they seemed branded.
"Inspirer?" My voice trembled.
'Inspirer... What an arrogant, bizarre word,' my mind raced. 'Not "Artist," not "Creator." Inspirer. As if he wouldn't be drawing inspiration from me, but would be creating it in me, like a chemist creating a reaction in a test tube. The word reeked of coldness and absolute control.'
"This is... this is insane," I managed, taking a step back. "You can't... This is unethical. It's against every university rule."
"I am the rules, Miss Hayes," his gaze turned to ice. "At least, in this studio. I'm not just an artist; I'm an architect of feelings. I require pure material. I cannot have my muse 'contaminating' her emotions with trivial, outside affairs. I require your total, one-hundred-percent concentration. Physical and emotional."
He walked to the window and looked out over the campus. "Davies told you I was unconventional. This is the price of genius. Yours and mine. Your thesis will become a masterpiece because you will finally write about what you experience, not what you read."
I was silent, frantically weighing my options. Five years of work versus... what? Selling myself into intellectual bondage? Or was this my only chance?
"This doesn't mean we will become lovers, Sophia," he said, as if reading my mind. "It means that if we do, it will be part of the process. Just like everything else. This rule is about exclusivity. About controlling the variables. As a scholar, you should understand that."
He sat back down at his desk. "You have until tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock sharp. If you show up, we'll sign the rest. If you don't... good luck with the board."
I was dismissed.
I didn't sleep all night. I paced my tiny, rented apartment, re-reading the red ink on my thesis margins. I Googled Jared Thorpe. "Genius," "provocateur," "scandal," "multi-million-dollar sales." And among it all, one small, buried link. A two-year-old university blog post titled: "Where Did Elena Ross Go?"
Elena Ross. A brilliant graduate student, Thorpe's previous protégé. She had won a prestigious fellowship for a paper he supervised. And then... she had just vanished. The article mentioned a "creative sabbatical" and "health problems."
A chill ran down my spine.
At 8:59 AM, I was standing at his studio door. My hands were shaking, but my mind was set. I had made my choice.
I pressed the doorbell.
He opened it immediately, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, as if he hadn't slept at all. He didn't look surprised.
"I agree," my voice came out firmer than I'd expected.
Jared Thorpe nodded, letting me in. A thick folder—the contract—was already sitting on his desk.
"Good," he said. "But before we sign anything, there's something you need to see. You're a smart girl. You looked me up. Did you find Elena?"
My heart sank. I nodded silently.
"I thought so."
He led me to the far side of the studio, to an enormous canvas covered by a simple white cloth.
"Elena was my previous muse," he said. "She was incredibly gifted. But she... broke."
With one sharp movement, he pulled the cloth from the canvas.
I gasped. It was a portrait of a woman—unquestionably Elena. Incredibly beautiful. And utterly mad. She was depicted screaming, but her scream was silent, trapped within the canvas. It was the most brilliant and the most terrifying piece of art I had ever seen.
"She's in a private psychiatric clinic in Switzerland now," Jared said quietly. His voice was flat, stating a fact. "It's important that you understand all the risks, Sophia. This contract is not a game."
He expected me to be terrified. He expected me to run, like any sane student would after seeing proof of the danger she was signing up for.
But as I looked at that portrait, I didn't just see the madness. I saw the genius. I saw the very "life" that my thesis so desperately lacked. I saw the power Thorpe had managed to pull from Elena, even at such a terrible cost.
A cold, ringing determination filled me. I wasn't Elena. I wouldn't break.
I slowly turned from the portrait and looked him directly in the eyes, meeting his heavy, appraising gaze.
"I understand the risks," I said firmly. "Where is the rest of the contract?"
Jared Thorpe stared at me for a long second, and I thought I saw something flicker in the depths of his dark eyes. Something like... respect.
"On my desk," he nodded, and led me back.