The body painting session begins.

Monday arrived with the inevitability of a sentence. Every step toward Studio Lumière was a funeral march. Crossing the door, the atmosphere was different, charged with a silent, unhealthy anticipation. Elara awaited her, not at the reception, but next to the door of a larger studio that Magi had never seen used.

"Punctual. Good." Elara's comment was a lash. Her gaze swept over Magi's body with the coldness of an engineer checking a piece of machinery before turning it on. "Let's go. There's no time to waste."

She guided her down a side corridor that Magi had only seen in the distance. Elara opened a heavy black door and revealed a vast room, illuminated by cold, white spotlights that concentrated on the center of the space. There, in the middle of the emptiness, was a low, round platform, like a small stage. And next to it, standing in front of a table full of paint jars, brushes, and sponges, was a man.

He was thin, dressed in black from head to toe, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hands were stained with dry splatters of color. He didn't smile when he saw them enter. He only nodded his head, a quick, professional assessment.

"Magi, this is Lysander," Elara said, introducing him with a tone used for speaking about an old master. "The artist. He will be your guide today."

Lysander did not extend his hand. His penetrating gray eyes scrutinized Magi with an intensity that made her feel like a specimen under a microscope.

"The canvas," he said, his voice rough, like sandpaper. "Naked. The platform. Now."

The words, so brutal in their directness, took the little air she had left in her lungs. There were no preambles, no detours. It was an order. Magi looked at Elara, searching, without knowing why, for a rescue that wouldn't come. Elara held her tablet, ready to take notes or perhaps to record.

"Come on, Magi," Elara said, with finely disguised impatience. "Lysander's time is valuable."

With fingers that didn't feel like her own, Magi began to undress. Each garment that fell to the floor was like shedding a layer of her former humanity. The cold air of the room hit her naked skin, raising goosebumps. She instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, a final, pathetic attempt at modesty.

"No," Lysander's voice cut the air like a knife. "Arms at your sides. Neutral stance. You are a blank canvas. Nothing more."

Trembling, Magi lowered her arms. She felt infinitely more exposed than she had in the micro bikini. This was total, unadorned nudity. She walked toward the platform and stepped up. The wood was cold beneath her bare feet.

Lysander approached, taking a wide brush and dipping it into a container with a creamy white base. Without a word of warning, the cold, wet brush touched her shoulder blade.

Magi stifled a scream, and instead of trembling with shame, her body became rigid, the shock being not just from the temperature, but from the violation of touch. The paint was cold, thick, and smelled of chemicals and oil. Lysander worked with methodical, dispassionate efficiency, covering large areas of her back and shoulders. His movements were fast, assured, impersonal. It wasn't a touch; it was an application. She was a surface, a wall.

"Turn," he ordered.

She obeyed, feeling like a rotating mannequin. Now she was facing him, completely exposed. Her gaze fixed on a spot on the wall behind him, refusing to see her own nudity reflected in the cold concentration of his eyes. The brush swept over her sternum, her abdomen, her legs.

The sensation was unbearably intimate and yet profoundly impersonal. Every brushstroke was an erasure. The white base was not a color; it was the nullification of her skin, her pores, her history. There was no longer a body that could blush; only an opaque, uniform layer.

Elara watched from the side, occasionally making a quiet comment into her tablet. "The contrast of her skin's paleness with the white base is interesting. A denial of the flesh."

Magi closed her eyes, trying to disconnect, but the cold, wet feeling of the paint, the pungent odor, and the impersonal brushstroke kept her anchored. The process was a **** of identity. Her body was turning into something anonymous, sexless, without Magi.

She didn't know how much time passed. Minutes? Hours? It was a torment suspended in time. Until finally, Lysander took a step back, evaluating his work.

"Done. The base is on," he said, wiping his hands on a stained cloth.

Magi stood on the platform, trembling, covered in white paint that was drying and tightening her skin. She was no longer Magi. She was a painted plaster object, a half-finished project. Last week's humiliation seemed like child's play compared to this total surrender. She had become, literally, the canvas. And the white paint was still fresh.