Tactination

The gallery’s air was still, punctuated only by the curator’s heel clicks as they slipped behind the wall, out of sight. This was her chance.

She knew she shouldn’t.

Even in the absence of Ms. Louboutin’s red soles, Kama could still see a sea of red eyes peering back at her beside their framed companions. Sold. The stickers taunted her.

She felt the pull of each brushstroke, the call of the oils that lay ridged upon the canvases, like braille stories waiting to be read.

Before her hung a nod to Van Gogh. Thick, impasto, troweled through heavy paint, bringing the swirls of sky leaping off the canvas.

She knew the rules: the velvet ropes that weren’t to be crossed, the alarms that weren’t to be tripped, and the surfaces that weren’t to be tarnished by human hands. But the urge was there.

Her fingers ached with need. She reached out, the yearning in her fingertips so intense it was as if they possessed their own will.

Her breath hitched. She couldn’t. Her hands returned to her pockets. For now, she would be touched without touching, content to be connected by the strokes of color caressing her corneas.

The curator returned. “It’s one of the last in this collection”.

Kama knew just where she would put it.

She reached her hand into her purse, retrieving her card. “I’ll take it.”