Chapter 6: The Artist

“Hey,” I called out when I heard the door. “Good. You’re here. I need your help with something.”

She rounded the corner into the workshop, shrugging off her jacket, her eyes immediately landing on the object sitting on the table between us. Fluorescent light glinted off brushed steel.

“I need you to try this on,” I said.

She stopped a few steps away, folding her arms as she studied it. Up close, the hood looked heavier than it had in my sketches—cool, industrial, all smooth curves and carefully fitted seams. The collar was thick, hinged at the front. The faceplate was sculpted and severe, with narrow slits and a sealed mouthpiece that gave it a stark, anonymous expression.

“This?” she repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not putting that on me?” she said immediately, though there was a hint of amusement in her voice.

“It’ll just be for a few minutes,” I explained. “I just need to make sure it fits right. The measurements look good on paper, but that doesn’t mean the seams sit properly once it’s closed around the head.”

“I don’t want that on me.” This time she sounded firmer, shaking her head.

I held up my hands in surrender. “Fine. Then help me into it.”

She hesitated, then sighed.

“You just have to check that everything closes seamlessly,” I told her. “That’s it.”

I stepped to the table and picked up the hood. Even expecting the weight, I felt it pull at my arms. The metal was cool against my palms. I released the collar latch and eased the hinge open, then carefully separated the faceplate from the rear shell. The interior padding was dark and neatly fitted, designed to press close without pinching.

I turned toward her and held it up. “Okay. Guide it.”

She moved closer, her fingers brushing mine as she took some of the weight. Together we positioned it in front of my face. I tilted my head slightly into it, and she steadied the front while I slid into the padded interior.

The world narrowed instantly. Steel framed my vision; the workshop lights became thin, filtered bands through the eye slits. The metal settled around my temples and cheeks with a cold, deliberate embrace.

“Hold still,” she murmured.

I felt her step behind me. The back half of the hood came down, enclosing my head completely. There was a solid, resonant click as the hinge aligned. Her hands were firm as she pressed the two halves together, making sure the seams met flush.

Then the collar.

The curved band circled my neck, heavy and unyielding. I felt the two sides touch behind my head before she drew them closed. The final latch slid into place with a decisive metallic snap that echoed inside the confined space.

The sensation was immediate and total. The hood pressed evenly around my skull; the collar anchored it, distributing the weight downward. My jaw couldn’t open more than a fraction. My breath sounded louder, contained, each exhale rebounding softly off the interior.

“How is it?” I asked.

My voice came out low and muffled, shaped by steel and padding. The words vibrated faintly against my own skin.

She stepped back into my limited field of vision. I could only see her when she leaned directly in front of me.

“You sound different,” she said, circling slowly. I could track her only by the faint shift of air and the rhythm of her footsteps. “It looks ... intense.”

“Seams?” I asked.

“Hold on.” I heard her phone unlock. “I’ll take some pictures.”

I stood as still as I could, hyperaware of every point of contact—the cool firmness at my forehead, the unyielding pressure along my jaw, the collar resting solidly against my shoulders. Without being able to turn my head, I felt oddly statuesque, like a display piece in my own workshop.

A soft shutter sound. Then another.

“Riley?” I said, the name slightly distorted behind the mouthpiece.

“Yeah. I’m here.” Her voice was closer now.

“Do you want it locked?” she asked.

The question hung between us.

I nodded carefully, the motion constrained. I lifted a hand and gestured toward where I thought the table stood. Somewhere near where the hood had rested was the custom padlock—machined to match, brushed steel like everything else.

I heard her steps cross the floor. Metal scraped softly against metal as she picked it up.

There was a pause.

Then I felt her fingers at the base of my neck.

The faint tug of alignment. The cool brush of steel against steel. A breath close to my shoulder.

The lock clicked through the hasp.

A sharp, contained snap.

The sound was different from the hinge—smaller, but final. It echoed inside the hood with disproportionate force, rebounding through the padding and into my jaw.

Something in my chest tightened.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

I became acutely aware of the fact that I couldn’t remove it now. Not without her.

“Let me take a few more pictures.”

The shutter sounded louder than before. Each artificial chirp felt oddly invasive in the confined dark. I stood motionless, the collar anchoring me, the hood pressing evenly around my skull. My breathing had settled into something slower, heavier.

I could feel the weight of it differently now—not just physical, but conditional.

She moved again. I tracked her by sound alone: a shift of fabric, the faint planting of her shoes against concrete.

Then she stepped directly in front of me.

I could see only fragments of her—one eye framed in steel, the line of her mouth when she leaned closer, the blur of her hair in the periphery.

She bent slightly, trying to meet my gaze through the narrow slits.

I couldn’t tell what my expression looked like from the outside. I only knew how it felt inside—limited, controlled, but good.

“Anything else before I take it off?” she asked. Her voice was softer now. Closer. “Do you need to be in it a while longer?”

The question was simple. Practical.

But it didn’t feel simple.

Because staying was no longer about fit or seams.

It was about choice.

And she knew that. That was why she asked.

I didn’t answer immediately.

The silence stretched just long enough to be noticeable.

After a moment, she stepped back, giving me space instead of filling it.

“I’ll leave it on,” she said. Her tone shifted—lighter now, practical. “The client’s probably going to keep her in it for long periods. This way you can see how it still feels after a while.”

She always did that—making it sound like whoever wore the items I made, it was never their choice. They didn’t decide. The control was never theirs.

I turned toward the sound of her moving away and caught a faint, distorted glimpse of her through the slits as she toed off her shoes. They landed softly against the wall. A second later, the couch cushions sighed as she dropped onto them.

For a moment, I remained standing in the middle of the workshop, locked in polished steel, listening to the ordinary sounds of our living room.

The contrast was almost absurd.

Seeing me still there, rigid and statue-still, she huffed a quiet laugh and stood again. I felt her take my arm—not controlling, just guiding—and led me toward the couch.

“Careful,” she murmured.

The cushions dipped as I sat. The collar shifted slightly against my shoulders, the weight redistributing. A second later she stretched out beside me and, without ceremony, rested her feet in my lap.

Warm. Familiar.

“Today sucked.”

I angled my shoulders as much as the collar allowed, turning toward her voice. The movement was small, constrained.

“Why?”

She exhaled sharply. “My students. They’re just not serious.” A pause. “Half of them feel like professional students. Like the university’s just a holding pattern before the real world.”

I listened.

That was the strange part—the hood didn’t prevent listening. If anything, it sharpened it. Without being able to see her fully, I focused on cadence instead: the frustration threading through her voice, the tired humor underneath it.

She talked about missed deadlines. Blank stares. Excuses.

The usual.

Time thinned. Without visual markers, it became difficult to measure. Minutes could have been longer. Or shorter. The pressure of the hood faded from sharp awareness into something steady, constant—like a firm hand resting at the back of my head.

Eventually the couch shifted as she sat upright.

“You want it off?” she asked.

I considered the question more carefully this time.

Then I nodded.

She slipped off the couch.

I heard her moving behind me—metal sliding softly against metal, something small being shifted across the table.

“Where are the keys?” she called.

“On the table,” I said, raising my voice so it would carry through the hood.

A second passed.

“What do they look like?”

I couldn’t help it. “Keys.”

I leaned forward and stood, the movement slow. The collar resisted slightly as I turned toward her voice.

“You’re going to fall,” she warned.

“I won’t.”

I moved carefully toward the table, one hand extended until my fingers met the edge. I braced myself there and angled my vision downward through the narrow slits.

Survey. Scan. Adjust.

It was the only way to compensate—slow, methodical, systematic. Without peripheral vision, the world became something you covered in sections.

“It’s here,” I said.

“If you cleaned up every now and then, we wouldn’t be constantly looking for things,” she shot back.

There was no real heat in it. Not tonight.

But it was a familiar fault line between us.

She’d been drawn to the artist in me—the obsession, the precision, the way I disappeared into projects for hours. What she hadn’t loved was the debris field that followed. Tools half put away. Materials stacked in temporary piles that became permanent. One project bleeding into the next without reset.

She was right. I rarely finished cleaning before beginning again.

I continued scanning the table—machined parts, cloth, calipers, the empty space where the hood had rested.

Then she said, closer now, “Here.”

She stepped into my limited field of view and lifted something small and metallic.

“These?”

I leaned closer, narrowing my focus.

“Yeah.”

She placed her hands on my shoulders and gently turned me around.

“Hold still.”

Her fingers found the lock at the base of my neck. For a moment she fumbled—the angle awkward, the key small. I felt the slight tremor of metal against metal, the careful adjustment.

Then—

A clean, decisive click.

A second later I heard the lock drop onto the table with a solid, unceremonious clunk.

The finality of it was softer than when it went on.

I then felt her hands at the back of my neck again. The collar latch shifted, resisting for half a second before releasing with a dull click. Air slipped in as the tension eased. The back half of the hood separated, cool air brushing against skin that had already grown warm beneath the metal.

The front lifted away, and the room expanded back to its normal proportions. Light seemed brighter, sounds sharper, like I’d surfaced from underwater.

She placed the hood into my hands, and I set it carefully on the table, aligning the edges and closing it once more so the seams met perfectly. The metal clicked together with quiet precision.

“Well?” I asked.

She gave me a slow, thoughtful look. “It fits,” she said. “Perfectly.”

She then handed me her phone so I could see the images.

“I could barely understand you.”

I rubbed at my jaw, still adjusting to the absence of pressure. “The hood keeps your mouth almost completely closed. You have to speak with your teeth together.”

“That sounds healthy,” she muttered sarcastically.

“It’s structural,” I said. “If the mouth section flexed, it would compromise the integrity of the faceplate.”