In the bath, I had fun floating as flat as I could below the surface, keeping my whole body under water. Something would always end up poking out, a bit of my stomach, a breast, or a knee.

When I came out of the bathroom, Kerrand was waiting by the door, holding a towel. He’d taken off his jumper. His skin visible beneath the linen shirt. He glanced almost imperceptibly over my breasts beneath my nightgown, down my legs, and quickly back up again. I realized with disgust that my scar was completely exposed. He said goodnight and hurriedly shut himself in the bathroom.

In bed later, I heard the pen scratching. I pinned myself against the thin wall. A gnawing sound, irritating. Working its way under my skin. Stopping and starting. I pictured Kerrand, his fingers scurrying like spiders’ legs, his eyes traveling up, scrutinizing the model, looking down at the paper again, looking back up to make sure his pen conveyed the truth of his vision, to keep her from vanishing while he traced the lines. I imagined her dressed in a single piece of fabric from her chest to the top of her thighs, leaning one arm on the wall, tilting her chin upward to say something to him, teasing him, sure of herself. And then something would spook him, again, and he’d spill the ink and make her disappear.

The pen scratches merged to become one long, slow sound, like a lullaby. Before I fell asleep, I tried to hold on to the images planted in my mind, knowing they’d be gone by the time I woke up.

WITH THE GUEST HOUSE paralyzed by the cold, there wasn’t much for me to do. I washed the breakfast dishes and hung around in reception with Park. The television was on. He watched and I surreptitiously scanned the classified pages in the papers, looking for job vacancies in Sokcho. Dockyard supervisor, sailor, diver, dog walker. I went online and read synopses of Kerrand’s stories, I followed his hero to Egypt, Peru, Tibet, Italy. I looked at ticket prices for flights to France and calculated how long I’d have to work at the guest house before I could leave, even though I knew I would never do it. The Japanese cat over the computer waved its paw. That same tedious grin. Hard to believe I’d found it cute at first.

A beetle hauled itself across the desk and came to a halt next to my files. It must have survived by hiding away indoors before the first frosts came. I took hold of it delicately. Its legs started waving around in the air, its antennae reaching out, almost as if it was pleading with me. I turned it over to inspect its belly. Nice. All smooth and rounded. Park told me to crush it but I didn’t want to harm it. I never killed those beetles. I threw them out of the window to die outside in their own time.