Fun Fact!
I am actually a model and a photographer and I specialize in self-shot photography.
The vast majority of these photos actually exist and I am the subject of every single one of them. I either modeled the photos or took and modeled them myself.
I have changed a few of them slightly to better fit this story and my OC.

Chapter 31

Bucky was speechless at how casually Ella had just told him, in front of Sam, that she was into him. That she was interested.

His face must have mirrored how taken aback he felt.

Ella just smiled her crooked smile at him and began to walk to the next photo. This one was a set made up of just one frame.

Sam was right behind her, but it took Bucky a minute to collect himself and join them. This was not one-sided. And now he knew it for a fact. The question now was, what was he going to do with it, and was he going to do anything about it at all?

They then found themselves in front of the photo of Ella suspended and tied up elaborately in the red rope.

"The rope artist and I had designed a total of three different setups for this particular set. But, as you can see, we only got to execute one. They were only in town for the day and we ran out of time. Turns out our plans were way more extravagant than they should have been. The execution time of the rope work on my body alone took almost 2 hours for this one alone. The suspension took another hour, maybe closer to two. Including shooting this, we ended up running out of time."

"This is impressive. Were there any issues or complications during the setup or shooting due to the rope? You're really strung up there." Sam asked.

Bucky was still lost in thought. If he took this further, he would have to tell Ella everything. No more secrets. Could he do that? Could she handle that? The answer to the last question was a booming 'yes. Yes, she could.' Of all people, Ella would be able to handle that information. But was he ready to do that?

He brought himself back to the conversation quickly. Just barely registering Sam's question.

"No, everything went perfectly smoothly. We just got a little overzealous. The discoloration you see in my limbs is perfectly normal and to be expected. I could have hung there for quite a while before I had to be cut down. The hardest part was coming down. That leg that's bent up and over my head fell asleep and I damn near broke my ankle when I was let down."

All three of them laughed. A thought came to Bucky's mind.

"Why do you look so serene?" Bucky asked.

Ella thought for a moment about how to answer.

"Hmmm. How is the best way to put it? I guess it would have to be complete and utter surrender. Which is the opposite of the message I'm trying to send. I felt safe, I was in great hands. I like being tied up. And the stringing up is a whole other experience. It is as freeing as it is binding."

Bucky thought on this while Sam asked another question.

"So, the facial expression is a blooper? What was your original message for this piece?"

"In a way, yes. As it is contradictory to my message. But at the same time, it's not if you think about it. The message is losing control and just being a puppet on a string. However, my facial expression shows an acceptance of that since we are all puppets to a certain extent. The question is, how much will you fight it? How much control is worth losing? I guess this is more cerebral than I intended."

Sam joined Bucky in deep thought. Ella had raised some interesting and deep questions. They were thought-provoking. Both men stood silent as they thought of their respective perspectives, gazing upon the photo in question.

Ella stood to the side, watching them both. She was starting to like these two. One more so than the other. The other was slowly growing on her, though. She looked at Bucky and sighed happily.

After she watched them for a few more minutes she decided to interrupt their thoughts.

"Are you two ready to head to the next set of photos? We could keep discussing this one, but we still have more than half of the gallery to go through and I doubt you want to be here all night."

With that, all three walked together to the next arrangement of photos. These were the black hands photos where Ella was smearing the black paint all over herself.

Ella turned and look at them expectantly.

"Thoughts?"

"It reminds me of a very familiar feeling. But I just cannot seem to put my finger on it. I can't describe it."

Bucky said as he looked at the photos. The last photo of Ella covered in black smears with her hands around her neck, in particular, was holding his attention.

"Try. Try to describe it."

Bucky looked over at her watching him. She had her arms crossed at her waist. She raised a hand to her mouth in thought.

"Messy. These seem messy. Though that is the most obvious description I can come up with. What I mean is a feeling. Something that cannot easily be explained or put into words."

Ella narrowed her eyes at him before she elaborated on the frames.

"Well, they are messy. Not nearly as messy as the syrup photos. What I really mean by these is that I ruin everything I touch. Everything I touch turns black and that blackness spreads. It devours everything. Especially myself."

Now it clicked. Now Bucky knew why it was so familiar. That was something he had been battling with for so long. Even if it wasn't in the same sense. He killed everything he touched. Everyone and everything died around him. Death spread from his fingers and just kept spreading like the black on her hands.

But he couldn't tell her any of that.

They stood there looking at each other until Sam cleared his throat.

"I'll meet you guys at the next collection."

Sam walked off while both Bucky and Ella didn't move. Without a word, they walked side by side to meet up with Sam. When they reached him, Ella looked at the photos and smirked. It was the set of her in the claw-footed bathtub, filled with a viscous black substance.

"Bathe me in my misery."

"What?" Sam questioned.

"It's a quote from one of my favorite artists, Shawn Coss. One of his drawings inspired this one. These also tie into the previous frames that we just saw."

"How do these photos tie in exactly?" Bucky inquired.

"That darkness I just mentioned? I'm sitting in it. Welcoming it. Bathing in it. Letting it consume me. This is another representation of depression. Only this time I'm embracing it fully, stewing in it, and literally bathing in my misery."

"I believe I said 'stewing in your own muck' the first time around. Didn't I Bucky?"

Sam looked at Bucky for confirmation.

Bucky just nodded. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He knew which photos were coming next and he was deciding whether or not to pass them and just keep walking until he got to her military photos.

Ella pulled him out of his thoughts and spoke as if she had read them.

"We are just going to bypass the next photos. I assume you can guess why. Everything you think about them is true. It did happen. I grew up and I have moved on. I won't say that I got over it because that would be a fucking lie. But do you want to know a little secret no one else knows about those photos?"

Bucky finally looked at Ella and her solemn expression.

Sam was the one who answered her. Bucky seemed to have lost his voice.

"What's the secret?"

Without taking her eyes off of Bucky, Ella answered.

"That stuffed rabbit? I've had that thing since it was bigger than I was. I still have it back at my parent's house in Phoenix. And that man is dead and gone. " Said Ella in English, then in Russian.

A wave of relief swept over Bucky as he had never felt before. Then just as quickly as the relief had come, it was gone. The man responsible may be gone, but what was done was done. There was no taking it away, there was no making the memories go away.

The damage had been done.

Ella must have read the emotions playing across Bucky's face. She looked so heartbroken as he made the circle back around to the realization of what was done could not be taken back. She assured him with a small smile.

She turned away from him and started walking down the hallway again. Right past the photos depicting her childhood trauma. She turned right and headed down the smaller hallway and stopped in the middle of three photos. In front of the center photo of the only set of prints in that part of the gallery.

The photos of her in her military uniform from the Green Berets. With all of her decorations, badges, patches, and ribbons attached to her skin. Pierced into place.

It took them a few seconds to react to Ella's sudden change, Bucky took a fraction of a second longer than Sam. He looked away when he passed the photographs of Ella's horrific experience.

As Sam and Bucky approached, Ella, being much faster than either of them, even in heels, leaned against the opposite wall. Admiring her work.

"Now how in the world did you manage to pull these off?" Sam inquired as he stood beside Ella.

"Give me the resources and I can get almost anything done. Everything else I can Gerry Rig." Ella looked at Sam with a smug grin on her face.

"Did you attach all of this to your skin? By yourself?" Bucky asked, slightly taken aback by the thought of Ella doing this all by herself.

"Absolutely not! I had a professional piercer do all the surgical work. And yes, they are all attached directly to my skin. That blood is as real as it can get. Look at the scars they left."

Ella turned to Bucky and pulled the neckline of her dress down slightly. When he looked closer, he could see white pinpricks, that were indeed scars, that aligned with where her decorations were in the photos. Sam looked over but not as closely, but close enough to see the scars and make an amazed face.

"Did they hurt?"

"Yes, they did. But that uniform is more than skin deep. That's where this idea originally came from. I also put these here for a reason. I placed them in the center of the gallery and in between two very important sets of photos. They are also the only ones not for sale."

"For sale?" Bucky asked quizzically.

Ella looked at him with confusion in her eyes.

"This isn't just an exhibition; every photo is for sale. I do not show off my work for nothing. If I did, there would have been a cover charge. At the end of the show, I'll hopefully have sold all of the prints you have seen. Except for these. These are in almost every show I put on."

"How much do you think you'll make at the end of this? If you don't mind me asking, of course." Sam inquired, breaking his momentary silence.

Ella looked at him with a blank expression. But Bucky could see something brewing in her eyes. He tried to hide his smile as he looked to Sam to watch his reaction.

"Every photo is priced differently. Depending on how much work went into creating it. If you buy a set, you get a better deal. The cheapest single image in this show starts at $1,500. The cheapest set of prints start at $3,000. These are all single print editions so if more than one person wants a photo or a set, it goes to the highest bidder. And I will probably sell almost every print in this place by the end of the week-long run. They are already half sold from what I have been told."

"And you own this gallery as well as this building?" Sam asked, stunned.

"Yes." Ella said with a smile on her face.

Sam then turned to Bucky and pointed his finger at him.

"Man, you are a fucking gold-digger!"

Their laughter echoed through the hallways.

"Good on you, girl. You sure know how to hustle. So, what are the other implications for these photos in particular?"

"Thanks, Sam. I've been doing this awhile. Took me a long time to be able to charge this much for my work. Being an artist usually does not pay very well. An important thing about these is their placement. Not just the fact that they are in the center of the show and the gallery, but which two sets they are positioned between. The last series was also the 13th series in the show. My message is that the little girl in those photos grew up to be the woman in these. And the woman in these photos is the same woman that is in the next collection."

Ella said while pointing down the hall from whence they had come, then to the other end where they were going.

Bucky thought back and remembered which set came next. It was the six photos of Ella beat to shit in six different ways. The next half of the gallery was not going to be fun, but he was dying to hear what she had to say on the hardest photos to process.

He was about to get one hell of an insight into Ella. Personally, and artistically.

"That's one serious statement. A very powerful one, at that. I never would have made the connection between the three, but when you do. Wow." Stated Sam.

He looked down at his feet and grasped his hands behind his back before he continued.

"Can I ask you a question about your time with the Green Berets?" Sam asked, trying to sound off-handed and failed.

"You want to know how I served in the special services as a woman." Ella said matter-of-factly.

Sam just looked up at her, looking somewhat sheepish.

"Yeah. The Pentagon ruling came in 2016. Obviously after you were already established."

"I left in 2016. Due to the Pentagon's ruling. The short version of the story is that the government will do what the government wants. Especially if they want something bad enough. Even if it goes against their own rules and policies. How they got around this one, in particular, was they created a new identity for me. I became Elliot Keehn. A man, on paper. Everything I ever accomplished in my military career is under a name that is not mine."

Bucky looked at the name tag pierced into her flesh. ' .' E for Elliot. Not Eleonore.

"So, they gave you a new identity just so you could serve as a Green Beret? They must have wanted you pretty badly. Then why did you leave after the ruling? Wouldn't that have made everything easier?"

Ella laughed sardonically.

"You would think it would have made it easier. It just caused more of a rift between me and my commanding officers. They thought it would be better to have me start over under my real name to show how progressive they were. My entire career would have been erased and left under a name that wasn't even mine. A person that doesn't even exist. I worked too damn hard for too damn long. I put up with too much fucking shit from those men, to give all that up. To give in. In the end, they just wouldn't come out and say that there had been a woman bearded bastard for years before the Pentagon ruling."

Bucky stayed silent. There was something Ella had said that caused him to pause.

Meanwhile, Sam spoke up.

"That is so fucked up! Wouldn't it have been more progressive of them to just come out and say you had been there the whole time? Especially considering your achievements and decorations?"

Ella sighed and looked back up at the photos.

"Thanks, Sam. It really was fucked up. I'm glad my current boss came in and gave me the offer when he did. It gave me a way out that didn't end with a dishonorable discharge. And you would think, right? But no. That would make sense."

"What do these other photos on either side mean? They have everything to do with what happened."

Ella nodded and Sam and looked back up at the portraits on either side.

"The one with the duct tape is about my silence. How I was not only silenced in many ways, but my career was as well. The rope matches the stitching in my uniform. Which to me symbolizes how it bound me. I should be proud of that uniform, and in many ways I am. But in many more, I am not. I also made sure they overlapped with each other so there were no differences besides the view from the back in this one and the duct tape in this one."

What Ella had said earlier was still ruminating in Bucky's head. He was aware of her and Sam's conversation, but unexpectedly something clicked and he looked up at Ella.

"What do you mean you 'put up with too much shit from those men'?"

Bucky asked way more seriously than he had planned. Ella looked over at him, the look in her eyes told him more than he wanted to know. He had to know. She had to tell him what she had meant by that.

If she meant what he thought she meant then all three of these series of photos surrounding them came to the same supposition.