by Allegra Hyde

“When Danto helped Magda Maria out of the black fur coat, tenderly he folded it beside them on a barstool where it seemed to drowse like a pampered beast, we saw then that Magda Maria wore clothes, or strips of cloth, that were layered, flimsy as cobwebs, black muslin and black silk and black lace, a black skirt with a jagged hemline and an unexpected slit at the sides that exposed her beautiful pale legs, a cobwebbed black-translucent fabric through which Magda Maria’s small ivory-white breasts shone, and the shadows of her prominent collarbone could only just be glimpsed; and Magda Maria wore shoes with stacked heels, or boots with stiletto heels, that caused her to teeter like a little girl in an adult woman’s footwear.”

-Joyce Carol Oates