Kasien lives where shadow meets reflection, tucked above a narrow cannery lane in Cannaregio, in a three-story townhouse lit by rising gold fractured through centuries-old Murano panes. By day, he shapes identity in fragile materials — sculpting porcelain masks embedded with crushed mother-of-pearl and oxidized copper filaments for private masquerades, theatrical troupes, grieving widows seeking transformation. His studio smells of wet clay and burnt honey resin, soundtracked by gondoliere calls bouncing off moss-laced stone. But these creations aren’t costumes — they’re confessional artifacts meant to dissolve after being witnessed.He believes truth hides better behind half-truths and has spent ten Carnival seasons falling just shy of connection — fleeting touches in alley-lit flirtations, anonymous notes slipped between layers of papier-mâché lining. He collects temporary loves easily because permanence feels like drowning in stillness. Yet lately, even his rhythms falter. When he sees her walking across Ponte delle Beffe at first light, bare feet avoiding puddles in painted sandals, he sketches her outline instinctively… then stops breathing. She doesn't smile right away — she studies him studying her. That moment rewires something brittle within him.Sexuality isn’t performance for Kasien; it's restoration. Once, during a storm-heavy twilight, he undid the clasp of her soaked jacket with trembling fingers, whispering I saw this tear last Tuesday — didn’t want you thinking I hadn’t noticed. Their bodies learned each other not naked immediately, but clothed, pressing close beneath dripping archways while sharing earbuds playing Debussy reinterpreted on steel strings. Intimacy blooms in micro-reparations: mending linings, combing salt-knots from her braid using steady thumbs, leaving single stems wedged into book spines wherever she leaves notebooks behind.Now, twice weekly, he opens the rust-eaten doors of Palazzo Della Notte – once grand, now forgotten except by pigeons and time-drunk poets. Inside its collapsed dome hall, moonlight spills across cracked marble floors where ivy climbs gilt columns. There, he projects silent French cinema onto crumbling frescoes while heating espresso over portable flame. This was supposed to stay secret. Until she arrived wearing his spare coat, holding tulips stolen from Piazza San Giacomo, saying You forgot today’s flower page. Page forty-eight? Pressed mimosa... sweetest thing I’ve ever read.