The Best of Lucius Shepard (82 page)

“I’m
glad you did.”

“If
you’re so glad, why are you standing up there?”

“I’ll
come down.”

“And
yet,” she said after a beat, “still you stand there.”

“How’ve
you been?”

“Do
you want me to lie? The only reason I can think of for you to ask that is you
want me to lie. You know how I’ve been. I’ve been heartbroken.” She ran a hand
along one of the beams and examined her palm as if mindful of dust or a
splinter. “I won’t ask the same question. I know how you’ve been. You’ve been
conflicted. And now you look frightened.”

I
felt encased in some cold unyielding substance, like a souvenir of life
preserved in lucite.

“Why
don’t you talk to me?” She let out a chillier laugh. “Explain yourself.”

“Jesus,
Bianca. I just didn’t understand what was going on.”

“So
it was an intellectual decision you made? A reaction to existential confusion?”

“Not
entirely.”

“I
was making a joke.” She strolled along the wall and stopped to peer at one of
the faces.

“I
wasn’t,” I said. “What you told me … how can you believe it?”

“You
think I’m lying?”

“I
think there’s drugs in the food … in the air. Or something. There has to be a
mechanism involved. Some sort of reasonable explanation.”

“For
what? My insanity?” She backed against the wall in order to see me better.
“This is so dishonest of you.”

“How’s
it dishonest?”

“You
were happier thinking I was a post-operative transsexual? It’s my irrational
beliefs that drove you away? Please!” She fiddled with the ends of her hair.
“Suppose what I told you is true. Suppose who I am with you is who you want me
to be. Who I want to be. Would that be more unpalatable than if my sex was the
result of surgery?”

“But
it’s not true.”

“Suppose
it is.” She folded her arms, waiting.

“I
don’t guess it would matter. But that’s not …”

“Now
suppose just when we’re starting to establish something strong, you rip it
apart?” A quaver crept into her voice. “What would that make you?”

“Bianca
…”

“It’d
make you a fool! But then of course I’m living in a drug-induced fantasy that
causes you existential confusion.”

“Whatever
the case,” I said, “I probably am a fool.”

It
was impossible to read her face at that distance, but I knew her expression was
shifting between anger and despair.

“Are
you okay?” I asked.

“God!
What’s wrong with you?” She stalked to the door, paused in the entrance; she
stood without speaking for what seemed a very long time, looking down at the
floor, then glanced sideways up at me. “I was going to prove something to you
today, but I can see proving it would frighten you even more. You have to learn
to accept things, Tommy, or else you won’t be able to do your time. You’re not
deceiving anyone except yourself.”

“
I’m
deceiving myself? Now that’s a joke!”

She waved at the mural. “You think what you’re painting is a lie. Don’t
deny it. You think it’s a con you’re running on us. But when I leave it’ll be
the only thing in the room that’s still alive.” She stepped halfway through the
door, hesitated, and, in a voice that was barely audible, said, “Goodbye,
Tommy.”

·
· · · ·

I experienced a certain relief after Bianca’s visit, an emotion bred by my
feeling that now the relationship was irretrievably broken, and I could refocus
my attention on escape; but my relief was short-lived. It was not simply that I
was unable to get Bianca out of my thoughts, or even that I continued to
condemn myself both for abandoning her and for having involved myself with her
in the first place—it was as if I were engaged in a deeper struggle, one whose
nature was beyond my power to discern, though I assumed my attitudes toward
Bianca contributed to its force. Because I was unable, or perhaps unwilling, to
face it, this irresolvable conflict began to take a toll. I slept poorly and
turned to drink as a remedy. Many days I painted drunk, but drunkenness had no
deleterious effect on the mural—if anything, it sharpened my comprehension of
what I was about. I redid the faces on the lower portions of the walls,
accentuating their beastliness, contrasting them with more human faces above,
and I had several small technical breakthroughs that helped me create the
luminous intensity I wanted for the upper walls. The nights, however, were not
so good. I went to wandering again, armed against self-recrimination and the
intermittent appearances of Harry Colangelo with a bottle of something, usually
home brew of recent vintage. Frequently I became lost in the sub-basements and
wound up passed out on the floor. During one of these wanders, I noticed I was
a single corridor removed from the habitat of the plumes, and this time, not
deceiving myself as to motive, I headed for the white door. I had no wish to
find Bianca. I was so debased in spirit, the idea of staining my flesh to match
enticed me, and when I pushed into the entryway and heard loud rock and roll
and saw that the halation surrounding the light fixtures had thickened into an
actual mist that caused men and plumes to look like fantastical creatures, gray
demons and their gaudy, grotesque mistresses, I plunged happily into the life
of the place, searching for the most degrading encounter available.

Her
name was Joy, a Los Angeleno by birth, and when I saw her dancing in the club
with several men under a spotlight that shined alternately purple and rose, she
seemed the parody of a woman. Not that she was unfeminine, not in the least.
She was Raphaelesque, like an old-fashioned Hollywood blond teetering on the
cusp between beauty and slovenly middle-age, glossy curls falling past her
shoulders, the milky loaves of her breasts swaying ponderously in gray silk,
her motherly buttocks dimpling beneath a tight skirt, her scarlet lips
reminding of those gelatin lips full of cherry syrup you buy at Halloween, her
eyes tunnels of mascara pricked by glitters. Drunk, I saw her change as the
light changed. Under the purple she whitened, grew soft as ice cream,
ultimately malleable; she would melt around you. Under the rose, a she-devilish
shape emerged; her touch would make you feverish, infect you with a genital
heat. I moved in on her, and because I had achieved an elevated status due to
my connection with the board, the men dancing with her moved aside. Her fingers
locked in my hair, her swollen belly rolled against me with the sodden
insistence of a sea thing pushed by a tide. Her mouth tasted of liqueur and I
gagged on her perfume, a scent of candied flowers. She was in every regard
overpowering, like a blond rhinoceros. “What’s the party for?” I shouted above
the music. She laughed and cupped both hands beneath her breasts, offering them
to me, and as I squeezed, manipulating their shapes, her eyelids drooped and
her hips undulated. She pulled my head close and told me what she wanted me to
do, what she would do.

Whereas
sex with Bianca had been nuanced, passion cored with sensitivity, with Joy it
was rutting, tumultuous, a jungle act, all sweat and insanity, pounding and
meaty, and when I came I felt I was deflating, every pure thing spurting out of
me, leaving a sack of bones and organic stink lying between her Amazon thighs.
We fucked a second time with her on top. I twisted her nipples hard, like
someone spinning radio dials, and throwing back her head she spat up great
yells, then braced both hands on the pillow beside my head and hammered down
onto me, her mouth slack, lips glistening with saliva poised an inch above
mine, grunting and gasping. Then she straightened, arched her back, her entire
body quaking, and let out a hideous groan followed by a string of profane
syllables. Afterward she sat in a chair at her dressing table wearing a black
bra and panties, legs crossed, attaching a stocking to her garter belt, posing
an image that was to my eyes grossly sexual, repellently voluptuous, obscenely
desirable. As she stretched out her leg, smoothing ripples in the silk, she
said. “You used to be Bianca’s friend.”

I
did not deny it.

“She’s
crazy about you, y’know.”

“Is
she here? At the party?”

“You
don’t need her tonight,” Joy said. “You already got everything you needed.”

“Is
she here?”

She
shook her head. “You won’t be seeing her around for a while.”

I
mulled over this inadequate answer and decided not to pursue it.

Joy
put on her other stocking. “You’re still crazy about her. I’m a magnet for guys
in love with other women.” She admired the look of her newly stockinged leg.
“It’s not so bad. Sad guys fuck like they have something to prove.”

“Is
that right?”

“You
were trying to prove something, weren’t you?”

“Probably
not what you think.”

She
adjusted her breasts, settling them more cozily in the brassiere. “Oh, I know
exactly what you were trying to prove.” She turned to the mirror, went to
touching up her lipstick, her speech becoming halting as she wielded the
applicator. “I am … expert in these matters … like all … ladies of the
evening.”

“Is
that how you see yourself?”

She
made a kissy mouth at her reflection. “There’s something else in me, I think,
but I haven’t found the man who can bring it out.” She adopted a thoughtful
expression. “I could be very domestic with the right person. Very nurturing.
Once the new wing’s finished … I’m sure I’ll find him then.”

“There’ll
be real women living in the new wing. Lots of competition.”

“We’re
the real women,” she said with more than a hint of irritation. “We’re not there
yet, but we’re getting there. Some of us are there already. You should know.
Bianca’s living proof.”

Unwilling
to explore this or any facet of this consensus fantasy, I changed the subject.
“So, what’s your story?” I asked.

“You
mean my life story? Do you care?”

“I’m
just making conversation.”

“We
had our conversation, sweetie. We just didn’t talk all that much.”

“I
wasn’t finished.”

She
looked at me over her shoulder, arching an eyebrow. “My, my. You must really
have something to prove.” She rested an elbow on the back of the chair. “Maybe
you should go hunt up Bianca.”

It
was a thought, but one I had grown accustomed to rejecting. I reached down
beside the bed, groping for my bottle. The liquor seemed to have an immediate
effect, increasing my level of drunkenness, and with it my capacity for
rejection. The colors of the room were smeary, as if made from different shades
of lipstick. Joy looked slug-white and bloated, a sickly exuberance of flesh
strangled by black lace, the monstrous ikon of a German Expressionist wet
dream.

She
gave what I took for a deprecating laugh. “Sure, we can converse some more if
you want.” She started to unhook her brassiere.

“Leave that shit on,” I said. “I’ll work around it.”

·
· · · ·

Not long after my night with Joy, a rumor began to circulate that one of the
plumes had become pregnant, and when I discovered that the plume in question was
Bianca, I tried to find her. I gave the rumor little credit. Yet she had
claimed she could prove something to me, and thus I could not completely
discredit it. I was unsure how I would react if the rumor reflected the truth,
but what chance was there of that? My intention was to debunk the rumor. I
would be doing her a favor by forcing her to face reality. That, at any rate,
is what I told myself. When I was unable to track her down, informed that she
was sequestered, I decided the rumor must be a ploy designed to win me back,
abandoned my search, and once again focused my energy upon the mural. Though a
third of the walls remained unfinished, I now had a more coherent idea of the
figures that would occupy the dome, and I was eager to finalize the conception.
Despite this vitality of purpose, I felt bereft, dismally alone, and when
Richard Causey came to visit, I greeted him effusively, offering him
refreshment from my store of junk food. Unlike my other visitors, he had almost
nothing to say about the mural, and as we ate on the lowest platform of the
scaffolding, it became obvious that he was preoccupied. His eyes darted about;
he cracked his knuckles and gave indifferent responses to everything I said. I
asked what was on his mind and he told me he had stumbled upon an old tunnel
beneath the lowest of the sub-basements. The door leading to it was wedged shut
and would take two people to pry open. He believed there might be something
significant at the end of the tunnel.