Chapter 36
One year later...
Paige woke to the sound of a door closing. Lying in bed half-awake with the sheet pulled over her head, she only saw shadows through the fabric.
Over the course of several interviews with the police, Eddie and Paige learned a little more about Steele.
Documents linked him to several properties across the United States and at least one in Europe. The police had their hands full tracking down every client he’d ever had. Steele kept extensive records of the people he’d done work on and the police seemed sure they’d encounter more missing people, more bodies, but so far they hadn’t. They considered it unlikely that his behavior had been limited to her and Chris. The police also had an interest in several photographs they found in Steele’s studio. But so far nothing had come of them.
Tabitha’s deceit destroyed their friendship. Obviously, she hadn’t disliked Eddie at all. She’d wanted him for herself, and that left Paige wondering if anything about their friendship had ever been genuine. She’d lost her only real friend. But thankfully her art was quickly gaining her new ones.
The police linked Chris’s husband to a body they’d found in an alley the year before. Although there was some suspicion as to Chris’s involvement in his death, there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue the matter. She was taken to a local hospital for evaluation, but after forty-eight hours they had to release her.
Paige often wondered where Chris had gone, what she was doing. The last time they’d spoken was in Steele’s studio, and Paige still wanted to thank her for helping her, for helping her help Eddie, for calling the police.
Paige was happy their ordeal was over. That Steele’s sadistic vision had come to an end.
Sometimes in her mind, she could still see Eddie hanging from the Sycamore, his blood dripping into the red earth. Sometimes she would dream she hung on the tree in his place. Sometimes she woke up calling out to him, and he hushed her back to sleep. But those dreams were quickly fading along with their power to frighten her.
Steele was dead. No coming back from that. She had nothing to fear from him. That made her grin.
She yawned. Sunlight crept through the window, inching its way up the walls and across a canvas she’d been working on, a suburban playground filled with light and laughter.
Eddie limped over to the bed, bent down and kissed her on the neck.
She smiled, happy he’d been walking, exercising his ankles. He had only recently started walking again with any regularity.
His limp wasn’t as pronounced as it had been. Maybe soon there would be no limp at all.
For weeks, he’d been confined to a wheelchair, then crutches. During that time he lost his graphic design job but found his passion. The confinement released the writer in him. He started writing short stories within a couple of days of coming home, stories of love conquering evil, and he’d already published a few.
They were good stories, too. She had no doubt he’d move to novels soon.
Eddie held two cups of coffee and handed one to her.
Paige took the coffee and cautiously sipped. “Thank you,” she said. “What got you up so early?”
Eddie sat on the edge of the bed, reached down with his free hand, and pulled off a set of ankle weights. “It’s a beautiful day.”
She climbed out of bed and strolled to her canvas. She picked up a brush and did a bit of light work, pushing back a shadow here, touching up a child’s face there.
“It looks great,” Eddie said.
“Thanks.”
He walked to his desk not far from their bed and fired up his computer. “I’m going to get a little writing done before we go downstairs.”
They were full time artists now. They didn’t work for money or fame or to impress people. They didn’t work because they had to, as some sort of survival mechanism. They worked for the love of it.
Her paintings hadn’t turned to darkness and pain and death. They were vibrant with life. His writings hadn’t turned to violence and evil and anger. They were filled with love. Paige sighed, confident her painting and his writing showed they had a real grip on their purpose in life: To live it to the fullest.
Paige dabbed her brush on the canvas.
And there had been a miracle.
Eddie had had a revelation. He couldn’t deny what had happened to them, he couldn’t pretend things were the same, and just go on as he had before.
Their lives had been changed. Forever.
Paige sold their home. It was her last real estate sale.
They pooled their resources and bought a commercial space in the Paseo arts district. They converted the second floor into an apartment, opened the first floor as a coffee shop and art studio.
They were doing well enough they’d hired a college student to handle the early morning customers, leaving them the opportunity to enjoy one another, be grateful for life.
They made it a point to start every day right. You couldn’t put too much weight in a good start. They made their first words to each other kind words, loving words. They cooked together, cleaned together, worked together, and gave the first of themselves to the other. They were living their dreams.
Going to work for them had become as simple as walking downstairs and unlocking the front door. Paige loved that, and Eddie didn’t seem to mind much either.
Paige put down her paintbrush and walked up behind Eddie. She whispered in his ear, “I love you. You are my One.”
He kissed her on her cheek and then on her lips and then on her neck.
“I love you, too. You are my One.”
Paige nodded in the direction of the bathroom. “I’m going to jump in the shower.”
“Want some help?”
“I think I got it. For now.”
“Okay,” he said. “Just holler if you change your mind.”
Paige stepped into the bathroom, pulled off her T-shirt, and shimmied out of her panties. She looked at herself in the mirror. She saw all of her scars, old and new. The scars from her Hidradenitis. The scars from Steele’s cutting.
Eddie had scars, too. Scars on his ankles. Scars on his chest. He was unashamed of them.
Paige ran her fingers across her scars, felt the groves of them. They weren’t ugly to her anymore. They were beautiful.
They served to remind her how much she and Eddie loved one another, how much they were willing to sacrifice for one another, how unimportant physical appearances were in their relationship.
And they were badges. Badges of survival. They were a part of what made her the strong, confident woman she had become.
Paige turned to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the bedroom. She cleared her throat, and Eddie turned at the sound. He looked her body up and down, his eyes as wide as a couple of small lakes.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said with more than an invitation in the lilt in her voice and the lift of her eyebrow. “Do I really have to holler?”
Epilogue
In a secluded Upper West Side Manhattan apartment with shuttered windows pulled closed, a dozen men and women sit around little tables. Chris stands among them wearing a thick blood red robe. A white suited servant serves each person a cup of warm tea while they wait. A few whisper among themselves before the evening’s main event begins.
At the front of the room stands a round platform about a foot high. Behind it there’s a stainless steel table. A tattoo gun and inks, several scalpels, and a few other odd looking instruments rest on a cart next to the table.
Chris carefully studies the body of each person in the audience as she moves among them. Some she asks to stand. Some she asks to remove an article of clothing: a shirt here, a skirt there. Two she has strip completely nude. One a man and one a woman. As they stand naked in the crowd she reiterates her requirements.
“You must agree to sign a waiver. You must agree to receive the work of my choosing i
n the location of my choosing. The price is five thousand dollars cash. To any who wish to watch, the price is five hundred dollars cash.”
Each of the people in the room has already paid an additional five hundred dollars just for the opportunity to see the Sacred Lébé adorning her body.
Chris has turned away more than double the number seated. She intends to keep these little events exclusive.
Having made her choice, she gestures to the two people still standing, and they both sit without dressing. Then she steps up on the small round platform giving everyone a clear view of her body. The platform slowly spins. Chris drops her robe.
Several murmurs of approval come from the audience: one even gasps. Then there is silence. Chris allows the platform to make three complete rotations before she steps off. She then walks to each of the tables and allows each patron to view her individually for up to one full minute. When she completes a circuit of the room, she points to the man she has chosen.
The large nude man steps forward. As he comes toward her, all she sees is the blank canvas of his bare torso. No one leaves the room. The image of a dragon-like creature with long talons, catlike eyes, and a forked tongue extending out from a fleshy mouth flashes into her mind.
The large man lies face up on a padded table, settles under her hands as if he were a bear preparing to hibernate through the winter.
Chris takes out a pair of Sharpies, one red and one black, and sketches an image on him. She can almost feel it coming alive beneath her fingers. By the time she’s finished, she’s trembling inside with anticipation.
She turns on the tattoo gun and the vibration of it sends a tingle all the way to her crotch and turns her on. She wipes the man’s skin, dips the needles, and leans into him.
Time passes.
There is nothing but the dragon and the high she’s riding from the scent of ink and blood.
***
Kevin Adkisson is a writer. He can occasionally be found trying to dig the silver bullet from his chest and the wooden stake from his back, but more often he can be found driving his Jeep along the back roads of Oklahoma while dreaming of being a hippie beach bum. On moonless nights he can be found sitting in an empty field, writing. All proceeds the author receives from the novel "A Perfect Canvas" will be donated to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. You can find him online on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=44010927 If you would like access to his blog or if you just want to tell him how much you despise his book you can do so at: [email protected]
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