Immortal Muse

by Stephen Leigh

  “Don’t.” He spat out the word, then lifted a shoulder as if to soften the sound. “This was coming whether you were around or not. You just forced us both to see what we already knew but wouldn’t admit.” He laughed again; a shattered and uncertain amusement, the sound echoing against the empty walls. “She’s living with some friends. Left me this place since my studio’s here.” Another bitter laugh. “Not that I’m going to be able to afford to keep it—which I think was her plan. It was her salary that usually paid our rent.”

  Camille said nothing. She could feel the resentment and anger and uncertainty inside him, dark as smoke. His eyes glittered with moisture, but he blinked it away, sniffing hard once. He looked again at her. “I was going to the Bent Calliope tonight to find you, if I hadn’t heard from you. I was going to try your apartment again if you weren’t there. You can believe that or not, but it’s the truth.”

  “I believe you.”

  He nodded. “I’m glad you came by.”

  He was standing close to her. He lifted his hand as if he were about to touch her, then let it drop back to his side. He was staring at her, and as she brought her hand up to the pendant, hanging outside her blouse, he followed her hand’s movement. He took a step toward Camille, looking down at her. She wanted nothing more than to give in to the impulse to sink into the embrace she knew was waiting, to lift her face up to his for a kiss …

  “David …” His hands were on her shoulders. She felt him pull her toward him, but she resisted. “David, you—we—need to think about this. You don’t know how dangerous this is. The other times … Being with me hasn’t always been good for my lovers.”

  “I’m not them,” he said, the words a husky whisper. “Besides, how many ‘other times’ can there have been for you?”

  More than you would believe … She couldn’t say that to him. Not now. Probably not ever. “You don’t know me,” she told David. “Not yet, and not well enough.”

  “I’ve at least met your friends. They seemed fine.”

  “I don’t think you and I usually have the same kind of relationship with our friends.”

  She watched David’s eyes narrow at that, the same suspicion she’d seen in his eyes when he’d first met the others at the Bent Calliope, when he’d seen her hugging and kissing each of them, when he’d seen the casual touches, the looks. “You mean … ?”

  She took a long, slow breath, watching his face. She nodded. “Yes.”

  His eyebrows arched higher. “All of them?”

  “Yes. All of them. At one time or another.”

  “Oh.” The word came out strangely flat and emotionless. “That’s not the answer I expected.”

  “Helen told me that you had affairs with your models.”

  His face colored in embarrassment, which almost made her laugh. “I’m not going to deny that, but I’m not proud of it, either,” he said.

  “And you really shouldn’t be, but none of that matters to me,” Camille told him. “I don’t care if it was love or lust or just sex. Do you understand? I don’t care what you did in the past, David. All that matters is what happens going forward and what we can be together. I want you to feel the same way about me.”

  “These ‘relationships’ with your friends … Will they be going forward? I’m not saying I can’t handle that; I just … I just want to know.” She didn’t believe him. She rose up on her toes and kissed him quickly for the effort, though.

  “I won’t promise to be monogamous, David. We can start that way, if it’s what you need, and maybe we’ll end up that way, but I can’t promise that it will always be that way—and I won’t expect it of you, either. I’m fine with whatever happens as long as you don’t lie to me, and I won’t lie to you. If that changes things for you, then at least you know up front. So does it change things?”

  She could see him mulling that over, staring somewhere past her. Finally, he shook his head. “No, I don’t think it does.” His hand stroked her shoulder. “The other day, when I was taking those shots of you … Would you have let it go further, if Helen hadn’t interrupted us …”

  She shook her head. “No. At least I wasn’t intending for that to happen. I was your model, nothing more—just like I told Helen. Did I want it to go further? Yes, I did, very much. But it wouldn’t have been fair to her, and it wouldn’t have been fair to you, either.”

  He cocked his head toward her. “Not fair to me? I don’t understand.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t understand what being with me would mean. You can’t.”

  “Camille, that’s true of every new relationship. They’re all steps into the unknown. Let me make up my own mind, unless it’s you who aren’t certain. Is that it, Camille? Then tell me this is all one-sided. Tell me you don’t feel what I’m feeling.”

  Camille opened her mouth, but there were no words. She could sense him, could caress the deep well that existed inside him, so full of potential—not just for him but for her also. She could see the rich energy pulsing around him, a verdant aura that beckoned her, that pulled her hunger to the front of her consciousness and made her realize just how much she’d missed this type of closeness, this linkage, this union. “I …” She heard herself say. “David …”

  His arms came around her, and this time she didn’t resist. His lips sought hers, and she responded to his heat with her own fierce hunger. Her mouth opened to him. When they broke apart, gasping, his eyes were open, staring at her. His taste remained in her mouth, sweet. “On n’aime que ce qu’on ne possède pas tout entier,” Camille whispered.

  “What?”

  She smiled at him. “Nothing,” she said. “Come here.”

  She curled her arm around his neck and brought him down toward her.

  *

  “What’s that you’re singing?” David called out from the little dining nook in Camille’s apartment. Camille, in her robe, was stirring scrambled eggs and mushrooms over the stove. She hadn’t realized she was singing anything at all.

  “Si, si luci adorate,” she told him. “It’s Vivaldi.”

  “Classical, eh? You have a nice voice.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Got another question for you. Do you really believe in this crap?”

  Camille craned her head over her shoulder to see him—dressed only in his boxers, his hair sleep-tousled—holding up a Tarot card: the Two of Discs, she noted. Change and fluidity. It seemed an appropriate card for him to have plucked from the deck.

  She’d spent the first two nights at his place, but she never felt entirely comfortable there. Helen still lurked in strange places in the apartment: in the scent of the bathroom, in the arrangement of the kitchen, in the very absence of her. David’s wife was a ghost haunting the place, though David didn’t seem to notice her. Camille had finally told him that she needed to get back to her apartment and to her life—and if he wanted to, he could spend the night there.

  He had. She wasn’t certain yet that she was any more comfortable here; David was a new factor. But he fit her perfectly. His soul-heart fed her well, and she was already feeding him in return, even if he didn’t know that yet.

  “You call this ‘crap’?” she asked him. “Didn’t your mother teach you that it’s terrifically impolite to make fun of other people’s beliefs?” The eggs had firmed up; she slid a serving into each of the two plates to the side of the stove. She sprinkled shredded cheddar cheese over the eggs, added the toast she’d already buttered, and a fork. A plate in each hand, she went to the table where he was sitting and slid the plate in front of him. She kissed him and sat down. Verdette padded between her feet, leaning hard against her legs and purring—the cat entirely ignored David, and Camille hoped he’d already learned that he should do the same with her: a line of dried blood down his forearm was a reminder of when he’d tried to pet her, that first night. “Put the card back on the deck and eat,” she told David.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said as he put the card back on top
.

  “Answer my question first. What makes you think that the Tarot is crap?” she asked.

  He glanced at her cautiously and took a forkful of eggs. Swallowed. “Tastes really good.”

  “Uh-uh,” she told him. “You’re not getting out of this that easily. Why is the Tarot crap?”

  David frowned and tapped the deck of cards. “Come on, Camille. Magic, the occult? Seances and fortune-telling and stuff like that? Isn’t it all crap and fakery?” He took another bite. “Aren’t you going to tell me how wrong I am?”

  She shook her head. “No, you can believe whatever you want, as long as you’re bright enough to admit it when you find out you’re wrong. I was just curious.”

  “Am I going to find out I’m wrong on this? Are you going to prove it to me?”

  “Maybe,” she told him. “Or someone else might show you.” She hated saying that—it was as if she might conjure up the very scenario she most hoped to avoid. Her fears rose inside again: This has been a mistake. A mistake … “Right now, I’m going to eat my breakfast. Then I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Want company?”

  “Why do you think I mentioned it? You can scrub my back.”

  He grinned.

  They finished eating quickly. The hot water ran out before the shower was finished.

  After drying her hair, Camille put her robe back on. She found David looking at the paintings propped on the easels and along the walls of the spare bedroom she used as a studio, and she sat on the bed to watch him. He moved from one to the next, then scanned the supplies on the desk in the middle of the room. She could feel the emerald sea inside him pulsing as he looked at them; the feeling made her want to take up a brush and begin working. “Oils,” he said, leaning close to one painting and sniffing the surface. “I thought everyone was using acrylics these days.”

  “I’m just an old-fashioned girl. Do you paint?”

  “I used to. I started out painting; took a lot of studio classes in college, and studied Art History. Then I fell in love with photography and haven’t touched a brush in years. Your paintings remind me of the one in my apartment: the way you elongate the figures, the colors, the way you place them on the canvas.”

  “The Klimt,” she said. “Yes, Gustav was …” She stopped, finding her breath caught in her throat. “… a big influence. Maybe too much of one. I’ve had a couple gallery owners tell me the paintings are interesting, but too derivative.”

  “You don’t agree.” His tone made it a statement, not a question.

  “Doesn’t matter if I do or if I don’t. That’s their opinion. I don’t let it upset me.”

  “Klimt’s paintings were flatter and more decorative than yours, and your anatomy is more realistic. Not only that, but you’re using washes and building up the color in transparent layers like a Renaissance painter. Klimt never did that. Look how your shades almost glow in the finished ones.” He grinned at her. “Art history,” he said. “Sorry. Still, that technique’s pretty much a lost art. Now everyone just slaps on the paint in big opaque splashes.”

  “I told you I’m old-fashioned.”

  “You’re good, too.”

  She smiled at the compliment. I’m good, but I can also hear what you’re not saying, that there’s still something missing: the flair that would make the work exceptional. Good, but not great. Competent, but not quite a master. I can bring out in others what I can’t find myself.

  “Glad you like them,” she said.

  He continued to pace the room as she watched him, leaning against the doorway. Three days now with him, and already the energy has come back. I feel like picking up the brushes that I haven’t touched in too long. I feel like working with the chemicals and doing the experiments I’ve given up for too long. I feel like I can find myself again. I feel like I’ve been dozing for decades and am finally waking up once more.

  A motion caught both their eyes: Verdette, emerging from the half-open closet door. David crouched down, his hand stretched out toward the cat. Verdette hissed even as Camille said “I wouldn’t. Really.”

  David shook his head, but he straightened up. “Cats usually love me. Honestly.”

  “Not Verdette. I’m afraid she’s very much a one-person cat. Sorry.”

  “Ah, she’ll give in one day. She’ll have to.”

  “I admire your confidence,” Camille told him. Verdette leaped onto Camille’s lap, leaning into her possessively as David glanced at the closet, opening the door fully. Glass jars gleamed in the sudden light, the chemicals bright inside them. Retorts and burners huddled on the top shelf, and in one corner, notebooks were crammed onto the shelf. “Jesus,” he said. “What have you got here? A meth lab? Or do you make your own pigments, too?”

  “I do make my own pigments, but I’ve an interest in chemistry beyond that. You said you used to paint? I dabble in chemistry, too.”

  He eyed the closetful of jars. “Isn’t this a tad dangerous?”

  “Not if you know what you’re doing. And I do.”

  “Uh-huh.” He closed the closet door gingerly. “You can sing. You’re interested in the occult. You paint. You stockpile chemicals in your closet. You own the most un-cat-like cat I’ve ever known. What other secrets are you hiding from me?”

  Camille stood—Verdette growling in annoyance and slinking away—and took a step toward David. She dropped the robe from her shoulders, standing naked except for the sardonyx pendant between her breasts. “Do you see any secrets?” she asked him.

  He shrugged. She could see him struggling to keep a stern face. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I do think this requires a thorough examination …”

  *

  Later, she was standing at the window in the breakfast nook of her apartment, leaning against the wall and looking out the window down to the street, two floors below. It had rained that morning, but the clouds had been shredded by a strong wind out of the west, and the sun had returned just in time to create a stunning, blood-hued sunset.

  “Take off your clothes,” David said.

  She looked at him, standing at the opening between the nook and the kitchen, dressed as she was in jeans and a T-shirt, and laughed. “Again?”

  He hefted a camera in his hand—the Hasselblad, its single glassy eye staring at her. With the motion, Camille felt the surging of the green heart inside David, and she understood. “It’s the light,” he told her. “I love the way it’s streaming through the colored bottles on the windowsill, and I love the way it’s caressing your face. The colors on your body would be gorgeous.” As he spoke, she felt the embrace of the talent he held, spreading out and wrapping about her, making her a part of him. She inhaled as if he had touched her with his own hands, the warmth of the sun suddenly very insistent. The feeling was sexual, yet even more intimate than that. Yes, I remember this … This was her gift and also the curse: she needed this connection as much as he did.

  Camille wasn’t simply sharing David’s body; she was sharing all of him, breathing him in and exhaling him, the two of them briefly one. She could see the colors now: not just the core emerald but the rest of the spectrum as well, brightening where his soul-heart touched her, and streaming back to him enhanced. His green heart contained the rare tints and hues she’d seen so few times before.

  She wondered at how he couldn’t see it also: it was all so vivid, so real in her mind.

  Silently, she removed her clothes, stepping out of them and kicking them aside. She left on the pendant; if he noticed or cared, he said nothing.

  “What do you want me to do?” Camille found it hard to speak. The electric snarling of the aura surrounding them filled her ears.

  “Stay close to the window—yes, right there, so the sunlight is just touching the side of your face. Now look at me …” The shutter was already chattering, running through exposures as he held down the button with one hand and adjusted the lens with the other. He didn’t speak again, just let her move as she wished: gazing at him, at the
camera, feeling herself filled with his energy. It burned in her, made her want to go to the other room and take out paints and brushes; to sing; to take down the notebooks and delve again into the intricate alchemical world.

  This is how Nicolas finds you. This is what he can sense and what draws him. You were hunting him; now he’ll also be hunting you in return. Are you ready for him? Are you prepared to lose David in order to take him out? You’re going to bring Nicolas to you, and he’ll attempt to destroy everything you have, and he’ll destroy you too if he can …

  The thought pierced the euphoria of the sharing, dimming the brilliance, and she heard the Hasselblad resume its motorized chattering. “Yes, keep that expression, Camille—you look so melancholy all of the sudden. No, no, no, don’t change anything …”

  He continued to shoot pictures for another few minutes, then set down the camera. Camille sat in one of the chairs around the nook’s small table. Her fingers toyed with the pendant. Her hands were shaking slightly, as if she’d consumed an entire pot of coffee, a shivering high running through her body. The immaterial glow about David had paled, but the connection was still there, tenuous, and she sipped at it while she could: a dessert after the feast.

  “You know, I’ve never seen you without that,” David said. It took her a breath to realize what he meant.

  “Oh,” she said, lifting the pendant. “No. I told you that on the first day; I never take it off.”

  “Whoever gave it to you must have meant a lot to you.”

  “He could have,” she answered. “But he fucked it all up, and I was stupid enough to let him. Now it’s mostly a reminder to myself. A talisman, perhaps.”

  His lifted eyebrow asked the question.

  “It reminds me to be careful about who I trust and how far I trust them,” she answered.

  “Ah. More magic.” He nodded, but he didn’t press her further. He seemed to be waiting for her to say more if she wanted to do so, and yet he was comfortable with the silence. That sensitivity made her smile. She put her hand on his, still cupped around the motor drive of the camera. Underneath the table, Verdette rubbed up against her bare legs, her tail curling around Camille’s ankles.