Slow Seduction (Struck by Lightning)

by Cecilia Tan

  “You let her think we’re dating.”

  “Yeah.”

  Goodness knows I had been guilty of the exact same kind of partial truth to my own mother in the past. I had stopped, but Jill still did it. I could hardly blame him for that, and if I did, I was a hypocrite. But I had to make sure he knew what he was getting himself into, then. “Tristan, you’re a really nice guy and all—”

  “Please don’t take it the wrong way! I mean, I would have loved to be dating you, Karina. But as the expression goes, you’re out of my league.”

  “Okay, first of all, the only thing that makes me out of your league is that you think of yourself in a lower league, but let me finish what I was saying. Tristan, I think tonight’s performance might be a bit more edgy than I’ve let on. Meaning, I don’t know that it will be, well, mom appropriate.”

  “Oh.” He bit his lip and stared at me while he worked through my possible reasons for being self-conscious. “Oh my.” But then he brightened. “Perhaps it’s for the best, though. She’ll be scandalized and tell me I must have nothing further to do with you, and I’ll say ‘All right, Mother; you know best,’ and we’ll carry on from there!”

  I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “So long as she isn’t so scandalized that she makes you go home.”

  “Oh, did I tell you? They said yes to my transfer to CUNY. So I might really and truly be headed for New York. Oh dear, you don’t think my mother would try to stop me, do you?”

  “You tell me. Was she against you going to London? New York isn’t any worse. It’s about the same.”

  “Now that you mention it, she was all for my coming to the city. Though I don’t know that she pictured me getting mixed up with a…controversial performance art crowd. Well, nothing for it. If she begs off attending tonight I’ll let her, but she says she’s been looking forward to it. In fact, I ought to go off now to meet her train.” He stood up, nearly knocking over his chair. “Karina, thanks. You’ve been a really good friend to me.”

  “Likewise,” I said, and shook his hand. “See you tonight, boyfriend.”

  We had a little laugh about that and then off he went.

  I called Michel before heading back to the ArtiWorks. “Is he there?” I asked. “What should I do to stay out of his sight?”

  “He’s at the bed-and-breakfast down the street right now,” he told me. “The glass is fully installed, there’s only one painting waiting to be hung, the chairs and tables are done, and the espresso machine is working. Everything is ready, Karina. Hurry home and you can hide in your room until it’s time to get into costume.”

  I had on a hat and sunglasses just in case, which was probably silly and useless, but I didn’t want to take unnecessary chances. I paused for a moment to look at the front of the gallery café now that the paper had been taken out of all the windows. The letters THE ARTIWORKS were carved into the wooden sign and filled with gold.

  I turned to go to the door to the flat, though, and nearly ran into a man in a stained white undershirt.

  “Karina,” he said.

  It was Damon George, looking like he hadn’t slept or shaved in several days. “Damon, are you all right?”

  “I will be. Had to make sure this was delivered on time.” Behind him two men were carefully carrying a large, square, paper-wrapped parcel. I assumed it was a painting. “I’m going to go have a shower and a nap now.”

  “You don’t look well.” I could see dark circles under his eyes, and one of his eyelids twitched.

  “I’ll be all right. See you tonight.” He gave me a weak wave and wandered back to the truck he had arrived in. The two deliverymen helped him up into the passenger seat, and then away they went.

  Odd. I wondered if he had spent every waking moment since I’d last seen him working on the painting. Up until that moment, I’d half-wondered if he actually painted, or if the photo shoot had all been an excuse to push me.

  I went upstairs, not wanting to get caught in the gallery, and told Paulina what I had just seen. She was in the kitchen, glazing the tops of a hundred tiny éclairs with chocolate. She called Michel downstairs, who assured her the painting was fine and he was hanging it.

  My stomach was starting to fill up with butterflies, so much that I couldn’t even sneak an éclair off the tray when Paulina urged me to. How many hours until the performance? What was I going to do?

  I went up to my room and checked my e-mail. There was one from Jill saying she had run her phone battery down and was on her way to the airport. Mom was out of surgery and doing well. At least that was one less thing to worry about at the moment.

  Then I caught Becky on video chat. “Ahh, Becks! I have so much to tell you!”

  She grabbed her laptop with urgency, and her face grew huge on my screen. “Oh my God, Rina! I got a message from Paul saying she thought maybe you might meet him, and then I’ve heard nothing since! What is going on over there?”

  “Where to start? The short version is the gallery is opening tonight, and through the people I met in York we got him to agree to do a glass installation for it, and he’s here in London right this second, just down the street, actually.”

  The image on my screen went blurry as she bounced herself onto her bed from her desk chair. She lay sideways facing her computer as she talked. “And so you’re going to, what, go talk to him? Right?”

  I bit my lip, trying to figure out how to explain my plan.

  “Wait, no, let me guess. It always has to be more complicated than that,” she said, as her cat came into the frame and lay down in front of her. She petted him.

  “Yeah, it’s complicated. See, the art installation that he did? I’m convinced it’s about me, that it’s an expression of how obsessed he is with me. I think if I try to talk to him, he’ll run away again. But if I show him? I’m planning to do an interpretive dance as one of the three Muses, and then, um, interact with the sculpture.”

  “Is interact a euphemism?”

  “Maybe?” I cringed a little. “It’s hard to put it all into words.” I needed to show him I belonged in his world and in his vision. I would show him how well I knew him and his art, too. And I would show how willing I was to be the target, the recipient, of all that primal male sexual energy, violent as it might be. And the fact that the shoes fit me…Could it be that he was that obsessed with me, down to my shoe size? Or was it a kind of wishful-thinking invitation on his part? Or both?

  The more I thought about it the more certain I was that he pictured me in the midst of that glass, in the negative space created by the great wave.

  I explained as much of it to Becky as I could. The Hokusai reference intrigued her. “Hey, listen to this,” she said, as she pulled up biographical information on Hokusai on her screen and read it to me. “Hokusai was known by at least thirty names during his lifetime. Although the use of multiple names was a common practice of Japanese artists of the time, the number of names he used far exceeds that of any other major Japanese artist.” She grinned. “Sound like someone we know? Also there’s this. His father never made Hokusai an heir, so it is possible that his mother was a concubine.”

  James had never mentioned his father to me once, though he’d told me about his mother a few times. “Interesting. Well, with any luck, I’ll get to ask him soon whether the reference is real or if I just imagined it. Here, let me e-mail you the photos we got for the setup.”

  “So what gave you the idea to do a dance?”

  “I always liked dancing. The only reason I quit was I didn’t really have time. And I wasn’t as good as a lot of the dancers who were serious about it.”

  “Is that really true? Or is this another one of those Karina-doesn’t-know-what-she-wants situations?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell how good you are or not.” I shrugged. “Like I said, I always liked doing it. I’ve been practicing and practicing. I’m so sore! I forgot how to use half those muscles.”

  “Please tell me someone will be taking vide
o. I want to see this!”

  “Even the, uh, interactive part?”

  “Oh. Is it going to be really graphic? Will I be embarrassed to watch it?”

  “I’m not sure, honestly. My skirt will hide what’s going on, I think. I mean, it might look worse than it actually is, but I’m going to do my best to make it look very erotic.”

  “Good to know. Okay.”

  “I mean, my boss from the museum and my coworkers are all going to be there. One of them is even bringing his mother, but I can’t really think about that. The only person in the audience who matters is James.” I blinked and sat back suddenly.

  “What? What did you just realize?”

  “Another guy I know, Damon George, showed up today with a painting. But I never told him about the gallery opening. How did he find out about it?” Clearly he had known for a while if he’d had time to plan the photo shoot with me and create a painting.

  “That’s the guy you said was the rich donor, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sure he heard through the art world, then. Paul and Misha are blasting it all over the place, you know. It’s not like the show is a secret.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  I kept her distracting me for as long as I could, listening to her tell me about how her class was going, and taking Milo to the vet, and how hot a summer it had been in New York, until Michel knocked on my door because it was time to get into costume.

  He himself was already in his garb for the evening, which was a flower-print housedress, complete with frilled apron. He had curled his hair and was wearing large cat-eye glasses. If not for the spot where he had a bit of razor burn on his neck, he could have easily been mistaken for a happy, thick-armed, middle-aged housewife.

  We put Helen and Linae into their gowns first and gave them their masks, and they went downstairs to hang around and mingle. Linae also said she was going to quickly check that Peter wasn’t being stupid. Apparently he had cut himself on a piece of glass while they were working on the installation. The edges were truly sharp. My plan was to stay upstairs until Michel called me at the last minute before my performance.

  “How do you know Damon George?” I asked him, as he stitched a loose glass chip into place.

  “He’s well known for his art philanthropy,” Michel said. “Some of the funds for the renovation are from him.”

  “Really? Out of the blue? Or did you know him before?”

  “We knew him before, but when he found out you were living with us, he called up and demanded to know the details. Checking your references, I believe, but he was very intrigued by the gallery project.”

  I flashed back suddenly to a conversation James and I had about whether donors could be taken seriously as artists themselves. “And he convinced you to hang a painting of his?”

  “I didn’t need much convincing, chérie. Did you ever look at the signature on the painting of Paul and me? It’s a bit messy, but it says Georgiades.”

  “So Damon was in that crowd of twentysomethings who followed you and Paul around?”

  “It’s not uncommon for the children of the very rich to end up in art school. They can indulge in an impractical education,” he said.

  “So he knows James, too.”

  “They met, at least. They might have been rivals if James had not left for other pursuits shortly thereafter.” He sat back and handed me the gown to pull on over the bodysuit.

  “Damon didn’t tell me any of this.”

  “Of course he didn’t.”

  I put on the gown and Michel fussed over it, making sure it hung properly. “Is Damon any good at painting?”

  “Did you think we would commission a portrait from a man who was not?” Michel asked, somewhat amused. “Very strong technically, also very good with oils. His only drawback is his lack of a subject. He used to paint himself most of the time. Nothing else held equal interest. As you can imagine, the art world was less interested in the self-portraits of an unknown than Damon’s ego could handle.”

  I held in a laugh. Poor Damon. “Well, I’m glad he chipped in.”

  “When you go downstairs you will see what he painted. I think it is by far his best painting yet, but I must say, Karina, it is recognizably you there with him.”

  “Is it? I did model for the reference photos.”

  “It is an outstanding painting. All right, chérie. I must go. I will call you when it is time for your grand entrance.”

  He bustled off then to play host. Out his window I could hear people on the sidewalk, chatting and buzzing. I snuck a look. A short line of people had formed waiting to get in.

  I went back up to my room. I had at least an hour to wait, probably more like two.

  Becky was offline now, probably out for the afternoon. There was nothing new from Jill. I sent e-mails to all the last-known addresses I had for Troy, all but one of which bounced immediately.

  And then, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do with myself, I checked how comments were going on the story I had posted to that LL fan site. I had disabled the e-mail notifications a while ago because I’d gotten such a deluge.

  Comments were still coming in. They were mostly more of the same, praising either how hot the story was, the writing, or expressing how much they missed him, too.

  Am I special? I wondered. He made an entire world love him and left them. Do I deserve to be the one who gets him back?

  I had to stop thinking that way. To keep myself positive, I tried to imagine sitting down and talking with him later, maybe over breakfast or tea. Yes, tea at a fancy restaurant here in London, a long, leisurely meal where everyone’s relaxed. What would I ask him?

  I started to write down a list of questions, which grew quite long.

  Why did you abandon me at the party?

  Why didn’t you tell me not only your name, but who you were, sooner?

  When had you planned to tell me, if not then?

  Is there some reason you’re so hung up on secrecy?

  What’s the story with Lucinda?

  What was art school like?

  How did you meet Paulina and Michel?

  Were you rivals with Damon Georgiades?

  Why don’t you ever talk about your father? Did you know him?

  When can I meet your mother?

  How did you become Lord Lightning?

  Why did you keep your artist identity a secret, too?

  What drew you to glass art?

  How did you get into the society?

  How did you know you were into BDSM in the first place?

  Why do you love sex in public places so much?

  Are you proud of me for turning in Renault?

  Why didn’t you shut off my phone?

  Have you had your heart broken (before)?

  My phone rang and I jumped, I was so deep in thought. It was Michel.

  “Showtime, chérie,” he said. “Your music is cued.”

  Fourteen

  Love Dares You to Care

  Paulina had helped me pick the music. I wanted something instrumental that started slow and then got faster toward the end, something with lots of drums, preferably, and that wasn’t too long. We’d found the perfect thing on a soundtrack album she had, which she said James had worked on in Japan under another name, but which the deeply devoted fans had found out about. The song used Japanese taiko drums, beginning with the small ones, played lightly, and ending with the huge ones, sounding like thunder. That matched my interpretation of the glass crest as Hokusai’s great wave.

  My other two “Muses” were waiting at the bottom of the stairs to the flat. We adjusted each other’s masks and they giggled a little as Michel opened the door to check on us.

  “Ready?”

  “As we’ll ever be,” I said, swallowing hard. The butterflies were gone now, replaced by a lump in my stomach, but at least I was calm. It was time to go through with it and then see what would happen.

  Michel signal
ed someone inside the café, the lights went down, and we entered through the ArtiWorks front door, the first tappings and beats of the music beginning.

  The other two had flowers in their hands, and they scattered them into the audience as we made our way to the cleared area that was our stage at the foot of the huge red and white glass sculpture. This was the first time I had seen the art lit properly, with some of the lights glowing from underneath it, including one tiny LED right at the tip of the phallic part. Intense.

  We moved through the steps we had rehearsed, holding hands and dancing in a circle the way the Muses are sometimes shown in paintings, and then the other two faded off to the sides as I shed my gown and one of them took it with her. Maybe fairy wings wouldn’t have been bad after all, I thought, since it was like I was emerging from a chrysalis.

  The music got faster and I began to spin in place, the petal pieces of my skirt flaring up to expose the bottom of the bodysuit, then a quick run to stage left, then back to stage right, a leg lift and scissor kick at each. Now I was the wave, the water, and what I did with one little toe rippled through my body to break like a wave out one arm or the other or up my spine, throwing my head back. The dance was as sensual as I could make it.

  I moved toward the glass then, repeating many of the same motions I had done at the edge of the audience, but now my arms unfurled between the stalactites of red glass hanging down like teeth. Peter had cut himself on one of these pieces, some of them sheared and broken. I was careful not to touch the edges. Bleeding would definitely put a damper on my plan.

  I then focused my movements on the phallic piece. Unlike the jagged parts, it was utterly smooth, and I ran my palm in a circle over the bulbous end, both as part of the sensuality of the dance and to check that it was as smooth as it looked. It was. I rubbed against it with one hip, then the other, then did a long slide into a crouch, running my pubic bone down the nearly waist-high shaft, then back up again, teasing it the way I would had it been a cock, teasing the audience the same way. I was teasing myself, too, making myself wet and aroused. I ground my clit against the hard tip, my hips moving in an obscene circle. I heard a gasp over the sound of the drums growing louder. Almost time.