By Hand and Heart
By Yolande Kleinn
Originally published in Mythologically Torqued Volume II, Torquere Press.
Copyright 2015 Yolande Kleinn
Smashwords Edition
978-1-946316-05-9
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
By Hand and Heart
About the Author
Other Titles by Yolande
By Hand and Heart
By Yolande Kleinn
He rarely takes commissions.
The simplest reason is that he has no need to. He's made ample money from his work over the years, and possesses a sizable trust fund besides. Cash flow has never been a problem, even with all the heavy expense of his workspace and materials.
The more honest reason is he prefers to work for himself. Luis Pygmalion is a stubborn artist with a selfish streak. He may not be the best in the world at what he does, but he's damn close—not arrogance, only fact—and there is enormous demand for his work. Few of his peers carve marble the way he can, with all the quiet nuance of life and soul. He turns down a dozen offers a week without guilt. His time and his talent are his own.
There's something different about the offer he receives this particular Tuesday morning. Nothing special in the words themselves, or in the generous terms of payment. Luis doesn't know why he agrees to a meeting over coffee, except that there's something cautious in the tone of the missive. The sender—a woman whose name Luis doesn't recognize—is clearly familiar with his reputation. Her message assumes nothing, and the hint of hopefulness leaves Luis curious to hear her out.
They meet at a coffee shop downtown. It's a small place above street level, close to a convergence of skyways that cross from building to building over Marquette Avenue and Sixth Street. Despite heavy foot traffic along the walkway outside, the shop's quiet atmosphere and wide windows put him at ease. When his prospective client sits across from him and hands over a steaming cappuccino in a porcelain cup, Luis offers a polite smile.
"Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Pygmalion." She raises her own cup for a careful sip.
"Call me Luis." He curls his fingers around the warmth of his drink, but doesn't yet lift it from the table.
Her lips, vivid red, twitch into a pleased smile. "Then you can call me Angie." Only a hint of lipstick stains the rim of her cup when she sets it back down, and she folds her hands on the edge of the table. Her expression turns considering, and her bobbed hair sways as she tilts her head to one side. "You look different from your photographs."
Luis stifles a snort of laughter. The blunt observation surprises him, though he knows full well what she means. The only photos of him in wide circulation come from gallery events, museum openings, fundraisers. All circumstances where he polishes himself up like finished marble—shaving his face smooth, donning a stiff tuxedo, sometimes even trimming his hair. He's learned how to convey a professional image.
His everyday is a vastly different look. He rarely remembers to shave, leaving him somewhere between rough stubble and a light beard. His hair grown out tends to fall loose about his face, just long enough for him to tie back when he's working. He favors worn jeans, soft shirts and sturdy tennis shoes—all the better for studio work—and he hasn't dressed up to impress the woman peering at him now. She contacted him in the first place, which means she knows what he can do. If he decides to accept her commission, surely casual attire won't scare her off.
Rather than respond to her comment about his appearance, Luis simply shrugs. "So. Angie. Your email was deliberately cryptic. I'd like to know more about what you're looking for."
"I'm a bit of a collector. Beautiful things. Classical sculpture. I've never commissioned anything for myself before, but I saw your exhibition in Toronto last year. It broke my heart to learn none of the pieces were for sale."
"So you're looking to commission something original. Something in particular?" Luis lifts his own coffee. It's cool enough now to avoid scalding his tongue, and he takes a slow first sip, watching Angie over the rim of the cup.
"I want something so real you'd swear it could come to life the second you look away. Man, woman, other, it's up to you but I want them to be perfect. Life size, the most beautiful person you personally can imagine."
Luis blinks, surprised at so open-ended a request. In long years of rejecting commissions, he's never received one so vague yet demanding. The unexpected challenge nestles beneath his skin, thrilling him, warming him as surely as the coffee he sets down with a quiet click. His mind is already a mess of half-formed images supplanting each other, one after another, endless poses and possibilities.
"Surely you have something a little more specific in mind," he says cautiously.
"No," she answers without hesitation. "It's your art I want. The details are up to you."
"When do you need the finished piece?"
"I'll leave that up to you also." She gives him a wry smile. "Within reason, of course. Whatever you consider a realistic delivery date. I know my request is... unusual."
"Here." Luis pulls a business card—not his own—from the back pocket of his jeans. He nudges it across the small table. "This is my attorney. I'll send him the specifics to draft a contract. If you get in touch with him next week he can finalize the documents for us." Luis already knows he'll begin work before the contract is signed, but he has no intention of admitting it aloud.
"Thank you." Angie accepts the card and tucks it into her tiny purse. "Truly. I'll be in touch."
She leaves then, though her drink is barely touched. Luis watches her, an intimidating figure in a charcoal gray suit disappearing through the crowd. The other shop patrons make way for her without seeming to realize they're doing it.
Luis raises his cappuccino, sipping distractedly, and lets the tumble of ideas carry him away.
#
He sketches and sketches and sketches while he waits for his materials to arrive. He spends an entire day just cleaning his studio, making room for the enormous block of Carrara marble that will soon take command of the space. Other sculptures clutter the periphery of the large room, a forest of intricate stone. Some are complete, others are only half finished but set aside in deference to newer projects. They cast strange shadows along the ground wherever they abut the tall windows that line two of the four walls.
The studio's floor is uninviting cement, the high ceiling a maze of dull piping, but the room itself is bright and cool. It feels more like home than anywhere Luis has actually lived.
He narrows down his ideas, then hires one of his favorite models to pose for the miniature clay sculpture that will guide his work in hard stone. Luis sculpts a lithe, upright figure—contrapposto—with just a hint of swivel to the stance, to suggest the man is about to turn around in surprise. The accompanying tilt of the head emphasizes the slender neck, giving the whole posture an air of urgency.
There's almost no drapery. A single piece of fabric hangs over one arm, trailing elegantly across the figure's waist and hip. It's more composition than prudence. Angie's request certainly doesn't preclude nudity. But something in the pose demands this counterpoint, this hint of teasing modesty, and Luis allows his instincts to guide him.
He doesn't sculpt a face for his clay miniature. The image in his mind is still incomplete, and he is determined every detail will be perfect.
By the time his marble is delivered—hoisted in through the loadi
ng door between vast windows—Luis has a signed contract in hand, but still no idea what face his masterpiece will wear. He's already scoured books, internet, live models. He's sketched a thousand imperfect attempts. A mountain of loose paper litters one of his workbenches, and none of it is what he needs.
When the enormous block of marble is in place at the center of his studio, it's a relief to leave off sketching and begin roughing out the broadest shapes in the stone. There's something cathartic about this initial stage, the touch of marble, the moment of terror in the first tap of his chisel. He can't think of a single feeling that compares to beginning a brand new piece.
For this, as for all carving, Luis wears safety glasses and heavy gloves. Earplugs protect him from the noise of the pneumatic hammer as he chisels away the hard edges of the marble block. The emerging shape is still too large and irregular to resemble a human silhouette.
He works until late, long after the sky beyond the windows has gone dark. When he sets aside his tools, he is exhausted and satisfied.
He's also frustrated. Technically he can progress in his work without a clear vision of the face—other elements of the anatomy will take time to finish first—but he can't bear the thought of beginning in earnest without a complete image in his mind. He's never worked in parts and pieces.
The hard plastic clicks as he tosses his protective glasses to the nearest workbench. There are metal shutters above each of the enormous windows, and chains that allow him to draw them down their tracks as he locks up for the night. He doesn't pack up his tools, though he wonders if perhaps he should. If he doesn't resolve his conundrum he won't be back tomorrow. Or the day after. He won't continue until he knows exactly what he intends to craft.
He pauses at the door, his hand hovering at the light switch, hesitating to turn off the bright overhead fluorescents. He stares at the indecipherable marble shape at the center of the studio, and a confused lump of feeling rises in his throat.
Finally he flips the switch down, washing the studio in darkness, and locks the door behind him.
#
That night Luis dreams for the first time in years.
His surroundings are a surreal clash between pub and coffee shop. The bar is one he frequents only when he craves the noise and companionship of a crowd instead of an empty studio. The coffee shop is where he sat only days ago, agreeing to take on his first commission in ages. The mix of locales is strangely chaotic, too many details spliced awry between them. Gray windows hang opposite the bar itself, reflected by a wide mirror along the back wall. The skyway beyond open doors is busy with foot traffic. Yellow light glints from the ceiling, painting the pub brighter than Luis has ever actually seen it.
The booth he occupies is plush, empty but for himself, and the cushions beneath and behind him are cracked with wear.
"Can I join you?" asks a smooth baritone voice, and Luis raises his eyes to find absolute perfection smiling down at him.
He can't answer. His voice has frozen in his throat.
"I'll take that as a yes." The man drops into the booth across from Luis. Mischief glints in dark eyes, and Luis stares in helpless silence, taking in everything he's been searching for. Sharp cheekbones cut across a perfectly symmetrical face, softened by a widening smile. The face is narrow, but the jaw is strong, the nose straight and broad and fitted perfectly to deceptively delicate features. There's an uncanny smoothness to the brow where it slopes beneath dark curls, but the smoothness creases when slender eyebrows rise in amusement.
Generous lips quirk into an even wider smile, and the man asks, "See something you like?"
Luis tries to reply, but he's still too floored. Even knowing this is a dream, he's mortified with himself for staring. It's embarrassingly difficult to summon his voice and answer.
"You're perfect." He means to say more, but a grating alarm sounds, jarring him. When he blinks he's not at the bar any longer, but at home in his own bed, early sunlight piercing between window curtains and his alarm clock a cacophony in his ears.
The grogginess of sleep vanishes in a rush of adrenaline, and Luis reaches for the sketchbook on his nightstand.
At last he can begin to carve in earnest.
He returns to his studio, working quickly but meticulously. Setting an almost frantic pace, pausing only when he has to. He sets timers to remind himself to eat and sleep, because his focus runs too deep as days elide into weeks. He's always been prone to forgetting he's hungry when his work overtakes him, and this work consumes him more intensely than any before.
It's difficult to keep anything like a regular schedule amid such a fierce frenzy of creation. There are evenings he carves late into the night, and even one or two where he's still at work when the sun reappears through the wide windows. He has little sense of how much time is passing while the marble slowly takes shape beneath his hands.
Luis does manage to rest during those frantic weeks and longer. It's difficult to pull himself away from his studio, but once away he has no difficulty finding sleep.
There are more dreams like the first. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees the beautiful face, a perfect match for the one already beginning to emerge from hard stone. When Luis drifts into sleep, that face comes alive, along with the long limbs and perfect neck. Mischief and encouraging warmth, always just out of reach. His companion sits across the table or on the wrong side of the couch, smiling a maddening smile Luis is quickly beginning to love.
Tonight the man wears a suit and tie. They're at some kind of exhibition, an awkward clutter of museum walls around them, but for some reason there's open sky above. Luis is trying to look at the art, but he is predictably failing.
"Do you have a name?" He's suddenly curious. It's a foolish question to ask a figment conjured by his own imagination, and yet he is desperate to know.
"You could give me one," the man says, mouth hooking upwards at one corner in a humoring smile.
"Gale," Luis says, though he's given it no previous thought.
He knows he's gotten it right when his beautiful subject steps near enough to nudge Luis with an elbow. It's the first time his figment has actually touched him.
When Luis wakes from the dream, his heart is beating too fast.
Though he's barely aware of the pending deadline, Luis spends even more time in the studio as his sculpture nears completion. Though he's never had a carving go so flawlessly from start to finish, he's still running out of time. Perfection takes a great deal of work, and this statue will be exactly right in every detail.
He carves straight through the night and into the final day, surprised when he steps back and realizes the piece is complete. He turns off the power to his tools, sets everything on the nearest workbench. He pulls his protective glasses off and sets those down too, then slowly circles the statue, searching out any final flaws. He finds none, and his pulse beats fast and heavy as the rush of completion hits him.
It's perfect.
With an unexpected feeling of loss, Luis seals and polishes the entire statue with oxalic acid, giving it the smooth shine of a finished piece. Slow as the process is, there's still plenty of daylight left when he completes his work and puts both acid and protective equipment away.
The workbench immediately facing his masterpiece is empty, and Luis hoists himself up to sit on it. He rests his elbows on his knees and watches closely, as though the illusion of life he crafted might truly manifest. But of course the statue is just a statue. Complete and distracting and beautiful, but still nothing more than cold marble.
By the time Luis finally locks up his studio, hours have passed and the sun is gone once more.
#
He dreams of Gale—as he always does—this time in more casual attire, in Luis's own living room. There's unaccustomed sadness on Gale's perfect face, and they watch each other from opposite ends of a blue couch Luis hasn't owned in years.
"Tonight is goodbye, isn't it?" Gale asks. "Your patron will expect delivery tomorrow."
The question lodges painfully in Luis's chest, and he's shocked at the force of denial twisting beneath his skin. He doesn't mean to speak—his throat has gone suddenly too tight—but the word is out of his mouth before he can give it conscious thought.
"No."
Gale blinks at him in surprise. "No?"
"I can't," Luis says. His hands clench into helpless fists atop his thighs. "I won't part with you."
There's something curious and cautious in Gale's voice when he starts, "But your contract—"
"I don't care about the contract." Luis glowers across the couch, meeting Gale's eyes as steadily as he can. "I can't just hand you over like a piece of furniture. Not when I'm—" He cuts himself short, but it's too late.
Gale's stare cuts into him, piercing and familiar. His gaze is unrelenting, his eyes narrowed as though sussing out Luis's most intimate secrets.
"Not when you're what?" Gale presses, voice deceptively gentle.
Luis's gaze slips toward the floor, and he feels his face heat. There's no point in anything but honesty. No good can come of lying to his own subconscious, even if what he's about to admit is the height of delusion. He draws a steadying breath and stares at the carpet between his bare feet.
"When I'm completely in love with you." The words come out in a confessional hush, and for several painful seconds he can't bear to look at Gale. The quiet of the apartment is broken only by the sound of traffic far below the living room window. If Gale is breathing, he's doing it silently.
Finally, Luis manages to raise his eyes. The expression he finds waiting for him is softer than he expects.
"I'm only a statue," Gale points out.
"I don't care." It's not entirely true. Luis does care, because more than anything he wishes Gale were real. He's been alone with his art for years, has never wanted anything more. Suddenly he does want more—he knows exactly who he wants—but Gale is charm and perfection that exist only in Luis's head, and in the carefully crafted marble waiting in his studio.
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