Incubi

Chapter 22

Veronica looked up from her worktable. She heard footsteps. But when she peeked into the hall, the stairwell was empty.

The footsteps had sounded misplaced. They hadn’t even sounded like they were coming from the stairs.

It must be my brain thumping, she thought. Her work lay before her. The basic sketch was done. Yesterday’s sketches had lacked something, but today she realized what.

The sketches had lacked her.

Last night’s dream of the burning man had been the most detailed yet. The Ecstasy of the Flames, she thought. The Fire-Lover. The vacant space at the flame-lover’s side needed to be filled. Veronica had filled that space with herself.

Thus far her only attempts at self-portrait had been deeply expressionistic. This would have to be different, though; she would need to paint herself not in abstraction, but in a physical reality. She’d never done that before. The prospect excited her, but it was also a little bit scary.

What if she failed?

Sudden voices distracted her. Now she was sure people were in the hall. How could she have missed them when she looked a moment ago? The voices spoke in French. Marzen and Gilles were easy to tell apart. She got up again and listened through the door.

Gibberish composed the entire exchange. Then a third voice spoke, in English. It was Khoronos.

“She is tainted. I made a serious error.”

“Ja,” Marzen agreed. “Vut do vee do?”

“It was my error,” Khoronos said. “I will assume my state of accountability.”

“Tomorrow?” Gilles asked.

“Tomorrow night,” Khoronos instructed. “But don’t worry about it now. You must go.”

Gilles and Marzen departed down the hall. Veronica peeked out the door. Both men were dressed in sleek, dark suits. Marzen seemed to be carrying something. A black pouch?

A door clicked shut to her right. That’s where they’d been, in the room made of mirrors. Khoronos had called it his “muse room.” What did he do in there? Veronica could picture him sitting in the silver room all alone, contemplating his wisdoms.

She heard Marzen and Gilles leave out the front door. Then a car started up and pulled off.

What had Khoronos said? She is tainted. Who did he mean? She shrugged it off. “Who cares?” she muttered, and meandered back to her table. It had been another blurred day. She’d sketched obliviously from noon, and now it was 10 p.m. Time seemed to have no meaning here, no weight.

Now her mind wandered. Ginny and Amy must have worked the day away too; Veronica hadn’t seen or heard them. She wondered if she would sleep with them again tonight but immediately answered No. She was finished with exploratory sex. The next person she slept with would be a man.

What now?

The sketch was finished. She used sketches only as outlines, much like a novelist. The sketch would not be part of the actual creative product. Khoronos had provided several sizes of canvas frames — a good brand too, Anthes Universal, which was double-primed and suitable for any paint base. She chose a 24”x34”; she hated easels, preferring a Trident brace-frame, which Khoronos had also surprisingly provided. And he’d provided equally good paints, Gamblin oils, among the best in the world, and Pearl brushes.

It was all here, but she still didn’t feel ready to start. She still had not yet figured something out completely.

Me, she thought.

That was it. She didn’t feel ready to paint her own likeness.

The sketch looked all right, but it was just a sketch, a rudiment. It wasn’t her. Suddenly she felt frustrated.

I know, she thought just as suddenly.

She rushed to the hall. Khoronos was here for them, wasn’t he? Would he be mad if she disturbed him now, at this hour? She stood for a moment before his door, paused, then knocked.

“Come in.”

“I’m sorry to dis—” but then she stopped just inside. Khoronos sat shirtless in a lotus position. He was meditating.

“I’ll come back later,” she said.

“No, stay.” He raised a finger, eyes closed. “Just a moment.”

Standing there, behind his back, discomfited her. She felt like an intrusion. Then he stood up and turned. The mirror-walled room was full of him, a thousand reflections at myriad angles.

“It may seem wildly eccentric, or even exaggerated.”

“What?” she asked.

“This room.”

“No, but…” she glanced around. “It’s a little weird.”

“This room helps me think. It inspires me. When I’m here, alone, I feel as though I’m sitting in the lap of infinity.”

Veronica looked up and down. She saw her upturned face. She saw herself looking at herself between her feet. Even the ceiling and floor were mirrors.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You’re not. I’m here for you.”

Now she looked at him. He was slim yet crisply muscled, well-tanned. He wore white slacks and powder-blue shoes. His silver-blond hair hung like fine tinsel to his shoulders.

“Your work is going well. I can see it. Am I right?”

“Yes. Well, sort of.”

“But you’ve come upon a stumbling block.”

Veronica nodded. All that remained in the room now was the single chair made of chrome wire. Khoronos sat down in it and looked at her.

“Tell me.”

How could she start without sounding stupid? “I’m painting my dream,” she said. “I’ve got it all worked out now, but—”

“You are in the dream, correct?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And you don’t know how to render yourself?”

“No, I don’t. I have no idea. It’s scary.”

“That you might not paint yourself well? Or is it merely the idea of painting yourself that scares you?”

“The latter, I think.”

Khoronos subtly smiled. “Re-creation is often scary, particularly when we must re-create ourselves with our own hands. The possibility always exists that we may falter, and hence—”

“Destroy ourselves,” Veronica finished.

“Exactly.” Suddenly he looked stern. “But had artists never dared to challenge themselves, then there would be no art.”

Veronica glanced down. “You’re disappointed with me.”

“No,” he said.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited about a painting before. I want it to be good.”

“Then you must look into the face of your fear, grab it by the teeth, and accept the challenge.”

The room nettled her nerves. There was nowhere she could look without seeing herself look back. Each wall extended as a vanishing point of her own doubt. “I don’t think I’m looking at myself right.”

“You are correct,” Khoronos said.

“Sometimes…” Her voice diminished. “Sometimes I don’t think I’ve ever really seen myself at all.”

“But the impetus of all art, Ms. Polk, is seeing. You’ve learned to see many things. You merely have not yet extended your perceptions to the necessary extreme.”

“What’s the trick?”

“Transcension,” he said.

She thought about that, aware of the mirror-faces watching her. The faces seemed hopeful, expectant.

Then Khoronos said, “Define art.”

Her expression confessed her desperation.

Khoronos laughed. “Not an easy question, I know.”

“But you have the answer,” she felt sure. “What?”

“Art is transcension. There can be no other answer in the end. Art redefines all that we see, and without that redefinition, nothing has meaning, Ms. Polk. Nothing. To the entire realm of creation, the artist is but a vehicle of redefinition. Creation, in truth, is re-creation. Do you understand?”

“I guess so,” she said, but she didn’t really.

“Art is nothing more than the act of transcending the physical into the spiritual. That may sound cold, but it’s also the greatest power on earth. We each assume our place in life, and the artist assumes his or her place too, merely in an exalted relativity.”

What is your place? she wanted to ask.

He smiled as though he’d heard the thought. “The level of the success of any art depends on the success of the artist’s power of perception. The power…to see.”

Now Veronica felt swamped. She felt drowning in a lake of riddles, reaching out for something to hold on to.

“Do you understand now? Everything is meaningless until we give it meaning. Including ourselves.”

Veronica stared not only at him but at what he’d said.

“But there’s one more function, one more piece that makes art ultimate.”

“What?”

“Transposition.”

The word buried her at once. None of you are ready yet, Gilles had told them last night. And Marzen: Not yet ready to transpose.

She repeated the word in her mind. Transposition. It sounded echoic and vast, like a word spoken by a spirit.

“There,” Khoronos said. “Art is transcension, and transcension, ultimately, is transposition. Art transposes something small with something great. It becomes something else of itself, something more than what it was.”

Transposition, she thought again. The word now made her whole life, and all that she’d created in life, insignificant.

“Now.” Khoronos rubbed his palms together. “You are creating a specific work, a definition of your dream. But you can’t move on for one obstruction. The obstruction is yourself. Do I have it right so far?”

“Yes,” Veronica said.

“The dream is the paradigm of the project, and you are an ingredient of the dream, which means that you must not only redefine the dream, but you must also redefine yourself as a component of the dream. You must turn your creative instincts upon yourself.”

“How?”

“By looking at yourself more completely than you ever have. Truth is the veil, Ms. Polk. You must look at yourself in truth.”

She felt sweat begin to trickle under her arms. It was what he’d said earlier that scared her most of all — the challenge. It was easy to challenge ideals, it was easy to challenge concepts, insights and politics. But it was not easy to challenge oneself in the same light.

“Look now,” Khoronos commanded.

She turned to a mirror panel and looked. She must look at herself as more than a woman; as an object of transposition. She knew that now, and that was how she tried to see.

But… Nothing, she thought.

“Tell me what you see.”

“Nothing.”

It was just a reflection, a simple, physical replication in glass of nothing more than she was in life.

“Take off your clothes,” Khoronos said.

In the mirror, her eyes widened at the brash request. Khoronos stood up. “I’ll leave if you’re modest,” he said.

“No,” she whispered.

She stripped quickly, casting each garment aside like pieces of things no longer wanted. She tried to avert her eyes but couldn’t. No matter where she looked, her own face was there, looking back.

Naked, she stood up straight. The reflection showed Khoronos appraising her in the silver background. He wasn’t appraising her body, though. He was looking straight into her eyes.

“You are a beautiful woman,” he said.

Veronica tried not to gulp. She wanted to winnow her thoughts but she found his gaze too distracting; she couldn’t concentrate on the matter at hand. Ingots of sweat formed between her breasts. Others broke and ran down her back. Was this Khoronos’ way of seducing her? Was this how art preceptors made passes?

She almost hoped it was, for that she could deal with. She hoped he would remove his slacks in the reflection, come up behind her, and start. Then she could relate.

But none of that ever happened.

“Look at yourself, first, as though you were an object,” he said. “Say you’re painting a still life — you’re painting an apple. Don’t think of what you see in the mirror as a reflection, it’s an object. Assess that object now, with your eyes, and transpose the objectivity of that object through your artistic muse.”

The reflection isn’t me, she convinced herself. It’s an object. It’s an apple that I’m going to paint. The mirror created a sudden intense clarity, surfacing the details of her body to razor sharpness. She could see each detail of her nipples, her navel, the shine on each strand of pubic hair. The profuse sweat made her flesh look shellacked. Soon she felt close to blushing; seeing herself through such extreme lucidity began to excite her, or perhaps it was the hope that Khoronos was seeing her the same way. Her sex began to moisten. Her nipples swelled.

“Now,” Khoronos said, “Close your eyes and continue to look. Retain the visualization, and examine it with your mind.”

When she closed her eyes, the image did indeed remain. Only the background changed, from bright mirror-silver to utter black.

No, it didn’t change. It transposed.

“The mirrors are gone now,” he said. “You are standing in the grotto of your dream. You are no longer an object, you are a woman. You are the most creative, and most beautiful…woman…on earth.”

Veronica saw. She was standing identically — naked, sweating — in the hot, dark place of her dream. She seemed to be waiting for something.

Or someone.

“Go on,” he said, perturbed. “You’re not looking closely enough.”

She stood in limbo, in black, staring through closed eyes.

“If you don’t look closely enough, you will fail.”

Now she whimpered. She could feel her mind exert upon the image, squeeze it like squeezing juice from a pulpy fruit.

“Imagine your passion,” he said.

Her mind scurried. What was her passion? She imagined herself masturbating on the terrace, the moon watching her. She imagined Marzen deftly knelt between her legs as his mouth tended her clitoris. She imagined her bacchanal night with Ginny and Amy, and the glut of lavish sensation, their hands and tongues investigating every inch of her flesh.

But nothing happened. The image remained unenriched.

What about fantasies, or passions that had not yet occurred? She imagined Marzen’s penis in her mouth, his testicles warm and large in her small hand. She imagined Gilles pushing her knees back to her shoulders and penetrating her, flooding the moist purse of her sex. She imagined Khoronos—

The disappointment was thick in his throat. “You’re failing, Ms. Polk. I guess I was wrong about you.”

He must see the anguish on her face. She could think of nothing else that might allow the image of herself to transpose. She would never be able to do the painting now. Quit, she thought. You’re a failure, so quit. You’re not an artist, you’re only pretending to be — you’re a fake. You can’t see, you can’t even see yourself. Quit the whole business. Go back to Jack, get a normal job, lead a normal life. What good is an artist who can’t see past her own nose?

“Try again,” Khoronos said more softly. “Look deeper. If you visualize your rightful place in the dream, the image will transpose into what it must be in order to create it. Try again.”

She remained standing, her head back and her eyes squeezed shut. She wanted to bolt. She wanted to grab her clothes, find Ginny, and get the hell out of this crackpot madhouse of foreign studs, carnival mirrors, and art-weirdo philosophy.

But— Try again, she thought.

The dream is black, but she is bright within it: she is almost luminous in the explicit clarity of her flesh. It’s a black grotto, some subterranean fissure of her id. She is waiting for someone. That is the key. Whoever she is waiting for will make the image transpose. She will find her transposition through the acknowledgment of her passion — not fantasies or past sexual experience. Real passion. Passion which transcends. She knows one thing; whoever is waiting for her is her passion.

The grotto’s empty black space thickens with heat. The rough pocked walls begin to tint, tongues of wavering orange light growing bright. Out of nothing, the burning man rises, the man made of flames. The fire-lover.

She sees him. His body is beautiful and sculpted of millions of tiny points of flame. He is hissing. His large, delineated genitals are pulsing for her, rousing. In his fire-eyes, she sees all the passion of history.

Then she sees herself. She is more than herself. The splendor of her passion transcends her flesh. In this bright, hot unreality, she is now more real than she ever has been or ever could be. Her spirit now transposes with her flesh. It has made her greater, more beautiful, truthful, and real than all the sum of her worldly parts.

She is arching back. Her arms are rising as tears are squeezed out of her eyes.

“I can see it!” she whimpers.

“Yes.”

The burning man approaches her. The proximity of all that passion burns her into a state of ecstasy. She is coming, reeling, nearly screaming in bliss.

The fire-lover takes her hand and leads her away forever.

Veronica’s knees went out; she collapsed to the smooth mirror floor. Sweat ran off her in rivulets, and her sex was throbbing down. She tried to rise to her hands and knees but collapsed again. Seeing herself transposed into the dream siphoned off all that remained of her strength. Her sweat left a print of herself on the glass.

She rolled over on her back. Her wet hands reached up for Khoronos.

Khoronos was no longer in the room.