Incubi

Chapter 30

Creation often came to her as a trance, an autohypnotic removal of conscious things from the subconscious. Veronica thought of it as a veil, opened by the pure, raw energy of her muse. Frequently she remembered nothing of a day’s work…

Like now.

“My God,” she whispered to herself. “I…I’m done.”

The painting was done.

It lay before her on the canted table, a découpage of melded colors murkily dark and vivid bright. The Ecstasy of the Flames, she mused. The Fire-Lover. The canvas encompassed everything she knew as an artist: the relief-like abstraction of the background and its dimensionality, the splotch-and-line details of the id grotto. She had re-created herself using photo-realistic techniques mixed with Braquesque expressionism. In her glinting nakedness, she looked real, yet more than real, more than herself. She’d painted not only her flesh but her spirit too.

The burning man stood by her side, wavering between pointillistic bright fire and cubist geometries. Something lurked beneath its fiery beauty, something she’d never quite seen in the dreams. Flesh, perhaps. Flesh made perfect by fire.

Veronica couldn’t look away. The painting, her creation, captured her. She was looking at the work’s point of juncture, where her own hand joined with the hand of the burning man. This was the painting’s focal point, its thematic nexus. It rose to be more than the joining of two beings. It was the joining of ideals and spirit, of desire and passion. It was the joining of worlds.

“You’re finished.”

The sudden voice jerked Veronica’s head around. It was Khoronos at the door, dressed in white and hair shining like light.

“I’m not ready for you to see it yet,” she said.

“I understand. Your colleagues are also finished with their projects. Tomorrow, perhaps, you will all show your creations.”

“All right,” she replied. Even though she was looking away now, the painting seemed to nag her, as if jealous for her attention. “It was funny. I barely remember anything all day. It was almost like I woke up and the painting was done.”

Khoronos’ eyes seemed brighter as he looked at her. “The call of the Sisters of the Heavenly Spring,” he said.

Dante, she remembered. The Muse. But he was right. This entrenchment of creative focus felt like a higher state of consciousness.

Khoronos continued as if speaking above her, or addressing an unseen entity. “There is synergy, Ms. Polk, between the artist’s physicality and her spirit. The equipostition of both is the ultimate achievement. Most artists spend their lives looking for this viaduct between body and mind. Most only touch upon it. But great artists live in it, become one with it. As you have.”

“How do you know?” she countered. “You haven’t even seen it.”

“I don’t need to see it to see your triumph. All I need to see is you.” The words drifted. “I can see it in your aura.”

Veronica didn’t believe in auras. This was just Khoronos’ way of telling her that her happiness was obvious.

“You have a beautiful aura,” he said. “Such is the power of creation, such a blessed state, yes?”

“Yes,” she said, not quite knowing why. But it was. It was a blessed state.

“I’m very proud of you.”

Suddenly she wanted to cry. Did his acceptance mean that much to her? All she knew was that for the first time in her life she felt she had truly succeeded, and she knew that she owed it to him. She tried to look at him objectively. He must be in his fifties, yet the wisdom of all those years had kept him young in another more truthful way. He was beautiful — she could not deny that. He was beautiful the first time she saw him at the gallery. She’d stayed her attraction to him for so long. Perhaps she felt inferior, or unworthy. That was it. She felt unworthy of such a man of knowledge. But now she wanted him. She wanted him to come over to her right now and make love to her, to penetrate her at the foot of her creation.

She started to get up.

“No,” he said. He knew. He knew what she wanted. Was her desire that easy to see? “There are still some ruminations that remain. Am I right?”

“You’re always right,” she said.

“I’ll leave you now, but first I have a question.”

She sat back down, looking at him in wait.

“It’s preeminence that we’re talking about, isn’t it? Not just great art, but preeminent art.”

“I…”

“Ms. Polk, anyone can create a work of art that succeeds. But few can create a work that…”

Transposes, she knew. He didn’t even have to say it.

His voice darkened. “Ms. Polk? Does your painting transpose?”

She was shivering. “Yes. It does. I know it does.”

This was the first time she’d ever really seen him smile. Just the faint, if not sarcastic, half-smiles only gestures of smiles. But this… He was smiling at her now, smiling with her glory and her happiness. His smile made her feel bathed in sunlight.

“May I ask its title?” he said.

“The Ecstasy of—” but something severed her answer. She’d thought about this for days, hadn’t she? The Ecstasy of the Flames or The Fire-Lover. But these weren’t titles, they were frivolities. At once she recognized that they were trite and stupid and inferior, not true titles at all.

She stared fixedly at the painting, and then she knew.

“It’s called Veronica Betrothed,” she said.