“That fucking bastard.”
Ariadne Campbell mouthed the words under mint and marijuana tainted breath as she beheld the large five foot by five foot drawing which hung upon the pure white wall of the gallery pulling all present eyes towards it with is grim and imposing majesty, even as it repelled with its stark audacity. The picture was of a middle aged man, muscular and nude, holding the sun in one hand and the moon in the other, standing astride a continental rendering of the globe, a crown upon his head and upon his face, a peculiar mask that bore some similarity to those of the Venetians. Despite the ornate, facial covering, she recognized the man, the model. The peculiar almond eyes and distinctive hardness of his jawline was unmistakable.
Derrick J. Graham. D.J. for short.
As she stood with clenched fists, her face twisting into a wreakful grimace, the click and flash of a camera followed swiftly by a sonorous, demure voice.
“I thought you might come. Its been a while, Ms. Campbell.”
She spun instantly to behold Lynder Partridge standing before her, camera raised to his face. He smiled and slowly lowered the machine and then gestured to the illustration which hung upon the wall, back-lit by pure, white light.
“What do you think?”
“I think you stole my model.”
“Stole?”
“He used to work for me.”
“Precisely, he used to. Or did you forget that you’d fired him after a temper tantrum? Forgive me if it should displease you, but you really shouldn’t have blamed the man for your work, he was just a prop, you were the director. He cannot be held accountable for the failings of your work, anymore than I could blame my graphite for botching one of my drawings.”
“I didn’t come here to be lectured.”
“Then why did you come?”
She shook her head and gazed off towards a crowd in the distance. Lynder swiftly followed her gaze and lit upon a tall, muscular blond man with a ridiculous multi-colored plaid shirt, rolled up to his elbows.
“Ah,” Lynder nodded to himself, “You’re here for him. Calvin, right?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I understand what that gaze means. I can see why you like him. He’s very handsome.”
Ariadne screwed up her face in a mixture of amusement, confusion and disgust.
“What are you, gay?”
“Must I be to have a proper appreciation of masculine beauty? You like him, don’t you?”
“More than you.”
The ghost of smile traced a faint line across Lynder’s smooth, pale face which sharpened the contours of his cheekbones under the sterile white gala lights, whereupon his luminous blue eyes flickered with a strange intensity. He nodded slightly, but not to the woman.
“Do you know why you don’t like me?”
“Because you think you’re so much better than me.”
“I am better than you, Ms. Ariadne, that is precisely why you don’t like me.”
“Fuck you.”
Lynder continued on, heedless of her rising temper, his face expressionless save for his eyes which projected an intense and dreamlike yearning.
“The inability to acknowledge one’s betters, in the arts, as in anything, is the surest sign of an overflow of passion and it is precisely your undirected passion which blinds you, which keeps you from admitting the obvious – that my work is superior to your own, that your own is merely ancillary to yourself, that you are but a medium, a vessel, unable to craft a vision to mold the world – which keeps you from accepting any criticism whatsoever. Mind well that the inability to accept criticism is an implicit expression of the belief in one’s utter perfection. One can scarcely expect to make strides when one believes that technique has reached its apex.”
She hated him, hated him more than anyone she had ever met, yet still she stayed and listened, intently. Despite her inner protestations, his words filled her with fascination. Momentarily, the trim, dapper man checked his form-fitting silver wristwatch and raised his brows slightly.
“I must take my leave; I promised Mr. Derby an interview for his paper on my recent works. Do take care.”
With that he left out of the gala as the crowd swirled around him like a tidal wave of flesh, the ceaseless increase of their murmuring swiftly drowning out his elegant footsteps and obscuring him from sight entire. She’d been so absorbed by his words and presence that she’d wholly forgotten that the man had taken a photograph of her. The woman’s mind raced, she feared what of her that portrait would reveal. She cursed him under her breath and turned to leave but paused when she spotted Calvin once more, he was speaking with Graham some distance away on the far side of the gallery, beside two large statues that seemed to have been welded together from heavy scrap, each of a titanic knight, one with a shield, the other, a sword. Momentarily, a woman, young and curvy, with skimpy, form-fitting clothing, sided up to Calvin and whispered something in his ear, he pulled a face and the next instance she kissed him with a mischievous twinkle in her eye and he took her by the chin and kissed her back passionately. Then the trio laughed, oh, how they laughed. Ariadne felt they were laughing at her, sneering, conspiring.
This gala, just like the last should have been mine! Just as Calvin should be mine, not that disgusting slag’s. I know her, I’ve seen her around, nothing but a drugged-up whore. What does she have that I do not? Is it her money? All those greenbacks from e-begging and lascivious strip-shows? Is it because she has a spot in the gallery and I do not? Is it because she knows and probably fucks the old pricks who run the artmag scene? How did my sweet Calvin ever get so mixed up with people like her? Its not fair. Its not right. Its not how it should be… none of it.
Ariadne’s heart pounded like a misfiring engine, eyes going large with dreadful rage, like an owl in the moonlight, her fists balled, knuckles white. She hated to admit it, but Lynder was right about one thing: she wasn’t taking putting herself into her works. She was acting merely as a medium, afraid to ply her hand, afraid to reach unto the world and mold it, to fit it to her design.
No longer.
/////Logos Literature 