Artistic Inspiration
    by Michelle Marr

    "Do you love her yet?"
    Angie had come to stand behind him in the narrow hallway, so when he turned there was little space between them. Paul could feel the heat crossing from her body to his; she had been working outside with her dogs.

    She peered over his shoulder at the rough wooden door with its wire mesh window, at the girl huddled in the corner.

    "Pretty," Angie observed. "She's lost a lot of weight. Do you love her yet?"

    Paul shuffled back a step, putting distance between himself and Angie, drawing closer to the woman he wanted so desperately to love. His foot came down on his open journal, obliterating his morning of work with a dark track.

    Angie spoke again, her voice warm and alive in the musty basement corridor. "Paul, maybe this one isn't right. If you can't feel for her, you should move on. Find another."

    "It's starting to happen," Paul said softly. "Just a few more days and I'm sure..."

    "In a few more days she won't have a decent strip of meat on her bones. I've got a kennel of hungry dogs. Serena needs paint and Jon can't sculpt. We're at a standstill, Paul. You have to kill her."

    Paul turned back to the room, listening to Angie's heavy steps take her out of the basement. A single patch of brightness lit his guest room, light that filtered through the mesh window. She had broken the bulb that lit the room on the first night he brought her home. After that, when she paced the floor at night, unaware that Paul was with her, lying on a blanket in the hallway, he could hear the bits of glass crackle under her bare feet, breaking tinier and tinier until they were silent.

    He needed a new light. Paul ran up to the kitchen, sure that if he saw her clearly, he could love her just a bit. Then he would be able to kill her.

His roommates would be able to continue their own work. Perhaps he could draw a single poem from his grief and she wouldn't be a total loss.

    Serena stood at the butcher block island that dominated the kitchen, chopping vegetables. She paused for a moment to study Paul's gloom.

    "Now don't you feel better? That one is out of your life and you can find another lover." She chewed thoughtfully on a round of carrot. "Maybe a brunette would be better for you. A dark, brooding enchantress."

    Paul leaned up against the counter. "I didn't do it. Not yet." He waited for Serena to lecture, but she didn't.

    "I thought when the dog died, I'd have a couple more days."

    "We tried," Serena said, looking distressed herself. "Angie's dogs wouldn't eat, and Jon's already out of bone. The little pieces just splintered. I finished my painting, but the red tones don't feel right. They're animal, sort of gamey.

    "You have to do it Paul."

    He forgot about the light. It didn't matter if he saw her in good light or not, if he loved her or not. There was no time.

    Jon's dusty white footprints led him upstairs to the room that they shared. The house was filled with Jon's splinters and dust. Wisps of silky white hair clung to Angie's clothing and whatever she touched. Serena left tinges of red paint. They all contributed, produced, paid the bills. They supported Paul, accepted the fact that poetry wasn't as marketable as their own work. But they did expect him to bring home their supplies.

    He had been sure that he could love this one. She had such strong emotions. He lifted his hand to his cheek, fingering the long scrapes she had left on the night when he first took her. The hard crusty scabs were beginning to shrink.

    He had wanted so badly to love her, to write the pain of losing her.

~~~~~~

    Paul watched streaks of dawn color the flawed glass panes of the kitchen window as he packed a wicker hamper. While the other artists were clustered around cereal and juice at the table, he made his announcement.

    "We're going on a picnic this morning. I've fallen in love."

    His statement was greeted by an enthusiastic burst of applause. Serena pushed her chair back and stood. Her face and hair were streaked with red from her early morning painting.

    "I'll help her clean up."

    Paul went up to shower and dress, and when he returned to the basement, Serena had gone back to her own work. The girl sat on the bottom steps of the cellar stairs, kept from straying by the handcuffs that Serena had fastened to her wrist and the wooden railing. She was clean, her hair still damp. When Paul helped her to her feet, he breathed in Serena's musky perfume.

    Paul took the girl to the meadow behind the house and ate there with her. He took care to memorize every detail about her: the way she flinched when a bee landed on her thigh, the way she sharply turned her head when he held
a bit of croissant to her lips, the way she rubbed the handcuffs against her wrists when she thought he wasn't looking.

    The passion had gone from her. In sunlight, she was pale and pretty. But not desirable. Not nearly enough to stir his passions.

    Paul packed their things into the willow basket, neatly folding the cloth napkins and replacing the unopened bottle of champagne. He wouldn't celebrate this.

    He walked her down to the stream that ran behind the farmhouse. When she saw the water, she began to fight him, her feet leaving deep grooves in the muddy bank. He had to wade out to his waist, and even then it was difficult to hold her under the water as he rediscovered her passions.

    She bit his leg before she died, hard enough to tear through his slacks and skin. He worked her mouth loose and stood on the slick stones at the bottom of the stream, watching the water flow through her hair and the weave of her dress. There was nothing poetic, nothing tragic in the death of a stranger. Nothing that he could use.

    He left her body in the cold water so that the heat of the day wouldn't spoil it. She wouldn't drift; he had pinned her under the roots of a dead tree where the bank of the stream had washed away.

    As he walked back to the house, he realized that he'd need to go out that night, maybe the next. The raw material wouldn't last long, and it was taking longer each time for his feelings to deepen.

    The bite on his leg dribbled blood. Before he told them it was done, he stopped in the pump house to rinse his wound and inspect the damage. His own pain might be useful.

    Inside the small building, the pump made echoing mechanical sounds and the latticework of pipes dripped water to the cement floor. The air was warm and moist, erotic. Paul sat on the floor under a pipe, letting water drip onto his hurt leg and the air surround him.

    He leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. The next woman would be different. He would take a brunette, like Serena had suggested, a dark, brooding woman. He would keep her here, in this dark warm chamber, seduce her without the others watching him, monitoring his progress.

    He'd need a decoy, another woman in his basement guest room, perhaps several. That way he could spend longer with his true love. It would be a grand romance, Paul promised himself, his passions beginning to smoulder.

©  Michelle Marr

More than forty of Michelle's short stories have appeared in various magazines. Rope Trick, originally published in The Sterling Web, appeared on the recommended reading list of the annual Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror antholog. Visit her web site at: http://www.romanticnotions.com/michelle

October 2000