Dante’s Fine Finish

DARK FICTION, NASTINESS, NOIR, EROTICA

NEW YORK CITY, 2013

When I arrived at Lenore’s apartment, I could smell the mold even before I knocked on her door. Foul mildew locked in the corners — corners I would most assuredly be smashed against if I were to be giving her what she wanted.

Standing on her welcome mat, I wiped my boots and lay down my bag of goodies before ringing her doorbell. How much would this job win me? A grand? Yeah. I quoted her $750, but that was only for my bedroom work. Once she saw what I was capable of, I felt confident she’d have me in the bathroom as well as the living room.

Modern NYC, with those incongruous door bells and their majestic, antique gong-rings — she had one of those, and for one moment I anticipated Jeeves on the other end, moustache a-twitch, white gloves prepared to test for unsightly dust. No such luck, no dazzle, no Jeeves.

What coagulated on the other side of the now opened door was Lenore. She had mentioned to me on the phone during the consultation that she had been a former cabaret performer and by the look of her come hither pose, I could only assume she was boning up on her method acting. Like a tub of warm, beige cream cheese, she too smelled like she’d been left out too long.

I guesstimated she was about four foot one and as wide as she was tall. Her hair — too chic, so chic, way chic, godawful chic in the way that deep, deep scarlet orange made an impact in the early 90s but when it went wrong, it was an over-gone-get-it-out-of-here wrong. Curly. Shoulder length. She was Bette Midler and Edie the Egg Lady, only in miniature and about as stale as old blender ingredients spattered on a cupboard.

Opening the door, she twirled a fried strand of carroty hair and said, “Yes?”

I silently thanked the gods that she had already sent me a check for the supplies, because as soon as I saw her, I knew finishing the job and getting paid wasn’t going to be easy.

I avoided shaking her hand and forced out a slightly sickened smile. “Hi. I’m Dante. Right on time.”

She smiled back, and that broken-toothed smile in itself should have sent me flying backwards down a flight of stairs to an irretrievably broken neck. But, as it was with the Jeeves-free scenario, no such luck. I just couldn’t will myself to die on the spot, so I just kept on smiling.

“You’re Dante?” All of her aging girth was triple-time undulating with some version of false entitlement. She mocked me generously. Dahhaahaannhhhaaannntay, she said, tossing a garbled chuckle into my previously two syllabled name as she licked her lips with a tongue that seemed too short to be useful even for eating.

Praying for a swift death and not receiving one, I responded to her charms with my best line ever: “Yep, that would be me.”

I retrieved my supply bag, entered and what do you know — she reached up to sniff my neck as I crossed the threshold.

“Mmm, you smell divine.” Yeah, I got it. Cabaret. You’re Liza with a Z, not Lenore with a stank.

“Uhh, thanks. So, where do you want me to start?”

Up and down, up and down, her eyes cruised my body, up and down.

Lenore offered me a cig. I declined. After a phlegm-clotted drag-and-cough mini-session, she said, “I’ll be honest with you, Dante. For some reason, I thought you were going to be a hot Italian guy.”

“Well, I’m a girl. As you can see.”

“You sounded like a guy on the phone. I could only assume that between your name and your voice that you were male.”

I looked at her (as hard as that was) and asked her, in all seriousness, “Yes, well, I have a low voice. Does it matter?”

She gagged out another spitty laugh and said, “You’re the artist, Dante. Let me show you where I want you to start.”

I schlepped my glazes, mediums, plasters, trowels and brushes into the bedroom, where the walls were speckled with cockroach shit and what appeared to be Twinkie smears. Lady Lenore wanted a faux finish.

“I want…romantic Tuscany!” she requested, and so, there I was, bringing the romance.

After an hour of prep and production, I couldn’t take another minute of Lenore’s ceaseless yapping. She was that client who felt the need to hover — every wall painter’s dream come true.

“You know, I’m really not much of a talker, Lenore. Don’t mind me if I just, um, don’t answer. Ever. OK?”

“Oh-ho-kay, Dante. You sly dog, you. I’ll leave you alone now.” She walked out, humming The Waitresses’ song, “I know what boys like, I know what boys need…”

Sly dog. Me? Lady, let me paint and get paid. That’s what I’m here for. No slyness involved.

As hard as it may be to believe, laying on the dusty pube-covered floor beneath where her bed used to be before I pushed it aside to paint — while feather-brushing a grimy corner that seemed to be caked in old mayo — was about a thousand times better than hearing her gasoline-on-the-rocks voice.

Unfortunately, in about ten minutes, Lenore was back. She stood in the doorway, waiting for me to notice her; she had changed her clothes. From my position on the floor, I looked up to see a woman-thing in white lace. Not bridal lace, but Madonna at Radio City white lace, tight spandexy lace — with nothing on beneath. Just a big, white lace elastic body suit with three enormous brown blobby things in triangular formation: one gigantic brown nipple here, one semi-gigantic brown nipple there and just below, the source of all that horrific floor adornment: her pubic area — which took up more space than a mind my size could ever deal with without going completely mental.

Fuck, I gotta die now, was all I could hear myself saying. Was this chick serious? What was she thinking? I got up and looked at her, desperately trying to avoid staring at those three, brown crop circles of doom. What fucking alien was I dealing with?

“Dante. I like that name.” She slithered on to the top of the pushed aside bed.

“Yeah, well, it’s not my real name. It’s just the name I use for the painting company. You know… I think I’m finished for the day.”

“Dante, such a sexy name.”

“OK. Bye.” I stood up. She lunged at me. The entire slime-pit that was Lenore was on top of me, writhing. My glaze cup spilled on to it’s side.

Licking my ear she whispered, “Such a pretty, pretty boy…my Dante…”

Alrighty. Now I was awake.

Lenore, the small but rotund leech of a female had pressed past all the clear lights in me and in what could only be known to me now as pure survival mode, I saw the stain of sin in everblossoming ripples and let me shout it on my soapbox loud — I felt strong, baby, strong as I flipped her off of me, sat on her globulous whatever the fuck, tugged her by the hair and fuck be damned if my hands weren’t fuck orange after with straggles of dying hair — the way her head cracked as I trashed it, again and again against that New York City hardwood, oh fuck me Lenore, you want your party boy, your half naked slippery paint dude to fuck you hard, I’ll fuck you hard, Lenore, I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll bleed into the floor below, they’ll see your fucking red stain on their ceiling and at first they’ll think, oh shit, we better hire a painter, and then they’ll see, they’ll see and

oh shit. I better get out of here.

An Odd Shoppe

DARK FICTION

No amount of velvety stealth or hopper-like hopping up is going to get you a peak of me beneath this mask, my dear, so please relegate your stare to the items on display.

Perchance you came to my humble shop in search of crickety cures, of which I can show you many. I’m usually quite skilled at guessing the needs of my visitorians, and by the dead copper clang of the green-patina’d bell, I can tell that you, my friend, are in the market for something that will remove all traces of DNA from a crime scene. Am I right?

No? Then have a petit-fours, they’re scrumptious. Don’t soil the doilie. Marzipan scarab — the real thing. Anyone? Leave a token in the box.

Let us peruse together, young ones. I’ll have my chap strap on his accordion and he’ll play us a grand tune as we climb my ladder to sniff for goodies upon the shelves on high. After you.

No? Then hold my hand, don’t mind my glove, don’t wriggle so hard, don’t sweat so sweetly, don’t dare, don’t dare.

Is it hair in a jar, is that why you’re here? Teeth needled with holes, strung upon a wire of hardened hemp? Is that why you’re here? Beneath a bell jar, I’ve got just what you want — a child, half frog, half humanoid, basted in formaldehyde — pickled, if you will, with eggs au gratin, yes?

FICKLE FUCKING CUSTOMER, but oh, the customer’s always right, isn’t that right, customer? Can I tempt you with a delectable hemlock and peppermint acid bath for that weekend “me time” you so crave? P’raps some poison for your uncle? Looking for spiders in XXX-large? Those are in the lower level with all the bargains, come.

COME, I said. Put that monkey skull down and let’s descend together, yes?

You and those fumbling hands of yours. Do you really want to see what’s beneath my mask? I have a room for the granting of that wish, just this way. I am but a humble servant, duly providing what little I can to placate the mob. Unmask me, I submit!

However, there is a price.

You know your money’s no good here. But your eyes, they do have value, do they not?

Dr. John Black, 22

FICTION, WILD WEST

When the Bellaquas left Denmark in 1864, we ended up in Switzerland, England and America. Leaving was father’s doing, as he always made a mess of our lives no matter what. I was 22 at the time.

The ‘pick up and leave’ hassle, however, started way back in The Carpathians, where we lived with dad until he hustled the entire family out Romania, finally landing us in the provincial town of Schleswig, Denmark. That my mother died birthing me didn’t exactly help my built-in dysfunctional nature, and finding myself alone, on a cargo ship headed towards the Caribbean, was not my idea of a swell time. By the time we hit Haiti, I’d seen my share of bloated dead bodies and rum soaked seagulls.

It wasn’t until I set foot in El Paso, Texas, that I finally found a place I could call home.

I remember the first time I walked into Smith’s. The year was 1912. I was 22. Still. Pastor Graves was sitting there, nursing something amberish in a glass that had a chip on the rim. I sat a distance from him, ordered a whisky, and let it sit on the bar for quite some time before I spoke.

“See any action in these here parts?” I asked the downtrodden clergyman.

He squinted an angry eyeball at me and said, “Depends on what you call action, son.”

Graves took a hard swig, slammed his glass down on the bar and stared at me. His upper lip was bleeding. It took me .0015 of a second to offer him a handkerchief. I must admit, I was slower than usual on that hot, dusty afternoon.

Shocked by what he apparently thought was my “speed,” he asked me if I was “some kind of doctor.”

I said no.

He said yes, and asked me my name.

“Vladimir Bellaqua, friend. I mean you no harm, I only want to offer you my handkerchief — you are bleeding. You must have cut yourself on the edge.”

“Black, you say?”

“No, my name is Bellaqua.”

“Doctor Black, then.”

“No sir, I’m not a doctor and my name is not Black.”

“Well, it sounds like Black.”

“I suppose. Here,” I said, holding my cloth to his lip. “Hold this and apply pressure.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“Please. Just call me Vlad.”

“I will call you John.”

I sighed. Nobody ever warmed to the name Vladimir, did they? Not in El Paso, at least.

Couples in Art

Digital Illustration, Dori Hartley @2013

Chrysalis (The Man in Room No.5)

FANFIC, V for VENDETTA

Many things had become routine. Some semblance of balance amidst the chaos of everyday life had settled upon the cloister known as the Shadow Gallery. Perhaps it was a pretense — an attempt at normalcy, when in fact all things normal and regular had long evaporated into the surreal. And so, in this underground museum of stolen and most priceless works of art, a masked man and a shorn woman did their best to affect a thing called life.

This masked man who could cook an egg as well as he could accurately throw a blade into another man’s heart, wrapped up his nightly salutation and rose from his place at the side of his lodger’s bed. Secure in her newly found strength, yet wraithlike in appearance, Evey asked V one last question before retiring.

“V…”

“Yes, Evey?”

“The movie tonight…”

“I trust you enjoyed it? Would you care for more conversation on the matter?” asked V, preparing to seat himself once again by her side.

“Do Andy Dufresne and Red live happily ever after?”

“I should think so, yes.” V’s voice trailed off.

“Heavenly.” Evey smiled softly, eyes closing with relief.

“Heaven is in the mind Evey.”

Evey’s eyes widened as she looked at him. Reaching to touch him lightly on the forearm she said, “as is Hell.”

V looked down for a moment and after pausing said, “Yes. Goodnight Evey. May you dream of heaven and it’s angels.”

***

V retired to his quarters, a chamber beneath the gallery itself. No one but he had ever been inside these walls. Rather, no one human. And just before he had the chance to lock the solid oak door, Virgil reminded him of this fact.

“You’re the destruction of my wardrobe aren’t you Virgil?” he asked as the pure white cat oozed in and around V’s ankles, demanding attention. V bent down, picked the animal up and let him sniff his mask. Always tentative yet curious was this one. Cat in arm, V walked towards his mirror and placed the fluffy little menace upon the dressing table. Seated, V spoke to Virgil.

“And how was your day?”

The cat flung a paw out at a strand of V’s wig.

“You won’t rest until this wig lay like a dead soldier, will you? Shredded and beyond recognition is what you’re going for. Am I not right?”

The cat sniffed at the air.

“I understand the feeling,” V said as he stroked a gloved hand over the animals back.

V sat at the vanity and removed the wig, placing it gently onto it’s plastic head shape. He undid the ribbons which held his mask in place and before removing his leather gloves, he indulged his pate in a deep long scratching massage.

“Lord it feels good to get that thing off.” Looking over at Virgil he asked, “Jealous?”

V undid the high collar of his vest. Gloves off now, he gave his eyes a vigorous rub. He looked into the mirror as Virgil sniffed at his face, occasionally licking at his ear.

Gazing at his own reflection, V said, “Now there’s a face only a cat could love.”

And raising the facial muscle where an eyebrow might have been, he said to the cat, “But you don’t love me, do you, cat? You just use me for my tinned tuna.”

And on that note, V clicked his tongue against his palette and signaled to the cat that dinner was about to be served. He led the cat to yet another hidden chamber where he kept food, a bowl and a warm place for the feline to sleep.

Yawning, V turned his attentions to a hot water shower and lavender scented creme soap. Stripping himself of his black fencing gear, his attentions once again turned to a full length mirror. Sighing, V took in the sight of his naked form. A burn victim. All of the typical trauma and mess that one who survives first degree burns would go on to live with. No matter, V thought. But he also recognized that denial was his only recourse.

“Why spend a lifetime hating myself simply because my appearance is socially unacceptable? T’would be a waste of precious and fleeting time.”

And so, in the shower he scrubbed away the day, the image, the weariness. He tilted his head back and let the scalding water confront his wasted face, let the water stream down and over his muscular physique. The fire and the chemicals may have robbed him of his more accessible beauty, but he was able to take minor pride in that he was still exceedingly strong. Stronger than ever before, in fact. The soap bubbles drizzled down over his sculpted chest and arms, slithering over his hipbones and long, strong thighs, over knee caps, shins, ankles, toes and down, down, down the drain.

Wrapping a thick white terry about his waist, he grabbed for the black silk kimono draped delicately over the antique Japanese screen just outside the door of the loo.

*****

Evey, having not fallen asleep as planned, felt restless and somewhat agitated. She wondered if such suffering and trial as the sort she’d just seen in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ could actually result in a happy ending. A heavenly ending at that. It had been days since she’d stood in the rain in the same way as Andy Dufresne, feeling the glory of god within and without. Feeling what both she and V knew as fearlessness. But were they fearless? Were they really fearless?

Yes, things had changed. There was a ready air of confidence and yes, together they knew that the bond between them was nothing less than a force majeur… but were they fearless? Weren’t there still things that could not be approached? Subjects still forbidden to speak of? Evey had secrets after all. V had secrets. What was it that prevented these two, who had shared so much trial and suffering together, from sharing these secrets? Was it respect, Evey wondered… or was it fear? A fear that she suspected lingered beneath the bravado. A fear so much like Pandora’s Box, that once breached, would let loose what might be…redemption.

Shivering, Evey left her room abruptly.

Padding her way down the spiral staircase, she ventured forth towards V’s private chambers. Not only had she never the nerve to approach him in the late night, but she hadn’t actually thought to invade in such a way before. Oh yes there were times when she lay in bed wondering if he was doing the same… laying in his bed thinking of her. Yes of course there was a desire to expose him, to see with her own eyes what his face might look like beneath that comical mask. But there was also another need, a need to be seen. She desperately needed to be seen by him, and not just tended to. Had he ever really looked at her? Had he seen her body? Surely, when she stood before him naked in the night he must have seen what is so apparent about her…and yet, his gaze never settled on her form at all. For if he did look at her, surely he would have mentioned what was so glaringly obvious. Was V such a gentleman… or was he selectively blind?

She was in pursuit of truth and freedom, she told herself. “No more masquerade,” she whispered aloud, trembling.

Terror washed over her as she saw the golden ray of soft light seep out from an everso slim opening at his door. How can this be, she wondered. Would he not sleep with his door locked? The warm scent of lavender and aloes wafted into the corridor. As she approached the sliver of an opening, she heard him humming softly. One of those jazzy old tunes of his.

“…it’s drivin’ me crazy, just thinkin’ ’bout my baby, to maybe come around… hmmm, hmm hmm….”

V singing. Evey’s every bit of strength and fervour suddenly melted into an almost gleeful mirth upon hearing V sing a word like baby. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. Regrouping what was left of her courage, she once again approached his door.

The slit in the doorway was not large enough to peek in at him, which was good because she was not about to become a voyeur. Cracking the door wider, she entered the bedroom very slowly.

V stood silhouetted in front of the only light in the room. Evey could only perceive a black form.

“V…”

V turned, quite startled. He dropped from his hand a priceless copy of Dante’s Paradiso, its brown pages falling to the floor, scattered. In a blur of motion she saw him slip behind the Japanese screen.

“Don’t you believe in knocking?” There was true anger in his voice and it scared Evey.

“I-I oh good God V, I’m so sorry…”

“This is not the time for revelation, Evey. Go to bed.”

“I have apologized V, but I disagree. This IS the time for revelation.”

V stirred behind the screen. He knew he could not get to any form of cover-up without her seeing him. The only way out from this behind this screen was au naturel.

“How selfish you are Evey! This is not some sort of game, something to toy with! I am like nothing you’ve ever seen before. And you will wish you were blind…you will wish away all thought…” V’s voice began to grow raspy.

“You have NO IDEA of what I’m like! NO IDEA of how horrible I look! You don’t have a clue as to what to expect…”

Evey lit a candle by the bed. V could not tell what she was doing or how furious she herself had been getting.

His head began to swim. He felt he would lose consciousness. This was NOT part of the plan. He stood behind that screen bunching up the kimono around his neck, as if… as if…

…the lavender blossoms crept up his legs, creeping vines tugging him downwards… the vortex began to scream old names and the implied taste of lemon and aspirin invaded his mouth…

She put down the matchbook and head towards the screen. And in truly anarchistic fashion, she flung the screen to the ground.

“I HAVE AN IDEA V. YES, I DO HAVE AN IDEA!!! This isn’t about you! It’s about ME! It isn’t all about you and your scars and burns and unwillingness to be seen!” Evey screamed.

And as her scream stopped short, she saw him. In the candlelight. A man. A man with little hair and darkened skin. A very tall, muscular man whose skin had been patched with shiny stretches of poreless flesh, pocked areas of dryness and purplish veins running hither and thither. And she saw his eyes…and they were the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen. His face was…the very face of Love itself.

V stood there, vulnerable yet completely dignified. He could not run, nor could he hide. This was it. This was the moment he dreaded and somehow he felt as though he was standing in the eye of the storm. Around him swirled the gusts of memory, wisping around him like silent sheets of rain. Sunshine through windows long forgotten and the distant hint of smell…cooking…fresh fruit…roses.

Standing as a witness, in the eye, this hurricane of emotion nipped at his flesh like tiny electric sparks yet he remained unmoved. Tubes uncoiled like snakes that danced and syringes blew up from the earth’s core with great speed, bypassing him. Red, red liquids spouted up from great geysers… and then the voices, the voices and the smells once again. Napalm, cow dung, alcohol…

And Evey, there, in front of him. Naked. Sucking back down into himself he became a pin point of absolute calm. Evey. Evey and her naked body, before him. There was only Evey.

With tears in her eyes, she said to V, “Yes, V, I do have an idea.” And as she stood before him naked, she held the candle up to her body. She had been severely scarred. Slash marks ran up and over her breasts. From the base of her pubic bone to her collar she was riddled with deep scars that told a story of wretched violence and abuse. Cigarette burns about her midsection. Her small lithe body was a war torn battlefield that had been long ago forgotten, it’s soil never nurtured again. She was deformed by the hate of disease and rape. And though her pretty face betrayed the torment of what her body endured, this was nonetheless her body.

“Look at me, V. Look AT ME.”

Snapping out of his fugue, he reached out to touch her. His fingers were no more than healed pulp, yet they had sensitivity. She held her arms out and cried sweet hot tears as he touched her torso. Her tears were the boiling river of unreleased pain and rejection. No one had ever touched Evey in a kind way before. No one had shown her the simple kindness of sympathy or acceptance. V traced the lines of her deepest scars with his sensitive fingertips, trembling all the while. Overwhelmed, he pressed his head close to her breasts, kissing her scars tenderly. Evey and V dropped to their knees.

It was at this moment that everything changed.

Evey opened to V’s kisses. They embraced with the hunger of the starved. V pulled her so close to his body that he could feel the rhythm of her heartbeat make time with his own. Ravenous he was for her as he laid her gently on the floor, climbing on top of her. He no longer existed as the tormented man of wounds. All of the world had finally disintegrated. He lost himself and in losing himself he realized that he never saw anything clearly…at all. Everything he did in the past was done out of reaction, and not without the constant consideration for his own pain. He was the apex of his actions. He had ruled his own world for so long, in denial of who he truly was… and Evey…Evey showed him the mirror and that mirror was her own self… For the prison that he thought he had fearlessly escaped had not been truly vacated… it held within it an obstinate inmate: his own self hatred.

As V discovered the depth of Evey’s love, she clawed at his back. Beneath her fingernails she felt flesh being torn. She began to rip the flesh from his back. Panicked, she screamed out, “V! What is happening???” But V was beyond the call of words. Bits of dried flesh fell off of him. The roof of the bedroom began to crumble apart, exposing a sky filled with moons and stars. She tried to soothe his back but the skin kept peeling away, and beneath that skin lay another impenetrable layer… it was smooth, cool and hard. But what’s this? What were these bumps under her palms, bumps where his shoulder blades might have been?

“V! My god! What’s going on?”

V was lost to this world. His passion was being revealed and Evey was there to bear witness. And as Evey slowly began to comprehend this event, she felt those strange bumps elongate. Within her grasp, these bumps seemed to grow and lengthen rapidly. She held in her two hands, two stalks made of bone and cartilidge, covered in soft feathery flesh. His ruined skin had molted off his body and beneath this carapace there was a completely white being emerging, beautiful beyond description, with ageless blue green eyes. He was so much like a white stallion above her. And as he looked into her eyes with love and compassion, his wings grew and grew until they sprouted past the open ceiling…up and up, stemming from his strong back, he on top of Evey, she the foundation…the apex. And as he poured his love into her, his wings spread apart in formation… Evey felt it. As she grasped tightly to his wings, she felt the surge of power that lifted her as high as those wonderful wings would go. The tips of his wings touched the stars and the base of his body was rooted deeply in Evey. Fear would forever be relative and forever more they would be in relation to nothing.

They had finally become free.