Still Life

But then she saw the painting and forgot about everything else.

It was almost perfect this time: the glade looked fresh and alive, the sky was the faintest shade of blue, streaked with orange, and the reclining nymph now appeared suitably enchanted by her surroundings, lost in her own little world. The shadow man was a shadow no longer, now solid and real. His hunched pose as he reached toward the nymph reminded Christine of the leering gargoyles in old churches.

By some trick of the light, the shadow man's chest appeared to rise and fall with heavy breaths. She was sure that if she touched it the canvas would feel warm, like the body of an animal. She put her hand out...

A knock on her door broke the spell. She jerked her hand back. For some reason, her heart was pounding in her chest. If she had touched it...

A knock again, louder. "Just a minute!" she called.

She was being silly, of course, and letting her imagination run away with her again. The painting wasn't even that good, she decided. Better than the last, better than an amateur like her had any right to expect, but still not good enough. She had another canvas, she would work on it tonight.

She needed more paint, she decided, as she made her way to the door. Her palette wasn't wide enough, that was the problem. The scene itself was finally right, but the colors were off. If she could just get the color right, it would be perfect.

Impatient knocking for a third time, and Christine bellowed "Hold on!" just as her hand closed around the knob.

The door swung open onto an empty hallway.

She peered out in both directions. No one in sight. "Hello?" she said, and her echo chased itself down the hall.

Just as she was turning back, something caught her eye; on the carpet, just outside the door, a black mark she didn't remember ever seeing before. She got down on her knees to look at it. It was a splotch of black paint, in the shape of an oval.

No, not an oval, she realized. She leaned in even closer, scrutinizing it from a few inches away.

It was a hoof print.

***

In her rush to the get to the art store she had forgotten her phone. The message alert greeted her when she got back in.

There were two voicemails, the first from David:

"Hi, I just wanted to let you know I'll be at the office until five, you can call me here if you want to yell at me."

She frowned. Then the second message played:

"Uh, hi, Christine, my name is Troy Owens, I'm a friend of David's. This is a little awkward because I don't usually do this kind of thing, but David told me all about you and, well, he thinks we'd really hit it off..."

That was all she heard before the droning pulse of her own anger drowned out everything. Her hand shook as she dialed David's office. He answered in the middle of the first ring.

"No, this is not because I feel guilty," he said.

She was momentarily stunned, and in the face of her silence he kept talking.

"That's what you were going to ask, right? Am I trying to play matchmaker because I feel guilty about our breakup? Well no, I'm not."

"You asshole!"

"I knew you'd be angry, but I thought this was the only way to give you the push out the door that you needed. You never know what you want, Christine."

"You UNBELIEVABLE asshole, how dare you?"

He didn't seem to hear her. "I'm not going to lie Christine, I'm worried about you. You're in danger of becoming a shut-in. And, honestly, Troy is a great guy, but he needs someone to shake him out of his rut too. I saw the both of you and I thought how much you'd both enjoy meeting, so if I have to take a more active hand in getting you together then that's what I'll-"

"Shut up! You had absolutely no right to go and do that after I repeatedly told you not to! For you to sit there and give me this smug, condescending bullshit about knowing what's best for me when you didn't give a damn what was best for me ever, EVER the entire time we were dating is just so...so...YOU!"

David sighed. "You have to get over me sooner or later Christine."

The phone landed somewhere near the bathroom door.

Christine stuck her head out the window, taking deep breaths to avoid bursting into tears. She hated him. She hated the sound of his voice, she hated his smug face, she hated the worn-out shoes that he always wore and the fact that he put honey in his coffee and-

The phone rang again.

"You are STILL an asshole!" she screamed into the receiver.

"Um, hello?"

Another declaration of "asshole" died at the back of her throat.

"Hello, is this Christine?"

She swallowed hard. "Yes. Yes! I am so, so sorry about that, I thought you were-"

"Yes, I know who you thought I was, I was just telling him that same thing myself. This is Troy Owens again, I just got done talking to David. I'm calling to apologize, I had no idea that he had given me your number without your permission."

Christine took a few more deep breaths.. "It's alright. I mean, I know it wasn't your fault. David can be so pushy when he thinks he's right, and you just got caught in the middle of it."

Troy sighed, and although she had no idea what he looked like, she could picture his long-suffering expression. "Yeah, I know it. He's been pushing me about this for weeks, and I kept telling him I wasn't really interested-"

"Me too!"

"I mean, nothing personal, it's not about you, I don't even know you. I mean, that's the point of course, but-"

"No no, I completely understand."

"I finally gave in just to get him off my back. Not that I'm saying that dating you is only preferable to constant harassment."

"If you were to say that, I'd probably agree. David would definitely agree."

There they both tried to decide if it was acceptable to laugh. It was.

"Wow," he said, "so neither of us wanted anything to do with each other?"

"Not a thing. I won't be offended if you aren't."

"What if I am?"

"That's okay, I reserve the right to be a little offended even when I say I'm not. Woman's prerogative."

"I think I want to go back to the harassment."

"Too late, you already made the call."

"I'm being punished for one mistake?"

"Two mistakes. You called me back. You're calling me back right now. This is the call."

"Ah yes, the old two strikes law, I think my parents used to use that one."

"I know, I called them and asked." Christine frowned. She should not be talking to him like this.

"Called my parents before we'd even talked huh?"

"I was checking if you were good stalking material. Afraid you didn't make the cut."

"There's some sort of tailoring pun to be made here about cutting 'stocking material', but my better instincts tell me to avoid it."

"That sounds like the first time today that your better instincts have worked out." She realized she was smiling and scolded herself.

Another pause. They both tried to talk at once, then she let him go ahead:

"Of course," he said, "If we were ever to meet up, even once, it would validate all of David's unethical methods."

"Yes, I suppose it would."

"So even if it seemed like a good idea, we could never do it."

"Nope. We'd never hear the end of it."

"Right. Kind of a shame though."

"David really knows how to spoil a good thing." She was counting down silently in her head.

"He does. Of course," she could almost hear him summoning up his courage, "if we were to meet and then hate each other, that would be the ultimate repudiation."

"It would, wouldn't it?"

"Because then everything he did would have been for nothing."

"And he would realize once and for all that he doesn't know us as well as he thinks he does."

"Right. Almost sounds like a plan, doesn't it?"

"It does."

"So it's agreed, we'll meet up once, just long enough to realize how bad we are for each other, and then we'll never speak to each other or to David again."

"Except to harass him about how bad we got along."

"Right, except for that."

"And it will be entirely about petty, passive-aggressive revenge, right? Nothing more than that."

"Nope, nope," he said. "That's all there is to it."

"Well good."

"Do we have time to hate each other tonight?"

She looked at the bag of paints and the easel in the next room. "Well, I had plans, sort of...but I can cancel them."

"Why don't I call around and make some reservations? That way you'll at least get a decent meal out of this tragic, ill-fated meeting."

"My, how considerate. It's a shame we're not going to hit it off at all."

"Well, we can't. It's a matter of principle."

"That's right," she said. "I almost forgot. Principles are important, of course."

***

"Help me unzip this," Christine said, pulling Troy's hands around her waist to the zipper on the back of her dress. She stood on the tips of her toes so that her mouth could reach his neck. He must have shaved in a hurry, because tiny, coarse bristles tickled her lips when she kissed him.

She exhaled in relief as the tight dress loosened and slid halfway down. "It'd be a shame if you really quit the hospital," she said. "You have a surgeon's hands."

The tips of his fingers grazed the bare part of her back. "I'm not that kind of doctor," he said.

"You're not any kind of doctor from what I hear, but don't spoil my happy illusions. She leaned up even higher, trying to kiss his earlobe.

For the record, she thought as she kissed him again and they both tumbled onto the bed, I am only doing this to get back at my ex. It's not because I have any sort of genuine interest in this man at all. If I did, then I would probably never live it down. So instead, as far as the official story goes, this is about me using him to work out my anger at a third party. Anything else you might hear is malicious slander.

Christine sat up just enough to wriggle out of her dress, then kicked it to the floor. Stripped down to bra and panties, she sat on the edge of the mattress, fumbling in the dark with Troy's belt. He tried to help and she batted his hands away playfully.

There was a satisfying click when it gave way, and she pulled it off in one motion. She heard him grunt and realized she must have given him some friction burn when she did. Oh well, she thought, I'm sure I'm about to make up for it.

"You like to take it fast," he said as she tugged his pants down his hips.

"Keep up," she replied, leaning forward and, using her hands to guide in the dark, pressed her mouth to the tip of his cock. Spreading her lips, she kissed it wetly just below the head, extending the tip of her tongue and tracing a tiny, close circle along the shaft. She heard him swallow whatever he was about to say.

She continued to tease him, licking her lips to wet them and then trailing open-mouthed kisses down his cock, stopping at the base and then tracing all the way back up with the tip of her tongue. She completed this circuit three or four times, listening for that distinct change in the pitch of his breathing that let her know when he was on edge. When she finally heard it, she responded by swallowing the head into her mouth, sliding her lips down and around it, then pursing them tightly. His shudder was extremely gratifying.

Christine wrapped her arms around his legs, tickling the backs of his calves as she swirled her tongue around and around the head. She tasted a stray drop and opened her mouth wider, sliding down him, letting him feel the hot, wet, soft touch of her lips gliding over one inch at a time. She stopped halfway and bobbed her head, swallowing, and his hips bucked a little, almost on command. She liked that he was responsive. It invested her with an urge to toy with him.

For a long time she continued to provoke him by never taking the full length into her mouth, always stopping just halfway down and tickling his shaft with her tongue, pursing her lips to make an obscene but gratifying sucking noise. In the dark she could hear the faint sound of his hands knotting the sheets. Come on Troy, she thought, just show a little initiative and it'll pay off...

Deciding he needed a bit more motivation, she cupped his balls in her hand and gave a gentle squeeze at the same time she ran her tongue around the rim of his cock. This finally elicited the reaction she wanted; Troy tangled his fingers in her hair and pushed down once, hard, at the same time that he thrust with his hips. Good boy, she thought, opening wide and taking him all the way in, gagging slightly as he came to the entrance of her throat.

Now she let him set the pace, responding to the touch of his hand on the back of her head and the increasingly needful, rhythmic thrusting of his hips. She adjusted the pressure of her lips, gently gliding across the sensitive skin of his shaft. She tasted a hot, sticky dribble on her tongue, and decided it was time to move to the next step.

Pushing away, she slid further back onto the bed, the springs groaning under her, pulling him along, so that he almost fell down in the dark. They lay in a tangle, her limbs twined around his, her lips seeking and finding the ridge of his ear, kissing, then whispering:

"Well come on; show me what you have for me..."

He didn't respond for a few seconds, and at first she worried she might have miscalculated. Then, in one motion, his right hand pulled her head back by the hair so hard that her back arched, just as his left hand grabbed a fistful of her panties and pushed them aside.

All at once he was on her, pinning her, and then inside of her, the hot, tight confines of her cunt accepting him. She gasped, shocked at the sudden, violent force of it, but before she had time to recover he was moving again, thrusting up into her, rocking back and forth.

She purred: "Mmmmm. Good Troy. Just like that..."

Later, she half-dozed naked in his arms, and when he switched the lamp on she felt warm and satisfied at the sight of his boyish face and blue eyes.

They lay and talked for another hour, her head on his chest, then he had to leave for an early shift at the hospital. She promised she would call him and realized that unlike all the other men she had said that to that this time she probably would.

She was still smiling when she opened her front door, but the smile soon collapsed into a scowl. She hadn't realized how dreary this place had become, or how stuffy it felt. And it was a mess! Boxes and bags and art supplies everywhere!

She looked at the painting as she went by, and tsked. How could she have spent so much time on something so ugly, she wondered. She particularly disliked the shadowy man's face now.

I guess I'm just not meant to be an artist, she thought, setting the canvas aside and collapsing the easel. What on earth am I going to do with all this? Throw it out, she supposed.

She'd worry about it tomorrow. It was nearly five AM now. She had just barely enough time to undress and land on the mattress before sleep caught up with her, and then-

Drops of icy rain fell on her through the boughs of the tree. She huddled underneath it, and heard Komos' voice mixed with the wind.

"You've been with someone else."

She blinked, looking around for him. "Komos? Where did you go?"

"Where have you been?"

"I don't know what you mean! I was right here, and then you were gone, and then-" she stopped. She was dreaming again, she realized. What had she done while she was awake to make him sound so angry? And how did he know?

"Who is he?" Komos' voice was vacant, like someone who has been so angry for so long that he can't summon up the effort anymore.

Christine leaned against the tree trunk. "I don't know," she said. "What does it matter anyway? This is just a dream."

There was silence for a while. Then: "Just a dream?"

"Wait, I didn't mean it like that. All I meant was-"

"Just a dream. Fine. Then we'll see exactly what a dream can do."

And then he was gone, and she was alone, in the dark and the rain.

***

She woke to pounding on her door.

"Not this again!"

She dressed in a hurry, bare feet kicking through the disaster area in her living room. Heads would roll if she ever found out who was doing this every morning (or afternoon, according to the clock?). She flung the door open, expecting to find the usual empty hallway, and nearly fainted when instead there were two strange men on her doorstep.

The oldest of the unfamiliar pair held something up to her face. It was a badge.

"Miss," he said. "We'd like to have a word with you."

Am I still dreaming, she wondered. Out loud she said: "What is this about, exactly?"

"This is about Troy Owens and David Sanderson. If you haven't heard already, then I think maybe you ought to sit down."

For the next fifteen minutes she let their words wash over her, seemingly disconnected sentences and phrases drifting by, occasionally breaking through the fog of shock:

"...both found dead between the hours of five AM and six AM..."

"...separate incidents, but we have reason to believe they're related..."

"...apparently you were one of the last people to speak with both victims..."

"...friends say that David was upset over a fight the two of you had yesterday..."

"...doesn't look like a break-in. In fact, it looks like they both just opened the door for their attacker..."

"...blunt-force trauma to the head. We'll spare you the details, but suffice to say..."

"...I'll be frank, I've seen a lot of murders, but never anything like this. There was... an unusual amount of force used. A very unusual amount of force..."

"...if you can remember anything either of them said that might give us an idea why someone would do this..."

"...we realize how you must feel right now, but the early stages of an investigation are the most important. If you can remember anything, anything at all..."

Christine said nothing until the detectives were getting ready to leave.

"We can see that you're not in any condition for this right now," one of them said. "And that's understandable. We'll come back. In the meantime, if there's anything you want to tell us-"

"Did you find any kind of mark on the floor?" she asked, the first words she had spoken in some time. "Something like this?"

She traced a hoof print in the dust on the coffee table. Neither detective answered, but the look that passed between them told her what she needed to know. The younger one (she had forgotten their names already) appeared particularly troubled.

"Why do you ask?" he said.

"I found a mark like that painted on the floor outside my door yesterday. You walked right by it when you came in."

They both sat back down.

"We can't give out specific information about the crime scenes," said the older one, "but, hypothetically, do you think that this mark might be a message or a threat of some kind? Do you have any idea who might have put it there?"

Christine tried to answer, but instead she started crying. She cried and cried and every time she tried to talk she only cried more, because all at once she was remembering things that had been said to her in dreams.

The detectives told her they would be back, and that there would be officers watching her apartment tonight. They were sure she wasn't in any danger, they said, but it was a basic precautionary measure. They told her they were sorry about what had happened. Christine could read the looks that passed between them, the ones that said: Well, if she's dead by tomorrow, that means she didn't do it.

She locked the door as soon as they were gone, and then she sat, and thought. She remembered something now, something that someone told her in a dream:

"I'll come for you when you're finished calling for me."

And then she knew what to do.

Christine set up the easel. She gathered up the supplies she had bought the previous day, and the one blank canvas she had left. Her fingers were still bruised and calloused from all the hours spent with a brush in hand, but she picked one up anyway and, careful not to think about what she was about to do, she started to paint.