Author's Note:
I once read something similar to this, and felt inspired by it, so I just had to go ahead and write it. Said similar version of this is a woman, and it contains lesbian relationship. However, this one is slightly different, and slightly more tragic.
I've always wanted to write something narcissistic.
Originally, I intended this to be supernatural or psychological, depending on the reader's interpretation. But I couldn't resist adding that supernatural figure.
This is a short story, but I doubt it'll all fit in one chapter, so I'm going to break it up into a series of chapters until it's done.
Let's hope I actually finish this story.
Anyway, read, enjoy (hopefully), and please review. Constructive criticism will be very much appreciated.
MD
Narcissus
Disclaimer: The following contents contains homosexuality, sexual contents, some bondage, and more. Please turn back now if you feel uncomfortable about this. Let this be the only warning. All characters, plots, concepts, story etc belongs to me. Any resemblance to anyone/anything whether fictional or not is purely coincidental.
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There are beginnings in every stories, I suppose, so I will begin mine by describing the surroundings in which I am. It is my studio. It looks like one of those places where the ballet dancers stretch themselves, only minus the bar. The lights are done especially to accentuate every scope every curve every curl of my body. And of course, there are mirrors, or were because every single pieces of those mirrors were smashed into million bits of pieces.
Their broken fragments now lie like dangerous knives over the flawless wooden floor of my studio.
There is only a small wooden table and a plastic stool. I write like a madman, and if I should look into a mirror (and god forbids I do) I might even look the part of a madman. Perhaps I am even mumbling to myself like the lost vagabonds in the filthy streets outside, but I am beyond caring now.
But who am I you ask? Surely, you must know me. My recent exhibition and hopefully, my last, were staged in this very city, Paris. Ah yes, and they say that the scent of roses overpowers everything. But, my friend, underneath all those fineries and expensive perfumes, there is the stink of unwashed bodies. What a rich bouquet of smells they make!
You don't mind it do you? If I call you my friend?
Of course you don't mind, because by the time you read this I am already gone. But what am I saying? Back to the tale.
I am a prodigy, they say. I was drawing even before I wrote. In fact, my first picture was a picture of my hand. It is a quite remarkable looking thing, my hand. Very delicate and very long like the finely toned hand of a master pianist. Of course, I didn't like drawing anything else. Everything else was too imperfect. Oh yes, this woman might have the perfect breasts, but then she will have a minor flaw on her face. Her eyes might be a little too far apart. Or maybe her nose is too big. But of course I rarely use others. I have the perfect model.
Me, of course. Who else did you think?
I have an androgenic build, they say, so I look like a delicate male or an athletic female. I have hair the color of fiery sunset, and they curl and rest around my forehead like those cherubs in paintings. My eyes are wide and green and slanted so I look foreign, exotic, and with just the right touch of makeup, I have what you call a pair of mesmerizing eyes. Perhaps I am not too tall, but my height is never an issue to me. I have the perfect height with just the right amount of grace and charm to carry it off.
So I have mirrors everywhere in my house, and the large room which was made into a large studio just for me to paint. Of course, worshipping myself didn't mean I didn't take lovers. Of course I took lovers, men or women alike. I stared into the mirrors as we made love, my limbs entwined with theirs and every flaws magnified into a dozen so that it formed a picture of exquisite grotesquery. But sex isn't the only thing I enjoy. There was the dance in the dazzling flashing lights and endless music. There was the burn of alcohol. There was the drugs and the wonderful bliss afterward.
Then find my nameless partner for the night.
Sometimes we went to one of those cheap motels. Most of the time I took her (or him) home.
And after I've performed duly, and my lover of the night fell off into light or deep slumber, I'd slip from the bed and put on my robes and creep into the studio. There I would gaze at my reflection and work until sunup.
I could spend hours working on the canvas, mixing the paint, staring at my reflection. Nothing of last night or the promised whispers of sex can turn me from my work. I love painting the curl of my lips, my high cheekbones, my aristocratic nose. I enjoy too the shading of the morning light as it spilled through the windows to play on my skin.
Inevitably, my partner of last night would stumble in asking for coffee or milk to cure her (or his) terrible hangover, and I would coldly refuse, demand them to leave. This was my private time with myself.
I was famous for my paintings. They were all so cruelly sexual and suggestive in a way. I didn't care much for the public even as they idolized me, loved me, and despised me. So I was rich, I was young, I was reckless without a care in the world.
So when the new club opened in town, I was there. There were mirrors all around, and the theme was a deep red, which flowed like blood all over the place. I am never a big fan of red, but the red here was alive. It was burning, pulsing, throbbing with a life and a heat of its own. There was fire in this red, and even if it was just a normal club, I was enchanted.
Or maybe it was the coke talking.
The music was thunderous, was gyrating, was simply too intoxicating to miss. There were manners of all different exotic beings, and of course I was one of them, moving in the timeless ritual of dance, hand groping, fingers caressing, stroking.
Then I saw her.
She was leaning against the bar, and she was staring at me, large eyes that were entirely too dark to be brown yet too light to be black. The flashing light played off her delicate features and petite frame, except there was nothing at all delicate about her. There was a smothering quality about her that just made me want to rip her clothes off and fuck her senseless, and she wasn't even beautiful. It was just the mere presence of her that burned in the back of my mind every time I turned away. The whole time she watched me as I chatted and flirted to this anonymous beautiful woman that had, suddenly and mysteriously, turned uninteresting for me.
Suddenly, she was gone. I couldn't feel her burning gaze on me anymore, and I was left with the feeling that I was missing something. But then I saw the flash of her skirt, and I was out of my seat in seconds, ignoring the protests of my date. All I could focus on was her rapidly disappearing figure that had just slipped by a burly bouncer.
I emerged into an alley that was only partially lit by a weak lamp. The stench rose sickeningly, and I knew I was in one of those places where the vomit stained the walls like unforgivable slime. I thought I saw someone lying in the corner, shirt ripped, panties gone, limbs splayed in an awkward position and left there as the rapist fled. But someone's hand touched my shoulder and I was distracted.
"Monsieur." Her voice was as I'd imagined, husky and low, and smothering just like her affect on me. "I have been watching you."
"Am I interesting to watch?" She was very close to me. Her breasts pressed lightly on my chest, and from where my arm hugged her waist, I could feel a patch of her skin uncovered by the slinky dress she wore. It was satiny smooth to the touch.
"Very, monsieur." She purred. I thought I saw a wicked smile on her lips, but when she turned her face to look at me, all I caught sight was a coy smile. "Your date is not a very interesting woman."
"Are you?" I countered. I had buried my face in her hair. It smelled vaguely of something as musky and coy as she was. My questing fingers had ventured down where, in the civilized world, would have earned me a sharp slap to my cheek. But she only laughed at my answer.
And then her hand grasped my shirt, and I forgot all about being charming when those luscious lips found mine.
The kiss was painful in a way that only intensified the ache in my groin. There was fire in the kiss, something that sent me reeling as though I've been hit by a freight train. I could only gasp when she pulled away. The scent of roses overwhelmed me.
I licked my lips. I could still taste her. I was speechless, and she was moving onto my ear where her wicked teeth nipped eagerly on my earlobe.
"I know what you want, monsieur." She whispered, her hot breath tickling my skin. I groaned as her hand slipped down to cup my crotch. "I know what you desire."
"You." I said, and I wanted to slam her against the wall and ravish her into incoherency. But her fingers slipped to the front of my pants where, in a few minutes, had them undone.
"Here, my dear?" I grabbed for her hand. "I'm not an exhibitionist."
But she gave me another quick kiss that left me breathless, and then proceeded to slip her skilled hand under my boxers.
"Shit." I hissed, breath hitching at her cruel manipulations.
She smiled at me coyly, though it was all an act. I could see the wickedness lurking in those eyes. "Give me what I want, and I'll give you what you want, monsieur."
"And how do you know what I want?" I teased. In reality, I barely heard a word she said. I was too focused on the hand that was currently stroking me.
"Ah, but you do." She murmured. I could barely see her eyes in the dim light. "How many times have you gazed into the mirror? How many times have you touched yourself? How many times have you worshipped yourself on canvas?"
The words came as a kind of shock for me, and it was all I could do to push her away. My body moaned in disappointment as her wicked touch left me, but I stared at her in suspicion.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
She only smiled that wicked smile, and I experienced a prickle of fear as she took a step toward me. But her smile only grew wider, and I think she knew I desired her.
Of course, she was only a woman, but barely after that thought crossed my mind when she laughed.
"How wrong you are, my love." She whispered, and before my horrified eyes, she changed.
This was something incomprehensible to mortal eyes, and even to this day, I was not sure what was it that I saw. But the whole image of this desirable woman rippled, and something else came through, something that I wasn't exactly sure I'd want to see. So I closed my eyes, I squeezed them shut, and I could hear her laughter changing into something sexless and soulless and finally something definitely male.
He called me by name, and he ordered me to open my eyes. Irresistibly, I did.
I wished I hadn't looked, because he was beautiful. He was so fucking beautiful that I suddenly had this irresistible urge to paint him. I wanted to worship him, I wanted to dedicate myself to him, and he smiled indulgingly as though he heard my thoughts and acknowledged it. I think I may have wept a little. I just wanted to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow to maybe find out that it was all a dream.
"But you desire me." He said this with a hint of indulgence, as though speaking to a small child. He was stepping toward me, and there was a look in his eyes that was entirely foreign to me because usually, I was the predatory one. The fear and lust clashed in me while I tried to keep the distance, until the wall behind me reminded me none too gently that I was out of places to run.
Then his lips were on me, demandingly, possessively, and I was returning the kiss just as fervently. I was, in fact, so engrossed in it that I hadn't noticed his hand had traveled to my crotch until something warm enveloped it. I gasped, losing the battle for dominance, and he was pressing into me so that my back actually hurt from rubbing against the rough bricks of the alley wall.
But I was too far gone to care.
When his lips left mine, I was gasping for breath, and was already aching for another kiss. I didn't care that he wasn't human, only that I wanted him now, to satiate the burning ache in me.
Then the next moment, I was terrified by him, even as he complied by placing tiny kisses on my neck.
"You have to understand what I can give you." He breathed, distracting me with his clever tongue. "Your life can be so perfect."
"What would you have in return?" I managed out. My voice tasted foreign to myself.
His touches left liquid fire as he moved down. "Only your pleasure, monsieur," was his wicked reply as he tenderly and gently exposed me to the air.
I gasped, clutching his shoulders as he took me in. The warmth was so pleasurable I melted. Even the fact that anyone would've came out and saw us didn't stop me now. My hands were entangled in his hair, grasping the silky locks as I nearly buckled under my pleasure. He was ruthless, his claiming of me, and when I finally came, shuddering and crying out and thankful that the alley was empty, he was silent, only holding me as I clung to him in my state of shock and weakness. He gave me another kiss before letting me go. I was too drained to protest.
"It's a deal." I heard him say, and I wanted to say that there was no deal because I hadn't consented to anything, but in a way, I think I had, because the last thing I saw as I slipped off into the darkness was his indulging smile.
-TBC?-