Feldman raised his hands in mock celebration. That damn smile never waned. “Of course you’re an artist. You’re what the Agras might’ve termed a ‘destroyer.’ Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“No.”
“The Agras believed everything created comes about through a creator, a destroyer, a collector, and a teacher. All roles are rather self-explanatory. All are sculptors of reality, tools in the crafting of this world, on mental and material levels.
“You destroy people, Karen,” Feldman went on. “That’s your art. And you know as well as any they want to be destroyed, no matter how wrong they think it is. They want you to tear them down, undress them of civilization, put in their veins that primal pleasure. Max may build, but you...you demolish. Such things are really cosmically conjoined twins.” He took a long sip of the scotch, keeping his eyes on them. “Little wonder as to the why, or how, of you two finding one another.”
Max looked outside. The night striped with imposing, Titan-bodied trees. They’d passed into the redwoods.
He looked back. The town was no longer visible.
***
V
He awoke and there was nothing.
What dream? No dream, none that had left marks. Beyond the sliding glass door of James Cannon’s bedroom, Sherman Canal rippled on, pebbled by moonlight, the dark feathery shapes of mallards cruising the surface.
He sat up, rubbed his face. This was the third time this week he’d awakened in the middle of the night. He hadn’t been able to get back to sleep the first time. His mother had told him as a child he’d had night terrors. “Blood-curdling screams,” she had said. “Sent us racing to you where you’d be sitting up and shaking, face all pale.” Pops the Judge, all sour, summoned from bed. What was wrong? Nothing. The nightmares had made a clean getaway, some kind of hit-and-run on the psyche.
In nothing but his plaid boxers, James rose and stood by sliding glass door. Watched the darkened houses across the canal. Maybe his inability to recall his dreams accounted for his lack as an artist. Maybe the gods deemed him a vessel unfit for Vision. His arms hardly long enough to touch hands in embracing whatever fat, wide truth smothered everyone.
What the hell am I thinking about?
Penelope. I should be thinking about Penelope. Or Teresa.
After turning on the bedside lamp, he pulled open the bottom nightstand drawer and retrieved an old sketchpad. Creased and yellowed. Graphite memories of youth hummed past his eyes, visions he thought might be Visions. Whatever that meant.
Toward the middle of the sketchpad was a slew of animal drawings from an Anthropomorphic Drawing class he’d taken five or so years back at Santa Monica City College. Leopards, elephants, apes. Lame. Terribly lame.
He found unused pages, then retrieved a pencil.
Penelope. Penelope. So hopelessly intoxicating. What was it about her? Los Angeles crawled with gorgeous women, brought here from all over by daydreams of The Biz. In any objective sense, Penelope was, by L.A. standards, a good seven, maybe seven-point-five. Head-turning, but not too spectacular. So what was it? All the clichés, he supposed. The Spunk. That she gave him things no one else in the world gave him. More, that she knew things about him known by no one else in the world. And yeah, she was sexy. Any way sliced.
He thought about their last session, Penelope bound by her wrists in the middle of the room, her arms stretched up and splayed. Her nicely-curved figure so vulnerable. For the taking. He’d approached her from behind, slid his arms around her waist. Tickled her belly. She’d flinched but he held her firmly in place, his breath inches from her face.
Didn’t expect that, did you?
No, she said. I didn’t.
James imagined her spanking a bound duplicate of herself as hundreds of other twin spectators watched and breathed and hardened, moistening beneath their garments. Or maybe they were all naked to begin with—yes, thousands of her supple, college-aged breasts filling his mind, filling him. And they all wore their hair in ponytails, tied back with her classic velvet scrunchie. James loved that scrunchie—it gave her a kind of girly juvenile charm. Each time they had a session, if she didn’t have it on, he would request it.
He began drawing. More lameness. How did that clerk at the Sirens Shop do it? The guy ran about the page as if it were an amusement park for his hand. Bounding and dancing and singing his subjects to life, into another life. Effortless. But of course that guy—Nick? Matt?—was a professional artist. Can’t just sprint to his level.
The guy knew Penelope, too, so it seemed. That would be the best way. Go through him. Set up an art show, invite him. Maybe Penelope would come. How would that work, though? Would she feel embarrassed seeing him? He knew the Penelope schtick was an act. But she would have to treat him in a normal fashion if they were to bump into one another somewhere. Then he could win her over, maybe. Have her all to himself. She liked him, James could tell.
He’d begun with a gesture-sketch, the light impression of a humanoid. The foundation on which all the flesh and hair and features would be placed. It would be a wooden and lame Penelope, the Vision crumbling on its descent from mind to page, yet a Penelope nonetheless, a Penelope as he’d never seen her. Naked, nice S-shaped curve of hair at the crotch. Belly ring, which she had. Hard, dark nipples.
Has she ever fucked someone in a session? Despite any evidence one way or another, he was struck by sudden assurance that she must have.
Teresa knows you’re thinking about her. The stale lovemaking—it’s obvious, right? Bored bored bored. Better destroy this drawing before she finds it.
As if on cue, his phone rang. It was Teresa. Crying. Quiet voice.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“James....”
“What is it?”
“Dad died,” she murmured. “Just a little while ago.”
***
The limo slid methodically to a
