For the Love of Art

Alex's eyes lurched around the stone bedroom, searching his surroundings. The dim lamp gave just enough light to show the far wall of the cheap hotel chamber.

Probably just the air kicking in.

The lids of his eyes were heavy, forced down by the exertions of a nightmare that refused to release him, and he lay in his own sweat, trying to come alive. Stretching, he heard the tequila bottle slip through the webbing of the bed toward the unyielding stone.

It didn't hit the floor.

He stabbed an eye open.

The bottle was in the arm of a black-haired woman— a beautiful naked Latina. Her body crouched at the foot of his bed, curled into a catlike pose. Her eyes burned into his as her left hand slowly slid the clear bottle up her thigh, rolled it over the tight roundness of her belly, and pulled it between her teardrop breasts before holding it out to get a look at its lack of contents. The motion undulated her breasts in a way that focused his attention to the exclusion of all else.

"Swallow the worm?" She casually flicked the bottle and watched it tumble gently across the open space of the room towards the wastebasket. Drops trailed from its mouth in slow motion, creating a cascading galaxy of cactus juice, doomed by the unhurried pull of lunar gravity.

Alex's brain failed to operate on several levels.

"W-What are you doing here?" he stammered, unable to look away from her body.

She purred at him. "You knew I come someday, lover."

From behind her, a streak of silver flashed up and over as she swung her arm. Too slow to react, he saw the aluminum bat. He saw his body lurch and heard the crunch of his bones breaking, but felt no pain as his body toppled to the rough-hewn, stone floor.

***

Alinda.

Alinda, Isabel, Sofia, and P— What was her name?

Alex's head throbbed as he tried to remember their faces, hair color, dimples, scars… anything. They were just notches in his belt.

"Whassamatter, Gringo?" She mocked him through the bars. "Angry that I wasn't so easy for you?"

The hiss of the metal door silenced her laughter, leaving him alone in the holding cell again. His leg ached. The guard, Faron, hadn't set the bone— just gave him a painkiller to stop his screams.

He should have been able to remember. He learned every inch of them… Every curve, every ounce of muscle tone or softness. He used to know the nape of the neck, how to trace her flow to the breast, how to move his fingers in to accentuate the curve and the reaction. He knew how to make the skin flush with color, capturing it in his mind.

But now every image was erased.

His pallet covered all the hues of flesh, of shame and defiance, but it was gone now, too.

Did any of them survive?

He could remember how he felt when he had grabbed them, laid them flat upon the frame, and then stretched them until they were about to tear apart. He loved the tension of that moment. He knew it was then they would yield to his will, when he would make them his.

The hiss of the door brought Faron.

"Hey!" The guard laughed so hard the rolls of his gut jiggled in a wild rhythm over his duty belt. "You still pining over your long-lost paintings? Or does your poor little leg still hurt?"

Alex shouted, "What kind of place is this, where art has no meaning? Are you barbarians?"

The nightstick crashed into the bars by his head. "You Earthers always think we're stupid. You come for our tequila, best in the universe, and to laugh at our backward ways. You think that just because the girls don't wear clothes in our hot little dome, you artistas can just come and paint them up, eh?"

"It's not like that, Gringo. Marianna is the hija of the Premier."

He smiled. "Law says she can do anything she wants to you, and she's the meanest one. She's gonna tie you down outside with only a helmet on. All that zero pressure's gonna swell your testículos to the size of baseballs."

Faron laughed so hard his face began to redden. "That hurt you so bad, you'll wish you was never born, artista."

***

Marianna leaned her helmet down until it touched Alex's in the lunar dust, so the contact could carry her voice. His helmet was barely better than a fishbowl, with no air tank— just a gasket around the bare skin of his neck to keep what little bad air he had from escaping.

"I tell you a secret, Alex. You paint one of my friends. Her name was Pilar. You remember her?"

Every inch of his body burned. "No! Please!"

"I saw the way you paint her. You use her own blood to paint the lips."

His body convulsed. "Y-yes."

She smiled. "You cover her whole body with blood. All red."

Her hand pressed gently on his shoulder and then gestured to his left. "You missed something."

Through his agony, he saw at least six helmeted figures in an arc away from him, staked just as he was. He looked back at Marianna. Sunlight glinted off the long steel blade in her other hand.

She paused. "You have so many colors within you besides red. I show you."

The blade plunged into him. Alex choked and convulsed, helpless to watch while his insides sprayed out into the low gravity.

"See? None of you Earthers make art as good as mine. You are spoke number nine, in my piece. You like it? I call it 'Wheel of Hope.'"

"No?" She frowned. "Ah, well. New turistas come every week. Maybe one of them will make it great."

Even as he died, Alex was consoled. After all, it took one artist to truly appreciate the work of another.

Find more by N.J. Kailhofer in the Author Index.

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