Chapter 3 #2
Not about me, he said. I noticed just then that his lips didn’t move in sync with him when he spoke. They moved. They lined up with the words he said but still appeared detached from the words themselves.
“But I want to know about you,” I said. “How can I work with you if I don’t know anything about you?”
Really, there’s nothing to know… he insisted at first. His eyes flicked down, in the direction of my shadow.
Then he looked up again. Eye contact with Aster hurt.
It hit too deep, too intimate, like looking into the sun.
If ever I had doubted his physical reality to be as valid as the sense of presence that I got from him, those doubts fled me now.
I looked away from his eyes, at his face instead, and saw his pores and the fine hairs that grew on his cheeks and chin.
Now I walked forward. Aster’s game—and he was playing a game—became clear to me.
The reason I hadn’t done any writing the day before was because I had never taken things further with him beyond simply basking in his presence.
But I was the artist, not him. He was only a muse, only a figment of inspiration like an idea borne out of the middle of the night.
“About the rules that you mentioned,” I said. “Are they serious?”
Quite.
“Enforced?”
He didn’t answer.
“Are they conventions, then?”
Conventions? You could call them that. And it’s good to stick to convention.
“And that’s where I have a problem,” I said, relieved we had something productive to talk about.
Aster nodded for me to continue, equally interested in a potential disagreement.
“I don’t like convention. It means ordinariness. Depression. I realize there are things that I can ask and things that I shouldn’t, but I want to make a request. For the sake of my writing, if you’ll hear it.”
As you wish. The rules are conventions. The conventions are expectations.
If you believe you need something more, your wish is mine to grant.
He sounded curious, but he could have been annoyed.
I felt bad at finding his annoyed tone to be so sensual, almost teasing even if he wanted to distance himself or get me to adopt a more professional stance.
“Then—if it’s okay—let’s have no rules between the two of us,” I said. “We can do anything. I can ask whatever I want of you, and you need to answer me.”
That might not be wise. I think— Then he stopped speaking and clapped a hand over his mouth.
“All right, all right.”
He shook his head. Think nothing of it. You’re quite right, on second thought. Do as you will, and I will follow.
Instantly I felt lighter. “Are you serious? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
I assure you it’s not a matter of comfort.
A quick silence elapsed. “Well?” I asked. “Oh, this is silly. It’s like talking to myself. Don’t you have anything to say? Anything to clarify, or tell me?”
It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you.
Nothing delights me more than hearing your interest, hearing the energy in your voice when you ask me questions.
It’s exactly what I would want to hear in you.
But if my words should be the cause of your downfall, I could never live with myself.
If I said anything to you that you didn’t want to hear, anything that drove you away, I could never forgive myself.
“Then we’ll play by your rules,” I said. “But if I walk out this summer without anything written, it will be because you didn’t tell me enough. Not because you told me too much. Blame me, if you want. Say it was my destiny.”
I will do anything in my power to help, Aster promised meekly.
My chest tightened. “Then tell me, what do I need to do to succeed at this?”
Do? Aster stepped back in mild alarm. Oh, I couldn’t tell you what to do. I couldn’t lead you like that.
“You’re a muse. If you don’t tell me what to do, then what are you even here for?”
The sparkles in his eyes danced brighter. Inspiration.
“Inspire if you must, but be direct. I’ll do whatever you say, and I’ve got all the energy in the world to throw at it.”
Another breeze blew through the window. Aster paced around me. He cupped his hand under his chin and examined me as if evaluating to see how well I’d work for a modeling shoot. I couldn’t imagine his ideas for me, what he wanted me for, but I did pick up on a note of desire as he looked, a hunger.
Would you really do anything I asked? Aster asked. He stood behind me now. He rested his hands on my shoulders, and now when I felt his touch, it was more solid than the day before.
“Anything at all. Think of me as your vessel.”
I can work with that.
He lifted his hands, and his voice faded into the ocean outside.
I turned around and half expected to find him gone, but now he stood behind me with a satisfied expression.
I shivered with the sudden feeling that there was something Faustian about this, that I had essentially agreed to trade my soul for the type of greatness that I sought.
But what type of greatness was it, if it didn’t include my soul?