“Lit.” He smiled. “You came.”
I stared at him, then scrambled to my feet. “Right. And now I’m leaving—”
“No. Not yet.”
His hand shot out to grab my sleeve. I kept going; he yanked me backward and the sleeve tore. I turned furiously.
“You can’t make me stay!” I shouted. “You can’t—”
“Yes I can, Lit.”
“Yeah? How? By killing me, like you killed Ali?”
The maddeningly calm smile never left his face. “I didn’t kill Ali. Girls overdose all the time—”
“Around you they sure do.” I tried vainly to pull my hand free. “Kissy Hardwick, Laura Stone—”
“Laura would be very flattered that you called her a girl.”
“Fuck you.”
Axel Kern sighed. “You are mistaken if you think I have ever killed anyone, Lit.”
“Right—you just gave them drugs—”
“No, Lit.” He wiggled his eyebrows and twirled an invisible mustache. “I don’t give people drugs. I am drugs.”
“You’re fucking crazy, is what you are! You’re a fucking psycho!”
To my surprise he let go. I backed away from the mattress, but instead of following, Axel remained where he was. He was staring at the opium cakes, gleaming on the floor like so many little fish left mudbound at ebb tide. After a moment he stooped to pick one up. He turned it back and forth so it glittered in the candlelight, then looked at me and asked, “Do you know what this is?”
“Yes,” I snapped. “It’s opium.”
“No.”
He shook his head. His long hair had tangled inextricably with the vines upon his brow, so that green tendrils and darker grape leaves seemed to thrust from the skin beside his temples, and a spiral of ivy nestled in the hollow of his throat as though inside the bole of a tree.
“No,” he repeated. He lifted his arms. In a shimmer of green the kimono fell to the floor. He was naked, but his lean body had none of the softness I would have expected in someone my father’s age. His arms were smoothly muscled, covered with fine dark hair like an otter’s, his legs beautifully formed, save where a glossy red scar ran along one thigh. Only his face held that mixture of cruelty and amusement that I had seen so often over the years, as he told of some producer’s fall from grace or the death by misadventure of an old, beloved friend.
Now he looked scarcely older than one of my own friends, though more broad-shouldered, his hair like a winter sky, his face heavily lined. I stared at him, too tired to be embarrassed or aroused. But then it was as though my vision grew fuzzy, as though this were a film that had suddenly gone out of focus.
Because I was no longer seeing Axel Kern. It was like one of those optical illusions that would leave me fuming as I struggled to find the Young Girl in a blot of ink, when all I could see was The Crone. For a fraction of a second both figures would be there on paper, maiden and hag, and then I would have to try all over again to bring one or the other back in focus.
The same thing was happening now. In front of me Axel quivered and blurred like a flame, while behind him—or within him, or above him—something else tried to flicker into being.
But it never quite appeared. As abruptly as it had begun, the eerie haziness dispersed. Axel Kern stood gazing at the ceiling, arms raised, a circlet of leaves upon his brow. He lowered his head, until he was staring at me.
“No.” He extended one hand, fingers curled into a fist, then opened it. “Not just opium.”
In the center of his palm was a single poppy calyx, mahogany-colored, the points of its crown standing upright like so many serrated teeth. He tapped the pod, once; then ran his thumbnail down the small swollen globe. A split appeared in its flesh. Tiny droplets oozed forth, milky white, viscous. Axel gazed at the seed-head measuringly, then at me; and tossed it onto the bed. “Never just opium. Much, much more…”
He extended his hand. His gaze did not leave mine. A sea-colored line ran the length of his arm, a vein slightly raised above paper-white skin. With his other hand he traced the vein as a lover might, let one fingernail hover above the crook of the elbow. The vein throbbed like a seed about to burst. Smoothly as though it were a razor Axel slid the nail into his flesh. He drew it back, opening a seam from elbow to wrist, and stepped toward me.
“It is a kingdom,” he whispered. “It is mine.”
Along the inside of his arm white liquid welled, thick opalescent drops that grew until they spilled down to the floor in a slow steady rain. Axel stared at it, smiling, then turned and offered his arm to me.
“Drink.”
“No.” I tried to shake my head but could not move. As he drew closer I cried out. “No! Please—”
He stopped and shrugged. “As you will,” he said, and drew his palm beneath the open wound. He let the white sap fill his cupped hand, brought it to his face and drank. Then he extended his other arm, with a finger caressed pale flesh before once more dipping his nail into it. As though he were skinning a hare’s belly he slashed downward, leaving a bright tear, like a scarlet fern. I tried to cover my eyes but Axel took my wrist, pulling me to him as he murmured, “This you will drink—”
He pushed me to my knees and clamped his hand on the back of my neck. Red flowed from his arm, but as he pressed my face into the crook of his elbow I smelled not blood but wine and upturned earth.
“Drink,” he said, softly but urgently. When I struggled his grasp grew tighter. His hand slid upward to hold my skull. “Drink.”
I clamped my mouth shut but he jammed his arm up against it, hard enough that my teeth rattled. “Drink—”
He continued to press his arm against my mouth, at the same time began to stroke my head. “Come now, Lit, drink, drink…”
And finally I let my lips part, and drank. Liquid spurted onto my tongue, heat like blood and the unmistakable burn of alcohoclass="underline" wine. But stronger than any wine I had ever tasted, stronger than anything I had ever drunk—dark and rich as broth, so that I lapped at it greedily, warmth streaming across my cheeks and staining my shirt, drops flying as I tossed my head back and laughed, gazing up into Axel’s eyes.
“Do you remember now?” he asked.
I shook my head. It was hard to see clearly—everything looked at once too bright and misty, as though I was in a steam-filled room. With a flourish, he let go of me. I started to stand, lurched sideways, and almost fell.
“Whoa,” I said. The man laughed.
“Strong wine,” he said. I nodded, grinning. When I tried to take a step toward him I stumbled and sat down, hard, on the mattress.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. Smiling he sank down beside me.
“Now,” he whispered. He took my hand and drew it to him, brought it down until I could feel his cock. I had avoided looking at it before. Now I glanced down and quickly away again. I tried to turn but his hand tightened on mine, forcing my fingers to circle what I had glimpsed. He was bigger than any of the boys I had fucked, but not grotesquely so. Certainly he was neither ludicrous nor monstrous, like the owl-eyed creature I had seen carved upon Bolerium’s arched gate, or the horned man I had seen at Jamie’s house. Beneath my fingertips I felt his skin, smooth and velvety, the rough fringe of hair below. He withdrew his hand and I let my fingers move upward, until they reached his glans. There was a tiny bead of moisture at its tip, rose-pink. As I watched it grew larger, swelling like nectar on a honeysuckle bloom. When I bent to touch it with my tongue I tasted a bright spark of the wine I had drunk moments before. The man groaned but made no other move—no fumbling for my shirt, no tugging at my zipper; no hand sliding frantically down my stomach and beneath the waistband of my pants. I waited, my breath quickening. Still he did not move. He sat cross-legged on the mattress, a hand on each thigh, his head tipped back and eyes closed. Along the inside of each arm a bright red line was drawn. There was no trace of white sap, no supernatural wine, no blood.