Used Stories by Poppy Z. Brite

Author:Poppy Z. Brite [Brite, Poppy Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: INDEPENDENT LEGIONS PUBLISHING
Published: 2016-06-13T05:00:00+00:00

ESSENCE OF ROSE

The city of Nashville straddles in polluted stretch of the Cumberland River like a lover, nestles into its fertile patch of Tennessee land like a cluster of rhinestones sewn onto rich cloth of earth brown and malachite green. The streets of the downtown area are brick, dating from the early days of the city. Above these cobbled paths, towers of glass and chrome soar up and up, some for thirty stories or more, elegant hotels and shopping centers and temples of commerce, catching the southern sunlight by day, reflecting the million colored fairy lights of the city by night. Many of the tallest buildings have glass elevators that can be seen from the street after dark, ascending the sheer faces of the buildings like shimmering insects climbing toward the moon.

Or spiders, thought Anthony, going up to spin a web between the few stars that were faintly visible through the haze of the city light. Yes, he could paint that: white and silver spiders, spinning gossamer threads between points of light in velvety purple-blackness.

But he thought Rose might paint it better. The image was more suited to her style.

He stood naked at a window on the thirty-first floor of a grand hotel, pressing his body to the cool glass so that a foggy outline began to form around him—his body heat made visible—and gazing out over the city. Only the faintest shadow of his reflection was visible in the glass: sharp-featured, big eyes staring, skin very pale and hair paler still. He was backlit by the Christmas lights strung around the room, the candles burning, the tiny orange eye of an incense stick smoldering here and there. A room lit by juju.

From what Anthony had seen, the hotel staff consisted of impeccably dressed black men with gleaming bald heads and big-haired white ladies who wore their makeup like an extra face, so thickly applied that it seemed to hover fraction of an inch above their actual features. They would certainly suspect juju or worse if they saw the room now. But they never entered, nor did the housekeepers, not during this week. Anthony met them at the door to receive towels and soap for the long, steaming baths he and Rose took. The bed could not be changed because it was in constant use, so that by the end of the week it would be a swirled, jumbled confection of sheets and pillows and small creamy stains, rich and ripe with the many scents of love. And, this year, with the faintly sour tang of spilled champagne.

All the rest of the year Anthony was a sherry drinker. He had never been able to make himself like the taste of beer, and liquor mutated his personality, made him a mad thing, unable to paint. Rose always drank champagne. This year she’d begged him to drink it with her, and he had given in. It produced a strange drunkenness he’d never known before, balloon-headed, almost numb. It made him want to obey her, to please her more thoroughly than ever, no matter what it was she wanted.

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