The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (51)

A buyer once asked him, “Where did these come from?”

She pointed to the flowers growing out of Marimar’s throat and Rhiannon’s brow. She meant the one on his hand. She meant to ask how real he was, how authentic he was down to his bones.

“It’s a family curse,” he said, and he thought he meant it as a lie, but sometimes he wasn’t certain. But if people were going to stare and ask and want to touch, he might as well put on a show.

At that same show, a young woman buying art for some rich Brit approached Rey. She knew to stay at least six paces away, to keep her arms at her sides where Rey could see them. Eddie had done his job training the world on how to approach him, and sometimes, Rey was bitter he could not do it himself.

“One million dollars,” she said.

Rey was confused. He was standing in front of his favorite painting of Marimar. She was looking up at the night sky and stars were falling. The hummingbird he drew was so lifelike, if you moved, the creature seemed to flit back and forth. The most his paintings had sold for were thirty thousand, but Eddie had assured him his value would only increase. “I’m sorry, there must be a mistake.”

The young woman was dressed in all jagged black. She looked around and carefully took another step closer. “I’m buying for a very reclusive client.”

“Is that why he’s not here?”

“My name is Finola Doyle. I’ve attempted to get a hold of your manager, but alas.” She handed Rey a card made of the thickest cardstock. It had a coat of arms with a knight and heraldic lions. “Like I said. The offer is one million.”

Rey looked around at the noisy room, the clusters of people gathered around his pieces. He’d spent sleepless, hungry nights making them. “For the painting?”

“For you.” She blushed.

Rey let loose a soft chuckle. He touched the card in his hands, looked at Eddie on the other end of the room. His silver knight.

Rey did the only thing he could do. He went home, because if he stayed another minute longer, he’d be tempted to say yes.



* * *



People weren’t happy just looking at his art. No, they wanted to look at him. To rip off pieces and take them home. The bigger his profile became, the more people wanted to cut him open, down to the bone. He could never give a satisfactory answer to the flower on his hand. Was it a modification, the way some people split their tongues to hiss like snakes or the way some people surgically point their ears to make them look elf-like or the way people got diamonds embedded into their skin?

Though it was exhausting, after a while, being touched and tugged at like he was a doll became something he was used to, as long as they bought something. Even Eddie kept him like a toy.

Rey went out less. Didn’t return calls. Every moment outside of his studio felt like a moment he was wasting. Creating something out of nothing came at a cost. Seven years after the fire he could still remember his grandmother telling him that. There was a cost. A price. Why did some people have to pay a price and others didn’t?

Take Eddie. Eddie was the kind of rich that came with a Connecticut and a Hamptons vacation house. Fuck-you money that had paid for art school and years in Eastern Europe, where he went to find himself even though he hadn’t been lost in the first place. He’d stumbled into being an art teacher because he liked colors and judging other people, mostly. Eddie’s whole life, when he recounted it to Rey, felt like a fever dream. The kind he’d only ever seen in Baz Luhrmann movies. What was Eddie’s cost other than a beautiful young lover he could put on display and then take home and fuck?

Rey didn’t like thinking that way, but one day, that carousel of thoughts set in and never stopped. On top of that, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him. It started in his new apartment, a brownstone he’d bought in Harlem. He stood in front of the window and thought there was a shape on the other side. His room was on the third floor and so there shouldn’t have been anyone. He convinced himself that he was looking at his reflection, but the shape was not his own. It was a taller man, with long hair. He couldn’t make out much, just the glare of the sun hitting the glass.

Rey stumbled back, his heart hammering in his chest. The memory of ghosts, of his mother’s disembodied spirit, replaced any thought of his encounter.

Eddie came up behind him, resting a hand on either side of his muscular arms as if Rey was just having another moment of creative doubt. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Working too long.”

Eddie kissed Rey’s naked shoulder. “Come to bed, then.”

“It’s daylight and I have to work.”

“You have been nonstop since I met you, baby. Take a break. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Rey laughed, but didn’t answer.

The next couple of nights, it happened again. The shape was at the window, in the puddle on his walk to clear his head, in the mirror. He never saw a face and sometimes not even a body. Once, the figure got so close that Rey could see glowing eyes staring back at him.

He called Marimar, but she didn’t answer. He convinced himself that his mind was rebelling from not sleeping, too many cigarettes, and copious amounts of wine. What was she going to do anyway, hundreds of miles away as she was?

He focused on painting instead. But even in his paintings, he began to capture the figure that haunted him—a man who was like the negative of a roll of film. All of his insides filled in with the colors of a supernova. Rey painted another, and that time, it was black paint with a human-shaped prism at the center. Another, and it was a violent flash of light gutting the night sky.