Read Online Obsession: Tales of Irresistible Desire by Paula Guran - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Paula Guran
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girlhood turned their yellow eyes toward me. I fell to my knees and buried my face in them so that they stained my cheeks with pollen, their narrow petals crushed beneath my fingertips.
I cried as though my heart would break as the wind stirred the blossoms and a few early greenflies crawled along their stems. I could see Philip there beneath them. His hair had grown, twining with the white roots of the anemones and pale beetle grubs. Beneath rose-veined lids his eyes twitched, and I could see each iris contract then swell like a seed. He was dreaming. He was beautiful.
I wiped my eyes. I picked up my satchel, careful not to step on the flowers, and got out my easel and brushes. I began to paint.
Anemones, adonis, hyacinth, clematis. I painted flowers, and a man sleeping, and the black scaffolding of a city rising from the ruins. I painted in white heat, day after day after day, then took the watercolors home and transferred what I had seen to canvases that took up an entire wall of my flat. I worked at home, through the spring and into the first weeks of summer, and now the early fall, thinking how any day I will have to return to the pool in the Grunewald, harvest what remains of the windflowers, and set him free.
But not yet.
Last week my show opened at the gallery in Akazienstrasse. Anna, as always, did her job in stellar fashion. The opening was wellattended by the press and wealthy buyers. The dark winterscapes were hung in the main room, along with the nudes I had painted for those seven years. I had thought the nudes would get more attention than they did—not that anyone would have recognized Philip. When I look at those drawings and paintings now, I see a naked man, and that’s what everyone else sees as well. Nothing is concealed, and these days there is nothing new in that.
But the other ones, the windflower paintings, the ones where only I know he is there—those are the paintings that people crowd around. I’m still not certain how I feel about exposing them to the world. I still feel a bit unsure of myself—the shift in subject matter, what feels to me like a tenuous, unsteady grasp of a medium that I will need to work much harder at if I’m to be as good as I want to be. I’m not certain if I know yet how good these paintings really are, and maybe I never will be sure. But the critics—the critics say they are revelatory.
He thought he could brave the flames of the cat goddess, but he was wrong, and finds himself consumed.
My Lady of the Hearth
Storm Constantine
The most beautiful women in the world have a cat-like quality. They slink, they purr; claws sheathed in silken fur. In the privacy of their summer gardens, in the green depths of forests, I believe they shed themselves of their attire, even to their human flesh, and stretch their bodies to the sun and their secret deity. She, the Queen of Cats, is Pu-ryah, daughter of the Eye of the Sun; who both roars the vengeance of the solar fire and blesses the hearth of the home. Given that the goddess, and by association her children, has so many aspects, is it any wonder that men have ever been perplexed by the subtleties of females and felines? Yet even as we fear them, we adore them.
When I was young I had a wife, and she was a true daughter of Pu-ryah. It began in this way.
When my father died, I inherited the family seat on the edge of the city, its numerous staff, and a sizable fortune. The estate earned money for me, administered by the capable hands of its managers, and I was free to pursue whatever interests I desired. My mother, whom I barely remembered (for she died when I was very young), had bequeathed her beauty to me: I was not an ill-favored man. Yet despite these privileges, joy of the heart eluded me. I despaired of ever finding a mate. Thirty years old, and romance had always turned sour on me. I spent much of my time painting, and portraits of a dozen lost loves adorned the walls of my home; their cold eyes stared down at me
I cried as though my heart would break as the wind stirred the blossoms and a few early greenflies crawled along their stems. I could see Philip there beneath them. His hair had grown, twining with the white roots of the anemones and pale beetle grubs. Beneath rose-veined lids his eyes twitched, and I could see each iris contract then swell like a seed. He was dreaming. He was beautiful.
I wiped my eyes. I picked up my satchel, careful not to step on the flowers, and got out my easel and brushes. I began to paint.
Anemones, adonis, hyacinth, clematis. I painted flowers, and a man sleeping, and the black scaffolding of a city rising from the ruins. I painted in white heat, day after day after day, then took the watercolors home and transferred what I had seen to canvases that took up an entire wall of my flat. I worked at home, through the spring and into the first weeks of summer, and now the early fall, thinking how any day I will have to return to the pool in the Grunewald, harvest what remains of the windflowers, and set him free.
But not yet.
Last week my show opened at the gallery in Akazienstrasse. Anna, as always, did her job in stellar fashion. The opening was wellattended by the press and wealthy buyers. The dark winterscapes were hung in the main room, along with the nudes I had painted for those seven years. I had thought the nudes would get more attention than they did—not that anyone would have recognized Philip. When I look at those drawings and paintings now, I see a naked man, and that’s what everyone else sees as well. Nothing is concealed, and these days there is nothing new in that.
But the other ones, the windflower paintings, the ones where only I know he is there—those are the paintings that people crowd around. I’m still not certain how I feel about exposing them to the world. I still feel a bit unsure of myself—the shift in subject matter, what feels to me like a tenuous, unsteady grasp of a medium that I will need to work much harder at if I’m to be as good as I want to be. I’m not certain if I know yet how good these paintings really are, and maybe I never will be sure. But the critics—the critics say they are revelatory.
He thought he could brave the flames of the cat goddess, but he was wrong, and finds himself consumed.
My Lady of the Hearth
Storm Constantine
The most beautiful women in the world have a cat-like quality. They slink, they purr; claws sheathed in silken fur. In the privacy of their summer gardens, in the green depths of forests, I believe they shed themselves of their attire, even to their human flesh, and stretch their bodies to the sun and their secret deity. She, the Queen of Cats, is Pu-ryah, daughter of the Eye of the Sun; who both roars the vengeance of the solar fire and blesses the hearth of the home. Given that the goddess, and by association her children, has so many aspects, is it any wonder that men have ever been perplexed by the subtleties of females and felines? Yet even as we fear them, we adore them.
When I was young I had a wife, and she was a true daughter of Pu-ryah. It began in this way.
When my father died, I inherited the family seat on the edge of the city, its numerous staff, and a sizable fortune. The estate earned money for me, administered by the capable hands of its managers, and I was free to pursue whatever interests I desired. My mother, whom I barely remembered (for she died when I was very young), had bequeathed her beauty to me: I was not an ill-favored man. Yet despite these privileges, joy of the heart eluded me. I despaired of ever finding a mate. Thirty years old, and romance had always turned sour on me. I spent much of my time painting, and portraits of a dozen lost loves adorned the walls of my home; their cold eyes stared down at me
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