"Whatever do you mean?"He had his head tilted like a goldfinch still, then dabbed his paintbrush in some blue and began to run around the installation, making a ribbon around the whole of it.
Truth be told, it looked like a hot mess, but...I didn't know anything about art.
"I never heard from you, and I didn't call after the trial," I said.
"You have your own life, Stacey," Nagi said, voice clear.
"Yeah.But you know.I have a relationship with the others."
"Eddie and Vic," he said."How is that going?"
I pursed my lips.
"Not well.They're upset with me.Ever since Brother Al and Vic saw us."
"Did you explain what had happened between us?"he asked.
I shrugged.
"I didn't know what to say."
"You were comforting me in a time of need," Nagi said."It needs not be anything more than that."
"But how do I know that's what it was?"
Nagi stopped and considered me.
"Stacey.I am a lot of individual, and a big swathe of ego.Did you not see the various things on display in this Warehouse on your way to my chambers?Did you not see the pile of tender flesh awaiting my touch as you came in?"
"Yeah," I said uncertainly.
"Rest assured, Stacey, I can find intimacy anywhere I would like," he said."And you are an agreeable person.We share a connection, you and I.You saved my life.Not once, but twice.And for that, I owe you a debt.But it would be wrong for either of us to equate that, and a desperate clinging of passion during an uncertain period into something serious.We're both animals, and we both made a decision during uncertain times that was animal in origin."
"Are you comfortable leaving it there?"I asked.
"I am not a jealous person, Stacey.For me relationships are two individuals coming together, even if only for a brief moment.Each is valid and lovely in its own way.Each is its own work of art, the spinning of two artists as they weave an invisible network of thoughts and emotions in the air between one another, imprinting it on the cosmos.In that way, even the most disappointing of relationships—what others may call mistakes—are instead beautiful works of passion, hallmarks of a time that two unique individuals came together.So, yes.I am comfortable leaving what we had where we had it, if it would lessen the complications of your life.And yet.Should you feel the work of art we came together to create is yet unfinished.I would have to agree that we should see what else comes next on the canvas."
"You're a very strange man, Nagi."
"I am told that," he said."You must know a relationship with me is a coming together of two unique artists.It's a collaboration, not a fusion.I have my own relationships.You have yours.Is that acceptable?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Great.Then we've come to an agreement."
"Are you used to this?"I asked him."Is this hard for you?Juggling all this.Don't people get jealous?"
"People are only jealous if they feel like one's works are superior to theirs," Nagi said."Come, Stacey.Come to my next chamber.We'll talk while I paint you."
"Paint me, or paint me onto a painting?"
"Which would you prefer?"he asked, with a wolfish grin.
I knew I had a problem, but I could not help but fall sway to him…
3.
"You are a very plain person,"Nagi said.
