So I sat behind the desk.I opened up my laptop and started a new document.First I typed out everything that I had written in the notebook spread.When I finished that, I kept going.A running metaphor of chance and luck ran through my head as I worked, and before long, I realized that the writing could translate to an abstract piece of fiction or creative nonfiction.
The rest of the day passed around me as I wrote.Occasionally I stopped to stretch my arms or get a new drink of water, but then I would return and keep writing under Aster’s gaze.He didn’t speak.Sometimes he stood at my side, leaning over so that his face was next to mine.Sometimes I found him in the back of the room, sitting at the antique tea table on the other side and tracing over the wooden grains with his pale finger.
Before I knew it, I had completed chapter one.
THE GIFT
It waslate at night a little before the midway point of July.I lounged on the couch near an open window, where the rising and falling of the ocean waves outside formed a natural pulse.I had never needed to listen to music here at Illumination Point; the birds and waves always provided sufficient auditory stimulation whether I was working or relaxing.
At my desk sat Aster.His hair had become shorter now, hanging only to his shoulders.He wore a long pair of tailored tan pants and a white button-up shirt.He always wore some white.I didn’t know if it was a personal preference or part of his being, like his hair being light or his eyes sky blue.I was never sure where he ended and his appearance began—it came down to the fact that ephemeral beings like muses didn’t operate like the rest of us.
Aster looked very bookish at the moment, like an old portrait of a literary master at work, missing only a cigar and a glass of whiskey.He posed behind the desk with his head angled down in front of my laptop, lips drawn back in thought, scanning over my earlier lines in silent intrigue.
Just as he was incapable of writing anything for himself, however, he also resisted giving me solid feedback.Every day since I started writing ended with a similar discussion.
“Well?”I would ask.
Well, I can’t tell you,he would respond in turn.Do some more tomorrow.
His response wasn’t encouraging, but neither was it antagonistic, and he frequently ended it with a kiss on my lips or cheek.
We had been kissing more often between segments.I believed a part of Aster’s intended feedback came to me through the kiss.Once he slipped up and told me that all he wanted out of my writing was to see things through my eyes.I should have asked him to elaborate further, and if it weren’t for the wine we enjoyed minutes earlier, I would have.Instead I only covered his feedback with another kiss.I didn’t feel bad about it.Kissing and writing were, in a way, the same thing—the desperate grasp for someone else, an attempt to close the loneliness that defined existence.
I shifted from my position on the couch and planted my feet squarely on the wooden floor.“If you’re not going to tell me what to think, then maybe I shouldn’t let you read any of it,” I said.
Aster turned with a shock, and I saw that he had been more deeply engrossed in the words than I guessed.No, no, that wouldn’t be fair, he protested with his hollow ghost-voice.
I tilted my head to the side and shook it in mild frustration.“Then what’s the point of having you here at all?”
Aster pivoted away from the laptop.His eyes bore that hungry look that had festered in them for a while now, the look that could only be eased with touching or kissing.I never would have first thought that he’d be such a physical creature, but he seemed more so every day.
I patted the couch next to me the same way I would to encourage a dog to join me.“Come on.Sit with me, Aster.”
I’d better not.
I recoiled at the answer.These days we never held back from each other.Our connection made us work better together and made both of us much more at ease, and I’d hoped that by now I could better anticipate and defeat his defenses.How many days had passed since he last turned me down?
“Stop joking.My shoulders hurt,” I said.
His brows arched.Who’s joking?
“You are.I know you’re going to come here.Now stop putting it off.”
Aster glanced away for a moment, and I imagined I saw a hint of blush on his pale cheeks.
No,he said again.
“Why not?”
He narrowed his eyes into slits.Because I’m tired too, and if I join you now, I’m fear that I might do something regrettable.It’s better that we keep our distance.
His timidity and the suddenly apparent length of his eyelashes only made him more attractive to me.“I didn’t know you could get tired,” I said.“I thought muses had infinite energy at their disposal.You don’t sleep.You don’t wear out of things.”
Not tired like that,he admitted.Fatigued.Worn through.
“Worn through by what?”
His eyes caught in the light and almost glowed when they lit on mine.It’s you.I can’t stand being around you this much, Stella.I don’t mean it as an insult.I mean, I love the time we spend together.But it… it changes me.
