Free The Island of Excess Love by Francesca Lia Block Page B

the antlers.
    I whisper to Hex, “Please do as he says. I saw everybody here, in the vision.” Venice, Ez, Ash, Argos. “I think he’s telling the truth.”
    Hex nods but his eyes are hard. Still, he comes with me as we follow the bird women down a corridor.
    We stop at a doorway. “Your room,” one of our hostesses says to me. Hex starts to enter but she holds him back. “You’re next door.”
    â€œFuck that.”
    I put my hand on his arm. “It’s okay. Just for now,” I softly tell him. I don’t want to cause any trouble. We need to see our friends.
    â€œWhatever,” Hex says without glancing back as he’s led to his room.
    My room has a large bed on a platform of polished quartz. The floor is inlaid with an image of a rose. Inside the rose is an eye.
    On a quartz table is a bowl of water, a pile of linens, a vase of the purple-black roses, and a platter of fruit. Dresses hang from protruding crystals of green, black, and pink tourmaline that grow from the quartz walls. The dresses are all of a similar style—long, narrow, cut on the bias, and made of silk or satin charmeuse like the finest slips. Some have tulle at the hem or lace inserts. They are in a variety of colors—ivory, gold, silver, dusky rose, peach, apricot, saffron, sunlit-leaf-green, a celestialous blue. Some, like the blue one, are covered with crystal beading resembling a starry sky. They all look exactly my size although I can’t remember the last time I actually wore a dress—maybe my graduation from elementary school, Then? And I hated it. The dry skin of my finger snags on the blue dress and I let go. Standing there, I get the distinct hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-raising impression that I’m being watched and I turn around.
    I’m watching me.
    There’s a portrait of me on the wall. I hadn’t noticed it when I walked in. It’s definitely me, but with long hair like I had Then, more sensual lips, a stronger jaw, and two eyes. Three if you count the huge eye on a small platter in my portrait’s hand. Bull the Cyclops’s eye. The quality of the paint is rich and glossy, infused with light. I’m bare breasted and corpse pale, and there are wilting red roses surrounding me, very much like the ones in the Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting Venus Verticordia . In fact the whole painting, down to the butterflies in my hair, resembles the Rossetti. Goose bumps rise up on my arms, in contrast to the smooth skin of the girl in the portrait.
    Who is this king and what does he want from us? From me?
    I start to call for Hex but stop myself. He’d only get angrier and then we’d be in more danger. It seems wiser to work this strange man’s ego to our advantage especially if he’s as fascinated with me as he seems.
    I try to ignore the warm flush spreading across the tops of my breasts as if my naked body has just been viewed by an enchanting stranger.
    Pen, stop. Stay focused .
    There’s an adjoining bathroom with a sunken quartz tub, a bowl of fresh rose petals on the rim. Running water?
    I fill the tub, sprinkle the petals in the water, and step in. I try not to think of anything or anyone as I soap and rinse my body. Then I towel off and put on the blue dress. I fasten my wet hair up on my head and put on a pair of taupe suede boots. There are no underclothes and my own are filthy so I remain uncomfortably naked under the dress, but also soothed by the drape of the fabric on my clean skin. I have to go find Hex. Despite the weird circumstances I’m excited for him to see me bathed and dressed like a pretty girl for once. And what about our host? Do I care what he thinks, too?
    Before I leave the room I examine myself in a mirror over the bureau. The ragged patch over my eye ruins the whole effect. I glance down and see a small crystal bowl.
    In it is an eye.
    An eye so lifelike it could be real.
    But it’s made of