Quill

Inspired by a handsome, dapper writer with long hair and a sexy accent.  Written for #SaturdayShortStories at io9.

Before Paolo had found himself sequestered from the world in this quaint little cottage he was renting on the grounds of the estate of Lord So-and-so, he’d been an inveterate party animal and wholly unashamed womanizer.  The collection of suits and hats that were probably being eaten to Swiss cheese by moths now had been his uniform for impressing the ladies.  With bespectacled dark eyes, swarthy complexion, and long hair he looked the part of a writer, and he used that to his advantage.  There was nothing like the look on a woman’s face when he nimbly rolled a smoke and licked the paper, then flicked his eyes up to hers and said in his accent of his “I’m a writer.”  It was a one-way ticket to Fucksville and he’d been there so many times it was reflected in his writing.  Perhaps proving that sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, he wrote sex-filled mystery novels and women ate them up.  His favorite artistic endeavor, however, was signing his autograph on a woman’s body with his tongue- the autograph wasn’t permanent but the memories sure were.

After one conquest, he’d awakened in the night, sweating and gasping.  He’d been dreaming of falling.

The nameless partner to his left sat up with him and sleepily asked if he was alright, rubbing her eyes with one hand.  She placed the other hand on his back and he started, shaking it off.  The sensation was too intense, some sort of prickling feeling that seemed to be inside or underneath his skin.  The girl on his right just groaned and turned over.  Suddenly acutely aware of the feeling of the silk sheets he climbed out of bed over the body of sleeping girl and the protests of the other and sat in his leather chair, naked, to commence writing.  The next day everything was fine, but some weeks later it happened again, and then again.  He sought to mask the feeling with increasing amounts of hard liquor, but it worked only for so long.  Those girls had it easy.  The stronger the sensation’s presence became, the weaker his control over himself became and eventually he had hurt someone.

Della…that was her name.  She’d given Paolo her body after he’d told her he would model his bombshell jewel thief in “Heart of the Night” after her.  She was perfect: long blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and the most shapely red lips he had ever seen, with a shapely body to match.  Della was a stunner and he’d immortalized her in name and in form in his half-finished work.  Barry didn’t know this- hell, nobody did- but the last night they’d been together he was in a frenzy of agitation.  He bit her too hard, pulled her hair, rutted her like a beast, ignoring her pained cries.  Oh she’d fought him: clawed his back, slapped him called him a bastard, but the pain was what kept him going.  He felt himself ascending, the prickling inside him growing, and he exorcised it on her until she was bruised and battered and sobbing.  When he was finished he collapsed, panting, suddenly contrite and mumbling humiliated apologies while she hobbled painfully around the room, gathering her belongings to leave.  Many hundreds of thousands of dollars later he had bought her silence and hidden his shame but that was the last time he touched a woman.  Whatever was wrong with him wasn’t getting any better and now he was practically a rapist as well as an alcoholic.

Barry had noticed a difference in him as well, and had called to ask him about it sometime last year.

“So…are you changing genres on me?”

“What?”

“You’re asking me why your manuscripts keep getting rejected.  Paolo, you write detective stories.  What’s with all this freedom stuff?”

“I don’t know, I just- I don’t know.”  He didn’t know.  The half-completed noir novel was languishing on his laptop and he wasn’t able to finish it.  He was writing a new story, again and again, and it had nothing to do with jewels or detectives or girls whose namesakes he had alienated.

“Look, man.  We’ve been friends a long time and worked together even longer.  Are you having some kind of problem that I am unaware of?  You’re not like yourself at all, man.  What is this new stuff, stream-of-consciousness?  Bird men, freedom, ancient vistas, this is weird shit, Paolo.  I don’t wanna sound harsh but keep it up and you’re gonna have to find a new agent ok?  The market’s tough as it is right now and I don’t do fantasy.  Better take a breather or something, pal.  Go see a psych, get some pills, take a sabbatical.”

The pills didn’t help; that uncomfortable, agitating prickling showed up even under the meds.  The psych blamed it on the alcohol.  Faced with the decision between drinking and medicine, he got rid of the prescriptions and went abroad.  He couldn’t relax any more than he could at home, but he found solace in the cottage and could suffer, curse, and cry alone.  Eventually the prickling had cost him his laptop when he found that in his frenzy to rid himself of the feeling he was smashing the keys down and bruised the hell out of his fingertips.   One day he found himself considering gluing thumbtacks or bits of broken glass to the keys to provide the painful relief he so desired.  The realization that his body and mentality had been so perverted sent him into a fit of rage and he picked the laptop up and threw it onto the floor, destroying it.  He bought an old manual typewriter that made his hands ache with its stiff keys and expended his frustrations on it.  He could bang with impunity on it and it kept on working.

The birds were loud.  The cicadas were loud.  The colors in the garden were loud and the smell of the flowers was loud and the sun was too damn bright.  Paolo took a drag off his cigarette, squinting his eyes against the smoke rising from its tip as he pinched it between his teeth so he could pull his hair into a ponytail.  His head ached and his mouth tasted sour from too much vodka and vomit and the taste of tobacco was not helping at all.  Another day with another hangover after another night of shitty sleep.  It felt like his skin had wool underneath it and his muscles were tensed with energy he couldn’t expel.  All that agitation made him antsy, irritated, and sore.  He shook his head, plucking the cigarette from his mouth and pressing his lips together in annoyance.  This was bunk.

He would have asked himself how he was supposed to get anything done in this state but he was, in fact, more productive than he’d ever been.  Consumed with restlessness he’d tried running, swimming, even aerobics.  Yoga was too calm and while boxing was cathartic he was afraid he would hurt someone or beg them to hurt him.  While he was busy concentrating on the enormous headache he was trying to get rid of and contemplating going back to bed he became aware of the sensation: his bones were singing and his muscles were tensing.  His back hurt from all this tensing.  He was never the type to be stressed out before, but all this stress was definitely stressing him out now.  Clenching his jaw so tightly he thought he could hear a tooth crack, he crushed the cigarette out and rose to go to his desk, clenching and flexing his hands the whole way.

Sitting in his straight-backed wooden chair before the enormous, old typewriter Paolo exhaled sharply and licked his lips.  Briefly he touched his forehead and winced at the sting of his fingers against the raw gouges he’d created the night before.  The vodka didn’t really help with his problems but it had become a familiar habit and a sort of safety net.  Before he could claw his eyes out or his skin off, or any number of other things he could guzzle it down and pass out.  This was no kind of life for a writer.  He started typing.

Hours into the late afternoon the pile of paper next to the typewriter was ridiculously large.  Why hadn’t he ever been so prolific before?  Maybe fantasy was his thing now, because detective stories weren’t getting any traction at all.  Snatching the page from the machine and dropping it atop the others he glanced at the vodka bottle and realized it was too early to start drinking it.  Well, maybe just a nip.  After draining the flask he tossed it aside and grabbed the manuscript to stack it, slamming it hard against the scarred wooden desk.  He felt the slices of papercuts opening and he slammed harder, craving the pain.  Anything to distract him.  By the time he stopped the bottom edge of the manuscript was beaten up and he started to read.  It was the same story he’d been writing for a year now: flying men and women, leaping from cliffs and soaring over forests and mountains and fields.  Reading it filled him with delirious envy.  Paolo wanted that delicious feeling and every day when he woke up he lamented being earthbound.  He hadn’t been falling in that first dream- he’d been flying.

With aching muscles and shaking fingers he rolled a cigarette, spilling tobacco everywhere.  Oh what happened to these magic fingers?  The ladies would not be impressed.  He laughed joylessly and sucked in smoke until it burned his lungs.

Later in the mirror Paolo examined his body.  He’d been in good shape before but now he was so thin, birdlike.  His cheeks were hollowed and the shadows under his eyes rendered him gaunt and made him look older than his twenty-seven years.  Wiping steam from the mirror he studied his collarbone, ran his fingertips over its bony prominence.  It didn’t seem this noticeable before, maybe because he used to eat regularly.  The cold drip of water from his hair felt strange on his skin but he didn’t feel prickly yet.  The burning hot shower did the trick for a while, at least.  It was unpleasant at first but over the months he’d grown used to it and would curse in frustration at a shower that wasn’t hot enough to scald him.  His eyes wandered to his shaving kit and he rubbed a palm against his stubble-studded cheek.  He hated electric shavers but he’d had to resort to them because the thought of using his straight razor always spawned other, more gruesome thoughts.  He wasn’t ready for that yet, but he was close.

He threw the manuscript in the trash.  Barry was right about one thing- it wasn’t even a story.  After venturing out to get more vodka and tobacco papers Paolo returned to the cottage and sat down to write the same story again.

Sitting before the keyboard again he started to type.  The man, maybe himself, standing atop a cliff, surveying the world below.  The prickling rose in his back and he typed harder as he described the feeling of wings extending, arms stretching out, leaning forward and pushing away from the solid ground.  The man in his story fell into the currents and was lifted, feeling the wind slide over and under his wings ruffling the feathers.  Paolo started to cry, pressing so hard on the keys that he thought he might break his fingers.  Hell, he hoped he would.  He typed harder.  The agitation only grew and in a few minutes he abandoned typing altogether and instead pushed his fingers through his hair, dug his nails into his scalp and wailed, slamming his elbows against the table and the corners of the typewriter and everything else.  The pain wasn’t enough.  He stood, kicked the chair, kicked the leg of the desk, kicked the footboard of the bed, jumped up and down as hard as he could.  Nothing worked.  Finally he lay on the floor in a heap, dragging his nails against his scalp and face, sobbing as hard as Della had when he’d violated her.  Nothing made it better.

That night Paolo decided to go for a long drive.  The beat-up little car he’d bought to use was noisy and the suspension was shot but he didn’t mind- the bumps and vibration kept his mind off the persistent feeling of being wound too tightly with energy he could not expel.  He didn’t notice the scenery and barely avoided hitting pedestrians.  He had no idea where he was going but it didn’t matter because there were lights in his mirror and now he was being pulled over for erratic driving.  It didn’t help at all that he was unable to sit still, fidgeting in the seat and gritting his teeth and breathing hard from exhaustion and rage.  He slept poorly that night in gaol, unable to achieve the peace he could only get from doing the complete opposite of drying out.  The next morning he was released and told to go straight back to the cottage.  Instead he continued the way he’d been going the night before, ignoring architecture and other drivers and making his way to lush, green country.

He left the car unlocked.  Standing on the cliff, he saw the sea, smelled its saline tang.  It was nothing like the pristine world of his dreams but it was as close as he’d ever get.  The sensation became a noise in his head and he turned around for a moment, looked beyond the car to see where he’d come from, the place he could go back to.  The noise grew louder and his vision receded.  That place wasn’t where he’d come from at all, and it was no refuge for him now.  Facing forward he closed his eyes.  He could feel all the tingling of the past year concentrated between his shoulder blades, shaping itself and changing him.  He felt wings extending and now the prickling became power.  Arms outstretched and with a ragged, triumphant shout Paolo leaned forward and his feet left the ground.