Chapter 34: A man remembers
Kaa or George or whatever the pale-skinned man’s name was sat on the patio of a penthouse, looking at an almond tree growing from the flagstones and the lights of Guangzhou far below. At this altitude, or at least this time of day, the air was clean, the full moon overhead white and round, no venom in the breathing of it, no weight in his lungs left behind.
The chair he was in was an asymmetrical cobweb of extruded polymers, likely grown in a vat, nurtured by lasers, sintered into being from liquid and 3D models. And surprisingly comfortable for all that it appeared to have been designed by a futuristic Shelob, intended to entrap anyone foolish enough to sit in it on their way to defeat a force of evil or destroy an artefact of power. A glass of 18-year old Lagavulin was to hand, combining with the waiting game he was playing to make him maudlin, to cast his mind back.
And back it went, as it did at times such as this, to Wigeon, the reason he couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t, attempt to bypass all of the steps of seduction and merely take over Dian Mu’s will with his, turn her into a slave to his bidding. An attempt that would likely fail, Dian Mu having ascended to godhood millennia before, but still something that he had considered briefly and set aside as always.
Wigeon had been his pet name for her, his Chilean passion, plucked from the local fauna as they sailed among the islands and islets of the Chiloé Archipelago. The southern wigeon whistled, as she did often although her whistling was much more intricate, classical and perfectly rhythmic, a result of the musical talent and education which had caught his ear and the perfect lips which had caught his eye. And so, Wigeon, her laughingly irate that perhaps he thought her piebald, or some slumming royal, riffing off of the wild creature’s various names and attributes.
They had met outside a café in Valparaiso, one he sincerely wished did not persist, wished had since burned to the ground. She had been singing inside, graceful arias of passion and longing, raven-winged odes to darker times and amused songs of bumbling lovers, ill-met but not forgotten. He had been captivated, but as always careful and slow, not rushing in but looking forward to preparing staves to ensorcel her, a treble clef to begin the overture, appropriate bars in the correct tempo leading inevitably to the crescendo.
But that had been subverted. He had left the café later, heard a scuffle from a nearby alley, found a hideous ruffian forcing her against a darkened wall, someone else enchanted with her but unwilling to seduce, merely interested in taking. His will hardened, focused, and the man slumped to the ground, unconscious or perhaps dead. It was so hard to tell, and in this instance, he didn’t particularly care. Another touch of will and she remembered him tearing her assailant from her and striking him.
Perhaps an inapt beginning to the lyrics, rhythm and melodies that they would write together with their minds and bodies, but one that had older roots than his magic. She thanked him, he offered her safe passage, they paused along that passage for a drink, then two and then the night was gone and they were slumbering in one another’s arms. The dawn awoke them, curtains in his hotel room forgotten in their haste the night before, and then they awoke further, and further still. For once, this was not a planned and scripted moment, improvisation upon a blueprint drafted and redrawn until it was a thing of beauty, but purely improvisation.
Perhaps that’s why it didn’t last, or at least didn’t last as long as he wished it to. Some event or other, a minor affair, gave her offence. He was unconcerned, trivialized her perspective, laughed at her anger. And she left him standing on a dock, walked away from him with her bag over her shoulder, told him in scatological and obviously sincere terms exactly what he could do to himself, and that he was invited to do it over and over as long has he did it nowhere near her.
But he was not done with his pleasure, not ready to play the final bars of the symphony that they had made. So he once again gathered his will and conscripted hers, something he’d known was a possibility, known was a relatively trivial extension of his acquired powers, known how to do without ever having done it before. And she walked back to him, laughing, paired off again, her almond skin and dark eyes contrasting beautifully with his pale skin, blue eyes, desire in every line of her body for his.
They’d continued on their way. Another hotel. Another café. Another joyous meal and lustful night. Another slow boat between islands. And an absence insinuated itself into his notice, a sound not heard, a feeling not present. He heard the wigeon’s whistling, but not his Wigeon’s. He heard the music of the waves, but not her music. Where her life had been as much a jazz descant as a thing of flesh and blood, there was only meat and plasma left.
He took her to cafes where bands played, suggested she join in, begged her to sing. Instead, she begged off, put him off. He looked into her eyes and saw a confused panic there, acquiesced to it. They continued, but the music that had drawn him to her had departed. He inferred, eventually and after much denial, that he was the cause.
In imposing his will upon her, forcing her will to be subordinate to his, to become his willing plaything, he’d made her a puppet, not a person. And puppets didn’t sing.
He researched, he sought, he studied, he fought for knowledge, some means to undo the evil that he’d done. And couldn’t find it. Couldn’t restore her true voice. Wigeon no more, one day she dove into the sea and never surfaced. And took with her any desire on his part to be more than a seducer, a persuader, someone who would force his will upon another.
He finished the scotch, stood unsteadily, wiped his wet eyes. Extended his will. Failed. Breathed in, succeeded. And left, the patio and penthouse and almond tree devoid of evidence of his passing. Almost.
