Intimate Relations, Rebecca Forster [best ereader for manga .txt] 📗

his three daughters. The man and his daughters saw a pot of gold in the brewery's industrial chic buildings. They partnered with the city of Los Angeles, and developed the property into the world's largest artist community. Their pitch was brilliant. Only those who lived and died by the arts could live there. The stipulation immediately made the address desirable.  After all, who in Los Angeles did not believe they were a star in the making?

Now The Brewery address was as good as a sprinkle of stardust. Either you would fashion your own galaxy from the glittery stuff or it would bury you. The creative folks had free rein over their individual spaces. They built out bedrooms, and kitchens, and galleries. They painted, sculpted, wrote, and invented stuff. Musicians were the least favored, and trumpeters were not allowed. Even the most creative among them could not bear the sound of a trumpet in these concrete quarters. Soon The Brewery was a thriving concern. The city got its philanthropic jollies, the man and his three daughters got rich, and the artists got a very cool place to live.

The night it happened, the city and The Brewery were peaceful with one exception. There was a party in the three-story unit that was the envy of every artist in the colony. Even by L.A. standards, the party was an exclusive gathering and the guest list rarified.

The guests arrived without fanfare, disappearing into the building so quickly few took notice. There were no windows on the first floor of the unit and minimal windows on the second. On the third floor the windows were cathedral-worthy. On a clear day the people who lived there could see all the way to the ocean. But this was not a clear day, and the people who lived there had not invited those who attended the party. They were but a little cog in the night's wheel of business. They understood the nature of the gathering, but they were not part of it. They hoped the men and women in their home would soon be gone. They hoped the night would end as it had begun: quietly.

They should have known better. This small part of the city was about to exhale.

1

The handpicked guests were at the party for two reasons. The first was to indulge themselves as only the very wealthy can. The second was to witness the unveiling of something they hoped would make them richer still. They had no idea what that  'something' might be, but it didn't matter. The man who invited them was a god, and when God called you answered, 'Yes, Lord.' While they waited for the unveiling they were thoroughly entertained, barely noting the passage of time. Two men, however, stood apart from the rest, unnoticed in the shadowy alcove near the narrow staircase.

The first man was the artist who lived in the space. He created works of such beauty grown men were brought to their knees.  His talent lay in his precision and attention to detail and his delicate touch with a paintbrush. It seemed a strange talent for a man with such an unpleasant look about him. He was tall, broad shouldered, and barrel chested; his long legs and arms were skinny ropes of muscle. The artist's hands were big, his fingers gnarled. The man's head was too large for his body, his face was long and worn. He was not young nor did he seem old, and yet women found him intriguing, even sexy. Men tried to analyze his strange appeal. Eventually they decided that it was the artist's energy,  focus, and, above all, his unbridled passion for the female form that made him so unique. Women who inspired him knew their beauty was unimpeachable. He was a man who could make fantasy reality, and that was quite a talent.

The artist was foreign. Czech many thought although no one knew for certain.  They wondered about the man and his wife and how they had come to make their living in such a unique way. It was simple, the wife would explain: he was the artist, and she was the engineer. She said this each time the question was asked, even though this was not what people wanted to know. They wanted to know how the artist and his wife felt about what they created. Neither of them ever answered. Eventually their clients decided that it didn't matter what they thought. All that mattered was that they got what they paid for. The artist and his wife and their feelings, in the end, were of no concern.

That night, had the guests noticed the big man in the alcove, they might not have realized he wasn't alone. The person with him did not so much join the artist as appear like a shadow with the movement of the light. He was slight, Asian, and of an indiscernible age. Unlike the artist, his face was as smooth as a young boy's.  His eyes were strangely blank and moist behind his thick glasses. His coarse hair was short all around, but longer on top. His ears were small and low. His teeth were not the best, but few people knew this because he never smiled and when he spoke his lips hardly moved.

As they talked, the artist's fists opened and closed with an angry rhythm; his body undulated with frustration.  The Asian man stood with his arms to his side and his shoulders hunched over a pathetically narrow chest. His feet were close together. He wore soft shoes, pants the shade of putty, a shirt with short sleeves that was neither white nor beige. His pants rode too high on his thin frame; his shirt was buttoned up tight. The only bright thing about him was the silver buckle on his belt. If anyone had taken note of this man and then blinked they would have no memory of him. They would not have recognized him for who he was, but the artist