Visitor In A Strange Land - Aubin/Oliver

[Aubin]

When most artists set about immortalizing the city of Valir, they generally select one of among a handful of traditional, if typical, subjects and vistas. The Parliament House, and specifically its four ever-flowing fountains, was a typical place for artists and their easels to congregate, as was the museum which offered an intriguing combination of knowledge and grandeur. The East Plaza also summoned artists from time to time, as did the homes of the uber wealthy that stood so close by. The south of the city was, particularly in the summer months, nearly crawling with artists of all skills and styles who sought individually to capture the vibrant night life, the imposing edifices of culture, or, among the more pedantic, the sprawling and leafy park. What artists generally didn’t tend to attempt to immortalize was the North part of the city, the blight, as it was sometimes called, of Valir. Therefore it was more than passingly unusual that one artist had selected the North for his subject and had being sitting for hours by the time the clock struck two, carefully rendering sketch after sketch of the milling crowds, passing prostitutes, derelict buildings, and, above all, the Brudjans that lived unnoticed amid it all.

Why Aubin had selected the North for his day’s work was as much a mystery to himself as it was to the few passer-bys who had stones enough to openly stare. For the humans in the crowd, Aubin’s work (which he made no attempt to hide whenever anyone came close enough to peer at his charcoal drawings) must have had an additional mystery; why were some half of the figures pictured so…different? The figures were all clearly human (or so they thought), but some of them were somehow different. There was something strangely…feral…about them, something so dangerous and unnerving that those who spent too long staring at the pictures found themselves suddenly uncomfortable in this end of the city in a way they never had before.

If Aubin was aware of the attention his work was gaining or, alternatively, of the affect his work was having on many of those who paused to look, he showed absolutely no sign of it. Instead he remained resolutely bent over his sketch pad, one hand moving fast to catch the quickly changing scene before him, the other hand holding the pad steady at across his knees. His senses were of course extended even if they didn’t appear to be and he was constantly scanning the crowd, looking for points of immediate danger amid a culture and people that seemed to radiate threat at all times. Being a Vampyr did little, Aubin knew, to protect him in this area, indeed being an Aurillian Vampyr probably did him more harm than good. Thus far, however, his invasion into what was decidedly Brujan territory had merited little interest on the part of the clan whose turf this was.

Flipping the page of his notebook to reveal a clean surface, Aubin directed his attention to Club Tryst that, though distant, was clearly visible even from his vantage point. Quickly he began to sketch the exterior of what was effectively a Brudjan blood den, taking little care to make its patrons look at all appealing. The humans that began to appear on his page were dilapidated and scrawny, the sort of people no one wanted as their neighbour. The Vampyr’s were something even more distasteful; a mix of animal and up-right biped that didn’t quite make it all the way to human. Several of the faces among this second class of figures were recognizable despite the feral tint, a fact (mayhap a problem?) that Aubin noticed but did nothing to fix.

[Oliver]

In theory, there were two types of people in the world; People who thought in terms of facts and numbers, and people who leaned more towards art and literature. Rarely you would find someone who was inclined to regard each separate lifestyle equally, however most could appreciate their opposite from afar if the occasion called for it. Oliver Fields was not such a person. He was logical to a fault and had never encountered anything ‘creative’ within himself, and as such he had never been able to understand the idea of others being creative. The entertainment district in the South Quadrant had only seen the likes of his slim figure twice; Once on a date his sister had set up for him and once when his mother had taken him to a theatre production that had been sufficiently risqué to make his ears burn red with embarrassment.

He hadn’t been a hundred percent certain then as to what had drawn him to the artist that had ventured into the North Quadrant that day. Perhaps it was the unusual sight of an artist being there at all that had attracted his attention, although normally Oliver would have noticed such an oddity in passing and moved on his way. As he continued to look over the man’s shoulder brazenly Oliver tried to determine why those fierce-looking people were blended through the scenery like some sort of sub-human race looking for their place in society. It was perhaps this, he rationalised, that kept him so intrigued rather than the art itself. Frowning slightly, the dapper young man tilted his head inexplicably to one side.

It was then that Mr Fields noticed something quite remarkable. One of the feral-seeming figures on the latest piece of paper was standing in front of a dark looking Club. He seemed to have the broad forehead and high cheekbones familiar to Oliver, and once the nose and deeply set eyes were complete the comparison was striking. It was Warner, one of the Assemblymen from the House. But why, Oliver asked himself, was he looking so wild? And why was he standing in the front of a dodgy looking Club? And perhaps most importantly of all, how did this artist know Warner at all?

“E-Excuse me, Sir,” Oliver ventured as his curiousity grew a little too strong for him to muzzle. He stepped a little closer to the artist, a look of pure interest on his innocent features. “Can I ask why you draw them like that? The people?”

[Aubin]

Aubin had sensed the presence of the human behind him from the moment the young man had paused and begun staring with increasing intensity at his work. He had sensed too the growing curiosity, starting from its first moment of inception up until it became so large and so insistent that it formed, half against the boy’s will it seemed, a spoken question. At the sound of the inquiry Aubin had stilled, the hand holding the charcoal micrometers away from the page, and carefully turned his head so that he could meet the human’s grey eyes with his own blue ones.

“I draw them like that,” he ventured after a moment of silent contemplation, “because that is what they look like underneath.”

A small gesture by Aubin invited the human to join him on the bench he was perched on. As he welcomed Oliver, Aubin kept his gaze fixed on the young man’s face, wondering quietly to himself how anyone in this city, human or otherwise, had gotten to Oliver’s age and still remained so visibly innocent. The influence of naïveté was of course immediately evident but that did little to make Oliver’s open honesty any less arresting to a Vampyr who was long used to seeing ancient eyes in young faces.

“An artist sees more than what is immediately evident,” explained Aubin, gesturing vaguely to the scene before them, “if you want to only see what is simply visible, take a picture. An artist, any kind of artist, sees what is hidden, either intentionally or otherwise, as well as what is possible.”

Reaching forward, Aubin flipped his sketchbook to another blank page and resumed drawing. Unlike his previous pictures the two he drew now featured a single male in each. Swift strokes and practiced smudging-blends quickly transformed the two anonymous men into the likeness of Oliver himself. The first was an exact copy of Oliver as he looked now, the equivalent of a photograph or similar base recording device. The second, however, which took slightly longer to draw, was different somehow. The face and the body position were the same but there was something a little more confident in the gaze of the second man, something more self assured in-between and amongst the shyness Oliver’s youth tended to invoke.

“The surface,” reiterated Aubin, “and what’s beneath.”

[Oliver]

Upon the artist turning to meet his inquisitive gaze, Oliver’s breath caught in his throat. For a split-second eh could have sworn that he had seen a form of the ferocity inherent in the subjects of the pictures within the artist’s own eyes. In a spit-second that idea had vanished however and was replaced with a new and more radical one induced by the sitting man’s statement. Oliver had always been the type of person to believe in the strong foundations of fact versus the shady greys of fiction. He had never resorted to snowballing questions, but how could such an experience as this not entice them?

Almost compelled by the auburn-haired man’s beckoning fingers, Oliver propelled himself towards the bench. A preliminary brushing of a long fingered hand over the seat was required before he finally sat, his legs brought together in a subconscious display of discomfort. His grey eyes sparkled with interest as the artist’s seemingly expert words enveloped him just as the night sky closed in around the pair in the less than safe North Quadrant. Oliver was a smart kid, but if he tried to convince himself that he understood what the artist was talking about he would have been lying to himself.

His grey gaze faltered yet again as his attention was drawn to the paper that was now caressed under the artist’s clever fingers. More swiftly than it ought to, Oliver felt, an even more familiar face began to appear. The introverted carriage of the shoulders and arms, the bright but somehow smothered light in the face making it evident that it was him the artist was drawing. He opened his mouth to pass a compliment, but was stifled by the next figure who still bore his own face but was infinitely more confident, even brave. But brave was something Oliver had given up trying to be a long time ago.

“Wow,” he exclaimed softly, for once his shock and utter amazement plucking the eloquent words from his usually bottomless vocabulary. “You’re really good!” He offered the artist a shy smile, shifting a little more on the bench in order to get a better look. It was an illusion, Oliver knew, but it was a miraculous one all the same. The questions that had been put off by his piqued interest now came flooding back, and he yearned to know more. He always wanted to know more.

“How do you see what people are underneath? I mean, I don’t really think that can be me,” he said, a note of disbelief in his voice.

[Aubin]

Something like a smile ghosted over Aubin’s face as he watched the young human brush aside imaginary dust deposits before sitting down. There was something about humans and cleanliness, Aubin thought, that was at once endlessly intriguing and amusing. This particular human with his long, soft-looking fingers and gentle, shy eyes seemed to have a particular aversion to tainting his own well groomed body with the dust he and all his brethren were fated to one day become. As Aubin watched Oliver, he was overcome with a sudden desire to dirty the boy. Not harshly of course, no, there was no desire to punish Oliver’s desire for cleanliness. Rather Aubin wanted to show him the beauty in being temporary befouled, in being less that perfectly well made up and remote from the world and its sweaty, dusty, dirty facets.

The young man’s remark that he could not see the brave boy that Aubin knew lay buried within him only stoked the flame of Aubin’s sudden and unexpected desire. Now in addition to mussing the youth’s hair and dirtying his body, Aubin wanted to make that braver man step forward, to show a glimpse of a different Oliver without destroying or warping the one that now sat beside him. A sudden image (a foretelling?) rose to the fore of Aubin’s mind and he was briefly distracted by a picture of he and Oliver, naked and damp with sweat, entwined together on the floor of Aubin’s studio, their bodies coming together amid the old brushes and paint splatters.

“I’ve learned,” replied Aubin when the last detail of his fantasy faded into grey, “over the years to do it, is all. I look and I listen, I find the clues that are easily ignored and put them together to find a different picture. Not necessarily a bigger one, although that sometimes happens, but a different one. A different vista. Sometimes it’s as easy as looking for and finding the part of someone they intentionally hide, other times it’s about looking for the part of someone they don’t even know is there.”

“You say that you can’t be this person, but I say you can. He’s already inside of you, you just haven’t found him yet or, if you prefer, haven’t tapped into him yet. But he is a part of you, you just need to learn where he hides and how to access him.”

With that, Aubin reached out and took Oliver’s hand in his. Gently he turned the human’s hand over so the palm rested face up, the back of Oliver’s hand carefully cradled in Aubin’s own. Then, ever so gently, Aubin ran the thumb of his other hand over Oliver’s palm, starting at the heel and moving upwards towards the fingers, then lifting away from the hand, returning to the heel, and doing it again and again. It was a slow and sensual move, perfectly calculated to stimulate the nerves in the hand as well as all the other nerves, as any masseuse or acupuncturist could tell you, that were connected to it, even those that were far and away and in highly unexpected places.

“Do you feel it?” asked Aubin faintly, “the way you can feel me here, on your palm, and elsewhere? It’s like that; I see all that. All the connected parts, even the ones you’ve hidden away.”

[Oliver]

Oliver, perhaps fortunately, was too busy staring at the brave-faced version of himself staring up at his from the otherwise blank possibility of paper. The flow of information from the artist made it into his head like a sweet whispered lullaby, and Oliver blinked and shook his head slightly as though to bring himself back to the busy night street of the North Quadrant where he really was. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t be brave or noble, or any of those things heroes and the like were meant to be. That was what this guy was drawing, a heroic version of him, when all he would ever be was just ‘Oliver’. Momentarily he felt cheated like a child who spent their only dollar on a toy and have it break on them as soon as it was out of the packaging.

The young man whipped his eyes away from the created juxtaposition at the immediate and very real sensation of his hand being taken by the man sitting next to him. Still not completely free of the hold the second picture had taken of him Oliver merely watched while the stroking tantalized the edges of his consciousness until he realized exactly what it meant. Scandalized, Oliver snatched his hand back, his grey eyes suddenly accusatory and no longer the placid shade of a soft winter day. Who did this man think he was, to touch him in such a way? More importantly, what did he expect Oliver to do? Accept it?

“Sorry,” he said then with forced politeness. He wasn’t sure which way to put his affronted face, but one thing was for certain. He had to get out of here. He almost blushed to think of how Tina would react if he told her what had happened as she was always telling her baby half-brother that he was almost too pretty to be entirely heterosexual. “I-“ his voice stuck behind his tonsils, dry and scratchy as he stood up from the seat that had witnessed such an event. “I should go. It’s getting late and I have work tomorrow. It was very nice to meet you.” His naturally tanned face visibly paler, Oliver turned as if to run all the way back to his small two room apartment in the West Quadrant.

[Aubin]

Aubin had hoped that the young man would overcome his obviously intense and numerous anxieties and reward him with the heated fantasy that had so completely ensnared his senses but he wasn’t surprised, not really, when the youth chose to flee at the merest suggestion of Aubin’s desire. Still, Oliver’s obvious panic did not depress Aubin in anyway nor did the Vampyr imagine for one single moment that his fantasy with the young man would not come true eventually. Rather than forcing the issue, however, Aubin simply stood when the Human did, nodding politely as if he believed all of the lies and excuses now being spewed forth.

“Of course,” he said simply, “It is growing late. It was very rude of me to keep you here. Do have a good night and, since you’ve mentioned it, a good tomorrow as well.”

The Vampyr smiled benignly as he watched Oliver scurry a few paces away before suddenly affecting the expression of someone who had just remembered something. “Oh!” he called out, hurrying after the human and fast overtaking him, “I almost forgot. My card, Oliver, should you ever need to find me.”

The Vampyr smiled benignly once more as he reached over and slipped a small triangle of paper into Oliver’s breast pocket. The pyramid was in fact Aubin’s card and was, other than the unusual shape, a simple affair. His name and address appeared in gold embossing on the front of the cream-coloured card, the first piece of information in a swishy, handwriting like font and the second in standard block letters. With a nod, Aubin turned away and returned to his seat, leaving Oliver with a free getaway. Aubin never bothered to mention how he knew Oliver’s name despite the fact that the youth had never offered it.

[Oliver]

Just when he thought he was home free the stranger had caught up to him in a matter of seconds. Before he had time to protest or even open his mouth in order to do so, the artist had presumptuously slipped his card into the pocket of his blazer. A flicker of confusion shaded Oliver’s eyes momentarily before he decided his desire to leave and get home was more than his desire to tell this strange man, whoever he was, that he really didn’t think he would need to call on him in the future.

The night streets were usually never threatening to Oliver, but his encounter with the strange artist had instilled in him a sense of mounting confusion that he was unable to sweep under a fluffy warm rug of logic. Who was he, thought the young man for the umpteenth time as he reached his apartment building. What did he mean, touching my hand like that? It was only when he began to undress for bed that he remembered the peculiar triangle-shaped business card ion his pocket, and he took it out, running his finger over the embossed writing in a way that mimicked the motion Aubin’s thumb had made over the palm of his hand.

It was then that Oliver remembered that he hadn’t given the stranger his name.