Variations Three Read Online Free Page A

bit."
     
    First published in Variations Three,
November1996
     
     
     

 
     
    Passionato
    Sharon Lee
     
    THE BLOOD PALLS, over time.
    I believe this is the reason why so few of
us exist beyond the hundred-fiftieth year of our making.
    Over time, the blood palls. Feeding oneself
becomes, first, a chore; then an agony; finally, for some--for
most--a hell. Anything becomes preferable to the anguish of taking
one more sup, so one fasts. And one dies.
    Those who survive this crisis of
sensibility--those who evolve--are...formidable.
    Formidable.
    I am two hundred forty-seven years undead.
Before my making, I lived 15 years in Philadelphia, the son of a
textile merchant. I bear the face and form of a boy in the first
beauty of his manhood, as perfect as the night she created me.
    My mother named me Evelyn James Farrington.
My colleagues know me as Jim Faring.
    I am a painter. I do badly, which is all I
expect. The others who work and live in this building--they take
interest in my efforts, squandering hours of their short lifetimes
to show me thus of perspective, this trick of capturing the light
and this other thing regarding shadows.
    My colleagues--young humans. So earnest. So
full of life. Of--passion.
    Understand that I am not human. I
am--formerly human. In fact, I am a predator. But I spoke of
evolution. The blood is not, entirely, necessary.
    When one is new to the undead state, there
is no draught headier, no nourishment more seductive, than a sup of
that sweet claret. We drink from the artery in the throat--rich,
full heart’s blood, sparkling with the passion of life.
    Yet, what nourishes us is not so much the
blood, but that which the blood carries.
    Passion.
    Humans have--such--passion.
    And artists have so much more.
    Above all else, I am careful. When the great
thirst comes upon me, as it does one moon in six, I do not drink
here. I go away--uptown, to the bars and the music clubs. Most
often, I take a singer, though any who play from their soul will
slake me. There was a flutist, some years back--vibrant, seductive
burgundy! But that vintage is rare.
    At home, here in the Abingdale Artists Loft,
I husband my resources and watch over my flock most tenderly. It
would not do for one of my young colleagues to experience that
languor which is the result of receiving the fullness of my Kiss.
No. No, they must remain whole, awake, passionately, involved in
their art, producing that aura of lusty life energy so necessary to
my own survival.
    There are risks.
    Artists are ... notoriously ... unstable.
The least thing may with equal possibility fling them into a fever
of creation or a black despair.
    Years ago, I kept poets. The food was hot
and wholesome when they were creating, but their passions consumed
them even as I was nourished. It was a rare moon passed without a
suicide.
    Writers of prose are every bit as
unsatisfactory as a reliable source of nourishment.
    Visual artists are another matter. Perhaps
because their work is concrete, perhaps because they work so
intimately with the balances of shadow and light, weakness and
strength... I find painters most satisfactory, though yet inclined
to those deadly swings of mood. Rock-steady reliability is most
often found in sculptors, but that food is never more than
bland.
    For a time I kept only painters. Recently, I
find the stabilizing benefit of an eclectic herd--painters,
potters, sculptors--outweighs my preference for the painterly
passions.
    Of this current herd, my favorite is Nikita.
She paints in vibrant primaries: splashes of bold crimson, thick
puddles of yellow, emerald arabesques... Ambitious, sensuous
Nikita. Really, I am quite fond of her--almost too fond. I must be
stern with myself, or I should be with her every day. It would not
do to lose Nikita too soon.
    Of the others, I especially enjoy Michael,
who pots, and Sula, who does woodcuts. Jon is my sculptor, stolid
and uninteresting; and the newer ones: Amy, Chris, Fortnay and
Quill.
    I find eight a