The Blind Dragon

by Noah Harris

  Shaeffer looked into his eyes, still wary but seeming to see that affection—it couldn’t be love, was it love?—in his eyes that he thought he was hiding, and, without warning, scrambled off the bed.

  Konrad sat up, naked and embarrassed and full of self-pity and anger, wondering if Shaeffer, as he stared at him with something akin to suspicion, thought he was faking it all just for the attention and companionship. Shaeffer picked up his clothes wordlessly, not looking at him as he dressed, and Konrad didn’t stop him. If Shaeffer left, he wouldn’t be coming back. But after that assertion of vulnerability, and Shaeffer’s obvious rejection of him, maybe it was better that way.

  Shaeffer walked over to the couch and picked up his phone, hitting the screen a few times and holding it up to his ear. Konrad could only hear screaming until Shaeffer put the phone down.

  “I-I have an early day tomorrow,” he said, gesturing toward his phone. He walked back over, fully dressed and making Konrad burn with shame at his nakedness, and leaned down to kiss him one more time. It felt more passionate than before, but what did he know? Clearly nothing. “You are the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on, and I’ve seen a lot of men.” He smiled sadly, keeping his eyes down, and then turned and briskly walked out of the apartment. The door shut loudly behind him, and Konrad wondered if he’d slammed it on purpose.

  Konrad looked up at the skylight, his human’s emotional rage and the disappointed rage of his dragon, who didn’t understand the conflict, battling in his head—they wanted each other, what was the complication? He knew why the dragon inside him was baffled, furious, ready to burn it all down. It didn’t remember the aftermath of previous emotional battles, the scars. It lived in the moment, in the fire, and Konrad lived in the ash, cleaning up and packing it all in.

  Maybe he’d give in to the dragon again. It helped sometimes. He’d shift, maybe, and go and scare some animals just to get his frustrations out. Screeching, terrified cats and howling dogs that pissed themselves at the sight of him made him laugh when he was in these moods. He got up abruptly, pacing, wondering if maybe he would, maybe he should…what he should’ve done.

  “You’re staying in that bed until I say otherwise,” he grunted to himself, surprised by the angry hiss of his voice. That was what he should have said. He grabbed the wine off the bar cart and drank from the bottle, finishing what was left, feeling the sour spice of it burn his throat.

  Stumbling slightly from his bitterness and the bitterness of the wine, he thought of what Clara would say to him, in her dragon form, spitting her words into his mind.

  You have died behind your face, your human face. She would mock him for letting his dragon down, for choosing the human side of himself over his dragon’s desires. But if he gave into all his dragon’s needs, he would cease being the Konrad Fontaine, famous and artistic, introspective and sullen. He’d be a raging, burning, destructive dragon, and his art would disappear in the flames. And no one would care about him if he was like that. At least, with his art, people found him interesting, important.

  Maybe that was what he needed right now, not his dragon, but his art.

  He paced the apartment, looking up through the skylight at the stars, fighting his dragon’s desire to take flight and shoot flames into the sky, igniting rumors of shooting stars. A new piece took form in his mind as he stalked around his flat: a shower of white sparks, so hot the audience could feel the heat on their faces, that flows into a river of fire and turns into slush, ice, flowing down the banks.

  Yes. That was it.

  He strode over to his materials, clumsily opening and slamming shut the drawers and boxes until he found it.

  Magnesium. Konrad held it in his hands, feeling them get hot, seeing the skin glow as the veins underneath turned red-hot. He suddenly wondered if he’d taken too much, his vision shaky. Maybe now wasn’t the time to do this, he needed to be in a sober state of mind to play with dangerous materials like this. Now wasn’t the time.

  And then, just as the thought crossed his mind to put it down, to sleep it all off, the magnesium sparked and exploded in his hands.

  Death by Isolation

  Shaeffer Gipson

  The makeup brushes were stiff from use, caked up with foundation not entirely washed out. Weren’t these artists supposed to use the best money could buy? He felt like they were scraping used paintbrushes up and down his face. He’d have to talk to his agent about this…or maybe he wouldn’t. Better not to rock the boat which was already close to sinking.

  “You disappeared last night, Shaeffer,” Ali said, his handsomely crooked nose being dabbed with foundation far too light for his dark skin. He had his eyes closed, his thick lashes fluttering when a brush came too close.

  “With the performer guy, right? Always getting close to the talent, eh?” said Emil. Shaeffer opened his eyes ever so slightly to glare back and forth between them. He said nothing in response to their snickers, too distracted by his memories of last night and the embarrassment bleeding from them to think of an excuse or a lie.

  “You could’ve at least told us, we just waited around until some woman in lingerie—I will never understand that fashion trend, wearing lingerie in public—and purple hair…”

  “Oh, but her hair was delightful. Lilac…or periwinkle,” Emil interrupted, and Ali nodded.

  “I have some knit blankets from home in that color.”

  “I just love it. I think Marrielli is using that color in his new line,” Emil said, his voice hushed. Shaeffer tuned them out, feeling incapable of giving a single shit about Marrielli and his gaudy tunics and sequined mules. Right now, the only thing on his mind was Konrad. But it wasn’t the light, delirious feeling from last night. It was dark, shameful and sickening.

  The scene replayed in his head, like a fuzzy movie reel you find in your parents’ attic. Him kneeling on the bed, the sheets wonderfully soft on his skin, his knees dipping into the soft mattress. Peeling his shirt off while Konrad’s dark, mesmerizing, kind eyes changed into something else, something deep and unreadable. The desire was still there, but it was clouded, and Shaeffer couldn’t see through the fog to what was underneath. And the feeling of Konrad’s hands on him, big and calloused from his artwork, making him shiver, feeling like there was something wrong and so, so right about this man. But whatever was wrong was something monumental that kept him closed off even as he kissed him, open-mouthed and heady.

  The wine had made him dramatic, desperate. No matter what he’d seen wrong in this man that Shaeffer felt he needed to exorcise, he’d been so delirious he just kept going. A drunken mess. He’d never talk about it again, not with his so-called friends especially. They’d either judge him or ask why he didn’t just go through with it. He’d only just barely escaped from Konrad’s apartment with his dignity. “No” had been his saving grace, keeping him from doing exactly what Kyle had accused him of wanting to do. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t what Kyle had accused him of being.

  “You’re just a starfucker. That’s what you are. You find the person that can propel you to the top, and you suck their dick and stroke their ego enough that they’ll do whatever you ask. Either that, or you find someone who is what you wish you were, and you fucking…you fucking siphon their interestingness or whatever you’re lacking because you’re fucking boring, Shaeffer, you have nothing inside you.”

  He’d been right, really. Shaeffer could remember the fight, right before they’d left for the show. Shaeffer had gritted his teeth and set his jaw and ignored him on the drive over, convincing himself Kyle was jealous, only jealous, and that’s what was setting him off. Turning him into a monster that echoed all the words of his former agents. And the continued jealousy at the show…well, at least in public he’d been able to twist it in his favor. He hadn’t wanted to explain why Kyle hadn’t shown up.

  Konrad had a depth to him that Shaeffer knew he lacked. If his agents, and all his boyfriends, were repeating the same sentiments, it had to be true.

 
“It’s time, Shaeffer,” one of the people with the bulky headsets and a clipboard had walked over and whispered in his ear, pulling him out of his self-pity. He cleared his throat, saluted Emil and Ali, and followed her through the hallway. They called after him, more teasing.

  “Ah, Shaeffer,” said the photographer, and he reached out his hand, mechanically. The photographer took it briefly, shaking it, and then dropped it. “We’re going to have to do something a little dramatic for us, a little risqué. How does that sound, buddy? It’s going to be in L’Officiel Hommes. Did Arthur tell you?”

  “No, he just told me I had a shoot this morning. I’m ready for anything, though, Rikki,” Shaeffer said, putting on the confident air he’d been struggling to find on the short walk from the makeup chair.

  “Wonderful. Just wonderful. I always forget what a charm you are, Shaeffer,” said Rikki, with a wink, and Shaeffer tiredly put on his smile and walked stiffly over to the loveseat they’d chosen for the shoot, complete with disheveled blankets and women’s clothing scattered on the floor.

  He grunted, blinking the sweat out of his eyes. Normally he’d come with his trainer, but he knew his routine by heart. He didn’t want to be around anyone today, he needed to work it out, alone, sweat out all the toxins and negativity.

  The barbell dug into the back of his neck and his shoulders, and he watched himself in the mirror as he squatted, letting out a long, measured breath as he straightened back up. He let it roll off his shoulders and drop behind him, loudly. No one looked over, and he left it there, pulling off his damp tank top and wiping his face with it. When he lowered the shirt, he noticed a meathead looking in his direction, admiring the view, and Shaeffer wondered if, yesterday, he might’ve walked over and talked this guy up. Instead, he pressed his lips together and looked over the guy’s shoulder, as if he hadn’t registered in his vision at all.

  Then he walked into the showers, grateful for the heavy steam obscuring him from view. He showered, dried off, and got dressed again quickly, not wanting to get cornered by the big lug from the weights section.

  As he was walking out, Konrad’s eyes caught his. He doubled back, baffled, but realized it was only a picture of him on the front of this week’s Drake Alt. He neared it and read the headline: “Konrad Fontaine’s Disappointing Fire Dance.” He blinked at it, then picked it up and paged hurriedly to the article.

  Konrad Fontaine, a rising star for the past ten years on Drake Street, has become a household name for his magical, unexplainable fire-bending. He’ll never “reveal his secrets,” he insists after every show when he meets with the press, but after last night’s Firebird, Konrad Fontaine was nowhere to be found. And it’s probably better that way. Firebird, promised to be a heart-wrenching display of isolation’s journey to redemption and love by agent Fiona Lovelace, turned out to be nothing more than a hollow husk of the artist’s shallow desire for affection. This is less of an art piece and more of a cry for attention from a pretentious, aging artist. The Drake Alt does not recommend Firebird or any of Fontaine’s follow-up art, which we can all assume will be more self-pity and aggrandizement.

  Shaeffer laughed in disgust, out loud, receiving a few concerned stares from the gym greeters, who were standing nearby. He looked away from them, at the others in the gym, letting the words of the review settle in his mind. Shallow? Hollow? Aggrandizement? A cry for attention? He felt baffled, unable to even come to a conclusion about how he felt about the article and the person who wrote it because of its pure nonsensicality. Had they even seen the same show?

  “Oh my word,” said an older woman walking at a snail’s pace on the treadmill near him, and he looked over. She was staring at the muted television suspended in the air in front of them. He read the subtitles; the image was merely an apartment building, glittering in the sunlight.

  Found in his apartment this morning at 7:21 am, authorities would not confirm his identity. An anonymous source has informed us, however, that model and philanthropist, Lukas Williams, had been deceased and lay undiscovered in his apartment for two months. The smell was reported earlier by neighbor Alexa Graymoor, who returned to her apartment from a prolonged trip this morning. “I think he must…he must have been rotting in there for two months like the cops said, but I really think he’d been in there for longer. No one noticed because he’s always traveling, everyone thought he was just…he was just traveling, he wasn’t there at all. Maybe he wasn’t even dead the whole time he was in there. Maybe he was just sad. He was always sad. But that’s probably why he’s dead, now.”

  The woman on the screen had frazzled brown hair and tired eyes, the look of someone who just got off a long, stressful flight. Shaeffer could tell the footage had been taken earlier this morning just from the light, probably while he’d been at his shoot. He nearly stumbled backward…dead, sad, dead, sad. The words kept repeating on the screen, they kept replaying her interview. He felt his stomach turn. Lukas? He’d just seen him a few months ago, and he’d been fine. He’d seemed fine. He was fine.

  “Hey, man. You gotta buy that newspaper if you’re gonna crush it up like that.”

  “What?” he asked, turning around. The guy behind the desk had his arms crossed in annoyance.

  “I said you gotta buy that newspaper if you’re gonna crush it up.” Shaeffer looked down, seeing Konrad’s handsome, confident, distorted face smiling up at him, and grunted.

  “Put it on my account. Shaeffer Gipson.”

  “You got it, dude,” the guy said, shrugging and typing in his name. Shaeffer looked at him and then stalked toward the door, taking the newspaper with him. “Have a good day,” the guy called after him, but the door had slammed shut from the wind.

  He walked down the sidewalk toward the hotel his agent had put him up in for as long as he lived on Drake Street, not bothering to get him an apartment. He felt the sweat of his palms soaking into the newspaper, but only looked down at Konrad’s face again, thinking about Konrad, thinking about his show.

  This art critic had no idea what he was talking about. He would’ve liked to see him at the show, he’d probably been on his phone the whole time, or talking to some annoying guest he’d dragged along just for both of them to complain about it after. But Shaeffer, he’d been there, and he’d paid attention. The show wasn’t hollow, or shallow, it was powerful. The art critic, what was his name? Shaeffer paused mid-walk to look down, to find the guy’s name, the name of this moron who didn’t know how to discern art from toilet paper.

  Mario Little. Shaeffer laughed out loud. Mario! He flicked through the magazine again, wondering if this stupid, probably blind, excuse of a critic had written any other reviews, and found a phone number at the bottom. People on the sidewalk filtered around him.

  QUESTIONS? CONCERNS? WANT TO SUBMIT? CALL HERE.

  “Perfect,” Shaeffer snapped, pulling his phone out. “I have a concern, and several questions,” he muttered, typing the phone number in. Better to rehearse what he’d say, he wanted it to hit hard, be impactful. “I want to know why on earth you hired Mario Little, who clearly hasn’t been to an art show in his life or done anything more significant than tear other artists down…oh!” He stumbled sideways when someone knocked into him, and his phone clattered onto the sidewalk. “Fuck. Hey, what the fuck!” he shouted, but the guy didn’t turn around. He grabbed his phone and looked up. White-blond hair, stuck up in every direction, a thin white t-shirt covering his thin but muscled shoulders. Shaeffer stared at him, the name bubbling up and getting stuck in his throat. Lukas?

  “Hey, you okay?” a woman gasped, bending down next to him. “You’re crying! Are you hurt?”

  “What? No, I’m fine, thank you, sorry,” he mumbled, stuffing his phone in his pocket and getting to his feet.

  “Honey, are you sure you’re okay?” the woman asked, and he stared at her, his breath getting stuck in his lungs when he saw how familiar she looked. Like the woman on the television, the woman who smelled Lukas’ rotting body two months after h
e’d died and I hadn’t even known he was missing. And she was asking if he was okay, this stranger.

  “I’m fine. Thank you,” Shaeffer said, and then took off. He wasn’t running, he didn’t think he was capable of that with the way his lungs were constricting right now, but he was rushing around people, desperate to go somewhere, away from everyone, alone.

  But he was always alone. Was alone really what we wanted, right now? He stopped when he got to a small alley between the brick buildings, watching people in pairs and trios and foursomes drink their coffee mindlessly and laugh about nothing and smile at one another only because they wanted to.

  He didn’t have any of that. He was alone, just like Lukas. His friends, his work friends, hadn’t asked him if he was okay this morning. They just made fun of him. He’d dumped his boyfriend, and even when they were together they’d hated each other, just like every boyfriend. Right now he was heading back to a hotel, pre-furnished, uncomfortable, all his belongings in a suitcase.

  He looked down at his shaking hands, the newspaper gripped, wrinkled, torn in his fingers, Konrad’s face smiling up at him. He remembered Konrad’s face last night before they’d moved to his bed, when they were teasing and talking, really talking. About themselves and each other and their insecurities and pain. Then he thought about himself in that bed, them lying next to one another, the thing he’d forgotten until now: Stay the night. A plea. The twinkle in his eye, sad and hidden. There was more to Konrad than met the eye, a deeper sadness that he covered up. The same sadness that killed Lukas, that might kill him. Konrad was in that same danger, all alone in his huge apartment.