Page 77 of Ashen Torment

His gaze slides over mine. The smile that appears on his lips is minimal, barely a hint, but I feel the heat tighten in my throat.

“If you answer a question of mine...” he replies, “I will offer you my answer.”

“What question?”

He bows his head slightly. I see the curve of his throat move and a vein become tumid and pulsing. His eyes rise to mine.

“Do you wish to be the one who pins...” his voice grows huskier, “...or the one who is pinned?”

Heat rushes violently up my neck, my cheeks, my ears.

I feel it.

I hate it.

Perhaps he sees it.

He certainly feels it.

My breath stumbles.

I turn away abruptly and take a step forward, then another, too rapid to be composed.

Pervert.

Blood rushes through my body and his question through my lungs. I approach the next painting.

La Naissance du Péché

An androgynous body at the center twists on a white sheet, a white that is no longer such.

There are dark, red, milky stains that seem still warm. The realism of the details is staggering; the torso arches, the tense fingers claw at the air, and the curve of the neck exposes a throat that seems to vibrate.

The beings suspended around them, which should be cherubs, have adult, naked bodies with blackened wings. Out of the corner of my eye, I perceive an absence.

Lord Presumption is not at my side.

I turn my head slightly and spot him further back, his back to me, motionless before the previous painting. Hands at his sides, shoulders rigid, head tilted.

I force myself to turn back toward the canvas.

I should not look at him like that.

I should not look at him at all.

I hear a light step behind me, the silk of a cloak brushes the floor. The voice of the man in the burgundy mask slides past my ear.

“It represents sin as origin, as a vital and contaminating force. Purity becomes a scourge a disease that corrodes the flesh.”

“It is sin that gnaws at the flesh, in truth.”

He remains impassive.

“And who can say what is sin and what is not?”

“That which is neither moral nor ethical.”

“And who, then, establishes morality?” He runs his fingers through his black hair with a distracted gesture.