*** Just a quick story that I had an idea of the other day, I had a mindset of humour when writing this ***
The Painting
The bell clattered quickly as Jeremy opened the door to the antiques shop. Shoving his freckled face through and into the shop, he was hit but the musty smell that only comes with advanced age of things.
As the bell clattered again just as quickly on closing the door Jeremy's eyes adjusted to the gloom. Every surface was covered in objects.
"Can I help you?"
How the attendant approached him he didn't know; she was an elderly woman, stocky and grey. However..
.. Her glasses perched on her nose accentuated her face in a way Jeremy couldn't describe. And despite her being quite shorter than him, he found her strangely alluring.
"Oh.. umm.. h-hi" Damn, I was staring again. "I-I came to find something.."
The attendant arched a brow.
"I came looking for something to d-decorate my wall.. see?"
"Oh yes? What did you have in mind? We have a number of paintings"
Leading further into the shop Jeremy looked up and saw antique paintings. Many of them.
Jeremy was a tall, lanky geek who had graduated from college some years ago and now made a living writing code for a company in the city. His wage allowed him a small one bedroom unit on the outskirts of town in a none-too-desirable area. As such his social life was next to zero. As in 0.01 to 0.
His interests didn't help his social life much either; his job, his gangly appearance and overgrown ginger hair ensured his isolation just as much as his home did.
As such Jeremy's tastes had become somewhat.. Abstract from everyday life.
"I have this item.."
"I-it's nice..."
"I see..."
Moving on the attendant stopped before another painting.
"Hmm?"
"No... it's a nice landscape but I was wondering if you have anything different?"
"Something that leaps out at you?"
"That sounds great!"
She led Jeremy down one corridor lined with bookshelves and knick-knacks and stopped around the corner.
Jeremy's mouth dropped open as he feasted his eyes upon a view of an ancient looking oil painting depicting a very abstract image of a light background and a very sharp black blotch centred in it. For a moment he thought the blackness was reaching out to him.
"Oh wow.."
"Different enough? I am sure you will like it,"
she said with a tone in her voice that was ignored by the enthralled buyer.
He didn't even haggle over the ridiculously low price.
Loading the painting into his car, Jeremy set off for home. His tastes had indeed shifted, he didn't find any amusement in TV shows, the internet was 'yet another meme on Facebook' and he had watched all the old classical TV and movies.
Despite his problems, life was alright. And it had just marked a new upwards notch on his scale.
I know the perfect place to put this, just above the bedhead.
*****
Jeremy stepped down from his bed and back to admire the pride of his room, the painting looked as though it was created nowhere else.
The frame gleamed its gold where it had been cleaned which seemed to highlight the inky blackness of the piece. Jeremy peered closer.
Is it shiny? I swear it was a matt black in the shop.
The blackness did seem to have a shine about it, making it seem almost
too
real.
*****
It was mid-summer, and it was a hot night. The air con unit had been off for some time and the bedroom was warming up. Barely awake, Jeremy had kicked off all his bed coverings and tried to get back to sleep.
Above him though, his painting moved. Or more specifically, the inky blackness moved. As if coming to life all on its own, it slowly started sliding down the remainder of the painting, a black oil slowly dripped then flowed over the framing and slid down the wall.
Jeremy stirred in his sleep, the tickling of the oil slick which had vacated its painting was silently sliding up from under his bed and reached around either side of his waist and met over his navel before slowly expanding.
His breath deepened as he relaxed again, moaning softly, oblivious to the latex slick as it slowly coated his chest and caressed its way over his shoulders and experienced nothing at all except perhaps a pleasant dream as the latex slid between his back and the bed surrounding his torso.
