The basement is not as dark and gloomy as one might suppose, but the
muse I have chained down there complains about the conditions
nonetheless. “How long do you intend to keep me here?” he asks when I
bring him bread and water.
“As long as it takes for me to finish my novel.” I say
evasively. “The more you inspire me, the quicker it will be.”
“Do I inspire you like this?” he says, indicating the
shackles at his wrists and ankles. “I am sure I could do much better
upstairs, free of these bonds.”
“I can’t risk you running away like last time.” I avoid
his gaze. Those liquid brown eyes never fail to cause me to feel a stab
of guilt and pity for the position I have put him in. It is so
undignified for a minor god.
His voice is full of pleading. “You don’t have to do it this way. I promise I will inspire you.”
I finally do meet his gaze, and something inside me
crumples, something that feels like resolve. His brown hair hangs
messily into his angelic face. I screw up my courage and tell him what I
have been longing to say for so many years. It comes forth with
unexpected venom. “You are fickle. How can I trust you? Just when I
really get rolling on the story, you leave for God knows where. I
really feel that you don’t care if I ever finish, yet you torment me
with brilliant bits and pieces of the story at odd times when you know
I’m not in a position to write it down, assuring I will forget it when I
do get my hands on some paper. I feel like I am going crazy. I feel
like I have no control over my own creative process. What else could I
do, once I had you in my home, but to try and keep you here by any
means necessary?”
“Is it working?” he says with a tremble of anger, the color rising in his cheeks. “Are you writing?”
“More or less.” I hedge, biting my lower lip. “It is not
as good as when you come to me of your own free will, I admit. But it
is better than nothing.”
“Don’t you think you deserve a bit better than that?” he
says in that maddeningly velvet voice. “Don’t you think you deserve to
create a masterpiece to last through the ages?”
“I like to think so.” I say without much conviction.
“Then let me go.” He pleads. “I promise you that even if I
visit you less often than you would like, your work will be more
distilled, more pure, more burning with intensity for the rarity of
it.”
I move a little closer to him. Even after being chained in
the basement for days, he still smells of fresh peach blossoms and
vanilla beans. The scent of him intoxicates. “I wish I could believe
that.” I whimper.
He strains against the chains that bind him, frustrated. “Come closer.” He says softly.
I approach with trepidation, unsure what he will do. I lay
my flushed cheek against his marble-cool one, inhaling deeply.
“Do you have the key?” he whispers.
“I do.” I say.
“Then set me free.” He softly commands.
I take the ornate silver key from my pocket and bend to
undo the shackles at his ankles, my long hair tickling his knees as I
do so. I look up at him from the floor and see the look of kindness he
is favoring me with. “Please forgive me my arrogance.” I manage to say
before the lump in my throat stops me from speaking further.
He holds his manacled wrists out and smiles sardonically at me. “I can’t say I blame you for trying.”
I free his hands with a twinge of regret. He rubs at his
lightly bruised wrists and for a moment, neither of us says a word. I
start to shudder, tears of shame streaking hotly down my face.
He takes pity on me, and folds me into a forgiving
embrace, stroking my hair with his free hands. “Hush now. Everything is
going to be alright.”
He turns my face up to his with his fingers and kisses me
gently, opening my mouth with his tongue as if it were a rare orchid. I
can feel the fire leap up inside me with blazing white intensity. Just
when I start to cling to him, my fingernails digging into his
shoulder, he pulls away. In an earnest tone, he urges me. “Now, take
that gift and go do something wonderful.”
Reeling, I dare to ask him. “Where will you be?”
He strokes a teardrop from my cheek with his thumb and says. “I’ll never be far away.”
He might be a liar, but damn if I don’t love him.
The Basement Muse
Stacie Ferrante is a writer/amateur anthropologist/nursing student that lives in Reno, NV.