Self Imagery

Florien needed to find a real artist. Well, he was a real artist. Centuries of practice had honed his brush strokes to a level that far exceeded proficient. His landscapes were so vivid that you could feel the warm breeze and the soft sun. Or should that be, feel the soft breeze and warm sun? It had been over two hundred years since he’d set foot beyond these castle walls in daylight hours, so he wasn’t quite sure. But today, he needed to find an artist other than Mrs Bedford at the inn who’d painted the most hideous portrait Florien had ever seen.

He shouldn’t blame her. After all, he had badgered the woman into service, pressing her to paint his portrait, when she clearly possessed no talent whatsoever. He’d been duped into thinking that she had some little ability by the paintings of dead ducks that she proudly hung behind the bar. As it turns out, no talent was needed to create facsimiles of murdered poultry, but significantly more talent was required to paint a lifelike portrait.

Lifelike was the catch. For it had been centuries since Florien was actually alive. But just because he was technically dead, didn’t mean that his portrait needed to look like roadkill.

It all began with loneliness. Two hundred and fifty-three years was a long time to live alone, and so he’d been talked into signing up for a dating app by the fellows at the inn. They said it was the way to meet new and interesting people, without ever having to leave your house. Well, for someone who had a severe, life-ending allergic reaction to even the slightest hint of sunshine, meeting someone without having to leave the safe confines of one’s own home seemed like a sensible course of action.

And that was how he met her, Angelique. As beautiful as an angel, with brown hair and brown skin and brown eyes. He knew all of that just from her profile picture, but she knew nothing about him except that he shared an uncanny likeness to Chris Hemsworth. (He’d doctored the picture a little to avoid the real Chris Hemsworth suing him, blurred it a bit to make it look like it was taken as a quick snap during a party.) After weeks of back-and-forth communication via email, then text, then voice chat, they’d agreed to meet. She’d walked into the Bedford Inn and he’d recognised her instantly. She, however, had looked straight past him. When he had walked up to her and introduced himself, she’d slapped him… hard. She had accused him of grossly misrepresenting himself and added that people should put accurate pics on their dating profiles. Without giving him a chance to explain, she stormed from the inn and deleted all communications.

Florien was devastated, but Mrs Bedford said that he should just be himself, and if that woman (but she used a non-polite term that Florien refused to repeat) was fixated so much on the superficial surface appearances, then she wasn’t the one for him. That was when she’d come up with the brilliant idea of having his portrait taken. Unfortunately, his state of unaliveness meant that he could cast no reflection, and so a camera lens would not capture his likeness.

“You could paint me,” Florien had suggested.

“What, me? Oh no, dearie, I’m no Rembrandt.”

“But you paint? Your ducks are quite good.”

“Well… I do like to dabble.”

It took very little flattery to cajole Mrs Bedford to accept the commission. However, the childish attempt that was the end result of hours of sitting still while she painted was simply awful. When she unveiled the canvas, Florien was horrified, but it wouldn’t do to alienate and offend his food source. Mrs Bedford supplied him with a Bloody Mary, or Joseph, or Jane, or Sophia, or Peter, once a day, just after sunset. It had been Mrs Bedford’s brilliant idea to offer free rent to anyone who would make their home in the village and donate a pint of blood once every five or six weeks. She organised the collection, storage and meal preparation, and as such, she was invaluable to him. It wouldn’t be appropriate at all to upset or offend her. So Florien thanked Mrs B and smuggled the atrocious portrait back to the castle beneath his cloak. The only thing he could do with the hideous thing was to paint over it.

Now he was staring at a blank canvas, freshly painted over, and as empty as his reflection in the mirror. Who was he really?

With deft brushstrokes, he blocked in a vaguely human shape and filled in the dark background. He added clothing, building with each brushstroke, all the intricate foods of his white lawn shirt and the gold brocade on his dress coat. He could see those details clearly in the reflection and he enjoyed painting every minute wrinkle and fold with lifelike precision.

The real challenge was the face. Florien studied the skin tone of his hand and assumed the skin of his face to be of a similar hue. With this thought, he mixed the colours and added a vague oval shape above the neckline of the shirt.

But he could go no further. The last time he had seen his reflection was when he was a boy, well before the old vampire turned him. Mirrors had not been commonplace objects in his home back then. They were overly expensive and his mother’s prized possession had been a small polished glass that only showed a small sliver of his face at a time. He could barely remember what he looked like. In frustration, he threw his brush across the room, where it connected with the wall in a flesh coloured splatter of paint.

He resigned himself to place a “help wanted” add on his local Facebook page.

ARTIST NEEDED TO COMPLETE PORTRAIT. MUST BE AVAILABLE TO WORK NIGHTS.

He sighed as he hit the post button. That didn’t sound shady at all, he thought, the sarcasm echoing in his mind. He doubted anyone would reply.

However, the following evening, he was proven wrong. A reply sat in his inbox. I am interested in your ad for a portrait artist. I have just finished my degree in Fine Arts, and am currently trying to build my portfolio. Sarah Jane Porter.

She left her contact details and Florien immediately sent her a reply, requesting a picture of a sample of her work. It would not do to have another amateur artist trying to complete the painting.

Her reply was almost instant, as if she too were a night owl. With a few clicks of the keyboard, it was arranged that she would meet him at Bedford’s to discuss the contract and he could hardly believe that it had been that easy.

***

The following evening, as he sipped his Bloody Mary, (Mrs Bedford refused to tell him the name of the donor, so they were all Mary to him) a petite stranger walked through the door. It was so rare that strangers came to this part of the world that Florien knew it was Sarah Jane immediately. She was tiny, like a child, and her thick-rimmed glasses magnified her eyes until they seemed to fill her entire face. Her upturned nose was covered with a smattering of freckles hinting at her enjoyment of the outdoors and sunlight, and her hair was a wild mass of ringlets haphazardly secured in a ponytail at the crown of her head. She reminded him of a sprite or woodland fairy, and he had to blink a few times to confirm that she was real.

“Hello, you must be Florien D’Aubigny?” Her voice shimmered over him like the fluttering of snowflakes down his back, cool and thrilling. He’d never had such a visceral reaction to the spoken word before.

“I… yes… I am he… I mean, I am Florien. You must be Sarah Jane?”

Her hazel eyes scanned him from head to toe, assessing his size and shape the way a cat sizes up a rat, trying to decide if it was worth its time to chase it.

“Indeed.” Her voice rippled down his spine again, and he tried not to visibly shiver. His limbs shook, each seeming to want to go its own separate way, which was simply not the direction that his brain was advising them to go.

He gestured for Sarah Jane to sit at the small table he’d reserved for them. As she sat, a wave of her perfume, earthy and warm, wafted to his nose, heightening his already anxious state. His mouth watered and he could feel the sharp points of his canines throbbing in his gums. He signalled urgently to Mrs Bedford, who hurried over with a second Bloody Mary and hovered to take Sarah Jane’s drink order.

With his bodily responses curbed, he was able to discuss the requirements for his portrait. Payment was negotiated successfully, and Sarah Jane promise to meet him at the castle the following evening to commence the project. She thanked him for the drink and stood, taking her leave with a handshake that shook Florien to the core before she left.

“Well?” Mrs Bedford asked as she came to clear the table. “She seems lovely. Will you see her again?”

“She’s coming to the castle tomorrow night.”

“Look at you go, Mr Casanova! Smooth talking, no mucking around.”

“I’m not sure that it’s a good idea, Mrs B. She smells too tempting.”

“Rubbish, I say. That’s just nerves. You’re the most controlled vampire I’ve ever met.”

“I’m the only vampire you’ve met.”

“True, but you’ve gone quite human these last few years. You won’t fall off the bandwagon now. I have faith in you, my boy.”

Mrs Bedford patted his shoulder comfortingly. It was strange to be considered a boy by her. He’d been there when she was born, albeit as a fiend who stole lives at that time. But even then, he was only stealing from those who deserved no better or those who were terminally ill. He’d gone well past his crazy young vampire days and was happy to settle down in one place without being hunted.

“We’ll see, Mrs B.”

***

The painting process was pure agony. Sitting still while Sarah Jane’s hazel eyes caressed his face, was like being burned at the stake. He’d heard tales from witches that it was a horrifying way to go, and this torture seemed to be consistent with that description. He could feel sharp fangs prodding against his tongue, and he almost bit his own lip with those razor sharp incisors.

The artist is not food. The artist is not food.

It was a mantra that he repeated to himself over and over, but his body refused to listen. Decades of eating only ‘still blood’, the kind that had sat in plastic bags for days, were threatening to come to an end, as his bodily response refused to be denied.

“You are looking so very serious, Florien. Perhaps you could smile?”

No, perhaps not, he thought, firmly keeping his lips pressed together. A mouthful of sharp teeth was not the best image to have as a profile picture, not if he wanted to attract a companion. And not if he wanted to keep Sarah Jane working happily without fear.

As the clock struck midnight, Sarah Jane stifled a yawn and rubbed smudges of paint beneath her eyes.

“I think I’m finished,” she declared as a yawn escaped her.

“Already?”

“I only had to paint the face. You had the rest of the portrait finished.”

“May I see it?” Florien held his breath with anticipation. It had been so long since he had seen himself.

Sarah Jane turned the easel toward him, and Florien gasped. It was not an exclamation of delight. The visage was something that would haunt his dreams. A long nose was the prominent feature, followed by dark brows over fierce eyes, and all of this surrounded by dark, lank hair that crowned the face of a stranger. Florien had always assumed that he would know his own face, but the image on that canvas was not the person he saw in his own mind.

“That’s not me.”

“Well…” Sarah Jane turned to the canvas and squinted a bit as she looked from man to painting and back. “Um… I suppose I could… I don’t know, add a little colour. Maybe if we painted in daylight, it would…”

“No! Not daylight.” Florien began to tremble. “Is this how you see me?”

Sarah Jane bit her lip. “I… um… it’s a fair likeness, I think.”

“It’s hideous! I’m hideous,”

“No, no. You are very distinguished. Your profile is a noble one, but perhaps I could work at lightening the expression a bit. I thought you might have wanted the severe look to match all your ancestors’ portraits in the castle.”

“They’re not my ancestors. The portraits came with the property.”

“Oh.”

“And I thought I was clear at the inn. I wanted a portrait for my tinder profile.”

“Tinder? Why not take a photo? A whole portrait seems a bit excessive.”

Florien groaned. Her presence was nearing painful. This was the point that she would run and it would be a relief. “I have no reflection, I don’t show in photos. I’m a vampire.”

He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, waiting for her to react.

“Well, that explains the nighttime meetings.” Florien did not expect that response. His eyes sprung open, and he scowled at her with his best pre-domesticated vampire glare.

“Aren’t you afraid?” His voice was low and ominous.

“No, if you were dangerous, I’d already be dead.”

“Oh, Sarah Jane, you have no idea how close to the edge you walk.”

He rose up from his seat impressively, allowed his fangs to grow and fill his mouth, hoping she would run, praying she would leave his presence while she still could.

The foolish woman didn’t have an instinct for self preservation. She gasped, but it was with awe, not fear. “You are magnificent!”

“And you, little Sarah Jane, are dinner.”