I get up at an ungodly hour so I can shower before all the hot water is gone.
I share a moldering Victorian row house with eight other artists. The house was hacked into flats by someone with no respect for building codes and very little understanding of basic geometry. Thin plywood walls divide the rooms into triangles and trapezoids with no consideration for how a rectangular bed is supposed to fit in the space. The slanting, rotted floors and sagging ceilings add to the madhouse effect.
I occupy the tiny attic space at the very top of the house—sweltering hot in summer, and frigid in winter. Still, it’s a coveted perch because it provides access to a small private balcony. I like to drag my mattress out on cool nights to sleep under the stars. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to camping.
My whole life has been spent in this city, often in worse houses than this.
I’ve never known anything but fog and ocean breeze, and streets that roll up and down in dizzying hills that make your calves burn and your body lean like a tree in wind.
The pipes shudder as I turn on the shower, crammed into a space the size of a phone booth. The water that sputters out is gray at first, then relatively clear. Lukewarm, but that’s better than ice cold.
I shower quickly because I can already hear doors creaking and slamming as several other roommates roll out of bed. Frank’s coffee is burning in the downstairs kitchen. Smells like his toast might be, too.
Artists are not known for rising early, but none of us are successful enough to avoid the shackles of a side job. I’ve got three.
This morning I’m working a brunch shift, and later I’ll be taking four unruly canines for a run in the park.
I slam my hip against the bathroom door to force it open again, the steam-swollen wood jammed into the frame. I almost collide with Joanna, who’s heading downstairs in an oversized t-shirt, nothing underneath.
“Mara,” she says, her face already screwing up in apology. “I can’t sublet my studio to you anymore—my residency at La Maison is over.”
“Starting when?” I ask, panic boiling in my guts.
“Next week.” She grimaces.
“Alright,” I say. “Thanks for letting me know.”
It is not alright. Not even fucking close to alright.
Studio space is impossible to acquire at the moment. Studio after studio has closed as the rent in San Francisco skyrockets.
Growing up, this was an artists’ city. Clarion Alley, the Mission School, and wild, chaotic underground art burgeoned everywhere you looked.
My mother wasn’t an artist per se, but she liked to fuck a lot of them. We crashed on couches and in little flats above steamy restaurants in Chinatown. Every day I saw grandiose murals being painted, pop-up installations and performance art breaking out on the street.
My life with my mother was chaotic and miserable, but I saw beautiful things created all around me. It gave me hope that loveliness could bloom out of ugliness and scarcity.
Now it feels like a plug has been pulled. All the artists are draining away, fleeing to Oakland or Portland or even L.A. where they can at least find commercial work.
The spaces they rented are snapped up by tech companies and software millionaires who gut the historic buildings, filling their wood frames with gleaming glass and steel.
Logically I know I have no right to hold on to any of it—I own nothing myself. I’ve barely got eighty dollars in my bank account.
But it makes me so bitter to see it all disappear right when I’m finally old enough to take part.
I dress in my work clothes, which are just cut-off jean shorts, athletic socks, and converse sneakers. So far I’ve successfully avoided any job with a dress code.
I plop down at our rickety breakfast table, canvasing Frank, Heinrich, and Erin to see if anyone knows of affordable studio space.
“Not me,” Heinrich says glumly. “I’m looking myself.”
Heinrich always finds studio space hard to come by because his work is based around electrical illumination. He requires torches and soldering equipment, and he’s set at least one place on fire before.
“You could try applying to the Minnesota Street Project,” Erin says.
“Good fucking luck,” Heinrich scoffs. “They’ve got a hundred applicants for every space.”
None of this is improving my mood. I gulp down some of Frank’s awful coffee while forgoing the toast. We’ve got fresh croissants at work. My boss Arthur never minds if I steal a few.
“Mara,” Erin says. “You owe me twenty-eight dollars for utilities.”
Internally groaning, I dig in my pocket and pull out the twenty-dollar bill I was hoping to use for groceries.
“I’ll get you the other eight dollars after work,” I promise.
I’ve never known what it would be like to swipe a card without wondering if the balance would clear. I’m on some kind of hamster wheel where the faster I scramble to earn money, the faster the ground slips away beneath me.
On the other hand, I’ve never starved yet.
I run to Sweet Maple, showing up sweating and puffing, the effects of the shower already obliterated. Arthur shoves an apron at me, saying, “Move your ass, I just sat three tables on the sidewalk.”
San Franciscans’ commitment to eating outdoors even in the shittiest weather will never cease to impress me. We’ve got heat lamps and umbrellas for the chilliest days, but I don’t think anything short of a direct lightning strike would keep our diners away.
Granted, we’ve also got the best goddamn brunch in the city. I carry out heaping plates of asparagus omelets, crab benedicts, and our famous bacon until my arms are shaking.
Whenever I see anybody I know, I sneak them free mimosas. Arthur doesn’t mind that either—he may be rude and overbearing, but he’s a sweetheart to the core, and this is his way of supporting the community.
When Arthur finally lets me go, a much-needed seventy-two dollars in tips stuffed in my pocket, I’m sprinting to pick up the dogs on time.
I brought my skates in my backpack. I take the dogs all around Golden Gate Park, letting them pull me along, only working on the uphill stretches.
Bruno is being a shithead as usual, trying to tangle the leashes. I rub my knuckles across his thick skull to remind him we’re friends. He’s an oversized mastiff, too big for the little apartment in which he resides. I don’t think his owner ever takes him out beyond our excursions.
The dogs make me happy because they’re happy. They’ve got their tongues out, scenting the peppery eucalyptus in the air. I breathe it in too, closing my eyes so I can taste it in my lungs.
I’m thinking about the piece I’m working on in Joanna’s studio, wondering if I can finish it before I’m kicked out of her space. It’s too big to move easily. If I could get it into the New Voices show, that would be something . . .
Something pretty fucking unlikely.
God, I wish I could sell something.
Erin sold a painting for eight hundred dollars last month. Covered almost all her rent. What a dream that would be.
I think about the showcase a few weeks back. Alastor Shaw won a ten-thousand-dollar prize. Now that’s a fucking dream. I could practically live a year off that.
I wasn’t there when they announced the winner—I had to leave early to hit my third job, bartending at Zam Zam.
I had seen Shaw standing by his piece—a technicolor painting that practically seared the eyeballs. Erin whispered to me that she was going to go talk to him.
“He’s so fucking hot,” she murmured. “Look at that body . . .”
I thought he looked like he should be rowing crew for Yale in 1952. He had that square-jawed, sun-kissed, excessively healthy look, with just a dash of misogyny. Handsome, sure, but not my type.
While I liked his piece, I thought Cole Blackwell should have won. His sculpture had a pale, haunting quality that captivated me, floating in space like a wraith.
Everybody knows about Blackwell and Shaw’s rivalry. The art mags love writing up every little tiff between them. Both young, loaded, and fucking everything that moves, all while trying to top each other with increasingly outrageous artwork—it’s a columnist’s wet dream.
I’ve never actually seen Blackwell. Erin says he’s moody and standoffish. Sometimes he skips his own shows.
We might cross paths tonight—supposedly he’s showing at Oasis. Erin is dragging me along because she did indeed chat up Shaw at the last event, and she’s hoping tonight will turn into something a whole lot steamier.
She’ll have to get in line. As far as I can tell, taking a ride on Alastor Shaw is about as “exclusive” as his endless runs of “limited edition” prints.
Once I’ve dropped the dogs off back at their respective houses, I hurry over to Joanna’s studio in Eureka Valley. There I spend the next six hours deeply immersed in my collage.
I haven’t decided what medium I’ll work in consistently. Sometimes I paint, and sometimes I craft objects that require immense concentration and an insane number of hours. This is not at all a profitable way to make art—you cannot spend two hundred hours on a tiny, beaded teacup that no one wants to buy. But I’m addicted to the sensation of minute, repetitive, and even torturous activity.
Occasionally I take photographs on an ancient Pentacon. I would not consider that my best work. I use the camera only when I want to capture a moment in time, something that actually happened.
Not knowing what sort of artist I’ll be makes me feel unformed and amateurish. As if I’m a child playing dress-up; my paint-spattered overalls become cosplay.
Other times I think how I’ve poured every spare cent I ever had into raw materials, and how almost all the free hours of my life have been spent on art, and then I think if that doesn’t make me an artist, then nothing does.
In those moments I experience a burning righteousness that makes me hate people like Cole Blackwell despite never having met him, because he’s always been rich and probably has never sacrificed a day in his life.
The Blackwells are an old San Francisco family. His ancestors probably made their money on the gold fields, or more likely, selling something to those hapless miners. That’s always where the real profit lies.
Once I’ve been working long enough, I no longer think about Blackwell, or anybody else. I don’t think about the fact that I’m about to lose this cramped but highly useful space, and that I don’t have enough shifts lined up to make my next rent payment.
All those buzzing thoughts melt away like wet candy floss, and all the other sensory inputs that prick and poke at me likewise disappear. I don’t hear the humming of the halogen lights or the irregular rushing of traffic outside the window. I’m no longer bothered by the slice of sunshine that cuts across the room, overheating the back of my arm.
I listen to music on my headphones while sinking into the pod.
The pod is a state of perfect concentration.
It’s my nirvana, my state of meditative bliss.
Nothing can bother me there. Nothing can upset me.
In the pod, I’m my truest self. Alone. Utterly at peace.
I’m so deeply immersed that I don’t notice that I’m extremely late to meet Erin until she calls my phone for the third or fourth time.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” I say, by way of greeting.
“I left without you,” she informs me. “You should get over here. Cole Blackwell made this gorgeous gold sculpture, everybody’s freaking the fuck out, it sold for a boatload of cash before the show was even over.”
I check my watch.
I’ve missed most of the show—but if I hurry, I could still make it for half an hour at least. Shows never end on time. The organizers get as tipsy as everybody else, sometimes staying for hours afterward, talking and polishing off the drinks.
My stomach growls, reminding me that all I’ve eaten so far today was a croissant. God, I hope I didn’t miss the snacks—parties and shows subsidize half my grocery budget.
I don’t have time to change clothes. Remembering that Joanna keeps a couple things stashed in the coat closet, I dig out a 90s-style crushed velvet dress, wrinkled and smelling of turpentine.
Then I hop a streetcar to the gallery. The floor-to-ceiling windows illuminate the street like the whole building is one vast, glowing lamp. Music bursts out the doors when anyone enters or exits.
I slip inside, immediately enveloped by the hubbub of laughter and conversation. You never feel out of place at an art event because everybody is dressed so eccentrically. I’m surrounded by every type of attire, from brocade suits to raggedy jeans.
I don’t have to ask Erin where to find Blackwell’s piece—it glows on its plinth like a collection of celestial bodies rotating in space.
I stand in awe of this beautiful thing, hitting me like an arrow shaft to the chest, filling me with a helpless sense of longing.
I wonder if I’ll ever create anything this good.
After I’ve goggled at it for a good twenty minutes, my snarling stomach finally pulls me away.
Sadly, the buffet table bears only a few scattered grape stems and a couple of cheese rinds.
“The hyenas picked it over,” a gruff male voice says.
I turn around, beholding the ox-like frame of Alastor Shaw, his broad face devoid of its usual smile.
I might like him better this way. I’ve never been a fan of people who smile too much. It feels like they’re trying to force you to smile back at them, which makes my face tired.
“That’s what I get for being late.” I shrug.
“What’s your name?” he asks. “I haven’t seen you around before.”
We’ve crossed paths several times, but I wouldn’t expect him to remember.
“Mara Eldritch,” I say.
“Alastor Shaw,” he replies, holding out his hand.
I take it, feeling his thick, calloused fingers close around mine.
“Yeah,” I laugh. “I know.”
He grins back at me, sheepish, friendly crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Well, it never seems to get me a table anywhere good,” he says.
“It might get you a free mimosa at Sweet Maple,” I say. “My boss is a big fan of yours.”
“Yeah? Let me guess, he’s forty and balding?” Alastor says wryly.
“Sixty and bald,” I confirm.
“I’m never the favorite of the ones I’d like to impress,” Alastor says, leaning against the buffet table so his muscular forearm makes brief contact with my hip. He hasn’t broken eye contact.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” I say.
“Oh no?” Now he’s leaning in all the more. “What would I have to do to—”
At that moment, Erin inserts herself neatly between us, pretending not to notice Alastor, saying brightly, “There you are! I thought you weren’t going to make it?”
She gives me a hidden prod with her elbow.
“This is my roommate, Erin,” I tell Alastor.
“Right—we met at the showcase,” Alastor says. He’s still smiling, but I think I see a flicker of irritation on his face.
Erin doesn’t notice, probably because she’s not used to men eluding her advances. Her sleepy smile and luscious body have a near-perfect record of attracting her quarry.
“You offered me a tour of your studio,” Erin says, peering up at Alastor from under her long lashes. “But we never exchanged numbers . . .”
“I’ve gotta pee,” I say, slipping away from the pair of them.
I didn’t need Erin’s elbow to the ribs to remind me that she has dibs on Alastor. I wouldn’t need it either way—I’ve never dated anybody famous and successful, and I’m probably not secure enough to handle it. Not that Alastor seems like he’s much for dating.
For what he wants, I’m sure Erin will suffice just as well as me—probably better. I like sex but I’m not that great at it. I’m too easily irritated. If a guy eats a slice of pizza and then tries to kiss me, if he makes a clicking sound when he swallows, if a hangnail scratches my skin, if he even fucking thinks about kissing my ears, my pussy clamps shut like a bear trap.
I wander the rest of the galleries, trying to recapture that transcendent feeling I experienced looking at Blackwell’s work. Nothing else hits me quite as hard, so I circle back around to take another look at it.
The small placard reads, Fragile Ego.
I wonder what that means. Blackwell’s work is rarely self-referential.
I chat with a couple other people I know before sneaking out back of the gallery to take a hit off Frank’s vape pen.
It’s beginning to rain again, a light drizzle that barely dampens us any more than the usual fog. The droplets condense in Frank’s tight curls like tiny gemstones, and the smoke curls around his face with every exhale until he looks like Zeus with a beard made of clouds.
“I wish I had my camera,” I laugh. “You look incredible right now.”
“You’re high,” Frank laughs back at me. “I’ve looked like shit all week.”
Frank’s boyfriend broke up with him. He’s been miserable ever since.
“You want another hit?” he asks, holding out the vape.
“Nah,” I say.
Weed hits me hard. I can already feel that loose warmth working on my body and my sense of time. I’m no longer sure how long we’ve been standing out here. Only that Joanna’s velvet dress is heavy with moisture.
“Some of us are gonna grab drinks at Zam Zam,” Frank says. “You wanna come?”
“I’ve got to work early,” I say.
The Sunday morning brunch shift is insane. Arthur won’t thank me if I’m late tomorrow.
“See ya, then,” Frank says, leaning back against the brick wall to take another puff.
I head off along the tree-lined street, wondering if Erin and Shaw are on their way back to his studio yet. Or straight to his apartment. I’m sure I’ll hear all the gory details in the morning.
The route back to my house isn’t particularly well-lit.
The bodega on the corner sends out a bright beacon of light, but the thickness of the laurels, the tall row houses, and the narrow, winding streets obscure the sparse streetlamps.
I’d like to put my headphones on while I walk, but I think the better of it, even though I probably look too poor for mugging.
Instead, I examine the facades of the houses I pass, the brightly painted scrollwork and well-tended window boxes giving way to chipped paint, rusted railings, and sagging steps as I draw closer to my own ramshackle house.
Gritty footsteps sound behind me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spy some large, dark mass hurtling toward me.
I barely have time to turn before I’m struck across the back of the skull.
I wake in the trunk of a car.
I can tell it’s a trunk from the vibration of the engine, the smell of gasoline, and the centrifugal lurch that presses me against the tire wheel when the vehicle takes a hard left turn.
I can’t see anything because of the bag over my head.
Thick, black fabric presses against my face, sucking into my nostrils with every panicked breath. I shake my head wildly, trying to fling it off, but it’s cinched around my neck. Tape covers my mouth so tightly that I can’t even rip my lips apart.
My arms are bound behind my back with some thin, plasticky material—zip ties? My ankles are bound in the same way, my knees bent, the two points of contact wrenched together in a hog-tie so I can’t even kick.
The position is excruciating. My fingers and toes are so numb that for a moment I’m afraid they’re not even attached anymore.
I can’t get enough air. The smothering hood, the sealed trunk, the tape, the gasoline fumes . . . I’m panting faster and faster through my nostrils, head swimming. My stomach lurches, and I know that whatever else happens, I absolutely cannot allow myself to puke. With the tape over my mouth, I’ll aspirate the vomit.
Everything in me wants to scream, but I fight that urge just as hard. I don’t want this motherfucker to know I’m awake.
My head is pounding. I’m sure if I could reach up and feel the back of my skull, I’d find a lump the size of a baseball.
Where is he taking me?
Who the fuck is this?
I don’t bother to ask myself what he’s gonna do to me. I’m already riding the thin edge of hysteria—I don’t want to tip over the edge with visions of what this psychopath has planned.
I have to get out of the trunk. A tumble out of a moving car is the least of my worries right now.
I squirm around, feeling for the hidden latch that’s supposed to be inside every trunk. My numb fingers can barely differentiate between the rough material of the lining and the metal lid.
I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to puke.
These impulses cycle over and over, each one harder to crush than the last.
The car slows and my heart rate spikes.
No, no, no, no, no!
I don’t want to get wherever we’re going.
I scrabble madly for the latch, still finding nothing.
The car rolls to a gentle stop.
WHERE’S THE FUCKING LATCH!
I hear the engine shutting off, and the driver’s side door creaking open.
Too late.
Footsteps circle round to the trunk—slow and widely spaced.
Fighting every impulse within me, I lay perfectly still within the trunk. I want him to think I’m still unconscious.
It takes everything I have not to flinch or struggle as he puts his arms under my body and lifts me out.
It’s only when the cold air hits my flesh that I realize I’m naked—or at least, partly naked. My tits are definitely bare.
The sense of violation is almost enough to make me crack. To say nothing of the agony of being carried in this contorted position.
He walks along at that same steady, measured pace.
I can feel his heart beating against my shoulder, like a creature inside his chest, pulsing, and swelling. I hate the intimate feel of it thudding away. I hate even more his sour breath against my bare flesh.
Don’t puke. Don’t fucking puke.
I can’t tell how long he’s been walking.
I’m praying that he’ll set me down somewhere, maybe next to a nice, convenient rock I could use to break these ties.
My plans are impossibly weak, I know that, but my befuddled brain can’t seem to think of anything better. My head feels like it’s split along the back, each of his steps sending another bolt of pain through my skull.
This can’t be happening. It’s too surreal. I can’t be one of those girls raped and murdered in the woods. Nothing exceptional has ever happened to me. The irony that this could be my one claim to fame is too much to bear.
Without warning, he dumps me on the ground.
I fall like a sack of potatoes, unable to put up my hands to protect myself, chin slamming against the dirt. The air wheezes out of my lungs and I taste blood in my mouth.
“I know you’re awake,” a male voice says.
The voice is utterly flat. The lack of emotion makes it sound almost robotic. I can’t tell how old he is, or if there’s any hint of an accent.
I can’t answer him because of the tape over my mouth. I can’t see him either—the hood is so thick that no light passes through. I know we’re outdoors from the sound of his shoes on the rough ground, and the dirt and pebbles beneath my bare skin. But I have no idea if we’re still in the city or hours from civilization.
I hear him crouch next to me, knees popping.
“Hold still,” he growls.
I feel his hand on my bare right breast and I howl against the tape, the sound smothered and trapped inside my mouth.
Red-hot pain stabs through my nipple. I’m choking and screaming, thinking he sliced it right off.
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” he says. “It’s not that bad.”
Before I can draw breath, he roughly seizes my left breast. The same pain stabs through it, and this time I understand that I’m being pierced, not severed. This motherfucker put rings through my nipples.
My tits are on fire, the cold metal fixed in place no matter how I squirm. It’s so much worse that I can’t see what he’s done—I can only imagine.
“There,” the flat voice says. “Much better.”
I tried so hard to maintain control.
It’s all splintering away.
I’m rolling and wrenching against the ties, thrashing helplessly, howling against the tape. I’m raging, screaming, though hardly any sound leaks out. The hood is wet with tears.
He’s standing there watching me, the way you’d watch a worm twitching. I can’t see, but I know it’s true.
If I could see his face, I’d find no pity there. No hint of humanity.
I scream harder, flail harder, knowing it’s all for nothing. I can’t do anything to help myself.
I’m about to die, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
My life has been a fucking disaster at times, but I wanted to keep it. I always believed it would get better.
I guess I was wrong.
“One more thing,” the man says, turning me over on my side, his heavy hand gripping my shoulder.
“GRAHHHHHH!” I scream against the tape.
A vicious slash burns across each arm as he slits my wrists.
