YOU’D THINK TIME would have little meaning for us. Those of us who are content to remain as we are, fiery butterflies who flit between sunlight and shadow, or demons who dip tongues into the nectar of mortality, aren’t much affected by it. But time becomes a problem when you’re ensnared by an even greater mystery than yourself. When that happens, wings falter, immortality loses its appeal, and you fade from what you once were.
Many of us were drawn to America in the ’60s—a time of mass immigration. The diabolics, in particular, flew east to lap up the excesses of the Vietnam War. For me, blood held little appeal. The new music of California, the mind-blowing drugs, and the unfettered life-style were more exciting. I wanted to be a part of it, so I went to L.A.
Some humans burn brighter than others. He was one of the shining ones. All fae adore beauty—even the leeches who seek to destroy it. His eyes were close-set with pupils so huge I wanted to swim in those dark tides forever. His lips were as curved as a young god’s—perhaps he had a touch of Dionysus about him, although the gods had long since departed from the world. For several nights, I watched him drop tab after tab of acid. He was trying to write songs, but the drugs kept getting in the way.
“Hello,” I said, walking across the roof to his sheltered corner where he had been sitting before a flickering candle. It was twilight, a time of in-between, of magic. The breeze had come up. On the beach, the palms swayed, dancing free-form. The waves were white-capped, kissed by the wind. It must have seemed to him that I appeared from out of nowhere. I’m pretty sure he attributed it to the drugs.
“Whoa, get it on. Where’d you come from?” He squinted at me.
I’d taken on the guise of a Navajo girl, drawing from his memories. She was dusky, long-limbed, and black-haired. When he was four, his family had come upon a truck crash outside of Santa Fe where he witnessed the death of a shaman. He believed the old man’s spirit entered him that day.
“Look inside. You know where I come from,” I said.
He considered me a moment, then nodded. “Cool. Maybe I should have asked you why.”
I settled before him on his blanket, cross-legged. “Every shaman has his songs. You’re creating yours. I can help you.”
He tilted his head to one side. “If I’m a true shaman, I don’t need your help.”
“Maybe not, but it’s never wise to refuse a gift before you know what it is.” I reached for his hands. At the contact, the world tilted.
We were on a wave; the roof lifting and dropping, floating us to the horizon. The sun slid into the ocean, wavering and molten, death in purple, orange, and gold. Then the moon came up, pregnant and gravid, dripping a silvery path across the sea. I kissed him, the taste of our lips flowering into hummingbirds on a midnight flight. There was music all about us—the stars punched the sky to the howl of guitars, and the earth groaned in a gut-wrenching bass. Then both earth and sea shattered and we made love, rocking in tandem to every quake.
It lasted for hours. When we were finally spent, he grabbed a pencil and scribbled madly. I drifted, exulting in every minute of his mania. Time stretched and shrank; he wrote and wrote. Finally, he came back to himself.
“Who are you?” He set his notebook down, then lay back on the blanket, opposite me. I could tell from his thoughts he hadn’t believed I was real, but now, as he stroked my arm, he wasn’t so sure. My eyes were aflame, twin fires reflected in his.
“Why do you need to know?” It was dangerous for a fae to reveal her true name. Names meant control, and I would never relinquish that. “Names are nothing but someone else’s definition of who you really are.”
His own father had named him James Douglas MacArthur, after a five-star general.
“Truth.” He grabbed a pack of cigarettes and fished one out. “I think you’re an angel, come down to earth.” He patted his knapsack for matches and came up empty. I flicked my finger. A small flame burst forth.
“Wow.” He shook his head. “I’m still fried.” He hadn’t found his matches, but he’d found another sugar cube. “Let’s keep this going. Wanna drop another?”
I smiled and sat up. “Later. You should eat.”
His glance softened, as if touched I should care. “Had a can of beans yesterday.”
“That was then, this is now.”
He shrugged. “Can’t. I’m out of bread.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Really?” He gave me a quirky smile. “You’re one trippy chick.”
I said nothing, wanting to play it cool, but I wanted to wrap my arms around him again, keep him there forever. His admiration was ambrosia, honey from the gods.
He glanced at me side-long. “You show up out of nowhere, blow my mind, take me on the most amazing trip of my life.” He nodded at his notebook. “I got pages of lyrics in there, great stuff.”
“They’re better than great. They’re legendary.”
“You think?”
“I don’t think. I know.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “Then they’re because of you. You’re the music, baby. You’re my muse. That’s what I’ll call you—Muse.”
I kissed him, not wanting to admit how much that pleased me. Then I dressed and coaxed him from the roof, so we might fill his belly. We spent the next three nights as we had the first—tripping, making out, and talking about life, death, and other worlds. Then he’d write like a fiend possessed. We were in heaven.
“You’re going to be famous, Jim.”
He gave me that lazy smile I’d come to adore.
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. Together, we can do anything. We’ll do everything.”
“Everything? So, you’d die for me, Muse?”
The question left me unsettled. From our conversations, I knew he had a strange fascination with death. It was as if the spectre of it watched him from the corners, a dark and hulking killer that would one day take everything from him. He gave it the finger, while dancing on his grave at the same time. He was death’s clown, death’s fool, both victim and psycho-pomp. I attributed it to the drugs, but I suspected his asking me if I would die for him was also a test of my devotion. It ticked me off. He shouldn’t have doubted. I’d been with him for three days; it felt like three eons. “Don’t talk shit, Jim. Keep it up, and I’ll go.”
“Chill, baby. You know I wasn’t serious.”
But he was.
On the fourth day after he finished his lyrics, we headed for Olivia’s, a diner on Venice. I didn’t have any bread, but we fae are nothing if not lucky. I knew if we timed it right, we’d show up just after Olivia threw out the trash behind the restaurant; there’d be half-finished hamburgers and cold fries. Enough for Jim until he sponged some cash. Most of the pan-handling we did went to booze, smokes, and dope.
Sure enough, Olivia had just finished dumping a bag into the dumpster as we arrived. She didn’t see us and stepped back into the diner. Jim headed for the garbage, wanting to get whatever was in there while it was still good. He was so intent, he didn’t see the body further down the alley, slumped against a wall with a needle in its arm. Three grey shadows were hunkered beside it, amorphous clouds that kept swelling and shrinking. I didn’t have to look hard to know what they were—leeches, sucking up the soul of a soon-to-be-dead junkie.
I grabbed Jim and pulled him around the corner, hoping they were too involved in their feeding to see us.
“What’s the deal, Muse?” I’d yanked him hard. He was hungry, strung out.
“We need to split.”
“Why? I wanna scarf—”
“So we’ll go somewhere else.”
“Hell, we will.” He pointed at the dumpster, never one to waste anything if he could help it. “There’s perfectly good food in there.”
“Listen to me. This place isn’t cool, right now.”
“You’re tripping.”
“Whatever. There are things down that alley. Bummer shit. They’ll come for you, especially if they see you’re with me.”
“Let ’em! Didn’t you say we’d experience everything together, Muse? Bring ’em on! We’ll fuck ’em up together.”
“I’m not kidding, Jim!”
He saw how freaked out I was and began to laugh and laugh. I didn’t care. It was enough to get him out of there. After that, I left him to fend for himself for a time. He needed to miss me, realize what he had lost. Besides, I feared the leeches would follow him. A type of diabolical, they like nothing better than to destroy our favourites. They sniff them out like hell hounds on the hunt. A fae in the company of a mortal is a sure give-away.
I didn’t leave him completely alone, though. I watched him from a distance, and I kept busy. I’d made him a promise—to make him great. He needed friends to help him get there. A month later, I made sure he ran into Ray.
Ray was solid; they’d been together in film school at UCLA. Ray played in a band. He was what Jim needed. After a few minutes of rapping, Ray coaxed him into singing one of his new songs, “Moonlight Drive”.
“That’s far out, man,” Ray said, and with that, they were on their way. They began to rehearse. John joined the band as drummer, and later, Robby, as guitarist. They called themselves “The Doors” after the William Blake quote: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
They got gigs at the London Fog, which didn’t pay much, and later, at the Whiskey A Go Go, which did. I liked the Whiskey. The place was hip, all red exterior and black awnings, with a psychedelic marquee that vomited names in tie-dye colour—The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Van Morrison. Inside were cages for the go-go girls who shimmied and shook, and red patent leather booths that swallowed you whole and made you their oyster. Everybody who was anybody made the scene at the Whiskey.
On stage, Jim kept improving, overcoming his shyness. In leather, he was mesmerizing, sometimes an electric god, sometimes the shaman who paid homage. He made love to the music, hypnotizing us with it. His words, with the organ, guitar, and drums in steady syncopation, lulled us like a drug, and then he’d explode, slay the crowd in a screaming orgy of love, lust, and hate—all of it pure and potent and real. It didn’t matter what he sang, the crowd dug him. And it was my influence behind it all. The whole band was better off because of me.
When Jim sang, “Hello, I Love You,” he’d look right at me. All the girls thought he was eyeing them, but his gaze held mine, deep, hooded, and huge. It was his way of honouring our first night when I said “hello” and refused to tell him who I was. As for the leeches, there was too much fire inside the Whiskey for them to tolerate. They kept to the edges, sniffing and floating about dark alleys where deals were made, urine pooled, and blood smeared.
My own addiction for Jim kept growing. I didn’t realise how bad it was until she came onto the scene. A perky red-head, too pretty for her own good, it was easy to see Jim was into her. It’s true what they say: we fae are a jealous lot. I was possessive of him. He was mine.
He didn’t agree. Or maybe he still thought I was just a figment of his imagination. All I know is when he finally balled her it tore me up. I wanted to burn her to a crisp and torch him in the process. I did neither. I might be made of fire, but I never let it burn away my ability to think things through, to strategize.
She kept a bungalow in Laurel Canyon. The next time they went there, I followed them. Jim was unaware of me, too stoned or oblivious, which was the way I wanted it. I watched as they giggled and clung to each other as they climbed the long stairs into her house, both drunk on whisky and high on acid. In the living room, several people had already flopped. A joint, now cold, had rolled from an ashtray to the floor. Jim ignored the sleepers, and swept aside the beaded curtain that passed for her bedroom door. They collapsed on her bed.
She pulled at his clothes. He clawed at hers. And then he was between her legs, doing it. It gave me some pleasure to see she wasn’t happy. No foreplay as she expected. Jim wasn’t concerned about it. As he thrust his way to climax, I slipped inside her, willing him to open his eyes.
He did. He saw me. She was no more. I lay in her place, a fae of fire, spread-eagled beneath him, consuming him as only fire can, my hair a torch of orange and yellow, my eyes, red and glowing, rubies of fury and desire.
Who am I, Jim? I forced him to say it.
“You’re Muse,” he muttered.
Fucking right. Don’t forget it, or I’ll leave you forever.
“What are you saying?” Beneath us, Pam heard him. I felt her need, her longing for him to love her.
I hated her. Tell her to shut up.
“Shhh, baby,” he replied, a far cry from how I wanted him to say it.
She did, good little groupie, that she was.
LATER, PEOPLE THOUGHT his song, “Love Me Two Times” was about a dude leaving for the Vietnam War, or the band leaving their girlfriends to go on tour, but I knew better. Jim was mine. I gave him what no one else could. If I had to take her place whenever they did it, I would. She was the usurper.
On Sullivan, they wanted him to change the lyrics of “Light My Fire” to “Girl, we couldn’t get much better,” but he spit the real words at the camera with such venom that the suits said he’d never appear on Sullivan, again. I think that was the point I started to feel differently about him. I was jealous and possessive, yes, and flattered by his acknowledgment that I was his muse, but this feeling was something different, something I’d never felt before. It was softer, warm, like a banked fire. I started to think about death—his—and it terrified me. I didn’t want him to die. I had to find a way to make him immortal.
With his belief in me finally set, he felt he could do no wrong. And perhaps that was the downside of hanging out with a fae—fire made him dangerous. He took risks he shouldn’t have. He didn’t play safe, on stage or off. He and Pam began to fight, shouting matches I encouraged and enjoyed. She suspected there was someone else. And when he trashed the president of Elektra Records’ office, people said he was possessed.
It wasn’t me or the acid. He was allergic to whisky and didn’t know it. As for the acid, hallucinogens fall under my element, fire: the visuals and rushes are pure mental and physical energy. Alcohol is the opposite—heroin too, especially if injected. Main-lining was something the leeches liked, watery vampires, they sucked the souls of their victims dry.
It was around this time Pam started to chip smack to numb her heartache, but I didn’t care. Jim had more women, and I had enough to contend with, slipping in to take their place. When he was aware of it, he would just laugh.
I drew the line at the witch, though.
He was fascinated with her; she was a link to his shamanism. Perhaps he went with her to better understand me. I admit, she had some ability. There was no slipping into her; she knew how to ward herself against interference. The worst I could do was to knock over candles in the hope they might set the bed on fire. As a last resort and to punish him, I turned him impotent. Bitch countered it by having him drink her blood.
One night, after he had finished with her, I had it out with him. My fires were burning so fiercely, I thought I might burn out; jealousy riddled me, my fingers left fiery after-images wherever they passed. He had vacated the bedroom, leaving her to sleep so he could toke up in the garden. It was three in the morning, and the moon was full. They’d been celebrating Imbolc, the Spring Sabbat. Outside, tiki torches were burning beside the pool. He stood, mesmerized by one, staring at the flames. As usual, he was tripping, so it made it easier to reach him.
I appeared in the torch, a face aflame. He startled briefly, then took a long pull from the joint he had been bogarting, staring at me all the while. He’d been expecting me.
I delivered my ultimatum. Her or me.
“You know, I never did like pushy women.” He exhaled the smoke in a long, even breath and looked away.
I’m no woman. You know it.
He turned back to me, irritated. “And you know what else, Muse? I don’t think I dig you, anymore. You’re a downer. A real drag.”
I could hardly believe what he was saying. I’d given him everything I’d promised on that roof in Venice Beach. The lyrics, the fame . . . and here he was, dumping on me, as if I were nothing.
Maybe fae are nothing, when no one believes in them.
You bastard. I go now, I don’t come back. I take it all away. Your inspiration, your voice. You’ll have nothing, be nothing!
“Yeah? You said that before, and here you still are. Good riddance, you god-damned firefly. Screw off! The world loves me. I do just fine on my own.”
You don’t mean it.
“I fucking do!” He grabbed the shaft of the tiki torch as if it were my neck and started to throttle it. His hands didn’t hurt me, but his hatred did. I felt the punch of it like a blow. Something inside me cracked and broke. I felt as if I were made from glass, that I was shattering into a thousand pieces. Every shard cut me more, severing my wings from my back and leaving them in tatters on the ground. And then, as if to douse me from his memory forever, he threw the torch into the pool.
We were done.
I came to with barely enough energy to keep myself alive. I was an ember, smoking at his feet. He didn’t see me there. He blinked once, as if not quite knowing why a tiki torch was on the bottom of the pool, and then he stumbled for the house, grabbing a bottle of whisky from a table as he went.
After he disappeared inside, I lay there for a time. There was a dampness about my eyes, and for a while, I thought the water had splashed me which was why I couldn’t move. I finally realized the impossible had happened. The wetness was tears. I was a fae, made from fire, and I had shed tears.
How could that be?
With the question came the truth, and it stunned me. I actually loved him. And he had spat on my love as if it meant nothing.
Fae don’t love. If they do, they become less than what they are. Something closer to a mortal. With the potential to die.
Why did he loathe me so much? Every morning, the fires of the sun renewed me. Dawn was a few hours away. I would have to wait to recover until then. I stared up at the moon and stars and took what comfort I could from them.
If I loved him, why hadn’t he loved me in return? Was he as incapable of love as I had been? Or was my attempt to keep him tied to me not a loving thing? What was love, anyway? I understood desire, and passion, and jealousy. If he came back out of the house and said he’d been wrong, I would forgive him. Why was I so quick to do that, even now? Was that love, or was it something darker—addiction?
I was addicted, plain and simple. And the only way to deal with it was to go through cold turkey. There could be no Jim. I would do as I said—more for my sake, than for his. I would leave him.
And I did for a time. But like any addict, the lure of the drug is almost impossible to resist. I’m fairly certain that in his song, “When the Music’s Over”, I was his butterfly’s scream.
WITHOUT ME, HE drank more than ever. Whisky now seemed to be his drug of choice. By the time the band hit Miami he was out of control. Back then, Florida was still part of the Bible Belt. Jim hated the repression it represented. In true form, he insulted the crowd by telling them they were all “a bunch of fucking idiots”, and then later, invited them to take off their clothes after a fan doused him in champagne. Several people claimed he exposed his penis while on stage. At the trial months later, he couldn’t remember if he had.
Through all of this, the witch disappeared, but the groupie remained. Finally, faced with jail and hard labour, she convinced him to go to Paris while he waited for his appeal.
I should have been there for him. He needed saving. I should have protected him from the full-up junkie she’d become.
When I finally relented and looked in on them at their French apartment off La Rue Beautrellis, I was horrified by what I found. The place was lousy with leeches. Slug-like and amorphous, they gibbered in corners, slid across the floor like swill, and hung off her like she was some kind of blood sausage. She was so riddled with them she lost focus; I couldn’t see her beneath their putrid grey cloud. They hadn’t attacked him, yet—I suspect because Jim hadn’t yet fallen prey to her blow—but they eyed him, waiting.
He had put on weight, as if the extra mass gave him protection, or perhaps he knew on some level, he was surrounded by a swarm. He’d grown a full beard, another way to hide. I could see he was sick. The whisky and the drugs had taken their toll.
I was at his side in a moment. Hissing their annoyance, the leeches drew away from him. As much as I try to avoid them, it also costs them to tangle with me; fire and water don’t mix. Their touch might snuff some of my fire, but I also have an adverse effect on them.
Baby, I’m back, and I’m sorry, I told him, sick at heart. I’ll never leave you, again.
He closed his eyes. I don’t know if he heard me. I’d like to think he did.
I’ll make it right, Jim. I promise you. I love you. I tested the word on my tongue. Because, yes, I could finally admit I’d given in to my own addiction. He was worth it, even if it meant I was less than what I was. We were worth it. I needed to get him right again.
I nudged him and poked him, a hovering, frantic presence, and convinced him to take a walk the next day, although I know he thought it was his own idea. He needed sun and fresh air. So did I. I especially needed to get him away from her. She let us leave without a fight, likely because she wanted to drive a spike up her arm. The leeches let us go, content to remain with their food supply.
It was a beautiful July day. The weather was perfect as we walked down a narrow cobbled lane. He’d had a couple of beers for breakfast—not great, but I wasn’t able to talk him out of it. At least he wasn’t high on acid although it made it harder for me to reach him. On our walk, he paused before a jewellery shop. A glass Star of David dangled in the window, catching his eye.
It might be the only opportunity I had, so I took it. The Star was a mirror of sorts—a religious symbol for Jews, representing God and the teachings of the Torah and Israel. In broader terms it was also a symbol of the divine permeating and providing existence to all worlds. I straddled two of those worlds—Jim’s and mine. As the sun caught the Star’s bevelled edges, I slipped inside the glass, willing my face to form.
He gasped as he caught sight of me. His eyes tightened as if the Star was too bright, or perhaps my fires were hard for him to endure. I could see his pain reflected in his gaze. “Muse,” he murmured. He reached a trembling finger to touch the window. It was a stroke, a caress.
I’m here, Jim. My throat grew thick.
He nodded, swallowed, and didn’t say another word. To my shock, tears filled his eyes and two wet lines spilled down his cheeks. I felt my own eyes spark as my heart burned. All was forgiven between us. He had missed me as much as I had missed him.
Someone hailed him, snagging his attention—his friend, Alain, I learned later, and sent by her to keep an eye on him. Before Alain could draw him away, Jim insisted on going into the shop and buying the Star of David. Alain thought he was buying it for Pam, but I know he bought it because of me.
They spent the afternoon at a café, drinking beer and whisky. I hovered over him, fretting when he suffered a bout of hiccoughs that came and went. By the time Alain walked him home, he was spitting blood.
She was clear-headed enough to be beside herself, seeing the state he was in. “We should call a doctor, baby,” she kept saying, dabbing at his bloodied lips. “This isn’t good.” Jim waved her off. He needed to sit, he had overdone it at the café. As she steered him to the couch, Alain cautioned her to call if things got worse. Then he left.
The leeches crowded in on them, sensing a feast. I struck them away, shrieking warnings like a banshee. They’d retreat for a few seconds, then hem us in, again. At their wet contact, I began to sizzle, their touch snuffing me bit by bit, but they also paid the price by turning into steam. Their stench filled the room in a foetid smog. Where others disappeared, more kept appearing. There were too many of them for me to defeat.
Pam shook a powdery white line along the top of the coffee table. “This’ll make you feel better, baby,” she murmured. She spilled another and scraped it with a credit card.
Jim glared. “I told you, I don’t like it in the apartment. I told you to quit using.”
“Jimbo, I hate to see you like this! It’ll help you! Make you feel better. You can sleep a while—”
Leave him alone! I shouted at her. You’ll kill him!
“—and the spasms will stop.”
“I said I don’t like it!”
“You’ve never tried it, so how do you know?”
“God, I feel like shit—”
“This will help—”
“Screw it! All right! Just to stop your bitching at me!”
Jim, no! I screamed.
He grabbed a rolled franc and snorted the smack, tossing it back like he might a shot of whisky. She joined him, and then snuggled beneath his arm, as if content she’d finally convinced him to do the right thing.
You stupid skank! I shrieked at her. You bloody junkie!
Of course neither of them heard me. Over the course of the night, she woke him several more times, and they snorted more lines together. The leeches were so thick about them, I had to retreat to the balcony. Jim was fading, his soul guttering like a candle going out. Heroin was a doorway for leeches, and they had come crashing through.
My heart burned down to a hard, round coal. I felt faint, dizzy. I couldn’t catch a breath. I knew if I left him, he would fail.
Another hour passed. I remained where I was, praying for a miracle. He’d collapsed. I willed him to rouse. Perhaps it was enough. He came to, vomiting whisky and blood. I don’t know how he found the strength, but he stumbled for the bathroom and collapsed beside the toilet. After a moment, he swiped at his face and poured himself a bath.
In the bathroom, the leeches dangled from him, bloated gourds that clung to his body. Unaware of them, he shed his clothes and climbed into the tub. He lay there, his heart hammering and his pulse jumping in his neck. The slugs weighted him down like malevolent buoys. Suddenly, he scrabbled at the sides of the tub, heaving blood and fighting for air. He jerked once, then seemed to fade and sputter out.
I dove for his chest, tossing leeches aside like so much offal. I had never possessed him in such a way, preferring to appear before him in his acid-fused dreams or taking the places of others so we might love.
I chased him down a long, dark tunnel. It was a little brighter at the end, but not by much. He was already at the brink.
“Jim, wait!”
Hearing my voice, he paused. I drew up alongside him. We teetered on an edge.
Before us stretched an infinite black space. There were no stars. At our feet, a silver pathway floated, a shining artery of light that pulsed and branched, dividing into smaller and smaller forks. Who knew what it was or where it led? Would it take us to other realms or leave us stranded nowhere?
He looked at me, his eyes hooded, intense. He was no longer ill, but as I first knew him, whole, happy, perfect. He was ready to go, to leave the tunnel and never return. He stared into the vastness, as if confronting the greatest of mysteries. I think we saw our deaths there. “Would you die for me, Muse?” he whispered, his voice low.
He had asked me this once before. I glanced down the tunnel behind us. There was a tiny pin-prick of light at the other end, my salvation if I decided to return. For him, the only option was to go on—into annihilation or whatever came next.
He was my drug, my addiction. I loved him.
Which meant I was no longer truly fae, because the fae don’t love. As much as I had made him into a superstar, he had also turned me into something else. Was I willing to grieve for him for an eternity, or go with him now? Would we travel the cosmos or disintegrate into dust? Suddenly, time was crucial and had meaning for me in a way it never had before.
I took him by the hand. “Yes,” I said, knowing it was the only choice. “I would.”
We regarded the mystery before us, black and shining. The promise of a new life or a spectacular destruction.
There was no turning back.
With one last breath, we took the final step.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: THE following songs by The Doors inspired me while writing “Light My Fire”. I suggest the reader listen to them during the story, or shortly thereafter:
Hello, I Love You
Moonlight Drive
Light My Fire
Love Me Two Times
Soul Kitchen
Riders on the Storm
When the Music’s Over
LA Woman
The End