Crying with happiness before the beauty of the finished work. Crying and getting a hard-on, watering them with tears and cum, lacrimae Christi, all these beautiful iconic faces. They call me the Makeup Artist, but I am so much more. More than one; I am many. And not old, not young, but immortal!
In the secret room he keeps, away from prying eyes, the murderer undresses slowly, meditatively, like a priest withdrawing after the mass; stole, hood, amice, maniple, and cappa magna.
I am he who provides pain. Death, the great cleanser. Polluted with sin, contaminated by men, our Earth is bloodless, and I, I will wash it with great strokes of my tongue.
The killer moves slowly into the red-tiled bathroom. His secret chapel, covered with the number nine, written in white ink . . .
I am a harvester of faces. A fisher for pearls. I go down to the bottom of others to bring back, from God, eyes, mouth, cheeks, and hair. Holding my breath, I plunge into their caverns of flesh. And there I tear out serpents and sinew, vice and viscera . . .
Deep in thought, the Makeup Artist fills his bathtub with the blood taken from his latest victim. As always, it appeared redder to him, more luminous. In this magic liquid were millions of cells that still lived, carrying the genetic heritage of the last chosen one, fragments of the divine image. While he waits, he picks up his numbered poem again. His pen squeaks as it writes verses 832, 833, 834, and 835. He puts a large sheet of blue blotting paper on top; it sucks up the ink. He recites a few phrases from Pilgrim of the Absolute:
“I relish homicidal epithets and stunning metaphors . . . I invent catachreses that impale, understatements that burn alive, circumlocutions that emasculate, and hyperboles of molten lead.”
The murderer lets several liters of hot water run into the tub in order to bring the mixture up to the 98.6 degrees required for the ceremony. Then he slides into the liquid body of the actress. His erection is painful.
God, I can feel you! High above, far beyond our Babel of bricks where, for want of a bandage, you think of us. Soon, I will gaze upon you, I know it. And I will know it.
He throws his head back, immerses himself completely. He stays like that, holding his breath under the surface of the little red lake. Thirty seconds pass. After the last lapping sounds stop, silence settles over this secret part of the apartment. Here, away from Mother, the great “not even” has disappeared into the blood.
Above all, death cannot be gentle!
Outside, the laughter of children rises into the sky. Tires squeak; a bicycle brakes in front of the little bakery that sells fruit tarts.