Lend Me a Hand--Or Two!

Posted on Wed 11th Nov, 2020 @ 6:47am by Purulence Addams & Yuliette Marayan Dr.

1,850 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Denouement
Location: Room 218-C, Deck 2445
Timeline: MD-5

Purulence put the last of the doodads she'd collected onto a low table for Neone to choose from to play with once she arrived. The items were all things that required interesting hand positions--fidget spinners, a Rubick's Cube, a lady's fan, a hard-bound book, crochet hooks, knitting needles and yarn, a quill pen, a guitar, a violin and a flute, a chain necklace, a teacup and saucer, a spoon, a butter knife, a rosary, a loop of worry beads, and pashmina scarves to hold in whatever ways she might find fun, among other items.

A dozen chicken and pork mole tamales were arranged in a heated, covered pan, ready to eat whenever either of them might want. Purulence had programmed the room's small replicator with simple beverages and light snacks. All the room needed now was someone for her to paint.

There came an even rapping on the door and when Purulence answered it, Yuliette stepped inside, her eyes adjusting to the light. "So! I made it." She said. Every day of her life had become so uncertain that the little feat of making a time to meet and keeping it seemed something rather accomplished.

"I'm so glad you did!" Purulence said. "I've been looking forward to seeing you again, Neone. Come on in and have a seat. There're tamales in that pan, and the little basket is to put the corn husks in. The replicator's very basic, I'm afraid, but you can get good-tasting beverages from it."

Food and drinks. It sounded like Purulence wanted to put her at her ease. Yuliette politely took one of the tamales to try and dropped it on a dish as she intoned, "Oh. Hot. Hot tamales," under her breath.

Purulence couldn't suppress a giggle. "That's what the steam means," she agreed. She gingerly pulled out a pork tamale and dropped it onto her own plate as if it were a hot potato. "Jimena wasn't kidding when she said these were fresh. Geeze! I think I'll let this cool a little." Purulence nodded to the collection of items on the table. "Once we get started, just pick something that you'd like to play with, and play with it for a bit. At some point, I'll ask you to hold still and start sketching."

Yuliette looked the items over while she unwrapped her food and let it cool. She stepped to the replicator for a cup of iced tea and then sat with the glass in her hands on her knees, regarding Purulence. She had such an incredibly dark complexion and seemed to light around so comfortably. "Has anyone ever painted you?" Yuliette wondered outloud.

Purulence beamed. "You are the first person who's ever asked that! I've painted me a few times, but I never liked the results. People in art class have painted me for body studies. Aside from that, though, I've never formally sat for a commissioned portrait." She leaned her head to one side. "I really ought to, you know? To be fair?"

"I think you should. I mean, why not commission your own portrait?" It was a common enough practice in her own socioeconomic circles, though it seemed a self-aggrandizing move to most others. "Sometimes you just have to say what you want and arrange it yourself."

"It would be fun to paint something like Norman Rockwell's Triple Portrait, though," Purulence said. "Are there any artists you would recommend to do a portrait?"

"Oh yes. Eloti Rizwald—" She got caught up too fast and realized she had to make up for it a little. "I saw some of her prints once, I mean. They're very good."

For just a moment, Purulence thought she saw a glimpse of the real woman, the person Neone was when she wasn't keeping herself hidden. It reminded Purulence of Princess Elsa from the old Disney film Frozen. "Eloti Rizwald--Yes, she'd be great! I love her work."

"I like... her colors. She uses wild colors." Yuliette had a great deal more in mind about Rizwald's work, but she was hesitant to sound like she'd spent a lot of time gallery hopping across Risa and drinking wine with friends, as she had.

"Exactly why I like her; she's all about the colors," Purulence said. "My family tends to favor black. I can wear that sometimes, but it gets to be a bit much, especially with my skin coloring."

"It's the kind of colors Rizwald pulls out of things that aren't there, but when she uses them, it makes you think they are actually there. Like a second vision, superimposed. So she paints black, but by using surprising contrasts, so it looks even more like black by juxtaposition. I think that's probably why she could capture you well. She'd get those colors in the black." Yuliette felt she had to explain.

Purulence nodded. "I can picture what you mean, when I think of Rizwald's paintings. People always ask me if I'm going to a funeral when I wear black, so I usually prefer colorful prints, rainbow-colored spiral tie-dyes, that kind of thing." Purulence started unfolding the corn husk from around her tamale and picked up a fork to eat the filling with. "What kind of colors do you like to wear?"

"What do I like to wear?" She hadn't thought about it much. After having her mother dress her on trend for so long and then trying to keep up with her friends and impress her piece-of-shit ex, she had been all too happy to let fashion entirely go and fall back to medical scrubs and then desert trekking wear. "Sage, dusty rose. Maybe deep natural tones."

"Smart; that goes well with your skin tone," Purulence said. "When I want something that goes well with my skin tone, I usually pick darker jewel tones, like burgundy or deep blue. I can wear animal prints pretty well. Zebra print looks great on me. Otherwise, my skin is so dark, it's like a photographic negative." She made a face. "My wedding dress--if I get married--will absolutely not be white."

"I used to threaten to wear sweat pants to my mother's parties, just to horrify her. We had some of the worst fights over clothes."

"Sweat pants?" Purulence laughed out loud. "I think the rainbow spiral tie-dyes used to alarm my mother--my whole family is very goth--er, into the funereal, graveyard kind of look. We've always been that way. What kinds of things did your mother want you to wear?"

"My mother dressed for attention. Whether it was fashion forward, or designer, or... showy." Yuliette huffed with sardonic amusement. "I imagine most mothers and daughters fight each other over the exact opposite. If I wanted any peace, I'd toe the look, for events at least." Yuliette picked at the frayed sleeves of the used shirt she'd acquired. "Don't get me wrong, I liked nice clothes. Just... not for all the same reasons as she did."

"I suspect you like what you like," Purulence said. "I think you like to be comfortable rather than showy. It's not important to me to be fashionable; I just like the clothes to be pretty and to look good on me."

Yuliette nodded in agreement, but also felt strange about the whole thing. What point was there in talking about clothes when she was next to begging just to keep herself covered and warm? She had two choices every morning. Three if she wanted to go about in her desert night clothes. Still it wasn't much different than looking at a literal room full of clothes bigger than some people's home and having thought to herself... she had nothing to wear! What a brat she'd been. It was easier now, really. The work outfit, or the hoodie and stained pants of which the hoodie covered most of the stain. She didn't want to dampen Purulence's joy, though. She liked clothes, and it made Yuliette hope... maybe one day she would figure out what she really wanted in a modest wardrobe herself. "So, are you ready to draw?"

"Just about." Purulence dropped her corn husk into the basket and wiped her hands clean with a paper napkin. "Before we start, we have to talk over the money. Where you come from, do people usually negotiate a price, or are there set prices for things?"

"They just... paid whatever things were priced at."

"All right. I'm proposing to pay you 1 strip, 65 slips of gold-pressed latinum per hour. That's the same rate I would pay an artist's model in New York to sit for me. Does that sound comparable to what an artist model might get paid where you come from?"

"That sounds fine." She only knew what they paid medical models to pose for students or training... "I mean, 165 slips for sitting still? Seems more than fair."

"It's harder than you'd think," Purulence said, but she carefully did not say why, knowing how strong the power of suggestion could be. "All of that stuff on the table is for you to pick from and play with. If you can think of other fun items, let me know, and I'll bring any of them I can find."

Yuliette looked around at each of them, the mundane and the odd... and reached for the book, feeling the canvas of the binding and lifting it instinctually to smell the page binding glue as she paged to the contents.

Purulence smiled at Neone when she picked up the unabridged copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. "Woman after my own heart. That is a wonderful book, by the way, if you can forgive the author for the two pages of nothing but phyla."

"Forgive him?" She smiled as she leafed the pages to get a sense of the linguistic style she was in for. "Appreciate him for it, maybe."

"Oh, I do appreciate him for it," Purulence said. "But it's basically just bragging about how many names of marine phyla the author knows--and he knows an impressive lot. The book, though, is fantastic. If you want to take it home today after we're done, feel free."

Yuliette smirked. Owning as little as she now did, the book now made up the entirety of her library. "Thank you." She sat down once more, crossing her legs and adding a little twist to her posture as she imagined might be interesting, and began to read, choosing to hold the book, with fingers parting and splaying around the spine and along the bottom and using the book to mask her face.

With a light laugh, Purulence took that as her cue to begin sketching. Neone had truly beautiful hands, and what Purulence liked the best about them was that they were practical hands. You could do real work with them and not be in constant anxiety about marring or breaking a nail. You could type with them, scrub with them, play a musical instrument with them, and stupidly long fingernails wouldn't get in the way. She picked up her SketchPADD and stylus and began to draw.

 

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