Painted Faces

©2003 Angeline Hawkes-Craig
All rights reserved.

Her name was Lulu Hines and she lived at 1524 Bienville Street, smack dab in the middle of the infamous Storyville in New Orleans. There was nothing extraordinary about her—she was just a girl, with a plain name, working for three dollars a john in Miss Emma's brothel. Her major claim to fame was her status as an Octoroon. She was one-eighth black, and the exoticness of this touch of color made her a valuable, marketable commodity. Her other claim to fame was her youth and innocence, but as in all places of sin and debauchery, that bloom faded fast, and she soon became just another pretty face in the crowd, waiting to service the next john holding money in his clammy palm in nervous anticipation.

Lulu came to work for Miss Emma in 1898, at the age of fourteen. She was all blushes and roses—fair and fresh-skinned. She had been orphaned at the age of ten and bounced around from aunt to aunt until she had been turned out onto the streets with a couple of old hand-me-down dresses, a battered carpet bag, and a hat that had seen much better days, and told she was old enough to find a job and fend for herself. She was looking for dishwashing jobs when Miss Emma spotted her and whisked her away like a protective mother hen. No one had ever whisked Lulu anywhere, before. No one had ever expressed any interest in her at all. She had always been the extra baggage that someone had to assume for a prearranged allotment of time until the next unwilling family member had to take their turn at putting a roof over their dead sister's child's head.

Miss Emma had bathed her, washed her hair, and given her pretty new clothes. Affection and beautiful baubles were enough to sway a love-starved half-child into loyalty. Lulu had no inkling of what Miss Emma had in mind.

Miss Emma began advertising her newest acquisition about fifteen minutes after she had hustled Lulu into her bordello and off the mean streets of New Orleans. She built up trust in the frightened girl, made her see her as a mother figure. Then she sold Lulu's virginity to the highest bidder before the end of the week. With a crash course on sex and hygiene, Lulu was initiated into the lucrative world of prostitution by a fifty-year-old, obese, and stern banker named Taft.

Lulu was scared and sore after the event. Miss Emma had swooped down on her with admonishments to cease her tears, suck it up, and learn to use what God had given her to earn a living. Miss Emma then put one dollar into Lulu's hand, patted her black, swept-up curls, and swooshed out of the room in her starched taffeta skirts.

Lulu was left to the cruelty of the other working girls that had met their fates in a bit more informed way. Most had simply walked in and asked for the job. They found her innocence dull and ridiculous and couldn't believe there were girls out there who had no idea what sex was. A few more maternal women took Lulu under their wings and taught her the trade. They eased her fears and nursed her wounded spirit and body. Little by little they helped ease Lulu into the life they knew, and the only one Lulu was destined to know.

That had been three years ago. Lulu turned tricks like an old pro now, using her hint of color to lure in the men wanting a taste of the exotic—and they came from all over the country. Her room was modest but clean, with a few luxuries. Lulu had a china chamber pot, a bed, a vanity with a velvet-cushioned stool, and an armoire. She worked with five other girls, all of whom kept their rooms untidy and disarrayed. Miss Emma had to barge in and bark orders almost daily to keep her place in working condition. But she only had smiles for Lulu. Lulu had learned how the job was done. She had learned what men wanted, what men expected. She had discovered it was an image they wanted, a dream. She became that beautiful, virginal girl for them; that temptress who seduced yet knew nothing about seduction. She was everything they wanted, tied up in a pretty little package. She only wore beautiful white dresses and pretty bows in her hair, giving her the schoolgirl look that so many men coveted. She feigned shyness and batted her lashes, developing the skills necessary to keep her johns coming back time after time.

Then she met Sidney. He was an artist, a painter. He frequented the bordellos seeking girls who would pose nude while he paid by the hour to paint and re-paint them. The madams didn't mind. It was easy work for their girls: pose and be painted.

Sidney was elusive. Some said he was strange. Some of the women even questioned his sexuality, saying that perhaps he preferred the other gender instead of the fairer one. Sidney never requested sexual favors, just the girl, the room, and a promise not to be interrupted. Sometimes he worked all night. He was a perfectionist and a heavy drinker. The two did not mix well.

Somehow, one way or the other, Sidney worked his way to the Bienville brothels and discovered Lulu. Miss Emma said Sidney had practically danced with excitement when she'd showed him Lulu for the first time. Sidney had told Miss Emma that he had been on a quest for many years to find a model worthy of his talents, and Lulu was the one he planned to make famous. Miss Emma took his money and didn't pin any hopes on Sidney or Lulu's potential fame. If she'd counted on the dreams of every hopeful want-to-be who waltzed through her doors with promises of fame and fortune and not forgetting the people here or there he met along the way, she would be a millionaire by now.

Night after night he returned to paint "his Lulu-belle" as he called her. Her room was full of his paintings of her face—young and fresh—all in different stages of completion.

Sidney was a handsome man. Long black hair, glossy and flowing, brushed his shoulders and framed the square, broad back of his excellent physique. He dressed impeccably and wore garments of the highest quality that highlighted his pure, porcelain-white complexion. He was a prime example of a man consumed by a passion—and Lulu soon found herself consumed with passion for him.

"Sidney?"

"Ssh. Hold still, now. I've almost got it." Sidney traded brushes of color to dab here and there on the portrait.

"Don't you want to make love to me?" Lulu cooed, holding still as ice.

Sidney dabbed away at the canvas. "Doll, you know," he paused to change brushes, "how I feel about this. I respect you as my model."

Lulu sighed.

"What if I wanted you to—would you do it then?"

Sidney stopped, brush in the air and looked at Lulu.

"I want to. I always want to. But I don't want to confuse my passions. I want to make your soul come alive on my canvas."

Lulu got up and slinked over to the painter. She took his brush gently from his hand and laid it down on his palette, which rested on the small table by the wall.

"I want you to confuse your passions," she purred. "I want you."

Sidney frowned.

"I cannot."

"You can. You will." She kissed his chest, visible in the unbuttoned neck of his shirt. She kissed his neck, face and lips. Sidney stood rigid, attempting to fight his urges and instincts.

"Lulu, I—," he began.

"Say you want me." Lulu slid his pants off. "Tell me you want me."

Sidney smiled. "You know I do."

They made love furiously, passionately. Sidney sat up, newly inspired, and began another portrait of his Lulu-belle; naked and serene, splayed across white linens, round buttocks in the air, tousled curls and sated expression. Lulu smiled.

"I knew you wanted me," she cooed, while Sidney got ready to go home for the night.

"You shouldn't have forced me. I don't know if I'll be able to contain my urges now. I want you too much."

Lulu laughed. "Too much? You silly man. There is no 'too much.'"

Sidney frowned and shook his head.

"You don't realize what I am. What I am capable of. What instincts I suppress just to live a normal existence."

Lulu laughed again.

"Mon cher, you do not have a normal existence, as you say! You pay to paint working girls like me, all night, every night, and sleep all day!"

Sidney laughed. "I see your point, but there's more to me than you know. Bon nuit, Lulu-belle. Until tomorrow."

Lulu kissed him on the nose. "Until tomorrow," she said cheerfully, and walked him down to the door in her dressing gown.

Sidney began to crave Lulu's body as much as her modeling skills. He mingled the two as he worked nightly. Lulu spent her few days off with Sidney in his glorious mansion, all marble floors and gilded ceilings. She savored his fine foods and reveled in the lavishness of each room, but she refused the wine that he offered her. She had learned from watching her fellow prostitutes that losing control meant losing one's life. She avoided all forms of liquor. She had a fear that one drink would push her over an edge she would never come back from.

While the girls around her drowned their misery in booze, Lulu drowned her misery in Sidney's arms. She slowly began to think herself better than the other girls, until one girl brought reality back to Lulu with a figurative slap.

"Sidney, Sidney, Sidney," Bertha mocked. "If your Sidney loves you so much, why are you still here, legs open, with a john grunting over you every day? Why doesn't he take you to live in his marble palace?"

Lulu ran from the room in tears, the other girls' laughter chasing her all the way up the stairs.

Alone in her room, she pondered Bertha's questions. Why didn't Sidney take her to live with him? Why didn't he rescue her from her miserable life? He had all that money. She didn't expect him to marry her, but couldn't he keep her as a mistress? Save her from the work she did for every paying stranger who came in off of the street? Her fantasy began to erode.

Sidney was painting with a madman's speed—dashing colors, blending hues, stroke after stroke. Lulu sat still, pondering while she posed.

"You're quiet tonight," Sidney said, pausing.

"I'm confused," Lulu said softly.

"What about, mon amour?"

"You say you love me, but you leave me here to lay under sweating pigs to feed myself. Why don't you take me away to your home?" Lulu said with a voice full of sorrow.

"You are better off here. Here I can control my passions. You are safe."

"What does that mean?" Lulu tried not to cry. She didn't want to displease Sidney and ruin the pose.

"You wouldn't understand." Sidney shook his head slowly. "You'll have to trust me. I'm trying to do what is best for you."

Lulu felt a tear trickle down her face before she could restrain it. "Nothing about this horrid life is best for me." She began to cry.

"Now, now." Sidney frowned. "You've gone and moved."

Lulu tried to put herself back in the same pose, but to no avail.

"Oh, well," Sidney said at last,putting his brush down. "Let's take a break. Absinthe?" he asked holding up the green glass bottle.

Lulu shook her head.

"Come now, just a small glass? You will feel much better. See things more clearly." Sidney poured a shot of absinthe into a tall glass. He reached for the tray and placed a spoon of sugar cubes over the glass. Slowly he poured water over the spoon until the melted sugar washed into the liquor. Sidney swirled his glass around.

"The emerald elixir of the gods!" He drank it down, head thrown back in ecstasy. He trembled as he carried Lulu from the chaise lounge to the bed. Lulu wasn't sure if it was the absinthe or her naked body that evoked the jerking trembles that twitched his limbs and nodded his head. Erratically his body convulsed over hers as he furiously groaned and moaned over her, on her, within her. Lulu was powerless beneath him. He held her with his arms, with his legs, with his eyes—beckoning her to love him, over and over again, until he slept.

When Lulu awoke, Sidney was gone. He never stayed during the day. He abhorred the sun and preferred to sleep while the rest of the world was awake. His was a world of blanketing blackness, drunkenness and debauchery. His was a world of addictions of a kind so deep Lulu could not imagine.

Sidney knocked. "Lulu?"

"Come in," Lulu said from inside.

"Miss Emma sent me up," Sidney said cheerfully. He was already drunk. "Shall we paint?"

Lulu giggled. "Why do you drink so much?" She laughed as he played the fool, pretending to drop brushes onto the floor like an old lush.

"Ah. It takes away the pain." Sidney laughed.

"So, I've heard," Lulu said sadly. She had seen far too many women drown themselves in a bottle until they lost themselves and ended up face-down in a gutter in a street on a dark, moonless night. Lulu smiled and assumed her pose.

"Drink with me tonight." Sidney held up the bottle.

"Non, mon cher. Not tonight." Lulu smiled. The escape he offered was so complete, so simple: but she feared that if she indulged her desire to flee from reality, that there would be no return from that escape.

Sidney painted on and drank more.

"Ah! Look at the time!" He snapped his gold pocket watch shut and cleaned up his paints. "I must leave."

Lulu kissed him fervently and longingly.

"I do wish you were mine," he said to her.

"I am. I have been for a very long time." Lulu closed the door behind him with a click and leaned sadly against it. She sighed mournfully, her heart heavy and sad.

He arrived the next night with a beautiful rose, red as blood. He swept her instantly off of her feet, carried her to her room, and made love to her—sweetly and lovingly. His kisses tantalized her, and she felt herself completely lost in his passion. Then he drank and painted, just like every other night. Lulu crossed the room and, taking the bottle, swigged a great gulp of Sidney's absinthe. She choked and clutched at her throat.

"Ah! Lulu-belle! It is better with the sugar!" he cried out as she sat down hard on the bed.

"It's so bitter! Worse than licorice!" Lulu coughed. "Escape is so bitter," she said woefully.

Sidney laughed and fixed her glass, handing it to her with a smile. "Drink now," he said. Slowly Lulu drank from the glass, finding the greenish drink more appealing than before.

The escape was swift. Her arms began to dance upon the air as her feet twirled to an orchestra that played lovely tunes on and on in a frenzied crescendo within the realms of her mind. Her head burst with a rainbow of color, bright as fire sparkling before her eyes. Exhilaration penetrated her soul and she felt sheer elation welling up from within her, pulling her above the floor higher and higher as if on a floating cloud.

Sidney kissed her, his painting cast aside. Lulu slept upon his chest like a spent angel, released from her misery and sleeping in bliss and serenity.

He reached for the bottle—empty. An empty bottle, with no other in sight. Sidney felt his pain rise up and threaten to swallow him whole. He could not deny his thirst for the drink. He gazed at Lulu's creamy neck pulsing before him; he heard the red blood as sweet as wine coursing through her veins.

He abruptly sank his teeth into her butter-soft flesh, draining the absinthe-laden blood, gush by gush, drop by drop.

Ah. He had lost control. Another love betrayed by the cursed drink! It was in his blood. For two hundred years he had been a slave to its potency. It drove him; it controlled him—even beyond the grave. Long ago he had turned to his undead lover to escape the grip of the absinthe. He had willingly let her bite him, turn him, thinking he would escape his state of drunkenness ... but his sense of feeling dead inside without the warmth of the drink coursing through his body carried his passion for the green stuff from his mortal life to his new unlife. There was no escape from his thirst for absinthe ... or his thirst for blood.

He was giddy on Lulu's blood, but, like the ones before her, he wouldn't let her die. She wanted to live in his fine marble palace, to escape her life—and now she would. He slashed his wrist and let the blood pour into her gaping mouth. She choked, gasped, swallowed in a foggy haze, and continued to sleep.

In the morning Lulu was still far too drunk to work. Miss Emma left her in her room, curtains shut, portraits strewn around the room. Slowly, Lulu regained consciousness. She opened her heavy lids and surveyed the room with fresh eyes. Her skin was cold and smeared with blood. The room around her pulsated. She covered her ears with her hands to block out the noise.

Suddenly, it was night. The sun had been snuffed out so quickly! The stars and the pearly moon lit the ebony sky like sparkling gems. Lulu huddled in the same spot she had stayed in all day.

And then Sidney was standing before her with a smile.

"The noise will lessen soon," he said softly, knowingly.

"What is it? Why is it so loud?" she asked in agony, clutching her ears with her palms.

"It is the sound of a thousand hearts beating around you, their sweet blood flowing through their bodies. It is deafening, oui?" Sidney ran his hand through her black curls. Lulu stared at him in confusion.

"I drank too much," she said, spying the empty absinthe bottle tipped on its side where they had dropped it the night before.

"Oui. You drank more than you had bargained for." Sidney shook his head. "You are like me now, mon cher. One of the damned, a creature of the night."

No further explanation was necessary. Lulu had lived around voodoo and witchery her entire life. She knew the curse he spoke of. She knew the creatures he spoke of.

It was not a good thing to discover.

"A blood drinker?" she asked in a whisper.

"Oui. With a thirst like none other, for even stronger is the thirst for blood than the thirst for this emerald release." Sidney held up the empty bottle.

"This is why you drink so much?"

Sidney laughed. "No. It is because I drank so much that I became what I am. The addiction just chose to remain with me."

Lulu clutched her ears and rocked herself. She was unclean. Dead.

Sidney got up. "Come to my marble palace." He got up and left, unable to watch her as she suffered.

Lulu was left alone to grasp the meaning of her new reality. One drink of absinthe had pushed her over the edge. She had asked for an escape. It had been granted.

She cowered on the floor, a low moan escaping her mouth. It seemed distant, muted by the deafening roar of beating hearts.

Slowly, the thirst for the green elixir returned, and with it a craving for thick, rich, crimson blood. The twin yearnings clawed their way through her mind. Lulu rocked back and forth, ears covered, trapped in a new world—in a brand new kind of evil.

Cast off in the room around her, her human face, her mortal face, smiled out at her from the painted canvases. Everywhere she looked, her face looked back, mocking her loss of humanity, mocking her loss of soul.

"No!" she cried. "No!" But her voice was drowned out by the booming of a thousand human hearts rushing in her ears like the unrelenting sound of the ocean waves.

The faces taunted, jeered, mocked; she could hear the paintings echo:

"Cheers to your grand escape!"

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