Page 82 of On Your Knees

In the direct beam of the central light, the space is bare, and the clutter along the edges—mirrors, furniture, ropes and chains and other things—makes it feel like a stage ready to be set. The props, though, are disturbing. The whips here, unlike in the playroom, are not for pleasure. The benches and chains are not for freedom. And there are so many religious things. Crosses, of course, and the narrow shawls that preachers drape around their necks. Other stuff, too, that I recognize but don’t know the names of.

There are multiple easels, and shelves crowded with painting supplies. There’s a utility sink stained with paint.

This is Ethan’s studio.

I glance over at the pallet where I lay with him. That’s where Ethan lies, to rest or sleep, when he’s working down here. Working on what though?

He told me that he’s never brought anyone here, so what does he paint?

And where are the paintings?

The cellar is mostly a big open space, but there’s a heavier darkness at one end, and I find myself drawn toward it. I think there’s a doorway. I grope along the wall until I’m sure that I’m moving into another room. I reach in the other direction blindly, trying to understand the space. My hand bumps something small and light that’s hanging. I feel around until I find it again. It’s a string. I pull it, and a bare bulb blazes on, illuminating a smaller room.

My breath catches in my throat and a chill sweeps over my body. I stare and stare at dozens of intricate, masterful paintings hung on the walls. They’re all of Ethan, and they’re all very, very dark. Before my brain can process the details, I’m caught up in the feel.

It takes me a moment to breathe again. It takes me a moment to walk into this space that reveals so much, hidden away.

The paintings are very hard to look at. Ethan is nude and aroused in most of them, and while his body is beautifully made and beautifully painted, it’s rendered with shame and torment and rage.

He’s praying with a collar around his throat, his head tilting back as someone, unseen, pulls on the collar from behind.

He’s lying facedown with blood between his legs.

He’s gagged with one of those preacher shawls.

Others are worse, and my brain can’t process them.

There’s imagery of dark figures around him. There’s a knife stabbing into him in a way I don’t want to think about.

But it’s his expressions that make my eyes sting. There are some where he doesn’t have a face or where a black stripe is painted roughly across his eyes. But there are others where he’s screaming. Crying. Begging. There are some where he’s so angry that he looks demonic. There are some where he is demonic, with dark leathery wings and long, cruel claws.

And there’s one that’s just his face. There’s a hand in his hair and an arm that goes out of frame. His eyes are empty and bleak, and the bottom half of his face has been ripped away to expose bloody teeth and bone.

The work is beautiful and grotesque.

When I hear footsteps on the stairs, I don’t react. I can’t. I’m caught in some dark spell of the images.

That spell breaks when Ethan walks into the room. I blink, making tears spill down my cheeks. I look at him, as beautiful as in the paintings but with all the torment buried. I can see it, though, in his eyes.

Instead of being nude, he’s wearing a dark gray suit, which makes my mind glitch slightly, but it’s not what matters. What matters is that I see.

I know.

And I have to say it: “He was abusing you. That’s why you killed him.”

For a second, Ethan’s eyes go blank. Then he says, “I made him sin.”

Anger boils up hot and fast inside me. “Bullshit. He was fucking abusing you.”

Ethan’s voice is flat when he replies, “I was sinning too.”

My hands curl into fists. “You don’t believe that. You can’t.”

“I don’t know what I believe.”

“Ethan… no.”

He walks into the room. He’s beautiful and refined in his three-piece suit. His hair is styled back, and his face is cleanly shaven. He’s polished and perfected for anyone to see. His expression is neutral, unreadable, but his eyes are like dark windows into a very different place. A very different person.