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23: Picture Gallery


The room unlocked with a keypad, and Buffy made a cursory effort to sneak a look at the code. After all, what was the need? He was showing the room to her of his own free will.

The room was larger than she imagined it would be, and situated so that it received natural light from two directions. She could see why he had chosen this room for a studio. It was a working place her mother would have enjoyed.

The side wall reminded her of the storage space back at the gallery. It was designed specifically with the storage of paintings in mind. The wall was lined with racks where she could just glimpse dozens of completed pictures; despite his protestations of lack of talent, Spike must be a very prolific painter. Underneath the hanging racks were drawers, which if it was arranged the way Buffy’s storage was, would contain smaller, older, or more fragile works. The drawers had the advantage that they provided more protection from the elements, while at the same time providing additional security.

An easel was set up near the far end of the room overlooking the pool and the waterfall. The canvass on it was facing the window; an obvious sign that it was still a work in progress. Without hesitation Buffy went over to it and lifted the cloth covering.

Her first reaction was utter amazement. The man could paint. It was definitely her portrait, but the play of light and shadow, the proportions, the colors, and the emotion displayed on her face, were all the vision of the painter; the kind of thing that no mere camera could capture. She stared at it for a long time before she realized that Spike had painted her without benefit of her bathing suit.

It wasn’t immediately obvious, especially considering what she had been wearing. The position she was in, the foliage, and the foam from the waterfall masked the necessary areas that would immediately signify to the viewer her lack of clothes. Buffy colored slightly as she turned to compliment Spike on how beautiful his painting really was, despite the liberties he had taken with her costume.

Spike’s face was also blushing scarlet as he apparently realized what it was that she had seen.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I didn’t mean to paint you without the suit. It’s just that when I paint, my mind shuts down and the brush seems to control itself. It’s kind of like a trance, I guess. I might begin with one thing in mind, and then when I open my eyes again, I find that I’ve painted something completely different. I’ve been trying to learn more control, but it’s slow going. Regardless of the results, I find it relaxing. I’m rather pleased with my effort this time. I hope you like it.”

“Yes, it’s lovely.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the painting. It was almost mesmerizing. But the longer she stared at it, the more it occurred to her that there was something subtly disturbing about it, she just couldn’t figure out what.

Spike had been looking at the painting as if studying it for the first time as well. “Would you like to have it when it’s finished?” he asked, gesturing her towards the door.

“It looks finished now.” She ventured, looking away from the painting and directly at Spike for the first time since entering the room.

“Not at all. Give me another few days, and I’ll finish it up and have Jonathan bring it over to you, if you’d like.” His face suddenly looked paler than usual, and he seemed to be trying to get her out of the room for some reason.

Instead she started to explore the room, hoping to get a good look at what else it held before Spike ushered her out. From a distance, she glanced back at the painting one last time before moving towards the hanging racks that held his other work. That was when she saw it.

If you looked at the subject of the painting, if you looked at Buffy and the waterfall, you couldn’t see it. But if you looked closely at the rock wall she stood against, you could see what had unsettled Buffy about the painting.

Disguised by the light and shadow playing on the rocks behind the waterfall, two tortured faces stared out sightlessly at the viewer. Bruised and bloodied, neither face showed any sign of life. Faces that might have been taken from Rodin’s Gates of Hell.

“Spike?” She called tentatively. She was shaking. Her doubts about the man before her came back trebled. Maybe Giles was right. Who would paint something like this? She tried to keep the anxiety out of her voice. “Come here. I want to ask you about something.”

“You don’t like it? I can change it around if you want, add your suit back in.”

Something in his voice alerted her to the fact that he knew exactly what she had seen in the painting, even though he was no longer facing it. He just didn’t want to admit to it.

“I want you to come here and look at it with me. Tell me if I’m seeing things that aren’t there. Because…this is not what I remember.”

Spike came and stood behind her, taking her shoulders in his hands he whispered in her ear. “Come on luv, let’s go. When it’s finished you can look at it till your hearts content.”

“Spike. Tell me you don’t see what I see? Why would you paint something like that?”

Heart beating wildly, Buffy realized that she recognized them. They were faces of real people, people that she had met. She knew them only as ‘fuzz face’ and ‘gunman.’ They were the faces of two of the street thugs who had attacked them in New York.

Spike closed his eyes. It was too late to deny it now. “I don’t know why. I told you, sometimes when I paint – it’s not a decision that I make consciously. Sometimes things creep in that I don’t intend. I’m sorry, luv. I didn’t mean to ruin it for you. I meant it to be something beautiful.”

Still shaking in his embrace, she raised her hand to almost touch the canvass. “I know those two. They were in New York. Those are the muggers that wanted your wallet.”

“I’ll get rid of them. I’ll redo the background and you will never know that they were there.”

“But that’s not the point, Spike. Why are they there at all?”





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