“It’ll calm down.” Leonard’s soothing voice came with its own explosive accompaniment, thunderous booms and an array of twinkling fish. “The initial rush provokes mild synesthesia, it goes away…”
It did, almost immediately. Trip felt an intense burst of regret. His eyes welled with tears as the waves of sensation condensed into a sort of mental strobing, an intermittent, seemingly random pulse of emotions—sorrow, rage, lust, dismay—that gradually subsided, until he found himself sitting cross-legged on the floor and staring fixedly at the air before him.
“Feel better?” Leonard settled beside him, slowly, as though trying to avoid frightening a skittish colt. “The first time is a little intense…”
Trip nodded: yes. He perched on the edge of his stool, his hands gripping his knees, his eyes wide and staring.
But not with fear. Rather, he had never felt his attention so incredibly, intensely focused: on the dust motes moving in the air; on the bitter sneezy smell of dust burning on the halogen bulbs; on the sound of Leonard’s breathing, the faint wheeze when he inhaled and the almost imperceptible hum of the placebit in his front tooth.
“All right then,” Leonard murmured. The air exploded with light and sound. Trip stumbled to his feet, knocking the stool to the floor. Momentarily he was blinded by his own heightened sentience: unable to distinguish between his hand fluttering before his eyes and Leonard’s grinning face, between a sweet chiming sound and the trilling of blood in his skull. Sparks of gold and scarlet filled the air, like the afterglow of fireworks. He blinked, and gazed enraptured.
In front of Trip, his jeweled shadow stood poised on one foot, head cocked as its blue eyes burned into the singer’s. The mask was gone, and the towering golden crown. The face that stared adoringly at him was Trip’s own: Trip’s strong jaw shaved of blond stubble, the cleft in his chin more pronounced, the scar left by a childhood fall smoothed away. Light settled into the hollows of its cheeks. Trip’s mouth parted as he tentatively reached to stroke the long hair that fell across the icon’s brow. As he did, the icon raised its hand, its astonished expression mirroring Trip’s own. Their fingers met in the glittering air, a shimmer of flesh and flame; but Trip’s hand closed on nothing. His heart jolted with disappointment, but his face was still there gazing at him with wide blue eyes. The tip of a crimson tongue flicked across its lips, left them gleaming like the moist curve of an apple. He could see the rayed petals of its irises, its skin smooth and unmarred by pores or scars but with a sheen like sweat. Overwhelmed, a little frightened, Trip sank to the floor. The icon didn’t move. Its eyes remained fixed on Trip, its hands extended imploringly.
Trip sucked in air, his heart pounding dangerously fast. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. From where he sat he had a rather intimidating view of his double: it was naked, and it had an erection. The body mirrored Trip’s own, its slender torso plucked of the few stray hairs that always embarrassed Trip because there weren’t more of them. Its legs were smooth and muscular, and its arms. Its cock seemed no larger or smaller than Trip’s own, which was somehow disconcerting, as was the fact that as he stared at it, Trip found himself growing hard. But he couldn’t look away. His heart fluttered as it had when he’d been with the blond girl. His breath came in shallow gasps; he felt the same swooping vertiginous sensation as of flying or falling, the same insane realization that somehow this was his life, this was happening, this was real—
“Hey.” It spoke to him, and he shuddered. His own tentative voice, the inflection questioning, half-fearful; shy. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath; opened them: he was still there. “You okay?”
Trip nodded. The motion made him dizzy. The icon extended its hand and touched his cheek. Trip’s shudder became a low moan, but he didn’t move away, just sat there as the shining boy leaned forward and cupped Trip’s face in his hands. “Don’t be afraid…”
Something in its voice slashed through Trip’s fear. A slight warbling, the barest hint of an echo that gave the voice a faintly mechanical quality. It was enough to remind Trip that what was before him was neither mirror nor memory but only his own borrowed mien. It was enough, momentarily, to break the spell.
“No.” Trip’s voice cracked. Somehow that made him feel better, more sure of himself, more sure that he was himself; because surely the icon’s voice wouldn’t break? He remembered that Leonard Thrope had given him a drug, remembered that he was in a room, and there were other people there, even if he couldn’t see them. He looked around, saw only jagged rays of light and darkness, a glowing blue square. In front of him the icon crouched, blond hair falling in a bright wave across one eye.
“‘Thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad, ’” it recited. “‘Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. ’”
Trip’s tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. He tried to whisper No, but the word died in his throat.
“‘For in Thee we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said; For we are also his offspring.’”
Something warm brushed against his knee. Trip looked down and saw the icon’s hand there, like a bird lighting upon his jeans. As he stared the hand began to move along the inside of his thigh until it reached his groin. He felt another hand stroking the taut fabric, watched in detached disbelief as the icon’s head, with its glittering sheaf of hair, nudged between his legs, its hands gently pulling them apart so that it could rub its cheek against his swollen crotch. Trip moved his own hands to his breast and crossed them there, gasping when he heard the soft shirr of his zipper and felt his shorts being tugged down, its hair spilling onto his exposed cock. He squeezed his eyes shut, but it was no good: he could see his own face as in a mirror, lips parted and sudden heat, its tongue flicking at his balls and then a shaft of molten pleasure as its mouth closed around him. With a groan he tried to push himself away from it, but it was too late, its hands slid behind him, shoving his jeans down farther as it grabbed his ass and pulled him roughly forward. He tried kicking, but there was nothing for his foot to connect with; only that ragged whorl of golden hair between his legs, the broken silhouette of a kneeling boy. Its fingers splayed across his ass, rough-edged nails and fingertips stroking then probing there. Tears flashed from Trip’s eyes as he abruptly came, a searing jolt that sent him arching backward as his double sucked greedily at his cock. Its hands tightened, slid upward, then fell away. Trip lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. There was the smell of semen, and smoke.
“Well now. I guess this just proves that the Lord really does work in mysterious ways.”
Trip sat up. The IZE’s wild glory had faded, and with it the room’s harlequin array. Instead he saw only the dark regiment of cameras and recording equipment and raised screens, now empty and lightless, and the shadowy figures of the two technicians beside their monitors. His jeans and underwear hung just above his knees. He had a glimpse of someone’s wrist bent across the fold of his waistband, a shimmer of luminous green as the wrist drew back and left a trail of gray smoke.