The Sculptor. Gregory Funaro

      The Sculptor crossed the darkened room and slid under the television screen onto his back—the cold steel of the mortician’s table sending a shiver through his buttocks; the black and white numbers above him wiping into each other like circle ghosts on a clock.

      11…10…9…

      The Sculptor smiled, took his shaft in his hand, and waited.

      At “2” the screen went blank—the room, black—and a second later, just as it had materialized for Tommy Campbell, The Sculptor saw what he had been waiting for: a statue, dirty white against black, so that it appeared to be floating just inches above his face. However, whereas it was Michelangelo’s Bacchus that had emerged from the darkness for Tommy Campbell, before The Sculptor now was HIS Bacchus, HIS creation. And as the marble white effigy of the Rebels wide receiver and his satyr companion began to rotate, unlike the mortician table’s former occupant, The Sculptor felt no fear, no confusion at all.

      No, in the three months since he had taken the life of Tommy Campbell—especially in the last few weeks—The Sculptor had been in this position many, many times.

      The Sculptor began to stroke his penis—hard, but slow at first, as he had learned to do in order to time things perfectly. And just as Michelangelo’s Bacchus had done for Tommy Campbell, the image before The Sculptor suddenly morphed into a close-up of the statue’s head: the grapes, the leaves, the curly hair surrounding the wide receiver’s drunken face—a gleaming white face with blank, porcelain eyes and a half-open mouth. The camera then panned down over Campbell’s chest, over his bloated belly, and finally to his groin—to the place where The Sculptor had carefully removed the young man’s penis.

      And in a fortuitous stroke of timing—an almost divine coincidence that The Sculptor did not fail to notice—as the all-enveloping sound of Scarlatti’s Sonata in D Minor faded into his Sonata in E, the image on the screen above faded into something else as well. Now it was just the face of Tommy Campbell—strapped to the table—filmed with a second, stationary camera that The Sculptor had set off to the side of the mortician’s table.

      “Pop, you there? Did I fall on the porch? They got me in traction or something?”

      Once again there was the look of confusion on the star Rebel’s face as the video above him commenced, as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing there in the darkness. The Sculptor instinctively focused his attention on Campbell’s neck—had learned over the past month to watch his jugular vein, to time the strokes of his penis with the beating of the young man’s heart. He kept his rhythm steady, mimicking Campbell’s pulse while the wide receiver watched the image of Michelangelo’s Bacchus rotate and morph above him.

      “That’s it,” The Sculptor heard himself say off camera. “Shake off your slumber, O son of Jupiter.”

      The Sculptor literally skipped a breath when he saw Tommy Campbell attempt to turn his head—actually felt his stomach spasm with delight when he saw the young man’s heart begin to beat faster in his neck.

      “Who are you? What am I doing here?”

      The Sculptor’s breathing quickened as he watched Campbell begin to panic, watched him struggle against the straps. The Sculptor knew that the image above the muscle-bound footballer was moving again, panning down over Bacchus’s chest, over his belly, to his hairless groin—to the place where his penis should have been.

      “What the hell is going on?”

      The Sculptor increased the speed, the intensity of his stroke—did not pause at the point in the video when the image above Campbell changed, when the young man finally saw himself, the clusters of grapes and vine leaves surrounding his face.

      “What the fuck is—”

      And as Tommy Campbell began to tremble violently on the screen above him, the heavy pounding of The Sculptor’s hand finally joined him with his Bacchus’s heart.

      “This can’t be happening. I must be dreaming!”

      “No, my Bacchus. You are finally awake.”

      And thus, as he had done so many times before, at the precise moment of his Bacchus’s release, The Sculptor once again released himself into the darkness of their divine communion.