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As she spun to Glass Animals, Eliza's glowing poi balls surrounded her body with halo-like rings of ever-changing color. She watched herself in the large mirror hung on the brick wall of her loft.

"Now as the music changes you can extend your arms to make the balls rotate slower. Or bring them in to make them spin faster," she said to her friend Cari, who sat on her bed.

"I've tried practicing at home," Cari said. "I can't even get the basic motions down."

"You'll get it. Just work on making your left hand follow your right. It helps if you watch yourself in a mirror."

Eliza's body seized. She screamed and fell to the ground, unable to control her violent seizure.

"Oh my God!" Cari yelled. "I'm calling 911 just hold on, Eliza."

"No!" Eliza yelled. "Paintbrush. Paper."

"What?"

"Bring a paintbrush and paper!" Eliza yelled.

Cari did as she told her.

Eliza grabbed the brush and painted. Her seizure lessened.

"Uh you don't have any paint," Cari said.

"It makes it stop ok!" Eliza said. "Help me to my desk please. Hurry before they start again. Pull that easel closer."

She grabbed two brushes in each hand holding one between her thumbs and index fingers and the other between her middle and ring fingers. She painted fervently using colors in glass jars at her desk: a display as stunning as her poi dance. As she recreated her vision on canvas her body relaxed. She wiped drool from her chin and focused on her work.

"Does this happen... often? Maybe you should see a doctor."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"I have. They say nothing is wrong with me. Brain scans detect nothing abnormal. My therapist says I have repressed memories that surface and cause this reaction."

"I don't know how you paint like that. You're like super ambidextrous or something."

"I had to learn to paint quickly. To make the seizures stop."

"Well it's the fiercest thing I've ever seen. Next to your dancing."

"Thanks." She cleaned her brushes, chose different colors and continued to paint.

"Ok. If this is from your memory, who are these people?" Cari asked. "That man is in these other paintings you've done. He's real hot. Earned those muscles in the gym I'm sure: no pain no gain. Mmhm."

Eliza shook her head.

In Eliza's painting a woman with purple skin held a naked man's body down with one hand, her long black finger nails dug into his tan athletic chest. Discomfort or pleasure tightened his face, which, Eliza could not tell. The woman's huge green eyes smiled on him and her red lips pulled back in a grin. She painted black bat-like wings on the woman and Cari took in a breath.

"So you used to be a swinger who liked to role-play?" Cari asked.

Eliza laughed. "No. I have no idea who these people are," she lied. "They could be from a dream." She tried not to cry.

She had seen the demoness in her paintings before, in Gerald's past. Even though the man in bed looked nothing like Gerald she knew it was, and this was his future: to lay with the purple skinned demon as he had once before.

How could he give in to such a harlot again?

She wanted to scream as loud as she could and predict when she would see him again. She would prepare abrasive insults for the occasion, bludgeon his pride until it broke and toss him back on the streets where he belonged.

At the same time she wanted to trust him, she wanted to love him, and that fact brought tears to her eyes.

"Well your dreams are naughty," Cari said. "They make me jealous."

Eliza's muscles relaxed when she finished the image, but her anger did not and her sadness did not. She hurled the painting in her fireplace, lit it and watched it burn.

"Why did you do that? It's amazing! I knew you could paint obviously, but I didn't know you could paint like that."

"Thanks," Eliza said.

"Are you ok?"

"Just in pain. Don't worry about it."

"So you have a lot of sexified angel on demon dreams?" Cari asked.

"What do you mean?"

"They're in most of your paintings... you've framed some of this angel."

She pointed at one of Gerald standing on a building with his shirt off and wings fully extended.

"I guess you can say he's one of my fantasies," Eliza said, trying to make light of the subject.

"Yummy," Cari said. "Well I'll work on my poi motions at home. I need to get a bite. Want to come along?"

"No. I'm fine."

"Alright, see ya."

Eliza heard the elevator ding outside and then ding again as the doors closed. She was alone, finally.

She cried out, swiped at her paints and left a mess of color and broken glass on the floor. She tore Gerald's portraits off her walls one by one until her walls were bare. She took a chef's knife and dug it into canvas after canvas, tearing Gerald's apart until the knife fell from her trembling hands.