“That’s not my symbol for you. That’s [hers].”
“Worked well enough, don’t you think?”
“Too well. I’d rather not stomp over her garden. Not when you have your own imagery for me. Of which, I saw not one leaf of.”
“Then how did you know it was me?”
“…”
“Are you sure that was me?”
“Quite.”
“But I wore [her symbol], not yours.”
“A-ha! You admit you intentionally used her symbols! Why are you using me to bait her?”
“My dear. You are missing the point. How did you know it was me? Would you have known if I wore no symbols?”
“… I knew… I knew because you announced yourself in the way the oil embraced my hand. I knew because the scent grew heavy as if it was incense. I knew because what should have been a mere mundane act felt out of place on my table and I should have been in an abandoned grove somewhere in the foothills, with overgrown grape vines strangling forgotten orange trees. With rotten fruits seeping into the eager ground and bees flitting overhead in the unusual night heat. There should have been only the light of torches to supervise my work, and the [thing] I was oiling should have come to life and envenomed me as a blessing for the Not Offering I was giving. I knew because I was too sane for the place I was suddenly in, and I felt as if I was going to be torn to pieces at any moment for the heresy of aping Pentheus. I knew because that feeling… of being the blasphemy in the holies, of being the keeper of sanity among the insane, of viewing the decay and seeing the life that springs from it… I knew because that feeling, is also… of you. [All else] was how I was able to translate what could not be described into words that others that also knew would be able to understand. And I’m fucking pissed off about it.”
“Why?”
“I will always associate lilacs with you, now. And I do not know how they smell. I only know the false and the contrived. And here too, is you.”
“And of [the thing you was oiling]? What has become of it?”
“Nothing. What happened was not to [the thing], not to the oil, not to my hands. It was all in my head, you monster. You drowned me in a moment of hallucination.”
“That you remained clear and rational in the midst of.”
“And here too, is you.”
“You’d make a wonderful maenad, you know.”
“Would not. I’m more masochist than sadist.”
“For now.”
The act of turning around in my chair in reflex to give him a most scathing stink-eye ended the moment and brought me back to the table. I swear I heard him laughing. And smelled something that reminded me of lilacs, yet tormented me for not knowing if it is or is not.
Ass.