Read The Fan-Shaped Destiny of William Seabrook for Free Online

estate had proven trying, she’d decided to take a break and come home for the science fiction convention. Of the details that
     she did choose to confide at this early stage, two stood forth, one being that the bequest included Seabrook memorabilia,
     notably an item that sounded like a notorious painting from the Seabrook story.
    Early in 1940, the novelist Marjorie Worthington, a woman who became one of Willie’s great loves, had painted an elaborate
     wall panel on wood, limning John Donne’s “Hymn to God the Father” and illustrating the chapters in Seabrook’s life, including
     the outré ones. Unsuspecting that the mural would ever be seen publicly, Marjorie let go of her typical inhibitions and included
     nudes, girls peeking out of cages, and a hanging figure in a red-leather mask. Could the naked woman in the mask have been
     the elusive “Justine”?
    Willie had rather cynically described the final segment, which featured his immortal soul absurdly rendered as a toy-sized
     white woolly lamb, scampering away toward a field of daisies. I supposed that I might once have reacted similarly. Remarkable
     enough to locate objects of my quest in this fashion. More bizarre was that, in the Seabrook saga I’d capsulated for her,
     my companion suspected that she could identify her ancestress as none other than a historical Justine!
    It seemed that I was reaching under the table to touch flesh and blood engendered by the one figure in the story whom I had
     taken to be fictional, or at least an elaborate composite. Around the time this child had been born, Kris Kristofferson had
     brought out a song whose refrain laughingly wafted through my mind: “… A WALKIN’ CONTRADICTION, PARTLY TRUTH AND PARTLY FICTION. ”
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    I did not let go of her knee. Soon wonder reawakened libido, and I reached higher to touch the twisted leather thongs. I pushed
     the band a bit from where it had cruelly bitten into her thigh. She flinched as I gently kneaded the line that appeared, a
     comfort that only increased the localized pain as the circulation returned. Leaning forward, she grasped my other forearm
     and pressed my hand inside her jacket between her naked breasts. I fingered the chain, marveling that it might well have been
     one acquired by Seabrook on his fabled trip into the old Arabian domain. I drew its links slowly across a nipple and felt
     it harden.
    She gasped slightly and spoke again in the near whisper. “I’m thinking that I’m not welcome, much, to use my friend’s room.”
     Beyond the obvious, I felt a crucial decision being made, slipping between us like the passing of a spirit. At that moment,
     I could have no clue as to the consequences.
    No problem, I lived alone, just the dog and me. We left the bar and descended some stairs off the lobby to a glass door that
     opened on San Antonio’s famous Riverwalk. We passed a couple of the young people from her group and she pointedly drew my
     arm around her, but they barely looked at us as we went by.
    I was reminded of a time, back in “the day,” when I had thrown my books at the principal and dropped out of high school. On
     my way out, defiantly lighting a cigarette, I had paused to cuss out some old antagonists. As they had comprehended the situation,
     their eyes sort of glazed over and they’d walked away. I had been no longer a part of their reality; I’d ceased to exist in
     their world. I remembered wishing that someone had told me that it could be that easy! While my parents had shortly pressed
     me into entering another school to finish up, the small bit of bravado had constituted a rite of passage. I wondered whether
     Justine might be feeling something of the same nature.
    We paused on the Riverwalk, regarded as highly romantic by tourists, though less so to locals. Until an evening such as this,
     one which seemed “the goal in sight again.” I could almost believe the proposition that we are able to choose among