I came back to consciousness slowly, with a splitting headache that threatened to turn my brain into scrambled eggs. My throat ached and my nostrils were raw, but at least I was lying down.

“Dan? Babe? I just had the worst dream . . .” I mumbled, trying to get up off the sofa. It wasn't until I was stopped three times that I realized that I wasn't on the sofa at Carmen's, nor was I free to go.

“What the hell?” I whispered, looking down. Across my chest, just under my boobs, and over each of my thighs, right above my knees, were what looked like cargo straps, the kind that you might use to make sure a load in the back of a truck didn't fall off or something. About an inch and half or so wide and nylon, they were bright orange, and despite my best efforts, I couldn't move them. I tried reaching with my hands, but I couldn't find anything to adjust or move. “Help! HELP!”

“Oh my dear, I held the book so tightly. I saw your picture, I heard you call my name . . .” a nightmarish voice said in the dim light of wherever the hell I was, and I paled.

“Vincent?”

“Glad to see you remember me, my love,” Vincent said, stepping into my field of view for the first time. “Like the bed I have prepared for you? I had to work hard to make it. It took all sorts of effort to prepare it for you.”

“Vincent . . . let me go,” I said, trying to be calm. “Let me go, and I won't tell anyone about this. Not even my family.”

Vincent giggled, his suit coat taken off and his tie dangling from around his neck, half removed. “Talk to me, baby. You never talk to me.”

Great. Fucking Genesis. I decided to roll with it in a language he might understand. “I'm here now, Vincent. Talk to me now, Vincent.”

“Why would you listen now, Domino?” Vincent asked, his voice grim and sad. I racked my mind, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about, until it hit me. Domino, Parts 1 & 2, was a pair of songs from their 1986 album, Invisible Touch. In Part one, the lyrics are plaintive, as the lead singer seems to sing about an unnamed woman—presumably, in Vincent's madness, Domino—and a one-night stand that changed his heart and his soul forever.

Part two, however, took on a much darker overtone, especially when filtered through Vincent's madness. Lots of lyrics about blood and some pretty apocalyptic stuff, but nothing more than standard Phil Collins's singing about social change.

“Vincent, it's me, Adriana. I'm not Domino,” I tried to reply, using my most soothing voice. “You taught me sculpture, remember?”

Vincent giggled, high and manic, and I saw him reach next to him. “Of course I do, baby. That was where you showed me your heart, and where I realized the truth. You were the one meant for me, not that stupid bitch that I called my wife.”

“She was with you for over twenty years, Vincent. How can you say she wasn't for you?”

He backed up and did a twirling, stuttering dance, laughing and singing the song “Cause Jesus He Knows Me.”

I wanted to scream, to let my mind descend into the panic and madness that was nibbling at the edges of my consciousness. I was at the mercy of a madman. Instead, I clamped down with everything I could think of. I thought of a trick Angela had taught me, back when I was having problems focusing on my art. “Find your itten,” she had told me, as we sat around the apartment. “Then you'll be fine.”

She told me that it meant ‘one point’, and it's used in a lot of different ways. Her grandmother used it as a way to say to find that one important thing in your life, the hypothetical thing that if you stripped away all the other things around your life, if you cut away all the bullshit, the thing that comes to you then.

Her words from two years ago came to me now, and I knew the answer immediately. “Daniel,” I mouthed, thinking of his strong face with his eyes that took me in with acceptance, humor, and unmatched passion. “Please, I need you.”

I kept up my silent prayer the entire time that Vincent had his back turned to me, closing my mouth and putting on an attentive face when he turned around. I had read the crime scene report from both Angela's and Vincent's wife's murders numerous times. Not only was he a cutter, but he was a rapist as well—no doubt two skills that he had developed in his time doing 'enhanced interrogations' in Central America.

“Oh we're going to have such fun,” he said when he came back. “You want me to show you some of the games I prepared?”

“I'd like to talk more first,” I said, trying to get his mind on his mouth and off my body. “Tell me about your art, Vincent. Please?”

“My art? My art is not something you really want to explore.” Vincent howled, like I'd just told the funniest joke in the world. “You think my art is that stuff that I showed you in class, made of clay and metal and wood? Oh, sweetie, you have no clue at all. But I tell you what, let me show you some of my art.”

He came over to the side of my bed and touched some sort of floor control, and my bed started to tilt until I was in a semi-reclining position. I could see a television on a cheap table, and with my new angle, I could see some more of the room. It looked like I was in a hotel room, but one that hadn't been updated since about the time I was born.

Vincent turned on the television, the screen lighting up and giving me more light to see with. I honestly wished I didn't, as the room looked like a dump other than my bed/table and the television. Vincent picked up a remote control and stepped back to my side. “Some of these pictures are a little old, so forgive the eighties hair and fashion, but I think it adds to the art, in my opinion.”

He had turned on a DVD player, I soon figured out, with a disc full of pictures in the tray. “Here's my first efforts, and while I was happy at the time, as I look back, I realize that I was so sloppy. My use of color and spirit just lacked cohesion.”

The picture came up, and I couldn't help myself—I screamed. The image in front of me showed a man, but I couldn't tell much more than that. His face had been disfigured, and it was horrifying to look at.

“I had the same reaction,” Vincent said conversationally, as if he were critiquing a bad piece of art. “Far too much emphasis on trying to be complex, to not let the art speak for itself. But I got better.”

“It wasn't until my time with the military was done and I had my chance to go to the hospital that I realized what was lacking wasn't my skill,” Vincent said, tapping his chin with the remote. “After all, if you gave Leonardo da Vinci a pile of Play-Doh, he wasn't going to be able to create great works of art with it. What was lacking was in my materials. I'd been bottom feeding, just using the scraps that were given to me to demonstrate or to work from so I could advance someone else's corporate shell game. But in the hospital, I was exposed to the idea that if you start with good quality supplies, you have a much better chance of creating good quality work. So, I invested a little bit of money, got some better tools, and upgraded my work materials. It took longer that way, but the results were worth it.”

I couldn't help it. It was either cry out or pass out from the horror. I screamed, and Vincent smiled. “And the best part is, my sweet, you're going to help me create my masterpiece.”