Rohan Quine, “The Beasts of Electra Drive”, 42 Jaymi creates Shigem’s appearance
https://www.ispeech.org/text.to.speech
Up in his study in the house on Electra Drive, Jaymi closes his eyes and thinks back to that unique half-minute when he let his gaze wander up and down the “Guy Score: Hunk or Gross?” Newsfeed, where new posts were popping up every few seconds, every one of them receiving scores and comments from multiple sources.
Then he re-opens his eyes, consults his most recent notes for The Imagination Thief and checks his sketch for Shigem’s visuals. Its first description of Shigem’s physical appearance reads: “The first thing I registered then was a golden bracelet with the name ‘Shigem’ engraved on it in slick squirly black letters […]. The only thing I got as far as picking up from him was that he was Malaysian. He had long black hair with platinum-blond highlights in, warm bright eyes, and beautiful high-fashion facial features that were nevertheless prominently acne-cratered all over, especially on a pair of perfect high cheekbones. Here in the club he’s dressed with stylish flamboyance and a certain flash and trash, like a whore on Jalan Raja on a hot Kuala Lumpur night in Fashion Week. A thin silver earring hangs from each ear, and the word ‘Virginity’ is tattooed on the honey-coloured skin of his left shoulder in the same script as the name on the bracelet. Inhabiting the femininity of his slim and delicate body with a simple, quiet and sensual pleasure, he reminds me of sunlight and moves with divinity. […] faster than quicksilver, light as air and never once intrusive or demanding, he yet reaches somehow into every person’s presence, one to one, and draws them out and upward like a chime through the strobe-lights. Riding the crowd, he electrifies the dance-floor with effortless charisma, in tune with the dirty hard electro playing, as he lights up the faces and the spaces in between them with the bright sexy flicker of his presence. He curls his fingers round in the air as he speaks, and I see that malice cannot touch him here: no matter what may happen in the outside world, here in club-land he’s unbeatable. If all the land were set up as a chic nightclub, he’d be absolute monarch.”
There is then one further little artwork-oriented description of him, a bit later on: “You felt his arm go round your waist, and his long black hair with its blond highlights spilling past your shoulder. His presence was permeated by gayness, somatically engrained—a luscious quality that spread, sleek and fluid as a dancer, through every move and every word of his, as blood pervades a body.”
Well then, that’s a clear enough sketch to work from. Jaymi fires up his visual engine, verifies there are no available security updates he should download, and gets cracking.
[…]
This vision never needs to speak, but just to do. He’s cool and untouchable, though commanding that we touch him, ensconced in his social world, privileged and welcome there, where numerous unseen players wish him to remain, wish for his talent to continue having free rein, and wish for Shigem himself. (Does he know this? He must know it, right?)
In the next image he’s a jewelled prince, delicate and languid in profile, his slim neck hung with silver necklaces set with gems of many colours—purple and red and yellow and on fire—while his gaze rests easy on the distance out of frame. Cross-legged on the floor, he rests a hand upon a handsome stuffed bichon frisé sitting at his side. From his right ear a drop-earring of ruby hangs like a drop of blood, while scattered feather boas fill the room on every side. Lit through stained-glass, he’s exquisite and impeccable, yet surely dissolute by implication, forever frozen here inside one instant in his flamboyant apartment.
Following that profile viewpoint, Jaymi directs the software to swing around inside the image, to show a full-face view into Shigem’s gaze. From this new vantage-point, and still in the context of Shigem’s glamour and social power, we catch our first glimpse of the vestiges of his adolescent awkwardness, gawky and painful and felt by him as somehow camelline—now buried deep within his lineaments, underneath his polish and his made-up exquisiteness, and also a part of these.
[…]
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