Worm-mother Portrait Horror Story

At first glance, I had one portrait that seemed to be the final one of me, yet it hardly resembled "me," painted by Jules Araminta, a soft- s He called the piece "Wormmother."
Gruesome thing.
I'd modeled before. I sat for early photography assignments, life drawing lessons, and a spontaneous session with a friend studying realism. And no one artist captured the rich hue, almost black redness of my curls as Jules did. Not that it mattered. The portrait caught her, not me, the real me.
He told me to raise my chin to the ceiling, and my neck got tight – with strain evident. Time seemed to lapse as I struggled through the pose – left knee grumpy on frayed carpeting, arms outstretched and hanging at my sides. He had a phone. I could've taken a picture. He told me it would corrupt the clean spirit of whatever was captured.
When I could see, it felt as if something pointed had gotten stuck at the back of my throat. A portrait, yes. But of who? Not me. Not exactly.
"What's that... around her?" I questioned; my mouth was dry and throat heavy, having been so still.
Jules didn't look up. With a light brush, he dipped it in a pot of iridescence on green and said, "That's not her." That's you."
My spine prickled.
"That," he said quietly, "is a parasite." "A kind of threadworm. Symbolic, of course."
I laughed. Weakly. "Who would want to show me with a parasite?"
Jules leaned back. What he had painted – me, but not me – was bathed in shimmering, glistening larvae. It invaded the folds of the skin and opened up along her arms as if forming a grotesque collar. Her—my eyes were glassy, meaning she saw beyond the present and future. Something too late.
"It's not literal," he said. "It's what's inside."
"You're joking," I muttered. "Is this how you make a statement, or is something missing?"
He took another brush and, with it, dabbed minuscule drops of crimson where skin joined worm. It was horrifyingly elegant.
"Disease," he whispered. "Rot."
I insisted, shuffling back slightly, "There's no illness in me".
"You didn't," Jules murmured.
Between us, there lurked an unpleasant silence.
I threw a quiet, brutal laugh. "You're being dramatic. Anything I said was just meant to be flippant. What I meant was the cursed when I said that I felt cursed. That was... sarcasm."
"You spoke the wish clearly." Jules lowered his brush and made a commanding pose.<< 'I would rather have worms crawling on me rather than being stuck here one more minute listening to Amelia talking about her dream life and the need for a fiancé,' you said, and I quote, Jules repeated.
I blinked. "That's not... That was not intended to be frustration. It was meant to be humor.
"But you said it. You invited the worm. It found a home."
My throat went dry. "You're messing with me."
Jules turned the painting around so that I could see it well. Nestled in semi-darkness, it caught and retained the weakest glow. The victim of this creature was a host and captive. Skin merging with glistening nests. I felt it, then. A tickle under my ribs. A sensation akin to a rogue's pulse.
"Make it stop," I whispered.
He didn't answer.
Instead, he proceeded towards the side table and picked up a piece of beeswax, kneading it softly and making it a heart.
"You can't argue that this is the way of things," Jules told me. "You sit. You offer. I interpret. If you lie, this painting will remind me of all its days.
I stumbled backward, hands trembling. "I just wanted a portrait."
"No," he said. "You wanted attention. You used the words that flowed from your mouth to get attention. From me. From Amelia. From anyone who would listen."
"That's not fair."
Jules stepped closer. When he approached closer, the combined smell of rosemary and turpentine filled his breath. "You called us freaks. Seers. Parasitic painters. That we feed on tragedy. That we cause it."
I didn't think that you would be a member of that group.
But you always knew I was not normal. That is why it was so intriguing."
My lips quivered. "I didn't believe that it was not genuine."
His thumb was smudged with paint, and he was scratching my chin. Falseness made you feel secure – the cruelty you called forth was something you could ignore that your cruelty was performance. But meanings aren't for keeping according to your terms.
When the crawling worsened, it became something akin to a blazing ache. Itching under my shirt exposed an itch on my skin; the feeling transformed into a kind of soft material yielding — like a wet cloth.
"Please," I gasped. "Can't you reverse it?"
Jules sighed. "You spoke the wish. You fed the seed. It grew."
"But I did not understand what I was paying for."
"That's always the excuse." He continued to work, changing to black paint for the subsequent layer. The boundaries of my feet were covered with dark, sweeping strokes. It looked like soil. Or shadow.
"I meant none of it," I whispered as my legs gave away.
"But you said it anyway."
I looked down. A pale worm appeared, slowly and glistening out from under the hem of my blouse.
Jules glanced, met my eyes briefly, and returned to his canvas. "Being seen may entail a form of mercy," he answered. Even if it's not the one you sought to portray.
I couldn't speak. I couldn't move.
He rinsed his brush and then dipped it straight into gold—final accents. A circle of writhing larvae encircled my forehead. A teardrop below my eye. Regret, perhaps. Or recognition.
When he was finished, he left. "Finished."
My eyes jumped between the portrait and my face. The lines blurred. The floor felt distant.
"What happens now?" I managed.
Jules smiled. Not cruelly. Not kindly. "You searched for it," he said. You'll always draw attention now.