Convincing the Muse to Cooperate

Convincing the Muse to Cooperate 

“Don't trifle with my heart,” she begged.

I laughed.

“You're a muse!  It's your job to trifle with mine!”

“It doesn't feel that way,” she pouted.

“Well, that's the way it works.”

“Works how?”

“You stay impossible—or very improbable to reach.”

“And then?

“Then you drop crumbs of attention; just enough to evoke a work of art.”

“Why does it evoke art?”

“Because I'm an artist.”

“It doesn't happen with others,” she noted

“That's because they are not artists.”

“Do plumbers have muses?”

“If they do, it evokes nipples, bibs, and clean out drains; maybe the odd valve.

If you want to be a plumber's muse, knock yourself out.  They make more money but you'll hardly be immortalized by a check flow valve in threaded pipe.”

“Can't I be a muse to bankers?” 

“You want to be immortalized as a junk bond?”

“Doctors, lawyers, auto mechanics—don't they need muses?”

“No.  They are mechanics of the world.”

“And artists are?”

“Desperately afraid they won't be angels of the next.”

“Cut to the chase,” she insisted. “ Do muses get laid?”

“Sometimes.  Being muses, they get laid but seldom screwed.

It's a small fringe benefit,” I added.

“It's not like being an artist's model?

I don't have to take off my clothes?”

“Not unless you're curious as to what else you can inspire.”

“Something big?”

“Don't get personal!” I huffed.

She turned sarcastic.  “Well.  Pardon me, Mr.-I-Want-To-Use-My-Fantasies-of-You-To-Make-Art!”

“Ah!  You're beginning to catch on, dear!”

She frowned.  “How am I supposed to be a muse at the end of the day, when I have a cold, my feet hurt, and I collapse on the sofa in sweat pants, tacky fuzzy pink slippers, and an old tee shirt that jerk I dated five years ago gave me?”

“Now that's when a muse needs her artist!”

“Oh, yeah!  That's when I need somebody else barging in like I need a third tit!”

“When you're frumpy like that, a muse should look at what art she's inspired.”

“And why,” she tapped her foot impatiently, “ is that better than looking at a young, muscular Greek god coming in with bottles of bubbly and chocolate; rogering me silly, and leaving without saying a word?”

“It's not.  Artists are just more statistically probable.”

“More's the pity....”  she sighed.

“Look.  Do you want to be a muse or not?”

“Well, right this minute...”

“Oh the hell with it!  I'll make you a muse whether you like it or not!” 

“How dare you!  You're such a pest!  I won't pay you any attention at all!”

“Thank God, you're getting the hang of being a muse!”

“You won't get laid,” she scowled.

I smiled.  “So I won't get screwed.  That's the best part about a muse.” 

Joel Haas,  2011