It was unofficially my first time. Officially too.
Now five in the morning. She fell asleep before me & I’m writing this very drunk & propped up in bed beside her. O Whatever Your Name Is! You sleep deeply like a beautiful cadaver & your ghostly white face sits there strangely on the pillow like a piece of the moon.
Still January 1, Later
Woke up feeling her breath on the back of my neck. The whole night played out in my head in Technicolor. I dragged myself along the sheets & turned & I looked at her dark eyebrows & big lips & long brown hair & thin body & small breasts & her beautiful angular face so still so chalky. I wanted to leave the bed without waking her & looked around the room for an object within reach of same approximate density of own body to replace myself w/ but could see only a coat rack which I discounted out of respect for my self-image. I lifted myself from the bed & quietly dressed. She is the first woman I have ever slept w/. She is a delicate flower I thought as I snuck out the door.
Odor of Paris in my mouth, mint with a chewy center. The sky a vast foreign country. The setting sun in my eyes but too happy to blink. Must have slept heavily all day- the sleep of a human body depleted of semen?
I have returned to my café taller from the previous evening’s conquest. Me conquered? Her conqueror? The moon has just risen. I feel lazy & hungover, the warm sensation of pleasant exhaustion slowly contracting. Edges of my old miserable self coming home.
I know I’ll never see her again.
January 2 (Night)
Saw her again. She came into the café & sat opposite me. My brain scrambled for excuses why I snuck out of her apartment but she didn’t appear to require one- she just began talking in her strange accent as if we’d arranged to meet. Behind her eyes I could tell she was happy to see me. That was surprising. Then I could tell she was unhappy that I was surprised at her happiness. Then she fell into awkward silence & she grinned w/ pain behind it & tried to stare at me but her eyes looked away.
She cleared her throat & in an uncertain voice told me that the way to make French people uncomfortable is to talk about money. When I still said nothing she said I don’t want to disturb you. Go on reading & she removed a sketchbook & pencil from her bag & started drawing my face & ordered a coffee & drank it slowly as she stared w/ strange big eyes, drawing me.
Was grateful to her for removing my virginity but it was gone now & I couldn’t see any further purpose to her. Like having dinner with doctor after successful operation. What’s the point?
– I can’t concentrate with you staring at my head like it’s a sculpture.
That made her giggle.
– Do you want to go for a walk? she asked.
Head whispered no. Mouth said yes.
On way out she told me her name was Astrid & I told her mine & I wondered if I should’ve given a fake name but it was too late for that now.
Luxembourg Gardens. Cold & windy & naked trees, frightening against the white sky. She kicked piles of leaves so they flew around us in the wind, an act of childlike joy she made seem violent. She asked me how tall I was. I shrugged this off w/ a sneer- every now & again someone asks me this asinine question & is flabbergasted that I don’t know. Why should I know? What for? Knowledge of your own height serves no useful purpose in our society other than to be able to answer that question.
I asked
Then in an excited voice she started boring me with lengthy historical discourses HONESTLY what do I care if Louis XVI cut himself shaving the morning before he was guillotined? DO I REALLY WANT TO KNOW that an eyewitness at the stake where Joan of Arc was burned heard her speaking to God through the flames saying You can be pleased! I didn’t renounce you! & God saying back Stupid woman! What do I care what these people think? In the end while I like reading about history, something inside me rebels at being told it as if I were a slow-witted schoolboy who can’t be trusted to open a book.
As if sensing my boredom she suddenly went silent & her eyes fell to the ground & I thought there’s something about her that’s way too adhesive. Occurred to me if I didn’t get away that very second I’d be prying her off later with a bottle of mentholated spirits & a naked flame but she invited herself back to my place & I accepted.
She came in & stood in the center of the room in a way that made me think of cows & horses who sleep standing up. We made love in the bedroom in the dark, only sometimes the moonlight hit her face & I’d see her eyes were not just closed but squeezed tight.
Afterwards I watched her delight in tearing the plastic off a fresh packet of cigarettes as if picking daisies. She seemed to be relaxed now & as she smoked she talked passionately about everything her eyes fell on: ceilings & windows & curtains & faded wallpaper as if she’d been contemplating these objects for centuries & I was impressed by her knowledge & insights & asked if her intensity was European in character.
– No, it’s just me she said smiling.
Then she asked me if I loved her. I have waited a long time to say it honestly to Caroline, so I said no. I wanted to say more, to hurt her so she’d never come back, so I said Maybe you should leave now before your angular face cuts something.
She exploded, tearing me apart, critiquing everything about me. The subtext was clearly You don’t love me, tho in my defense should a person even need a defense for not loving someone, I had only known her two days.
She stormed out & I wondered what she wanted with my hollow life. Did she want to fill it & by filling it empty herself?
A Few Nights Later
This is how it works: She turns up uninvited & stands in front of me like those dozing cows & sometimes we make dinner & sometimes we eat it & sometimes we make love & sometimes she cries during it & I really hate that.
Often she takes my arm even as we walk around the apartment and as she speaks I keep losing track. Her English is fluent but often I have no idea what she means as if she’s expressing an abridgment of her own thoughts. Sometimes she tells stories laughing & while she does have a genuinely sweet laugh I can never work out for the life of me what’s so funny. She laughs at what I say too but at such odd moments, for all I know she might well be laughing at the word “the.” Her laugh is so enormous and sustaining I’m afraid I’ll be sucked into her mouth & wind up on the wrong side of the universe.
amp; she believes in God! I never imagined I would be with someone who
I think her love for me has nothing to do with me except proximity- wrong place, wrong time. She loves me as a starving man loves whatever slop you put in front of him- not a compliment to the cooking but a testament to his hunger. I’m the slop in this analogy.