Like I said, I showed up uninvited and felt sort of uncomfortable and dumb for being there. I saw a lot of Jenifer’s ballet pictures. I knew she was in ballet but I just thought it was the typical girl “my mom made me take ballet when I was two” kind of thing. Apparently she was very very good at it. You have to have the right genetic stock and balance and natural intuitiveness to be great at ballet, which is a rare combination. I must admit I don’t have a lot of appreciation for the art, but I understand a little better now why it is a cultural mainstay. The body mutilation alone that the girls go through to attain the highest levels is crazy. It’s similar to the stamina and training of a martial arts master. The way she talked about ballet with me before made it seem like she just got tired of doing it and quit after 13 years, but today she told me how she actually made it to the point where she had to decide whether ballet was what she was going to do for the rest of her life. She said professional ballerinas often get their feet broken and reset so their feet walk ‘naturally’ on the points of their toes and that all of them have to do it in order to achieve the perfection of the dance. She reached the point where she would have had to do that and basically said no way.
I’ve never heard of anything so fucked up in my life. I mean I could cut off my ears and that might make me swim faster but you don’t see anybody doing that. She also said that they have old bitter former ballet ladies who are responsible for overseeing the “whorehouse”, giving the girls whatever they need to stay as thin and light as possible. They walk around and constantly berate them for being too fat then encourage and teach them how to binge and purge.
Now I know where she got those wonderful long legs of hers, I was smart enough not to say that out loud though. For some reason she’s insecure about them. Go figure. Eventually she warmed up to me being with her at her house and she showed me some pictures of her in Australia and all sorts of things from her childhood that I soaked up. Her enthusiasm was innocent and contagious, she felt relaxed and at home here, but I started feeling creepy after a while. Everything in the house was so purposeful and organized, totally unlike the Jenifer I am used to. She wasn’t out of place among the luxury, if I had the means I would shower her with it, it just threw me for a loop because everything I know about her is the antithesis of this. I guess I got the feeling that the Jenifer I knew was only a role she was playing for a while and I would never measure up to what she was used to and deserved.
Eventually I left but I was glad I went over to her house. I definitely know I should be more respectful of her privacy and I fear that I love her even more than ever because of these new mysteries.
Sometimes I’ll catch her looking at me out of the corner of my eye and when I turn to look she’ll give me a little rueful smile. I expect that she’ll turn away, embarrassed to be caught in the act, but instead she gazes harder with an intensity that’s unnerving. It’s like a tiger sizing up a tasty meal.
It’s very sexy but also kind of unnerving at the same time because it is in those moments I feel as if she controls my entire future and destiny. Then I feel like I have to grin or do something goofy to alleviate my perceived awkwardness. It makes me wonder though if I can really handle being with a mate that is my better, or at the very least, my equal in intelligence. People don’t really look at each other anymore, but we do.
I have no doubt that if we were to have a child, he or she would grow up to rock the world down to its tectonic plates. I feel as if our genetics would combine and mutate to the next level beyond anything normal coupling could ever produce. If that responsibility is ours, do I even have a choice or control over what happens? Who still believes in predetermined destiny? Maybe we should join a cult.
“…the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue”
I had the most amazing, strange and magical evening. Last night was like one of those bizarre artificially contrived Penthouse letters that never actually happen in real life. Maybe my serendipity lies in lustful accord with her universal harmony, for I notice when she moves the stars seem to sway in her wake.
Everything started with a dream I had the other night. I used to write down all my intense dreams during the middle of the night, scribbling furiously in the notebook I kept by my bed, deciphering the lettering later and trying to make sense of it all. I guess I thought the key to my waking mind might be given to me in clues deeply tucked away in my subconscious. After a while I just realized I have a lot of fucked-up vivid dreams that don’t make any sort of sense most of the time. The side affect of my experimental project is that I can remember my dreamscapes much more vividly and the retention period is extended by a few days. If I don’t write them down within a few days the inspiration runs out of gas and the thought is given back to dreamland for someone else to pick up on. I’ve heard of people being able to pick up radio waves with their braces or through metal plates in their head, so I wouldn’t be surprised to discover there are dream waves on an existential plane that we all universally tap into during our deepest sleep periods.
This dream I had the other night though would not have required any special abilities to remember, in fact it would be hard to forget now. I was walking with Jenifer hand-in-hand, without a care in the world, across the UNT campus, right where they have that big square courtyard that is used for absolutely nothing, in front of the RTVF building. It was nighttime, and we were both barefoot. I could feel the dew from the green grass soak between my toes as we left the concrete sidewalk behind us and stepped into the trees. The campus lights were shining down like multiple scattered full moons from their tall poles with their odd neon anti-rape glow, lighting up the trees and buildings, creating deep weird shadows in places that made the world feel abstract. She was wearing a thin blue summer dress that glided up and down her smooth legs as we walked. For some reason I was wearing a button-down collared shirt and khaki pants. Why I was dressed like a prep school boy from the “Outsiders” I have no idea. There were people around as if class might still be in regular sessions this late at night, and I think I was supposed to be escorting her someplace but she was pleasantly leading me by the hand instead. Leading me to some surprise with a seductive smirk on her face. Her long blonde hair practically is caressing her shoulders as we move and she keeps tossing it back only to feel it move forward with its light touch again and again. Every so often she would stop and kiss me deeply, making me very aroused, and then turn to continue leading me again before I had a chance to react and return my own advances. We finally get to some school building that I can’t identify in my mind, and even though I spot some people still going in and out, I know what we are going to do.