Electra's dictionary; Chapter 25 legend as dictionary

We wake up late. And waking, there is this feeling of a cloud in my head.... which feels so heavy. I cannot move from where I sleep. Slowly, I realize I am caught in Bran's limbs and fingers.

We have nothing planned for the day. Tomorrow we meet again with Jean Paul and others from the office.

There is a vague disturbance I cannot place....

I think about how it felt to kiss him under the Parisian sky. Forgetting we are in public. That other language people speak in, where the real truth is spoken without words and sometimes through fetishes. Those secrets that come out in the bedroom by someone who has stumbled upon a legend. It feels, with him, there are no taboos. That is the mind fuck with him. It is what I am addicted to about him.

I think about last night. There is something about being with him. Being under his influence. It brings out something. Secret doorways.... with long-lost buried keys. Keys that are legends. But what is the point of keys and legends if the master set has been usurped by another master? He never asked permission.

That feeling of losing one's self. I fall through his eyes into his soul. With all the trappings of baggage and bondage. His and mine. It feels as if something that I had long thought to be true about myself has been proven false.

As I lie awake, I don't move. There is a part of me that wants to pull away. Hide. But I am caught in him, tangled in his arms and fingers. Seaweed arms that wrap like tentacles around my mind. I am not used to this. I am not used to closeness. It scares me. Usually.

I know that I am in love with him, but I cannot say the words. Not out loud. Not to him. Because to say them to him, it would seem there was an ulterior motive. But it is not the words; whether said or not, or thought or not, or admitted or not.... it is something else which disturbs me. I am confused why I let him in. Because I should know better. As we only have short intervals together-- only I think this is why .... it seems safe because I can see the exit clearly. But this is a delusion. And I am deluded. Because I don't think I let him. I didn't. But every time we are together again he passes more cleanly through my walls. And each time it takes him less time to accomplish this. And, really, there is no need to run away, when running away is what we will inevitably do. We will run back to our real lives.

So, really, this is the dream.

I know next week I will be back in Detroit and all of this will be over. Why does that life seem like a lonely, sad, dream that I finally got to wake up from? My relationship with Bran is like constellations you see in the sky that seem to move away, or planets and moons that move in orbits. We come close and then we part. I wonder how long it is possible to keep doing this. Because each time we become closer. And each time it becomes harder to say good-bye. To let go. The loss each time we part. And each time, I am slammed by something like a tidal wave. Left emotionally beached. Emotionally stranded.

He says in a husky whisper,

“I know you're awake. What are you thinking about?”

I go to move but I am still caught in his fingers. I say,

“that this is the dream.”

He sighs and coaxes with his fingers, he strokes my hair to keep me from moving. Like I am a pet. And then it makes me feel too sleepy to move.

“Beth....” And for awhile there is silence, but I know that he is thinking of what to say. I feel his mouth kiss my head. He says, “I know that what we do is deceptive to the people in our lives.... but... I realized something about life when we weren't talking.... we do choose what we have.... and I realized I can't stand the idea of you not being in my life.... life returns to being flat and tasteless.... when there is no you.... but I can't leave my family and I know you know that and I know you can't leave your life either. At least not now.”

“No, I would never ask you to leave your family....” I tell him and sigh too because this is an exhausted subject. But after awhile I find another one to change it.

“I see now that you obviously had all of this planned,” and turn to look up at him, “all this with Jean Paul, I mean.”

His smile is wolfish and reminds me of last night, how we made love. How we fucked. And feel it burn everywhere through me.

He smiles,

“your skin is transparent, I can see you blush everywhere.... Open your legs.”

He moves over me, his hands on my knees, opening me more as he sinks down and into me and pulls me with him into his rhythm.

****

Later we don't feel like going anywhere. We stay in while it rains outside. He has brought his guitar with him and he plays for awhile. I like to listen and watch him when he plays. He has a nice voice when he sings. It is an acoustic guitar with a warm and deep, hollow sound. And then when he says that he is hungry, I go into the kitchen and find things to make from things we picked up at the shops. I make one of my own inventions, spinach “pesto” with feta cheese and pasta. I put things out on the glass dining room table and set places, fold napkins. But when he comes over, he wants me to sit on his lap instead. What is this need between us to have to always be wrapped around each other, always touching? Like a compulsion. And so we eat this way, sharing food.

He says putting food in my mouth,

“you need to open a bank account.”

“You know we have one.”

He says,

“no. Your own.”

“Bran, Dean will think this is strange. It will make him suspicious.”

“Beth-- he needed money and you saved his ass, didn't you? So....” and shrugs in that way he has, “tell your husband it is a business account. There's a European/American bank I use. We can open an account tomorrow. After we see Jean Paul...”

“Why does this matter so much to you?” I ask.

“Because I think you need someone to teach you about money,” he tells me very seriously.

I don't answer. It is ridiculous. I don't care if he is right ….because it is possession. And it is control. And loss of control. And it is loss of control from the ones in control.... it is in love.

Electra's dictionary; Chapter 24; maybe he's found the legend [erotic content]

Maybe he's caught in the legend,

    maybe he's caught in the mood,

       maybe these maps and legends

           have been misunderstood

                              ---R.E.M. Maps and Legends

Waking up in a strange place, in a strange bed, I am disoriented. I recognize the shape of the wooden chest of drawers facing the bed under an oval mirror, see the sheers that blow from the window. They float on the breeze like gossamer. I am calmed by the rhythm of Bran's breathing. As I listen, I lay and stare up at the ceiling that is a blur to me without my glasses

European time has messed up my clock. I am awake extra early yet I feel fully rested. I reach for my glasses and lay there thinking as I watch the dawn spill into the room. I feel so strangely free; there is no tension in my body. Bran sleeps with his arm beneath my neck, turned to me in sleep. His scent fills my sensibilities; it is immediate how much I want him.

I watch as he is lit by the morning light, watch the shadows recede. There is gray that is streaked through his dark waves, but it suits him; it adds to the poet about him. I run my fingers through it lightly, feel the thickness of his hair in my fingers. We have slept naked and as he moves in sleep, I feel his sex pressed hard against my navel. It makes me ache for it. I climb over him and kiss his sleeping face. When I reach his lips, he kisses me back and asks,

“what time is it?”

“Almost six,” I tell him.

“Christ, why are you up so early?” he reaches for my glasses and removes them, putting them on the table beside him.

“Some of you are already awake,” I tell him moving down the length of his body. 

It is not hard to convince him that it is time to get up. And yet, it is hours before we get out of bed.

***

The person Bran takes me to see, Jean Paul, is in a building in a busy section of Paris. It is confusion when we get there yet, somehow between my French and Bran's we manage to find the office where he works.

“Have you never been here before?” I ask Bran as we walk up and down corridors in search.

“We usually meet somewhere or he is coming to see me,” he shrugs.

“So, maybe I should have asked this before, but, who is he? What does he do and why am I seeing him today?” I ask.

He smiles at me and it is one of those incomprehensible smiles. The kind where I don't know if there is some kind of joke he is thinking or something else. I realize it is something else when he says,

“I have been showing him your work. What you gave me last time from the memory stick. I have been cleaning up the images and reworking them, by the way.”

There is this pause and then, slow on the take I say,

“you mean you are selling my images to him?” Or even more obtuse.... “your version of my images.”

“Something like that.”

When we get to his office I find that Jean Paul is contradictory, very polite and very flattering with the Parisian tendency to be a dangerous flirt. Dark and handsome, he is impeccably neat in his navy blue business suit that is obviously tailor fit. He is one of those who likes to touch. He takes my hand and then he pulls out a chair for me. There is a feeling that I don't want to insult him by displeasing him in any way, so I sit immediately as I see he is expecting me to. His English is beautiful and everything he says sounds French. What I find remarkable about him is that he is younger than he behaves, I would guess his age to be somewhere around late thirties to early forties, but his deportment is more old world, more similar to someone from some bygone generation.

“I have known Bran a long time,” he tells me when we are seated. But Jean Paul does not sit. He is standing by the window looking out. He moves around a lot. He goes from the window to his desk and then in front of his desk to stand in front of me, leaning on the desk behind him. He looks from me to Bran and back again. He reminds me of a curious mole. You can see him making observations and watch it spread across his face. It is not hard to interpret what he is thinking.

“I really like your style,” he tells me with an air of affectation. No, he is definitely not homosexual, and I could tell this immediately by how he looks at me, but his mannerisms are very flamboyant. “It is almost too bad I did not meet you sooner. Last year we had need of someone that has your kind of eye for things. It is too bad. But now we can do business. Bran tells me you are American, yes? I appreciate you coming here all this way. I was just in touch with Bran last week about you. Have you told her what we are prepared to pay?”

When I look at Bran he looks disconcerted and shrugs at me with a look of chagrin, which, I am sure was always useful to him as a boy.

“No,” I say looking back at Jean Paul, “he's told me nothing. I guess he wanted this to be a surprise,” and now I glance back up at Bran.

It is advertisement, of course. I don't mind, maybe, because it is another country. Trying to understand figures has always been my weak point. I don't grasp concepts that are abstract in this nature. I know it must be an impressive offer, only I don't find I really care. Jean Paul is nice and that is sufficient to me since I wasn't really thinking about anything more than Dean and I making the rent. Whatever else is just bonus at this point. So I thank him.

Bran says,

“Beth and I just started working together recently....”

Again I glance at Bran and as I do this, I notice that Jean Paul has not missed this either. And so when I look at Jean Paul now, he smiles at me as if he just got caught reading my diary but is not even slightly sorry. This is when he says,

“you know she is beautiful, Bran,” and looks right at him.

But Bran plays it innocently. He pretends to ignore the insinuation as if he missed it. And then Jean Paul says,

“oh look, it is lunch time. Let me take you out to celebrate....”

It is hours later and we are still at the cafe and with every bottle of wine that Jean Paul opens, his hands get more familiar with me under the table.

I say to Bran,

“I think we should go,” I keep my voice down.

And then we are saying our good-byes and I am pulling Bran out the door. It is hours before we recover from the bottles of wine we consumed. We sight-see for a bit and walk along the Seine, somehow find our way to the Eiffel Tower ....that we just look at in a drunken haze. We sit on the grass even though I am wearing a long black skirt; we are both still dressed for the business meeting; Bran in his newly pressed black suit.

“Did we really just drink three bottles of wine?” I ask him.

He doesn't answer for awhile. He stares at the Eiffel Tower instead. Then he says,

“yeah.... I think so....”

“So that means that we each had a bottle apiece,” I suggest now.

After a long pause he says,

“no.... Not really.... You drink slower.”

Later we have coffee and find our way to the art section of Paris. We act like tourists on holiday. He wants to buy me things. Normally he is very cautious about money. Even though he goes flying around the world for his work, I know that he is not wealthy; his travel comes out of his work expenses and he has a family to support. But now, he buys me flowers when we pass a stand, and small things that I admire.... a pair of handmade silver earrings and a mother of pearl ring.

I say,

“how am I going to explain this to Dean?”

But he kisses my head and says,

“he won't even notice and if he does, just say it was a gift from Jean Paul....” and then he says, “I wish we had more days here so we could drive somewhere..... I want to be with you in Provence, Beth.... I will you take you there next time....” 

He kisses me openly, in public, not caring who sees. And I don't know if it is the danger or the fact that we are in Paris, but it feels still so much like a dream and so much like we are half the age we are. But all I want is be naked with him.... even with Paris surrounding us with all its glamour and history.

It is a beautiful day and I am sorry when the sun starts to set.

I think that there are moments in time that are eternal. They are so tactile, so close that you could stop time to visit them because they seem to remain always in a loop of present; a loop of present presence.

Like the walk back to the flat on Rue de...--???? (cannot remember how to spell) as we walk. I watch the street lights, as we move past them, reflecting off of the slick streets from a passing rainstorm, feel of his hand that wraps around mine. And entwine. In this way I see it in cinematic perfection. Always to remain as it is captured in my lens. There is a rare, certain silence that is not really silence. Non-intrusive. It is a subtle conversation that goes between minds. Thoughts without compromise, they just flow. I have noticed it is this way with us. We don't need words.... experiencing, we are together.

Bran slows his pace as we near the building. It has only been about forty-eight hours that we have been here but it somehow feels like home.... and more like home than any place that I have known. Because of how it feels with him.  

I stare as he looks at me in the moonlight, it illuminates his face perfectly as if it is his element. It makes me want to draw his face.

Only now it is he who says,

“you are beautiful” and watches me with those moss colored eyes.

We go up, go inside and he shuts the door behind us. And then takes my hand, takes me with him to the bedroom. 

Electra's dictionary; Chapter 23; Dial Celf

We walk the Paris streets at night talking. The streets glisten with the slick dampness of a recent rainstorm. We find places along the way to stop at. We eat and drink. He holds my hand as we walk,

“I was reading from your other blog recently,” he tells me.

“Which one? You are funny. You may be the only one who ever reads them. Unless I write about sex.”

“The one about John.”

“Oh, that one. I haven't touched that one for awhile.”

“Does your husband know you still talk to him?” Bran asks and stops me. The l'arc de triomphe is looming like a construct around him. His tall frame seems to fill the arch when I look back up at him. He has turned intense suddenly. It seems like a strange place to be having a serious conversation. Here where there is history, like a backdrop to a film.

“We don't talk any more,” I tell him.

“No? Are you sure about that? When was the last time you spoke to him?”

“About six months before I met you. Why? Did it make you jealous?” I ask him. But I am really just teasing him. “I don't even remember what I wrote on there. You shouldn't be jealous. You see, I think I realized that it was my perceptions that made it so....at the time --epic. And that is what a writer or any artist tries to capture. The bridge between a transition of self. Don't you do that too with your art? Don't you find that?”

Bran does not seem convinced. He is giving me a doubtful look but I see that he is trying to work out a thought. It takes him awhile but then he says,

“no.... ”

I wait and just look up at him. He says,

“we should probably head back.... we have that meeting in the morning.”

“Do I have to go?”I ask.

“Why wouldn't you want to?”and he is now looking thoughtfully down into my eyes. He removes my glasses to look right in but the moss of his has turned Monet in my vision.

“I don't like meeting people. Especially if I have to sell myself,” I tell him. “I'd rather you just did it for me.”

But he shakes his head,

“he wants to meet you. He told me he likes your quirkiness.”

“Am I quirky?”

“He's interested,” I see in blurry vision that he is smiling, “this can be good for you.... for us.”

***

And in the middle of the night I wake because my dream mind has forgot what is real. But no, he is there.... his presence.... reassured. We sleep in some stranger's bed. We sleep closer than anyone I have ever slept next to.

And my mind goes places. With him. Between sleep, the trap doors unlatch.... streams of consciousness.

I never meant to be too much too take. Because that is what they would say. Too dark. Too moody. Too unpredictable, too much in character with my red hair.... too passionate. Too poetic.... too tragic, too mental.

I never meant to be this way. I was not trying to be. I just never figured out how not to be. But I guess, by now, I have given up trying to be something else. I guess, maybe, I am feral. I am strong and tough but not where it shows. It is in the internal world. My father said I looked like a cream-puff but was a sharp-edged blade of steel inside. Only he got it wrong. How could he know that father that he killed made the razor edge so sharp? Behind the edge is a universe. In there are so many fractures of celves.

Within the tomb

within the womb.....

The pace of his breathing lulls me to sleep even as I try to think, my mind lets go....

there is no access here. You peel off the layer like an article of clothing. You inspect the wear and tear or damage. You put it away either hung in the closet or folded in a drawer. You shut the drawer, shut the door. And as you go down the hallway, you can see light that comes from a window in another room. You follow it and go inside. You look out the window. Your mind is transported into day dream. You think of what you are running from. Hiding from. You sit on the floor and cry..... because only in here you can. Here in this soundproofed room. Wail out the monsters where otherwise there is no voice. Here you can fall apart.... and then as you dream out the window.... you see a garden and then you climb out the window.... you go to the garden and find a tree to climb.... and fall asleep on a branch.... and dream of love....

What is it about music....? it enters in and becomes a part of the cellular mind. But then there is the denouement for me. It captures, like a picture; or scent; a snapshot in time. The emotions, sealed within the walls of sound in this metaphorical jar. All of it is there. My whole life at the time, all contained in the timing of notes and sounds. Which is why I cannot listen to old songs or songs from my past. Those jars are meant to be left sealed off, like a stairway to heaven, and filed in the archives like a girlfriend in a coma..... those old songs were just my rough drafts.... I had to go around the bend. But I am further evolved this way. Still perfecting the stone and now

....as I try to figure out how to go from Garbo in Anna Karenina to Hepburn in the African Queen ….and then.... finally.... to truly just me.... I wonder if it is only me or is it always such a struggle to figure out the purpose and how to be and accept the tragic riddle we call life.

In Freud's descriptions of the emotional map of the mind, he was known to site how the early environments engrave the person for life. The absence where the illusion of security was never suggested is not possible to mourn. This void is entrenched into the muscle memory of the mind. It is not possible to recover a loss for something you never had. It is best to acknowledge this. Because there are other methods better to counter balance this void. But there is a negative side which is.... that often those you encounter will find that you are too much to handle.

Too intense. Too much. But maybe it is because we have gone over the edge and lived to tell. It scares the rest away. But I don't really blame them. And this is why I really just like to be alone, less prisoners to carry back.

But I see it is different to Bran. He does not seem to fear my darkness.

But he is an artist too and I think this may be why.

I think it is a common mistake to believe that the artist is creating. The artist is a medium. The artist channels energy. Like a lion tamer, an artist constructs the random impressions into composition, but the composition was always there. The failure of the artist is that the artist's ego tries to get in the way of what the muse is revealing. The artist's role is to be a tuning fork. Artists should be like archaeologists uncovering a buried treasure. Of course, this is just my belief and maybe I am speaking in satire partially. But no. I am not really. I do really believe this.

He says in half sleep,

“Beth, go back to sleep,” as though he senses me. He runs his fingers through my hair. And I am tangled and released.