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.