I watch Jörn after we leave Gerald’s. While we walk together and in pace, it seems he is a million miles away or lifetimes..... he is silent all the way back to our building
I know he is disturbed and hardly looks at me. I would almost think he could not stand the sight of me if it were not for the way he suddenly grips my hand when I stumble and how he reaches to wrap me in his arms, within his long, wool coat when we wait to cross the street and watch the street light and the crowds.
I see his troubled creases between his pale brows reflected back from store windows.
There are moments when I physically hurt from some inexplicable pain within my heart. It makes my lungs hurt. Like a smothered scream
I don’t know what this is but he is right. About the emotions. It is too real to be able to ignore.... but it is madness
madness to think .... how our dreams link up
it is terrible too.... terrible because this is not like some movie or romantic novel. This is too real to dismiss
I realize the pain is .... coming from a life once experienced .... by someone— or someones
and for them this was a great tragedy. This makes me sad. So sad. So sad to know that such a great passion was .... snuffed out .... before it was ready to let go
the girl who could not leave her lover’s dwelling and held on to life, for once more to glimpse at him.... for the smeden who felt his love pass as he held her in his arms
I feel this when we are stopped in front of some store window. But we do not look at the objects in it; we hardly notice what we look at. I just see his image lit on the glass of the window. Despair—and I wonder at how troubled he looks there.
Back at Gerald’s when he spoke.... when he leaned into his arms as he sat there with his face in his hands.... I heard him weep; a stifled and muffled sound in his hands and constricted in his throat so as not to let us hear
He is mostly a rational man. While artistically creative as a musician, there is always a mathematical mind to a musician that holds firmly to structure and logic. But .... he is so deeply human. He hides this about himself but it is there always lurking in his music, in his love making....and in those vampire eyes
His vampire eyes.... those electric, undead pirate gems that sparkle like midnight frost
And still he grips my hand
and
even suddenly ....grips hold my skull stopping on a street corner and covers my mouth in a devouring kiss, mindless of the city rushing by.
And I forget too. I forget everything
When we return to our building he pulls me in the direction of his entrance and away from my penthouse side. He does not even look at the doorman. He doesn’t look at anyone just straight ahead. But when we go back to his place he says,
“I need to go for a run, min lilla duva,” and flings off his coat to quickly change
“Now?!?” I ask him as I stare at him, imploring him, feeling my emotions rise wildly
He kisses the top of my head like I am a child and mumbles something in his language but says to me,
“here, I’ll draw you a bath—and I will be back before the water is cooled, I promise, I just need to clear my head....”
He has his own mind, I will say about him, he decides and he is not one to relent and I watch him and follow him as he goes through to the en suit bathroom in his bedroom ....I listen as he starts the bath for me and sit on the edge of his bed
My mind is swimming in chaos
He puts on his running shoes and ties them sitting down on the armchair in his bedroom.... long arms and legs ....long fingers that tie decisively before he gets up to reach for a hoodie, zipping up and tying back his hair
I look up at him
“Jörn....?”
He looks at me
“I’ll be right back, I swear....” he stares into my eyes and forces a smile, “come—” he pulls me to the bathroom, to the bath, “I’ll be back before you even get out....” he starts to take my clothes off me, each layer he peels away before I ever have a say
“....but I need to talk, Jörn.... you can’t just go!” I say and my eyes sting as my throat catches
“I’ll be right back....”
......
Awhile must have passed and it is when I am aware of music playing that I realize the water has cooled
Awhile
staring into the still, clear water
I hear a piano playing.... and realize where I am. Realize this is a sound proofed apartment....
I get out of the water and reach for what is handy. It turns out to be his black kimono from his transvestite night with me. I pull it on over damp skin and it hangs long past my knees when it was much more short on him, the sleeves fall long past my hands.
I walk towards the music as I tie the robe around my waist and follow the music .... it makes my heart pound
there is something about him that .... goes to my head
it goes to my heart.... he disturbs me deeply.... he does not even have to be in front of me, it can be the scent of him or his voice.... his passion
He plays a piece I recognize—it was something he played before. It.... was the piece he had been working on.... he said.... it has that strange Transylvanian feel; a haunting
I hear him step on the bar with his foot as he plays.... the madness of the way he pounds the keys make the music bounce from the walls
when I see him sitting there, his hair has come loose from the tie and tosses madly as he plays .... it is beautiful—his music is so beautiful
still in his running clothes; except for his feet which are bare. I like his feet.... they are like his hands; works of art; like every angle of every bone; like every feature of his face; especially the irregular ones.... especially
so I go to him because
....his music is beautiful
He stops playing and looks at me.... so I go over to him
.... I move between the piano and go in between his long legs and he sits back and lets me, opening his arms as I face him sitting on the bench with him, I wrap my legs around his hips and look up into the shadows of his vampire eyes
“I wrote that .... for you....I recorded it— I recorded overdubs with the cello and piano and double bass....for you, min lilla duva,” he turns his head to the side to stare into my eyes. He holds one entire side of my face in his one hand; forehead to chin and digs long fingers into my hair, “did you enjoy your bath?”
I smile at him
He says,
“was the water still warm?” and smiles back at me
“It was—” but I don’t get to finish as he starts kissing me, pulling my legs tighter around his hips and separating the opening of the kimono, he runs his hands up my arms and stands up with me wrapped around him and still kissing me, pressing himself —there— to me; he presses himself to me and holds me snug to him; pressing into my nexus
He says breathless into my ear,
“I want you to hear it....” he takes me with him to where he has his music recorded; he does this with no effort with me in his arms and he says, “min lilla duva.... you’re so thin, I could crush you....” and breathes into my hair; he whispers, “hold onto my neck....” he puts his music on and as it begins he brings me back with him to the piano and sits to play with the music
It is like being in his very own symphony
to know that he plays every single instrument I hear
it is like crawling into his very core ....to be that close
to someone .... mind and soul ....and body.... and body
I think about something Gerald said, how people “reincarnate in clusters....”
I squeeze my eyes shut because I don’t want to think about that ....
his music is so beautiful—so intense, so deep and passionate; yet so fierce
He stops playing and lets the recording take over as he stands with me again but detangles me from his hips,
“dance with me....” he says into my ear
“I don’t really know how to waltz,” I say to him as he slides me down the length of his body. The kimono falls open. I land upon his feet lightly as he guides me down. It is the gray shadows in the Nordic blue of his eyes that dance and draw me into their glimmering den.
He takes my right hand and draws it up with his, but he is such a long way up; he puts his other hand on my waist and stares into me.
He possesses with his eyes
and this is how we begin to waltz to his private orchestra
he conducts all; me and the music, all layered in webs of notes, and I, like a prow, am cast balanced on his feet
....it is his music, the abandonment of his notes that weave their magic; how forlornly they are strung together and ....hold me; the devastating remorse
and it makes me think of the smeden ....with the undead eyes staring at the empty body of his love in his arms.... it makes me think of mourning.... his grief.... I realize his music.... this is about grief
and so now I realize ....
He needs her forgiveness; it is his soul that does
.... and I wonder is it because he feels he let her down in the other life that in this one he needs to make it right? So.... does he need to do this to free his soul?
And as we waltz to the abandonment of his notes with his eyes looking into me, we seem to spin in slow motion, as though spiraling through walls that melt out of time....as though finding something so long lost and I think of a boat and of the chill water.... of the man on the boat with undead tragic eyes that mirror the dark and deep blue sea,
It makes me remember his eyes that first time he looked at me, how they seemed to burn like a brand to scorch my soul
“What happened to you at your college, min lilla duva? The attacker,” he says this now in a kind of lulling coax while still dancing
but I shake my head,
“no, not tonight....”
“I want to know .... I would like you to tell me why nobody did anything about what happened....”
I just say,
“you know why.”
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