For Those Who Have Not Known Beauty

PART ONE

            When you observe the visible man, what do you look for?

The invisible man. Those words that enter your ears,

Those gestures, those motions of the head, those garments,

Those visible actions and deeds, of every sort, are merely

Expressions for you; something expresses itself: A Soul.

There is an inner man concealed beneath the outer man,

And the second simply reveals the first.

~~Hippolyte Taine~~

Part One

Beauty:

She stretched every adjective, into a muted singularity, with a wave of her hand. She became, quite simply, the Nexus of everything daring, present, physical, and impure. Until I'd met Beauty, my limited understanding (sexist, at best) had been dictated by the Pornographic Arts, [as viewed in the various forms, portrayed in the media and culture.]

I can only regret to say, I'm not joking.

At the time, I wanted to transcend those who blatantly fed upon the bottom-feeders in this particular world, scrounging up "nasty-bits" and "eight-by-tens," as if the goddess herself were peering over the shoulders of old men, seated, in movie houses.

Every moment spent with her became a doubling effect of broken boundaries. Moral collapse. Like Adam, my fall would correspond along a course of partnership, irredeemable in its quickening, but beautiful for its forgetfulness.

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Artist friends, I have to say, were principle in my mentorship [Ian Rodgers, for one.] As far as History goes, I arrived at my profession quite by accident; although, at the time, I never gave much thought to this, as I meandered through a gallery, or sipped wine in a piano bar.

Before Beauty, my life was beginning to take on the principle aspect of an unseen promise; an unacknowledged importance. Whatever room I'd walk into, there seemed to be a presence, keeping watch; guiding my time, my thoughts, to such an extent, I'd build within me the conviction I'd no longer be "Just passing through." To paint, to create Art, was a single strand, holding together whatever propose I had in my life. It was the only pursuit (painting, that is) which mattered to me more than life itself.

Later, the moment would come for me to look back upon the Nexus Beauty had woven: transfigured, and loosely garmented, (shimmering, I might add) with the silent smile of a knowing accomplice. In hindsight, I can see how unassuming, how stoic, she was at projecting her motivations and desires. Now, I can see, with complete certainty, all of her conjurer's tricks.

For the life of me, I can't understand what compelled such blindness on my part: immediately, I'd been taken, with all the cunning of one drenched in love-at-first-sight. As she worked to gain the object of her desire, I found myself losing whatever objectivity I may have possessed. From the first, we were "Well met," to use an old expression.

So Then...

Then, once again: She entered, that night, exuding from her pores the unadorned scent of sunflowers. Everything followed from this: the half-lit room, the candlelight, the music and wine, conspired to spin a web, commencing at the curve of her back, and protruding outward, in crimson hue, right down to the shapely curve of her bare buttocks.