Part III
LOVE CHILD
8
"That will be a $3 cover."
"No problem . . . worth every penny."
ONE NIGHT LATE ON a Saturday night I wandered into a rock club. My relationship with Savannah, now only a distant disturbing memory, I was once again on the hunt for a new companion. As always, the band we all followed broke down the barriers that kept the crowd of those gathered there apart.
Too much smoke for the fans to push aside, too much alcohol for the patrons to remain sane. We were all there to shove and cram, mingle and lean, all to get a better look at the performers on stage and off.
For many years I'd felt a compulsion drawing me to clubs like this. I was responding to a premonition that I would meet someone who would change my life and fulfill a longing, an emptiness that has always haunted me.
The music was hot and heavy—nothing new so far. I had been in this club, or others just like it so many times over the years. Then, it happened. I saw a shocking sight that stopped me, frozen in the mesmerizing moment, as I pondered the final fulfillment of that lifelong dream.
Projecting an angel's ethereal aura, no, a presence even higher, a Seraph—she was a vision of something beyond human. I expected her to turn around revealing a glorious pair of wings attached to her back. In an instant everything and everyone else vanished from my field of view, lik the scene from West Side Story when Tony saw Maria for the first time at the dance.
I had always been attracted to this kind of arena, where the area's most alluring females congregated to display their irresistible natural attributes on the dance floor. Dressed in exotic hard-rock fashions, their equally erotic rhythmical motions could always arouse a guy’s interior biological soul. Instinctive drives were shifted into high gear.
Hair, long in length and full in texture . . . makeup too much, but useful in trashing a man’s defenses. Breasts, covered but in a way that suggested wouldn't you just love to see me take this off. Skintight leggings revealed the nubile forms of perfectly-proportioned, irresistibly fit young females. Their feet covered over with calf-length leather boots or stiletto heels.
On a typical night, with the right band playing, this was a common scene. Certain groups drew certain followings. I knew which bands attracted the most attractive ladies. The femme fatale I’d been captivated by on this fateful night, however, put everyone else in the no-competition category.
She stood out, like a single long-stemmed red rose amid a patch of thistles. Simply calling her beautiful didn’t even begin to describe the vibe I was getting—it was as if she was the only desirable woman left on the planet, so much so that every man had to have her or die trying.
I'd seen hundreds of women strut to the driving drums of the rock bands that play in these clubs, but like the mythological Siren, once under her spell your fate was sealed.
Her every move, every fluid pose, was an artistic and captivating experience. She was spontaneously choreographing variations on dance styles, like kronking, a form that would not become popular for years into the future. Her long, full, flowing chestnut hair framed her enigmatic Mona-Lisa looks while complimenting her sculpted form. Yes, she was gorgeous, but there was much more than appearance projecting from those enchanting eyes.
WE DIDN’T CONNECT THAT night, but a lasting impression was seared into my memory, like flash of slow events -motion during a violent car accident that you could never forget even if you wanted to. As I left the club I hoped, I expected to see her again.
I KNEW THAT CERTAIN people follow certain bands from week to week. I took a chance and went to the next gig for the band that had been performing the night I first saw her.
Waiting impatiently for the week to pass, when the anticipated night arrived I was admittedly nervous, but hopeful.
A different club, but the same band and a similar crowd, there she was, back on the dance floor and looking even more otherworldly irresistible than I’d remembered. She chose to wear a revealing outfit—black tights, black leather high-heeled boots and a white silk shirt open and showing off perfect C-cups which were only partially covered by a loose-fitting black bra.
I didn't know it at the time, but she’d recently begun prancing as an exotic dancer, which probably explained why she was comfortable displaying her private parts in public. I watched her from a distance, long enough to learn that she was somehow involved with the lead singer of the band.
I certainly didn't anticipate having to compete with a rock-star stud like that, but I couldn't keep myself from approaching her.
"Hello, I'm sure you don't remember me but I noticed you dancing at Club Starz last week," I began.
"Oh really, how thoughtful of you to mention it," she politely responded.
So far, so good . . . and that’s rarely the case when flinging a flimsy pick-up line in a beautiful woman’s face.
"Where did you develop up your dancing style? No one else around here moves anything like you."
"Well, I'm not from here. I'm Canadian, from Vancouver actually."
To my complete surprise, she opened up and we spoke at some length until the lead singer came by during a break between sets.
I didn't know the guy personally, but I knew of him, having seen his band perform many times. On the fringes of the rock club scene, I often came to the shows alone, sat alone, and rarely approached people for conversation. I did, however, always manage to connect with a few very stimulating and unique people in the entertainment world.
I’D DO ANYTHING TO GET close to band members because I was so fascinated with the exotic women who seemed to surround them constantly like winged fairies swarming around a ring of toadstools.
One year I got to know the members of the leading rock band in our area by videotaping one of their concerts for them. They were great to me, and I was welcomed into their inner circle of friends and activities. Unfortunately, there was a lot of drug use going on, and I had given up subjecting myself to that kind of toxic trauma years ago. I wasn't about to get back into that destructive mode for any reason. Anyway, I had some idea of what to do to break bread with this band that she was following.
I decided that since she was obviously involved with the singer, I should respect that and present myself as a friend and not a suitor. After observing the situation long enough to formulate this reasonable course of action, I played it cool and did things like getting her cigarettes, paying for her drinks, and protecting her from all the other guys who were coming on to her.
It worked out well. Though involved with the lead singer in the band, she kept close to me to give the impression that we were involved so she wouldn't be bothered.
MY OFFER OF FRIENDSHIP was sincere, but a burning desire to get closer was always there. I was willing to wait however long it might take for our relationship to deepen.
To me she was a priceless treasure, a precious jewel, a woman any man would in an instant obsess over and be willing to risk anything to be with. That said, had I a crystal ball, and could have looked into the future to see what was coming down the road, I would have stepped away, turned around, and never looked back.
I was listening intently to everything she said during our first night together at the club. She expressed a reverent, almost cult-like adoration for Jim Morrison of, The Doors.
"Wasn't that a Morrison song the band just did?" I questioned.
"Yes, Kurt and I both love every song The Doors have recorded. He's been working on the other band members to cover more of Morrison's material during each show," Janelle explained
"I understand he's put out a video and some poetry," I added to the let’s-adore-all-things-Morrison rant that I’d triggered.
"You're right. I'd die for either. I've tried but I can't find his book of poetry anywhere. I'd really like to get my hands on a copy," Janelle said, shaking her head while projecting an almost desperate longing to have them in her possession, and I mean immediately.
That was just the kind of thing I was hoping to hear. It was my chance to endear myself to her—to present myself as someone she could count on to accomplish things, to satisfy her needs, to fulfill her desires.
I got to work during the week we were apart and located a source for the book of poetry as well as a videotape of the film, The Doors. I didn't realize it at the time, but Janelle had hidden away a collection of cryptic original poems she’d written and never read.
BOTH JANELLE AND HER rock star boyfriend, Kurt, had a keen preoccupation with the mysterious self-destructive Morrison. Her boyfriend wanted to perform his songs. Janelle was fascinated with Morrison's poetry and with the tragic story of his life.
The next time the band played I showed up with a surprise package for Janelle.
She arrived early and reserved several seats up front, close to the band and the dance floor. When I got there she greeted me with a smile and waved me over. Again, I was the surrogate faux boyfriend while the band played and managed to deter unwanted suitors by just being there.
Just who was this enigmatic creature? My senses sharply focused on every little thing I saw. Janelle had her cell phone out, not today’s modern smart phone, but the older flip-phone with a small, limited keyboard and screen. She was texting with someone in Canada.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Her fingers were a blur of motion, moving so fast that she would complete a 140 character text in a few seconds, send it off, and compose the next one, all in rapid-fire succession. And remember, to get certain letters on those old phones you had to hit some keys more than once.
As if that wasn’t unbelievable enough, I could also see she was sending certain words and phrases in more than one foreign language. Think of the film, Superman, and a possible scene where young Clark Kent had a cell phone like Janelle’s and how his super powers would blur his fingers on that kind of keyboard. That’s what I was witnessing.
As if that wasn’t stunning enough, during a pause in the texting Janelle extended her right hand toward a can of Coke and without moving her arm the can moved a few inches toward her hand! I’d had a few drinks and was completely under her spell, so I didn’t process everything I was seeing until later that night. Texting done, can of Coke now in her hand, Janelle turned to me.
She graced me with just enough affection to create the impression that we were together. It was only a ploy, but if felt so genuine. As the evening's entertainment progressed, her conversation just happened to involve Jim Morrison. When I heard her mention his name, I took the cue to offer her the surprise I was saving.
"Janelle, I've got something for you," handing her a small paperbound package.
"What have you done now?" was her surprised reaction, acting like she already knew what I was going to tell her.
"You've been going on and on about Jim Morrison and The Doors, well I couldn't resist the challenge of trying to find the book of poetry you were interested in."
As I conveyed the information I'm sure I was more excited than Janelle, but for obviously different reasons.
The date was February 14, Valentine's day. When she opened the wrapped parcel and saw it was Jim Morrison's book of poetry, Janelle beamed with the absolute delight of an innocent child on Christmas morning.
"Erik, I didn't think it was possible . . . I've tried all the book stores in the area. How did you find it?"
I could tell I had made the impression I was hoping for. It was the kind of gift that indicates you care about someone else's interests—that you care about their feelings more than your own. Next, I presented her with the wrapped VHS I’d also found.
"Here's the video you were looking for. Why don't you give it to Kurt as a Valentine's present?" I offered, knowing anything I could do to make her happy would eventually serve my unspoken goal well.
I’M SURE JANEELE KNEW I was interested in her, but at the same time she was touched that I respected her enough to support her relationship with Kurt. What I didn't know at the time was that they weren't just involved, they were secretly married.
Kurt didn't think his fans should know. He worried it would affect his image as the stereotypic free-spirited party-hearty single-and-available rock star. Also, their relationship began as something of a marriage of convenience.
JANELLE WAS VISITING the States from Canada and her visa had expired. She was desperate not to have to return to Canada because of ongoing family problems there. She needed a work visa to continue a successful modeling career which began in Canada and continued in the Midwest. Being married to an American, she could apply for and easily obtain a green card, then citizenship.
This marriage of green-card convenience gradually deepened into an obsessive and codependent both passionate and complex affair.
Both of these extraordinary souls harbored unseen deep-seated psychological lacerations serious enough to leave psychic scars and sever souls. Their personal accomplishments were partly driven by talent and partly by a compulsive need to compensate for emotional insecurities. They both hid their fears and phobias as well as they could, for as long as they could.
The signs of symptoms were there for anyone to see, who got close enough. That wasn't easy.
Kurt, for example, could easily function on stage, conveying the impression that he was a fearless public figure, but he couldn't get on an elevator, or walk into a small room filled with people without breaking into a cold sweat.
Such phobias often have their origins in childhood trauma. When not with the band, he worked occasionally as a truck driver, alone, in his cab, with his vehicle, comfortably isolated in the quiet seclusion of the open road.
Janelle was a successful model, and an award-winning singer and lyricist.
ONE YEAR, IN ALL OF CANADA, she was voted the number one model in the country. She had parts in films and worked in commercials, in front of the camera, and behind the scenes as a production assistant and make-up artist.
She ran a modeling agency, producing an innovative fashion show. Her idea was to set the event within the context of a stage show. Included, along with the usual runway displays of clothes and coats, were segments with entertainment value. A local folk guitar artist sang original material and later modeled dinner dresses. An actual wedding took place, complete with high-fashion wedding ware. Janelle's creative impulses were given full freedom of expression.
She had a lavish gown designed, with a material bearing a futuristic magenta sheen and texture. She brought into the production several young, handsome, well-muscled men from the local health club. They served as slaves for a segment which began with her reclining on a mobile platform covered by cloth from the extensive train of her dress.
To the musical theme from the film 2001, A SPACE ODYSSEY the slaves slowly raised her up. When fully upright, the music downshifted into a driving high-energy synthesized disco sound. With that cue Janelle took off down the runway, displaying a million-dollar supermodel strut. The spectators were mesmerized. Another show segment involved motorcycles.
The models were sporting leather ware in a most creative context. Two handsome young men rode motorcycles down the runway, then, stopped to light up a cigarette. Two gorgeous female models, covered in biker leather, pranced toward them. An argument over who was going with whom, escalated into a physical confrontation. In ‘90s fashion, the women defeated the overbearing men in a staged bloody martial arts brawl after which they stripped off their black leather jackets and hit the runway to display the clothes they were wearing.
In another segment, music from the resurgent ‘60s was combined with fashions from the ‘60s as models maneuvered, danced, and twisted down the runway.
Janelle was clearly as gifted as she was gorgeous—a rare combination.
She felt this concept had mass-market apeal, and one of her goals in coming to America was to find someone to help promote her idea, clearly ahead of its time, in the international modeling world.
Janelle was beautiful enough to be successful as a supermodel, but her real goal involved being behind the scenes in the production end of modeling—that part of the business that could truly challenge her prodigious creative gifts.
WHEN JANELLE CAME to the States she was a successful working model, had a six-figure income and lived the lifestyle of a starlet. She was renting a 16-room mansion. It was nothing for her to spend $500 a week at a beauty salon pampering her body, face, and hair. She’d even saved enough to take an eight-month vacation.
Janelle should have become a superstar in the modeling world. Twice, a major magazine wanted her in New York to sign contracts which would have launched an international career. Both times she was not able to go because of severe, chronic, debilitating migraines.
THE MIGRAINES WERE PART of a syndrome of symptoms that were haunting Janelle for years and had begun years ago in a child's mind traumatized by unspeakable acts of brutality and abuse. Repressed and blocked, the psychological effects of such trauma were processed in an incredible way to preserve her sanity.
Her mind faulted, fragmented, spawned other personalities, each with the ability to cope with the mind-quakes generated by the death-dealing tremors she was forced to survive. The pressure of so much repressed inner turmoil and unresolved anguish escaped through her interior mind like the magma trapped inside a supervolcano wreaking havoc of all kinds.
JANELLE WAS LOSING the battle to stay in sole control of her body's affairs. Slowly, an alter, Lauren, began to take over. Lauren was free-spirited, adventurous, romantic, and a definite risk-taker. She loved to drink and dance and party till dawn.
Although she had been a successful model, revised regulations would not allow Janelle to work in the States without a green card. That was the primary motivation for her marriage to Kurt. She needed money to provide for herself and the starving artist in her life.
Her pull-down menu of personalities existed, were created, out of the need to survive in difficult and even life-threatening circumstances.
Having spent the money she brought with her from Canada, and with immigration problems preventing her from working as a model, Janelle was becoming destitute. She considered going back to Canada, back to her family, a fate she considered worse than death.
A friend had been providing her with lodging, but expected indentured service in return for room and board. Now, with a husband to support, and needing a place to stay, another personality was needed. Janelle could no longer cope.
Lauren, on the other hand, had just the psychological makeup to thrive in any high-risk endeavor—even on stage as an exotic dancer. She could detach from any emotional or physical discomfort associated with strip-club scene. She could give back better than she got from the rude chauvinistic men who frequented those places.
The club where she first decided to dance was frequented by a wide variety of customers. During the day, well-connected businessmen might stop in during extended lunch breaks. Of course, there was always the more typical customer who really didn’t have that much disposable income and spent most of their money getting drunk.
The club’s customers, however, had never seen a dancer of Lauren’s quality, charm, grace, talent, and beauty before. This was a former supermodel, now reduced to flashing her tits for one-dollar tips.
Witnessing that much alluring beauty in slow, sensual motion was a disarming, almost hallucinatory experience even for the most jaded and crude patrons she pandered to. On stage she became Solome and they the bedazzled King Herod who after being enchanted by her dance could refuse her nothing. The inevitable offers came quickly and furiously as these overwhelmed men with means began competing to draw Lauren into their sphere of influence.
One promised her $5,000 cash on the spot right after her mesmerizing club stage show for a private encore in a motel room. An influential Italian resident with Mafia ties, gave her thousands just to escort him places, and without expecting sex. Another corporate whale even offered her a position as his personal assistant.
He’d recently relocated from the Middle East, or so he said, and was a business conduit placing and filling orders for industrial goods flowing between the States and Syria, or so he said.
He picked her up from the club for their initial business meeting in a limousine. On the way to an appointment, where Lauren was to function for the first time as his personal assistant, the man threw $1,500 cash in her lap and outlined what he expected from her. It was an offer she couldn't refuse, and supposedly didn't even involve sexual favors.
That was the power of her presence—there wasn’t a man alive who would not have been intimidated to the point of dropping to his knees when confronted with the supercell thunderhead of the electrical storm that was her disarming charisma.
THE STRIPPING PAID WELL, but Lauren was opportunistic and intelligent enough to take on any lucrative way of gathering greenbacks. The businessman from Syria said that he would be able to get her a green card within a few weeks, arrange for a rental car and a business expense account, plus profit-sharing. That night, over the phone, I heard all about what had happened.
"Erik, I know you were skeptical about Amad, but things seem to be working out well," Lauren opened hoping her judgment was as sound as the Canadian dollar.
"That's wonderful news, Lauren. I know how anxious you've been about getting established here in the States," I said, supporting her decision while keeping any serious reservations to myself.
"I need your help. Amad wants me to pick up some office supply items and keep them in my apartment. We need to get a phone answering machine, a filing cabinet, and some record-keeping materials."
"That's no problem, when would you like me to come by?"
To me, the home office thing was a sign something possibly wasn't right with this guy. As it turned out, their association only lasted a few weeks and she never saw another penny from him.
Some deals she helped him with fell through and she learned that the cash he was throwing around came from an insurance settlement, resulting from a fall on public property. And yes, he did have expectations that she would get involved with him, but that was not to be as Lauren was already in a committed relationship. The love she felt for Kurt as well as their marriage was being shaken, however, by tectonically destructive tremors originating deep within the caverns of their fractured minds.
BOTH OF THEM SUFFERED from past psychic trauma, but Lauren had reached the point where the pressure of the repressed pain from the past could no longer be contained in the protective barrier constructed within her subconscious mind.
Kurt was an adopted child. Abandoned by his natural father, his stepfather was a cruel crude man, a nasty alcoholic who was physically and verbally abusive. An imposing intimidating figure of a man, he would often ridicule the somewhat frail child, claiming he would never amount to anything—that he could never be a real man.
Confrontations on many levels were constant unwanted companions for young Kurt. His more naturally passive nature he inherited from his biological father, who was part Native American, yet Kurt was forced to live with a father figure who was much more combative. Understandably, Kurt absorbed the dysfunctional violent indoctrination of his morally failed family.
The discrepancy distorted Kurt's fragile mind, bending it, contorting it, until the psychological stress resulted in a number of phobias and compensating behaviors. During the courtship phase with Lauren, there was no sign of any psychological issues. The minute they were married, things changed.
Initially, Kurt treated Lauren like a queen. He lavished her with compliments and endlessly did things for her to show his love. They spent lots of quality time together. Gifts and flowers were common daily occurrences.
After they exchanged vows he began to transform into more the kind of man his stepfather was. He provoked arguments, expected Lauren to wait on him, cook and clean for him, and give him sex whenever he wanted. He was recreating the only kind of family life he knew existed.
It did not, however, represent his deep-down natural inclinations. The resulting confusion made the marriage a mess for both of them, triggering several debilitating symptoms in Lauren's traumatized soul.
AS A CHRONICALLY ABUSED CHILD, the emotional consequences of severe trauma could not be processed in real time without disastrous consequences. So the mind protects itself for a time, waiting until the person matures sufficiently for that cancerous section of the mind's memory to be cut out and excised as source of psychic sepsis.
The first signs that Lauren's mind was venting in this way were migraines and panic attacks.
Building anxiety, for no obvious reason, led to heavy rapid breathing and choking associated with chest pains. Lauren felt as if she was going to die of heart failure. In her case, the choking seemed to stem from a flashback of some long-distant assault. These attacks are such an ordeal to survive that the person having them immediately looks for anything that will control them. Strange phobias and fixations can result from that search.
For Lauren, Kurt was present during one of her first panic attacks. She fixated on the notion that his presence helped her come out of the episode. Later, when she became more critically ill, she was obsessed with having him with her or being able to reach him at a moment’s notice.
That soon led to Lauren gradually became agoraphobic. Whenever an attack began she formed a cause-and-effect association between wherever she was or whatever she was doing and the onset of the attack. The result was the common fear among panic attack patients associated with going out in public. Needless to say, her headbanger hubby who had problems of his own, was ill-equipped to deal with her increasingly severe menacing malady.
SEVERAL WEEKS HAD NOW PASSED since I’d met them both at the club. Even though my offer of friendship was sincere, I was surprised at how quickly my relationship with Lauren and her local-rock-star husband was evolving. Already we were talking on the phone and I was visiting with them in person at their apartment.
Instead of feeling threatened by my obvious infatuation with Lauren, Kurt seemed to welcome my presence in their lives. I remember the first evening I spent alone with Lauren. It was a Thursday night, that meant band practice, and I got a call.
"Erik, I've got to go to a recording session. Could you come over and spend time with Lauren? I don't want her to be alone," Kurt thoughtfully asked.
I knew Kurt meant what he said, but I couldn’t help but suspect that something else was going on, at this point something I could only guess at.
"Sure thing, I can be over within the hour," I replied.
"You're a lifesaver. Lauren's been having more of those attacks and I’m worried about her," Kurt candidly admitted.
"Well, I'm not sure what I can do, but at least someone will be with her."
When I arrived, Kurt was already gone. I found Lauren relaxing on her bed which was a simple mattress lying on the old wooden floor of their apartment. Her legs were crossed and she was wearing a faded pair of blue sweatpants to go with a baggy T-shirt, her long, thick, intimidating rust-colored chestnut hair pulled back in a casual ponytail.
She was reading the book of Jim Morrison's poetry that I’d given her at the last band concert while listening to the radio. I felt the intimacy of being there with her, alone in her apartment, a place where all my fantasies might be realized within the hour.
Heart pounding, my thoughts racing, my mind had difficulty deciding how to engage with Lauren and guide the conversation with just the right words.
Despite my almost embarrassing seething pent-up passions, Lauren didn’t at all seem concerned about me being in her private, personal, intimate space. Snapping the spell of any erotic possibility, I sensed she was totally engrossed with something.
"I see you're reading Morrison."
"Yes, thank you again . . . for finding it . . . getting it for me," Lauren politely responded, flipping over to the book cover, but clearly distracted by the magnetic draw of Morrison’s mesmerizing writing.
His poems had stream-of-consciousness qualities that Lauren, or at least one of Lauren’s alters recognized as being similar to the kinds of verse she often crafted.
"Would you read one of the poems, one that perhaps has made an impression on you?" I suggested.
I knew enough to realize that true, meaningful, lasting intimacy had to begin with two souls bonding. I wanted to reach deep into Lauren’s insides and Morrison’s enigmatically arcane words seemed like just the psychic probe I coul make use of.
"Certainly . . . I would like that."
When she finished, we shared thoughts on what the verses meant.
Much of his writing was so abstract that I think only Morrison himself could have extracted any real meaning from the cryptic phrases. Anyway, I felt the man fascinated Lauren as much or more than his writing.
Lauren shared an artistic ill-fated link with the poetic prophet. She began writing similar equivocal verse at a very young age.
Although she didn’t remember much of her childhood, a number of her poems had age markers hidden among the words indicating she began writing during the seventh year of her present life. A poem she wrote entitled, "Love Child," included the phrase seven summer suns and was a direct reference to the author of the poem.
In the text of the poem, poignant yet graphic words revealed much within the subtle context of artistic expression. Like the quatrains of Nostradamus, one practically needed a Rosetta Stone to decrypt the mysterious verses. There was a message hidden in Lauren’s poems that told a tragic tale, but the reader had to look hard to extract the meaning. Such was the nature of her poem, “Love Child.”
Lost in a world of gold-diggers chipping away at her fragility. She's only seven, don't melt her into your mold or restrict her with your reason. Your sculptures are so charming but your message is alarming and it curses in her innocent ears.
You're torturing her intelligence and scarring her sweetness. Her betrayed body shakes from life's prying fingertips,
fornicating her mind with fear. She is blind from her own tears. Don't cure her with your formulas that swallow to her soul.
Don't imprison her passion with your possessiveness.
Don't assess her art or put her on a pedestal and
hang her by her heart.
Treated like a trinket, she is auctioned in the dark.
And her age of seven, on her price tag you have marked.
Later while in the States, Lauren wrote the lyrics for a number of songs which carried the same haunting messages as her poetry. The way in which the revealing words worked themselves out of her troubled mind was further evidence of past trauma.
SINCE SHE BEGAN WRITING, Lauren had produced hundreds of poems and up until the time I met her, hadn't read any of them, but they were always with her. She had them in a box near her mattress. As we were debating the meaning of the ancient ones from Morrison’s lyrics to the song, “A Vast Radiant Beach,” Lauren sat up and wide-eyed, looked at me.
“Erik, find me a pen . . . quickly . . . please hurry . . . and some paper . . . oh, and turn off all the lights.”
I did as ordered and watched in awe as Lauren retreated allowing her poet laureate alter, Autumn, to take control of her body. Without saying a word, with her eyes closed the entire time, subtly revealing words began to pour onto the page, penned in the spilled blood of past childhood horror. During the process she reached out to me.
“Erik, come closer . . . please hold me.”
Again, although I had no idea what was really going on, and unable to do anything else, I moved in and held her while she completed the writing. My man’s mind was taking me places where I knew my body should not follow. I was there to provide support and comfort . . . and nothing more.
Although Lauren would never have cheated on her Kurt, Autumn understood how few opportunities she had to acquire human experience—and this was one of them. A man was right there with her, a man Lauren trusted, if not loved in her own way. I was right there, focused on every stroke of her magical pen, when her head turned, her lips finding mine.
They were the lips of a lover, a kiss that carried the desire for a deeper physical bond. Any capacity to resist was instantly paralyzed as her hand began to probe for the one sign signaling I was successfully being seduced.
What began as a moment unfolding in reality quickly transformed into more of a dream as I was drawn into Autumn’s world—a place where feelings had to make up for physical sensation. With me, Autumn would have the rare experience of combining both an impulse of the mind with actual tactile sensation.
As our steamy erotic interlude concluded, I slowly returned to the moment in reality when it all began, but without any detailed memories of what had just happened—memories I would have cherished for eternity.
I had been under her spell, like the mating male spider in the grip of a Black Widow, but in my case I was spared the indignity of death when my role as her lover was over.
Finished with me, Autumn picked up her pen, wrote down the last lines of her poem, gave me a parting hug, then, closed her eyes and retreated to the solitary confinement of her cubical in Lauren’s partitioned mind.
Not at all sure exactly what had just happened, I looked at the poem which was brilliant, complete, fully formed, perfect in every way with no editing needed.
I’d had the privilege of observing this rare occurrence of true automatic writing and was further amazed that the phenomenon took place in the dark, and yet the poem was generated without a flaw.
Now fully forward, but giving me no indication that she had any idea of what we’d just done, Lauren reached over to turn on the light near her bed while still holding the poem.
“Erik, here . . . put this in that box over there.”
We’d both put our clothes back on before she finished penning the poem, but I was still something of a mess and panting to get my heart rate down, but Lauren didn’t notice and I quickly went along with her request.
“Sure . . . but don’t you want to read it first?”
“No . . . no . . . I never read them . . . just put it in the box.”
I stayed with Lauren until Kurt returned from band practice, then left pretending that my world was still in one piece.
WALKING TO MY CAR confusion ruled the day. Why did Lauren act as if everything was completely normal between us? If not Lauren, who had just written the poem and seduced me? If Kurt found out, would that end his support of my relationship with Lauren?
The full and complete answers to those questions would have to wait, but now knowing how much Lauren’s poems meant to her, one of the first emotionally intimate and significant things I did for her was to gather up all of her poems, transcribe them with a computer, and edit them with Lauren's help. After creating a special letterhead to print them on, to honoring their author, I took the manuscript to be bound into a book.
ONCE LAUREN’S POEMS WERE published she finally showed an interest in reading them, which I recognized as a significant sign that perhaps she was finally preparing to face the hidden terrors of the psychic pestilence that was infecting her sanity.
During subsequent meetings we spent many cherished hours together going over the dark words that had such powerful and critical encrypted meanings.
Strangely, but not so surprisingly, key words and revealing phrases, which to me were obvious references to the nature of the abuse she endured, and to the identity of the perpetrator, were still blocked from being recognized by Lauren's protective subconscious.
The true value of the poetry for Lauren was as a kind of self-therapy. This was the only outlet she allowed herself, the only safe forum in which to bring up the subject of what she’d been through, the only medium in which she could vent her repressed anger.
On one level they were a secure transmission, much like paying a bill online with a credit card by using encryption software. The revelations of abuse were buried like the Enigma Code in what otherwise might simply be an incredibly conceived and crafted poem.
One of her alters acted as the safety valve, slowly releasing the internal pressure by allowing one poem at a time to escape through the small seam in Lauren's otherwise sealed-tight psyche.
At the time these bits of literary evidence were not part of a comprehensive theory leading to any kind of diagnosis for what was slowly driving her crazy. Shortly after the panic attacks began, Lauren sought out a trained therapist who labeled her condition, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
He sent her to a friend and colleague, a medical doctor, who prescribed the first of dozens different drugs that she would take in a futile effort to control her symptoms. There was something about this almost-alien goddess—a magnetic allure that no man could resist.
THROUGHOUT HER TRAGIC life, a number of adults who were supposed to function in a protective role ended up falling under a seductive spell she never meant to project. They crossed the ethical boundary between proper and exploitive conduct.
The list began with her uncle, who lived with her family and was mesmerized by his niece's innocent sensuality. Later, in school, a counselor could not keep himself from making advances, then taking advantage of the child woman entrusted to his care. She next sought protection from the church.
Unbelievably, a minister, at first was understanding, then, during other sessions molested the tormented child. With no one safe to turn to and no place to go, living in an isolated region of Canada, Lauren escaped into a world of her own creation—a world where she split into many different personalities in order to spread out the pain—a world where drugs helped to disperse the anguish.
Although an honor student, she could take no more and left home at the age of seventeen before graduating from high school.
That was when Janelle was born.
She marketed her ravishing beauty and overpowering creative intellect in the modeling world, relocating to Toronto, an urban area with ample opportunities for an aspiring model. There she developed her skills as a model and make-up artist and would eventually run the agency she started working for!
Lauren wrote her own modeling training course material complete with daily lesson plans and details on how to teach the course. Her focus was on working with the career needs of the students and active models. Driven, professional, and successful, the relentless Janelle seemed destined for supermodel status and world acclaim.
The Rake
The rake scratches its way
across my brain,
gathering my straying thoughts
into a lifeless heap,
a deep clutter of confusion.
And they will be left there to rot;
an eyesore in my garden.
I organize them into neat piles,
in order to collect them up
But before I can
the wind blows them
into a violent frenzy
that scatters them about
And the rake
strikes again.