"Good morning." Her soft voice was still rough from sleep or maybe lack there of but it clawed at him the same way it always did when he heard it. He had no doubt that, that melodic voice would drive him insane one day.
And he was fine with that.
I would rather die of passion than of boredom, the professor thought, quoting Vincent Van Gogh.
Nathan turned around in his chair and took a sip of his coffee, just to distract himself from the sight that greeted him.
Gwen wore nothing but one of his short sleeved shirts and her underwear. Her dark hair fell past her breasts, tangled.
God, if only Bernini was alive.
"Morning." He wasn't certain it was going to be a particularly good one. Something inside him warned him that his little domestic bliss was about to be disrupted by something he had no power over. But all that left his mind the second Gwen pressed her soft lips against his jaw.
She marvelled over the way his rough stubble scratched her cheek and almost made her beg for more.
"I was thinking," Nathan murmured against her lips, "If you want to change before class, I can dress up and wait outside of your apartment and we can go together."
The hesitation in her face was painfully obvious. "Perhaps, it'd be best if I stayed here today." She suggested, her voice barely loud enough to reach his ears.
Even though, she wished to leave the incident behind her and hope that it was in the past, she couldn't quite bring herself to look at all those accusing faces with cool indifference yet. She felt unsteady. A word or two and she could be leaving to cry alone in a bathroom stall, re-enacting part of her middle school years.
Nathan sensed her inner conflict. He clenched his jaw, completely aware of the fact that he could do nothing to offer her solace, that he was useless. Needless to say, it wasn't a feeling he enjoyed and yet when he opened his mouth, he spoke softly to her. "If that's what you want."
"I just can't bring myself to show my face, knowing that every time someone whispers it might be about me. You understand that, don't you?" She felt pathetic just from uttering those words.
"Hmm." He hummed in agreement. "Of course I understand. It's not a bad idea. Quite the opposite, since it works in my favour."
"How so?"
"Because I get to find you here, naked on my bed when I return."
She gave him a little laugh, slapping him teasingly across the chest, her mood lightening significantly as the seconds passed. "That's quite presumptuous of you, Professor."
"Perhaps, 'wistful' fits better."
"If you say so."
Nathan finished his coffee in two long gulps, the hot liquid burning his throat. He hardly felt it. "Use whatever term you want, it doesn't matter as long as you do it."
Gwen stood and gazed at him the same way he'd done less than twelve hours ago when he'd led her into his bedroom before he crawled over to her and gave her a taste of his darker side, still possessing the grace of an emperor. "You know, it hardly seems fair for me to keep taking my clothes off while you cover yourself. What is it, some sort of power play?"
"Hmm, you could say that." The sinking feeling in his gut flourished once again as more seconds came and went. "And who do you think holds the power?"
"I'm pretty sure it's the person wearing the clothes, the other one is just laying there, vulnerable."
He shook his head. "You're mistaken. The naked one is powerful enough to showcase their vulnerability while the other one hides."
Gwen stared at him for a long moment, scrutinising his expression. "You're just fucking with me, aren't you?"
The professor lifted a shoulder and gifted her with a small smile that hid his internal frown well. "Maybe."
Setting her cup down, Gwen took a seat in his office chair and stared at the scattered books that lied all around his desk. Rolling her eyes she picked one up and set it to the side, knowing that the odds when it came to possibly making a mess, were not in her favour. She did that until the desk was relatively clean and the only things that remained were his laptop and a stack of papers.
Her eyes widened to a sonically point when she realised just what those pages hid.
She thought back to that night she'd caught him writing. She recalled how he didn't share any details about the book. She, also, recalled how curious she'd been. How curious she still was.
Hesitancy filled her veins as she took the manuscript in her hands.
"Maybe this isn't such a good idea, Gwen." She muttered to herself as her finger hovered over the blank page that hid his newest novel. "What if he founds out you read it and gets angry?"
Who says he has to find out? The little voice in her head whispered, tempting her further, you will never speak a word on the matter and simply pretend you've never read it before when he publishes it.
It didn't take a lot for the voice in her head to convince her. In the end, her curiosity won and she took the book and went to sit on the floor in his living room, her beverage long forgotten.
I : The theory of Anamnesis.
Plato believed that the soul was eternal, that it existed prior to the body and that it knew things the body was blissfully unaware of. According to Plato, the body is the prison of the soul. To an extent, that is a given. So, perhaps my soul knew I would meet her long before the wind shifted and her flowery perfume invaded my nostrils.
I'll never know.
I will, also, never reveal her name to you, dear reader, for that solely belongs to me. You will never know anything other than what I allow you to know. If you don't like that, put this book down this instant. This isn't for you.
Nevertheless, I will reveal how it was her troubled expression that first drew me in and how similar it was to the one decorating my own face, if I remember correctly.
She was sitting on the pavement outside of her new apartment the first time we met.
She was wearing a summer dress, which flowed around her supple form and the wind was playing with her dark hair. Her complexion appeared to be a lovely combination of melted caramel and warm summer days, days when the Sun is ruthless and only creates beauty with destruction.
There was something vibrant about her that set her apart from the colourless buildings and the lifeless metal bars that decorated the houses of their equally lifeless owners.
There was something about her that made one dream of absolution.
I suppose it is as Nabokov said, even though, I will never claim to be a mad man. However, on my good days I try to convince myself that I'm an artist and everyone knows that these two are one and the same. And yes, the part about the creature of infinite melancholy fits me like a glove but no matter what I am, I did, indeed, notice the feline outline of a cheekbone but there was where the comparison ended. No matter what I am, I hold no shame over what I've done to have her naked and in my bed, honestly.
But let's return to our subject.
The woman looked up and I felt the breath getting knocked out of my aching lungs.
She was pretty as sin.
As every single one of the Cardinal sins.
Abysmally dark eyes and skin dotted in freckles. That was what I first noticed when my eyes first fell on her face. Even now, whenever I look at her, I am still in awe of these characteristics. I am certain that if I was given a millenia to stare at her, I'd still want to play with the universe that existed scattered around her cheeks and the demons that lurked behind her eyes.
"It is all ash and dry leaves and grief gone like an ocean liner." I murmured as I moved closer to her, my mind just barely holding on to the last pieces of sanity I owned. The book in my hand long forgotten. My surroundings long forgotten. The rest of the world long forgotten.
Nothing but her existed.
Yes, my soul recognised hers.
And, in return, hers recognised mine.
And I know that, dear reader, because a moment later, she opened her mouth and replied.
And no, she didn't call me out on my pretentious bullshit.
She gave the answer I'd been expecting.
"When the shoes fill with blood you know that the shoes are dead." She said and, as I mentioned a couple of lines above, I knew. I don't, however, think that she made the decision to reply consciously. I, also, don't think she thought before speaking.
"True revolution comes from true revulsion; when things get bad enough the kitten will kill the lion." Once the words were out of my mouth, I smiled. And that smile felt strange, like it did not deserve to rest on my face, especially on that day. Still, I smiled.
Gwen felt her eyes grow wide at the words, confused over the why he'd used their first encounter in his book, confused over the where that would lead. So, she kept reading and as the pages went by she grew more and more concerned about what was to come.
And yes, he wrote in another chapter, in one where he talked about the day she'd gone and asked for a different thesis director, I'll admit that my approach wasn't the most strategically planned. Most of the time I acted on impulse and I let my reckless emotions get the best of me. Regardless, I don't regret it.
"Of course you don't." Gwen breathed out, too caught up in what she was reading to actually realise what he had done. "You have no shame, Nathan."
I don't regret dragging her inside my office.
I don't regret taunting her, causing her to reach the point where a light and seemingly innocent touch made her shiver.
"Tell me, Miss Westbrook, have I touched you?" She shook her head, the words stuck somewhere in her throat as I allowed myself a small mercy and ran my pointer finger playfully over the veins of one of her wrists.
I call it mercy but it was not. It was torture. It was a piece of Hell and a slice of Heaven all at once. It was Purgatory in all its torturous glory and since I'm a glutton for punishment, I refused to stop there.
I placed my lips close to the shell of her ear, not quite daring to touch her. I think some part of me was afraid of what would happen if I did touch her. Perhaps, I'd realise that she was nothing but a figment of my imagination, a ghost of Persephone Hades sees during the Spring that only exists to help him cope with the heavy emptiness in his chest.
“I can promise you that every single time I throw you against a wall, it won’t be because I am aching to hear you moan in pure agony as the air abandons your lungs, it will be because I want you to wrap your legs around my waist and let me do what I do so damn well.” She shivered then, showing me in part how my words affected her.
I felt one corner of my lips lift in an almost smile, my eyes savouring her expression. I enjoyed hearing her breathing pattern change and her breaths come out shaky and shallow. I imagined that that's how they'd sound when I finally slid inside her soft, welcoming body.
"Have I ever spoken to you like that?" I inquired, unable to stop myself from taunting her. "Tell me." She told me that no, I had not but we both knew that was a lie. Our little game continued with me quoting Machiavelli and her proving my initial thoughts right.
“He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.”
“Machiavelli.”
“Yes, Machiavelli. And exactly like Machiavelli says, I study people and I learn how they work. I understand them, their routines, their mannerisms, the way they can be controlled.” Her perfume entered my nostrils subtly. I'm not sure it was a perfume, it could have been her shampoo or body lotion or something that brought equally tempting images to mind.
I took a small step back, then, needing to add some space between us to clear my thoughts.
“I believe you’ll find that I am a puppet master." I believe that's what I told her. It sounds awfully pretentious now that I think about it but then again, in the heat of the moment it might have sounded more like a promise. "I take great pride in that fact, as you will learn.”
Only a few measly centimetres separated us.
I could hear her heart, loud as it was, beat against her ribcage. I tried to remain unaffected but my thoughts managed to almost drive me mad. It was those licentious thoughts that kept me company while I addressed her one last time. “Eventually, I plan on playing with your strings.”
After that, I excused myself and left her all alone in my office but not before I took one of her hands in mine and brought it to my mouth, laying a kiss on the inner side of her open palm.
The taste of her skin drove me mad with need. I don't even know how I managed to stop myself from doing what I've been dying to do since the day she entered my path: kiss her properly, the way she ought to be kissed.
Kiss her until I lose myself.
But that's hardly new.
I seem to lose myself a lot these days.
I tell myself to stop moving but I'm standing still.
Sometimes, Déjà Vu hits me and the feeling, although euphoric, tends to collide with me like a meteorite. It comes in the most incontinent times. In the middle of class, in the middle of a busy street, in the middle of a dream and in those moments I remember everything.
My eyes grow unfocused and glassier than usual and images of a past I don't recall experiencing flash through my brain.
''I remember'' I want to scream, "I remember, I remember." But by the time I convince myself to speak, I've already forgotten.
Sometimes, the thought that I am the only one experiencing this feeling frightens me.
Other times, it soothes me. No one else should bear this burden.
That part momentarily soothed her, just like the parts about his dad and his son did. She didn't know why. Maybe it showed the Devil she thought him to be was not as vile as he led on. Regardless, when she began reading again, she came to realise that he was even worse.
When she first came to my apartment, she'd been scared.
So scared, in fact, that goosebumps erupted all around my skin, uneasy feelings consuming my entire being. I was filled with peculiar emotions, emotions that I cannot, to this day, give a name to. This isn't a philosophical book but I'd be damned if I didn't say that perhaps, that was what Kierkegaard meant when he spoke about love and the fear that surrounds it. Perhaps, but not quite.
"I needed a friend." She murmured, her eyes still puffy from all the tears she'd shed. "I take it your offer still stands."
"Of course it does, I don't give up easily." I watched intently as her tongue came to lick her chapped bottom lip, moving gracefully across the elegant curve that led to her chin.
God, Bukowski must have written all his poems for her.
"If only you were the only one." Her dejected tone made something twist inside of me. It felt like a knife with a blunt tip that preferred to carve words on your skin before digging inside the flesh and destroying its creation. And, trust me, If there was one person that knew how that felt, that'd be me.
I'm not entirely certain what came over me when I trotted over to her and crushed her to my arms. I wasn't thinking in that moment. But I imagine that she was. I imagine all sorts of thoughts ran through her head because she simply stood there, stiff as a marble column.
Her body gave in, eventually. Her shoulders fell as a tired sigh crawled out of her larynx and escaped, finding comfort in being heard in a silent, sleeping town even though its freedom only lasted for so long. Soon, it returned to nothingness and her body melted into mine. Her arms wrapped around my waist, using my body as a shield from the terrifying world that existed just outside the door. I. . . did not mind. I did not mind at all.
It felt right.
Natural.
When I finally kissed her, the earth stopped turning.
God, she tasted like heaven.
The sweet, welcoming kind that the Pope spoke of.
The kind that promised never ending peace.
The kind that started to taste sweeter than the forbidden fruit the longer you savoured it.
After a few seconds of feeling the high take over my body, I took her plump bottom lip between my teeth and bit it hard. A drop of crimson coloured liquid fell from her mouth the second I severed our connection. I watched in utter fascination as the blood danced towards her chin and descended onto the floor.
What a terrible friend I must be.
One of her fingers came to caress her bottom lip, right where the nick he'd created had been before it healed, leaving nothing but a memory behind. She still remembered the way it stung her and how much she'd loved it and how she couldn't stop running her tongue over it in a desperate attempt to recreate the feeling he'd gifted her with.
The desperation.
The need.
After she came to retrieve me from the pub, convinced that I was drunk off my ass, we ended up in her apartment. And we talked.
I sat with my head on her lap and let her run her fingers through my hair as she told me about her childhood.
Honestly, I can't remember a time when I was more peaceful.
She told me about her childish escapades and her need to familiarise herself with the world that was laid at her feet.
She told me about the first boy that had managed to sneak inside her heart.
She told me how she broke that poor boy's heart.
She looked so sad when I told her that I knew nothing about love, when I told her that sure, I'd read about love but hadn't experienced it. At least, not the traditional concept of love. I admitted I find it fictitious. She pitied me, I could tell.
It's ironic, seeing as she was the one who supposedly betrayed one love and tossed it aside for another.
What I do know about love, and yes I'm contradicting myself here, is that once you feel it, it is difficult to abandon. You crave it constantly. You crave it until you can't think about surviving without it.
“We loved with a love that was more than love…With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven/Coveted her and me.” Edgar Allan Poe wrote in one of his poems and even with my limited knowledge on the topic I can tell you that, that is an adequate representation of love and how it controls both the body and the soul.
What I do know about love is that it ought to be all consuming.
What I do know about romantic love is that she hasn't experienced it.
You can tell by the way her features grow cold whenever she mentions the boy that came before me. You can tell by the way she seems to build a wall between her and the rest of the world. You can tell by the way her eyes lose all of their vivacity.
Then again, I might be biased.
After all, I did eavesdrop to her conversation with her friend, back when we first met and used that limited information to my advantage.
She spoke of a man she didn't wish to return to.
She spoke of enrolling in college and getting her degree, making a home and leaving everything behind. Her tone resembled that of an animal that had escaped from the zoo, an animal that had no fear even though it knew its freedom would not last long. Soon enough, there'd be more chains around her neck. My chains. But, of course, you've already read this. There's no point in me repeating myself.
Slowly, she felt the sinking feeling in the pits of her stomach grow. The world around her moved for a second. She closed her coffee coloured eyes and took a deep breath. The world stopped spinning but it took many inhales and exhales for her to return her gaze to the pages.
One night when she caught me writing, she revealed what I had already guessed; she'd been abused, both mentally and physically by her grandmother, by her so-called love, by all the people who should have cherished her, who should have worshipped the very ground she walked upon.
She was angry when she spit out the truth but underneath the frustration hid a sadness that ran so deep it reached her bones. Perhaps, it even went beyond them. It wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. She told me about the social events and the continuous praying. The aching knees and burned soles. The punishments.
And I pictured her there, sitting on her bruised knees and praying for hours. Tears travelling across her ocean of freckles and falling on the floor.
Lips parted in agony, hands shaking while trying to stay in place.
Her bambi eyes wide, her thighs trembling.
The moon shaped marks burning.
I pictured her falling forward when one of the Devils she knew allowed her to stand, her knees weak and numb from all that kneeling.
I pictured her scrubbing her skin raw in the shower, erasing all signs of tyranny from her sinful body and crying when she realised that she could clean her body as many times as she wanted but that wouldn't change the fact that it was her soul that was tarnished.
With a tortured sob, Gwen threw the book away from her body, leaving it on the carpet. Her hands curled around her legs as she drew them forward and buried her face between her knees, soaking the fabric of Nathaniel's ridiculously expensive shirt with her priceless tears.
Hours later, Nathan strolled inside his apartment, waiting to see her lying on his bed, her lips tilted upwards in a suggestive grin, ready to make him forget all about his day.
With a mischievous smirk on his carved face, he moved towards the bedroom with the self assured grace that characterised him. His mind was already full of scandalous thoughts. His fingers came in contact with the leather of his belt and he shivered, just thinking about how pretty she'd look with it wrapped around her long, slender neck, about how loud her screams would be. But she was not in the bedroom.
Or the living room.
Or the library.
All that she left behind was a mug full of what used to be hot chocolate. The beverage sat on his desk. Right next to it, was the manuscript he had so foolishly forgotten in plain sight the previous night when he heard the bell ring and put an end to his misery.
His eyes would have passed it without a second thought if there wasn't for a little flash of yellow. On top of the stack of ivory coloured papers he found a Post-It note.
Hope it becomes a Bestseller!, it wrote and suddenly Guinevere's absence made perfect sense.
"Fucking Hell." His roared curse could be heard across the street, all the way to the opposite penthouse.
Hey guys,
This chapter was intense for a lot of reasons. I don't know about you but when I write, I like to see the images I'm making and so, since I was basically a ghost during this whole thing, I saw and felt everything Gwen felt and let me tell you, it was strange.
On one hand, I wanted to slap Nathan for doing it but on the other, I know his reasons behind it.
Question: How would you feel if someone wrote a novel about you?
Until next time,
Thea.