Marta, I do not know where you are right now. These emails seem almost to be a conversation with myself. But you are out there, somewhere. I know that, as sure as I know that I will meet you some day.
I told you that Marlene had called me twice. Once, to visit her in Rantoul. The second time, Daniel was gone, and she wanted me to come out to live with her. It all sounds ridiculous now. But at the time, it seemed like everything had finally fallen into place. I will not bore you with details of the drive across country. The Rocky Mountains in November. Snow. The snow continued through to Illinois. It was very cold, especially if you are used to California. Have you ever been to California? If you ever come to America, go to San Francisco.
I arrived in Rantoul at seven at night. Marlene was at this grocery store she worked at. She came out of the office, to the right as you walk in the front door. She saw me and ran to me. She actually jumped over the counter and hugged me. That was the last thing that happened that I had actually expected to happen.
We drove in that little red car. There was no Tom Petty. There wasn't even the Jasmine. I was disappointed. But there was so much more to come.
We were meeting a friend at a 'sports bar'. I'd never been to one before, and I've never been to one since. While Marlene grabbed a beer, I asked the kid behind the bar for a martini. He answered 'uh, most folks drink beer here.' And I had to explain to him how to make a martini.
When I finally had my martini, I found Marlene and her 'friend' (his name is Preston, by the way), sitting together in a booth. They were nearly on top of each other. It was almost too much to believe. She had asked me to come out to live with her. The day that I left California, we had spoken on the phone about our plans. What we were going to do with the little apartment that she had moved into. The window that led onto the roof, and the fact that it was great to bring sandwiches and beers up there, with a stereo. I didn't know what the hell was going on. So I sat down, and tried not to stare at them. They were pawing each other as if- as if I wasn't there. So I lit a cigarette and tried to shrink back in my seat.
Marlene didn't try to explain. At the time, I hated her for it. I wanted to-. Well, I didn't want to kill her. I am not that kind of guy. I just didn't understand why she would ask me to come to her. Two thousand miles, leaving behind a pretty comfortable life in California just so I could see her paw her 'friend' in a crowded sports bar. We stayed there for an uncomfortable hour, and then went back to his apartment. He disappeared briefly into the bedroom, and Marlene looked at me. I looked at her, and I wanted to ask her what the hell was wrong with her. But I couldn't. I saw, behind her, a yellow refrigerator that was plastered with magnets and pictures. And from the little kitchen table, I could see pictures of the two of them together. Pictures from the summer time. While we had been on the phone, chatting and romancing and planning for a life together, she had been sitting in a park with him. Pawing and flirting and doing just what they had done in front of me an hour ago.
So I didn't ask her. I didn't really think that there was anything to be said. I let her take me to her apartment, while she spent the night with Preston.
I rarely saw Marlene after that. I stayed in her apartment as she began to move her things to Preston's. I didn't understand the timing. Had she kept the old apartment so I'd have a place to stay? And there was still the big question. Why had she let me come out? Why not just tell me to stay in California? Through all of it, I never understood that.
I lived there for a week while she moved away, and I found a local publisher. Barnabas Press. LOL. Trashy, but they bought my romance novels. "Suzee Groft's" romance novels, actually. Anyway, that made it easy to rent Marlene's apartment.
I told myself at the time that I stayed there because I was there anyway, and I liked the roof access. I think, now, that I just wanted to stay close to her.
It doesn't seem like much, to start drinking. Just a glass of vodka at night, to celebrate finishing a book. Then, of course, it was a drink on Friday night after the movie. Then it was a drink to help start off a new book. Soon it was there to help me get to sleep.
It was a Sunday when things changed again. I had decided it would be fun to drink espresso and vodka. I dropped two drops of Tabasco sauce into the vodka to give it kick, and threw it back. The espresso machine had just finished steaming, and I poured the soupy coffee into a cup and threw it back right on top of the vodka. That was a mistake. I was suddenly very dizzy. Fortunately, I was close to the bed....
I was lying in bed, my forehead dripping wet, madly talking nonsense… dreaming… a nightmare from the past… the woman moved to climb over me… she kissed slowly and languorously across my chest, moving up to my neck with a hunger that left me gasping…. "Marie-". I struggled for breath to say more, but her kisses weakened me… I felt little cold things drop onto my chest and roll to the floor. And finally I asked "What do you want? I told you I don't want any sex, I am drunk to the bones…"
"You are so sad… longing…" she muttered, between suckling kisses and laboured breaths. "I crave your sadness…"
With that, her ravenous mouth abandoned its explorations and fell upon my mouth. I instinctively responded, but found myself overwhelmed by her hunger. "I-." Then I felt the crushing weight of the last six months come crashing down on me. Oh, God, this woman was feeding off of my sadness. Her lips were crushing mine.... her tongue pushing past my teeth to explore my mouth. And I responded. I pushed back. My tongue engaged hers, and I held her against me. I wanted to roll, to crush her under my weight and take her, but I was drunk, and she had weakened me. I felt again those cold drops rolling down my cheek…all I could do was push myself against her, and feel her drawing my strength into her.… I finally saw that her eyes were glazed. I raised myself up and rolled her over.
Her red hair flowed behind her, spread on the pillow like a fire.…"Marie" My face sank into her hair, and I couldn't breathe anymore.… I woke up with my face buried in the pillow. Exhausted. Sober. According to the clock, five minutes had passed.
I didn't know, at the time, if she was real. I felt as if she were feeding off of- my sadness. I didn't see her the next day, or the next.... But I also didn’t care about Marlene, or Preston. The pain was gone. By Wednesday, I had decided that she was a dream of vodka and espresso, and I went back to writing. Pain was starting to grow within me again. It was like a creeping ooze inside of me. A cancer of tar that soaked into my heart. My thoughts drifted back to Spain, and I wrote a rather dark poem. A suicide poem.
Portrait in Flesh
He created her.
Willed her to stand there motionless
as the car that he created sped down the street that they both knew.
And as the car relentlessly approached him, he stood there in the middle of the street.
(He knew it would look spectacular)
The music, which had been building to a deafening crescendo,
stopped abruptly as the car ran him down.
(Focus on the white shirt turning blood red)
At that instant, everything stopped.
The car is now permanently embedded in his midsection.
The pool of blood in the street no longer spreads,
and her face is a frozen mask of horror and disbelief.
(Isn't it neat?)
The artist sits back to regard his work.
Lights a cigarette and sighs contentedly.
This one would just do.
This latest portrait in flesh.
******
I liked that. I silently thanked Marlene for giving me writing material. So I shot that off to Barnabas Press, and they put it in a Goth magazine. A quick fifty bucks. I wonder what the teenagers would think if they knew they were buying my vodka for me. By Saturday night, I was ready for Marie. If she was real. I was also halfway through the vodka, and thinking about 'the artist'. He couldn't live long. At five a.m. Sunday, I drank the last of the vodka and killed him off.
Vast Death
A corpse running through
The snowy landscape that covers the earth
casts a dead eye skyward.
Winged scavengers stare with glass eyes
that gleam with a lust of blood and hunger.
In the endless death that is space,
a steel cocoon bursts violently.
The fragile creature within
is thrust into the vacuum
and lives a lifetime of fear in the next seconds
as his fragile flesh succumbs to the harsh nothingness.
Two bodies,
heated with want and lust to burning
wrap themselves around each other
and feed off each others souls.
The crack of thunder.
The scurrying of tiny animal feet.
Moans of passion.
Then the flash of naked steel
as one naked arm,
gleaming with a sheen of sweat
produces a blade
and stabs uncounted time into both bodies.
A lanky figure,
wrapped in thin and inconsequential rags
steps outside and is immediately struck
by a stabbing, killing, relentless downpour of freezing rain.
Blinding tears,
indistinguishable from the rain
run down the dark face
and onto the already rain-dotted cigarette.
A frenzied bid to keep moving.
Click of heels running into the street.
The swish of skidding tires.
A dull thump-
and the forlorn song of a siren arriving too late.
The artist arises from a prone position
and looks around at the tiny universe
of an unfamiliar apartment.
The darkness of midday floods the room
with seductive and deadly visions
that draw the artist through the window.
The vast death ends with a noiseless scream…
And silence.
*****
That was much better. The evil artist had to eventually succumb to his horrible world. Balance. Justice. Bullshit, really. If there were real justice, Marlene would have her heart ripped out. I contemplated this while I slipped out of my small apartment. There was one place in Rantoul that sold alcohol on Sunday. Mayday Liquors. A bottle of Stoli's and a bag of corn chips would do for Sunday dinner.
Time disappeared very quickly. I was contemplating writing more. I read and reread "Vast Death". I think I slept in front of the T.V. for a few hours. I woke up to Dan Rather on the news. And Marie sitting, watching me. "Vengeance?" Her voice was like a lightning bolt. Thick and Russian, but somehow- empty. Like an empty bottle. I didn't even register at the time that she was naked.
"Excuse me?"
"Forgive me. I know you are sad. But now you want vengeance?"
"Marie." I was coming to grips with the fact that she wasn't a dream. That sounds stupid, but spending your life living in a tiny apartment drinking and writing suicide poems can change your power of perception. And it is just not normal for naked Russian babes to land in your bed and make love to you. "Your name is Marie?" She nodded, and that incredible red hair bobbed and seemed to flicker like a fire. "How do you know about the vengeance?"
"I can smell your fear and your sadness. Your hatred. How do you live with it all the time?" She looked disapproving. But there was a hunger to her at the same time.
"What are you?" That question came out unbidden.
You could cut her accent with a knife and spread it on a piece of toast. "Nosferat'id. Vampire of the Heart." What that was, she explained, was a vampire that fed on emotions. She said that she smelled my 'melancholia' from miles away. It had left her intoxicated for five days.
"I don't want to talk about it." Damn. I had been fine for days. In fact, for five days. Since-. "You took my.... melancholia. My sadness?"
"It was so intense. So very passionate."
Then I lost the angry edge that kept me from crying. "Can you take it all? Can you stop it from hurting?"
One of her eyes closed quickly, and something bright dropped to the floor. I could see from where I sat that it was a diamond. "Kesla, I can do this. I can. But you will lose your passion. All of it. Your 'artist' will be no more."
A tear squeezed out, and I suddenly hated the passion that Marie wanted. I hated the salty tear that smeared the dirt on my face. I hated Marlene, and everyone that I had ever known. Except for Marie. She was beautiful. She was incredible. And she could stop the pain forever. "Please."
She kissed me. Hard. It was like the first time, except that I was awake this time. I felt as if- as if she were feeding on me. I felt like an animal was devouring me. I felt helpless. And this was just a kiss. Her arms were around me, like steel bands. Her body was very hard next to mine. But the fact that she was naked meant nothing. It was as if it were natural. I imagined a wolf devouring its prey, but with just a kiss. I must have fallen back on the bed at some point, and I have vague memories now of making love to her. Or I think it was actually her making love to me…. with my passion. When I awoke Monday morning, I was sober. No hangover. And no sadness.
She came back the following Sunday, and the same thing happened. I noticed that she always left a small pile of diamonds on the floor by the bed. I felt for one brief, bitter moment like a prostitute. Take my passion, leave me a fortune in tears. But in fact, I had asked her too.
Seven more Sundays came and went, with seven more visits by Marie. Seven more kisses. Seven more piles of diamond tears by the side of the bed. On the eighth Sunday she didn’t show, and I felt myself hungry for her passion. Or anyone’s.
To be continued.....
