The opening...

The opening...

Chapter 1 (cnt'd): where Jesus is tormented by memories and we learn of a tragic love...

finished/unfinished


It came as he knew it would as it had done before. She was waiting outside the train station on that that wild summer day. She wore a light red dress, just above the knees, and black sun-glasses. Her lips were painted scarlet and her hair was black, medium length and silky. She had arrived early and Jesus had enjoyed that. He had spotted her from a distance and he stopped to watch her. It was the first time he had seen her outside the dark of the bar where they had met. She looked just as sultry in daylight as she had done by night. As she waited she smoked and she did not look out or around nor check the time. She seemed to know that she would not be stood up. Jesus watched her, her long slender arms and legs, bare and tanned and elegant. She had a thin, flat waist and small, pert breasts. Jesus lit a cigarette and approached. When she saw him she raised her sunglasses onto her head. Her dark eyes shone and glared like a wild fire, and that effect seemed to set off a reaction right through her body which made her shiver. They both noticed it. Jesus had never seen a reaction like that in anyone before and it stirred something strong deep inside of him and he wanted it to happen again and again. 

They took the train into the centre of town and sat opposite one another. Jesus stared deep into her eyes and an erotic drunken veneer washed over her pupils. Although they were all but strangers she seemed to drift off under his gaze, like she was being hypnotised by something inside of him. As the tube rattled along its track her eyelids would close over to the rhythm of the train, like each backwards lull of the carriage sent an orgasmic wave of pleasure through her. This was something new and strange to Jesus and it thrilled him. There was some kind of pull they exerted upon one another, something psycho-sexual from the start. He smiled at her and she smiled back and the train chugged along. He called her over besides him. She came without hesitation. Jesus took her hand and squeezed it gently and never released. It was soft and the fingers long and on this sticky summer day her grip was cool and refreshing. He  held her hand and the wildest, most dangerous passions were astir and already the happiness was so great that a fear was born, the fear of that touch, that hold, ever being prised apart. In the black reflection of the window, as they rocketed through tunnel, Jesus secretly spied on her and secretly she spied him back.  

They did not speak much the entire day. Words seemed not so much hard to come by, but unnecessary. It was a day of looks and silent reflection and something gave in both their eyes that said it was healing just being together. They were not of wealth and this was never going to be a restaurant date or a movie or anything  like that. This was about the city, about London, about the secret spaces and skies of her metropolis, about the river and the small cobbled streets that echoed in the tawdry afternoon and smelled of honeysuckle and pine . And so Jesus took her to St James' park and they walked. She removed her shoes and said the grass was milky and cool. Jesus asked if they had parks like this in Istanbul and she said they did but that  Istanbul was of the sea and the sea was blue. Jesus told her that London has no sea of blue but that London has green  and she looked for miles into the distance and said she likes the green and that maybe one day the green would replace blue and Jesus hoped so too. For the first time in his life his city seemed full of beauty and wonder and he knew it was because she was besides him and that scared him because it took so much control from him. He looked at her with fear and longing, and on the grass she could see his lust and she lay back and let him see her thighs up her dress, and when she laughed she would fall into him so as he could smell her hair and see down the top of her dress at the smooth skin of her breast disappearing into her light bra. But for all her power of beauty she seemed just as in awe of him as he was of her. They smoked on the grass and ate sandwiches and found hidden places among the pines. They did not kiss nor touch anything but hands, but it was building and becoming emotional and they both felt the evening arriving and the floral smells drifting in the late air. The day had passed so quickly and now a sadness was in their eyes at the thought  that the night would separate them.  Jesus said, "I suppose we should get going... It's late." And she said, "Yes, it's late... we really should go." Jesus said, "I enjoyed the day so much"  and she replied, "Me too... It was sad wasn't it?" Jesus said, "It was not sad but it became sad as time passed on." She nodded furiously at his words as if that was what she  had meant to say. 
"Maybe the evening can be ours too?" she posed. "Maybe we could find some place to have a drink?" Jesus agreed and smiled and said he would love a drink  and for a moment they had postponed the end of their first day. The evening took them to a series of small bars, a drink in each and then Jesus would escort her home some more. To postpone the point of their departure they kept finding another bar and another reason to stay together. And soon it was dark and the bell was being swung in The Man on the Moon. It was call for last orders and by now they did not want to leave.

Jesus was making animal sounds in his sickness. He was squealing and his hands were contorted in strange positions, as if he had become paralysed while raising them to his head. Where he had wept before it was different. Those were  tears born of self pity due to the injustice of the physical pain. They were not wet tears. Now as he made these strange, bestial noises the tears flowed wet and strong and the last time he had cried tears like that, tears that bubbled in his nose and mouth and made his whole face feel like it was streaming away was the night when she had left and the coldness of her voice so far away down the telephone line. Before that, before her, he had not cried so honestly since being a child. And now in his sickness, his fever rising once more, a new suffering was upon him. It had come in from nowhere; was in the room, and he wanted it all to end. 

To pull himself together Jesus cried out to Jean-Baptiste: 

"Jean Baptiste, please!!!" he cried. "Please be on your way... I need something." Jesus concentrated on his friend, but in the room the atmosphere lingered and with every small lapse of concentration he would start sobbing again and squeeze his brain tight shut to try and stop the memories flooding in. Heroin seemed ever more vital to Jesus and he promised himself that when this sickness was over he would never fall ill again. He cursed life and vowed, at the first opportunity, to lay himself out cold with a triple loaded fix, a shot to end sickness and forget this ghastly fucking world. 
What is this suffering? he thought. What is this perverted idea of original fucking sin and why the fuck should I be the one to bear it!


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note: rethink name for Buket. Look through old notes from Loves Down Tango or Mythical Darts

1 comment:

  1. Would love to read more of this story. Such a good idea for the storyline too.

    ReplyDelete