Growth. It had always frightened me.
Colette had just gotten to the second room with the absinthe when I took a seat on a chair opposite the sofa.
“That is when Scarlett was kissed byla fee verte!”The green fairy.“She has had her first kiss…by a woman.” She threw her head back and laughed. After her laughter tapered off, she held up her pointer finger. “But. She brought down the club with her dance. She is now known asdanse de dame. Her name will be on the lips of those who attended and known on the streets of Pareeh by morn.”
I took a bite of my pear. Emilia and Colette turned their attention to me.
“You are a bit different.” Emilia searched my face, pushing up her square, black glasses. “For the first time you are sitting out here with us for longer than a minute.”
Shrugging, I took another bite. I was hit with an inane urge to kick the table over, scattering the pictures, and take a nap at the same time. The unknown plagued me. I felt too contained in my own skin.
“Pfff!” Colette stood from the sofa, throwing her Brigitte Bardot-styled waves over her shoulder. “We need to get rid of this aura you carry around.”
She ran to her room, coming back with a black box clutched to her chest. She thrust it at me.
“A gift. You are sobleu, even in Pareeh! I think the bleu is catching. I cannot take anymore. Emilia traversed Pigalle to find just the, euh, cure to your pathetic.”
Hesitantly, I took the box, staring down at it as though it might explode. Pigalle was known for its Moulin Rouge type of paraphernalia. Curiosity, as usual, called louder than uncertainty. I peeked inside the box. Just as I thought, sexual apparatus.
Grabbing my water off the table, I was prepared to enter into my self-imposed solitude once again when Emilia’s hand shot out to stop me.
“Here,” she said, handing me one of her black and whites. “Inspiration.”
Throwing back my head, I laughed. I laughed like a loon. The picture was of a man in his full, hard glory. I only had one man to compare the man in the picture to, and there wasnocomparison.
Just from the sheer size of him alone, I should have run screaming from the house on Snow, or taken the time to consider how his anatomy was going to fit inside of mine the first night we made love. In fact, it seemed luck alone was responsible for my uterus still being in anatomical order and not wedged inside of my brain.
In fact, I was pretty sure that his size was illegal in a few countries, considered a blunt object and, therefore, a weapon.Sir, you cannot get on the plane with that thing.
Instead of thinking all of this through, I had craved him and had entertained no other thoughts. I had trusted him completely.
I still crave him. I want him even more, to a detrimental degree.
The sly look Colette and Emilia gave each other caused my manic laughter to turn into a wistful sigh. I missed that madly too, the ability to speak to someone without actually saying a word. I could do that with Brando by the humming that always alerted me when he was near.
I flung the picture back on the table, held up the box, gave a quick thanks, and then left them staring after me as the door shut to my room.
* * *
My room was the most spacious of the three. The deciding factor for me was the cozy fireplace and the amazing balcony. After undressing, I didn’t even bother to cover skin and bones. I took a place on the floor in front of the fire, feeling its hot fingers rake against my back in constant strokes.
I toyed with the paper I had laid out in preparation to write Maggie Beautiful. The need to tell her what had happened hit me square in the chest, a punch to the heart, but it was too soon to tell her about the dance in front of the mirrors.
No, not yet. That would come later, when I could make some sense of it.
Writing to her served more than one purpose. Of course, I loved, missed, and wanted to share my life with her, but it was from those purposes that another more important reason branched off and took life.
I need someone to share my life with.
Someone who cared about me and felt they had a right to give me the truth, whether I was right or wrong. Maggie Beautiful always gave me both, whether I wanted to hear it or not. But she did it from a place inside of her that was both innocent and protective.
Don’t lie to yourself, Scarlett. It’s also the connection to him and to home.
My hand wrote quickly, almost furiously against the paper. When the part about the dance came, I paused, feeling slightly breathless. Still, I wrote on, hiding away the thought like it was going to barge in, take a seat in my life, and play on never-ending repeat.
The end of the letter came without much warning. I just couldn’t write anymore.
I wrote this letter to Celine Dion’s “My Love.”
