’Mail call baby!’
I sat at the piano in the basement tinkling the notes over and over of a familiar melody that I’m sure some other artists have sure had already claimed of late. I just needed to sit, to think, to get away from top hats, garters and pretty pink dresses with silk sashes.
’You’ve got a package, Taybear, maybe they finally sent the brochure of suits for you, about time too,’ and that’s the reason why I need to get away.
Since Saturday when Season ran away from me I’d been lost, totally unsettled in my mind as to what exactly had caused me to question, and caused her to flare up more than a phosphorus distress marker. Not even Nadia’s arrival an hour later soothed my aching mind, even though the woman bounding down the stairs with a wad of letters and parcels in her hand who was set to be my wife in a matter of months, could tear my thoughts away from the illusive and confusing labyrinth that made up Season Mally.
’Open it go on I want to see how sexy your going to look baby!’ she cooed, sitting down beside me on the piano stool, dumping the parcel in my lap. She kissed my cheek softly, playing with strands of my fringe annoyingly the smell of that new perfume of hers threatening to choke me at any moment. She should have been the only thing on my mind, she’s my fiancée, she’s the woman I love but she’s pre-occupied, caught up in the moment trying to make everything perfect so that everyone will remember our wedding- yes everyone has to remember, sucks to what we think. Right now I couldn’t care less, I wanted to drive to the chine and sit there, wallowing in my own foolishness, maybe with a faint wish I’d see Season there again and be able to put it right. I didn’t want to care about what anyone else thought, the wedding was out of my hands anyway, the only person I wanted to think anything of me was the person I’d managed to offend and mis-understand all thanks to not standing up for myself and what I deem acceptable, what I want in my life and my life alone.
I opened the package and pulled out a black folio folder with a note attached to the front in an envelope with my name scribble scrappily on the front. This wasn’t the suit catalogue. I knew full well what it was, in fact I thought I’d never see this, maybe I didn’t deserve too but it was something that I couldn’t let Nadia see.
’I can’t let you see the suits sweetheart, you know it’s bad luck,’ I smiled, hoping she’d buy my feeble and un-manly excuse.
Sure enough out came the bottom lip and that over used pout, the puppy dog brown eyes and the hand on the thigh. Her begging game never changed in 3 years but this time she wouldn’t win, she may well be marrying me for my money, status or simple because she though I’d be a soft touch and would sit, roll over and beg when she commanded, but regardless, I wasn’t in the mood to be pushed.
’Go on, go see if you can work some magic on Zac to get him to keep the stag night simple,’ I laughed as she kissed m lips once more before raising from her seat and walking over to the basement steps with a seductive sway of her hips.
’Okay but your taking me out tonight,’ I knew privacy would come at a cost. I just nodded and watched her trudge up the stairs loudly, shutting the door at the top of the stairs when she’d finally left me alone and in peace to look at my work.
I’d read her letter over and over and felt more unsettled now than ever before. I’d made a right crater of a situation and it was apparent I’d hurt her feelings with my misguided insinuations. My intention to just tell her I was engaged and the complications an overly touchy feely friendship could bring had come out wrong, as if I couldn’t take it, as if I didn’t want it- as if it wasn’t right in my mind. I might have known the very thin ice I was standing on with her would crack, I guess you could say I’m heavier than I look and I’m a high maintenance person to deal with, despite my now lost and thwarted efforts to change that.
I opened the folio to see her looking back at me, that full facial shot that gave the impression she was a creature rising from the deep, the droplets of water were magnified by the lens, the one at the tip oh her eyelash just threatening to fall as I snapped. I managed to feel even smaller with every page that I turned, seeing her naked body provoked no stimulation other than the dormant need to indulge in such a session again in the near future. There she was, laying in the shallow water, on her stomach the perfect rise of her behind, the dip at the small of her back, the ridge of her spine, so perfectly preserved. The full frontal was at the very back, her body relaxed and at ease as she stood under the cascading fall, the water coursing over her skin and her most intimate features, and all I could do was sit there and sigh I had no right to be aroused, none at all because my friend wasn’t there to help me get rid of what she had inadvertently caused. And weather I was engaged or not, I suddenly realized how much that hurt to know.
In finding she had put a return address on one side of the parcel paper my fingers itched for pen and paper to reply to her words, express a thanks, express a sorry. Why didn’t I just go round there and tell her too her face? Because as naive as she may have deemed me about her, I wasn’t so naive as to know that just wasn’t something I could do, for so many reasons other than the obvious.
I cannot take back the things I said, if we could do that the world would be a calmer place, but I can’t and that nerves me. Never once did I stop and think through how I was going to say what I wanted and maybe if I had I wouldn’t have messed up this opportunity. I can’t apologize enough but I can say that my words were wrong, they were wrong in every context and I so desperately wish I’d kept my big mouth shut.
Upon reading your letter I became drawn into your world more, even if you banish me I will not stop formulating questions or thoughts about you, I just don’t work that way. I have some answers for you though and I need you to hear them.
Inside of me I accepted your thanks, It was, believe it or not, my personal belief that there was nothing wrong in what you did for me, from posing naked to relieving my discomfort- none of it was wrong to me. Unfortunately like you say, what people think of me is, despite my desires not to give a damn, something I have to take into consideration, it’s not just me I bring down if I don’t watch my back. As for what Nadia would think, I love her, of course I do, I would not have devoted 3 years of my life to one girl if there wasn’t something there- but I’m young and I don’t want to get married yet and if no one can understand that, how could they understand how our friendship would work? If no one understands the most obvious things I say how could they understand such a complexed thing as our friendship? I scream for release, I scream for that whole life of me when I’m not sat behind a piano- and for a spilt second, you let me enjoy that.
The roses thorn has pricked me, it’s drawn blood but I like the sensation and you can’t imagine how terrible I have felt these last 6 days knowing I said all the wrong things and the wrong time. I knew you desired nothing from me, about the only person at this point in time that didn’t and I should have cherished that, instead I had to say things that I thought others would want me to say to you because I was cowardly enough to think what they thought of you, of me befriending you, actually would matter too me.
I’m in awe of your world well and truly, you may fear mine with its openness and it’s abruptness but nothing could shy me away from wanting to have a taste of independence. I’m simply enchanted by your complexed way of living, no matter how simple it seems to you to me it is a maze of mystery and intricate structure. You say I don’t understand, after a month I didn’t understand, that I might have contradicted myself from what I originally told you about wanting to be free and uninhibited, and then clamping down restraints because of the opinions of others. But given time and scope I would have, I was willing to put up with knowing you would find dislikes in the way I live and the way I am, like you said, I scared you somewhat. I was prepared for that and I thought, just maybe that you would give me a little breathing room when it came to grasping hold of you and your life. I couldn’t possibly have known straight off the bat.
Then again, maybe I was so blinded and struck by what you stood for and represented I took liberties and acted inconsiderate in the way I chose to tell you about my pending marriage. I merely wanted to be truthful with you, lay all my cards on the table so something like this could never happen but I let others worthless opinions control my actions in telling you.
I’ll hurt a little each day and every time I look at these pictures knowing that this was my fault.
I tucked the letter in the folder as I made my way up to my room to find an envelope and a stamp to mail my apologetic letter. I took the folio folder and furrowed at the bottom of my wardrobe to find my memory box, filled with everything I cherished over my life. As I lifted the lid there was the sketch, the last memory I had. Tucking that inside the folder I placed the folder inside and replaced the lid and hid the box again.
’ TAYLOR! COME AND LOOK AT ISAAC’S SUIT!’
One day closer to being a fraction for the rest of my life.