Giorgio

Roma, January 2012

Here I am. Thirty five years old. My 'husband's' hand laying on my warm shoulder. Our three years old son sleeping in the next room. I am surrounded by my friends and am having a lovely evening.

Him, he is seated across the room from me. I just met him few moments ago. He is looking at me. He smiles at me. As soon as he opens his mouth tears spring in my eyes. His voice is a balm. His words are a melody. His gestures are a silent ballet. His clothes are a drape that render modesty to his sensuality.

He must be around twenty years old. There is a spark in his eye and he makes me infinitely sad with joy. The joy of meeting him. The sadness of not being able to belong to him right here, right now.

A few lectures about soulmates come up in my mind.

We come from different continents. We are at a meeting place two thirds away from his country and one third from mine.  Nonetheless, I feel him more familiar than my husband who is softly caressing my arm. I feel even closer to him than to my best friend who is sitting somewhere in the room.

At a certain point we discover our common passion for Russian. We abandon the others as we pursue a conversation incomprehensible to all the others as there is no Russian model at the party tonight...

My best friend makes me understand I'm stepping out of the line. My husband, completely under my spell, doesn't mind at all. Blood starts hammering in my temples as soon as he sat face to me and it won't stop beating. My cheeks are burning.

I stand up to open the window for some air. I bend down to pick up a paper drifted to the floor. As I stand back up, my head hits against the corner of the window frame. It used to happen to me quite often when I was a kid, but never with this strength.

I fell flat to the ground and only woke up at the hospital in my husband's arms. He is somewhere in the waiting room. I feel his gaze totally conscious of his part of responsibility for my loss of concentration  that lead to this accident...

Three stitches and a part of my head shaved. 

Sven : A letter to my 30 years old self.

Paris, November 2011

Dear Sven!

Today you are torturing yourself. Your heart aches and you are not sure if it is your heart or your ego. You love Jacob, he's beautiful, intelligent, educated and so very young.  He has his future ahead of him, lined up career as an actor and he genuinely loves you. Not that you have ever told each other. But you both know it. You need to work your way through to take interest in others, you need to learn to listen to them and be more in the real than in your own imagination and judgment.

You have been dreaming about going to Italy for the past five years. But you are unable to take a step towards autonomy. That is the reason that makes you doubt the fact that you spend time on thinking about Jacob just to postpone your departure.

You don't want to read and you don't mind your own interests anymore. Your body is giving out signals that there is time for you to change your habits.  Your heart bleeds and your brain is boiling. You are looking for a way to stop the pain and the best solution would be to split with Jacob. But will we ever see each other again? Will I still love him? Will he still love me? Is it all important?

It is awful not giving people value, or at least pretending not to.

Today, you cannot imagine your life without him, without his body, without his smile, without the little fights. The other day you questioned yourself and realized you don't need to meet any other guy... But you need to discover your own self. To see who you are and understand your own worth.

I would like to know where you are now, at thirty. Still in Paris? In Paris again? Somewhere in Italy or in another country? Finally in New York? Or did you give in to Canada or return to Slovakia? And your friends? Who is next to you? What happened to Iris? Your sisters, do they have any children? Your father, is he with a woman that makes him happy?

And your childhood friends Silvia, Julia, Petra, Zuzana, do you ever get to see them?

And, what do you do for living? Always in the shoe business? How many languages do you speak? Did you forget any? Are you happy? Rich? Poor? Satisfied?

And Jacob in all that? Do you get his news? Is he next to you? Did you completely forget him? And this counts for both Jacobs in your life.

Do you remember being in the hall of Jehova's Witnesses imagining you would come out of the bathroom , suddenly being twenty four years old and on the way to be independent, it's not that way now...how about now that you're thirty?

Can you prioritize? Did you get a better understanding of what is important in life? Did you understand your little mistakes? Do you hurt less the people that love you? Did you learn to listen and to listen to yourself?

You need to know that I love you anyway and anyhow. You are very extraordinary and certainly unique, I would have missed you if I haven't met you. But you are equal to others. Everybody is equal. You aren't worth any more or any less than the others.

I hope you learned to be humble and take distance with the situations. I hope you react in a less emotive and more thoughtful manner. I hope you don't hurt people around you and that you don't bend yourself too much for the others. Also, I hope you quit that bad habit of being a victim.

And physically, we are quite the hot stuff at twenty five, but the skin is not that fresh anymore and you lack muscles. Did you work on your longevity by working out? Are you bold and chubby? You should be terribly sexy at your mature age, but are we still premature in bed? I think the fact that you can't give Jacob a long moment of pleasure bothers you.  And your mental block that makes you go weak when he offers himself to you...

Come on, be a man! Yes, I want you to be a man, the train to becoming a woman has left the station without you and it would have been a very bumpy ride. Be yourself. Be the one you were born before this World filled you with images of what you should be. Be virile and assume your life choices.

I only hope you regret the least things and choices possible.

Always remember what Eugene from Montaigne Market told you:

"You are a positive person!"

Sven

Paris, October 2009

It's Wednesday night. The weather is rainy. Wednesday is the best night to go out in Paris. Only a privileged few are out in private clubs. I started dating my boyfriend, Casanova, a week and a half ago. He was the first guy my boyfriend of a year and a half dated after me a year ago. Sex with Casanova is amazing. He has a great talent for it and is a professional dancer which gives me a Morning wood just at the thought of it.

Tonight, he and my best friend are meeting some friends of theirs from Berlin. I am not invited. I feel offended and bored as hell, browsing everybody's Facebook statuses.

Suddenly, Paul, a virtual friend of mine and a socialite journalist, calls me up for a Paco Rabanne party at the V.I.P Room. I am dressed up and on my way under five minutes. He is there, waiting for me. Sweet as a pie and quite taller than me (I'm already hitting my head when entering the tube!). He's surrounded by really cool people and has some very hot straight guy friends. I'm drunk after all the Champagne from the open bar. We drank so much, they ran out of Champagne...so we keep on drinking Vodka.

A DJ looking like Lady Bunny plays the freshly out 'Million Dollar' by Whitney Houston. I feel so happy, Whitney is back on track, better than ever. She's making it work after all she has been through with Bobbi.

As we smoke a lot, I keep on spread opening some guys snap button shirt to reveal his large hairy chest. He is straight and I have no interest in him, I just love the fact his shirt opens all the way down. It's quite a dramatic gesture. A moment later, Paul and I are kissing, it's nice, but I feel naughty as I actually have a boyfriend. But he left me alone on a Wednesday night, so why would I be faithful?

I want to go to my QG, the Curio Parlor on the left bank of the river. We grab a cab straight off the club with some of Paul's friends. As we walk out of the cab I spot Casanova and my best friend. My brain goes from zero to 'I'm gonna kill every motherfucking last one of you' in a split second. Drunk, my brain forgets Pauls presence and decides to obviously ignore Casanova with a total disdain. The fact that they didn't tell me they were coming here just makes me mad. All my friends are here. Everybody knows I end up here three to five nights a week. I'm going mental on my best friend who just looks at me like a schoolgirl caught smoking behind the garages by the headmaster.

Paul is long gone and I have barely noticed. I storm out of the club not saying bye to anyone. On my way home I insult Casanova in Slovak over text messages. Everything blurrs up in my mind. I'm on the phone with him. I'm proud and angry, he is proud and hurt. He cannot get over the insults. He's angry because I ignored him when I arrived. Doesn't understand why I felt offended. He defends my best friend for not being obliged to tell me where she goes. I insult absolutely everyone, but mostly her. I can suddenly hear her cry on the other end of the line. I feel the worst I ever had. I feel betrayed, but I feel like a monster. There was no need for me to insult them.

Casanova gives me a last gift before we break the conversation and our short lived relationship. He tells me to listen to Léo Ferré. And I end up finding his song, Vingt ans by Catherine Sauvage, it touches my soul and is going to lead me through many years of emotions.

John

London, November 2010

Those few drops of a perfumed alcohol. On the lobe, on the pulse, under the jawline, in the pit of the collarbone, on the wrists and one well situated just above the sex. Thus, ready to face the external world  with strength I put on my Pink Panther T-shirt and the sweatpants I only ever wore at home. Drunken with the Sandal wood in my perfume I roll up in the sweetness of the almond scent coming from my clean bed sheets. I stretch out my extremities. I drink a herbal tea. I munch on some sesame biscuits. Toilet break. I turn on my mac book, my only contact with the external world in the past month. Overwhelmed with the external world. Offended by the noisy brutality of the outside. I lock myself in as it is not necessary for me to go out. First week I was signed out for illness. Second week I realized I can handle my work from home. I have enough food to last and no need to go to the office.

Marilyn

Paris, December 2010

I am blonde. Tonight, I am 'the blonde'. Tight mini-dress. Sky-scraping skinny heels. My best friend has been ordering bottles of Champagne for me for the past four hours. I feel no more pain in my feet, I don't feel the cold wind itching the skin of my bare legs. I vapidly laugh without any reason. Which actually makes me laugh even more.

My friend grades the room. Too old for me, too skinny and straight for him. An old sleazy one is heading our way. He's trying to offer me a drink. I'm speechless. I laugh again. Should I feel insulted or flattered? I'm happy somebody is showing interest in me. But, frankly, I am offended at the idea of being mistaken for a nurse from a retirement house. I grab the arm of the first passer by. Tall, dark, clean shaved, made to measure suit. He checks out my cleavage and my hips molded in those few bands of elastic lurex. He smirks and says:

"Darling, does the gentleman wish to join us?"
"I have no idea, but, he's kinda cute, isn't he?" I say lasciviously.
"Right at the moment, we were going for a tour in my Porsche! Maybe next time, sport..."

I smile, not getting anything out of what is happening. The elderly man still wants to mix up with us but the Tall man grabs a magnum of Champagne in one hand and my waist in the other. I am completely under his control.

His Carrera is waiting for us in front of the club. I forgot my friend inside. I forgot the simple existence of anything else right now. I'm sitting in a sports car with a bottle of Veuve Cliquot in my lap and a manly hand on my knee. I forgot my fur coat. I forgot my pouch.

He looks at me from the corner of his eye with satisfaction as he turns on the powerful engine. I wet the dress directly as I must wear it without any underwear. The spike heels push into the soft carpet as he suddenly accelerates. I hate this virile need to show his power by driving 60mph on a 10 meter segment in a jammed Parisian traffic.

I pop the cork out the window and I just drink and laugh. He puts on some romantic music.

His apartment is huge and overviews the Eiffel Tower. He comes to me impatiently.

Just this morning I was crying in my bed looking at my grayish blond hair and my skinny body after three months of unplanned fasting. My best friend came over to pick me up, he turned my hair platinum blonde, put me into a golden Herve Leger by Max Azria dress, stuck a pair of Sergio Rossi heels on my feet, covered my back with a Pucci fur and slipped a Margiela pouch in my hand. I could have never been able to afford those clothes with my editor's assistant job. Fortunately my friend is a press agent at a big agency.There are some perks to his job.

I'm standing naked even before he starts to kiss me. I can smell his entire day coming up from his sweat. The skin on his body is much less attractive than his face. He takes his own clothes off. I mechanically caress his back as he attempts to passionately embrace me. I'm asking myself what am I doing here, what is it going to end up like.

He's clumsy and only pretends to be patient. I follow him to his bed. He strokes my skin a bit, kisses me... My body gives in to him without asking me for a consent. My body wants him. He puts on a condom and puts me over the top of it. He lasts five minutes, breaks included. He has a nice Bang&Olufsen alarm clock. He throbs his jaw forward and rolls his eyes over as he cums. I feel like rolling to the side in case he feels like hitting me. He falls down to his elbows. Smiling with self satisfaction. He kisses me with his wet mouth on my front, I close down like a shell. My excitation is all gone.

Once he falls asleep I put on my dress, take his phone to call my friend. He comes to pick me up by cab with the fur and the pouch.

Tomorrow, as I will wake up, I will cry. Because in three moths of self deprivation I didn't loose anything, I didn't miss anything. My dreams vanished in one night, all my hopes are shattered. I have no others. Prince Charming is just a premature egoistical Shrek ogre..and I just got my period..on the seat of the cab, as I didn't realize it was coming. I just destroyed a dress worth over 2000 Euros.