L.

[6.] I Will Not Be Haunted By Them

Dasius said, "Do you want me to fly with you?" 

I slapped him on the back of his hand.

"Will you be all right?" he asked, laughing.

I slapped the back of his other hand.

He kissed my knuckles.

"What would I do without you?" I asked him.

"I don't know. Raise hell, I imagine."

I gazed at him while his head was turned away. Brown-black hair cut around his ears. His perfect ears. The light touch of his shirt color against his neck. I felt it in my throat.

"You don't want me to come with you? You could sleep on the train, on the airplane. I will take you to your front door in Montreal."

The curtains in the window stroked him. White lace curtains he had bought for me in Amsterdam. I know what he was doing in Amsterdam -- making sure that bad influences were being kept peaceable. Skulking about very fashionably.

Oh he loves big stiff-brimmed hats and spying. He loves swanning about in the countryside like some pensioned farmer on holiday, hunting small birds and smoking. Boots on and shirt rolled up at the sleeves. All that he is missing is cream from over-filled choux all over his mouth.

He goes all over the place and back again, looking in on things without being seen, but what he is really doing is swanning about, feeling quite expansive. A capable man with great big responsibilities and all of the skills to accomplish them. He is really a great big bore who refuses regard from those who wish to regard him. He would have been an incredibly common man in his full manhood, and proud of it. Confident of his place in the universe, and humbled by all of the nature he calls God.

I regard him in private, looking at him only when he would not in a million years see. I look and look.

He turned to me, the pale sunlight making patterns on him through the curtains. He loves the pale morning light, before it grows powerful enough to make him hurt. He looked at me through his eyelashes. "What do you think?"

"Hm what?"

"I'll come with you travelling. Be honest. You will be inconsolable if I do not."

"Oh, I protest."

He sat there so straight, smiling at me with the corners of his mouth. He pushed his hair back with his left hand and stretched. His white shirt taut. I bit my lips, and I shut my eyes, and I bowed my head with my hands over my ears.

"What is wrong, sweet head?" he asked, quietly. "Are you in pain? What should I do?"

I wonder if he knows what I am truly capable of. I wonder if anyone could love me as I was, before I cared about things like having a man to hold my hand tenderly, or feared airplanes, or begged for drugs that dull the sound of electric humming everywhere, or could weep about a little dog taken from me. 

He opened his case because he saw that if he did not, oh, if he did not, then?

*

Honor.

Courage.

Dandyism.

Hysterics.

Jealousy.

I sit here in my bedroom gaol. After this long decade suddenly it is the last night. And I find that I love this place, and have no will to leave it. My legs are weak.

D has gone away on the train and left me with a heavy pear-shaped brown diamond. It is set in white gold, and hangs low, at the solar plexus. A token for me. He said that he bought it in New York some time ago, and has been keeping it for a time when he could see me wearing it. I wear it, and he is filled with pride. He beams with pleasure.