All the Love in the Universe

Five. Before-Marie

I doodled a cartoon puppy over the top of my newest lyrics. They were crap, anyways. I hated every last word I'd written in the last hour. Mindless drivel. Not fit for public consumption.

I just wasn't feeling it lately. I was out of my creative element. It wasn't writer's block, not quite. Henri claimed—and he was blunt as a wooden spoon—that my most recent attempts at songwriting were about as good as most musicians could hope for.

They just weren't up to par by my usual standards.

I couldn't muster the interest. The numbness I'd routinely feel every time Alec left me had metastasized. It was now systemic. It was like kudzu taking over a once-fertile garden.

"I died, I think." My voice came as though out of the wildness of ether, as if far away. I could barely recognize it as my own.

"Drama princess," Henri smoothly rebuffed.

"When will he love me again?"

Henri exploded into a robust guffaw that startled me.

"Baby girl," he laughed, "you need to stop watching those old romantic movies. You're becoming over the top."

Seeing me stunned by his impoliteness, he breathed out and then hugged me to his thick chest. I felt his strong heart beating against my jaw. I closed my eyes and slipped into a calm reverie.

"Do you remember the last time you were on stage?" Henri's voice was low, not much thicker than a murmur. "Baby, there's not a star on history's roster who ever shined brighter than you did that night. Not Janis. Not Cass. Not Dolly. Not Cyndi."

I snuggled in even deeper against him, inhaling the muted scent of his Ivory soap and sweat.

"You left everyone in that amphitheater hungry for more. They chanted and hollered but you left them wanting. I can still hear their clamor, all these months later. Ma-rie! Ma-rie!"

It was true. That had been a good night. I had trotted out three new songs, and the crowd had moved with them as fervently as when I played my standard hits. The future seemed on the move, the next steps in the star-journey closer than ever before.

A gentle fog had risen from the heat of the audience after the sky dissolved into a drizzle. Had it been afternoon, a rainbow would've formed.

I'd walked off-stage directly into Alec's waiting arms.

"You got 'em, champ."

"All I want is you," I nuzzled his face against mine. Beads of sweat fell from my forehead onto his lips and he kissed them.

"Yeah, well, you got me, too," he grinned. "Part and parcel of the whole shebang."

"You'll never be just a part or a parcel. You're my all and everything."

He pursed his lips and rolled his eyes up, thinking.

"The lady doth flatter me," he said. "But—I accept!"

Back in the hotel, we'd ordered room service ice cream. The Blues Brothers was playing on cable and we fed each other by spoons on the stark white-sheeted bed.

Alec kissed me deep into the night, as Aretha Franklin gave way to car chases, Carrie Fisher blazing the screen with her machine gun.

His kisses were long and sweet, soft and deliberate. He kissed with all his heart, often open-eyed, his gaze lost in mine. Our clothes evaporated, our sizzling skin pressing so tightly together, even air couldn't slip between. Our lips and tongues visited every inch of our shared double body, our breaths in rhythm, our moans in concert. A chorus of sighs emanated from our bed, an angel choir as pure and holy as incense-plumed litanies of prayer.

Yet.

As always, Alec declined full entry to my body.

"It's not the right time," he sighed. A jab of pain rushed my heart and registered in his eyes every time.

"When will it be the right time?"

"Please, Marie. Please."

And then the tears, the kissing of tears, the drying of tears as we slept interlocked in the dawn.

"Where were you?" It was Henri, stroking my hair and waiting for my memories to subside.

"With him."

"I know."

"I'm always with him, Henri."

"I know."

"He's in my blood."

"I know he is."

My brain zapped, reminding me I had to be careful. I had to clamp my fingers around my consciousness every second to stay awake. My brain wasn't like other brains. It needed delicate attention.

"When's your next appointment at the neurologist?" Henri asked softly.

"I don't remember."

"Marie."

"I don't care. I'm not going back on those meds. They blanket my brain in fog and stifle my process. They don't let me feel or emote. They don't let me recognize myself."

"They're always coming out with new medications. You have to keep trying."

My brain fractured; I imagined jagged staffs of lightning penetrating my head. I held a hand in front of my eyes and curled my fingers, watching as through from the sidelines. I felt no connection to my body in that moment.

It scared me.

I never got used to it. And I didn't know how to articulate it—not even to Henri. It was only Alec who had ever made me feel human when this was ravaging my consciousness. Alec's rich voice, his comforting scent grounded me, merged my soul back to my body.

How could I explain that to Henri? To anyone? I could hardly explain it to myself.

And now I was crying, my tears wetting Henri's shirt instead of Alec's lips. I sobbed until I melted into a sleep too blackened to be colored by dreams.