That morning, I woke up with a sneaky idea planted in my mind, a thought hammered in: an unexpected event was going to happen. Clad in that black dress purchased the previous week, wearing old worn-out heels, I ventured out with a group of insignificant friends, following their insipid chatter without passion. Sometimes I laughed, not having understood what they had just said, simply because it was expected. A futile stroll led us to our usual spot. Where so often I came to feel important, desired, and surrounded. To break my solitude by seeking the Unknown that would slip between my sheets for a night. My eyes constantly scanned the crowded bar to find my Stranger of the evening. From my high chair, in this lonely corner of a place I was familiar with, I tried to spot a man who could share my night. But deep down, there was always this strange certainty; this upheaval that was about to happen.
My eyes first stopped at a blond with a childlike smile, laughing with his eyes and speaking with his hands. I approached, intrigued. But as I was about to gather my courage and give him a sensual hello, my gaze stopped further on that Man. I looked at him first with suspicion. The way he held his beer, a raised finger, his confident gaze, his pretentious posture, everything should have screamed at me not to approach him. Yet, no alarm bells rang, and still guided by the Idea that never left my mind, I gave him a glance, a lip bite, and came to sit next to Him. While my reason screamed at me not to play along, I emphasized this body that everyone desired and that you seemed to not notice. A smile and a good evening later, you looked up at me, and I felt pierced by a strange feeling.
We talked for long minutes, filled with ridiculous pleasantries and trivial questions. Your deep brown eyes plunged into mine. You looked at me both disdainful, unattainable, and eager. I felt your thigh regularly bumping into mine, your hand caressing my arm, my waist, my hips. I blushed as you whispered crude words in my ear. You seemed so far from me yet so close at the same time. An eternity later, you grabbed my hair with a powerful hand, exposing the translucent skin of my neck. Forcing me to look into your eyes. And I knew. It was You. You who would overturn my life and reduce it to pieces of illusions. Everything screamed at me to run away, and it was almost running that you climbed the stairs of my old Parisian building.
Love with you was brutal, burning, uncompromising. Flashes of bites, scratches, and red lights blurred my vision. That night, I felt like dying so many times, only to revive under your insatiable hands and lips. You showed no mercy for my fragile, suffering body, leaving me marked and soaked under your fiery gaze. Two hours later, you were gone, and all that remained of you was a vague scent on my sheets. A sweet fragrance that belonged only to you. From the moment you slammed the door of my one bedroom flat, there was no one else. I had decided that you would be my Forever, I, who was only attracted to the Ephemeral.
Every night, I hoped for your call, the one that would join our bodies once again. As soon as the sun passed the horizon, the night belonged to us, and I waited with bated breath for the signal of your arrival. I didn't talk about you to anyone; I wanted you to exist only for me. I discovered the obsessive jealousy of the obsessed lover. I was an object you could summon at your slightest desire. At your slightest word, I knelt to await the climax of the night. You resonated within me like a dissociated echo I didn't know what to do with but couldn't escape. Your words were the Verb of creation. Under your orders, I discovered a guilty, dirty, and unhealthy pleasure. A drug harder than heroin that never left my blood.
My thoughts were a single obsession, looping endlessly and carrying your name. Time passed, and I lost myself. Waiting for days without news, before a sound from your beloved mouth would submit me to a new wait. I never knew when you would come; you were like a gust of wind, making my skin shiver for a suspended moment before disappearing. Every whisper that passed your lips was for me a Gospel, a universal rule to abide by. You were the master of my thoughts and my abandoned body. And I turned your silences into an unattainable fantasy. Soon, I vanished; no one heard from me anymore, and I spent entire days staring at my computer screen, waiting for your goodwill. You took up so much space in my life that I no longer felt the need to feed on anything other than you. To wait patiently for you to come and pour yourself into me. I only saw the outside world from my bed through you, when you told me your unbelievable stories. Your intertwined, honeyed lies that became my reality.
Then, it was written. You grew tired of me. My body was too accessible. I was too abandoned and obedient. Too easy to get. I lost your interest because I no longer heard your rehearsed speeches. Your lyrical flights that impressed the whole world. I had become too easy. And while I had almost disappeared for you, you stopped existing for me completely overnight. Not a word, not a look, not a call. But my body, shaped by the touch of your hands, couldn't live without you. And like a junkie without her fix, I eventually succumbed to oblivion.
The absence is a black hole that carries toward a dark and almost hopeless unknown. Almost. It's all in the nuances. And I know that one day, the sound of your voice will be for me a distant memory of a forgotten past. And it will have no effect anymore.
