Dear Anne

Letter #11

 Dear Anne,

My life just hit the wall. I can't imagine how this happened. I'm in Paris! Life surrounds me yet I am not inspired. What do you call it in your world? Writer's block, I think. I'm blocked. I've walked the streets day after day. The city thrives around me, but I can't find a point of inspiration. I can't penetrate my mind.

I walk and walk. My feet carry me one step at a time from place to place. Yesterday I went to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. The basilica is beautiful. If you are ever in Paris (please come!), you must visit Sacre Coeur. I promise I will take you there.

I'm not particularly a religious person, Anne. I expect you guessed that from my letters. My father tried to instill a religious belief in me. I went to Sunday School and church like a good little boy, but I wasn't taken with the mumbo-jumbo the pastor spewed. It made me uncomfortable believing I was a sinner and bound for hell. Even at that young age, I knew I was rebellious.

Sitting beside Father in church, I felt his hypocrisy. He gave his tithe and extra donations, sang the hymns and fell to his knees in supplication every Sunday. His religious attitude only last those meager twenty-four hours. During the week, he drank and blasphemed along with the rest of the unbelievers. I couldn't stomach it and couldn't believe in the existence of an all-mighty being, lording it over all of us.

I have nothing against wandering around the cathedrals and basilicas. The architecture is beautiful. You have to wonder at the technology used to create such vast buildings. It was all done without computers or electricity or trucks or anything modern. Of course I'm interested in stained glass, marble carvings and murals. I wish I had the talent to create like Leonardo and the rest of the greats. I'm just a painter, a starving artist. Perhaps I have no talent at all.

Anne, when are you coming to Paris? I ask you again and again if you will come but you never answer. Are you thinking about it or just blowing me off? I think you are blowing me off. Still, you answer my emails. Are you toying with me or are you growing serious about me? I want to know.

Every time I go out, I think of the things I can show you. Montmartre and Sacre Coeur are my latest obsessions. Anne should see this, and Anne should see that. Showing you around is my constant theme. You have to come. Book a flight as soon as you can. I'll meet your plane and give you are whirlwind tour. You'll stay in my garret, naturally. Don't worry about expenses. Two can live as cheaply as one.

You're thinking I'm obsessed. I am. I admit it. You have consumed my life. You are all I think about. I dream about your naked body pressed against mine, of making love to you in the moonlight that streams through my window. I look out that window and my body seeks yours. I haven't come close to a woman in ages. I have come close to anyone in ages. I think about sex; I yearn for it. And yet...and yet...

There are prostitutes aplenty in Paris. I have my pick and yet I hold back. I may or may not indulge one of these nights. I've done it before. In Chicago. That was a wild weekend. I can't actually recall how I got there. Mark and I went. Mark Holmes. He was my best friend, if I could say I ever had a best friend. We got drunk one night and ended up driving to Chicago. We picked up a couple prostitutes and...And what? It was kinky, whatever it was. I can't fully remember.

Mark said I made a pass at him. It's all blurred in my mind. Chicago, the prostitutes, my infatuation with Mark, and the end result. He would never speak to me again. In the drunken confusion, I lost the only real friend I had.

One of these days, our correspondence is going to dry up. I'm going to say something to offend you, and I'll never hear from you again. I'll miss you when you are gone.

Regretfully,

Corey Clairmont

xxx