Je t'aime.

*Photos by: Alex

Lucy was laying in bed alone with just her underwear on. There was the structured dream that got her horny though. It was something aesthetic, but enlarged so well, that eventually she couldn’t breathe and had to fend for some inner calling of dramatic eroticism. The man wasn’t real, but he wasn’t imaginary either. As she plugged holes where they shouldn’t be, she also slid in a coffin. Sometimes she would say to herself laughingly, this is gonna taste so good in the morning! Sometimes she would believe it. She’d wake up with sweat dribbling down her chin and she’d try to carry that sweat forever. It was something no one had helped her make. It was something she had fell into.

Two months ago, she had been standing on the corner of Greek and Bateman, in the central cavity of London’s Soho district. She was looking in the window of a storefront with various magazines, all climatic with their poetic symmetry. The men and women adorning the covers of each singularly formatted copy, were that of the same build, what with lips that pouted and put off an element of disfigured warmth. This warmth was something coddled and unrealistic though, a sort of reverie that transplanted her self-worth. She felt ugly standing there, in her red coat, with fingernails bleeding of a black filth, she had accumulated by walking the streets at night. She was vulnerable to it.

She had spent the early morning hours, with a gentleman named Landon, inside a record shop called Intoxica, where they had stood around discussing the credibility of Gil Scott Heron and the interminable genius that is Eric Dolphy. Some mention of the clarinet, as an instrument of the law-abiding, was drained of its color. Landon had said it was something of the boring nature, and Lucy had pinned him to the wall for this. She talked of the clarinet’s death. “It’s the closeted Einstein. You’re just jealous you can’t sound such beautiful sirens. I mean, don’t you feel anything, when Dolphy is all polychromatic and at his best?” This followed by with, “Well yeah. But I tend to like Jimi and his electric better. There’s this sort of epiphany in the freedom of his magic.”

Lucy’s response was, “You ought not bend over backwards, trying to be cooler than you are.”  She had a strange level of irritability towards Landon, merely due to the way in which he decided to show his various musical stimulations. In fact, she was surprised he didn’t break into another Landowska tirade. The harpsichordist had some massive hold on the the poor boy, and he basically praised her from afar, even after she was well put to her death bed. Luckily, Lucy found her inspiring too. There was something about her teachings, that projected well with how she felt about internal communications, and the inner struggle to be who it is you’re supposed to.

At the cafe’ they went to afterwards, there existed the soft conversations one has with their mother, right before attending senior prom. Lucy played mum, while Landon sprawled out his legs and put on sour storms of distress. He had a bad run-in with an old boyfriend of his; he was partial to the female physique, but oftentimes appreciated the male cock — which was to him, a glamourous extension of salted heat that sang anonymously. It was all desert. A cacti of the friendly nature. His hands served as that of the ocean, at his most sincere.

“Fuck. He was there with that red sweater, with the blue flamingo near the pocket. It was just as ugly as when he last wore it, and he had that devilish smile on his face, that always makes me think he just got laid. It was probably that bore of his, Sabastien, with his small peter, and the turkish looking lips that curl upward. In fact, I know that as the truth. I can affirm it with the memory.”

Bored of the conversation, Lucy made up some excuse and walked out the cafe’ alone, with a cup of espresso in one hand, leaving her fingers all toasty. 

And then there she was, staring in the window of The Creative Review storefront, looking at boring girls adorned with caked make-up. One face was received with satisfaction though. The girl sported a delicious pixie cut, of a bleached science, and had limbs that were frail and very Edie Sedgwick.

She thought back to when she was little and would go to the library with her mother. In fact, something her mother said, stuck close with her, and was carried around in the chest. “One day, you’ll get over those bright books with the pretty drawings. One day, you’ll read something with all text and nothing but black and white scratches of brilliance. You’ll learn how to make your own images. You’ll activate the imagination and paint your own world.”

The first book Lucy had read of great depth, was The Secret Garden. The copy she borrowed from the library, was very large and thick, what with its gold fringe adorning the edge of each page. There was some satisfaction in this. This lasting bit of chroma, helped coax her towards the more limited parts of the prissy tale, such as the way the paper dripped mainly of a scholarly disease, where everything in the internal membrane was nourished with facts. 

The story wasn’t a favorite with her mother, but she grew to respect it, because it had helped release her daughter. Lucy also repeatedly read a technical book about costuming and how to stitch buttons on old coats. She liked this book, because it had fairy princesses on the front, but she also liked it, because it read rather sophisticated, and she felt all adult and delicious while doing so, with mad rushes of spontaneity settling in nice and deep.

This childhood paralleled greatly with her friend Landon’s, proving to be yet another reason, why they stuck so close together. They both had a great capacity for that which they were passionate about. Landon took an immense interest in the study of entomology and would sit in the attic of his grandmother’s house, reading old books about plants and insects. There was something about the butterfly that got him the most readily entranced though. The fragile nature of their wings, is what sealed him as an intense admirer. 

Although Landon looked young for his age, people respected his intellectual integrity. It’s something he let flute outward, in a not so candid way. There was this subtle bath of sincerity that he’d drip off like nectar. He had a strange affection for his cat Cleopatra and had a twin brother that looked nothing like him. They were of the same mind, but had of course, different sexual preferences. His brother enjoyed the company of women a bit too much, spending money on quick sensual pleasures. His last excursion involved a girl named Antoinette, who whipped him with a clothing hanger. He showed Landon the bite marks underlining the area above his belly button. He called it “the best constellation of stars ever”. He paid for it later with bottles of rum.