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Exit from Logic

Drew Marshall

    She appeared in the evening, without warning. It was almost fifteen years to the day, since I last saw her.
    The lady had a Masters Degree, in English literature. This woman had acted in the British and Dutch theater. You never knew what went on behind her smile. She sat on tears, with a face that can bring peace to warring nations, or destroy them, when her body, was added to the equation. Change a life, with a glance. Rearrange your DNA and melt it, with a touch.
    I was no longer enticed by exotic, neurotics. That was yesterday’s love. After the initial shock had passed, I let her in. The eye of the storm entered my small apartment, carrying her battered essence, and one suitcase.
    A few days later, after settling in, she endowed me with several details of her past. Some of her stories conflicted, with what I had heard from a mutual friend, who had passed away, two years ago.
    An inner sense, guided by unknown radar, sent her here. This unique, force of nature, zeroed in on me, when I was at my worst, and most vulnerable.
    The silence crying within her was relentless. The years had stolen her generous soul. They left her with a shattered kindness, a stone cold gaze, and a heart to match. She was her own planet, dissolving, in a lonely, orbit. The woman was long forgotten by her horizons. This female, was a brilliant, but brooding, beauty.
    Fifteen years ago, the kinks in the armor were undetectable. Today, an open wound, for all to see. A genius I.Q. could not protect her from those haunting, inner demons. I was mesmerized by her British accent. She told tales of growing up, in swinging London town, during the nineteen sixties and seventies. I sat at her feet, for hours on end, enthralled.
    Her home in The Hague, was immaculate, her mind was not. We were in love. I had to go home, to New York. I would be returning in several months. We made plans for a lifetime, together.
    My love returned to England, with her former boyfriend. Those six months, meant nothing.
    She shot herself at me like a flamethrower from hell. Rapidly seducing and reducing me into dependency and a devious, lustful, enslavement. Seduction was her stock in trade, seduction was her strategy. She was more adept at it, then Delilah or Cleopatra.
    Her mother’s womb, housed a savage cargo. Both of us were now two aging students, interpreting the same piece of music, with polar opposite, comprehension. We played out our roles in a freewheeling, yet predictable, unauthorized, production, of this castrated opera.
    We paraded in a shut-ins jamboree, within our wounded refuge. Stranded, on the love, suspension bridge, with scruples and morals, massacred. In the fusion, union, we flew past the oblivion borderline, forgotten fugitives, from existence. I devoured her yarns and ironic, kisses. In lieu of love, we were the results of our evasions, beyond, damage control.
    Those useful, youthful, naïve fuels, from mutual trysts, were no longer a relevant memory. Our false love was random noise, under the trees of pity. We were mad to oblige, in our flight from fright. Engaging in unfinished pleasures, like nostalgia maniacs. We were adrift, in the wilderness of the oceans, sinking like stones, to the lowest depths.
    We would probe each others morally superior stance, stalking an unobtainable, blind justice. Two souls, committed themselves, to accusations, and recriminations, while riding high, on our lover’s lies. As a couple, we were no longer domesticated, simply jaded. This was not innocent, decadence. We owned the pride of deprived bodies and depraved minds.
    I am a burnt-out man, wrestling with the femme fatale. Shrill partisans, commanding and demanding immediate gratification. The two of us were at each other’s beck and call, for these nasty joys.
    We looked at photos, from fifteen years gone. They had been buried, along with her letters, but not her memory, at the bottom of my closet. I remembered, when both of us, were lighter than air, soaring, through the universe, young and indestructible.
    This was not a simple, laissez-faire, love affair. Now, we drank desperate wine, knowing a damned Eden, awaited us. Sin tax was the cover charge, in this lust garden. The snakes here, don’t wear orthopedic sneakers, while performing.
    She always fell asleep before I did. I would stare at her, as the deadening night, attacked me, like a coffin lid, slamming shut. We were condemned, to a life without parole.
    One morning, when I opened the blinds, to let in some light, this fallen angel, pleaded with me, to close them. My first, and most passionate, love, told me the reason.
    Before leaving Holland and returning to London, she awoke one morning to find her brother, Ed, had died in his sleep. A victim of an accidental overdose, on bourbon and sleeping pills. Ed also had a genius I.Q. He was a gentle man, immersed, in the drug culture.
    I knew she was telling the truth for once. Her pain of the loss, seared through me, embalming me, it seemed, with Ed. She had a reputation, was fond of, sabotaging, herself and others. She seemed to live between desire and disappointment, always on the verge, of some future happiness.
    Hope had long fallen by the wayside, as we went about our way. Who wants to be a slave, to those youthful, idealistic, days? Especially, as you experience, the ravages of age.
    We understood, the price paid, for relieving the weight, of our faithless dreams. We are silence in motion, amidst this modern, madness. Wrinkled prudes, of pedestrian, rage.
    I know why she’s here. To feed my addictions and fuel my fears; they can’t be avoided or ignored. She had always told me, when it came to sex, she thought like a man. A quick, hard one, before bed. Opposites distract.
    “En garde! Penetrate my armor.” One of many phrases, she liked to use, when wanting to make love, not war. I honored her, with a healthy dose, of Hebrew honey. That jumping and jiving, Jewish jism, on a jaunt, through her infertile, tubes.
    The once benevolent creature, had told me, not to take too much time before returning. European winters, in the Netherlands were, bitter, long and lonely. She would do what she did best, find another man.
    After three months had gone by, she would hang up on me, every time I called. Letters went unanswered. It was taking longer than I had planned. Complications had set in.
    I was the one making all the sacrifices.
    One afternoon, while she was out grocery shopping, I opened, and rummaged through a sealed box, in my closet. I located a poem I wrote, after being told by our mutual friend, she had returned to London, with Reggie, her former lover.
Labor of Lust
In our labor of lust
You never made a sound
You stated you feared
The neighbors would hear
And you would get thrown out
You said you were satisfied
No moans or heavy breathing
I wondered what you were thinking
She couldn’t have children
She missed that boat
She lived her life to the fullest
A life without hope
The weight of her fears
Fell onto my shoulders
Her agony, distorted me
I overwhelmed you with passion
That’s what you told me
A woman of the world
Ten years my senior
    I fought back tears, as I tore it up. I went into the hallway, and threw it down the trash compactor. When I returned to the living room, a strange calm, renewed me. I packed all of her things into that battered, suitcase, along with her sultry, soul. Not all souls, are salvageable.
    Upon her return from the store, I told my once, better half, to leave.
    The creature inhaled deeply, nodded and smiled. She withdrew into a fine mist, and floated through the closed window.
    I was now, of sound mind and body. My lost will and testicles had returned. It was the end of ignorant nightmares, ambivalence and scattered, ambiguities.

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