Tuesday, 17 February 2015

Thirteen Crucifixions, 96


They had finally begun to eat.  Everyone had found themselves places to sit in the small apartment.  Pierre really wanted to be with Glen and perhaps with Stephen, only.  He was devoted to them both, for this was the only way in which he was able to love.  Fiercely, quietly, with almost a religious fervour.  To love was like a religion to him, but only for two people could he experience this love.  Now, for the first time, he felt able to know, and accept this.  For already he felt the change coming.  It was because of Glen. Perhaps because finally Stephen had slackened the tether enough to let someone else into their relationship?  For Stephen also loved Glen. Pierre felt at times jealous, because he was sure that he had never received from Stephen such single-hearted ardour, and to think that it was going out to someone who wouldn’t even permit him to touch him.  Pierre he could have any time.  He felt like cheap goods taken entirely for granted.

            But what was this door that Glen was opening for him—or in him?  Glen, unlike himself or Stephen, loved neither selfishly nor exclusively, but loved all the same with a greater power and intensity.  Pierre knew that, through Glen, he was being challenged to risk, to step beyond his safe little enclosure and embrace the world outside his gate.  He didn’t think that he could do this, feeling too small, limited, weak—he felt too damaged by life.  So then, Pierre must learn to love others besides the only two people who meant anything at all to him. Well, he might start with Glen’s mother, who sat with him on the couch.  But how could he love a woman for whom he had experienced no natural feeling, good or bad?  Shyly examining the profile of her face, he saw for the first time how closely Glen resembled her: the forehead, the nose, eyes, mouth, chin, it was all there.  He caught himself loving at once the resemblance shared between mother and son.  So for the first time, Pierre’s experience of love began to rise beyond the merely personal, then he felt it growing towards Marlene, whom he already admired and respected, and looked not at all like either her brother or her mother.  Yet, because she was the daughter and sister of the reality that held together her mother and brother, Pierre felt his love enlarge and extend itself to include Marlene and to draw her in.  Then his attention fell on Marlene’s fiance, Randall, who sat with her on the floor before the low coffee table off which they were eating.  He was her lover, her fiance, which also connected him to Glen, and to the reality that he shared with his family.  Randall thus entered into his heart, and Pierre was suddenly struck by his dramatic good looks.  Dwight and Margery, whom he’d always strongly liked, were both easy to include in this process, because they were so important to Glen, and he couldn’t deny that a certain light mingled with love and joy shone in them all together.  His heart felt like a mound of chocolate ice cream that had been dropped on a summer sidewalk.  Then his attention shifted to Doris, an old lady.  He had never loved an old lady before, had never had a living grandmother.  He almost asked her to be his granny.  He suddenly wanted to reach across Glen’s mother and gently stroke Doris’ grey hair.

            Carol and her friend Derek were a bit of a challenge.  He was rather frightened of Carol, and Derek, though good-looking, also repelled him. Perhaps because of everything he’d heard about them and their mutual arrangements.  Did she really used to spank him?  Well, he did have a cute butt, and suddenly he felt stirring the beginnings of a fondness towards them both, that one day might evolve into love.  He couldn’t connect either with the pregnant woman from Nicaragua, nor with her daughter.  They seemed sad, lost, and so foreign.  But maybe this pathos he felt suddenly towards them could eventually develop into empathy.  He wanted just now to tell them, all of them, that they were loved, that they were lovely, of infinite value.  The door of Pierre’s heart was suddenly flung open, his eyes and mouth wide with rapture—he had forgotten his plate full of food on his lap, and he wanted to cry, to sing out in such joy and bliss and universal love as never he’d known could exist in heaven and earth.  He wanted almost to cry.  He lifted a fork-load of pasta and sauce into his mouth.  Delicious.  Then he reached for an artichoke, that sweetened his mouth.  He suddenly wanted a cat or a dog, but certainly a non-human creature to love.  He felt suddenly alone, enclosed in his own place among all these people.  Still he desired to reach them again, though just for now, now that he no longer dwelt there, the distance seemed too great.  He was coming down, feeling now strangely detached, and unable to fully recall his previous rapture.  He not even felt so tied to Stephen, nor to Glen.  Was this the beginning, for Pierre, of that solitude of which he had always been frightened?  Would he carry this feeling home with him, to the bed that he shared with Stephen?  He suddenly wanted to sleep alone.  He had never wanted this, yet now could recall the stirring of this desire, this need for solitude, the which he had always carried with him.  Soon, very soon, and he knew this, he would lose altogether his fear of solitude, his fear of silence, his fear of the dark.

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