The Way We Were Not - Prologue

It's Monday morning in April and the sky looks overhung like it had a major binge on single malt last night. Not that one can blame it. Since I hit the big 4.7 last autumn life has been, how shall I put it, one whole ass agonizing bleak Sunday working overtime. Thank God for M who keeps me supplied with the occasional good fuck and never-ending inspiration for things I put my lousy self to, usually anytime past midnight to morning light breaking over the horizon of the rooftops. Only problem with that is that I don't' sleep and if I do my dreams are taking me to another whole ride of crazy Cronenberg cockatoo terrors.

Well ok, that's hyperbole, they're more likely to creep into my consciousness silently and fill me with all the terrors a man can and should anticipate in wakeful times given he has applied himself throughout his younger years successfully. Which really means you have a body hidden in a closet somewhere. Or two. That's how good ol' American bootstrap works my friends, and don't shame. You swim or you sink and personally I enjoy being on top of things. That's why the bodies are nicely buried (you will never find a trace of them), the probably soon to be ex-wife is set up in a coastal home supplied with ample therapy, my guilt and social causes and I spend most of my weekends working overseas for months or in my apartment on 5th avenue fucking M.

+++

It's

her

face that comes back to me to be frank. A terrific terror. In the quiet of the empty office after hours her beautiful smile swims up unbidden and refuses to leave my tired brain alone. Especially this past half year since I returned from Europe yet again. It always gets me cold, cause it's been so many years, we only knew each other for a short period and she got to know exactly what kind of, let's say particular, man I am. But try as I may, I can't banish her memory for good like all the others and it drives me nuts, because I thought I had figured out why. I did not.

I kept my tabs on her for a while, making sure she won't become a problem, but I also wanted to know she is ok. I am the first one to be shocked to have found out I still have the heart of my twenty-year-old self buried somewhere inside, trust me. If you met her, you wouldn't believe she would ever go for me nor I for her to be fair -- she was then still on a search for herself, kind to the bones but driven by some indistinct force of will and tiny as a ballet dancer. Her power and attraction always did lie in her understated continental charisma. That's how she got to me.

My god she was something. One look was enough, a scathing bone deep appraisal and her smile turned into that knockout expression as she approached me and hit me up. Her boldness made me laugh, but only that first night. After that it was clear I had come across my personal Pandora. And boy did I like that.

The contradictions were striking and had me fascinated. Cute to boot. And the sex was very promising. Still, on the grand scale she wasn't that outstanding. Talented sure, smart in an idealistic sort of way, the kind of woman sensible successful men settle down with and actually end up content in life. But every time I looked at her when she wasn't aware something about her made me wonder. I couldn't grasp it. I stuck with her far longer than I should have, acted foolish even once or twice, but I could not tear myself away before I knew what exactly it was. Months went by like nothing, I enjoyed myself with her, but I still could not pinpoint what was happening between us that made me stick around. It didn't make sense, me being me.

Until the day I found myself telling her I love her, and I freaked the fuck out. Figuratively speaking of course. Because I meant it and it slipped past me how at ease I felt, to let her know. Part of me is still in shock. That's when it became clear, her nonchalant matter of fact ''I know, it's ok.'', I knew I was in trouble then. She already was aware of what was coming and turns out she handled it miles better than I did.

"I know."

Hah, more like "I

know

you, don't worry I will take care of everything.".

No specifics like the location of bodies mind, but more than I expected any woman, anyone to catch on. To accept for what it is. What should have been my pass to feel guilt free and fine, well I did not. It was unsettling, personal. An intimacy I had not felt in this particular way before. It was me who allowed it to happen. And it carried with it the taste of a promise.

+++

I had to take a hard look at myself back then and it still took me the better part of three years to get that the unspoken promise was mine, not hers. Sure, she said she loved me too, was confused as hell because if anything that wasn't safe for her to feel, but what could that even mean between us. Love's overrated, if not of value in intimacy. I mean that. I always thought she took it as an ideal of romance come true in its most theoretic or poetic meaning. Funny that, cause looking back it was me not her who projected and ticked all the boxes of classic Hollywood / tragic HBO fairy tale. Anyway, spoilers.

She never asked me for anything in the years that followed, wanted for nothing other than for me to remember her, us

exactly as we were

, she insisted on that, sly thing. Oh sweetheart, you shouldn't have. I am only slowly catching up on what exactly it is she was and still may be after in me and in life. What I am sure by now is that I did not expect this elusive valuable to present itself in an affair to me.

Call me a prick, but I begin to sense this is about something that men like me seek to find in themselves or modelled by other men we respect, to find it in a woman is well, unexpected if not specifically unwelcome. Who would not be tempted to mix the best in life. Still, it's as dangerous as it's tantalizingly attractive. And it's inescapable. Who knew.

(Narrators' inner narrator: "She did.") Anyway.

I underestimated her, I remember she attempted to convey that to me at some point in regard of what attracted her to myself, how she feels about us, but it never truly registered. She was ahead of me seeing beyond the moment of shock, clearly. What she lacked in life experience she made up for in conviction and discipline.

Granted she achieved what she asked for, no matter how hard I tried to bury her, deny her with painful cruelty my acknowledgment of what happened, her importance to me - her appraising face stayed with me relentlessly. Because she quietly willed it. I was set on sticking with what I judged the best decision at the time, to part ways for good, but it became clear I needed to try make sense of my encounter with her on my own clock. I did, yet there's the promise I somehow still seek to keep within myself. I never make promises, I do not rely on anyone for anything. Still, I can't go on forever catching myself drifting off and seeing her face. Leaving things even marginally vulnerable to me is not what I do. Liability matters.

Giggles. "Listen to yourself talk you vainglorious goon, are you seriously still a spineless wet rag even in your inner discourse? How sad. Why don't you call it what it is, make that accountability Hall. Wow me like you used to do..."

... Excuse me? Did my hallucination just wink at me?

Hrrrrrm. Maybe it is time to admit I need to deal with this before I go mental or kick the bucket via my semi regular whiskey nightcap.

Considering all, there's got to be a reason I feel this uncomfortable to this day. That I never threw out her phone number and address. A reason I still check on how she is doing through my grapevines. Left her the tiniest traces to follow up on me. And her picture tucked away in the secret compartment of my secret wallet. I bet she knows I kept that. I would be disappointed if she didn't.

If I can be sure of one thing it's that she still remembers me too. And she is patiently appraising me from afar biding her time well. She

knows

I will call again. Some day. Terrific.

How does she know

. I guess I will find out. Hopefully before my inner voice becomes hers for good. It used to be the other way round mind. Somehow we both are still playing an unplanned backroom Russian roulette game. We did that sometimes, mostly involving the removal of clothes. Looks like the prodigal Heckler has been supplied with two bullets waiting for us through all the years, safety unlocked, and turns out I don't want either of us to lose for good.

Consider me speechless.