GUESS WHAT MUM I THINK I’M A LESBIAN!

CHAPTER 1 BAD GIRLS!

When I was 17 and in my last year of high school my three best friends were Asher, Helen and Louise. I didn’t really have a lot in common with any of them, when they squealed “Oh my God.” He’s so hot about boys from bands, or boys they admired from afar I faked a “mmm definitely, yeah totally hot.” while thinking about something totally different. It wasn’t that I wasn’t into boys it’s just that. it seemed to diminish some of the magic of a crush by talking about it.

High school is a cruel world and while everyone mocked Sally Stuart, who didn’t have any friends, played the guitar and went out with a forty year old guy called Kym, I secretly admired her. Not for her taste in men. I thought Kim was a lecherous old pervert, but for not giving a dam and giving all of these phonies the flick.

I still cared desperately what people thought. I spent my time hanging out with these girls who were nothing like me, just to have a social life. Not that there was much to choose from. I went to a small alternative high school where there were only thirty people in the grade. So as I wasn’t into playing basketball, and the main established group from the inner city thought they too cool for me I spent my time talking shit with these three girly girly girls.

Sometimes we stayed over at Asher’s house. Her mother Sandra was a tall striking red head. Sandra was a nurse at the private hospital down the road and had the efficient no nonsense approach of someone who has wiped people’s asses and then packed dead people’s things into a box after they didn’t make chemo.

Sandra had also just as efficiently dumped her husband for another woman.
While her daughter Asher was giggly and feminine, Sandra was womanly in a whole other way. She was strong feisty and I guess I was a little intimidated by her. It wasn’t so much the questions she asked but her radar like eyes which seemed to shred away all of your bullshit. When she cocked an eyebrow at you it’s almost is if you could hear her thinking
“Nonsense, of course it didn’t happen like that”..

In any case Sandra had set the scene for the type of activities that happened under her roof, one night we had all gathered to watch “Henry and June” A movie about Anais Nin’s lesbian affair with Henry Miller’s wife June.
I was turned on by the highly erotic lesbian scenes on and hoped nobody else could notice.

When the film finished I stayed on the fold out bunk bed with Louise, while Asher slept in her bedroom with Helen.

Not long after we turned the lights went out I felt Louise’s foot rubbing mine. At first I thought it was an accident and she was doing it in her sleep, but as her movements intensified and her breathing deepened I realized that this was no accident. I rubbed her foot back and within minutes we were kissing passionately.

“Touch me here.” She said panting and squishing my hand into her ample bosom. “mmm harder.” she moaned taking my hand and grinding it between her legs.

Her sexual confidence took me by surprise, but I was relieved that she had the same thing in mind as me. We used to fool around with each other sometimes, in between smoking cones, saying “oh my god.” and bitching about our teachers misfortunes.

We weren’t the only one’s who were experimenting. Apparently Helen had licked Asher’s pussy one night as well. Anna and I disapproved of this as Helen had very bad Smoker’s breath, not a very appetizing thought.


CHAPTER 2 THE ORGY

I left school and gradually lost contact with the three girls, but my yearning to make love with women was still there. When I was at fashion school I met a girl called Amy who was having a lesbian affair with a sexy South America girl named George. Their relationship looked appealing especially as I had just had a string of dud relationships with men. I thought having a having a girlfriend could be fun, or at the very least some very sexy lesbian sex could be on the agenda.

I was in this frame of mind when I was out one night with Amy and George at a gay and Lesbian bar in Newtown.
As I watched other butch and hunky lesbians in tank tops and short crew cuts pash each other like men I became turned off and was on my way out the door when a beautiful blonde woman approached me.

“Where are you going gorgeous girl.” She said winking. She looked like a young Sahra O’hare.
“Umm nowhere if you’re sticking around” I said flirting, making it up as I went along.

“I want you to meet my friend Jackie I think you’ll like her.” She said while stroking my bare shoulder.

Jackie was a petite Asian with a shaved head in the style of most of the other Dykes in the club. She wasn’t my cup of tea, but I guessed that they were a couple and that I wouldn’t get to sleep with Cecile without Jackie, or at least not with out Jackie’s permission.

We drank a couple of bottles of champagne together, and with every drink became more daring and flirtatious

“Taste this Jack.” said Cecile seductively while offering up my pierced nipple to her friend.

I found Cecile later on in the bathroom trying to recruit another pretty girl for our ‘orgy’
“Darling you should come home with us, we’re going to make love.
It will be beautiful, just beautiful women making love to each other all night.”

The pretty girl laughed at Cecile’s directness. It occurred to me that if Cecile were a guy and said the same thing she would probably get a slap in the face.
But Cecile wasn’t a guy she was a beautiful, sexy woman with enough charm to pull it off.

The orgy started in the taxi. The driver adjusted his mirror 3 times to get a better look, but nobody cared. We were drunk and carefree.

We tumbled out of the taxi and climbed the steps leading up to Celine’s place giggling and falling over each other. She opened the door to her sumptuous ethnic apartment and we tumbled inside. We took turns showering then all climbed into bed together smelling like roses.

I let Jackie go down on me, but couldn’t really get into it. I was relieved when she left after a couple of hours to go to work, leaving behind her sumptuous girlfriend.
After making love all day Cecile pulled out a photo of a chiseled looking young man wearing a shark’s tooth necklace over his bare bronzed chest
“Don’t you think he’s gorgeous?”

“He’s okay, who is he” I said thinking that his looks didn’t really appeal to me.
“It’s my beautiful boyfriend Patrick, and I can’t wait for you to meet him, I know he’s going to adore you.”
“What about Jackie I thought she was girlfriend.”
“Isn’t she adorable I met her couple of weeks ago at the place where we were last night.”

I had never met another woman who was so free with her sexuality, openly into orgies and having open sexual relationships without guilt. I was intrigued and realized that being with Celine would mean sharing her. I had never shared anybody before and at 21 was open to it not having built the type of walls that you construct as you get older.

“This is an amazing apartment Cecile, how long have you had it for.”
Actually it belongs to a Buddhist friend of mine; I’m just looking after it for a while.”
She said smiling radiantly.

“You know today was so beautiful, let’s do this again sometime soon, I’ll call you next week.”
“Okay” I swooned dancing butterfly steps out of her apartment and all the way down to the bus.

The next week, just as she promised she called.
“How are you little princess.” She purred into the phone.
“Oh I’m great,” suddenly feeling it.
“Listen would you like to come to my house for dinner tonight; I’m going to cook an amazing vegetarian curry for us.”
“I’d love to.” I said feeling giddy and excited at the same time.
I got dressed with the same care as if I was going on a date with a man.

I arrived at her place with a bunch of roses
“They’re divine” she said pulling me into her arms and kissing me deeply on the mouth.

Over dinner I learned that Cecile was a physiotherapist. I found it hard to imagine her going off to work with a neat pony tail and white lab coat. That she even functioned in the every day world was a surprise to me.

She also told me that she was very into Buddhism in fact her whole family had converted to it together. She had made seven pilgrimages to India already.

After dinner we were in her bedroom. “I want to see you strip for me.” She said pouring me my 5th glass of champagne. It felt sexy to have someone so infatuated with my body so I peeled off my clothing piece by piece and really gave her a show.

“When I was on my last pilgrimage to India I mediated every day for 3 months, and every day visualized making love to women.”
“And it worked.” I laughed, thinking it seemed a little contrary to be mediating on going down on women while hanging out with a bunch of robed monks in a Buddhist sanctuary.


CHAPTER 3 HELLO LADIES!

Lying in each other’s arm’s flushed and exhausted after making love for hours Cecile answered her phone.

“Oh how are you my precious baby?” She cooed
“Ummm yes”….she giggled
“Oh yes very beautiful, you would love her.”

“Of course why don’t you come over and meet her”
“Tonight, why not?”
“It’s Patrick he’s dying to meet you. I told him he could come over. That’s okay with you princess, isn’t it?” She said pushing back a stray strand of my hair.

I didn’t really want to meet him, as she was trying to set up a threesome, and I wasn’t totally convinced that it would be a good idea.
“Sure,” I said faking a smile and feeling uncomfortable.

“You know Patrick and I aren’t really together any more. We were together for a long time, but now we’re gone down very different paths”
“What does Patrick do?” I said feigning interest
“He’s studying to be a Doctor.” She giggled, “And I think he’s becoming much too serious these days, poor thing”

“He’s just not really in the same place as me right now”
“Where’s that” I asked curious.
“Well Buddhism is a big part of my life, and he just doesn’t get it, thinks it’s a bit silly.”
“What does Patrick think of you being with girls?”
“Oh,” she laughed, “He doesn’t mind, that’s the agreement we have I can sleep with women, but not with men, and that’s fine with me, I would never betray him with another man”

The door swung open and in came Patrick wearing and a suit a smarmy smile
“Hello Beautiful ladies I’ve brought us some champagne.”
Patrick looked like the cat that had swallowed the cream.

They started making love made in front of me, Cecile tried to get me involved, but I refused to touch Patrick I wasn’t into at all. She seemed disappointed, and I felt like a porn in their sexual fantasy, more object than person.

She wanked off his large purple cock while telling me that he really liked it liked this. I knew I never wanted to be with him and hoped every time I saw Celine she wouldn’t try to share me with him.

Fortunately Patrick went traveling around Australia for a while, so it was just me and Cecile for a month or two. We went out catching people’s eye every where. We were not the usual variety of butch lesbians. Together we were more like a duo from Charlie’s Angels, glamorous, sexy and flirtatious.

Cecile would show me off anytime and everywhere we went “look at my gorgeous girlfriend” she would say while kissing my neck provocatively. I was more conscious of it, but she didn’t care and made a big sexy scene in any venue, even a half deserted pub, where every man who was sitting down to a ‘quite one’ suddenly had somewhere to focus their attention on.


CHAPTER 4 GUESS WHAT MUM I THINK I”M A LESBIAN

My 22nd birthday swung around and a friend offered to have the party at her place in Bondi. My parents came for the beginning of the party. Cecile didn’t make any effort to stop from being flirtatious with me in front of my Mum.

“I think that girls a bit of a lesbian.” My mum said disapprovingly.
“So what if she is mum, what’s wrong with that” I replied annoyed
Nothing my mum said sounding backed into a corner.
“Well if you think there’s nothing wrong with it, then I might as well tell you that she’s my girlfriend.
Mum went pale and only exchanged basic pleasantries with me for the rest of the night.
I felt awkward but better; I didn’t want to have to hide what I was doing.

The next day we all sat down to lunch. Mum sounded defensive and angry.
“Fine go ahead and ruin your life. No boy will ever want to go out with you after he knows this about you.”
“Mum, you don’t know anything about boys in this generation, they think it’s sexy”
“Rubbish” she said storming out of the room.
“I don’t want you to miss out on the opportunity to have children.” She cried out from the other room her voice full of emotion.
“I don’t want kids anyway, they make me sick.”

“Is she a nice girl” said my dad who had been silent up until this point.
“Yes really nice”
“Well I guess that’s what counts, as long as you’re happy” he said carefully trying to grapple with the new and shocking news that his daughter was a certified lesbian.
“Thanks for being so understanding” I said giving him a hug and feeling embarrassed that I had made him feel awkward..


CHAPTER 5 THREE”S A CROWD

“I feel like I want to finally break up with Patrick, we’re just not really suited anymore.”
‘It’s you I really want to be with” Cecile told me one boozy night.
“Then you need to tell him, if that’s what you want.”
“Oh I think he knows that we’re both too different for it to work now”
I began to feel better; maybe Patrick would be off the scene from now on.

But it wasn’t to be the case. The next week Patrick came back from holidays and Cecile moved in with him as her free ride in the ethnic palace had finished.

It was uncomfortable visiting her now with Patrick around.
He wasn’t nearly so chuffed to see me hanging around in his bed now
that he knew that I wasn’t just a fling. He felt threatened by me, and I of him.

While we waited for her to choose between us she kept us both strung along with lots of promises between kisses.

“Of course you’re my girlfriend honey.” She would say to me
“Of course It’s not serious with Mina, we’re just having fun’, she would tell him.
But Patrick and I both knew what the deal was either share or leave and we weren’t ready to leave so we stayed in this bizarre ménage a tois. One thing was sure, three was definitely a crowd.

Patrick and I openly squabbled with each other, competing for her attention.
“That’s nice Patrick, borrowing money from Cecile and not paying it back.
“Why don’t you get a job” I told him one afternoon

“If only we all could all work in a shoe shop like you, but unfortunately I’m studying medicine so I can graduate and actually have a career”. He said with a smug smile knowing he had won the argument.

Even though Patrick and I openly disliked each other, Cecile would treat us both like naughty children.

“Oh come on be nice to each other.” She would say chiding us playfully.
It’s such a shame that you two don’t want to have a threesome, it would be so much fun.”
Patrick and I would glare at each other and go back to what we were doing.


CHAPTER4 BUDDHISM SEX AND CHAMPAGNE

I gave Cecile a drawing I made once and she thanked me profusely telling me how she would treasure it. The next week I brought over a frame for her to put into to.
“Cecile where’s the drawing I gave you last week.”
“I gave it to rimpershae (Buddhist spiritual leader)

“Why! That was for you, not Rimpershae” I said kind of hurt
“Mina don’t be upset, it was an offering. Buddhism teaches that having attachment is unhealthy for us. We have to be able to let them go. It’s attachment that brings us so much suffering.
I wished that she could have been a little more attached to my drawing.
Attached to me, she made holding something dear to you sound like a sin.

“Mina Rimpershae’s having a little gathering at his place next Monday I think you would really enjoy it”
“No thanks” I think I’m washing my hair. I said a little sarcastically.
I didn’t want anything to do with this rimpershae character, who now owned my drawing and seemed to have such a maddenely guru like influence over Cecile.

I found the whole Sydney Buddhist scene a little flaky and reeking of the latest fashion. I had met a few of Cecile’s Buddhist friends and found them all a little contrary. These people, who were supposedly Buddhists, lived in ethnic palaces, drank champagne, and took ecstasy at sophisticated parties, whilst talking about how centered and spiritually advanced they were. It just didn’t ring true with me and I guess I began to take a similar stance as Patrick.


CHAPTER 5 SHE GOT WHAT SHE WANTED BUT NOT WHAT SHE NEEDED

Patrick and I were never going to be best friends, but occasionally we managed to get on with each other.

It was a beautiful Sunday spring afternoon and the three of us had taken a picnic hamper down to the harbour. After eating a little cheese and drinking lots of champagne we decided to take a dip.

Cecile and I frolicked in the sparkling water while Patrick took photos of us.
“Move closer together, that’s it, now kiss.” Patrick said snapping away.
The combination of kissing Cecile with the chance of being discovered was a turn on.

“Mmm your really wet, aren’t you baby.” She said running her tongue along the outer edges of my swimming costume. Her tongue was warm and arousing. I let her go down on me in a cave on the harbour foreshore while Patrick looked on with a massive erection.

Night had fallen by the time we arrived back at Patrick’s house.
“I think I’ll take a nap.” I said undressing and lying down in their king size bed. I felt a hand run over my bare leg. This wasn’t Cecile’s delicate birdlike hand this was the firm hand of man, Patrick’s in fact. It felt good, and I wondered why I had resisted him all this time. He was sexy in his own way, and after all wasn’t this what Cecile had always wanted.

We were in the middle of making love when Cecile came in.
“Oh” she laughed nervously. “I wondered where you both had got to.”
“I’ve made a little bit of dinner; I think we should eat it before it gets cold”
Cecile was silent all through dinner, and just played with her vegetables.
“Look I’m really tired, I think I need an early night” she said not even looking up at me.

I couldn’t believe it after all of her speeches about how much Patrick and I would enjoy being together she was put out when it actually happened. Jealous in fact, over him or me I couldn’t be sure..

Things were never really quite the same after that night. Cecile was neither angry nor upset just distant. I didn’t have any idea that she was preparing to go on her eighth spiritual pilgrimage to India until she told me over the phone one night.

“Mina you should be happy for me, I need to get out of Sydney and change my lifestyle, its just not healthy for me here”
I wondered weather she was referring to our little ménage a tois.
“I need to mediate again”
“Can’t you do it here” I said thinking of reasons to make her stay. .
While I wept, she keep telling me what she needed, it was then and I guess always had been about her.

A couple of months later I received a postcard of a grinning monk. She told me that she was feeling really centered and meditating every day in a little mountain village in the north of India, and if I ever wanted to go there she would give me the address.

I went to India about 2 years later to see what all the fuss was about.
I got ripped off a couple of dozen times, harassed non stop by men, and then got so ill with dysentery that I flew home after only 3 weeks. When I had been home for just over a week and looking like a skeleton from the dramatic weight loss I ran into Patrick at an art exhibition.

His hair was shorter, and he was wearing a double breasted suit, looking very much like the young doctor he had become. He told me that Cecile had returned to Sydney and was pregnant. I looked up her number and gave her call. She sounded happy to hear from me and we arranged to meet up at a local bar.

I found her sitting on a couch looking even more ethicized than before. She was heavily pregnant and looked radiant. Over the past 2 years we had both become engaged. It was surreal to sit there and compare engagement rings with the woman I who I became a lesbian with as I left the bar alone I thought of my Mum breathing an audible sigh of relief for all of the reformed lesbians in the world. But as I looked at the sun glinting on my new engagement ring I knew that my lesbian days were far from over.

PLAYING WITH THE DEVIL

CHAPTER 1: LOVE ME TENDER

At the end of year 12 we were given an award that praised our individual talents and personal attributes. My bright red satin flares swished against my gangly teenage legs as I
I walked up to the stage to collect my award for ‘adding colour to everyone’s lives’.

Everyone laughed good naturedly as I paused to brush a stray strand of fire engine red hair out of my blood red stoned eyes and adjust my oversized Jewish mumma glasses.

Back then, it seemed easy to have a colourful life all you had to do was wear an outlandishly vibrant outfit and colourful times would be sure to follow. Life was about letting the good times roll. Fun came before any form of responsibility, and smoking pot came before just about everything else.

After drifting through school stoned, I then drifted through the first 2 years of art school stoned. I had also graduated to uppers like speed, ecstasy and cocaine and seemed to be constantly coming down from the high of the weekend. I began to lose not only my powers of concentration but also my interest in being at art school, the only thing I had ever wanted to do.

I was wild with Paranoia, and in such a foul mood from Sunday to Wednesday that I alienated myself from my family. The only other friends I had engaged in the same type of drug taking gluttony common to the ‘recreational’ indulger, and were also trapped in their own weekly cycles of comedown depression.

Even some of these friends thought I was going to far, one saying with a laugh that she would be surprised if I made it to my 30th birthday.

Cool I thought that’s extreme, live hard and fast and then die while you’re still in your prime. In this semi conscious state it was impossible to concentrate on anything but my latest melodrama, usually involving a string of immature young boys that I freely gave my heart to. Most of who were just as mixed up as I was.

I was just beginning my second year of art school when I met Sam.
The night we met, I remember thinking that he looked just like a little boy, blond, soft and innocent. His hair was shaved on the sides and a bunch of neat baby blond dreadlocks flopped to one side, landing in his cornflower blue eyes.

I don’t remember the first thing he said, but I do remember being surprised by his voice, it was deep, masculine and self assured, too self assured I thought.

In the soft grey light of morning after partying all night we would always end up at Blair’s house, the only one of us who didn’t still live with his parents. My head would be

laying in Sam’s lap and he would stroke my hair. “How come we always end up like this”. He said one morning after about a month of indulging in this type of flirtation.

It occurred to me that maybe he didn’t want to be with me
until I looked up and saw him grin cat like. I purred with the pleasure of being so close to him, yet we still hadn’t kissed then, not yet.

After a few more weeks I began to wonder if we would ever make the leap from friends to lovers. “How do I know how you feel, I don’t even know weather you care about me.” I said on one such morning, speed residue spinning round in my head paranoid overreaction setting.

“Then why would I keep this.”
“Keep what” I said taking on the role of a petulant child.
He pulled out his school bus pass, and inside was a single strand of my hair.
“How long have you had this for” I said I trying to push back in the smile that threatened to break out on my face.
“I’ve had it from the first day we met.”
This was the deepest joy I had ever known this was love, truly, madly deeply.

The next week he invited me over for dinner, but I didn’t go. I wanted it so much, but at the same time I wanted to prove to him that I had a life, other people to see other things to do. It was of course an act. There was nobody else I would have preferred to have been with and no other place than with him that I would have preferred to be.

After going out for the second night in a row without sleeping I called him at 7.00 in the morning and asked him if I could come over.
“Yes come now.” He said sounding pleased to hear me.

15 minutes later he answered his front door in his boxer shorts, his face slightly puffy from being asleep.
“I thought you were coming to dinner, I even cooked a roast,” he said laughing it off good naturedly.
“Oh I had some other plans.” I said as coolly as possible
We went inside and sat on his bed for a while chatting and drinking champagne. I knew that this was finally going to be the moment when we would be together and after a few drinks I felt brave enough to initiate it.
“It’s cold can I come under the covers with you.” I said giving him a kittenish smile.
“Be my special guest.” He answered smiling warmly.

Within seconds we were embracing and kissing each other passionetly, months of pent up emotion being released.

As he began to make love to me, I told him that I loved him.
“I love you too, so much Nina.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” He said holding my face in his hands.

I had never experienced this type of passion before, it took my breath away.
I thought while gazing back into those soft cornflower blue eyes that this is it, he’s the one.


CHAPTER 2: THE ULTIMET RUSH

Sam used to shoot up speed, and after the film Train spotting came out heroin. The film that was meant to turn a whole generation off heroin actually turned them on, showing them how to heat up a spoon at the same time.

Although I took drugs, I still considered shooting up too far gone, even for me. So at first I tried to help him, all of them in fact. Until I reached a point where I had seen so many needles stuck into veins that I became desensitized and it didn’t seem as bad as what it first had.

I can’t remember when things began to go bad with Sam, but they did and very quickly.
After one of our fights I was sitting in the passenger seat of Blair’s navy blue Mini pouring out my relationship troubles to him whilst he shot a gram of speed into his arm.
“Can I try some Blair.”
“No it’s not for you, your too….innocent.”
“No I’m not.” And I didn’t feel innocent anymore after watching these guys shooting up all the time.
“I just don’t want to be responsible for giving it to you for the first time.”
“There’s only going to be a first time Blair, I’m just curious.”
“Sam wouldn’t like it.”

Good I thought. I hope it brings him untold misery and suffering, and to hell with him, Sam wasn’t going to decide what was best for me, I was.
“Come on Blair I won’t tell him if you won’t.”
Somehow that line seemed to appeal to the weaker part of his being.
“Okay only if you promise not to tell him.”

I watched him heat the spoon and thought that this maybe the worst decision I had ever made. I visualized myself junky thin and begging on the streets disowned by family and friends.
But I felt it was too late to go back.
“Yes I’m ready, what do I do.”
“Roll up your sleeve and tie this tourniquet on. He said fixing his bold blue eyes on me.
“Do you want me to do it for you”.
‘Umm yes” I said nervous and suddenly embarrassed.

With the precision of a doctor he tapped the needle for air bubbles and let a stream of liquid squirt out.

I looked the other way, like I always did when a doctor would give me a shot.
My heart raced and I felt giddy, being virtually phobic of needles.
I looked out the window at neon lights shining on the dirty pavement as I felt the needle prick my skin and then plunge into my vein.

“You need to put some pressure on this for a few minutes.” He said handing me a cotton bud to apply to the tiny puncture that the needle had made.
I closed my eyes and felt an incredible rush spread through my body.
I was talking at a million miles a second as I shut the door of his little blue mini and raced back inside to the club where we had been before.

I danced like I was doing a step aerobics for hours, and spoke to any one who would listen to my manic mono dialogues before I even noticed that Sam wasn’t in the room anymore.
I frantically searched every floor of the club, looking behind garish fluorescent banner’s and asking coked up spun out fluoro hippies if they had seen Simon, but nobody had.

By the time the dawn was breaking and birds were chirping I was back in the suburbs at my friends house chain smoking and running my tongue along the blisters in my mouth, the unfortunate legacy of chewing my gums nonstop for hours.

The speed had worn off and I felt a blackness in my soul that I had never felt before.
I had crossed the line and gone somewhere I always said I wouldn’t.
The only thing that was worse than the devastating guilt of shooting up was the fact that Sam had left me at the club and I had no idea where he was. I cried into my friends arms until I lost my voice and my eyes were tiny red slits.

“Nina, Sam’s on the phone.” One of the fluoro hippies said.
“Where have you been” I said in a small fractured voice.
“I went home with Jess.
“How could you just leave me there all alone” I sobbed into the phone my heart breaking in two.
“ Look don’t worry about it, I just felt like leaving so I did.”
“How could you be such an asshole.”
“I love you baby, more than anything.”
“Really,” I said melting
“Can I see you now”, he said urgently.
“Yes yes come now,” I said brightening.

Suddenly everything was okay he loved me and was coming to see me. I washed my face, applied some makeup and waited like a child for Christmas.



CHAPTER 3: DOCTOR DOCTOR GO FUCK YOURSELF

Sam’s bourgeois and highly conservative family kicked him out of home when they discovered that he been taking drugs in his final year of high school. Pushing him away had only made things worse. He failed his final year of school and was now taking more drugs than ever.

The family of close friend from his former private school had taken him in. They had given Sam his own room in their large suburban home and treated him as one of their own children while Sam went to an alternative college to redo his final year of school.

The father of his surrogate family was a doctor. He worked long hours so I didn’t meet him until after I had been going out with Sam for about a month. It was a Sunday night and we still hadn’t been to bed from the night before when the Doctor came into Sam’s bedroom.

He regarded my coloured hair and clashing retro clothing and gave me a wary look.
“You should probably leave now and let Sam study in Peace.” He said sternly without saying hello or introducing himself. He made me feel like the enemy and I resented him for it.

“I think that’s up to Sam to decide, I’m his guest.” I said petulantly.
“Look Sam needs to study now, and doesn’t need people around him that are a bad influence” He said touchily.
Sam had been the bad influence on me wasn’t it obvious.
“You know what! I passed my high school certificate and now I’m in my second year of university, I’d say that’s a good influence.” I said indignantly and angrier than I had intended.
“Listen Miss?”
Knight I informed him
“Listen Miss Night How can Sam be expected to pass his exams with people like YOU hanging around all the time.”
“How dare you judge me like that”
“YOU DON”T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME.” I said my voice rising in anger.
“I KNOW ENOUGH AND I THINK YOU BETTER LEAVE THIS HOUSE IMMEDIATLEY.” He said pointing to the door, his face flushed red from anger.

I looked around at Sam who was looking meekly at the doctor. He obviously wasn’t going to defend me. What a bunch of assholes I thought furiously.
One of the son’s came down to see what all of the noise was about.
“I can give you a lift to the station.” he said gently.”
“And incase you ever think of honoring us with one of your visits again Miss Knight, think twice.” The doctor said sarcastically.
“Go fuck yourself!” I said sticking up my finger at him as I climbed into the car with
the doctors son and Sam.

“You shouldn’t have spoken to Dad like that.” The Doctors son said turning to look
at me.
“You could have at least of defended me Sam.” I said sullenly.
“These people have given me a home, it’s the only home I’ve got and I don’t want it jeopardized” He added quietly as we the car arrived at the station.

I got out of the car and waited for the next train in the cold dark winter’s night feeling ashamed and alone. I cursed my stupidity and cried silent tears all the way home.


CHAPTER 4: YOU CAN’T GIVE ME UP

Sam who had temporarily had a problem with me shooting up speed behind his back seemed to have gotten over it when the next weekend he offered me some heroin.
“You’re too good for me.” He said while tying the tourniquet tighter.
I didn’t feel too good for him. I could see my future draining away before my eyes and didn’t have the courage to do something about it. I felt lowly, miserable and good for nothing.

All of these thoughts disappeared as the heroin surged through my veins. I was floating. The rough edges were suddenly smoothed out in this hazy gentle space.
Life appeared to be moving in slow motion, and nothing mattered.
Even when I puked I didn’t care.

Sam and I made love like slow moving serpents for the entire day while the others nodded off in the living room. He played with my hair and stroked my face looking into my pinned eyes telling me he loved me over and over. This was heaven all of our problems disappeared and we were free to love without the angst of the everyday.

Unlike Sam I only shot up on weekends, but I still needed to wear long sleeved tops to cover the bruises that the needle marks made. I wasn’t addicted like the other’s and announced one morning to my pale and strung out friends that “Heroin is stronger than us and if we don’t stop soon then it will take over”

“We’re just having fun.” Sam laughed.
“I can give up any time I want”. I looked at his junky thin body and pale strung out face and doubted his words. I thought they were being naïve and told them so. I knew Heroin had the ability to destroy my life and all of my dreams, and I guess that was the difference between them and me. I wanted to stop playing with the devil while they thought he was their friend.

But even my guilty conscience wasn’t strong enough to stop me from taking the drug “just one more time.”
I went with them one evening to Cabramatta, Sydney’s heroin capital for junkies and dealer’s alike. I thought about how out of control my life was getting as we shot up in a deserted car park having scored heroin from a beat up weedy looking junky.


One morning after breakfast my mum ordered me to come into her bedroom. Both of my parents were sitting up in bed looking at me sternly. My mum’s face was red and her voice was throaty from crying.
“I know what you’ve been doing.” She hissed accusingly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said playing dumb.
“Taking drugs you little fool” Mum said glaring at me barely able to control her rage.
“You don’t have any Proof.” I replied smugly.
“It’s all in here” Said my mother pushing my diary into my face.
“HOW DARE YOU, THAT”S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” I screamed enraged.
“OH YES IT”S VERY MUCH MY BUSINESS, YOU’RE MY BUSINESS!”’

She sounded hurt and furious at the same time.
“Its that little punk Sam, and his dimwitted friends, Isn’t it!”.
“NO it’s not”
“I DON”T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS NOW.” I yelled slamming the door in her face.
I went and sat in my bedroom and cried bitter tears. I was enraged at my mother for invading my privacy like that and also ashamed that I had hurt my parents so deeply.

The next night when we were lying in bed after just making love I told Sam that my parent’s knew that I had been taking hard drugs. His cheeks looked even more sunken than usual.” I don’t think we’re right for each other.” He said climbing out of bed.
“What do you mean we’re not right for each other! ”
I had expected him to offer some type of support.
“What I mean is” he said cautiously” Is that I don’t know weather I love you.”
I felt my world caving in around me, and begged him to take it back.
“I have to get out of here I need to study otherwise I’m going to fuck it up again.” He said backing out the door.

Two days later my parents left town, my mother warned me not to do anything stupid while she was gone. She looked worried and worn out. Sam came over, wanting to apologize. After having animal like sex for hours, the way we solved all of our problems
He shot up in my childhood bedroom.

As he disappeared into the land of dreams so too did the innocence of my childhood. “This is safer than drinking.” You know he said with his eyes closed taking in the first part of the rush.
“No it’s not. Drinking is more of a social activity.” I said disagreeing
“My father’s an alcoholic, and I’ve seen how alcohol destroyed our family, and I never want to be violent like him.”
“People aren’t violent on heroin.” He said kissing me gently on the lips.

“Sam, why are you so mean to me sometimes.” I said changing the subject
“I just don’t want you to end up like me he said with tears in his eyes, you’re better than that, that’s why sometimes I try and push you away.”
“You know I love you more than anything baby.”
We hugged for what seemed like an eternity but I knew it wasn’t true. Sam loved drugs more than anything..


CHAPTER 5: ROCK BOTTOM

“I don’t think we’re suited.” Sam told me over the phone one evening.
“What do you mean.” I said hurt and offended. He always had the capacity to surprise me with his contradictory feelings.
“Nothing don’t worry about it.”
“Also I can’t see you tonight because I have to go and see my grandfather he’s sick.”
“Since when have you ever cared about him, you always say that you’ll visit him, but you never do, it’s a pretence.” I said aiming to hurt him as he had hurt me.”
“You see we can never work,” Glad that he now had ammunition for his argument.
“It’s over.”
“No Sam, you don’t mean it.” I pleaded.
“Yes I mean it we’re finished.” He said coldly before slamming down the receiver.

I felt my heart break into tiny pieces, suddenly nothing mattered anymore. The next day I went to art school and told a teacher that I wanted to drop out. She told me that I wasn’t ready to be here and it was probably a good idea. I was surprised by her answer I had expected her to say that it would be a waste of all my amazing talent. Maybe I wasn’t as talented as I thought.
I packed up my things and felt lower than I had ever felt in my life as I walked out of the school gates.

That afternoon when I returned home I felt as though I had nothing to live for anymore. I felt totally destroyed. The love of my life had left me, and my dreams of becoming an artist were ruined. I had failed spectacularly in every way. Life seemed an endless bottomless pit of pain and I wanted out.

My grandmother was staying with us at the time. She had been on an assortment of ‘mother’s little helpers’ for years. Pills for every type of nervous condition, I reached into her bag and found a brand new box of valium. There were fifteen in the packet and I swallowed all of them.

I panicked immediately, suddenly imagining my parents crying over my coffin and realized I couldn’t do it to them. I had already hurt and disappointed them too much already. I dialed Sam and told him everything.
He called my parents straight away and told them what I had taken, and within 17 minutes I was in the emergency section of the hospital.

“Who’s the Prime Minister of Australia” a nurse said shining a torch in my eye.
I don’t remember what I said but the nurse laughed.
She asked me a few other questions before giving me an anesthetic so that they could pump my stomach.

CHAPTER 6: WIPE THE SLATE

A few days later I was at home sitting in our back yard.
“Mum do you think I need to go to a psychiatrist.”
“Don’t be silly, you did a very stupid thing, but I know that you’ll be okay”
“How do you know that.” I said surprised at my mum’s positivism.
“When you were a little girl your grandfather read your palm, and you know what he told me.”
“No, what”
He said never to worry about Nina, that you may get into a few scrapes but you will always land on your feet.”
My mother’s confidence in me was encouraging and made me feel better, made me feel that I could get my life back together.

“You have a visitor.” Mum called out to me as I lay gazing up the blue summer sky.
Sam came in through the garden gate wearing a leather jacket and carrying a motorcycle helmet.

“How are you feeling” He said shielding his face from the afternoon sun.
“I’m okay.”
“I think your going to be okay too, and better off without me.”
“Did you get the results back from your exams.” I said changing the subject
“Yeah, I totally fucked it up again, I guess school’s just not for me. I’m going to do study a trade you know something like jewelry making.”
“I heard you dropped out of art school. What are you going to do now” he asked gently
“I’m leaving town for a while. I’m going to stay with my uncle in North Queensland and just take a break.”

We wished each other luck. Then he left.
As I heard him revving the engine on his motorcycle and driving away I realized that we had reached the end of the chapter, that things were really over between us.


The next Friday afternoon my Mum drove me to the train station, and cried as she waved me off.
The train trip took two and half days before we arrived in Port Douglas. It was hot like a sauna, making people laid back and slow moving.
My Uncle never asked me any questions, even though I’m sure my Mum had told him everything. He just let me be without passing judgment.

My brightly coloured hair and clashing clothing seemed artificial in this natural environment. In fact everything about my life in Sydney seemed artificial, and the things I had placed so much importance on were comical out of context.

I let my hair grow longer and died it back to its natural colour again I spent everyday taking long walks through the rainforest, and swimming under the stars.
I let nature heal me, and all of my past drama’s fade away. Life really was a precious thing, something to be valued, and I saw that now.

By the time I returned to Sydney 2 months later I felt like a different person. I didn’t want drugs to decide the course of my life for me ever again.
I had only injected drugs for 2 months with Sam, but the beginning of a lonely and wretched path had opened itself up to me and almost destroyed my life.

I stopped seeing all of my old friends, and began again, making new friends with people with other interests besides just taking drugs. It was hard at first but eventually I made friends with people who were creative and had something to offer the world besides just sucking the marrow from it.

A couple of years later after I had been traveling around the world and was completing my final year of art school I ran into an old friend who knew Sam.
“How is he.” I asked.
“He’s in rehab again and not doing that well.”
“And Blair,”
“Oh, my friend paused kicking a stone on the ground Blair didn’t make it, he died from an overdose last year.”
“I’m so sorry.” I said swallowing the lump in my throat.
My heart aching for those poor boys who played with the Devil thinking he couldn’t take them away.

PORTRAIT OF A MODERN DAY BOHEMIAN

CHAPTER 1 AN EXUBERANT BEGINNING


I remember the first day I saw Elodie. Everything about her stood out, her 70’s Saint Tropez beach disco attire, the white husky dog that looked like a wolf, with his one blue eye standing beside her, and the fact that she was a French girl speaking fluent English with her French boyfriend Florian a young extremely tall photographer from the squat.

The next time I saw her was at my 29th birthday, already feeling worn out from a recent disastrous relationship that had ended only three days before I put on a brave face and tried to enjoy the night.

Most people arrived late, and a few extras arrived uninvited. Elodie was one of them. She again arrived with her big white dog Masha and crazy clothing and in her own way made a kind of disheveled bright entrance.

While I hastily rearranged seats and made way for guests like her, and contemplated basic manners and how so many people lacked them she surprised me with a small act of generosity.

Elodie demanded to see the birthday girl which was Bell and I, but somebody who didn’t know Bell pointed her in my direction. She came up to me with a wide smile and a little box of Turkish delights.
“For the birthday girl.” she said placing the box in front of me.
I was charmed.

The week after she came to pick me up from my studio, and we went for a drive in her purple mini with the top down. It was the beginning of spring, Paris was blossoming and after the dour presence of winter and more precisely winter in a squat, her company seemed to be a breath of fresh air

She said that day as we pulled into the decadent gardens of Versailles that she wanted to create an art movement for dilettantes and that art should be exuberant and extravagant. Mmmm exuberance, extravagance, these were 2 words that had been missing from the severe repertoire of the “serious artists’ at the squat, and 2 words that had been missing from my life for some time. I was hooked.





She invited me to Stay over at her house that night and have dinner. It was getting dark when pulled up alongside a grocery store in Belleville.
“What should we buy for dinner?” I asked
“Buy whatever you like my dear, I don’t have a penny, I’ve spent all of my money for the month already.” she said with a laugh
“Don’t worry I’ll pay for the groceries tonight,” I said genuinely concerned.

Later that night we went to back her doll like cottage In Saint Cloud. While gypsy music blared in the background and Elodie danced around the Kitchen I prepared the dinner.

She said that she had a 2 year old daughter, and that she was with her mother for the day. I wandered how a single mum could afford a three story apartment in Saint Cloud who didn’t appear to be working.

As if reading my mind she said that she lived off a single mother’s pension. I imagined life to be very difficult for her, and admired her for having the courage to bring up small girl basically alone and with very little money.

She also complained that it was difficult for her to find the space to paint in her cluttered home so I invited her to make work in my relatively roomy studio at the squat.

She sat down like an Indian squaw on the floor and began making a portrait of me. I couldn’t exactly see what she was making just that her hands were flying all over the place in frenzied gestures and her red pants were becoming covered in smears of deep blue paint.

When she finished she held up a portrait that looked like it had been executed by an 11 year old child. All of the bright colours she had been using had mixed into a muddy brown and my head looked like a pin stuck onto a blubbery and out of proportion body. Before I could force a response she wiped off the whole image with her left hand and discarded it into the corner.

Yet it didn’t really matter to me. I didn’t need talented friends at the time I just needed the sense of joy and feeling of freedom that seemed to accompany her.

Only several months after meeting her I went back to Australia to have an exhibition and ended up staying there for six months. We corresponded from time to time and in her one of her emails she invited me to come and stay with her. After making some money from my exhibition I realized that I wanted to return to Paris. Partly to see a guy called Oliver that I had had a brief affair with and partly to continue the series of paintings that I had been working on when I left.




During my absence Elodie and Oliver had become friends, She had mentioned in an email that she had been seeing ‘my friend Oliver’, and that she was tired of Florian in fact breaking up with him and wanted only to meet men like Oliver. I felt a rising panic as I read the words.

Other friends advised me that she would never have meant to make me feel threatened and I shouldn’t worry about it. She also asked if I could pay rent to help her out with the new apartment she was renting in Belleville. I was happy to pay rent, this was better than just staying with a friend then having to look for another place. This meant my own floor on one of the three stories.

She mentioned that she was planning to turn the living room into a studio for both of us. Everything sounded ideal from 22,000 kilometers away and I was glad to be leaving Sydney and returning to Paris again.




CHAPTER 2 STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND


I arrived in Paris on an overcast winter’s evening. Bright neon’s shone on the wet pavement, and people huddled under shop awnings waiting for a break in the rain.
As the taxi pulled into rue Des Oubliettes I recognized everything from when I was there last June. Yet it was different now. All of The light and joy from the summer had been replaced with the severity and somberness of winter.

That first night, Elodie was out and I was shown to my room by her Italian friend. The room was a pigsty, full of baby cots, clothing and junk piled on junk, I couldn’t decipher what had been rearranged as she had remarked in her email. I went to bed in dirty sheets, and lay awake all night fretting about my decision to return.

I think it was in the first week that I was to experience her chaos and disorder, and be directly affected by it. I hadn’t had a set of keys made up yet, so I asked her to wait for me to return from the doctors before she left the apartment.

As far as I could see her normal day involved getting out of bed at 11 or 12 and sometimes not at all, so I thought I would probably be back at 11:30, good timing for her ‘routine,’ but when I returned she wasn’t at home as she had promised. I called and called her phone, and received no response. I felt the frustratingly insane feeling of one who is locked out with nowhere to go.

I decided to see if she was at her studio, a gallery space she had rented out for a month, but was also painting in. There she was blissfully chatting away with some hippie couple while painting their portrait. She smiled warmly when I entered and remarked
“Ah finally you are here”, as if the prior arrangement had never been made.

When I confronted her about not waiting for me at home she said that I had taken too long and that she had felt like leaving. At the same time as I chanted a mantra to myself to calm down and not explode, she pulled out some canvases and told me to
“Paint darling paint, feel free”.

Although I was quickly pacified by making art, the inescapable sound of bright red alarm bells rang in my head, Suddenly the fact that Elodie did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted wasn’t nearly so charming when it was at my expense.

Friends came to visit me in my new place and nearly all remarked on the extraordinary amount of junk she had left in my room. I had never before and still haven’t met someone who owned so much stuff.

The cave under the house was so full of half finished paintings and discarded possessions that the door needed to be yanked shut in order to keep everything from spilling out into

the next room. Make shelf bookcases bowed and threatened to collapse under the weight of hundreds of books while dozens of ethnic trinkets and odd bits of mismatching furniture were piled into every last available bit of floor space.

The room I was sleeping in was crammed with enough clothes to clothe four girls not one. There were rugs, pots pans baby cot’s, all in every colour of the rainbow. It was a bohemian techno colour vomit. Other friends agreed that it was unfair that whilst I pay rent she hoard all of her things in my room.

By now I was beginning to understand that I would have to approach this subject in a thoughtful way. “But that’s Sasha’s bedroom” she said aghast, “yes technically it is but while she lives with your mother and I pay rent on the room I think it’s fair that you can store your possessions in the cave or your own bedroom.”

The blank stare that came over her face was troubling. She was leaving to visit her grandmother in the countryside and said she would think it over. She sent a text saying “mess is a big part of me, and if you can’t learn to live with it then maybe you should leave”.

More alarm bells went off and I was furiously leafing through the apartment section in the paper when I got a call from Elodie,
“Coo Coo cheri, it’s me, listen I just spoke to Granny and she said it’s fair for me to move my stuff if you pay rent” I went to sleep sending a silent thank you prayer to granny.

To be on the safe side I begun to look for new places to live, although those that were in my price range were either painfully small and I wouldn’t be able to paint there or bleakly depressing. So I guess I kind of gave up for a while and prayed things would work out, and despite some of her obvious faults she was still capable of being highly entertaining. Who needed television when Elodie was around?




CHAPTER 3 ALL JUICED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO


When Elodie was ‘Juiced up’ she was at her most unpredictable and entertaining.
One night after dinner she was humming Paris Hilton’s latest song, while uncorking her second bottle of red wine.
“ I’m a genius you know,’ she slurred “we should make a new art movement together, art with no taste, authentic art.”
“Of course I will be the leader.” She said her eyes shining and going slightly crossed.
“I know I’m going to be a famous artist.” She mumbled just before passing out cold on the dining room table.

We used to have a lot of dinner parties. I usually did the cooking and a bevy of guests invited and uninvited turned up to partake in the festivities. I felt a bit like Jesus who broke the bread and then had to turn a fish and one bottle of wine into a feast for the starving masses.

Elodie’s ex boyfriends, current boyfriends and future love interests all used to sit around the table chewing the fat together. Her latest fancy was a guy named Sebastian, an ex junky with acting and writing aspirations, temporarily homeless and living in the squat next door and in Melanie’s own words a rat.

Sebastian began giving us a long sermon on his personal development into a centered and peaceful individual. When he elaborated telling us that he was the only true artist sitting at the table I was bored. I had taken on 2 jobs in order to make my painting, and being a foreigner wasn’t being giving any help from the government or my parents like these people.

“Wow if only I knew how to be a true artist like you Sebastian” I said with more than a hint of Sarcasm in my voice.
“Fuck you.” He said turning to glower at me his black eyes full of rage.

“You know Sebastian its bad manner’s to speak to the person who just cooked you dinner, probably your only meal of the day like that, so FUCK YOU and close the door on your way out.”
Everyone looked delighted with the latest piece of theatre as I left to go upstairs and Sebastian slunk out the door.

.




The next morning I went down to have breakfast and was stunned by the sight that lay before me. Broken plates had been used as spoons to scoop up the last of the sauce and then used as temporary ashtrays. All of the walls had been painted and written on, Dip and the deep red bolinagse sauce from the dinner had splattered all over the floor. This was a dinner party that Conan and the Barbarians would not have felt out of place at.

I went looking for Elodie and found her laying passed out in her bedroom, She was snoring deeply through teeth stained blood red from wine while her huge womanly breasts were draped over Sebastian’s naked body. Sasha was sitting in between them, thumb in mouth watching the French version of Beauty and the Beast.


I initially thought that Sasha had just being staying with Elodie’s parents for the holiday period, but it soon became obvious that Sasha was really living with her grandparents and only came home to stay with Elodie on weekends.

Like most little children Sasha would wake up early and demand her breakfast. Elodie would go down stairs and bring her up some chocolate then go back to sleep until 12 while the little girl destroyed the room, drawing on the walls, anything from the sheer boredom of waiting up to 6 hours before her mum would finally wake up and play with her.

Everything had to suit Elodie’s first, even Sasha’s 3rd birthday.
“Sasha’s turning three so we’re going to have a little party for her.” She said while rolling a cigarette.
“How sweet are you going to invite her little friends?”
“No I don’t feel like doing that, we’re going to Chez Lipp and you can come too”

We arrived at Chez Lipp in Saint Germaine Des pres the most expensive and traditionally bourgeois Brasserie in Paris a little after 9.00pm.
While the adults smoked, drank and told dirty jokes little Sasha passed out from exhaustion before the entrees were even served. After dinner Elodie woke up a tired and very grumpy Sasha to blow out the candles on her birthday cake.




CHAPTER 4 DOWN WITH THE BORGEOIUS CAPITALIST PIGS


Christmas time swung around and I began to wonder what I would do. Elodie invited me and a friend of mine to her family Christmas which I thought was nice of her.

Elodie’s parents lived on Avenue Foche an extremely wealthy and prestigious part of Paris, the equivalent to living on 5th Avenue in New York. I couldn’t believe it when the door opened.

An enormous 18th century apartment opened up before us. As we walked over polished teak floorboards and crossed into the living room I recognized paintings from famous artists living and dead. “I think that’s a real Picasso” I said nudging my friend.

Elodie’s fifteen year old sister announced to the friend she was speaking to on the phone that she was bored out of her mind with Christmas, rolling her eyes in the direction of the table and stalked out of the room, while Melanie spent the entire evening sulking, probably because her “poor” boho cover had been well and truly blown.

Elodie’s mother Marie on the other hand out talked everyone and seemed to be having a ball. She was gregarious and entertaining.
Marie worked in Fashion, so everything was ‘darling or fabulous’. She was petite like Elodie but twice the size.
In that house she was the ruling Patriarch, bossing around her defeated flabby husband and three children.

Because she paid for Elodie’s rent, Marie called the shots. They would have titanic battles on the phone, but as Marie doled out the money she always got her own way. Elodie had become completely dependant on her mother for this very reason.

While Elodie outwardly said that she despised working, and “Picasso never had another job,” I saw the fear that in her own words the “capitalist pig world’ conjured in her.

Once she saw an add to work in a flower shop. I encouraged her to apply. Explaining that the money would give her some freedom from her mother’s vice like grip and as it was casual wouldn’t interfere much with her free schedule. In the end she said she didn’t think she was capable to do it, and there was genuine uncertainty in her voice.

One evening Melanie had a friend over and they were deep in conversation when I arrived home from the studio.
“I’m sick of bourgeois fascist pigs, they are so unauthentic” she sighed.
“How’s your painting going” her friend enquired.
“I don’t care weather it looks good or bad it’s not the point, but the fact is I am so busy these days with Sasha and organizing my mess. That I just don’t have time.”

There was a knock at the door, It was Sebastian returning Masha from a walk. “Shankyou a lot can you walk him tomorrow as well? She said dragging deeply on her cigarette.

When her friend left we were putting a few dishes away, she seemed to have something on her mind.
“You know I’m thinking of getting a maid to clean this house, I feel like cleaning interrupts my creative flow!


CHAPTER 5 COME TO DADDY


When Elodie was 23 and pregnant she got married to a mild mannered English guy named Mathew. He wasn’t Sasha’s father, but took on the role and title of Daddy nonetheless. Sasha has no idea that her Biological father is actually a guy called Pier Louis, who disappeared before she was even born.

I had read some of Mathew’s poetry about Sasha, something about her galloping out of the womb, and storm clouds and rainbow’s. He was a romantic, even Romanizing Elodie’s’ infidelities writing in a song “for a woman with three hearts one man is not enough.”

Sometime before I met them this relationship had gone very sour and the only times I saw Mathew was at Sunday morning breakfast when he would come to pick up Sasha.
“Just d d don’t call me darling.” He would stammer turning red in front of 2 of Elodie’s other lover’s past and present also sitting at the table.

Another morning I heard them arguing
“You don’t give any help to us.” She screamed meaning money. Mathew who was normally mild mannered raised his voice,
“You get help from EVERYONE Elodie, from your parents from your grandmother, from the government. You even rent Sasha’s room to somebody and now you w waant more from from me.” he stammered exasperated and furious.
As he closed the front door on the way out I heard her scream out
“Fuck you motherfucker.”
I couldn’t help sympathizing with him.

“I’m going to the countryside to visit my grandmother Mimi next week; you can come too if you like. I think you would really like Mimi, she does Yoga everyday, and is really into natural remedies” Elodie announced over breakfast one morning.

Mimi lived in a medieval village in Burgundy. The place was as charming as Mimi, although looking at her hunched and frail body I found it hard to imagine her getting up the stairs let alone doing a session of yoga, but she certainly did have a lot of energy, singing Edith Piaf through false teeth, and spending all day cooking us sumptuous feasts.

After one such feast Elodie and I went for a walk into the surrounding countryside.“ I’m feeling stressed out and I need to take a holiday”, she sighed.
“I’m thinking of taking a walking holiday, you know just walking around Europe for a couple of months .”
I stifled a laugh as Elodie didn’t even take her own dog for a walk.
“Would you take Sasha”, I probed.
“No I just need to feel free, be free”
Wouldn’t your parents be annoyed if just took off for a few months leaving them to look after Sasha”
“I just wouldn’t tell them, just wait till I was far away then give a call to them, I’ve done it before”, she laughed.

The next day when we were back in Paris she had begun drinking early, and was entertaining her lover Sebastian, a guy who I personally couldn’t stand.
In order to keep living his free existence he had lied to his Grandmother and said that his computer had been stolen and could she send some money to buy another .It was of course a fabrication, but somehow Elodie was willing to risk her relationship with Florian her gentle and devoted boyfriend for this fraud.

As I knew that Florian was coming over later that night I asked her if she wasn’t worried that her duplicity may be discovered. By now she had downed a whole bottle of red wine to herself and said red wine staining the `corners of her mouth and an unmistakable glint in her eye “that now the real drama would begin”

What unfolded wouldn’t have been out of place on a day time soap episode. After a minor dispute the lover was wrestled to the door. She stood on the top of the steps which led to the courtyard and pushed him out, screaming ‘get out, get out’ with enough volume so that the neighbors from all three surrounding buildings would hear. The guy made a speedy exit.

Much later in the night Florian came over with a beautiful white orchid as a present, a makeup for one of their fights which were now every time they saw each other.
I was in the kitchen when I heard the beginnings of their argument. Elodie was berating him for taking paid artistic work.
“You’re a sell out I want to be with a genius, someone who can actually inspire me”.

When their argument became physical I fled to the safety of my upstairs quarter. The fight had progressed into the courtyard again, and it occurred to me that perhaps she wanted the neighbors’ to hear.

From my window I saw her pummeling him with her fists and shouting “You’re just a stupid fucking bobo”. (which is someone who is living the life of a Bohemian, but is cushioned with money from wealthy parents) It appeared to be the gravest insult from all of the artists in the area, and also the biggest contradiction as most of them were in fact being supported to a degree by their parents including Elodie.

The next Morning When I came downstairs the beautiful white orchid lay strewn across the floor, red wine bottles were upturned and had leaked all over the white tablecloth, the ashtray had been knocked over and dozens of cigarettes were scattered on the beautiful Persian rug. It was indeed a battle field. I reflected sadly on the beautiful flower that had been destroyed for such a senseless argument then left to go to work.



CHAPTER 6 DRAMA RAMA


Elodie had made a point of staying friends with my ex boyfriend Jean Philippe, an erratic insecure artist that was prone to fits of violence. At the time I had begged her not to bring him into the home.

I can’t blame her for the fact that I began to see him again, but the fact that she welcomed him back into my life through proximity didn’t help. I would come down and find him eating at the breakfast table, and when I told him to leave he would give me an insidious smirk and say “Elodie invited me.”

When I began to see this man again my life went downhill. It became a depressing series of dramas. In a sense my own life began to echo the disorder of Elodie’s life.

As I sat at the breakfast table recounting the most recent drama with tears spilling from my eyes she would look at me with admiration, and say that she only wished she had something as passionate with Florian.

This was the point when I really should have packed and left, but was so drained and depressed from all of the drama, hers and mine, that I just didn’t have the energy.
After he was particularly violent I made concerted efforts to get him out of my life, but every effort seemed to be thwarted by Elodie.

When I had finally broken up with him, I came back home one night to find my bed had been slept in and my things were in disarray. I went white with fury. I heard my heart pumping audibly in my chest adrenaline surging through me.

Suddenly I recalled Elodie asking weather I was going to stay out all night.
“Maybe” I said laughing off her bizarre question.
I recalled a conversation we had had earlier on in the day, where she mentioned that Jean Philippe was coming to dinner and it became immediately obvious to me who had slept in my bed. I dragged the information out of her, and finally she delivered the answer delightedly clapping her hands together “You zee zis is really true love”

It wasn’t until Jean Philippe broke the mirror in my bedroom in a jealous rage, that she banned him from the house. So I could barely believe when in the same week she showed me a soft fluffy toy that she had bought for him.
“It looks zust like im don’t you zink” she said giggling
“Not really” I said through gritted teeth.
I felt betrayed and realized I would have to do something about my living arrangements ASAP.



CHAPTER 7 EXIT STAGE LEFT


The next day she announced that she needed a holiday and was going to the south of France, and that she would return for 2 days before again departing to Portugal. All up she would be gone for a month. She also had a friend coming from South America and was not sure what to do with him, as he had declined her offer to pay rent.

I sensed that this was now a fiscal dilemma for her. She was hoping that it would be a clean exit, out with me…….time up and onto the next rent paying guest for her to “host”.
However the fact that her friend wanted to stay for free put a dent in her plan, perhaps she said “you can stay for another few months, and we can put Pedro on a mattress downstairs.”

Mmm I think it’s time for me to move out. So a new plan was hatched where I would live at the grandmother’s empty Parisian apartment for 2 months paying rent which would probably be passed onto Elodie. I knew already from my previous searches that it takes time to find a decent apartment in Paris so I thought this was decent of her and would allow me time to find somewhere else.

Before she left she borrowed some money from me to pay for her ticket ‘No pennies” and left me in charge of her dog, who she also left no food for. I passed a blissful and drama free month in her absence and realized truly how much better life was without Elodie’s “friendship” I felt inspired, and spent my time painting all day without interruption, and even managed to find a Gallery that was interested in exhibiting my work.

By the time Elodie arrived home the dog had never looked better, and the house was tidy and in order.
Everything was going well. The next day was the scheduled move to Grannies and she seemed relaxed until I mentioned that a gallery in Paris was interested in giving me an exhibition. Her eyes glazed over, and she could barely move her mouth when she went to congratulate me, it was forced into such a tightlipped smile that it forced the veins on her neck to pop out.

Directly after lunch she began walking around the house and half finishing her sentences, “It’s just so………oh never mind she would say running her hand along the banister and clicking her teeth at imaginary grime. ‘ It’s just so dusty, filthy in fact,
“I leave you here for a month and you don’t even have the decency to clean the house”
I glanced around the spotless house and laughed thinking perhaps she was joking until I realized as her face contracted into a tight grimace that she meant it.

She continued to pick at imaginary things all morning, until finally I snapped, and said a thank you would be more appropriate. I pointed out that her holiday wouldn’t have been at all possible if I hadn’t of been there to look after everything including her ticket fare.


This is really where everything went really sour. She came storming up the stairs and burst into my room.
“I want you out of my house NOW.” She said with a sadistic smile.
“It’s impossible, I’m going to work NOW, it has to be later when I return”
I added that it would be impossible for me to move my paintings that night which were stored in her cave.
“All you ever zink about is your art.” She hissed spitefully.

At 4’oclock that afternoon I was at my afternoon nanny job. I was bringing the girls home on a crowded afternoon bus while comforting the oldest one who was crying because her teacher had hurt her feelings when I received a telephone call from Elodie.

“I’ve packed your bags and put them into the Communal courtyard”.
“WHAT” I struggled to hear her over the roar of the engine and chatter of the school kids.
“Elodie, I told you I would be home this afternoon to do it”

By the time I had dropped one of the other girls home and taken the other to Ballet I had managed to convince her to put my computer back inside the house, but the rest of my things remained in the courtyard.

I got home late after having an emergency interview with my future landlord, and found my things shoved into plastic bags and boxes in such a disorganized mess that I wondered how I would ever find anything. I was furious and exhausted. It was now 12 o’clock at night and not having a truck I took the most important things with me by hand and carried them to the taxi rank. I finally arrived at my friend’s apartment at 1.00am where I was to stay on her couch until I found somewhere else to live.

I left Elodie a note saying it was impossible to take all of my things, and told her not to dare put my paintings into the courtyard. Just to leave them in the cave and I would come for them with a truck. They were the most important things to me and it agonized me to leave them behind. I kept her keys as I wouldn’t be giving them back until I had my paintings.

Marie called me around midday to ask me for the keys to the apartment. I said that she could have them when the remaining paintings were exchanged and only then. She started yelling
“If you don’t hand over the keys immediately I will have you thrown out of this country for being an illegal immigrant”……… “I’m not illegal” I explained as calmly as possible.

She began raving at me “You think you’re better than Elodie for having a gallery” “Elodie has no need to be jealous of someone like you. You are NOTHING NOTHING.
You know Elodie doesn’t need to work. It’s unnecessary we have plenty of money. If I wanted to get Elodie a gallery I could get her one tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you then, it would be better for her self esteem.”
She suddenly sounded slightly unsure of herself “because, because It’s not what Elodie wants.”

The next day I arranged for a truck to collect my paintings for 5.00 in the afternoon. In the morning the Polish truck driver decided that it fitted his schedule better to pick up my painting at 10.00 in the morning instead.

We arrived at Elodie’s house at 10.30 and fortunately she wasn’t there. We had just carried the last of the big paintings upstairs to my friend’s place where I was storing the work when I received a message from her.

She had the same coldness in her voice.
“If your paintings aren’t out of here by 11.00am and the keys aren’t returned then I won’t hesitate in slicing your paintings up one by one with a knife” I looked around at my paintings which had been saved from their cruel fate by a chance cancellation in the driver’s schedule and blessed my good fortune.

Soon after this event I ran into Mathew who told me a story about the family. He said that after He and Elodie were first married they lived in Prague where he was teaching English. They used Mimi’s Parisian flat as their permanent address for documents and mail to be sent to.

Because the house was viewed as income for the family they were charged tax on it. The father then passed this $6000 tax bill to Mathew. The money was then directly debited from his account, even though another member of Elodie’s family was actually living there at the time.

“You know, if we didn’t share a child together I wouldn’t even stop to talk to her if I saw her on the street.” He said with rising emotion. “She’s just a very sad, mean person, who’s going to end up all alone one day.”

I never thought I would hear from Elodie again until I received a group email 5 months after the incident, maybe she had forgotten to take me off her list or maybe not. She explained that she was having an exhibition with her Italain friend in Berlin, using Sasha as a subject. my baby, our baby, whatever Darling…………trahlala. I briefly contemplated Sasha’s future sessions in therapy before deleting the file and removing Elodie’s name from my list of contacts.