Seven Autumns

Everybody Dies In Their Fantasies

I don’t know what is making me want her, but fuck, I was infatuated. The sexual chemistry between us was so strong, the whole room felt it and smelled it. I couldn’t look her in the eye. She would destroy me.

My dream of pursuing her was something fathomable if you could only see what I saw in her. Here we all were, a bunch of girls trying to keep our friend distracted while her mother’s body was being flown back from London. It was expected of us and of the culture- this mournful ritual. Our friend needed us. It was only day two of consoling her but I had been awake for twenty-four hours just to keep her company while she cried alone in her bathroom- with one of the girls slyly joining her. Was it a quick fuck to forget her state or was it a little bump-by-the-nose to numb it all – the catch twenty-two of Lesbians. The room was big enough, but I preferred to stay in the corner until my friend called me over to join them for some tea. I think there were around ten of us sitting around the table, smoking cigarettes, exposed as contradictory social chain-smokers, physically it was clear that we were way past our teen spirit days- mentally, not so much.

I felt I was surrounded by a bunch of white witches but with iPhones instead of brooms and nymphomaniac tendencies instead of being burned at the stake. Nevertheless, there was always going to be a bad seed in a group of some late-twenty/early-thirty females. You know, the one who thrives on gossiping about, let’s say, your ex-girlfriend getting married. This is the universe giving you an indication to get the fuck out and buy yourself a one-way ticket out of that shit-show bubble these women belonged to. Then there was her, no, not my friend who was doing God knows what, or the bad seed. This woman, a beautiful fucking gorgeous woman who came and sat next to me- smelling like the perfumes of Arabia. She was someone I had never seen before, and trust me, I knew quite a lot of people in this bubble-wrap.

Her smile made me want to sink into the crimson of a bleeding-heart transplant. I can be less dramatic, and say I just wanted to sink into her arms. I did not doubt for one second that there was one sober person in that room, but this woman could destroy the concept of heroin chic just by that smile of hers. I stared at her, and then she stared at me, and for the next two days her eyes never strayed away from this skinny body of mine- even if there were warning signals coming in from every direction about my fuck-boy attitude.

It was electric.

‘Who is this girl?’ I ask one of my friends- well, one of my exes.

This group, sorry, the whole country smelled of incest, but that was normal in a culture we apparently were supposed to “strive” in.

‘Luna,’ my ex replied, knowing that I was hypnotized and daydreaming at the same time. I do this quite often, but right now all I can picture is Luna stripping naked in front of me in a room full of candles, wine, and cocaine- well maybe not cocaine, sushi perhaps?

There was some sort of mystery surrounding her, and then there was this terrifying feeling of mutual acceptance- I was not ready for another heartbreak- she was of the bi-curious type. Luna was, how do they say it not “one of us, one of us”. There was already enough heartbreak lingering in that house and I could not give her a free pass- not until she showed me something

I avoided her as much as I could. If I did not, I would be that friend who would abandon my commitment- for my own sexual escapades. It would not only disrespect her but I would succeed at yet another reputational ill-condition of “Oh, here she goes again.”

If funerals couldn’t get any harder…now I understand Hugh Grant’s dilemma in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

I have to invest in some control, so I refused the glass of wine that was offered to me.

Luna begins to talk to me. Her smile was destroying my brain cells.

‘What do you do,’ she asks, as my heart begins race fast and feel that, whatever it is that I am feeling- the spell of a witch?

‘I am a journalist,’ I replied, wishing the words that came out of my mouth were engaging in some other form of movement. An erotic display of…French kissing?

The black witch interrupts our conversation. How can your deliverance of butting in other people’s “first time” be of use for you? It was too obvious; she did not want us to engage in what could become something because jealousy is cancer. I wanted her to leave, no, sorry, I wanted her to get run over by a bus. I don’t mean it, really. Maybe if the white witches distracted her, then it would satisfy me. First, a swear word I shall omit, delivers the news of my ex-lover getting married- the one who got away. And now she was trying to deliberately stop this magnetic force that was pulling Luna towards me, and vice versa.

‘Do you want to come to the bathroom with me,’ Luna asks me, ignoring the efforts of the black witch, and she saw that I was getting a bit of that temper-temper boiling within- and struggling with it.

Everyone felt the need to interfere with our private thoughts by trying to put a barrier between our bodies. They would walk in and out of the bathroom which we purposely did not lock- no gossip, no town- right? It’s irony, and hypocritical at the same time- with a twist of dark humour. Aren’t we all about female empowerment? Even at a funeral? For a Mother?

Then there was the fear factor and the man-made construction of time. In the case of Luna, it was lousy timing, and now? I refuse to take another woman for granted again- even my own mother. I was not ready; the divine was making sure of that. Firstly, the bad seed had properly succeeded at her job- back-stabbing me. So, I kept thinking about my ex and her upcoming wedding to the gay guy she was going to marry to get the fuck out of her parents’ house- she was thirty-three so the fake biological clock of hers was ticking, and secondly, I wanted to open my heart for Luna, but what would I lose by doing so?

The fakeness of this city was always making me ill; I was surprised that I had even lasted this long amongst these plastics. My friend finally came out of the bathroom. Her eyes were red, and it was clear that her heart was broken- and flaked out. Alright, still though, I have to focus on her. That is why I am here. That is why I am here. That is why I am…God give me the strength not to kiss Luna in front of all these people.

Why are you doing this to me, Luna? Why do you resemble someone who embodies the notion of “love at first sight?” Ok, now my mind needs to shut up and focus. There it is, see, a lapse of judgement by my hormones and I watch her almost trip over her dog- Lucifer.

‘Are you ok, babe?’ I ask my friend.

‘Yeah, I’m ok,’ she says, with a hardly believable tone, and a few sniffles here and there.

That was all I got from her.

Clearly, she wasn’t, but she had obviously taken some sort of illegal substance to sustain her. The leader cannot show any signs of weakness, not even at her own mother’s funeral. And. I can not show any sort of interest towards Luna because it would be disrespectful. Then again… everyone is drinking and discussing boys, and girls, some things I do not understand quite well; I ignored French in High School. I reach over to my bag and take out my last three Xans which I had stashed for a rainy day. I handed some Xanax to my grieving friend to calm her nerves, and her come down. I knew she already has chemicals in her system but my brain is obsessively rattling with the sound and spirit of Luna’s energy. I regret doing that though- the Xanax thing. I don’t like handing out drugs, even the “prescription” type to others- even if I am a “hypocritical” pill-popper myself.

I sit down on the couch to change my posture from sitting on that uncomfortable floor. Unfortunately, the only place I could sit was next to the black witch again. My carcass has already been devoured by Luna, and those eyes of hers which pierce through my own- and through my ribs. Imagine being a bystander in a grave-digging situation. All these things going on, and I can’t even see straight anymore. This tunnel vision has got me in my feels.  I’m sorry, I really am, and I hate to admit this to myself but her invitation to join her in the bathroom was- feverishly tempting. I start to daydream again, to maybe get my fix in a mental sort of way. Then I begin to question everything, as if I am Hunter S. Thompson- this is my version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. What if an exchange of two feminine bodies and strong minds met in a bathroom, where I must concur a place that people peed or shat in. Is this our claim to love? What about this hypothesis? Luna and I were meant to meet on that day even if it was at the funeral of our friend’s mother, and even if the underlying issues of addiction were never mentioned nor confronted.

Therefore, the lunacy of the state of our minds has created a burning visceral image of burned Churches or Mosques who will not accept us. Is this why she is bi-curious? Because she cannot allow herself to defeat that inner battle against the status quo? I believe that Luna and I have been consumed by the spirits of an acid imagination. What about the methodology? How can this be proven? Well, I would join her in the bathroom, close, and lock the door, lift her up on that sink and passionately kiss her as if the only air I could survive off was through her mouth. I wanted, no, I craved for her to resuscitate me from my own broken shame- it exists in all of us. I knew she would do it if I gave in. I had to resist; she tried not to. I stopped myself; she positively took the rope of rejection in good spirits.

I finally snapped out of this tarot-like-scenario, protecting myself because the phoenix was not ready to rise from the ashes. After the third day of mourning, and not accepting the fact that she made me feel special, I felt the crush of my own weight of tiredness- the moon did not shine again. Or perhaps it could be that I went on to get the black witch’s number, and flirt with her? Yes, now, I definitely think that is the case. 

It has been years since I’ve seen the moon’s appearance but something tells me that it will shine again. This isn’t four years ago. I’m now in my thirties, celibate, and filled with passion that will break the social construct of what is or what is not love. Last night, I saw the moon tweaking, just a tiny bit again, and it stared back at me. Exposed to her light – the goddess in reverse who has finally handed me the cup of love.

Seven Autumns is simply an experimental fictional writer, who occasionally gets lost in the woods with a notepad and a pen. Instagram: @sevenautumns or Twitter: @AutumnsSeven