As he ate his food outside that night, he continued to paint. He found himself laughing and crying at the same time. Rather than thinking he was losing his mind, Gastien realized that at last he had found it again. He was different now. He knew exactly where he had been and where he was going. Best of all, there was no feeling of fear about it.
He had paid for his chance. He was going to paint with every ounce of passion and energy that he had in him. Because this was who he was, who he was always meant to be.
III
Gastien woke up the next morning fully present. It was the first time he had ever truly felt that way and it felt great! His excitement about his studio and his painting future was strong. Gastien decided to stay at the sea, though, for the remaining two weeks. He wanted to continue living without distractions just a little longer.
Gastien found simple happiness in the water, lying in the sand, practicing his fencing, and riding the bicycle to town. He even ate lunch at a small outdoor café on the days he went to L’Estaque, bringing along a novel to bury his face in so that he would not be disturbed. It was nice to get a meal with some chicken or fish every third day or so.
And, of course, he painted. But, mostly he just allowed himself to exist, getting comfortable with fitting inside his body again. He knew he had removed himself mentally for several months, watching at a distance, because being fully present would have been too painful. Now he was back. He could fully enjoy the feel of the water on his bare skin, the warmth of the summer sun; taste the sweetness of the fresh pears and other fruits he bought for himself. All of his senses were fully awake. For the first time, he experienced life without fear of some painful thing happening to him at any moment.
By the middle of the fourth week, he was starting to want women again. He laughed the first time the urge hit him full force in the groin. Oui, it was definitely time to be heading back to civilization. He wanted a woman badly! Relieving himself in the sea was just not going to take care of it any more.
At the end of four weeks, he packed up. Gastien rode the bicycle into town to find a driver to take him to the train the next day. In the morning, he took a last quick dip in the sea. After dressing, he looked around the cabin happily. The place had been good to him, he had found healing here. Gastien locked up and rode back to the village. He dropped the key off at the general store as instructed, boarded the train, and sat down. He was so excited to see his studio he could hardly stand it!
He would have his canvases and oils back again! It would be fun to paint those watercolors in oils. He planned on having one of the blue water hang from his ceiling…and it would be huge! He chuckled when he thought of his representation of the Mediterranean. It would be different, that was for sure! It did not matter at all to him if other people ended up liking it or not. He would.
Gastien suddenly realized that he was finally truly going home. For the first time, he was going to his home and his dream. The road had been difficult, but he had made it. Now all that was left to do was paint what his soul had always cried out to paint. He unconsciously flexed his fingers. That left hand missed its favorite brushes.
Just then, a man about Gastien’s age sat down. “Bonjour. I am Pierre. I am on my way to Paris. Do you mind if I seek your company for some conversation during the trip?”
Gastien looked at him, smiling happily. “Not at all. I am Gastien. I am on my way home, to Montmartre.
#######
To find out what happens once Gastien gets to Montmartre, including his feelings for Sophie, look for: “Gastien Part 2: From Dream to Destiny” available now!
Here is an excerpt from Gastien Part 2: From Dream to Destiny:
He was now 23, with hair down to his mid back and chest. Gastien usually wore it pulled back with a leather string, unless he was going out. He needed it out of the way when painting. It was much easier to deal with at this length because of being able to pull it back and out of his eyes. No one else wore their hair like this, but he did have beautiful very dark brown, almost black hair that curled a little on the ends. Women loved running their hands through it, and invariably pulled the leather string off when having sex with him, so that they could luxuriate in it. Thankfully, it was thick and did not snarl easily.
Montmartre was a conglomeration of odd people from all over the world, and they brought their fashions with them. Because most were poor, there were many second hand shops filled with clothing from all different countries. Gastien could have cared less about how men were supposed to dress in 1879. He bought what caught his eye. Sometimes he had on flowing silk oriental trousers and shirts with flowing sleeves. Other times, he would wear a striped top and men’s capris, going barefoot or in sandals. This was definitely not what men in Paris were wearing in the nineteenth century! Gastien did not know where the capris or sandals came from, but they were cool in the hotter weather and looked good on his tall, slender body.
He also owned some interesting hats, although mostly he went bareheaded, just because men were not supposed to. When he wore a beret, it was set way back and at an angle, perched so far off his head, it appeared to be ready to fall at any moment. He attached it with women’s hatpins. He always wore the ruby ring and had others that he wore at times, too. One day on a lark, he had his right ear pierced and bought a decent sized gold hoop for it.
Sometimes he carried a tote on his shoulder that held his hash if he was going out. He did not want a purse, but some of his clothes did not have a good area in which to keep hash and money. He liked to screw with people’s minds, too. Why should men only look a certain way? He played with his image all of the time, coming up with some truly outlandish outfits. However, the outfits always looked good by the time they were put together on him. He did not wear women’s clothing; he just wore clothes from other countries and put them together in unusual ways. Gastien had no desire to be a transvestite, but he did like to push the fashion envelope. Many times, though, he wore a simple pair of trousers and a peasant shirt with a v neck, along with boots or sandals, as the weather dictated.
However, he found that women loved it when he dressed bizarre. They seemed to be even more attracted to him then. Perhaps they thought he might be gay and wanted to see if they were woman enough to change him. That was fine with him. It gave him even more sex partners to choose from. If they thought they were special and had some power over him, great, as long as they gave him entrance. He dressed simply about half of the time, and the other half he experimented. It was also a way of thumbing his nose at his father, who would have shat his trousers had he seen his son in capris carrying a small tote over his shoulder, sporting a gold hoop earring, and hair halfway to his ass.
A few men had made the mistake of calling him feminine, catcalling to him when he walked by. Once they picked themselves up off the street and went to their dentist to get a few loose teeth pulled, it was quickly decided Gastien was not feminine after all. The locals knew he wasn’t, it was visiting bourgeois and gentry who at first made that mistake. Word got around quickly that not only was the long haired man that dressed flamboyantly not feminine, he had a powerful punch to prove it. Soon men kept their mouths shut. It irked them, though, that women paid more attention to Gastien than to them. They could never quite figure out that they looked boring and unimaginative in their dress, while Gastien’s style promised experimentation in other areas.
Other artist’s dressed oddly, too. Although part of it was self expression, an awful lot of it had to do with poverty. They grabbed whatever they could cheaply. Even in poverty, artists do have a sense of style, so Gastien did not stick out as badly in Montmartre, or certain parts of Paris, as he would have elsewhere.
His favorite place to hang out was Au Lapin Agile. It seemed that any night he could find groups of artists there: laughing, talking, drinking, getting high, and sometimes fighting. Most often when he went out he either started out or ended up there. When it was nice weather there was an outside area for the café, but the singing and ha
rd drinking happened inside. In a back room, drug use, sex with a willing woman, many things happened. Gastien went in that room many times to get high, but did not partake in the sex. He had no desire to put his bite inside someone who had likely just been with another man.
One spring night, he and Mic were eating outside there. Gastien was enjoying a whiskey while Mic was drinking vin. It was crowded with groups from all walks of life. All of a sudden there was a loud crash a couple of tables down. Gastien turned to see that a server had just dropped a tray full of drinks on the cobblestones. The men at the table were laughing. The tiny waitress looked horrified. Her eyes filled with tears as she stood rooted to the spot, the embarrassment climbing from her neck to her face.
Sophie
As Gastien looked at her, all sound and motion stopped. She was new, he had not seen her here before, and she definitely did not fit in. Mon Dieu, she had the biggest, most expressive eyes he had ever seen! They were a greenish gold, and – her hair! It was a riot of curls that sprang out every which way, refusing to be tamed into any sense of style. She wore it loose with the curls ending slightly below her shoulders, framing her small face with a halo of browns and golds. He wondered how she ever managed to get a brush through that hair. What was a woman so obviously out of place doing serving at Au Lapin Agile?
She was so little! He had never seen such a petite looking female who could at the same time look so womanly. And that mouth! Just the sight of it made him start to become hard. The lips were ripe, wild berries waiting to be plucked. She licked her lips in fear, and Gastien’s heart jumped in his chest. She was sunshine; she was a violent summer thunderstorm, a gentle spring rain. She was nature in all of its beautiful, wild glory. He blinked. Surely she was not real. His heart was hammering. Feeling lightheaded, Gastien decided that it had to be the whiskey.
He recognized the group at the table she was serving as some artists he knew. As he watched, one of the men reached out and brushed his hand across her breast. A tear fell down her face. Before he knew it, Gastien was out of his chair, and into the man’s face.
“Leave her alone, Phillipe! Can’t you see that she is scared? Just leave her alone!”
Phillipe stared at Gastien, shocked. What was it to him? She was just a serving girl. They came on to servers all of the time. “Gastien, come on! Calm down. If she can’t take a little flirting she does not belong here!” Phillipe laughed.
Gastien, however, did not. “I said to leave her alone! You were not flirting. You rubbed your hand against her breast. Apologize!” He looked murderous. The girl just stood there, staring up at Gastien.
“Oh come on, Gastien…you of all people – ”
“APOLOGIZE!”
Phillipe saw how angry Gastien was and had no wish to fight him. “Jeeezzus. Ok.” He looked at the girl. “I am sorry.” She nodded mutely.
Gastien hissed, “Don’t ever touch her again!” He bent to help her pick up the broken glasses.
“It is ok, Monsieur, it is my job, I will get it” she said quickly, bending down to get the glasses.
Her voice! It was like music. Gastien stared. He could not look away.
“I said I will get it,” she said again.
“Non, non, I will help. Oh, look! Now you have cut your finger!” Gastien said softly. “Go get it taken care of. Here comes another server to clean things up. By the way, what is your name?”
She stared into his eyes, sucking her cut finger. “Sophie. It is Sophie. And yours is Gastien?”
Staring at that finger, with those ripe lips wrapped around it, Gastien found that he was hardly able to enunciate. “Oui.” Mon Dieu, he thought, she has no idea what she is doing to me.
She smiled shyly. “Gastien, merci for stepping in for me. I am afraid I am not used to serving yet. Merci beaucoup for asking him to apologize.”
“Oui. You, um, you should go take care of me. I mean, it.” Now Gastien was red. Why did I say something so stupid, he thought. She must think I am a complete dolt!
Sophie reached out, tucking back a few strands of hair that had gotten in his eyes. Then she turned and walked away.
Phillipe and the others were enjoying the spectacle.
“Gastien, why don’t you just fuck her and get it over with so we can all relax?” Phillipe asked casually. That was usually what Gastien would have done, after all. All of a sudden, Phillipe was on the ground, his chair overturned. As he held his hand to his chin, Gastien glowered above him.
“Don’t ever talk like that about her again. Do you understand?”
The whole area was quiet. “Ok….Ok. But what is she to you, anyway?
Gastien turned red. “Nothing. She is nothing to me at all! I just don’t like to see someone so obviously uncomfortable made sport of.” Phillipe just continued to look at him. “I said she is nothing to me, just drop it!” Gastien walked back to Mic and threw enough money on the table to cover their food and drink. “Let’s go.”
As Gastien hurried out, he turned to look back at her one last time. Sophie was already inside. Not realizing how close he was to a tree, he quickly turned his head forward and walked right into it! Oh Sweet Jesus, he thought as he turned an even darker shade of red than he had been earlier, just let me die now! He hurried away, the men’s laughter ringing in his ears.
Mic looked helplessly back at Phillipe, shrugging his shoulders. Phillipe smiled, pointing to his heart and then his groin. It appeared that their ami Gastien was finally going to fall. And all indications showed he would be falling hard.
To be continued
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Glossary of French Words and Slang Words
Académie Julian: Famous private art school in Paris
Ami/Amie: Male friend (ami) Female friend (amie)
Arrondissement: Borough or section of the city
Au Lapin Agile: The Nimble Rabbit. Oldest cabaret in Montmartre
Avocate: Attorney
Baguette: Long, thin loaf of French bread with crisp crust.
Bite: Cock (vulgar) (pronounced more like beet)
Bizou: Small kiss
Bonjour: Good day
Bonsoir: Good evening
Boudoir: Females private bedroom
Bourgeois: Middle class (especially upper middle class)
Cabriolet: A type of horse drawn open carriage, some were used as taxis.
Chatte: Pussy (vulgar)
Chère: Dear, beloved, darling, addressing a male
Chèri, Chèrie: As above but addressing a female
Conne: Cunt
Crémerie Restaurant Polidor: Café that opened in 1845. Tons of artists in different fields ate here. James Joyce, Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, etc.
Cul: Ass (vulgar)
Derrière: The buttocks, the rear.
Écarté: A French card game
Enculé: Motherfucker, cocksucker. It also means to be buggered or sodomized, of which the verb is enculer. It is then conjugated into encule, enculé, enculeras and many other conjugations.
Épée: Sword, heavier with stiffer blade and larger bell guard than a foil
Fée verte: Green Fairy (the liquor absinthe)
Fils de pute: Son of a bitch, son of a whore
Foutre: Fuck
Franc: French currency
Haute Couture: Exclusive, custom fitted clothing for specific customers.
Homard a la Parisienne: A main dish, prepared by poaching lobsters, removing the cooked flesh, and then stuffing the empty shells with a mayonnaise-dressed vegetable mixture which is topped with lobster meat. The lobsters are artfully arranged on a platter
, and elaborately garnished with such items as truffles and artichoke bottoms.
Je ne peux plus me retenir, et: I cannot restrain myself
L’Estaque: A small fishing village on the Mediterranean which became quite popular with impressionists
Le Bon Marché: Most famous department store in Paris
Le Procope: Oldest restaurant in Paris. Open since 1686. Many intellectuals, government men from many countries, writers, and famous people would eat there. Voltaire, Ben Franklin, John Paul Jones, Thomas Jefferson, Danton, Marat, on and on.
Ma bite est en feu pour toi: My cock is on fire for you!
Madame: Ma’am, madam, Mrs.
Mademoiselle: Miss, young lady
Merci: Thank you
Merci beaucoup: Thank you very much
Merde: Shit
Mes coquilles sur ton nez: My balls on your nose
Mon Dieu: My God
Monsieur: Mister or Sir
Montmartre: Now the 18th arrondissement of Paris. It was still a village on the outskirts where artists, anarchists, intellectuals and other free spirits went to live. Some of the more famous at different times were Van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso and many others.
Noël: Christmas
Non: No
Notre Dame de Paris: Our Lady of Paris. Gothic, Catholic cathedral of Archdiocese of Paris
Oui: Yes
Place du Tertre: Public park, a square in the village of Montmartre where painters gathered to paint outside. This is where a lot of Impressionists painted.
Salut: Hello
S’il vous plait: Please
Trou du cul: Asshole
Va te faire foutre: Fuck you
Vin: Wine
Vin rouge: Red Wine
Vous me faites mal: You are hurting me (You me make hurt)
Table of Contents
Prologue
Gastien Pt 1 Page 42