by Ritt, Julia
Overnight, the chemicals created in my body in response to your presence in my box have settled in, giving me a sense of euphoria. I feel like a stream of little opalescent bubbles containing the complete, delusory happiness I find in the thought of you is flowing through my bloodstream. This warm, pleasurable high caused by the duration of your body’s closeness to mine last night fills me so completely that although on any normal day I would eat breakfast, I have no appetite for food.
In preparation for seeing you in class this afternoon, my focus isn’t on what effect I wish my outfit to have on you, as it recently has been. My focus is entirely absorbed by having your things here. I think of the tenderness with which I care for your things as a symbol of my care for you. As I tuck your umbrella inside your backpack, I imagine stitching my fluttering affections between its folds. I carefully arrange your backpack and my purse over my shoulders, the straps crisscrossing my upper body like some sort of S&M bondage. I fear that anyone who sees me will think I look ridiculous, but no one on the métro looks at me twice. Even so, I feel like I am performing a backwards walk of shame. Rather than bringing you with me to class because you stayed the night, I am bringing your things to class because you left.
I’m running a little late for class, partly because I spent so much time fussing with your backpack straps. I also had a hard time falling asleep last night, so I hit snooze a few too many times. When I arrive at the entrance to the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, our class is gathered around Professor. He’s giving his usual scene-setting introduction to the afternoon’s material—in this case, modern art.
I spot you standing near the back of the class and you turn your head toward me with an expectant look. I smile and discreetly remove your backpack from my back and hand it to you, thinking of how glad I am to be returning it to you safely. It’s a friendly gesture of my care for you, even if the reason for your having left it chez moi was because of my more-than-friendly advances.
Now that I am free of the weight of your things, I make an effort to shift the focus of my hotly infatuated mind from you to Professor’s lecture. It takes all of my energy to keep my focus on Professor’s words and the notes on my page. I limit myself to mere glances at the strong, supple curve of your spine and the way your chestnut hair falls neatly against the ball of your head I so long to crack open and devour. Metaphorically, of course.
Once Professor has finished his introduction, he leads us into the museum. We drop our purses and backpacks into two white, cube-shaped bins and go down a flight of stairs into the permanent art collection.
Professor brings us to Matisse’s Pastorale. The painting is composed of two well-fleshed, nude women, a young boy, and Pan lounging on a rolling landscape. Patches of teal, aquamarine, lavender, and chartreuse are interspersed with pale umber and sienna trees. Each color is interconnected like a musical note to every other color, creating a complete, perfectly harmonized symphony that reflects the beautiful nature of the painted world.
Professor explains how Matisse’s Pastorale is Fauvist, almost abstract, yet is still playing with classical motifs. He then asks us what makes a painting abstract.
“No subject matter?” Sloppy Sandals offers.
“Yes—there’s only color, shape, line, texture, and scale,” Professor says. “Monet and Matisse’s paintings are made of color. They are not based on line anymore. No drawing—only color. When they do draw, they do it with color. They are basing this idea on the musical model, which is not supposed to sound like anything. It’s a musical composition in color and light.”
Between scribbling down Professor’s lecture, I happily admire the strong curves of your shoulder blades. I just can’t help myself. Modernist art is only of secondary interest to me at the moment, though Professor’s lecture does remind me of something my professor of Color as Communication taught me. She said color in the Western world is synonymous with corruption, sex, and chaos—three words that also describe my state of mind. My bloodstream is flush with hormones released in preparation for the sex we could have had last night. Now that I am again near you, my mind is whirring off in wonderfully delusory directions. I hear a steady buzz like that of a powerful electric grid wired between us, though I know you cannot hear it. Certainly no one else can. Becoming conscious that the sound of electricity is not real—that it is just a result of my overwhelming desire to believe we have some kind of literally electric connection—makes the sound go away. But like emotional vomit that is just going to express itself in one way instead of another, I instead feel spurts of energy burgeoning between our bodies. My vision is tinted with a hazy lavender, my palms are red hot, and my chest is filled with such a big, rich magenta that it emanates from me. Sounds—of Professor’s voice, of the quiet chatter of the other museum visitors around us—are gilded and vibrate across my ribs. My mouth feels like a tingly, irritated pink, as if all the fantasies coursing through my mind have left a physical mark on the tender insides of my mouth. All of these sensations feel amazing, like a sensory rollercoaster controlled by my unstable mind. I imagine that this is what being on club drugs must be like. My deluded state is probably just as unhealthy as club drugs are, though. I force myself to become fully conscious that the sensations I have just experienced are not real, and my realization makes them fade away completely. Thankfully, I have enough control over myself that I have kept my delusory sensations within my mind only. I am taking detailed notes and have the appearance of paying rapt attention to Professor just like everyone else.
Finished with Matisse’s Pastorale, Professor addresses the painting next to it, André Derain’s Three Figures on the Grass. The three male figures in the painting have muddy, marigold flesh and are shaded with strokes of wine red, indigo blue, olive green, and plum. “Do you notice anything odd about this painting?” Professor asks. “Does it portray anything of the real world? What is Derain doing here?”
Because of my state of mind I have a different insight than I otherwise would. “Painting color where there isn’t any,” I say.
Professor smiles, amused, though I’m not sure why. Perhaps because my answer has a childlike simplicity to it. “He’s using non-medic color,” he says, applying the correct art-historical term to my answer. “Instead of color based on how things actually look, he’s using color based on the harmony the painting requires. The Fauves use lots of complimentary colors. They study the relationship between color and temperature. Certain colors are cooler, like the dark blues, which push the element back. Others are warmer, like the golden yellows, and pull the figure forward.”
Inspired by Derain, I imagine painting your body. I rub lilac across your eyelids, skim your nose with the green of freshly torn grass, coat the breadth of your chest with mango, shadow your ribs with deep turquoise, and warm your lower back with pink heat. I choose the colors not according to any sort of harmony, but my whims. It’s all pure fantasy, just for my amusement. The colors have very little to do with how I actually see you.
When I look at you, I see you foremost not as some sort of muse for my creativity, but as an individual unique and valuable. In terms of colors, I see how your irises turn the color of black coffee under the shadow of dusk but glimmer with the warmth of roasted chestnuts in afternoon sunlight. Your fingertips are lightly pinked by the blood coursing through your body and the fine hair on your legs is a rich, coppery terracotta. The handsome branches of your veins appear cobalt beneath your lightly bronzed skin. When you are fatigued, the half-moons beneath your eyes are tinted with light pinks and blues. I like to think that while others see nothing extraordinary about your appearance, I notice details no one else cares to see.
Pulling me out of my reverie, Professor asks me, “What is that you said again?”
Even though I wasn’t paying much attention to what Professor was saying, I know what his question is referring to. “Painting color where there isn’t any.”
He smiles, “Ah, yes.”
After discussing the innovative colo
r techniques of a few other modernist artists’ paintings, Professor takes us to some of Picasso and Braque’s early Cubist work. He tells us of how the two artists lived together in Bateau-Lavoir and critiqued each other’s work every evening, developing Cubism. Professor’s passion for Picasso’s work keeps my mind focused more on his lecture than my various fantasies involving you, naked.
At the end of class, Professor reminds us that tomorrow we’ll be at the Musée Picasso in Le Marais, and dismisses us.
We make our way up the stairs, I following behind you. My desire for your body is greater than ever since it is has so recently been denied to me. I delight in noting how the bruise on your pinky toe has tints of yellow around the edges, evidence of its healing. My gaze clings to the line of your leg from the conical shape of your calves to the lithe strength of your thighs upon which your glorious and very spankable, squeezable butt built by years of playing ice hockey reigns.
I take my purse from the white bin and feel a wave of concern rising in me as I watch you adjust the straps of your backpack over your shoulders. You are deliberately avoiding even a glance in my direction. Rather than come up to me as you had after our past few classes, you instead strike up a conversation with your Frame-twin. I feel as though my breath has vacated my body and my emotions are in a tailspin. This change in who you talk to after class is certainly a result of my having invited you to have sex with me last night and is absolutely adverse to what I want from you right now. While I definitely still want to sleep with you, I want to keep you in my life as my friend until being more than friends is possible. Seeing you talk to your Frame-twin instead of me means I have made you want to avoid getting too close to me. I have lost your trust. Realizing this causes me to panic about whether you are going to want to stay friends with me. I also feel an underlying regret at my efforts to seduce you.
On top of all this, seeing you next to your Frame-twin makes it apparent that he now looks nothing like you to me. He now appears gangly, the angles of his body harsh, the parts disproportionate, his hair scruffy. It is now clear to me that my vision of you has become so distorted, because I know just a month ago I did not find you so awesomely attractive as I do now. But seeing you through the eyes of my heady lust is like being on a drug that makes every interaction with you feel like a festival. I’m not giving it up.
I decide I must appear nonchalant about your change in behavior so you do not become aware of how obsessed I am. I slowly walk out of the museum in order to have the appearance of being on my way while hoping that if I linger long enough you might join me. I hear your Frame-twin tell you he is going in the opposite direction from you, providing me instant relief. You wave goodbye to him and head toward me. We walk together.
“So, I dried your umbrella—it’s in your backpack,” I tell you.
“Thank you.” You keep your voice almost purposefully level, as if you want to sound like everything is normal, which only draws attention to the fact that everything isn’t normal.
There’s a pause and I count our strides: left leg, right leg, left leg. “Oh! I just remembered. Lady and I are going swimming on Friday. Would you like to come?”
“Sure.”
“Perfect. I have to check the times the pools are open.” I make a circular motion with my hand. “I’ll call you later.”
“Sounds good.”
I look up ahead of us and see the intersection where I will turn right, possibly away from you. “Where are you off to?”
“Oh, just to the metro.” Your voice again strikes me with what I interpret as a concerted effort to sound casual.
“I’m going to walk to the library. It’s close, just across the Seine. The RER B is right by the Seine, if you would like to walk with me.”
“No, that’s okay. The metro is just up there.” You point in the direction opposite from where I am going. You stop and rather than wave goodbye, you thump your fist against your chest and extend two of your fingers into a V. It’s the kind of goodbye frat boys share among each other. A look of surprise and disgust flashes across my face. The gesture is so far removed from the warm hug you gave me last night it doesn’t feel genuine. Even so, the gesture is a potent signifier of how determined you are to convey to me that you see me as a friend only. I decide the best reaction is to pretend like I also see you as just my friend and think that’s great. I force a smile and wave, “Bye!” You walk away and I turn away too, heading toward the library.
On my way, I stop by a boulangerie. I’m hungry now, but because of the excess of chemicals flooding my system, a baguette sandwich, what I sometimes eat for lunch, doesn’t appeal to me at all. I order a religieuse aux chocolat instead.
The woman behind the counter says in French “Of course, mademoiselle,” as though it’s quite typical for people to have days when they eat a pastry for lunch.
In the library’s tiny snack room I carefully unwrap the decadent pastry and take a generous bite. My taste buds tingle as soon as the heavy creams and rich, bitter chocolates contact my tongue. I find it ironic that such a rich pastry is called une religieuse. Then again, in Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Saint Teresa opens her mouth in orgasmic pleasure as an angel stabs her with a long spear of gold tipped with fire. I feel a little bit like I imagine Saint Teresa felt. I am on a pleasurable high, my entire body flush with chemicals created in response to the rampant pleasure I found in your closeness to me last night. Though, my high has nothing to do with religion. Saint Teresa wrote that her ecstasy had to do with being filled with a great love for God.
When I finish my library shift, I use one of the computers to search the web. I do a quick search on chemicals released in the body related to love and sex. I want to know why I have such a diminished appetite (I normally eat like a bear) and why I’ve been on such a high despite there not having been any sex. I have had this sort of high before, but only after having had sex with my ex-boyfriend. I would lose so much of my appetite for food I would lose five pounds in a week, when the sex was good. You and I didn’t have sex, though. Your effect on me is so powerful that it is disconcerting. According to my search, my diminished hunger could be attributed to adrenaline, which suppresses appetite. More intriguing, though, is that the brain of a person in love produces the chemicals dopamine, norepinephrine, and phenylethylamine—chemicals the brain also produces in the mind of the truly deranged. I prefer to think of myself as in lust with you, as the implications of love are too weighty, but at least there is an explanation for the abnormal state of my mind and body.
Just as I close the browser, Lady arrives with a big, perky smile on her face. I smile big back at her. We have plans to grab some sushi and work on her internship applications at her place. We’ll talk about you, too, of course. I will be glad to have a fresh perspective on what happened. Or rather, what didn’t happen.
Before Lady and I head out I excuse myself to call you to tell you we’re going to go swimming by Montparnasse at two on Friday. You say you’ll be there. Since you seemed uncomfortable around me earlier, I decide I should say something about last night to put you at ease. Before the conversation ends, I add, “Just one thing. I thought about it, and if you were the kind of guy who cheated on his girlfriend, I wouldn’t want you. Which is frustrating,” I sigh.
“Really,” you say, sounding surprised and even a little flattered. “Well, that is admirable of you. But, like I said, I have a girlfriend.”
“I know, trust me, I know.” In fact, I can’t forget it, because if it weren’t true, we would probably have started having sex weeks ago. “Well, anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow in class! Bye!”
“See you.”
I hold my phone in my hand, its plastic case warm. I feel better to have talked about last night with you, even if only briefly. Although what I have told you is not entirely true, it feels like the only right thing I could say.
I find Lady in the library lobby. I ask her if we can walk to her apartment, which is just fifteen (well, maybe twenty) m
inutes away by foot. At first, she insists we take the bus, but I am even more insistent that her apartment is so close. My body has an excess of energy and I must walk. It’s almost like a medical thing, I tell her. I just can’t sit still for too long. She doesn’t understand what I mean by it being “like a medical thing,” but she relents, and we walk.
At the sushi place, we deliberate over the menu. She orders a proper meal’s worth of sushi; I order half as much. Lady expresses concern that I have ordered so little. She knows I usually eat far more, but I assure her I’m not that hungry.
Inside Lady’s cozy, elegant apartment we arrange the sushi on plates and sit on her bed. While we eat, we chat about saving the elephants in Tanzania and our mixed feelings about graduate school. When the subject of boys comes up, I tell her what is going on with you. At first, her advice is, “Just sleep with him. Get it out of your system.” I explain that my attempt to do so has made you uncomfortable around me. I like you too much, now, anyway. Having sex with you while you are still with your girlfriend would likely have disastrous consequences. I would be unable to stop myself from wanting more and you would probably feel guilty about cheating and wouldn’t want to give me any more. Even worse, you might not want to see me at all. It would ruin our friendship. Yet I still want you, naked, so I must be patient. You’ll likely be single at some point. After hearing my explanation, Lady seems to understand. “It’s an investment. Just be careful,” she advises. “He’s immature and an ass. I like assholes too, but it never ends well.” I hear Lady’s warnings, but they don’t sink in. My infatuation overrides them like they’re a virus on my hard drive.
Once we’ve finished eating and chatting, I take her laptop into my lap and help her through her internship application to Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots base in Tanzania.
I part from Lady late into the evening, just as the sun’s rays are coloring the horizon with translucent clementine oranges and hot pinks. I still feel the need to expend the excess of energy built up in my system, so I decide to walk home. At the Pont de l’Alma I rest my forearms on the chilled metal railing and look into the blue-brown water of the Seine. My memory of you talking to your Frame-twin instead of me after class replays in my mind. My insides twist uncomfortably. I care for you much more than I would like to, so knowing I have caused you even the slightest trouble makes me feel awful. Yet, if my inviting you to sleep with me was going to be an issue, you should not have led me on with all the winking at the sangria bar. While we had dinner at the Mexican food restaurant, you shouldn’t have insinuated you would say yes to sleeping with me. You shouldn’t have brushed your fingers against mine at Versailles. I know I should not have tried to seduce you when I knew you had a girlfriend, but you shouldn’t have encouraged me to do so, either.