To whom it may concern,
You can call me Adam. No, Adam is not my real name. Why should you call me that? Because just like that other famous guy named Adam, the one tempted by Eve in that far away place. I can fuck up paradise. Not only that, I can fuck it up for everyone. This is not a sad sack that is wallowing in self loathing. That is not me. It is just that I have found that through this new spiritual world we are all awakened to that my every move effects everyone else. We are all interconnected! Turns out though that I may not be ready for such responsibility. Sorry. Adam it is, ok?
So now I guess that you want me to tell you why or how I am fucking with all of you. As I suppose that is the purpose of this, hopefully, cathartic diatribe, here goes. Pretty sure that by the end you will probably call me another name that starts with an "A" and is not Adam. What do I care though, you don't even know my name. I should begin at the beginning, but as you are sure to discover, I really don’t know when to say that is. So, I just jump in where the words start flowing, letting them flow out in whatever fashion they choose. Let's see where it takes us, whoever you are.
A musty yellow light came into my eyes as I opened them to a room that I did not recognize. There was no panic, of the kind you get when you wake up in a hotel room on vacation and cannot figure out where you are or why you are there until you are able to come out of that last lingering dream into a state of complete wakefulness. This seemed normal. I did not know where I was but at the same time it was all familiar. More like spending a night in your parents house, in your childhood bed, one that you have not slept in for years but you are perfectly comfortable with it and all that surrounds you.
I however, was not in my childhood bed. I had no idea where I was, just that feeling that all was well. This was the start of another day in life. It is a bizarre feeling to be so lost and still feel so comfortable.
The yellow light was of course the sun coming in from the half open window that had an old plastic shade giving some protection from the bright light it would have been had there been nothing over the window. The lamp was still giving off its small light sitting on the desk across the room from me. I must have fallen asleep with it on. I look to my left and there is a novel on the night stand. I pick it up to see what it was that I had been reading. It is a Conrad novel “In the heart of darkness”. Searching my mind for the plot I cannot seem to come up with anything. As far as I can recall I have never read this book. Maybe, I was going to start it but decided I was too tired? Who knows, certainly not I.
The universal need to pee upon waking comes over me and the mystery of the novel becomes secondary. Slipping out of bed naked I walked over to the chair and grabbed my jeans pulled them on, opened the door to my room and walked down the hall to the toilet. After the necessary was done I once again wondered where I was.
How was it that I knew where everything was without thinking about it? How could I grab my jeans and know which door was the one for the toilet? Walking back down the hall to my room I look up at the other doors and realize that there are numbers on the doors. I must be in a hotel or a hostel with a communal toilet, but I don’t really question anything. I just sort of know it.
Now back in my room I finish getting dressed so I can go out and grab a cup of coffee. I very much want a cup of coffee. Who knows, I might even need one. Maybe a good jolt of caffeine will get the juices to flow and I will understand what is going on. Yet, there is still that feeling that I have done this a thousand times before. The feeling that just says, “All is well, and right in the world.”
A shirt now on my back and shoes on my feet, I again, go out of my door and follow the hallway this time to the exit sign. Down the stairs and then through what passes for a lobby in this dump. Bars like a jail cell between you and the front desk. There were two chairs backed up against the opposite wall from the desk with the bars on it and a dirty carpet underneath it all. Yet, I do not pause as I head for the dirty glass door with the sign reading closed facing me. My feet are just taking me. I am thinking that I want coffee and my body goes. I am on autopilot now. I take a right turn out the door looking down at my feet. As I look up trying to find out where my feet might be taking me I notice the architecture. Grey tops to all the buildings. All of the buildings made of stone. All the windows are large and most have some sort of ornamental bars with enough room to have some flowers on the ledge. Only a few of the ones in my view have such adornments on them. I am the only person out it seems. There is not another soul in sight. I am alone on the street. Even as alone as I am on a street in what must be a city of some sort it does not seem to bother me. I still have that feeling that all is well. I continue on my path. I cross a street and make another right turn.
Halfway down this new street is a little green awning and one table with one chair sitting outside. I walk up to the door without hesitation and grab the golden handle and pull. When I step through the door the first thing that I notice is the smell of cigarettes, which makes me realize that I want one. Reaching into my left front pocket my hand produces a pack with the lighter tucked right inside. The next thing I notice as I put the butt in my mouth is the smell of coffee. Walking toward the little bar I see that just in front of me there is a steaming little cup of espresso. Well, that is why I am here.
I light my butt while taking the next few steps to the bar. The sugar is in little packages in a bowl to my right next to a little pot of cold milk. All is right in the world.
I take a sip of the coffee after I put the right amount of sugar and milk in my cup.
I take another sip.
I take a third sip and it is gone.
Turning from the counter, after this little jolt of caffeine, I have the feeling that something is wrong.
The best thing I can think of is that I need to have another coffee, so I turn back to the bar only to find that the cup I had just finished, is once again full of the black liquid of which I was thinking. It was just there, same as it was before.
The cup was clean. As if it had never been used. Perfect.
I try not to think. I try, only, to enjoy the perfect cup of my desire sitting just in front of me. I take a sip hoping that the feeling that all is right in the world will continue.
After the second cup of perfect coffee, I turn away from the bar to face the world. Nothing faces me back. There is nothing there. The coffee in me I now realize that this is not right. I can smell the perfume of women when I try, even over the smell of the cigarettes. Looking around the bar I find that I am still the only person present.
While I am looking around the place I notice a book on a table. I walk towards the table tossing my smoke to the ground. Just before I pick up the book there is a motion outside the window. I look up and see the most beautiful woman I have ever seen walking on the opposite side of the street naked as the day she was born.
Why is she naked? Why is she the only person in the world that I have seen?
I look again at the book on the table that I had just approached and there she is on the cover. It is a romance novel. The kind of book we all see every day. The kind of thing that lets you know when you are in the supermarket that everything is okay and there she is on the cover. She has on a red dress in the picture I am looking at and in the view from the window she is naked but from the look on her face as she stares at me from both vantage points, it is clearly the same woman.
I run after what, I think, is real.
As I step through the door she is gone. The lovely woman I have just seen on the cover of a book and walking naked down the street is just gone. I want to go back to my hotel. I want to leave wherever it is that I am and go back to wherever it is that life makes sense.
The problem is that after I walked out the door of the empty café everything changed. The surety that all is right with the world is well and good gone. The feeling that I need to find the woman, however, is almost a panic in its strength. As I turn to walk back into the bar I see that it is now full, just as it should be on a sunny mid morning in Paris.
Walking back up to the bar to order another coffee fishing another smoke out of my pocket. The man to my right offers a light. Accepting the light, then turning my head to the left, to blow the smoke politely away, I see an older woman reading a book. The picture on the cover is of the woman I have just seen walking naked down the street. Only in the picture, she is wearing a red dress looking over her shoulder, it is her though, no mistake. I cannot help myself I have to speak to the woman reading this book. As I approach the woman with the book I have just seen on the table, with the picture of the woman I have just seen walking naked on the other side of the street, I break out into a sweat all over my body. The kind of sweat you get when you have a one-hundred-fifteen-degree fever. My feet were wet. I am standing in front of this woman reading some cheap romance novel and yet I cannot help myself. I manage to squawk, “Who is that?” The woman who is “French-ly” perturbed by this interruption in her reading on this fine morning promptly replies with the name of the author. Information that I do not care about and the only information that I can plainly see for myself. For my part I am now annoyed.
I have just come to realize that I am in a bar in Paris. I have just found a room full of people in place of a naked woman across the street. So, at this point I let her know what perturbed actually is. This woman thinking that she had dealt with me tried to return to her reading just as I placed my hand in the middle of her page and asked, as politely as I could with my painted on smile, if I might see the book for a moment. Without waiting for a response I took the book from her hand and tried to find out if I could discover anything about the woman on the cover. As I expected, she was shocked by my action and I had a moment to look before she could react. All I discovered was that this was as cheap a romance novel as a romance novel can come. This was probably the same picture on a thousand covers and no one cared. No one, that is, except me.
Before she could muster a complaint that would draw any attention I had already taken all the information I could and gave her back the book, with the same smile, thanking her. This was just as surprising to her as the fact that I had taken the book from her in the first place. She just sat there as I walked away. I went back to the bar and found another coffee waiting for me. It sat in the exact same spot as the one before. This one I drank slower.
So as we are all connected this must mean that we are all crazy. That is the best thing that I can figure. Now on top of that I find that I am obsessed with this girl.
How do I find her? I suppose the same way I do everything. Money. (I did get one thing right once. I’ll tell you about that later but you’re really going to hate me when I do. For now we go back to the premiss that we are all crazy and connected leaving it at that). When I get back to my room at the Plaza and look out over this beautiful city through the big open windows covered in silky gauze, I call my attorney. What the fuck do I care what time it is in NY. Hell I don’t even know what time it is here. That done, there is really nothing left for me to do on this fine day except wait for him to call back with all the information that I asked him to get for me. Let him deal with finding her. I just want to see her again.
I turn around when I hear the bathroom door open.
Forgot about her completely. No idea who she is anyway. All I know now is that I am as horny as I have ever been. It is only a quick call down to get them to bring up some food. Poor girl must be starving, standing there naked you can see how skinny she is, not that it is a problem but, she should eat. As for me I just need a drink and a fuck.
Needs fully met and whoever that was now out of my way, I found I was depressed. It always happens this way. It’s the ones that have it all that feel the worst. Those that to have to struggle for things don't have time for this sort of depressive shit. Now, I wait for a guy on retainer to do whatever I ask to get back to me. Was any of that actually real? Is any of this? How are we supposed to be able to tell the difference? Have you had those dreams that make you feel a certain way even after you wake up? You feel so bad about the dream, it effects everything you do that day. So which one is the place where you actually exist? Maybe I live in an empty world with a ghostly figure of a naked woman walking around. Maybe the Plaza is a dirty little place with half broken yellowed shades covering the window. Both seem likely to me. Thus the depression, the confusion, the heartbreaking longing to have some idea what I should do.
There are three moments that I am sure are real in every reality inside my mind, or out. Those are as follows; The moment of climax. It feels the same in every dream even the ones that I think I am living. The second, flying. The third, and this one happens a lot, death. My memories do not follow a linear path. Everything is mixed up. I have felt my death a thousand times yet here I still sit with my wilted cock waiting for a phone call. Go figure.
So the first and third both leave you with that same sense of loss. The impending doom of all things. The second one is just freedom. Freedom smashed up in a sandwich of dread.
Now since I have been here many times before, I get my shit together and go out for a walk.
Out on the street I hail a handsome and have him take me to the boise de Bolonge. My cell is still in my pocket but the streets are all cobbles. There is no doubt in my mind that one of those aforementioned things is about to happen. The street lights were being lit, it is the city of lights after all.
Now you’re thinking this is very strange. I am thinking, it’s probably Tuesday. This sort of thing almost never happens on a Monday.
What is happening? Well, that I am never quite sure of, to be honest, it might be some sort of really vivid hallucination brought upon me by some sort of crazy new drug that someone discovered. All I know for sure is that it happens. It is as real as anything else I go through in this life, as real as that guy in New York I called earlier. Don’t get me wrong when I was a kid it used to really freak me out, but now, it just feels like life. It has always been hard to explain so I just stopped trying. It’s better to just go with it, wherever you are, and see where it takes you. I have found some really interesting stuff this way. Had or didn’t have my first orgy this way, sort of depends on how you want to look at it. Either it was real or all in my head but as far as I can tell it happened. That is what counts right?
I often wonder about the connectedness of us all. You know if this stuff happens to me does that mean it happens to lots of people? Do you have to be really in tune with the world to notice it? Or does it make you an insane person.
After I got the call from the attorney’s assistant in NY, I stepped out of the car. This is such a pretty place to have a glass of wine and watch people ride their horses. Turns out that the girl on the cover lives in L.A., that naked streetwalker of this morning. So I had them get the jet ready for the long slog out to the land of Angels. I told you I had the feeling that the second was about to happen.
So looking around the address in L.A. that I have for the naked wonderer, I have the distinct feeling that she does not live alone. No, she is not some old house wife now, more like she is living in a commune of some sort. Its like Melrose place but on a different street and without the money. It crosses my mind that I might just be in luck, and she is a whore. That would be easy enough. Speak to the pimp, take as much time as I need with her. You never know, perhaps, I am the person on whom that stupid pretty woman film was based. Could be. It just depends on how solid you think this life is.
Snooping around is not my thing. I just have the driver wait, unfortunately I got drunk and passed out. Shit happens.
On the second day I spotted her, was a shame she had some clothes on, but at least it was not much. It was around 9pm. She and three girl friends were about to pile into a convertible mustang. I am guessing that it is now Thursday night. What is there left for me to do but step out of the car and talk to her. Then I notice that I pissed myself when I passed out so, maybe not the best move. I just tell the driver to follow the car. I call New York. So someone will bring me a fresh pair of jeans from my house and a suit, you never can tell where scantily clad ladies in L.A. might be going.
Turns out that they were heading to Malibu. How cool is that! When they turned into the drive I noticed that it was in fact my house. So I had unknowingly just busted my house guy! Quelle chance! This should be fun.
He was blocking the drive with my car as he was supposed to be bringing me some clothes. He tells them that they are all idiots that he texted the whole group! What the fuck were they doing? I laugh, then I realize that I am out of vodka. So out the car I go, piss pants and all.
“George, ladies. Don’t you think it would be better if we all just continued this talk inside”?
Then I simply walked into my house, at least I a am pretty sure its my house. I know where the bar is. After filling my glass and dropping my pants I scamper into the outdoor shower, just getting the worst off. George and the ladies, (using that term loosely), find me bare ass naked.
"About those clothes George, just bring me some shorts and a t-shirt and let’s get the party started. I would love to see what you had planned. Helen, can you get his phone and text everyone that he disinvited and re-invite them for me?"
As you can imagine everyone is a bit confused at this point. So everyone just does what I say. It is strange how that happens. Why did she not at least stop to wonder why I knew her name? I would have had I been in her place.
Well, the universal cure for an uncomfortable situation is of course cocaine. Just so happened that I know there is a stack of the shit in the false bottom of desk drawer. As George has not returned with my clothes yet, I walk out naked and get the stuff. After a very healthy bump for me, I walk over and through it on the table. It is only the “ladies” and George’s phone. Hmmmm. Where is that George? I am still naked, swinging around with a pile of coke.
“Help yourselves please, I assume you know what you’re doing. I’ll be right back”.
What am I going to do with that George? Oh wait I know! A quick text to New York and he is fired and cannot even come within five hundred feet of the property. I love this country.
Now with a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt, and a good amount of wake up powder in the nose I am ready to meet Helen for real.
"So, Helen, who are your friends?"
Her response of course is,
"Who the hell are you?"
To which I respond,
"The owner of this fine place but let’s not be rude. Once we are all acquainted we can get into the particulars."
They had quite a few lines laid out so I took the liberty of one or maybe two of them. Shook hands with her and her, then turned my attentions back to the object of my quest.
For some reason I wanted a coffee?
"So Helen, what is your story? No, I really want to know! You have no idea how long I have looked for you!"
You don’t either, whoever your are reading this, we will get to that. Don’t go getting all cocky. This is just the only way I know how to start.
“sniffffffffffff, well you want the long version or the short”?
Direct and to the point, I like that. I don’t like that she has still not realized that I have known her name all along nor do I like that she is not naked.
“As you wish, as far as I can tell I have nothing but time”.
“The short one then, as you need to tell me your story before I either O.D. or leave”.
"Fair enough I guess, but of the two of us, I think, I would hit my limit first."
You should see the rails she is running!
“I’m from the Valley. I go to USC, math major. I am a Junior. I plan on getting my doctorate in theoretical physics”.
HAHAHA!
“You just do the novel cover modeling thing for fun I guess”?
“No I do it for money. At least I am not naked for all the world to see! Fuck, that is how most my friends pay for school. Not that there is anything wrong with that”.
HMMMMMMM
“Is that what they do?
“Among other things, girls got to make her way in this world.“
They of course took a bit of offense to being called they. But as I refused to acknowledge them and they were doing piles of free coke, they let it go.
“So what else do you do? I mean aside from working on your future career as an astrophysicist or whatever”?
“Nope now its your turn. What do you do? Where did you come from?”
Well as I am not really sure how to answer that, even to myself, what the hell should I say to her?
“Helen, why do you care? What difference does it make? I’m here. This is my house. I am just a man, albeit one of infinitely good, bad intentions. Just relax have another line, I’ll make some drinks, roll a joint and you can tell me all about yourself”.
“As soon as you tell me how you knew my name”.
Yes, she did catch that, took her a while, but at least she is not a complete idiot, unlike her friends that have not been able to unlock George’s phone to get the party started, but are still all chattering about it, punching in numbers like apes with a computer, it would have been more amusing if it was not so sad.
“Well, we will get to that but I can do you one better. I can tell you about the mole on the bottom of you bottom. Or the new tattoo you seem to have gotten sometime in the last few months, the little dragon curled up in the place where your pubic hair would be if you had any. That is if you want to know about those things. And before you say it, I have not had you followed it is just that somehow you have been following me and this is the first time we have met! It is also the first time I have seen you attired. Every other time you haunt me you do so completely au natural. It’s a good look for you”.
“Lets take some of this stuff and go for a walk on the beach. I love the beach out here, we must have spent more time here than you have. There is a perfect spot for us just around these little rocks where we can watch the moon on the water. Bring the blankets and maybe we will moon bathe”.
Not what I was expecting her to say but, who am I to complain. So we left the monkeys that had finally figured out that there was still a party to be had calling and texting and whatever else-ing everyone they knew. Fine with me. So long as I actually get to figure out what in the hell this Helen has to do with me, other than inflame my mind and desire to a point of almost stupidity.
“Sounds good to me, have not had a good moon bath in ages”.
“I do it all the time”
It is interesting, that she did not even question anything. Obviously, she is not pulsed by my observations. This in an of itself is something that would cause concern in normal situations. Though who is to say what is normal? Me? I don’t think so. So out the door we go with a baggie, a bag full of towels along with all the things needed for a few joints. We opted for hash after a brief look exchange in which all was understood. (Hash goes better with blow, just like white wine with fish).
Once secluded on the spot just around the bend of an outcropping of rocks, it is a little alcove really. I think the guy that lives at the top is named Tom, but I cannot be sure. Does not matter in any case at least not right now. We lay out our blankets and she does the thing I was hoping. She removes all of the tacky clothing so she can moon bath in the buff. There is nothing else to do but go with the tenor of the moment. Quick as a flash we are buff bathing in the moonlight looking out over the great wide Pacific ocean. She soon rolls over to start the makings for a joint. I, in turn, procure the bag from the pocket of my shorts. She takes the bump I offer without looking up from her job. So intent is my little Helen. Waves are crashing but the silence is painful. Typical cocky me, I start chattering away.
The first time I saw you was in India, or present day Pakistan.
I think; it was just after Alexander came to conquer that part of the world. We were in Kind Porus’s capital. I, was some sort of advisor or apprentice to a jeweler.
The whole world was waiting on news of what was to happen now. There was such tension in the air. I was on a rooftop, looking out over the city to the camps of the armies.
Then, you where there, walking along in a garden having come out of the bath. Naked as you are now. All my thoughts of what was to come or what might be vanished. The only thing that mattered was you. It was also the most wonderful sight ever beheld by man. I wanted to call out to you from my rooftop vantage point but, I was called to from behind. I turned to answer my summoner then turned back to you, but you were gone.
That life was very interesting. From that moment on, there was the blessing of the gods upon me. Alexander, of course, had won the battle and was brought in to the city by our king. My master made the mistake of trying to cheat Hephastion. Hephastion had ordered a belt for Alexander of gold covered with big red rubies. My master thinking that these fools would not be able to tell the difference placed red firedems in place of many of the rubies. Sapphire I think is what we would call them. Hephastion, not being a fool had him executed. When I went to retrieve the head of my master, Hephastion stopped me. After a brief exchange he discovered that I could replace the gems and so my time as a royal jeweler started. I discovered that you had been given at a banquet to Seleucus, one of Alexanders officers. So I found a way to make you my wife, but unfortunately was then entangled with the army of Alexander and required to travel with the Greeks. It was quite a choice job actually, until we were crossing the Gadrosa desert. I had never been so happy to be back in my bed in New York.
Fall asleep in the desert with visions of you in my eyes, wake up and go down to Sullivan St. to have a wonderful cappuccino.
“Give me another bump would you”?
Helen was full of surprises. Or maybe she had dropped something I was not aware of before she came here and she is just strung out. Who the hell can know?
“Another bump for you, how is that J coming along starting to get a little jumpy”.
“Try the ocean, you could use a little freshening up. It’s very refreshing and should take that edge off while I get the perfect ‘share all‘ joint ready. Seems like we have a lot to discuss”.
She could not be more right about that. At least I needed to hear a lot about what or who this chick was or is or whatever. Really, it has been haunting me since before Christ for christ’s sakes!
“You’re right, that was refreshing. And very cold. I am normally not like this if you noticed before the ocean things were a little better down there. So you got that joint ready? Why don’t you sit on my lap and we share that thing, warm up and you tell me all your hopes and dreams”.
“That sounds great but, the hopes and dreams will have to wait. While you were in the water a few questions came to mind. You need to help me understand a few things about these, “sightings” of me that have put you in such a state.”
Sightings that have put me in such a state? Yeah, that is one way of putting it I suppose. The surreality of this situation is not lost on me. No matter what you have been through in your life or lives or whatever, you must realize that sitting naked, while high on a beach in the moonlight with a woman that you have chased for either a few decades or many centuries is on the strange side.
“Ah so you noticed that it is a bit strange? Thought that it had slipped your notice. How can I help you? What questions can I answer for you?”
“How old were you when you first saw me? How old were you when you first noticed that these slips were happening? Have I always been naked?”
