“Loneliness is the first thing which God's eye named, not good.”

- Milton.

The cruelty of a beautiful and silent night should never be underestimated.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another. For the world which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

- Matthew Arnold.

Really, you'd think they only died to be inconvenient.

I have removed all those who are yet to return the complement to add me back to their list of friends. My journal is almost entirely public and adding you to it is a courtesy and a genuine expression of interest, not a necessity. Equally, do please remove me if I have not added you back in some time. After several months, it's just not going to happen, right? I will not add certain types of journals so think about it.

That said, I want very much to know you all, so if you have a personal journal, whether I am acquainted with you or no, then go right ahead. I should be delighted.

All members are invited to a soiree with the immortals on Yahoo messenger on Easter Saturday, April 11th. Formal dress is optional, conversation sparkling.





Invitation is courtesy of Melissa.

Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the South?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

So I gazed back at myself from the mirrored doors to Nicki’s room with a sense of ineffable wonder. My reflection cut a mean swathe in a white shirt and butter-soft leather pants.

Exactly twenty four hours had passed since I‘d come to Paris to take Nicki’s life. But how extraordinary is the unraveling of fate and my own traitorous heart. He still slept in the room beyond and the sense of familiarity in that simple fact tightened within me to something painful and electrifying.

The apartment was typically Parisian, of course; all painted paneled walls and creaking floors with a balustraded balcony leaning several floors above the tireless and narrow streets of the old Rive Gauche. I could clearly hear the raucous laughter of Quartier students mingling with the bellicose roar of distant traffic and the whispers of strolling lovers; distilled human essence rising on a teasing breeze. The room behind me was bathed in muted modern light, but I could imagine old shadows flickering about the plaster walls and the ghost of thick tallow smoke wreathing from a candle to the high ceiling. A ghostly vision flared of wine-soaked laughter in the muddy Boulevard St. Germain, of dark eyes liquid with unfathomable desires.

A woman’s sleek reflection moved to dissolve the memory, setting aside her drink in a cloud of sweet and musky perfume, bedroom eyes drawing from me an epicurean smile. She was drug store beautiful, a pretty painted eyes, plastic nails, plastic heart. Her mouth was a cute little furnace. What a hot parcel of flesh and sighs to writhe sweetly in my arms. I laid aside her auburn hair to kiss the sweep of her little neck, her breathing shallow with appreciation as her hands explored the hardness of my flesh. A little crucifix gleamed against the ripe swell of her breasts and I kissed that too. She closed her eyes in swooning surrender to my hungry ministrations.

Outside, the old bells of the church of Saint Séverin sounded the hour and the shadows danced.

I turned her body towards the fluid shimmer of the smiling mirror, encircling her waist firmly from behind. Her heart thudded through the thin cotton shirt she wore, her gaze electric at the sight of us entwined in the panel of glass. I could see the abandoned slash of a silk scarf pointing red towards the room beyond.

Then her eyes and mine fixed on the opening door as our mirrored selves fled like startled wraiths. She tensed against me at the sight of Nicki framed in the arch to his bedroom, his expression riotous. My mouth curved into a smile beside her ear. But this time, it wasn’t for her.

He moved close with the command of purpose, his finger touching her lips to silence the protest that didn‘t quite come, his shoe crushing the little wisp of red silk on the floor. My painted beauty pushed minutely into my chest as if I were the refuge from an unexpected shift of events. Nicki’s eyes were a little too feral beneath the showy veneer of charm but when he bent to kiss her she held her breath. Her hair softly tickled my cheek as I whispered to her. What else is French but the language of love?

I released her to his embrace, his arms greedy enough to squeeze a questioning gasp from her lips. She tottered to find a balance, caught between tremulous fear and sensual promise. Ah, but my attention wasn’t really focused on her at all.

I took her hand from where it clasped his shoulder and raised her smooth little wrist to my lips; a single kiss to the tracery of delicate veins. And my eyes met his with a predatory jolt.

Disappointment is simply a guard against banality.

Toujours.

And the fire consumes itself.

The past is a burden if we attach too much piety to it.

Oh and I'm  wearing something swanky courtesy of the head of my new religious order. Michael, merci cher. It's simply swell!

For those who have not yet claimed all prizes, asked all questions, requested all tasks, images and tales: your week in which to do so was up more than a week ago. You have been warned...

Why is ugliness so readily associated with the visible mark of evil? Why is beauty somehow a mythic guarantee of good? I wonder most of all why it is that, should a monster gain an accepted purpose in the great scheme of things, it ceases to be ugly or evil at all.

If I do not post to your journal, well. I might not have seen it was addressed to me, I might not be here at the time you have posted it or you might log IPs in which case I just won't. Either way, I do notice and I do read you all and I do adore you all.