Katerina Read online

  She moves slowly.

  My mouth is alternating between her tongue, neck, and nipples. My hands in her hair the small of her back cupping her ass.

  She moves slowly.

  I can feel her dripping on my thighs she can feel me throbbing inside her.

  She moves faster.

  We’re both moaning.

  She moves faster, harder.

  Faster.

  Harder.

  Faster harder.

  Whispers into my ear says tell me when you’re going to cum.

  I say

  Soon

  Almost

  Now

  She moves off of me, gets on her knees in front of me, puts my cock in her mouth, her lips surrounding her tongue along her hand moving, I’m hard and it’s wet and the world goes white white white God.

  Lips tongue and hand moving.

  White white white.

  God.

  I don’t ever want to move or think or feel anything other than this now forever I don’t want this to end.

  White white white.

  God.

  She stays on her knees until. When she moves I’m soft she comes up next to me kisses me rests against me in my arms. We don’t move or speak there is light streaming into the room through the tall thin French windows. Thirty minutes later maybe longer maybe less she stands and leads me into her bedroom it’s clean white and simple, bright Matisse cutout prints on the walls it’s like something out of a magazine. We fuck on top of her covers white white white God we fuck again under her covers white white white God we fall asleep when I wake up the next morning she’s gone.

  I look for a note or some indication she wants to see me again but there’s nothing.

  I’m gone.

  * * *

  As much as I drink or smoke and as much as I walk and wander and as much as I dream and as many paintings or sculptures I see I never forget why I’m here, to read and discover and become. I am here to put words on paper one word after another after another, I am here to figure out how to make them more than what they are simple words. I am here to learn how to play with fire. I want to fucking burn burn burn, I am here to learn how to play with fire.

  * * *

  Originally a train station. Tracks went bad and it fell into ruin. Became a center for Nazi mail in World War II. After the war an empty building occasionally used as a film set. Scheduled for demolition in 1970, saved by the Directorate of the Museums of France in 1974. Renovations begin in 1981, and are finished in 1986. Holds the greatest collection of Pre-Impressionist, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist art in the world. Three million visitors yearly.

  I go to Musée d’Orsay once a week or so. It’s not far from Saint-Placide, an easy walk. I go to look at the sculptures, look at the paintings, to sit amongst them, be humbled by them. I love art, looking at art, feeling art, and reading about and talking about art, but the main reason I go to Musée d’Orsay, and all of the museums and galleries in Paris that I frequent, is because I want to learn how to think, how artists think, how specific artists think, and why they made what they made. I want to know what was in their hearts and minds, in their blood, what drove them, and what it cost them. As I think about books and how I want to write them, I think more about art than I do other books. There are rules with books. What something is called, how it is read, rules of grammar and punctuation, rules about how words should be laid out visually on a page, about how they should be used and with which other words. There are rules about publication and classification, how books can be sold, where they have to be shelved. The rules are stupid. Meaningless. And they are there to be broken, disregarded, and defiled. And though I still read and love books, despite the dumbass rules that govern them, I go to art when I think about how I want to write books. There are no rules in art. No governance. There is a canvas, or a block of marble, or a piece of paper, or a hunk of wood, and there is whatever the artist wants to make with them. The artist is not limited in the colors they can use, or the types of paint, or the brushes, they are not limited by the strokes they can make and how and where, or by what tools and what size tools or how many chisel marks they can leave and where they have to be. An artist has materials, and they make something out of those materials. When they are finished they have a work of art, and it is what it is, and it either works or not, it is either effective or not, beautiful or not, moving or not. It either makes history and becomes history, or it is discarded and forgotten by history. It is what it is and you have to react to it on its terms. When I look at art I don’t have to consider whether the work of art is fiction or nonfiction, whether it is a genre painting or literary painting, whether it is serious or commercial, where the artist went to school or whether the publisher has prestige or not. It is what it is. Something someone made because it was inside them, because they were compelled to make it. The art dictates the terms. I want to write books in the same manner. I have words inside me, and I am compelled to make something with them. They will be what they will be, on their own terms, books. Fuck all the rest of it.

  The art at Musée d’Orsay is magnificent, an embarrassment of riches, a symbol of the cultural and artistic dominance France enjoyed through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and first half of the twentieth centuries. The work starts in the 1840s with Ingres, Delacroix, Courbet. Moves into Corot, Cabanel, Moreau, Pissarro, Carrière. To the great Manet. To the famous Degas and Cezanne and Monet, Sisley and Cassatt, Renoir and van Gogh. To bad Paul Gauguin and crazy Toulouse-Lautrec. To the cursed Camille Claudel and her tormentor Rodin. To Seurat and Derain and Munch and Klimt. To Mondrian. In any museum, I am always drawn to the most radical work, the work that caused the most problems, created the most controversy. The work that did what nothing had done before it, that confused, divided, and enraged, the work that marks the viewer, changes them, forces them to have an opinion on it. If I can walk past a work of art, dismiss it, see it without wanting to understand it, without it forcing me to engage with it, than I have no need for it, and I’m not interested in it. It may be beautiful, but it’s boring. I want to see, and feel, and understand, and experience, the most difficult and most troublesome art.

  Today I’m on my way to see Olympia, by Édouard Manet. It’s all I want to see. Painted in 1863, after his last painting Le déjeuner sur l’herbe had been rejected by the state salon for obscenity. Olympia is a large portrait of a nude woman on a bed, one elbow up, leaning against a pillow, an orchid in her hair, a black silk ribbon around her neck, a servant delivering her flowers. She’s looking directly out of the canvas, directly at the viewer. It’s a defiant, confrontational look, as if she’s just told you to go fuck yourself. It’s based on Titian’s Venus of Urbino, which was painted for Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici around 1534, and portrays an elegant and magnificent Venus reclining in an environment of great luxury, filled with symbols of piety and virtue. Olympia’s pose is identical to the pose of Venus, but where Venus represented a feminine ideal, Olympia represents feminine power. She is clearly in control. The environment is not one of piety and virtue, but rather the residence of a courtesan, and her look, and indifference to the flowers being delivered to her, show that she is in control of who comes to see her. Instead of the girlfriend of a Cardinal, she’s a woman of her own means, using her body to direct her own life. Aside from the philosophical underpinnings of it, it’s a beautifully rendered work, clearly painted by someone with virtuosic skills. When it was first exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1865 it caused a scandal, was described by critics as vulgar and immoral and an affront to civilization, and survived multiple attempts to destroy it. A barrier was built to keep viewers away from it, the first time a painting in a Salon had required protection. Manet was amused, and delighted, and is reported to have said, while he laughed, They wanted a new Venus, and I gave them one, a real one, a true Venus, the type you might see on a sidewalk or in a dance hall, and she is beauty to me. The painting set the tone for the rest of his career, during which he regular
ly painted subjects considered obscene, or reset historical paintings in ways that shocked modern audiences. He is considered the Father of Modernism, and easily the most influential painter of his time.

  I laugh whenever I see Olympia. Imagine what Manet was thinking about when he conceived of it, how he felt as he painted it, I wonder if he knew what it was going to do, how the critics and the public would react to it. I wonder if, in an age where he could be anonymous, he ever went to the room where it was exhibited, and watched people melt down in front of it, saw them cringe, saw them reel, heard them discuss it, condemn it, damn it. I hope he did, and I hoped he loved it, and I hope he fell asleep with a smile. To me Olympia is a monument to how art should be made, and what it should do. And it’s everything I want to do. And so I go stand before it. Look at it. Think about it. Study it. Laugh with it. Learn from it. Acknowledge its greatness.

  Up the stairs to the second floor past tourists with cameras no flashes allowed, I walk into the room where Olympia hangs. For the past two weeks, since the moment I met her, I’ve often thought of the girl in the skull dress, her words, her smile, the way she said good-bye, her deep-red hair. And as I have thought of her, I’ve looked for her. In cafés and in the streets, in bookstores and bars, as I’ve walked past restaurants, in galleries and parks. At the Musée Rodin and in front of The Gates. Whenever I saw red, even when I knew it wasn’t her, my heart jumped, and I hoped, and I wanted, and I pursued until I knew it wasn’t her. Like so many other girls I’ve met in my life, whether I was with them for a minute or five, for an hour, a day or a week or two, I assumed I would never see her again, that Paris was too big a city, that the minutes we had together would be our first and our last, that her life would go on without me in it.

  Until.

  Until.

  Until.

  I walk into the room where Olympia hangs, and she is standing in front of it, wearing jeans and heels, a white sheer blouse, a light-blue Hermès bag in her hand, her red hair flowing down her back. She’s with a man in a gray suit, fancy shoes, hair slicked back. I can see him gesturing as he speaks, though I can’t hear what he’s saying. I walk toward them, step beside him, listen. She’s staring at the painting, doesn’t notice me.

  The original, the Titian, is in Rome, and I’ve seen it a number of times, and I actually prefer it. It has a regality to it that this picture doesn’t, as great as it might be.

  I interrupt.

  You’ve never seen the original.

  He turns toward me. As does she. He speaks.

  Excuse me?

  You’re full of shit. You’ve never seen the original.

  She smiles, he scowls.

  Who are you?

  Just a dude.

  He imitates my American accent.

  Just a dude?

  I nod.

  Yeah.

  He’s still scowling, she’s still smiling.

  And what do you know about me?

  That you’ve never seen the Venus by Titian, that you wear too much cologne, and that you’re trying too hard to impress your lady.

  Fuck off.

  Cool.

  What do you know?

  That the Titian painting is in Florence, not Rome.

  You’re wrong.

  No, I’m not.

  Have you seen it?

  Nope.

  How do you know?

  Because I can read.

  You’re wrong.

  I laugh.

  I’m not.

  Fuck off.

  Heard you the first time.

  Go back to America, you pig.

  Someday, my friend. Someday.

  He stares at me. She’s smiling. I look at Olympia, motion toward it.

  And this one is better. This one burned the world down. And you’re a fucking idiot if you think otherwise.

  She laughs, he shakes his head, takes her hand, leads her away. I smile at her as they leave, she reaches out and runs the tips of her fingers against the back of my hand as she passes. My heart jumps and my smiles grows and I turn and watch her walk away and as they move into the next room, she turns and smiles at me and my heart jumps and no matter what happens for the rest of the day, it will be a good fucking day. When they’re gone, I turn back to the painting, and I stare at it, I wonder at it, spend more time than I normally do in front of it.

  A real Venus.

  A true Venus.

  The type you might see on a sidewalk or in a dance hall.

  And she is beauty to me.

  * * *

  I try to stop drinking. I’m tired and my body hurts and I’m throwing up constantly, sometimes with blood, I know I need a break. After eighteen hours I’m sweating and shaking and seeing shit I know isn’t there and hearing shit I know isn’t there and my heart feels like it’s exploding. Louis finds me on the floor of our bathroom and wants to take me to the hospital I tell him I need a bottle of wine, just get me some fucking alcohol. He gets me a bottle and I drink half of it in a single pull, the other half right after. I immediately vomit but enough of the wine stays in me to end the sweating and make the shakes go away, I stop seeing shit and hearing shit that I know isn’t there, my heart slows and my thoughts become more clear, I drink another bottle of wine and I go for a walk and I end up sitting on a bench near La Fête des Tuileries. La Fête is a happy place, maybe the happiest in Paris, there’s a Ferris wheel and a small roller coaster and flying swings and bumper cars and a haunted house and games and prizes. It’s bright and loud and I can hear children yelling and playing and having fun I can feel their happiness in the dark of night, I can smell cotton candy and caramel apples and popcorn. I sit on the bench and drink and stare at the lights of the Ferris wheel going around and around, I smoke and listen to kids being happy being kids without the bullshit of life bearing down on them, without the anticipation of death in front of them. Nobody sits with me, or acknowledges me, when people see me they hurry past, I’m just another lonely drunk on a park bench, another lonely drunk wasting his life away. I wonder where and when and how I went wrong, or if I even did, if this is just who and what I am and if I should just accept it. I know I don’t want to die. I know it’s possible that I will. I know I should stop but I don’t know if I can or if I even want to stop. I’m twenty-one years old and I’ve been drinking and using for almost a decade. Aside from books and love, drugs and alcohol are the only things that ever made me feel like I was okay. I want answers but none come. I have a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes and a bench to myself and I have the lights and sounds and smells of La Fête and I have Paris and the night and a dream and a beating heart, for now I have a beating heart.

  I take a draw from the bottle.

  I want answers but none come to me.

  * * *

  I go to an AA meeting.

  I go to a church.

  I go through the self-help section of an English-language bookstore.

  I taper down from four bottles to three bottles to two bottles to one.

  I have trouble sleeping, but I also don’t want to move or get out of bed.

  Books I read bring me no joy, I’m too tired to leave the apartment I’m too tired to walk I’m too tired to look at art. I’m as rude to the couple in the bakery as they are to me I eat one baguette a day it tastes like wood.

  Coffee is no solace cigarettes are no friend. I smoke some hash with Louis it makes me hate the world and hate myself even more.

  Three days four days five days six they run into each other.

  The other way may kill me but this is no life either. And I know nothing in between, don’t want anything in between.

  Work save vote obey teach your children to do the same, die and rot in a fucking hole in the ground.

  Fuck this shit.

  Fuck that shit.

  * * *

  Banging on my door I ignore it.

  Banging on my door.

  Doesn’t stop.

  Someone yelling my name.

  I’
m half-drunk working my way through a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Started a new book. Girl was right. A book based on Le Misanthrope is stupid. This one is called Vandal. About a kid who wants to destroy his high school. The school deserves it.

  Still banging on my door, still yelling.

  Jay.

  Jay.

  Jay.

  I walk over, open it, Philippe standing in front of me. I’m wearing boxers and black tube socks, no shirt. Philippe laughs.

  What the fuck happened to you?

  I shrug.

  I don’t know.

  You look like you’ve lost twenty pounds. And you were already fucking skinny.

  I was sick.

  Now?

  I’m back.

  Put on some clothes, we’re going out.

  Where?

  Dinner, drinking, carousing.

  I could use a bit of all of them.

  He laughs, I walk over to pull on some pants, a T-shirt.

  You got any nice clothes?

  Why?

  We’re going to eat some good food.

  Not really.

  He turns walks into Louis’s room. I put on my shoes. He comes back with a purple polo.

  Put this on.

  Really?

  We’re going somewhere good.

  I don’t have any money for anything good.

  Don’t worry about it.

  I put on the polo, we leave the apartment walk through the 6th arrondissement rue Saint-Placide to rue de Sèvres to rue des Saints-Pères to Saint-Germain. It’s busy, crowded, de Flore and Deux Magots are both full, we go across the street to Brasserie Lipp, an old-school brasserie with a giant orange awning and an enormous neon sign above. There’s a line but Philippe walks around it, I follow him. As we work our way inside he waves to the maître d’, who smiles and waves us forward. He and Philippe hug each other, speak, and though I can now speak functional French, and don’t need to use English anywhere in Paris, I have trouble when the French speak quickly, and don’t understand a word they say to each other. We are immediately led past any number of annoyed people who have clearly been waiting, to a table along one of the walls.