The memory is a funny thing. It was less than a year ago that I first stepped into Hill House, but the life that I was living before heading out to Berkshires seemed like a dream. It's fuzzily familiar, but elusive. It's like I can't quite remember what my life was like before. I'd like to think that maybe it's because I'm finally happy, because I'm finally content, so what came before doesn't really matter. Like the life that I'm living now is real and what came before it was just some sort of waking nightmare. All I can really remember now is a life that was like a revolving door. People walking in and out at all times, busily trying to get on with their own lives. This is going to sound weird, but when I think about it I concluded that I had been very much like a park bench. People would stop by frequently, stay for while. There would be talking, eating, kissing, and fucking, and then they would be gone and another one would come along. Popular but unloved.
I frown now when I think about that time, and I wonder what the hell was the matter with me that I went on that way for so long. But then I remember that I didn't feel like a bench back then. I felt like…I don't know what I felt like, only that it wasn't bad. I liked what I was doing back then. Painting, partying, shopping, and fucking were all I was interested in—though not necessarily in that order—and I was fine with that. Now, the mere thought of going back to a life like that depresses me.
My acquaintances—I would call them friends but I'm not entirely sure that they are—think that I've gone completely loco. In fact, I can clearly remember a conversation that took place a few weeks after we got back from Hill House that pretty much summed up all of their feelings.
{"Come on Theo, you haven't done shit since you got back from Transylvania, or where ever the hell it was you took off to," Tricia complained from the other end of the phone.
"I've been busy," I responded distractedly. I was debating whether I wanted to drop kick her, or merely hit her over the head with a shovel. Both were uncomfortably appealing.
"With what? Your little orphan girl?" I could almost see her rolling her eyes. "The girl is Sarah plain and tall without the tall part. What's next Theo, taking in wet puppies off of the street?"
"Listen, I've got plans," I said taking the subject off of Nell. I really didn't want to get into a fight over the phone with Tricia. When she wanted to the woman could make Joan Rivers look downright huggable.
"Really?" she asked, her voice rising giddily. I cringed. "What's his name?" I didn't responded. "Her name?" she asked wrongly assuming that my silence was due to her picking the wrong gender.
"Guggenheim," I said a moment later.
"That's a guy right? Is he Bulgarian?"
"No, he's dead."
"What?"
"It's a museum," I said already getting bored with the game I had started. "Guggenheim is the guy the museum is named after."
"What'd he die there or something?" she asked.
I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah," I responded. "I think that he did."
"Well, fuck Guggie," she responded. I knew the only reason she said it like that was because she couldn't pronounce the name. I sighed, deeply. "Ripper's gonna be there," she continued.
"At the Guggenheim?"
"No, at the Warehouse…asshole," she added for what I had to assume was dramatic effect.
"So?"
"So he just got back from an 'expedition'." That meant that he had a shit load of drugs.
"I'm not interested," I responded, and it was true. I wasn't sure who was more surprised by the honesty of my response, Tricia or me.
"You're not interested?" she asked slowly. Softly. The idea was alien in her mind and she couldn't quite grasp it. "How the fuck can you not be interested? You're always fucking interested! Hell, you usually plan this shit!"
"Things change," I muttered under my breath, but loud enough that she could hear.
"Theo, seriously," she said softly. She sounded almost concerned. It made my head hurt. "What the fuck did they do to you in Transylvania?"
"Berkshire, the house was in Berkshire."
"Whatever," she responded. I could picture her waving her hand in the air, brushing off my statement like an annoying insect. I had interrupted her bitching just when she was getting started. "The point is that you've been acting bizarrely since you got back. Fucking bizarrely."
"Do you think that you could find another adjective?" I asked wincing at the use of a version of the word 'fuck' for what had to have been the millionth time.
"What?"
"Every other word out of your mouth is 'fuck'," I said. "Variety isn't only the spice of life, but a virtue that you should strive for."
"A virtue that I should strive for? What the hell is the matter with you?" Despite her tone—which was loud and grating—I was relieved. She didn't say 'fuck'.
"Nothing is wrong with me," I shot back in a disgruntled tone. "I'm just re-evaluating certain aspects of my life style."
"What aspects? The fun parts?"
"I have fun," I responded frowning at my tone. I sounded petulant and defensive.
"What, playing Jenga with Sarah?"
"Her name is Nell."
"What the fuck is that all about anyway? With this Nell person? Who the hell is she, and why is she staying with you?"
"Mom is that you?" I asked caustically. "She's a friend, we met in Transyl…Berkshire," I corrected glaring at the phone cradle as if it could transmit my irritation across the phone lines. "She needed a place to stay."
"Doesn't she have a family?"
"No," I responded thinking about Nell's sister and shuddering. My family wasn't exactly the Walton's, but I know what family is supposed to be about and that—her sister—wasn't it.
"God, she really is an orphan."
"Will you shut up," I said. That last comment really pissed me off. "Nell is my friend, and more importantly she's one of the most decent people I've ever met. Which is really a formal way of saying that if you continue to badmouth her I'm going to drop kick you."
There was a moment of silence, then I heard a sigh.
"Whoa," she exhaled the word. "What a mind-fuck." I started to respond to that but she stopped me. "Listen, despite the fact that you've obliviously gone insane…I've got to go."
"Alright," I said trying not to sound as relieved as I actually was. "Later."}
Yep, all of my acquaintances think that I've gone insane. Maybe I have. All that I know is that if I'm nuts, I want to stay that way, because reality has been highly overrated…no doubt due to a good press agent.
Nell was lying in my arms. We were in the living room on the couch. We were watching "The Sound of Music". Actually she was watching "The Sound of Music". I had tuned out sometime after the first song and dance number.
I shifted slightly so that Nell and I were face to face. When her eyes met mine I leaned forward and kissed her. My kiss must have revealed the depressing nature of my thoughts because when we separated she looked at me thoughtfully while stroking my hair.
"You okay?" she asked gently.
"Yeah," I responded running my hand under her shirt. Screw the Van Trapp family, I wanted to make love to her. "I'm real good," said drawing out the word 'real' lecherously as I removed her shirt.
"Theo," she breathed out as my hand continued to explore the soft skin under her shirt.
I captured her lips with mine and kissed her hungrily. She responded with an equal passion, pushing herself into my hands, encouraging me to continue. I obeyed and continued to run my hands under her shirt while nibbling at her alabaster neck. I have to state right up front that I love Nell's body, her arms so pale and slender, the line of her shoulder, the dip of her collar bone…everything. Sometimes when we're together my only desire is to look at her and memorize her body and the curves and subtle lines that compose her. I want her image, and the feel of her body to be burned into my brain so that she is all that I see when I close my eyes.
I returned my mouth to hers in a lingering caress, then moved down sliding my mouth along the sweet expanse of her skin, tasting her, taking her in as I went along. I loitered in the place where her elbow bent as my hand drifted across the smooth skin of her stomach then down her thighs. I wanted to touch her forever; I would if I could. I would crawl into her and place my heart next to hers.
A string of goose bumps rose on her skin in the wake of my mouth and I felt a shudder run through her body. I love the way her body moves, the way she bites her lip, the wily smile that tugs at her lips and the small sounds that she makes while I love her. I feel her hands graze my stomach as they move up, down and all around me. I captured her lips again wanting, nay needing to taste her. She moaned into my mouth and I felt her hands slide down body, to my waist.
"You're wearing too many clothes," I mumbled into her shoulder before I started to tug on the helm of shirt tugging it up.
"I could say that you're struck by the same affliction," Nell mumbled as I lifted her shirt over her head. Being a woman of action I decided to simply rectify the situation. And we were naked, skin against skin, breast to breast, fire against raging fire.
Then she entered me and I slid my fingers inside of her. It seemed as if we ended and began together. I felt her moving against me and I joined her that dance older than time. I wanted, want, nothing other that loving embrace, her touching me, me touching her. And then we fell together, into each other. And it was good.