Blessed Curse

"You want perfection. Perfection, perfection, perfection!"

Each angry, bitter word was punctuated by the slap of another article of clothing into her suitcase. Women never seem to arrive with suitcases, but they always leave with them. It's insidious. First a toothbrush left behind, then a hairdryer, and before you know it they need to pack a suitcase before leaving. But leaving she was. It was almost a shame, really. This one was a smouldering Mexican, all flashing eyes and warm moist lips. Ah, those lips! Now they were perfection. Even at this final stage of the mating dance, when I would normally not even bother to pretend an interest in the woman's recriminations, I could not take my eyes from those lips.

"You'll die an unhappy man. There's no such thing as the perfect woman!"

The lid of the suitcase slammed shut. Her heels clicked across the white marble floor. Her hand reached out, and knocked a crystal vase to the floor. The lift hummed. I was alone.

Alone. At last.

I ignored the crystal shards on the floor. The vase was an attractive one, but inexpensive. After countless repetitions of this scene, with countless women, I learnt that the only way to keep my treasures intact was to provide them with something convenient to break on the way out. It makes them feel as though they've had the last word. That's important to most women.

Ah, women.

The main thing about them is they come and they go. A week, or two. Sometimes three. The longest of them lasted six. Each one has something special about her, the curve of a thigh, the line of a wrist, and all beautiful. But none of them.

Perfect.

Savouring the silence, I poured myself a drink. Despite the constant parade of lady companions who made their way through my life, I loved my apartment most when I was alone. An eyrie far above the maddening crowds, a vast expanse of white rushing to embrace the plate glass walls that frame the untouchable emptiness above the city. None of the windows opened, of course, but the glass walls gave the illusion of openness. Of freedom. It was here, when I was alone, that my spirit soared and I created my masterpieces. But that night I did not turn towards my piano. I walked to the window.

Lights.

Flickered below me, across the tapestry of the city. Night was falling, and I could see the swarms of humanity moving from work to home, from one treadmill to another. To me, it was the stuff that music was made of. Fifteen million people live in this magical city by the sea. How many of them look up?

'There's no such thing as the perfect woman!"

The Mexican's words whispered in my head, as sibilant as a curse. She was wrong, of course. Fifteen million people. The perfect woman, my woman, was out there some where, waiting for me. I lifted my glass to the window.

"To you."

I spoke aloud. The acoustics in the room perfect, my voice as clear as a bell.

"After I have found you, I will take no other woman. Come to me."

I touched my glass to my lips. As I drank, I heard a soft sound. It was almost the sound of silk brushing against skin, almost the sound of the wind in the trees, almost the sound of a whispered promise on a summers night. Almost but not quite, it was gone before I was even sure I heard it.

Empty.

The spell was broken as I realised I'd finished my drink. Stepping over the crystal shards to refill my glass, I added aloud, "And come to me soon. I'm getting too old for these scenes."

***

It had been a most gratifying day. A meeting with my agent, confirming the schedule of my upcoming, sold out, tour. A meeting with my business manager, who rubbed his hands with glee as he gave me the latest sales figures on my recordings. CD's, DVD's, videos. The money was rolling in. My piano has made my fortune, but how I love the blessings of modern technology. None of the old masters had it this good. There was a spring in my step as I entered the bar. It had been a week since the Mexican had left, and material for my next recording had been flowing freely. I needed a reward. I deserved a reward.

I was on my second drink when she entered the bar. If it had been a movie, the room would have stilled, and all heads would have turned to drink her in. As it was, the seething pulse of the city at night still beat around her, the world kept turning, and the patrons kept drinking. She stood as beautiful and still as a statue in the doorway, only her sea green eyes moving as she searched the room. Her hair fell in glossy dark red curls around a pale face. She was a little taller than I usually liked, but it was certainly a promising beginning. Blind to all else, I lifted my glass absently to my lips and sipped. The ice in the glass rustled like silk, like leaves.

Then she saw me.

Our eyes locked, and the world turned over. Light and sound melded together for an impossible moment. Then the statue moved. Towards me. I had only seconds to think of a line before she was at my side. My mind went blank. I was nearly forty years old, and I had had my first woman at fourteen. Never once in all of those years had I been at a loss for words when it came to women. The suave looking stockbroker type on the bar stool next to me, stood, drink in hand, and wandered off through the crowd. Inexplicably, he looked straight through the beautiful woman who slipped onto his still warm stool. I finished my drink in one swift swallow. It did nothing to quell the desert landscape that had appeared in my mouth.

"Martini."

Her first words were to the bar tender, not to me. My stomach lurched in disappointment.

"Substitute the olive for a dash of tequila."

Her voice was husky. The musician in me assessed it automatically. It had that indefinable seductiveness that only seemed to be possessed by the silver screen stars of the '30's. I loved those old movies. I used to watch them late at night, and fall asleep by their flickering dramas.

"Two."

The barman moved away. She did not turn to face me, but spoke softly enough that only I could hear her.

"Tequila Martini. A special favourite of ..."

I knew how the sentence ended. How many times had I said it myself, since I had made it my drink of choice?

"Capote."

It came out more harshly than I intended. Her lips twitched with the slightest of smiles. Still, she did not look at me.

The bartender placed the drinks in front of us. She picked up her glass, and turned to me.

"To us."

She said. The glance she gave me was loving, gentle and belied by the sharpness of the desire burning behind her deep blue eyes.

My hand moved of it's own violition, picking up the glass, touching it to hers, putting it to my lips, and all the while I was drowning in those eyes, the same colour of the summer skies of my childhood memories. The same sky that I used to lie beneath and dream about the future that I was sure would be mine. The future that became mine.

"It took me awhile to get here, but I finally made it."

She spoke as though we were lovers of long standing, whom had been parted temporarily, though unavoidably, and now reunited. Fear rushed through me, and I felt as awkward as a boy. Could she have mistaken me for someone else? No, my pride insisted. I was world famous, feted and adored wherever I went. How could anyone mistake me for someone other than myself?

"Though you have to learn to give me a chance. I probably would have turned up after that Swedish model, but you went straight on to the Mexican without letting the sheets get cold."

She spoke without rancour, indulgently, as though she was amused. She hadn't mistaken me for anyone, it seemed. Her description of my activities was harsh, but accurate. The shock of her words tore me away from her eyes and forced my attention to the rest of her face.

Her face.

Reminded me of many women, but was uniquely, and perfectly, her own. Her skin was pale and translucent, with that slight flush of rose that is the hallmark of English beauty. I had always enjoyed inflaming that flush with passion. Her eyebrows were dark and straight, a dramatic slash across the unmarked parchment of her face. I had long ago indulged in a brief affair with a Spanish model who became a famous beauty based on such dramatic eyebrows. Her cheekbones and nose were delicately chiselled, reminiscent of that exquisite French actress I had bedded on my last tour. And her lips! Ah, her lips! The Mexican would have slunk away shamed at the sight of her full crimson lips touching the glass. Her hair swayed away from her face as she half drained the glass. How could I have mistaken it for red in the doorway? It was clearly black, gloriously long waves of ebony. The same hair, my groin told me, as the first woman who showed my teenage self the pleasures of fellatio.

"I see now I should have been more patient." I managed to control the tremor in my voice.

"It is of no matter." She smiled, and glanced around the room. "I think one glass is enough to satisfy proprietary, don't you?"

Slowly, deliberately, I raised my glass to my lips and emptied it. Her smile widened a little, showing even white teeth. She stood, and without checking to see if I followed, weaved swiftly through the crowd and out into the night.

***

I followed, of course. What else could I do? It had been many years since a woman had ignited this much passion in me. It burnt through my veins, cauterising me, and was worlds away from the insipid feeling that had passed for desire in me these last few years. I hadn't felt this way since I realised that all women knew the same tricks, and they all fell into predicable patterns when it came to sex. Was it possible that this woman could offer me the long forgotten exhilaration of something new?

Following her whispered instructions, the taxi drove us to a skyscraper that towered above the city, much like my own building. Her building was newer than mine, however. I knew as soon as I entered. The scent of paint was fresh in the air, the elevator smooth motioned and noiseless, and an unlived in, empty feeling pervaded the corridors. Her own apartment, on the top floor, was the very opposite. Like my own eyrie, she favoured glass walls and large expanses. Her taste, however, unlike mine, ran to black, the floors, the sleek modern couch. The only lights in this sea of darkness was the reflection of the city rising from the street. The fresh paint smell had been replaced by a curious incense, the scent of jasmine, sandalwood and musk.

She turned to me, her eyes glowing in the darkness, her face stark. She did not speak. I lifted her off her feet and into my arms in one movement, and carried her to the bedroom.

I cannot remember now what clothes she wore. I can only be sure that I removed them, and my own, quickly, seeing them as impediments only, desperate to see her spread naked in front of me. When she was naked, she spoke for the first time since we had left the bar.

"Talk to me."

"About what?" I asked, between bites on her neck, every bit as long and graceful as that of the Swedish model.

"About the women you've had. Tell me what they have done to you. And what you wanted them to do, but didn't."

Her voice was thick, breathless. Her heart thudded against my chest. Her nails trailed down my back and lightly scored my ass. If this was what she wanted, it would be what she would get. So I told her.

It came out as a torrent. The names of half remembered transient women, descriptions of their techniques flowed out, a long litany of pleasures. And all the while, her body responded to my words. When I told her of the groupie who never let my cock out her mouth until I had come and risen again, her mouth enclosed me, using her tongue with deft precision that a surgeon would be proud of. When I told her of the gynaecologist who was able to massage my cock with her cunt she showed me tricks not even a gynaecologist would know.

And all through that long, long night, all my experiences, all my fantasies, were played out between her body and mine. She was, in turns, every woman I had ever had, every woman I had never had, and then all of them at once.

It was close to dawn when I stopped talking. Exhausted, I fell back against the pillows. Sleep was inevitable, but I fought it for as long as I could. This night had been the summit of my existence. My world had been taken apart and put back together in an entirely different way by this woman, this one perfect woman. And she had not once, in all of those hours, told me her.

"Name?"

I murmured sleepily, just before the darkness smothered me. Her answering laugh was husky, but held no note of sleepiness.

"Desire." She said.

And her voice was like silk, like leaves.

***

The light pierced my eyelids. I struggled to open my eyes, gummy and heavy with a monumental hangover. After three drinks? I moved slightly, and every muscle, every nerve screamed in agony. Memory came flooding back. My good humour, the bar, the woman.

The woman.

I forced my eyes open as I reached out for her.

She was gone, of course.

And so was her apartment, that black eyrie that was so much like mine. I was lying on the floor of a great open space. The smell of fresh paint in the air. I rose from the floor and started to dress. I could see the dust mites dancing in the sun. This great space was a penthouse that had yet to be completed. I had been lying on painter's dropsheets, now stained from my body. And hers? I didn't know. All I knew was that.

She was gone.

I turned towards the door to leave. And it was then that I noticed the footprints in the sawdust that was carelessly scattered over the floor. Two sets from the lift to the middle of room, and then one set from the middle of the room to the dropsheets. And none leading away.

I left without looking back.

I never saw her again.

***

Now I am an old man, and I know the power of a woman. That Mexican in my apartment, so long ago now that I no longer remember her name, was right.

I will die an unhappy man.