My Muse

Parts of this story are drawn from my life, such as my childhood, and my father's life. It had a lasting effect on me and my ability to interact with people. The rest is my (vivid) imagination, for I have not yet found my Muse.

A note to those who take great delight in telling me that my sentence structure is wrong: There is a difference between English and French sentence structures. For this reason, and because she is French, Monique's dialogue follows French, not English sentence structures.

*

I, Ben Symonds, grew up in a semi-dysfunctional family. I was the youngest of three sons of a part-time father and a strong willed but very private mother. Demonstrations of affection were few and far between, and this resulted in me becoming socially awkward, especially around the opposite sex.

My father, while not an alcoholic, was a binge drinker who would come home from work on occasions very drunk. My mother's reaction to these events was to warn my brothers and me to 'keep away from your father for a while'. We were to later find out that these events were his efforts to blank out the seemingly regular traumas that resulted in his being continually suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, long before it was given that name. He would eventually suffer a nervous breakdown that he never fully recovered from.

I have to admit here that English was, along with Maths and French, my least favourite subject at High School, but I was an avid reader and was to become a prolific but mediocre author. That was until she came into my life.

Her name was Monique and she was, as I was to soon find out, French. I had watched her and already decided that, if we had lived in another era, she would have been a jazz singer, eking out a steady income in smoke filled bars and night clubs, where her rich throaty voice would hold her audience spellbound.

I noticed her at a party that I had been encouraged to attend. She was dressed in black except for a bright pink scarf knotted loosely around her throat. She was tall and slim, her olive complexion went with her black hair and brown eyes that roamed ceaselessly around the room, even while she talked to someone. Her eyes settled on me for several seconds and she extracted herself from the man who was trying desperately to hold her attention. He stared after her as she weaved her way through the other guests and headed for me.

"You interest me." She said as she arrived in front of me, her eyes looking through mine into my soul.

"Oh." I could think of nothing more to say to her.

"You stand here on your own, not making conversation with anyone, but you know everyone."

"What do you mean, I hardly know anyone here."

"But you do know them. I see you looking at them, you observe them and you make up stories about what you see in them. You are a writer, no?"

"I try to be, but I'm not much good at it."

"But no, you are good, you know people, you see them, you listen to them speak, not so much for what they say but how they say it. You may not yet have the ability to construct stories around what you see, but it will come, and when it does you will be a great author."

"I wish that I had your confidence in my abilities."

"What story have you made for me?"

"Now you are trying to embarrass me."

"No. I watch you watching me and I feel it in me that you have already created a story about me."

"Well," I began, not knowing whether to tell her the story that I had in my mind, or just make something up. "I had thought you to be Italian or Spanish, but now that I have spoken to you, I would say that you are French, from the south of France. You are, I think, a singer. If not you are an artist or something like that. You are very self-confident, and I don't need to tell you that men find you attractive. I think that you have come to Australia in a professional context, probably for a short time, but have decided to stay. That decision might not be because you love this country, but most likely it was to be with someone, a lover. But you are no longer with that man."

"How do you know it was a man?"

"I have seen how you interact with both men and women, and I am sure that women, you do not find them sexually attractive."

"You are right of course. I came to be with a man, a musician, but it was not to be. I found professional work while he did not, and this was something that his ego would not permit, so he went back to Paris."

"I would like to hear you sing."

"You shall. I leave here soon to sing at a club, you must come with me."

"I would like that." I was rapidly running out of things to say to her, but then I remembered the bottle of wine on the floor beside my feet. I stooped and picked it up. "Would you care for some wine?"

She held her glass for me to fill and sipped it. "This is good wine, but it is not French."

"No." I decided to bung on an Aussie accent for her. "It's good Aussie piss. We Australians are getting pretty good at making the stuff. We don't all drink beer you know."

She had a great laugh and it wasn't just the throatiness of it that I found great, she laughed with her whole being, her eyes, and her body. "I think that you are lucky in this country, your good wine is so cheap." She took hold of my hand and moved close to me, so close that I could feel the warmth of her body and smell her perfume. I knew that this was not going to last, once she got to know me, really know me, the excuses would start, she would no longer want to see me or be with me.

At around 10 o'clock she touched my arm. "Wait here for me." She left and I thought that this was it, I wouldn't see her again, but then she was back. "Come, you will hear me sing." She had gone to fetch her bag and coat and returned to me. The man that she had been with glared at me and made to come over to us, but she tucked her hand under my arm and turned her back on him in such a way that he knew that it was hopeless to pursue her.

The club was one of those intimate venues that held no more than a hundred patrons, all seated at tables sipping wine and chatting quietly with each other in voices so low that those on neighbouring tables could not hear the conversation. Monique kissed me on the lips and went to prepare for her set.

The band consisting of a guitarist, pianist, drummer and saxophonist moved onto the small stage. The pianist moved the mike closer and said in hushed tones. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome onto the stage, Monique." There was polite applause from the patrons and she came onto the stage, walking to the mike she adjusted it to her height and waited for the band to begin. The pianist clicked his fingers four times to count them in and the song began, it was a jazz rendering of 'la Vie en Rose' made famous by Edith Piaf but sounding nothing like Piaf. To my ears, that are admittedly tone deaf, she sounded better. The applause at the end of the song was a little more enthusiastic. By the time that she had completed her set the audience were clapping loudly.

At the end of her set she stepped off the stage and walked back to our table. "That was really very good." I enthused, hoping not to sound too phony.

"I think not so good, I find it hard to concentrate with my lover here."

Oh Christ, which of the men in the audience is he? "Your lover, which one is he?"

"It is you Cherie." She chuckled on seeing my expression. "Did you not feel that?"

"No, I can't say that I did." There was disappointment on her face. "But then all I could think of was how good you sounded and how out of place I felt, sitting here like a shag on a rock."

"This shag on the rock, what does this mean?"

"It means that I don't fit into this scene."

"But Cherie, you must embrace this, you must say to yourself; 'I am different from all of you and proud of it, I do not need to be like you.' You are different so why should you not see that difference as a good thing?"

"Because I don't have your confidence."

"Come Cherie, you will take me home." She stood up and held her hand out for me. As we reached the door she stopped me. "Now Cherie, did you not feel every man's eyes on you as you walked out with me? You have something that they can only dream of." She kissed me.

I hailed a passing cab and we soon arrived at her building. In the lift, on the way up to her floor, she put her arms around my neck and kissed me, only breaking the kiss when the lift pinged to a halt and the doors opened. She led me down the passage to her flat and handed me her keys.

It was an artist's type of flat, there were things scattered around the place, a coat draped over the back of the sofa, a pair of shoes on the floor where they had dropped after being slipped off. There were dishes in the sink and the remains of a meal on the bench top. While it was untidy, it was also clean. She took a couple of flute glasses from a cupboard and a bottle of proper champagne from her refrigerator. "Some champagne to celebrate." She deftly opened the bottle without splashing a drop and poured us each a glass. She touched her glass to mine and sipped. I sipped my bubbly and thought how much better this was than the cheap sparkling wines that seem to get thrust on us at parties, drinkable but hell, what a hangover.

"This is very good. What are we celebrating?"

"We celebrate our first night together, is this not something to celebrate?"

"I'll drink to that, but, let me tell you that this is the first time a woman has celebrated her first night with me, or any night with me." I decided to stop talking around then and to cover my confusion I picked up the champagne bottle, shit, a Pol Roger.

"Cherie," I couldn't get over how great that sounded. "You must not, how you say it, put yourself down like this. You and I, it is fate for us to be together." She whispered this to me just before she kissed me with such passion that I could feel my knees giving way

"I'll go with fate." That sounded so trite. "It sure as hell isn't my magnetic personality." Okay, I was feeling a tad light headed and was fishing for compliments just to hear her call me 'Cherie' once more.

Monique took my glass from me and led the way to her bedroom where she placed both glasses and the bottle on the bedside table. "This is for after."

"After what?"

"This." She then proceeded to undress me. Stooping to untie my shoes and lower my trousers she kissed the head of my, by now erect, cock. "Mmm, this is good is it not?"

"It is good, yes." I held my breath as she worked her magic down there before moving up and taking my shirt off. She ran her fingers through the hairs on my chest. "It is also good that you do not wax."

"I'm a coward when it comes to things like that, I can't stand the pain."

"Love should not include pain." She sucked on a nipple before moving to my neck. I felt that I should contribute to this, and reached for her scarf. "No Cherie, leave this." I have never, in my limited experience, experienced anything like watching her taking off her clothes. I had once, on a friend's buck's night, been to a strip club and watched the girls go through the motions of taking their clothes off. My mates seemed to think that they were good, but I thought that they had cheapened the whole process. There was nothing sensual about the pelvic thrusts and simulated masturbation that passed for a tease. I didn't get an erection then, but watching Monique sensually remove her clothes had me with the hardest erection that I'd ever experience.

"My god, you are so beautiful."

"I see that you think so." She said with a smile of pure sexiness as she looked at him, standing out proudly from my loins. "Come." She pulled the sheet down and led me to her bed.

I thought that I had a vivid imagination when it came to writing about sex, but nothing in my wildest dreams prepared me for what she led me through that night. There was nothing cheap about what we did, it was a man and a woman expressing their love for each other in a very tangible way. Monique led me through the subtle nuances of love-making while at the same time allowing me to believe that I was in charge, telling me that she had never had love like this before, expressing in her touch, the sounds of her climax, the uncontrolled spasms as she reached her climax, that I was the greatest lover that ever existed and that she lost control in my hands. I never thought for a moment that she was insincere, and her words, when we woke in the morning to another long session of passion, confirmed that.

"Cherie I am lost."

"Lost?" I was puzzled.

"You have stolen my heart and I am yours. I give my heart to you willingly for it has found its home."

"If someone other than you had said that to me I would have found it hard to believe, but you my love, you speak from the heart, I feel it, I know it. Soon I will wake from this dream and realise just how cruel dreams can be."

"Don't be sad Cherie, it is not a dream of sadness, for it is a dream of love."

The whole of Sunday floated by on a cloud of love. It was getting dark when I forced myself to withdraw from this. "Monique, my love, I have to go home. I need to go home, I have to work tomorrow and if I stay here with you I know that I will never get to work on time."

"I will come with you Cherie. I wish to see where you live, how you live."

"There goes my good night's sleep." I chuckled to let her know that I wasn't serious. "Come, let's go." I took out my mobile phone that I'd forgotten to switch off. It had just enough charge for me to call a cab.

I unlocked my front door and led her inside. She stood in the living room and looked around her. It wasn't a designer room by any stretch of the imagination, pure minimalist functional. I led her on a guided tour, showing her the bathroom and toilet, and my inner sanctum where I wrote. She was interested in the folders that I had stacked on a shelf that contained my work. She opened the one that I hoped that she wouldn't, and began to leaf through it until she came to one page in particular.

She read the words slowly, taking in the theme. I knew that it was a poem that I had written to express my memories of my father's suffering. He had been a train driver and involved in, we think, thirteen fatalities, all but two had been suicides, people jumping in front of his train as it pulled into a station. These incidents were the reason for his binge drinking, but the authority's response was to put him straight back to work, 'get back on the horse' they said. I don't know what was worse, the incident or the Coronial Inquiry where he had to re-live the whole episode and give evidence under the angry gaze of the deceased's relatives.

"This is so sad, but it is beautiful that you have captured your feelings, his feelings."

"Yes, it took a toll on his whole family, not just when it happened, but afterwards when he could not sleep through the night without having nightmares."

"Has he recovered from this?"

"In a way yes he did just before he died. He lost his memory, it was said that he had developed Alzheimer's, but the amount of medication that was being shoved down his throat was enough to dull his memories. He died several years ago."

"I'm so sorry Cherie." She took my face in her hands and kissed me softly on the lips.

I could tell, even before she withdrew her lips from mine, that she was weeping. I wiped the tears away with my lips. "Enough of this sadness, come, leave this." I led her to my bedroom.

"This room, it is you, so strong, a man's room."

"I try to maintain that illusion, but in reality it isn't me."

"It is you Cherie, it is how you would like to be, so it is you. When you think better of yourself you will be this room."

By morning I felt so much better about myself, for the first time in my life I was truly in love. I was wishing that I didn't have to go to work, but needs must. Monique made coffee for me, and as I munched on my slice of toast, she said to me, "For tomorrow I will buy croissants, you will have a French breakfast."

"What are your plans for today?" I know what I was hoping her plans would be, but was afraid that her answer would not match my hope.

"Today I return to my apartment and pack some clothes, and then I return here. I will stay with you, not all of the time, but as often as I can. In this way I do not have to go home for fresh clothes when I want to stay over with you. I will not pack night clothes. Then I think that I will call in to your work and take you to lunch. Is this not a good thing?"

"This is a very good thing, I look forward to it."

"Your work colleagues, they will be surprised, no?"

"They will be surprised, yes." I could just imagine the look on my work colleagues' faces, especially Grant, who is forever crapping on about his conquests, when Monique rocks up to take me to lunch.

I kissed her good-bye, I should say that we kissed each other good-bye. "Au revoir Cherie." She whispered to me as she clung to me. She stood at the door and waved as I drove off to work. By the time that I reached work I was beginning to miss her, but my mood changed as I walked through the office to my desk.

"It looks like Ben got laid over the weekend." Grant's leering voice followed me. "Did you have to feed her seeing-eye dog before you could make love to her?"

I gave him the rigid digit but otherwise ignored him, he would keep. Sandra, my Secretary came in with the reports that I'd need and messages from the Claims Department of damaged cars that I would have to inspect. I called the repairers where they were held and arranged a time to look them over, making sure of course, to be clear for lunch.

Grant came into my office. "Sorry about my comments earlier, but there is something different about you this morning."

"There is, but the less I talk about it the better. Now, have you got those payments sorted for the repairers, I thought that I could kill two birds with one stone by dropping them off when I visit them today, those that I'm not seeing you will have to deliver yourself."

"Tell me where you're going and I'll get the payments ready for you." I handed him my appointment list and he went off to prepare the payments. Our boss had made the decision that we should deliver payments personally rather than electronic funds transfer, so that we continue to promote the contact and goodwill between us and them.

The morning was spent sorting through the many quotations that we had received from various repairers for work to be done. Our company insists on three quotations and we don't necessarily accept the lowest price, we also consider previous work done by them in making our decision. The time flew by and before I knew it Sandra buzzed me to tell me that a woman was waiting for me in Reception. "Send her in." I told her.

A hush spread over the office as Monique walked through it, I swear I thought I heard Grant's chin hit his desk as she walked by his office. I could see him staring after her and the look on his face when I rose to meet her was priceless, but not as priceless as the one when she kissed me, and it wasn't the cheek to cheek air kiss of the French, it was a full-on passionate kiss that told him that she and I were in love and 'an item'. She rubbed salt in by grabbing my arm and holding it as we left for lunch. I stopped at his door, and he handed me the envelopes with the payments, his eyes never deviating from Monique. "I'll see you tomorrow." I said.

"Yeah, see ya." For the first time in living memory he was lost for words.

"I do not like that man." Monique said loud enough for him to hear. "He is, how you say it, the wolf. He will never be happy with one woman, to him they are scalps on his belt."

"That pretty much sums him up, he's always having a go at me about my lack of success with women."