Harem of Daydreams

I am unmarried and will probably never be married. My latest girlfriend left me years ago and I cannot honestly reproach her. I live a quiet, provincial, inoffensive life. But in my daydreams…There I possess the most wonderful harem ever assembled. Such odalisques! Ladies from history and mythology, the beauties of high art, fairytale princesses and femme fatales, movie actresses, living and dead. In another world I have consorted with dryads and naiads and played the role of satyr. I have been married to the empresses Messalina and Poppea and I mourned them despite their faults or perhaps because of their faults. A dark-haired beauty in a portrait by Boldini and a beauty with a sensuous mouth in a portrait by Winterhalter. I had a fling in my teens with Britney Spears (which male at my age did not?). Long conversations on important matters with Emma Watson. The lovely ladies in the paintings of Woolmer, shining with light, vibrating with sensuality. A ludicrous soap opera made me infatuated with Susan Ward and Christina Chambers. Been held in place by a very assertive Binnie Barnes. Women with the fleshy colors of Makart or the decorative elaborateness of Mucha. Adventures in the desert with Vilma Banky, pale as alabaster notwithstanding the scorching sun. Enchanted by Vivien Leigh dressed as Lady Hamilton, fluttering with grace and joy of life. Been almost moved to tears by the beauty of Jean Simmons, both strong and sensitive. Thronging images of Tuesday Weld, Elisha Cuthbert, Arlene Dahl, Victoria Pratt, Emilia Fox, Claudine Auger, Norma Shearer, Debra Paget, Claire Trevor…No, too many, far too many to be mentioned. But all remembered fondly, even gratefully. Without ever knowing me they have brought pleasure to my lonely existence, made life a little bit easier and more preferable than death. All in my mind, all in my daydreams.