Condemnation & Redemption Pt. 05

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Meditation, Jules Massenet (from his opera Thais)
Performed and recorded by PostScript (c) 2019
Yamaha Keyboard, Yamaha Synthesizer (orchestra)
Best if you have good speakers or a headset on your computer.
Click Here to listen: .mp3 format or .ogg format. (4 min/mp3)

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~~~ XIV Modern Day Nashville ~~~

I had finally chased Gary out just before 10:00 AM. Maria had left earlier to return to her apartment. After Gary reappeared that morning, I fed him a hearty breakfast — the loss of blood added to satisfying Maria's lusts would have left him depleted. He gave me an update on the illegal hacking that he was performing for me to allow my ultimate transformation into another new identity.

He actually asked me for permission to pursue Maria! I gave him my blessings, although I warned him that she might not be inclined towards monogamy. I didn't know that for sure, because it had never been important to me, but I warned him, nevertheless. I had never spoken to Maria about such matters, because it didn't make a difference to me so long as she was always available for my needs.

After he left, there I sat looking at my phone and the number for Aurora, wondering what the protocol was for calling a woman who you wanted to pursue. No, who I needed to pursue. I thought that I'd heard something about waiting three days from some of the young residents at the hospital. Could I possibly wait so long?

At that moment, my ring tone for my new love began to play, my homage to my long-lost Aurora — the opening bars of Debussy's 'La fille aux cheveux de lin' — 'The girl with the flaxen hair.' I answered.

"Christian?" she asked and my heart skipped a beat.

I was too tongue-tied to answer immediately.

"Christian, it's Steph... no, I mean it's Aurora. Are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here," I replied at last, "You just took me by surprise. I had my phone in my hand and I was going to call YOU."

There was that musical laugh on the other end of the line.

"Your ears must have been burning because I was thinking of you," she teased, "But I was wondering if we could get together for lunch someplace?"

Man plans, the gods laugh — in this case, to my advantage.

"Of course, I'd love that. But I just finished eating — could I join you and have coffee instead?"

We arranged to meet at a local coffee shop that also had a choice of little things to eat.

In a moment or an eternity, depending on one's feeling of urgency, we were sitting across from each other, me drinking my coffee (black — cream or sugar both could upset my system) and Aurora drinking tea and with her delicate mouth nibbling at a pastry.

When she had entered into the shop our eyes met and we both had a shiver simultaneously run through us. I could see it in her body and I could see it in her face. This was the third time that had happened.

We started with the kind of light conversation that two virtual strangers might. Although I mostly let Aurora tell me about herself, her family, her education, her likes and dislikes. I lied and told her I was alone and without family. Well, the last of my family had died about 650 years before, so it wasn't stretching the truth that much. My most recent foray into education I could discuss with her. I could throw out the names of any of an half-dozen undergraduate colleges that I had attended at one time or another as well as my most recent medical school, residency and those sorts of details.

Then we switched to the subject that was so dear to Aurora's heart; the life and times of Louis XIV and his court, especially life at Versailles.

We shared our knowledge of the period (she from studying it, I from living it) and she revealed, after swearing me to secrecy, even more about the actual extent of her family's archives that she had inherited. The family Molyneux had kept voluminous records.

They even had a Chopin Waltz that he had written for them after he had stayed with them for a summer — by that time they had repurchased a portion of the old estate, including the Chateau. They refused to share it outside the family, something I regarded as an excess of family pride over sharing an intellectual gem with the world.

I had never known at the time that her grand-mère had kept a diary, although I should have suspected it. It was very common among the wealthy and the aristocracy to have a daily journal.

Then she came to a point where she hesitated before speaking and when she did speak it was barely above a whisper. A bit melodramatic and one would think unnecessary.

"There is a very mysterious man who she writes about in her diary. I think that she may have had an affair with him! Not as if affairs weren't common enough at Louis' court.

"But I thought that you would be amused by the fact that his name was 'Christian' — just like yours. I'm not sure about much yet, because she was being very cagey about what she said, almost like she was worried if anyone were to read her diary."

"Well," I asked, very interested now for the obvious reasons, "What do you know about him?" She couldn't see my clenched fists below the table as I prayed that Aurora had been circumspect in her memoirs.

"I guess it's easier to tell you some of the things that I don't know. His first name was 'Christian', but I don't know his surname. My grand-mère once made a joke about him being her 'little/big' man in such a way that I think that she was hinting about his surname, because she otherwise said that he was tall.

"I'm also not sure about what he did at the court. Sometimes she calls him an astronomer, other times she says he is an astrologer — something that confuses a lot of people even today, so I don't know what to think. Then at other times she implies that he was a physician, because he is curing people of illnesses by bleeding them; something else that was very common for a physician to do at the time."

Then she blushed.

"I know I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know so I apologize if I seem like I'm lecturing an undergraduate in class!"

I laughed, and then picked up her hand from the table and began to kiss the tips of her fingers one after the other.

"You," kiss, "don't," kiss, "bother me," kiss, "in," kiss, "the least!" one last kiss. I looked up at her face to see if she was disturbed or offended by my rather forward actions.

What I saw was her eyes closed and her face pointed slightly up as if she was enraptured. When they opened again, there were tears. But she took my hand and wouldn't let go.

"Christian, you know that there is a magic of some kind between us?" she asked. She meant it in a figurative way; I knew it was a real 'magic' if such a thing exists. Love at first sight, perhaps?

"Oh god, what am I going to do now," she continued, more or less to herself.

"I have to talk to Phillip," was her final thought.

"I know and I understand," I replied, even though she wasn't really asking for my input.

"No you don't. You can't!" she told me looking directly into my eyes.

"I can't understand that you are his 'beard'?"

She almost fell out of her chair when I said that.

"Is it really that obvious?" came her plaintive cry.

"No, it isn't. So you can calm yourself.

"At the party last night my nurse, Maria, spent some time with him, while she was fending off the singer and the football player. Maria, like you, I suspect, has been dealing with lustful, aggressive men who want to enjoy her attentions since she first grew breasts. But when she spoke with Phillip she said that she didn't get ANY vibes that indicated he was interested in her at all. On the other hand, she also observed that he became animated and seemed far more interested in several of the men at the party who were trying to hit on her.

"She mentioned it to me on the way back to her place after the party last night. So while I truly didn't 'know', I had reason to suspect."

Aurora sat silently for a moment with her eyes looking down at the table, although our hands never came apart.

"I've known Phillip for, well, it seems like forever. We met in Chicago at a private Junior High School and we went to the same private High School. We ended up, without having planned or even having spoken about it, at the same university together.

"You're are correct in your surmise. It has always been mutually beneficial for us to be 'boyfriend/girlfriend, or more recently, an engaged couple.

"Having me as his nominal 'fiancée' protected him from being exposed for his sexuality. He has other male 'friends' and while I don't know what they do together, they are as discrete as he is about their sexuality.

"For me, having Phillip, a handsome, charming, and rich man as my 'fiancé' has always let me put off men without offending them too badly."

I interrupted her.

"But why is it important anymore? Phillip coming out of the closet would hardly make headlines — it is just too common. And I'm sure that you are certainly able to deal with any men whose attention is unwelcome."

"Oh, you're right about all of those things. But for Phillip there remains one other consideration: his parents. Not like they would disinherit him or anything of that sort, but I think he dreads disappointing them."

She turned inward for a moment before continuing.

"I actually think that his mother knows — or at least suspects. It's mainly his father who he is worried about. You understand: having an heir to carry on the Adam's family name, someone to take over the business eventually. All of the normal hopes and expectations that parents have for their children.

"I think that they are already getting concerned that we are 'engaged' but don't seem to be in any hurry to actually set a date for the wedding."

She sighed a deep sigh and then looked into my eyes again.

"But I think that something has happened between you and I. I don't pretend to understand it, but I can't deny it.

"I'm going to have to put an end to the charade of Phillip's and my engagement. I need to talk to him, because I cannot be with you until I have made the break with Phillip so that he is forewarned. I am still his friend and probably always will be," she concluded.

I smiled and then went on to impart to her a little tidbit from the night before.

"You want to know something rather funny, in a way? At the party last night, Alice told me that she expected that you would be parting ways with Phillip to be with me. I guess you and I didn't fool her, at least. And I suspect that you are correct that she has seen through his mask. So it is really just his father he needs to deal with."

She sighed and nodded her head in agreement.

We stood and left the shop, but before we parted we turned to each other and wrapped our arms around each other and for the first time, our lips met. It was not a deep kiss; it was not a mere peck on the cheek either. Our moist lips explored each other in a gentle way, not a lustful attack, but the meeting of two souls, the warmth of her body against mine as she relaxed and we melted into each other. It was all that I could have hoped for, as that now familiar connection between us was even stronger. I had died and gone to heaven; I was reunited with my eternal love.

"When can I see you again? If it were up to me, I would take you home with me right now and never let you leave my side." I had almost said 'again' but fortunately that didn't slip out.

"No, Christian. I need to see Phillip tonight and let him know. And if he needs me to, I'll need to go and help him tell his parents, as well. Let's talk tomorrow and decide what to do then. I want to be with you just as badly as you tell me you want me. But we will need to think about our future together and not just charge ahead on emotions. I still have to finish my degree. We need to figure out how we can have a long-distance relationship, with you in Nashville and me in Chicago. And," Aurora paused and took a deep breath before she spoke again, "I am a virgin and I'm afraid. I'm afraid of being with a man, but even more, I fear losing you."

"You cannot even conceive how much I fear losing YOU," I replied.

"Okay, let's talk tomorrow. But please, please understand, that I count the hours until we can be together again."

Then we parted each in our separate ways, both anxious to begin a life together.

~~ XV. Nashville — Two weeks later ~~

I wasn't there when Aurora told Phillip that the pretense of their engagement was going to have to come to an end. She told me afterwards that Phillip was really very happy for her and understood that it would happen eventually. They would remain the best of friends.

I wasn't there when they told his parents either.

As I had predicted, Alice wasn't especially surprised by the news.

The real surprise was that George wasn't THAT shocked by it either. And while he wasn't overjoyed by it, it hadn't crushed him and it hadn't caused the kind of family rift that Phillip had feared.

"We are not the first family to face this issue," George said, "but that doesn't mean that we are not going to continue to support you and honor your decisions. We still love you, son."

And that was about all there was to it. Phillip said that he wasn't going to publicly come out or anything. In fact he told his parents he wasn't entirely sure which way he was headed. He told them that although he thought that he was mainly attracted to men, he sometimes found himself very attracted to one specific woman or another, but the situation had never been right for him to explore. They had always been unavailable one way or the other. He explained that Stephanie was very attractive, but they had known each other for so long that he had never looked at her as the object of his romantic urges; she was his best friend.

"So now I'm free to be with you, Christian," Aurora said as she updated me over a glass at a wine bar in Franklin, the town just south of Brentwood.

We toasted to our future happiness before dealing with the real thorny issues that still faced us in a life together.

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We began to actively (and exclusively, I might add) date, my Aurora and I. We did the kinds of things that people in love would do, short of making love.

I was patient; after all, having waited for her return for three hundred years, what would a couple of weeks or even a couple of months be?

Aurora was of two competing urges. The first was her fear of finally giving herself completely to a man who, to be honest, she had known for such a short time. The second impulse was to have me take her and make her mine completely.

So we did things together. We visited museums; we went to concerts and visited the honky-tonk bars on Broadway Street in downtown Nashville to listen to country western and jazz music. We attended several sporting events — as a 'faculty' member at Vanderbilt I could easily get tickets to watch their first-class baseball team.

And it was at a Nashville Predators hockey game that I discovered a raging hockey fan sitting with me. Who would have thought that my petit and demure PhD candidate could be so invested in the outcome of a game? Fortunately for me, she had adopted the Predators as 'her' team. Fans in the stands for twenty feet on all sides of us were amused as could be at my companion as she led them in cheers for the 'home' team.

It wasn't until toward the end of summer when we finally decided to take a trip away together. A trip where we would finally be 'together' in the carnal sense of the word.

We weren't going far. One of my fellow physicians at Vandy had a beach house on the Gulf coast of Florida that he rented out and he convinced me that having a stand-alone house would be a much better experience for us than a hotel. We would have our own refrigerator, a kitchen, and, oh by the way, he also had a fishing boat we could use if we got bored! I laughed at that, but with Aurora I never knew what adventure might appeal to her.

But in a single house, we could make as much noise as we wanted without having people pounding on the walls. And it was my intention to make Aurora's first time the experience of a lifetime. Hopefully of an eternal lifetime together with me.

The drive from Brentwood to Panama City takes about 8 hours down I-65, and then on more secondary roads through Alabama. I had Maria clear my Thursday (I didn't normally work Fridays) and Aurora and I left early Thursday morning.

The drive gave us the chance to talk and share with each other in a more private setting that the public places we had usually been meeting.

Intellectually, I knew that she was a separate person from my Aurora of more than 300 years past, but for all of the differences granted by modernity, the aspects that they had in common were still staggering.

They both had a kindness in their hearts and empathy towards their fellows. They were also serious and students and observers of the world around themselves. Although the modern Aurora was educated far beyond her forbearer, the Aurora of Louis' court had been just as diligent in trying to understand philosophy, religion, history and all of the other topics of discussion of her time, yet she had to do so with far fewer intellectual tools and training at her disposal.

The beautiful little cottage that we were staying in was close to, but not right on the beach. It would eventually suffer, as many of its neighbors, total destruction at the hands of the great hurricane that struck the area. But at that time, it was a charming and romantic get-away.

We arrived in time for a late lunch after settling in at the cottage. We wore our swimsuits under light outerwear, as well as sandals so after stopping at one of the beachside cafes, we simply crossed the street and there we were. We spread out towels on the sand and spent several hours in the sun.

There was an uncomfortable moment, as I was rubbing sunscreen on my beloved, when she turned to me and asked,

"Christian? At lunch I was famished, but you hardly touched your food." She laughed, "You sometimes seem like a child; you spread your food out with your fork on the plate and pretend that you've eaten it!"

I smiled at her, having had to deal with this issue often times in the past,

"Dearest, I do have a digestive problem — nothing serious I assure you — but often I'm not very hungry. I must eat enough because I don't lose any weight."

Then I laughed as well, "I think that I got into that 'childish' habit to keep people from worrying about me. So don't pay me any notice if all you see me eating is a bite or two, or mainly drinking. I'll explain it to you sometime soon, but not this weekend! This weekend is for us to have time to ourselves and to enjoy the sun and the sand."

That seemed to satisfy her. And THIS woman I would tell honestly as I could, as soon as I felt that she could possibly believe my history without running from me as fast as she could. My fear of losing her if she really knew who and what I am was overwhelming.

At last, though, the time had come for us to consummate our love, an event that I faced with a mixture of joyous anticipation and mortal fear. I had hundreds of years of experience satisfying my lover's demands as well as my own lust, but I had not had one so dear to me since Aurora at Louis' court. What can I do, I asked myself time after time, to ensure that her first experience with me was so overwhelming that she would from then on be unable to even think of needing another lover? At the same time, I promised myself not to use any of the artifices on her that had succeeded with hundreds of other women, not even the sharing of a drop my blood. Not until after she and I had our talk about my true nature.