earnest_suicide

I was sitting on the curb 20th and Lincoln, right outside the entrance to Golden Gate Park, It was a cool crisp overcast day right before the new year. I was sipping my coffee staring at the trees, watching a raven tear apart a paper cup. Watching as it carefully ripped the cup into a spiral, then it few off with the cup hanging like a ribbon from it's beak. I turned my head following the motion and from across the street I received a wry smile.

"Come sit with me" She was sitting at an odd little urban meeting place (equal parts cafe, bar, art gallery and music venue) at a Scandinavian bistro table, wearing a black and white tweed coat. She waved as I began to walk, "I had a funny feeling you were going to be around."

I walked across the street, nervously fumbling in my pockets, trying to avoid her eyes, far too intense for my blurry self to bear.

"Don't worry , I won't run away so fast this time." A laugh, making people uneasy was one of her greatest joys; she told me it was about the power. She also said that she could never bear to make me too uneasy, for some reason I elicited in her a compassion that she didn't think she still possessed.

"Umm, hi. What's your name." I mumbled looking at the ground, my hands still in my pockets.

"You can call me Ondine. Sit down, relax I won't bite you unless you pay me to." I sat, still trying to avoid her eyes, "You are the funniest thing, like a puppy." Her hands moved casually through my hair. She smiled, softly; a new expression that I hadn't seen her make yet. "Well what is it that you are called?"

"I'm Theodore, you can call me Thad."

"No I can't. I'll call you by your full name, when I call you anything at all."

Abruptly she stood up, took the last gulp of her tea, straitened her coat, and pulled up the zipper on the inside of her black heeled boots covering up the grey and black hounds-tooth stockings she was wearing, (I hadn't noticed before that her boots were unzipped -- she couldn't sit with shoes on, it was unlucky). She offered me her hand, "Let's go."

"Where?"

"We are getting a cheap bottle of whiskey and going to the park, we need to relax that jittery ass of yours, some downers will do you good for a change. I'd give you some queludes if I had them." She then produced a fifth of Jack from her purse.

She led me, taking me by the arm, elbows linked into the park, past the Natural history museum into the little hills and eucalyptus grove behind, she talked the whole time about herself and her life. It seems to me that I never had much to say to her, probably because I didn't have anything to say. I think she wanted, needed someone to listen to her. Before she started talking there was a minute or two of silence as she smiled and took a swig of the jack. The silence was unbearable to me, made my insides tighten, so I stupidly blurted out, "So what do you do?" She handed me the bottle.

"Have a drink, it will do you good, drugs are passe, it's soon going to be all about alcohol again -- I always have been ahead of my time." She laughed and snatched the bottle back as I finished my first drink. I was unaccustomed to liquor, and it burned and I coughed violently.

"What do I do? I think the question is 'what don't I do?'. I beat middle aged men for money and I bind and gag myself for the camera; it's a living I guess. I don't know how I got started, to be perfectly honest I've never really been into the whole dom-sub thing, it makes me better at what I do. The aprentenship sort of feel out of the sky, I was dating this girl (her name isn't important) who set me up with it so that I wouldn't have to start dancing again. It's funny that I chose to talk to you, I don't trust people period, men least of all; I like to be the one with intent. It's not that I think you're different then other men; I know you're not. I can tell by the way you look at me when you think I'm not watching -- it's just that you're different for me, does that make sense?" She lit a cigarette. "I suppose it doesn't matter." She exhaled, and as she did she sighed. At that moment she looked so old and so tired, I was filled with clemency. I unlinked my arm from hers, and took her by the hand and gave those small cold hands a firm squeeze. A small smile, "Thanks, you don't have much, but you have intuition and that means a lot."