Scarlet Letters

I thought about Léticia, the other day.
I remembered a time when this wouldn’t be News.

Then, suddenly, I could taste the bile.

There’s almost no-one I really dislike, at the end of the day,
but right there, for some reason, is a person I could have done without altogether.
A soul-poacher of sorts.
A predator posing as a house pet.
I last ran into her at an “industry” party in Paris, a few months ago.
I was tempted to say “I ran into her accidentally”, but this party had a fairly deliberate Guest List, from the standpoint of its organizers.
A party, I concluded later, whose hidden agenda was really to trick a group of people who despise one another into a small space. ’Sounds strange?
Not really, you’d have to know some of the individuals involved;
I ask for your trust here.
She looked mighty good – Damn !– Slender, Curves in all the right places – Pregnancy took no Fee on that body!
I can usually do a good job of showing no emotions at Parties ( I work in movies, dammit! ), but I guess I was tired of the empty, cynical, Parisian idle chit-chat with the sort of people who would, just a few years prior, gladly extract my liver in public and stab it with the heel of their Italian Designer shoe.
A breakup, following an intense encounter, seems to always cause “one of the parties” to mutate into a Shrew.
Or worse.
Is that really necessary? I guess it is.
Bile is a necessary liquid secreted by the Gal Bladder.

My mind wandered to a Winter, a few years back.

I was being dumped on the phone, her in Paris, me in Rome; I was scouting a ravishing Italian Villa with a film crew. I sat by a fountain and watched the flowing icy water running a hundred feet down the hill across the manicured garden.

She was shrieking into the phone.

Having zero control over the course of a romance, or a phone call, for that matter, is similar to death by squad. Everything that is said is about power. How she has all of it, and how you have none. A form of emotional Death Row.
Guillotine, if the Girlfriend is from Paris.

Of course, on Death Row, at least, you know what the rules are...

I took a while to crawl out of that hole.
Intact? Mostly.
But the spirit took a hit.
Proximity to base behavior can sometimes leave deep gouges into the soul.

I poured the Valerian Root down the drain and went looking for an Exorcist.

I feel somewhat sorry for Léticia, when I ponder what aging will do to her, removing every last artifice of seduction and youth.

A human Venus Fly Trap, wilting; the Corpse of a Horsefly rotting softly, stuck to the roof of her Labia Carnivora.
You don't even think of Vengeance, when you know Life is waiting for someone ’round the corner.
Life can pack more cruelty than I could ever devise.
You can hear Mother Nature whispering into your ear, Tony Soprano-like:
“Want me to take care of it, for ya”?

She saw me and lit up like a Dentist's lamp, with that beaming PR white-toothed Smile; Léticia wants friendship and assurance that she has left the premises in the shape she found them in.
Not a chance!
She’d once told me that none – not a single one – of her former lovers agreed to speak to her anymore .

Did I take that as a cue to run for the nearest exit? No.

So, as she walked toward me, looking to retrieve some emotional security deposit, I looked away slowly and carried on with my conversation in progress. There was a strange beat; she stopped abruptly, realizing that I was leaving her hanging, right there, in front of half a dozen people. She shook her head, let out a tiny: “oh”!
Turned around, and faded into the crowd.

Pathetic of me, sure, but gratifying. She really had spent all her credit.

Some folks, in subtle ways, manage to get you to play their games well past closing time…Mostly, even always, I indulge them – to a point... Small talk at a party usually falls into that category, but denying someone the most basic of verbal acknowledgment in a social setting is akin to branding them with a modern day Scarlet Letter.
Alternatively “A”, “B” or “C” in this case.

’Possibly the most seductive girl I ever met, certainly the most amazing to look at from any angle – of course.

A total-human-shit.
The sort of girl who would call her lover from another man's bed, to confess.
But then, she didn’t smoke.

After the party, Hélène, our altruitic host, put her arm around me, and with a sly grin, asked: “You Alright, ...Was that OK, seeing Léti, like that”?

“Protect me from my friends...”, the saying goes, “...I can take care of my enemies”.

Léticia is such the French name for a Brunette Girlfriend. She couldn’t even spell it right.
The way the Great Gainsbourg intended:
“L-æ-t-i-t-i-a”
Lætitia.

-What’s with that, anyway?