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 Once upon a time, I was an ambitious knight who fell off his horse and only then realized that he forgot to put on his armor. Call my boy a clumsy and neurotic Parzival, one with no faith in holy grails and an over-sized libidinous throbbing that he willfully mistook for romance.Her red lips, warm and full, were blanched and pale, since the day when the world's joy forsook her. No maid ever pined so cruelly; because of her grief she dwelt alone. -- Wolfram von Eschenbach Ah, Wolfram, you described my seductive sweetheart right down to her piney forsook. Had the unfortunate maiden known from the beginning of our courtship that her piney Parzival had a problematic penchant for misplaced chivalry, she might have saved herself a lot of pain. Had she seen the sword behind my swoon, she might have mounted my abandoned horse instead of mounting me. But we were young, and I suppose we'd read the same fairytales. Today I look back on this saccharin saga and I chuckle, but at the time I was a maudlin mess. Mid-twenties, egocentric bookworm, inexperienced in the art of love and yet determined to find the same. Call it a quest and me a fool. I meant well; I just should have tried to stay on my horse a little longer. I met her on the job. I had three years' worth of experience with the company when she came on board as a recent and ambitious college graduate. Wet behind the oily orecchios, but that fact could not deter me from playing the part of patient advisor. I wore silk shirts in subtle paisley prints, collars opened wide and invitational. The requisite gold chains hung round my neck. Narrow waist. Hips pushed forward, begging for the next audition. Too much cologne for a self-absorbed knight without armor. She looked to me the way I wanted her to look. She wore blue jeans, and I saw a pleated skirt. She smiled infrequently, and I imagined humility. She licked her lips, and I beheld the Virgin Mary. "I like you, but…" she said. "But last night we made love!" I answered. She demurred and I pursued. She played hide and I played seek. She said no and I said yes. She asked for a reason and I declared that one existed. I don't know why she eventually surrendered. I'm sure it wasn't the subtle paisley pattern. I'd like to think it was the audition, but the most likely answer has to do with youth and insecurity. We lasted but a short time. So many of us back then lasted but a short time. Divorce was as much a part of our imagined revolution as were our sad vanilla candles. *** Thanks for stopping by to visit us here at SpilledBeans.com. If you'd like to be notified whenever something new is posted to SpilledBeans.com, then please join the Spilled Beans notification list. -- Con affetto, Anthony V. Toscano, Editor SpilledBeans.com  |
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