• • •

I am a pacifist, a moralist, a sensualist, and I am also very selfish; in short, I am a religious man. I am an original, drawn from the master’s template, modelled from the earth itself. And as all prototypes are, I am marked with imperfections. I am also a historian because that is where I come from – his story.

When you have been around as long as I have, the details of your mythology become blurred, and you forget little bits of important information – like what your first wife’s name was. And to top it off, you have scholarly old men making up new stories and changing the old stories around. Every incarnation, I have to excavate the past and interpret the symbols of what my intuition cannot quite articulate: apples, paradise, snakes, and sex.

• • •

I get lazy sometimes, and occasionally play the field, live like a playboy, or rest awhile in a complacent marriage. I am always happy and rejuvenated when I snap out of it and return to my purpose. After a month and a half of chronic nocturnal emissions, and three unfulfilling years of marriage, I set out to track down the apparition of my erotic dreams. It is no easy task to search for someone when you don’t recall their name.

I grew deeply immersed in this investigation, revelling in the affairs of Dante and Beatrice, Napoleon and Josephine, Abelard and Héloise. I tore through these obsessive romances and held them to my chest as I contemplated my imaginary lover and the potential of my heart. I finally stumbled upon her name in the Encyclopedia of Woman’s Myths and Secrets. It was in this tome that I became wired to prepatriarchal symbols and unabridged legends, and via the pure power of longing, was transported naked back into her arms.

• • •

Paris is for lovers. God’s truth. I cruised the streets of Montmartre until I found her. I recognized her immediately, her confident stance under the street lamp – Baalat to the Canaanites, Belili to the Sumer-Babylonians – my sweet Lilith. I slipped the 900 francs into her hand and held on tightly as we walked to my hotel. The cafés were full, the June air was intoxicating, her hand in mine felt primal and perfect. She was perfect, and as she undressed I apologized for the way I had treated her all those years ago.

We spent three weeks in a euphoric state that accentuated the month of June with the aroma of eucalyptus, musk and other essentials. Red wine, baguettes, and brie were the language of our affair. She left every night for a few hours to fulfill the duties of her occupation, and always returned from her mischief exhausted and with a look of sadness in her eyes. Though we both spoke several dead languages, I resolved to learn French, the language of our present geography – to communicate my desire into poetry, and let her know that our children would be born of love and respect, not of shame and regret. I was damn serious about this.

I promised her what I had probably promised her a hundred times by now – I would make it up to her, and treat her above everything else as my equal. She sighed and to her credit tried to smile. I realized that thousands of years of repression were not going to be compensated for with a promise and a semi-submissive role in bed, but I had been perfecting my cunnilingus technique and I was innately bound to her with a passion and devotion that was growing stronger everyday.

She seemed pleased with me in a teacher/student kind of a way. I made great efforts to communicate in a variety of ways. I painted her pictures, cooked meals that would express my mood – spicy, complex, exotic, or sweet. I spoke with my hands and with my eyes. I let my heart rule me. I was learning and loving it, but part of me was still running around with a leaf covering my shame.

• • •