Condemnation & Redemption

* * * * *

Clair de Lune Claude Debussy

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

.

(5.5 min/mp3)

* * * * *

~~ XVII. Perdue en Purgatoire ~~

I looked for her.

I started in all of the places I thought she might have gone in Nashville first. Perhaps she was at a hotel or someplace just taking a couple of days to accustom herself to the idea of my excessive longevity. But no, she wasn’t in a hotel. I waited, hoping to hear from her.

I checked with the Adams — but neither Phillip nor Alice admitted to seeing or hearing from her. I believed them because they seemed so shocked at her disappearance. They asked me ‘why?’ I didn’t even try to answer, but they understood that it was something very bad — très mal.

But from Phillip I did get the information about Aurora’s parents in Chicago. I traveled to Chicago suburb where they lived and found their home. When I simply arrived at their doorstep, they could see my angst, my love, and while they didn’t understand what exactly had happened between Aurora and me, they knew it was not some trivial affair or anything so petty.

They let me come in to their home; they were civil and seemed, if anything, sympathetic. But the only things they could tell me were that Aurora was safe, and that she had in fact received her PhD. But that even they had no idea where she was. I left to return to Nashville with a heavy and broken heart.

I hired search firms to see if they could find her, but they were all unsuccessful. It was as if she had disappeared into the mist.

My work at the hospital continued and I was still giving my patients adequate care — but it was Maria who shocked me into some sort of action one evening — if not to find Aurora, at least to try and recover my soul. She had come by my place to check on me; it had gotten that bad that my subservients were concerned for my health. Not that I was in any real jeopardy.

She approached me from behind as I sat in a chair in my public rooms and wrapped her arms around me while nuzzling my neck and kissing me on my neck and the sides of my face. She was truly fond of me.

“Christian,” she called me departing from her usual ‘Doc’, “you need to get out and do something to begin moving past Aurora. Maybe you should take a leave of absence and travel. Go somewhere that has pleasant memories for you. Try some new place that you’ve never been. But don’t just sit here being depressed!

“You know that Gary and I are an item these days, but he knows that if you want me — for anything — that I will do it.” She laughed a brief laugh, “If you swung that way, he would do anything you wanted. You could have us both if you were feeling kinky!”

I actually laughed while I pulled her around onto my lap and gave her a full kiss on her delightful mouth. She was already getting very sexually excited but was a little shocked when I turned her over my knee and pulled down her uniform pants. It was not a surprise to me that she had been going commando.

First, I gave her absolutely world-class ass a caress, then I followed it with a smack. Not too hard because I wasn’t trying to punish her. I was actually rewarding her.

I spent another bit of time caressing her cheeks, followed by another smack. She was moaning by this time.

The third time, I caressed her cheeks, and then I slipped my finger down to her light brown anal rose and began gently massaging it. I put my finger up close to her face where she could take it into her mouth and put it in.

“Make it wet,” I instructed and she obeyed. Then I moved it back down, this time to her clitoris and began gently massaging her petit homme dans le bateau, that little man in the boat.

She orgasmed shortly after that.

I sat her back up and kissed her again.

“You are right. I need to leave this place for a time and return to my roots. Thank you for awakening me.”

She smiled. “And what can I do to help?”

“Well…”

And we spent the next several hours laying out my plan. On the morrow I would talk to my hospital chief of staff and the head administrator to get the ball rolling, while Maria started making reservations.

Soon I found myself flying across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris Orly Airport.

I had rented an ‘appartement’ in Paris on the Isle Saint Louis, which sits right next to the Isle de la Cité, connected by bridges, in the middle of the Seine river. I was there before the tragic fire that so badly damaged Notre Dame, so I didn’t see the depression and angst of the residents that would come later.

For me to return to my birthplace of Paris would seem like, how goes the expression, taking coals to Newcastle? But I hadn’t been back to Paris for close to a hundred years for any kind of extended stay. I had just passed through on my way to somewhere else. But this time I expected to spend some time just returning to my old haunts (if you will pardon my gest.)

I wandered about taking in the sights in the city; alas for me, at least, the changes had not been entirely for the better. The modern toilets, modern lights, the metro and many of the conveniences we take for granted were improvements on the old Paris. But it lacked the ambiance of the past.

Where were the local bars in the Montmartre where you might enter for a drink and find Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec drinking his absinthe and drawing the local women of the night? The Moulin Rouge was a pure tourist trap — a very expensive one at that — now sullied by a Starbucks© coffee shop across the street. For that matter, only a few of the ‘moulins’, the famous windmills that had dotted the area, were left.

The gas lights along the avenues at night that inspired Ravel’s ‘La Valse’ or Eric Satie’s music of Paris were long gone.

Thank you for little favors — at least the Eiffel Tower was still as it had been, except in keeping with our modern age, it was surrounded with anti-terrorist security.

The Louvre, of course, can only be entered through the glass pyramid of Monsieur I.M. Pei, which many considered a sacrilege when it was built. The day I tried to go, the Louvre was closed because the security guards were on strike, demanding additional help against the pickpockets who were running amok among the tourists.

The wine was inexpensive and very good. I found that in decadent Paris, blood for my sustenance was still easy to obtain. C’est la vie.

I was amused at people’s reactions when Roma women, who are like vultures ready to feed on the tourist as a buzzard feeds on a carcass, instead of trying to crowd me to relieve me of my possessions, would quick move to avoid me, making the sign of the cross and muttering about demons in their midst. Perhaps some of them DO have the sight.

But after several days of aimless wondering, I faced the greatest emotional challenge of my trip. My return to Versailles.

~~* XVIII Versailles *~~

I left the Paris ‘appartement’ behind and made reservations at one of the many overpriced Bed & Breakfast style inns located in the village (also called Versailles) surrounding the great palace.

The lines were too long, even for those with prepaid tickets, but I would endure the wait. I had a ticket that was limited to the Palace, for what need had I to spend my time in the old out buildings?

Despite my own acquaintance with the palace, I decided to take one of the tours that took visitors into rooms and areas that were normally off limits to the casual visitor.

Oddly enough, even though I had been a resident of the palace for some years, there were areas such as the Queens private chambers that had been off limits even to me. Others, like the Kings private rooms, I had only been in several times to consult with his regular physicians, and even then, never into his inner rooms like his bed chambers. So I finally entered into these ‘holy of holies,’ long after the Kings and Queens had been laid in their graves.

I was saddened by the sparseness of original furnishings — during the horror of the Revolution much of the furniture had been either destroyed or stolen and sold. The King’s desk had just been restored to the palace through a purchase from the English branch of the Rothschild family for something like 15 million Euros!

Of course, the tours all ended in the most famous room in the palace, the ‘Hall of Mirrors,’ where we were free to wander and admire.

I found myself back at a window facing out over the gardens looking at the same fountain where I had first met my eternal love, my soul, my Aurora, some 325 plus years before. I stood there reflecting on God’s way to create a hell on earth for me. Twice I had found her and twice I had lost her. My grief threatened to overwhelm me and I began to wonder why I had such an irrational if not masochistic desire to return to the place of my tragic loss.

Suddenly, though, I felt a strange change in the ether. The chatter and noise of the hundreds of people in the great room went still. The gardens were empty, vacant. I was disoriented; my head was reeling.

Then, from the other side of the room, came the tapping sound of a single pair of shoes walking in my direction. I turned towards the sound. The room is a long one and all I could see at the other side of the room was a thick fog like unto none that I had ever seen before. Still there came the clacking sound of heels on the floor.

Gradually a figure began to emerge from the mist; a woman with blond hair and the fairest of skin, wearing a red dress trimmed with lace and gold brocade. The very dress that my dearest Aurora wore the first night that we met in Louis’ palace.

I fell to my knees unable to stand in the presence of my lost love.

The phantom began to rush to me and enveloped me in her arms, my face at waist level, clinging to her body.

“Oh, my dearest Christian! Oh, how I’ve missed you!”

“Aurora! My love, my dearest! This cannot be! This must be an illusion; perhaps an hallucination… My mind must be failing me. But you seem so real. So alive.”

She laughed with that sound that thrilled my soul and pulled me to my feet. We stood there with our hands touching looking into each other’s eyes.

“Well, my love, God can work miracles, n’est ce pas? Perhaps this is one. Perhaps it is the result of the eternal love between us. Do you remember when I first asked you if you loved me?”

“Of course. I replied, ‘I said yes, today and forever.’”

She smiled that angelic smile at me and nodded her head in agreement.

“Just so. And I loved you also that day and will love you forever as well.

“It was to my eternal regret that I could not be with you as we wished, but I have watched over you always.

“I watched as you raised our son to be a fine and honorable man. I saw how you took care of our family during the terrible years. And I watched as you had many women! Oh my, Christian, you are a rogue and a scoundrel!” She laughed again. “But I understand; no woman born could possibly refuse you. I also saw that you never gave your heart to any of them. Oui?”

“But this time — my image reborn many generations beyond my lifetime — you have given your heart to her, haven’t you?”

“Yes I have. I could not help myself because she is you reincarnated. She has the same soul, the wit, the charm and the love that I found with you. I’m sorry if I have fallen in love with your reflection.”

She smiled at me gently.

“I know dear Christian. And I am glad. It doesn’t diminish your love for me, nor mine for you. And you deserve to live a rich and full life with her. She is more than just a reflection — she is the woman I would have wished to be.”

At that point, I choked up.

“But I have lost her. I should have told her of my ‘nature’ and let her decide if she could be with a monster such as I. I feared her rejection too much, so I postponed and procrastinated, and she discovered my secret accidentally. So I have lost her anyway. I cannot find her to explain or to beg her forgiveness. And I am lost — je suis perdu! I have even thought of ending it all by my own hand.”

“Love, do not despair,” she told me, “I cannot let you descend into such a low state of mind.” She smiled again and bent over and kissed me — such a kiss that I had not had in over 300 years. It caused my spirit to lift, even as she lifted my body up from the floor.

Her eyes twinkled.

“Did you ever reflect on your desire to return to Versailles at this moment in time?” I stood silent.

“Perhaps your heart was guiding you to where you should seek out your love. Or perhaps I might have come to you by night in your dreams whispering ‘sweet Christian, come visit me where we first met so that we could be together at least once more?”

Aurora waved her hand in one of those archetypical French gestures dismissing the speculation.

“Christian! Your prayers are answered.”

Just as suddenly as the sounds of the tourists had disappeared noise came again from the far end of the room. The mist was much lighter and I could see a tour group entering the Hall on the far side, guided by one of docents.

“And we end our tour of Versailles here in the Hall of Mirrors. Please enjoy yourselves for the rest of your time here at the grand palace of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and feel free to ask me any questions that you may have.”

Then the docent turned and began walking towards Aurora and me. The fog enveloped the tourists and soon only one person began emerging through the mist — the second incarnation of Aurora! The Aurora of the 21st century.

She wasn’t really paying attention and seemed preoccupied until with a start she stopped where she stood and starred at her Great-‘grand-mère’ and me. She was speechless. In truth, wouldn’t you be also?

She was dressed in a very professional style, in a grey woolen jacket over a white blouse with lace showing between the lapels. She had a matching skirt and black shoes with low heels.

She finally gasped, “Christian? Is that truly you? And is that… is that?”

It was Aurora who answered.

“Oui, ma chère, c’est moi. Yes, my dear. It is I, Aurora Stephanie Marie Molyneux, l’Comptesse d’F… I understand that you and I share the same name and the same blood, although I passed from this vale of tears so long ago. Long before you were born. I am so glad to finally see you, flesh of my flesh.

“And yes, you were right — Christian was my lover, my love, my soul mate and the father of my son. He was everything to me; a beautiful and wondrous man and a father of our son beyond compare. Yet, you run from him and hide? Can you tell me why? Most women would do anything to be with him, to hold him and to love him.”

Aurora (the younger) looked at me, and then at Aurora (the elder — I’ll call her l’Comptesse) as if we were crazy. I suppose being quizzed by the ghost of your ancestor 325 some years in the past might confuse the most sane and stable of people.

She took a minute before answering.

“Madam, I agree with you that the man, who I perceived Christian to be, was the man you describe. But even in your own diary you call him ‘a monster’. When I realized that he had to be at least 325 years old. I ran, for my own survival depended on my escaping the evil spell that had captured my heart! He had lied to me by concealing that he was not human. Indeed, even now, I don’t know what he is.”

Then she broke down sobbing as she slowly crumpled to the floor. I started to move forward but a hand constrained me. Then the spirit of l’Comptesse moved to lift the young woman back to her feet.

“Come, my dear, stand up — we women of Normandy are strong and have always faced adversity. And now it is your turn to see and overcome the reality of your situation.

“Yes, I did call Christian a ‘monster’ once in my diary — that was when I realized that he lived by drinking human blood. Including mine — which I freely gave. If that were widely known in that day and age, that he was a ‘vampire’, he would have been executed immediately. I called him a monster because I had no other word to describe his physical nature. Yet, I continued to love him and join with his flesh even after I understood he was not a normal man. After all, I bore him a son.”

I was myself surprised at this revelation, that she had detected my true nature all of those years ago. She had never accused or reproached me at the time, and I had never examined her journal to see what she wrote of me.

She glanced at me before looking back to Aurora, who was back standing with us.

“He never told me either; but my love was such that it could overcome his,” she smiled, “sin of omission. I also knew of his undying love and devotion to me.

“If I had survived my childbearing, I would have found a way to live with him the rest of my life, even though I was already married and would have suffered the great shame of being regarded as a whore by the entire world.

“Ours was a love for the ages. I think that you could also

have such contentment with my dearest Christian!

“Can you, at least, speak with him? Give him the chance to tell you of his love for you; of the fears that he suffers of your rejecting him, of finding him unfit? Can you take this chance? I think that you will be eternally rewarded if you will.”

Aurora silently nodded her agreement with l’Comtesses’ request. Then the woman who I had worshipped for the past 325 years turned to me.

“Alas, my Christian. I must go now; the task that has kept me tied to this place is complete. My wish is for both of you to find happiness in each other. ‘Bonne chance,’ good luck my dearest, and never forget me. Find a new love with my lovely daughter, many generations removed, and give her the rich life, full of joy and happiness that we were deprived of. I shall not see you again in this life. Adieu.”

Then she turned and walked back into the mist, slowly disappearing until she was almost gone, when she turned briefly and touched her lips and reached towards me with her fingers. Then another step and she was gone.

Adieu, adieu, my love.

I turned to my new love and offered her my hand. She took it.

The room was suddenly full of tourists again, as if our visit with l’Comtesse had never occurred. At that very moment one of the members of Aurora’s tour group came and asked her a question about Louis and Versailles that she patiently answered.

“Can we talk?” I asked her.

“Yes. Let’s walk in the garden,” she replied.

We walked and talked in Louis’ gardens for about an hour, then we went to dinner in the village, where she ate and I drank some wine, and we talked more. We had so much that we needed to share.

I spoke to her about my youth, about my emergence into my present state. About the days at the palace where I had loved her forebearer. About my sins and how I managed to live my life. I told her more about myself than I had ever told another person — including her predecessor, l’Comptesse.

We spent the week together there in the village of Versailles and it’s surrounding areas. We were at peace with each other, but did we still have the love we had shared in Nashville? We didn’t know.

She asked tough questions.

“Christian — now that I’ve seen my ‘grand-mère’ in the flesh, so to speak,” she had an ironic laugh, “How do I know that it is really me who you love and not just because I am the image of l’Comptesse?”

I didn’t have to think about that.