The Madness of Joaquin Phoenix

I didn't know that Joaquin Phoenix was kicking his alcohol addiction in my friend's mountain rehabilitation center in Switzerland. Caroline is married to a Swiss and she always talked about setting-up her own business in something.

So, the two of us came up with a brilliant idea. We pooled our money together to start a small well-being center not far from the little village she had moved to five years ago. It was perfect. We found a spot of land in a valley surrounded by white snow covered, mountain peaks near the German border.

Although it was a great investment for a small time writer like me, I decided to relinquish my partnership for a small profit in the first year. A very rich client of hers had offered to invest a larger sum than I had initially.

The center quickly became well known in the European high society circles and eventually started to bring people in from the United States, mainly Hollywood.

From a meager staff consisting of a local yoga instructor, a French chef and a beauty specialist, the center expanded into a full rehab center boasting more than twenty staff including an MD and two nutritionists.

My marriage broke down the same time my first book was published. My husband became carried away with the amazing amount of money I was making suddenly. Things went downhill very rapidly in our relationship.

I couldn't take lightly the fact that he wanted to extravagantly use the money I was receiving from a book that took me years to write and drove me almost insane. I had no choice, I had to divorce him. It was not an amicable divorce and especially at the time, I had just started to get a B-list celebrity status myself.

My ex had planned to give interviews to newspapers with corny names while I got into a self-medicated depression state I didn't need. Caroline called me one day and told me to pack my bags to go to The Hibiscus, her luxurious two thousand euro a night rehab center. Free of charge of course.

It was about a month after I started hanging out in The Hibiscus at the height of summer, I saw someone standing on the peer of a small lake situated inside the sprawling fifteen acres of forest surrounding the ten guest chalets and the main office/reception area. He was wearing a really ugly red Hawaiian shirt, black shorts, travel slippers and appeared to be smoking a cigarette.

The lake was a good one hour hike from the main area where the chalets were. As far as I knew, I was the only one who walked to the lake almost everyday to get some inspiration for my second book.

"Hi!" I greeted a little breathlessly from the hike. He turned around and looked at me briefly.

He looked away again and quietly replied, "Hi," to no one in particular.

There were a few grey-blue ducks swimming in the lake and he was watching them intently. I proceeded to walk towards the tree which I had come to call my own in the last few days and sat underneath its green, leafy branches shaded from the glaring sun. I took out my laptop and switched it on.

Apologetically I said, "I'm sorry but I come here everyday so I hope I'm not bothering you or anything."

I didn't see his face clearly so I didn't know who exactly I was talking to. He kept on smoking his cigarette and didn't say anything. The ducks were gliding back and forth on the water looking for fish or whatever else they eat.

"Those ducks, I've never seen those kind before. They're different then the ones I've seen in the States," he said in a whispery tone that I had to strain my ears to catch what he was saying.

Something about his voice made me look up at him. He was facing me now, his back to the ducks. Then I realized where I might have heard that voice. Of course I also recognized the face from the countless magazines articles and movies.

Thick, bushy eyebrows and the famous scar above his upper lip. He wore his black, greasy hair longish and he was slightly overweight by the look of the small bump in his mid-section. I don't think I was shocked more than being surprised to see him. I already met a few celebrities by then professionally when I had attended some galas and sometimes in The Hibiscus itself.

I had only met one other A-lister before, a Miss Kidman at a charity party in London. I was just a little taken aback by his eyes. They were clear green and the moving tree branches were letting in some sunrays that seemed to be swallowed in them. They looked too intensely focused on me, even dangerously.

"I think they're called Pommern......," my voice trailed off as my mind was still digesting the information about who I was talking to.

It was not as if I had been a big fan of his. I think it was just an unexplainable curiosity. He quickly noticed that I recognized him. He flicked the cigarette stub away, came up to where I was sitting and extended his hand.

"I'm Joaquin but you can call me Joe as everyone mispronounces my name anyway," he said. His voice sounded too soft and subdued for someone who looked frighteningly menacing.

He pronounced it Wah-keen but I didn't need him to tell me how to pronounce it. I stood-up and took his hand in mine to shake it. It was soft and warm in my hand, like how a movie star's perfectly manicured, undamaged hand should feel like. He waited for what seemed like an hour to me with his hand clasped in mine before I replied.

"I'm Jules as in Verne," I said and immediately felt stupid at the remark.

As sudden as the sun can shine between dark rain coulds, his face broke into a smile.

"Julia Verne. How did you get a name like that? And what are the odds that another writer shares the same name of a classic science fiction writer from many years ago?" he asked suspiciously.

I thought for awhile and replied, "My ex-husband was called Michael Verne and I decided my pen name would be Julia Verne to have a nice sound to it....but everyone calls me Jules."

Now, I was intrigued that he knew who I was which probably meant he had read my book and seen my photo in the jacket. I waited for all the questions to come as usual about my controversial book.

He cocked his head as if looking behind me and said, "I read your book. I found it strangely interesting. It took me some time to finish it."

His full attention returned to my face suddenly. He still had my hand in his and his eyes were darting back and forth looking at both my eyes, with the same intensity he had watched the ducks.

"What goes on inside a mind of a writer who can write about such a taboo subject I wonder?" he obviously felt the need to interrogated me some more.

I had been asked many questions before about the book but not this one. This is the first time someone had questioned me about my mindset.

I threw caution to the wind and said, "Fucked-up just like you Joe. Isn't it obvious?"

He moved my hand towards his mouth in slow motion and kissed it.

"I knew you were here, that's why I picked this place to come to. I also knew you came to this very spot everyday to write your new book. I wanted to meet the woman who's not afraid to say what many of us couldn't talk about. I want to enshrine your fucked-up mind in my head. You see, I'm your biggest fan," he growled in a voice that had taken the quality of a low baritone in a mad orchestra.

He pulled me towards him, kissing me full on my mouth. It tasted like cinnamon cookies, cigarettes and wild musk. His hands wandered lightly on the small of my back while his lips sucked desperately at my mouth. I couldn't break away from the kiss although I wanted to. It completely took me by surprise and I realized I was kissing him back.

All at once the repressed anger, disappointment and unsatisfied sexual hunger from many months took me over. I grabbed his shoulders, put my arms around him and kissed him even more fiercely. I kissed him more passionately than I had ever kissed anyone else in my life.

I was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and a skirt. He pulled the t-shirt up above my chest and kissed my bra-clad breasts. At the same time he was pushing me to the ground and we both slowly fell on the grass.

He was lying on top of me, still kissing my breasts as he fumbled with the zipper on his shorts. He put one hand behind me and managed to unhook my bra without any problems. His moist mouth bit and sucked on my now naked breasts.

The same hand violently pulled my skirt up to my belly. Just for a few seconds, my mind reeled and I thought I should not let this happen. It was like a scene from a movie and it was crazy to be doing this with someone I met five minutes ago.

Then, I felt his fingers on my crotch trying desperately to get into the white silk panties I was wearing. I shifted my pelvis a little feeling the soft stubby fingers sliding inside the warm, wet center of me. Suddenly, he looked up at my face and I saw a manic gleam in those seas of green oceans he had for eyes. He was already free from the restraints of his shorts.

With the same expert hand that unhooked my bra, he tugged once at the flimsy panties. It ripped falling apart making me easily exposed for him to enter me. He guided himself between my legs, forcefully gliding into the entrance of my womanhood. He felt huge, hard and pulsed with a strange rhythmic twitch between my legs.

He was staring hard into my eyes and pleaded hoarsely, "Let me enshrine your beautiful, fucked-up mind inside me. Give yourself to me. Give in to me. Come into me Julia Verne." He was saying it repeatedly while he thrust himself into me.

I felt tight and unyielding to his thrusts while my whole body felt rigid against him. Like I didn't want him to get to whatever he was trying to get out of me or my mind. My fingers were scratching his back through the red ugly shirt.

I felt a rage rising up from the deep recesses of my body. I ripped at the buttons and threw the shirt aside. His fleshy body was burning hot like he was on the throes of a malevolent fever. The mildy cold summer wind did nothing to his naked skin. No prickles, no reaction. He was covered in a wet, glassy film of sweat.

I tasted his sweet salty essence on my tongue when I licked the skin on his ribs. His erected nipples darkened as my lips grazed over them. The thrusts were getting deeper and my body felt as if it was splitting in two. Wetness spread in the middle of my pelvic region spilling over my thighs drenching me with sweat and other secret liquids.

Whatever deep muscles that was blocking him from fully entering me, gave way to his thrusting and he went all the way inside. The rage in me was rising and rising. I started matching his movement with my own. My legs encircled his body even as all the other muscles inside me encircled his manhood. My body softened in his grip. He grunted and moaned. The more the rage built inside me, the more my nails dug into his back, the more I quickened my movement against him.

All of a sudden, it was there. My aching rage. The sweet release. It was almost out from my body or my soul or my mind. My hands went down his buttocks and I pulled him deeper into me, pounding his pelvis harder and harder on mine. His eyes were still locked on mine and I drowned in that green ocean.

Stars exploded in my eyes as I released my rage. I screamed and dug my nails so hard on his back that I was sure he had bleeding scratch wounds. My body shuddered as the muscles deep inside me clenched and unclenched uncontrollably.

He closed his eyes and shuddered too. The muscles in my womb must have gripped him violently. His lips were trembling and then I felt myself falling. Or coming. Or going.

His moans had changed to desperate whispers in my ears but I couldn't make out what he was saying while I was still in my own delirium state. His pink, wet tongue moved on my neck and breasts as I was given little bites of pleasure. He pinned my hands on the crumpled grass underneath us. I knew he was ready to release himself.

It came like a raging bull being waved a red flag. He plunged himself into me over and over again. My pinned hands were being completely grounded into the soil by his desperate grip. His teeth sank deeper into the flesh on my neck. The thought that he might actually kill me while he was having his orgasm fleeted past my mind.

He whispered my name in my ears before he arched his back, face turned-up at the sky and let out one long animal-like growl. He stopped and I felt a liquid twinge deep within the walls of my womb. His pulsing veins were throbbing between my legs in the middle of my body.

He was spent. He released my hands from the desperate grip. They felt sore from being grounded into the pebbly earth. His breath was coming out in gasps as if he had just finished running a marathon.

He was still on top of me and inside me when he panted, "How do you feel about having me for a stalker from now on?"

I put my bruised hands on his face and scratched the early stubble on his chin. "Only if we can do this more often in strange planes and places," I replied, still in a delirious and confused state of mind.

He smiled and the danger in his eyes had warmed into guarded amusement. He knew he got what he came for. My soul. I had been swallowed whole into the madness of his troubled mind.