IP Free Write Repository

Waking Up on Venus
Astrid lounged herself awake, stretching herself out like a cat will. The sun's rays and her contented smile almost made Ian think that she was purring, but it was only his own heart beating in his chest. She had slept in his bed, sort of. She'd fallen asleep and Ian couldn't bear himself and wouldn't be able to live with himself if he woke her and let her go. The fact that she felt safe enough to sleep in his place, in his space and in his bed, with clothes on but in his bed nonetheless filled him with a strange and calm joy. He'd been awake most of the night, looking at her as she slept, so quietly, so still and smiling ever so slightly.
Ian had gotten out of the bed an hour or two before and had silently set up his easel and paints and then set to trying to capture how the morning looked and felt. The bright morning sun began to create that marvelous and slow yellow light that is heat, it warms everything it shines upon. He outlined the window, the bed and then, in a single swift and perfect movement, painted the tapering arc of her silhouetted hip. A few more simple and precise swipes with his brush and he knew this would be one of his best ever, something with the otherworldly charge of having been able to breath in the air of one's muse for almost an entire night. He hadn't been able to think because he had been absorbing a charge of power from her, feeling her presence awake lost thoughts, lost emotions in him. He felt more alive than ever before.
Astrid opened her eyes to see the back of the easel and Ian behind it. "Found something worth painting?"
"I hope you don't mind, I couldn't sleep and sometimes I just need to paint and you looked so lovely there. I should have asked, I'm sorry," he stammered out, suddenly feeling quite exposed and vulnerable to her for some reason. And it bothered him some.
"Don't be silly, I don't mind in the least. Do you want me to lay back down?"
"Yes but not for the painting," slipped out of him.
"Eh? What was that?" she asked him and he caught her smiling and realized that she was kidding.
He let out a laugh and she joined him.
"I do want to try and get as much of this done before the light changes, its like this for only a short while," he said to her after enjoying the shared lightness, the lack of awkwardness between made him happy inside, like he'd passed some test or perhaps it was the exposure to the muse.
"Oh please do, I'm very curious about it now but will force myself to wait until you are satisfied with it before I will look at it," she declared.
"Then you may never get to look at it because I always want to change something about my paintings, some color, some gradation of the brush stroke, something that sticks out."
"So you're a perfectionist then? Isn't perfection in art a contradiction of some kind?"
"Maybe it is, I never really thought of myself as a perfectionist, more of a nitpicker, I guess," he said to her with another laugh. He continued to paint what he could before the light slipped away and the normal full bright sunlight of the day was flooding the room and driving out the yellowness.
"Well that should do for now, the light's gone off and my stomach just started growling, are you busy for breakfast?" he asked as he carefully leaned the wet painting against the wall, "If you don't want to see it then try not to look over at this wall, okay?"
"Oh don't be silly, if you're done with it for now then let's have a look," she got up and walked over to where he had set the painting. She looked down at it for a moment, then she squatted down to view it at the right height.
"Its beautiful," she exclaimed, her hand reaching out to it.
Ian caught her hand just before she brushed against the wet paint, "That's probably not a good idea for a couple of weeks."
"Oh, sorry, I didn't even notice my hand reaching out for it, its quite beautiful, Ian, I love it," she stood back up and looked at him. "How about I take you out to breakfast?"
Ian looked startled, as if he'd never considered her taking him out, and then smiled, nodded his head and said, "Seems only fair since I probably just made you famous."
"What? How do you mean?"
"Well, this is going to sound like bragging but I think this painting might be something special, that it might become famous. I know, I know," he held up a hand to keep her from interrupting him, "I can't explain it. I was painting it and feeling something truly wonderful wash over me not once or twice but again and again, sustaining the effort. That's why it took so little time to paint, it was like there was someone or something helping me."
"Hmm, well I don't quite know what to make of that, I thought you didn't believe in ghosts or god or heaven?"
"Well no, that's not quite right. I don't think I believe in a heaven, hell or god but I haven't ruled out ghosts and other paranormal phenomena yet, there's actually a fair amount of empirical data to prove they do exist rather than they do not," he explained. "I don't think I'm explaining it properly, I don't think it can be explained at all, it was beyond my ability to explain it."
"Sounds like it was fun though," she added.
"Maybe that's what they mean by being 'in the zone'?"
"No, I'm pretty sure that one's about sex. And, for the record, I think I like your explanation for your theology," she put an arm around him and gave him a half hug.

He gathered himself together, they stopped at her place for a moment and then were out the door. There were two good places to have breakfast within short walking distance of the apartment, one was a bit modern and, Ian thought, tried to be too hip with food when, at breakfast time, people just want to eat. The other made an excellent salmon benedict, they opted for the benedict and spent the rest of the morning drinking coffee, talking art, politics and making up conversations between the other patrons of the restaurant.
1111

Years Later, A Surprise Package
Ian returned home one day to find a large package waiting just inside the door to the building addressed to him.
After stuggling to get it upstairs and into the apartment, he opened the package up to find a gilt gold cage with no bottom or door. A note from Astrid explaining why.

"It was so beautiful that I had to have it but not as a cage , I made them remove the door and bottom so that nothing could ever be held in it. The finest prison is still a prison and no living thing should ever be locked away in a cage, even if it is for your own good. But Ian, keep it for me, keep it until I return....."
And his eyes locked on to that one single word, it opened a flood of emotional debris and pent up longings and frustrations. Return. Keep it for her for when she returns.
And before he knew it, he had that stupid, shit eater grin that fools get when they get the jumble in the daily rag. Return.
The word held so much promise and intrigue. Genuine happiness welled up from inside of me and Ian blossomed into one of those rare magnetically happy moods. It creates a radiant circle of pleasure that affects anyone near you, makes them lighten up, cheer up and look up. Its probably something to do with pheromones and timed injections with testorone tossed in or something like that, but it doesn’t matter what makes it happen, only that it does happen.
Return.
He felt like running up and down the street and shaking the hand of every man, woman, child, dog or cat that he came across. Shouting at the top of my lungs, exhulting from on high.
Ian looked at the cage and saw what had made her love it instantly, it was sparkling and it was precise and wickedly beautiful with soft edges protected by points and barriers. It was almost a reflection of her, or, more accurately, what she wanted to be. The door was gone and left a gap in the gilt pattern, the floor was also gone but that, strangely, didn’t detract from the effect at all, rather, it added an element of release. Also very much in character for Astrid.
The first thing he decided he would have to do is come up with different name for it than a cage, because it could never contain anything that didn’t want to stay in it. But that thought kept pumping, thumping and rushing through my brain and body, its electric current message undeniable and exultant.
After the flush had eased up a bit and he regained a sense of where he was and what was going on. Ian picked up the letter again and finished it, hoping for more of an idea of when he might expect to see her. But there was nothing else, no mention of when or if and if he couldn’t reread the earlier section it would be pretty easy to dismiss it as his own fancied imagination. She wasn't coming back, he felt that deep within his chest, next to the hole her sudden departure had torn in him. He thought she was never returning after the scandal that had broken, the public outcry over her, the tabloids camping out in the doorway, the flashbulbs blinding her at every turn.
But he had the cage and the note from her and they were his hope, his only bright glowing potential joy and he clung to each of them as desperately as a man clings to a soggy life vest in a heaving sea.
617

Months later, after they'd actually gotten a chance to spend some time together and realize that there was enough there to carry a friendship (though Ian's heart fell when Astrid settled on friendship, he'd been thinking of something a bit more, ummm, intimate than friendship). They would meet up for walks through the park, sometimes pretending to be in love (a stretch for Ian) and sometimes pretending to be other things, a movie star and producer, an artist and subject or a couple of ex's getting together for one last walk.
They created a sort of fantasy world to travel through together, making up histories, occasionally making loud scenes so that other people would stare at them and wonder just what the heck was going on.
Astrid enjoyed it immensely after her recent history of solo excursions where she'd be forced to deal with the cacophony of waggling voices in her head extoling her failures and denying her any respite from the hellstorm that her private life had become.
Her private life before she'd known Ian and the life she lived when he wasn't around. When his natural calm was missing and she was left alone and almost adrift with her discordance.

On one walk, she was feeling mildly peckish and was pretending to be a non stop commercial, morphing tag lines from product to product with nonsense like, "The new Fab, its delicious and really can take paint of your walls while leaving your clothes with a clean, fresh scent," or "Drive the new Honda Crockpot, its got an all day timer for the juiciest pot roasts you'll ever have coming out of your glove box."
And Ian would soak it all in, enjoying her being silly, playful and happy. He'd laugh on time, add a quip or two to hers and set her off giggling.

Those were the moments that he wanted to save, to freeze them up and keep them for those days when she was gone, busy or disturbed or for when she had moved on with her life, as he felt in his pessimistic soul. That she would, one day, disappear from his life as quickly as she had entered it. Leaving a gaping hole but gone nonetheless. He'd mentioned it to her once, during a more serious walk.

"You wouldn't just up and leave, would you? You'd have to at least stop by and say goodbye," he said to her, his arm grasped in her gloved fingers and the subtle scent of her perfume dancing across his face, mixed with the smell of the pending autumn and winter.
434

As luck would have it, one of the few times he did end up running into Astrid was when he was just leaving the building with a female acquaintance of his, nothing serious, more like a safety valve booty call than anything else. Hey, a guy's gotta have his fun even if he does live above Ms. Almost-Perfect (she'd be a lot more perfecter if she was home more often and liked to spend time with Ian but then he'd have more time to find something wrong with her).

So Ian and his friend, Tara, were walking down the stairs, still smiling after having a pleasing tryst in the afternoon. And Astrid came rushing in, halfway up the stairs before she saw that there were other people already using them. She stuttered to a stop, recognized Ian and then froze when she saw the other woman with him.

"Oh hi, Ian, long time no see," she said, delicately fingering the tension seeing her neighbor with another woman evoked deep within her chest.
"Astrid, you're right, its been too long since we've been able to see each other. This is my friend, Tara, Tara, this is Astrid, my neighbor," he answered her with a smile in her voice, unwilling to recognize any tension between them.
"Nice to meet you, Astrid," said Tara as she extended a thin and elegant hand to her.
"Likewise, I'm sure, was Ian showing you his project?" she asked the new girl, knowing that he'd been painting long into the night sometimes even though she'd not had a chance to come up and see it for herself.
"Oh yes, his work is so visceral and evocative, I found myself becoming aroused without even really noticing it," Tara replied with a half smile, partially serious and partially playing with the woman.
"Hmm, sounds like something I should look into, eh? Ian, stop by later on when you have a little free time, would you? I've something I want to show you," Astrid said as she began to make her way between the two of them, making sure to turn her body away from Tara and towards Ian.
"I'll be sure to stop by later on, when I can, you can make it easier and be home this time," Ian said as she slipped past him.
"I'll do that, nice to have met you, Tara," though she didn't mean it. And then a final, "See you soon, Ian." And she was gone up the stairs.

Ian and Tara continued down the stairs and out into the sunny summer day outside.
431

He was ugly in the same way that a clown's grin of laughter turns into a derisive sneer when you get too close to it. Ian could sense it about him without really putting his mind on the thought. And he never could let his guard down when he was around him, he saw each question as an invasion, each syllable uttered with a contempt that gonged at him but others couldn't seem to hear.
His face had a smooth quality from fifteen feet away but up close it was easy to see his coarse features, like he was a rough draft of a human being. A nose that became distinctly piggish up close and eyes that were too close together, he smelled a little funny too. Like old milk, sort of a sickly sweet hanging odor that sat on things, walked away with them, a stench of decay.
Ian sidestepped over him, hefting the leather bound portfolio under one arm, flapping it just a little to maintain his balance. He was really just not in the mood for an "episode" with Waylon, the homeless guy who had made their side alley his home on a regular irregular basis for the last fourteen months. Six months ago, Waylon stuck a stick into a manhole cover and nearly skewered a bike messenger. Ian always thought that maybe it would have been better if Waylon had actually hurt someone, then they would at least take him and maybe he'd get better but at least he'd be gone.
The new paintings would, with some luck, be received better than the last. There had been some changes on the client's end that there just wasn't enough time to incorporate into the first series.
The second series would likely be exactly what they were looking for. Ian had been busy, immersed in his work but he had also been distracted. A part of his mind, a part of his thinking was always wondering when he'd be able to see the mysterious girl who lived downstairs from him. And sometimes that part of his thinking would grow, expand to blot out the project until he would have to shake off the thoughts and refocus them on the work, the project. It was like a long game of trying to stay awake while driving, you close your eyes for split seconds that stretch into a dozen and before you know it, you're halfway off the highway hitting the wake up bumps on the side of the road.
Astrid was like that. He saw her everywhere but never really got a chance to see her. Her realized that he had been thinking about her too much and swore off thinking about her at all. He couldn't bear the not thinking and it couldn't work out anyhow. And so he threw himself, deeply, heavily into not only the project but he also painted a few massive canvasses, throbbing reds and blacks with hidden layers of colors. One late night and morning after he completed not one, not two but three of the large emotional pieces.
He would see her, just leaving, catching just the last momentary glimpse of her ankle as the door slipped shut and she was gone. And always, by the time he got to the street, she would be long gone in any of a dozen directions. His frustrations mounted but still, their paths rarely crossed. Two weeks passed and he thought she had moved out without his noticing until she knocked on his door.
It had been a hot day, the kind where the light looks yellow and there's always one fly buzzing around. That kind of summer heat that slows the world down, the days when there are two kinds of people, those that have air conditioning and there are those that either do not have air conditioning or those that have a broken air conditioner.
Astrid's broke earlier in the day and, by the time she returned from a few errands, her apartment wall paper was peeling off the walls because of the wet heat. And she went to the only other person in the building that she cared to actually meet. The last few weeks had been a blur of socializing with her set, scheming, some work when she felt like it and much more than she would care to admit of just walking and thinking. Out in the city, silent among the flashing lights, the beckoning doorways, the catcalls from crude men, the odd student's awkward approach and retreat. She tried to think her way through her own issues, solving them by just the application of her will, again and again and again. Somewhere she had read that the mind could accomplish the impossible and for some reason the words had stuck with her.
803

She
She had been struggling to get the door open to the apartment building as her arms were loaded with packages from a day of shopping, on someone else's tab no less. He had been late for an appointment and rushed out the door, accidentally knocking her down in the process and sending the boxes in all directions.
"Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry," he gushed as he scrambled to pick up all the packages. And then he happened to look at her and saw how truly beautiful she was. And then, that she was dressed in evening wear even though it was just three in the afternoon.
"Well, I should say so, you need to be more careful coming in and out of doorways where there are overloaded ladies in need of a hand and not in need of being knocked down," she admonished him in her musical laughing voice.
He was relieved because he had first thought that he'd hurt her in his haste. And he wasn't the type of man who could hurt anyone willingly. Then he saw just what she looked like and instantly realized that she was the most perfectly beautiful creature he'd laid eyes on. In a moment that lasted a lifetime he saw her and then drank every nuance, every crevass, every curve, every curl, every everything about her. He absorbed her in every way possible without actually coming in contact with her. In an instant he could feel her past, her present and her future.
"Are you okay?" a voice asked him and he slammed back into reality. Her voice.
"Yes, sorry," he said and continued to gather her packages.
"I thought you were going to fall down for a moment, you got the strangest expression on your face just then," she said to him.
His face reddened a bit at being caught out and she laughed, "I'm sorry, I was just mentioning it, I didn't mean to embarass you. By the way, my name is Astrid, Astrid Karell."
"Nice to meet you Astrid, I'm Ian," and he made an attempt to shake her hand but with his hands full he wasn't really able to and just went through the motions. Instead she opened the door and led him back into the building.
"I've just moved in today and haven't anything else to wear, I was removed from my place of residence rather suddenly. I'm sure you were wondering about my dress," she opened the door to her room. Straight underneath Ian's.
The place was empty of everything save a rather small and somewhat sad looking pile of clothes half in and half out of bags. The bare floor looked almost forlorn but with the pile of packages it was covered and Ian properly introduced himself, shook her hand and then made his way out as he was exceedingly late by that point and knew that each passing moment was going to cost him.
"What a funny way to meet someone, don't you think?" she asked him at her door.
"I really am sorry about that, I can be so stupid, I."
She held up a finger to stop him from speaking and said, "Don't ever say something like that unless you truly are stupid and I don't think you are, Mr. Ian what is your last name?"
"Moir."
"More?"
"No, em oh I ar, Moir."
"Okay then Ian Moir, don't disparage yourself if you wish to spend time in my company. There are only a couple things that I cannot stand and one of them is self disparagement. Its false and gratuitous and unseemly."
"I'll have to think about all of that but I catch your drift. And no, I'm not stupid so you're right. I made a mistake by rushing through the door without checking and almost injured you but it wasn't stupid. I was just distracted with the meeting. I'm sorry I almost hurt you though, Astrid," he apologized again.
"Well you didn't and I'm not so meek as you might seem to think but thanks for the sentiment anyway, its unusuall to find someone with manners who's not a troll to look at, see you around, Ian Moir," she opened the door for him to go.
"I think that one was a compliment, see you soon, I hope, Astrid Karell and welcome to the building. By the way, if you should need anything, I'm straight above in 3c."
And he was gone, galloping down the stairs and out into the street, very, very late but elated with such bursting joy within him that he ran eleven blocks to the coffeeshop on the corner to meet his client.

Behind him, Astrid looked around the bare apartment. She grabbed the two bags of clothes and dragged them into the bedroom, once there she stripped out of her evening dress, pulled off her earrings and got down to nothing. She grabbed a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt and then walked back out into the living room area where the boxes and bags of things were. She unpacked things into the kitchen quickly, setting a new teapot on the small four burner stove, stashing food haphazardly in the cupboards that seemed cavernous to her all of sudden, her three cans of beans looked quite lonely on the shelf by themselves. Not even the addition of the corn and the chili could add any depth to things.
She found herself crying without knowing it. A tear had run down her face before she'd even realized that it had happened. And when she felt it, she felt a weight heaving around inside her, like it was sliding from her. The tears came and the weight went. She didn't want to get into the night before, not yet, too much other stuff had to happen before she could allow herself to fully process everything that had happened to her, to them, the everyone. It was harder than she thought to block it out so she thought about Ian.

The client was late too and was only just walking into the coffeeshop as Ian was getting there. They laughed, apologized to each other and settled into the matters at hand. Ian produced some papers with sketches on them, his ideas for the client. The client nodded his head regularly and occasionally interrupted with a question or two, something to make Ian stop, think and reply before getting back to the sketches. In the end, they shook hands vigorously as the client was pleased with things, Ian was handed a folded peice of paper and was left to sit at the table in the afterglow of a new client, new opportunity and the influx of capital his fledgeling company needed to really get started. And then he remembered Astrid. His grin grew as he recalled her. Everything about her, even the way she smelled. Her dark blond hair, her poised lips, the turn of her hip, the sharp edge of her jaw. She filled his thoughts, swelled within his head by the cascading recollections, the aura of her. It was a good, good thing. He bathed in the glow of the two best things that had happened to him in weeks or even months.

He gathered himself, got up and walked back to the apartment slowly and deliberately. He smelled the air, saw everything that went on around, heard the songs of the birds in the trees, tasted the salt in the air from the ocean, felt the breeze rush around him. His senses were alive and his mind raced and raced and raced, working on multiple levels, feeling the magical rush of the day on one, tracing the course of the day on another, one whole level devoted to Astrid, another to the new painting project he'd just been commissioned to do and another, deeper and shadowed level that he never admitted was there, there was the level that never stopped thinking about his demons, the things that sent him away, into the city. The people he'd had to leave behind, the things he'd given up, the life he thought he was destined to live. But it had been years and years now and the level was deeper and more shadowed and forgotten about than anything else. But for now, Ian's mind was ablaze with victory, contentment, a feeling of oneness with the world as he took it all in. The eleven blocks walked into his memories and he arrived back at the apartment again. His neighbor, Arden, was just leaving the front door and held it open for him.
"You look pleased, Ian," he greeted the younger man. Arden was in his early sixties but still strong and fit, a greying muscled man who bore battle scars of his own from a life that wasn't often far removed from the much lower end of the food chain.
"I should be pleased, I just landed the Hoodlow project downtown," Ian told him.
"Excellent news, I knew you'd get it. Good for you, son, good for you. Just don't go and paint anything bad about God, alright? I always hate seeing the paintings about how awful he is, that's just not right."
"I promise it won't be anything against God, don't worry. We believe different things but that doesn't mean I'm against your God. We've had this talk before," said Ian, still smiling but secretly wondering if Arden was going to try and subliminally convert him or something, he just got that sense from him though he didn't really allow himself to believe it.
1599