Hi! Me again, posting something weird. This is experimental. It's really different from anything I've ever written. It's about life's heartbreaks, sort of a scrapbook of lost loves. You might like it, you might not. Each chapter will focus on a different character and his or her history.
Haven't forgotten about my other stuff; just taking a break and changing gears for a bit here...
Ch.1
Grissom
Her name was Anna, and she was the first woman to really look AT me. I'm a strange, drab man, and when I was in college I was a strange, drab boy. The girls around campus would look past me, over me, around me, and through me, but none of them ever really looked, ever really saw - until Anna, that is.
The year was 1977, and I was twenty years old. Even then the insects were my passion. I would watch, transfixed, as they hatched, grew, metamorphasized, and procreated. They were so predictable, so certain, never any surprises from them. I could say with complete confidence what they would and wouldn't do, and I would always be right, because insects can never decieve, never sway from their destiny - never pretend to be anything but what they are.
Humans, on the other hand, have always been a different story. By the time I entered college I knew what I was and what my limitations meant. I had made peace with the profound neurological deficit that shackled my emotions but ironically left my intellect untouched. In my mind I knew that there would never be a mate for me, never a family to surround and offer comfort or a lover to wrap her arms around me in the night. I might experience sex, feel love, but my emotional aphasia so hobbled my ability to express my feelings and allow closeness that anything deeper than a passing affair was extremely unlikely. I was content with my life, never terribly happy, never terribly sad, merely content in the orderly, predictible world of bugs I had immersed myself in.
Then Anna walked through the door of the entomology lab and looked straight at me, commanding eye contact. I gave it to her. She was well over six feet tall, her stance strong and confident, her smile an erotic caress. She held my gaze as she slunk over to the table where I sat, bent over close and held out her hand. "Hello," she said slowly. "I'm Dr. Anna Bruce. I'm visiting from the endocrinology lab on the other side of campus. And you are..."
"Gil. Gil Grissom." I took her hand gingerly.
"It's nice to meet you, Gil Grissom. You have the loveliest blue eyes I've ever seen." And with that , she slipped out of my grasp and out of the room.
A week later I saw her again. I was in the cafeteria, alone with my lunch as always, reading the paper as I ate. I hadn't realized anyone was there until she was already seated across from me. She neatly plucked the paper from my grasp, folded it and placed it beside her. "Hello," she said with a smile.
"Hello, uh, Dr. Bruce."
She shook her head. "Please. Anna. I'm not THAT much older than you, and I'm not likely to ever become your professor." She looked me over with curiosity. "So you're a junior. What's your major?"
"Entomology." I swallowed hard against the rush of something I'd never felt before.
She smiled. "So you're transfixed by bugs, are you."
I nodded. "They're fascinating."
She nodded encouragement. "Tell me why..."
In short order we were taking lunch together every day. She began inviting me to her apartment for dinner, for dessert, for a game of chess - then, finally, to make love. I fell in love with her. Even though I knew she was too good for me I couldn't stop it from happening, couldn't help myself. For her part she was gentle with me, never asking for more than I could give, never judging me for what I could never be. I couldn't tell her what I was feeling, couldn't know how to put to words the delicate sweetness she had given me, but when the dark blossom of night closed her hand around us I would try with my body to make her understand. Sometimes I think she did.
I never knew she was sick until the night she called from the hospital. "Gil," she whispered softly, "I need to see you."
She had cardiomyopathy, I found out later; she'd had it long before we met. She'd always been pale, but looking at her with lover's eyes I'd simply thought her skin was as alabaster. I didn't understand she was sick, didn't realize she was dying. I saw what I wanted to see - a lovely, gentle woman who accepted me as I was, cared for me despite my inability to show her the depth of my devotion. That night, I slept in a chair beside her bed, held her cold, pale hand in my own, watched as hot tears splashed onto her cool flesh. "I - I - I - "
"I know," she whispered, her voice faint. "I always knew. I love you too."
I cried then like I'd never cried before, like I will never cry again, great, wracking sobs rolling through me as I mourned what was to come - all the long, cold nights filled with her absence, the days of seeing her face out of the corner of my eye only to turn and realize it was only a trick of the mind. All the while I clutched her hand, cool and pale as a lily, never letting go even as night became morning. After a while the nurse slipped in and checked her, then put an antiseptic hand on my shoulder. "She's gone," she said gently. "I'm sorry. She's gone."
There are heartbreaks, then there are heart removals. Anna took my heart with her 28 years ago; I gave it to her and she never let go. And that's okay, really. I was lucky enough to have a great love in my life, something most people never know.
In truth I'm clutching her hand yet, just waiting for that day she tugs on it and pulls me back into her arms.