Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 22 - The Cafes and Bars: Capturing Beauty

This is Episode 22 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version []  from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store (at a lower price than Amazon!).

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

Chapter 2(B): Purpose – Design: In which Jonathan seeks to know the design ordained by the Holy Trinity for humans, by means of humbling himself and by imitating It

The Cafes and Bars: Capturing Beauty

Our peninsula experienced the light coolness of autumn, finally, late in October. The time now soared by, in comparison to the lethargic summer. In youth, time seems to speed up either when a season changes or one’s circumstances linger. The ensuing months and their shifting seasons induced a calm uniformity to the rest of life. This is common in most lives. One often welcomes such constancy. I also was fond of the sameness because Mike’s secret stayed concealed and I stayed out of prison.

My mind only flamed up during my imagined journey through the festivals and women of Europe. My flames were brief, however. Celia, Felicia, and the other women I loved always ridiculed my verses. They only seemed to enjoy the small talk I had mastered in college, and the sex. But I understood that to learn how God had intended life for us, self-effacement was needed. And to create out of nothing, one must press on regardless.

I imagined traveling to the festivals and bedrooms of Bavaria, Slovakia, Scandinavia. I climbed the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Caucasus. I sailed down the Volga, the Rhine, and the Congo. At all ports I met the same pain: The more I poured into my poetry, the more the ladies laughed. Also, I could not yet understand why the sex acts would aggrieve the eternal order and why those seemingly harmless sins mattered. But I knew they did.

On the last Saturday of October, I drove to the southernmost town for the Halloween festival. I went down the coast and over mangrove islands. Maybe I journeyed across Gibraltar and down the shore of the Atlantic to a seaport town of west Africa. At the Halloween fair and parade, which featured more debauchery than most of my college days combined, I discovered the beauty of Africa: a princess whose skin matched her eyes. Her peculiar cleverness enticed me. She rejected me at first. She ridiculed me and the verse I wrote and read to her. But when I retreated, she followed me and secured me.

During the October and November weekdays, when not arranging demonstrations at South Florida stores to meet the holiday entertainment demand, I lunched with lady accountants, engineers, secretaries, and managers, young and older. At night I searched the taverns in the center of the cities, near the modeling schools of Miami Beach, or in Ft. Lauderdale, or in the Florida cities to which Vincula sent me. On warmer weekends, I probed the beaches.

I honed my skills in attracting them. No one outside my company ever again mentioned my shyness or nervousness. The prizes I had achieved at my college in the mountains paled in comparison to the treasures in which I now delighted. And I truly owned these treasures, because the girls were my experiences given life in poems. The girls would be known only by those who might read my verses one day. But these women never listened to the poems.

Occasions to pursue inauthentic, material love presented themselves almost every day, as if an erroneous angel hovered with me on my travels. On a drive in the Miami office and retail district on a Tuesday evening in early November, I passed a blond lady walking by a coffee shop I liked. The city became a Scandinavian village. She entered the café.

In the shop, I bought a hot tea, in rebellion against the fashionable coffees and sugary breads lacing the air. I penned my words of adoration to the woman. She wore short, straight, yellow-white hair. She was older, maybe mid-forties. We were alone there, in the silence of styrofoam cups on plastic tables, steaming coffee, and brewing tea. The quiet was unusual: I had frequented this café a few times during the summer, and always it had overflowed.

Within a quarter-hour, I approached her. I bent down, smiled, and held her eyes. I spoke:

“To breathe the air her skin secretes,

To then behold her soft blond fleece,

To touch her glory, to ensure,

Such blessedness of Beauty pure.”

She brushed a straight hair from her forehead and smiled. “Who wrote that?”

“I did. For you. To thank you for your being here.”

“I don’t believe that. You sat over there and wrote this about me? Why?”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I only wanted to read it to you.” I stood.

“Hold on. I’d like to know.” She straightened herself. “I think poems are a waste of time, but no one talks anymore, much less writes poetry. Look at this place. It used to be packed.”

“You haven’t been here for a while?”

“No. I’m from Nevada. I have business every couple months here.” She laughed. “What’s your name?”

“Jonathan.”

“I’m also susceptible to handsome young men who have enough confidence to sink themselves to this level.” She laughed. “I don’t even know what I just said. But I think it means this could be your lucky night, Jonathan.”

“What’s your name?”

“Sondra. What’s happened to this place? What’s happened to this city? Did a virus hit it? It’s lifeless.”

“People discovered entertainments at home greater than they ever dreamed.” I folded the poem into my back pocket.

“The Megendo craze is hitting here too? Why aren’t you hooked into the entertainment superhighway? Too contemptible for a poet?” She parted her lips for the slotted plastic lid and sipped.

“As a matter of fact, I help sell it.”

“Impressive. You’re doing a good job, then. In Vegas, casino revenues are down 25%. You’re right. More people are staying in.”

“Don’t remind me. I’m not proud of that. But we’re not surprised by its popularity. It tested well.”

“You certainly have an interesting job,” she said. “So, what led you to read silly poetry to a divorced businesswoman in an empty downtown café?”

Sondra’s prophesy of my good fortune fulfilled itself. But after she laughed at another verse the next morning, I resolved to stop.

In this moment, I grasped that I could not move those created beyond the inescapable pattern pre-established in them; my creating them anew was futile, without their nature being in accord with me.

***

Every night Maureen stared at the ceiling fan over the bed and tried to pray. But when the soft arms around her moved, she was jolted into the world. Maureen knew that every night she and Winnie cuddled, they probably sinned. But how could it be a sin? Kissing? It was not the act. What they did had no beginning and no end. It had no prodding, no invasions into her body, no release, no closure. It was simply giving, empathy, admiration, massaging, and play. Did their embraces cross some line that would brand them with a new label?

She hid herself from the perspective of the other. No one must learn their secret feelings, even if the physical acts stayed innocuous, but it seemed as if someone did know.

Love and shame filled her October and November days. Before Halloween, she moved her cat and boxes into Winnie’s apartment. Winnie could afford more square feet at her apartment complex set in an inland hammock of pines. In the mornings, they dressed and ate together. At work, she longed for their return in the now darker early evening. Their hug released all the concerns of the day: callous supervisors and patients, the ominous mass layoff, shame. It relieved all the tension as if it dissipated into the other. Sometimes their embrace lasted until they slept. They woke renewed. They ventured away to the north, the south, or the west on the weekends.

The smell of newly enlivened wires and fresh plastic greeted Maureen when she arrived home one evening in early November.

“Today I installed my new Magic Theater system,” Winnie said over a blaring television as Maureen walked in. “So, I guess I’m staying in town this weekend.” No embrace greeted Maureen that day.

“I know you’ve looked forward to that for a long time,” Maureen said as she slid her purse down her arm. Maybe that was in the way of a hug. No.

“Still, wouldn’t you rather go to the Keys for a couple days?”

“Why do you like taking those trips?” Winnie asked. “We took three trips last month.”

“We always have so much fun.” Maureen avoided the staples of an empty box and sank into the sofa next to Winnie.

“I know, but we can have fun here, too.”

She put the pillow she leaned against in her lap. “Winnie, aren’t you scared someone will find out about us?”

“Why should I be?” Winnie asked. “We haven’t done anything you’d call ‘nasty’ yet. Oh, speaking of that, someone does know. My mom called me today. A couple of days ago, she came home and a next-day air letter was waiting for her. It was addressed to my dad, but he doesn’t even live there. It was from Robert Klopp!”

“What?”

“I don’t know how he got her address. He rambled on for 5 or 6 pages about how I stole you, why you belonged to him, and how our sleeping together destroyed the sanctity of marriage. He thinks we’re sinful. Can you imagine? I didn’t know he was so religious.”

“He is when it’s convenient. What did your mom say?”

“She only laughed. She thinks this guy needs serious help. He babbled on as if he’ d lost his mind.”

“What did she say about us?”

“She doesn’t care.” Winnie sank back into the cushions. “She hates men now. She wishes she’ d been able to try it when she was young.”

“Did he see us? How else could he know?” Someone knew. Someone pictured them in a clinch together.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t told anyone. He sounded crazy enough to peek in our windows. We were a bit careless about the drapes during our week at Dr. Wilson’s.” Winnie laughed. “Can you believe that? He thinks he can make us feel guilty. What a loser.”

Surely others in Peyton Beach would know soon. But maybe Robert kept it to himself. In the view of others, it might detract from his manhood. Or he was worried about retribution: a rape charge. Most likely, he feared people discussing what Winnie had yelled at him about the potentially small size of his private parts.

“This bothers you, doesn’t it?” Winnie said.

Maureen pointed the remote control at the television and clicked it off. “I don’t think I’m ready for this. I don’t want others to know.”

“Why not? You shouldn’t be ashamed of our relationship. You need to face facts. We’re lesbians.”

“Don’t say that.” Maureen’s arms wrapped around the pillow. “It sounds wrong. I don’t want anyone to think that.”

“That’s the reason it seems wrong,” Winnie said. “If no one saw us, would it be right? You’re letting Robert accomplish what he set out to do. He’s won. He’s made you feel guilty.”

“I didn’t need him to tell me that.” Maureen stood and left the room. She found a bigger pillow on the black-lacquered bed.

“How can it be wrong?” Winnie said as she followed. “Are you gonna leave me? You’re caving in to the male voice. You’re conforming. Listen to your other voice.”

“I am listening. And I’m not leaving you. Please understand that I was brought up to live a certain way. It’s harder for me to break away than it is for you.” She dabbed her eyes with her hand and sniffled.

Winnie lunged at her for an embrace. As always, emotions gushed out of them and scattered. Winnie kissed her neck. “Don’t leave me.”

“Okay.”

“Give it time,” Winnie whispered. “You’ ll see. It’s not wrong to just love someone and make them feel good. How can it be?”

“I don’t know. I won’t leave you.”

“Can’t you see what we have between us?” Winnie said. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah. If you only realized how happy you make me. But somewhere I was taught it’s unnatural, and wrong.”

“You need to think for yourself. Don’t rely on what you learned at your mother’s knee.”

“Maybe it is unnatural. It has no completion. It’s love, okay, but maybe our bodies were created for men.”

“Unnatural? No, the lack of men is what makes it natural,” Winnie said as she looked into the living room. “Remember how awful their kisses are and how rough they are? They go with other girls without a second thought. They don’t care about us.”

“I realize that, Winnie.”

“Remember how degraded you felt?” Winnie said, voice rising. “Remember how they thought you were a slave to them?”

“Yes, sometimes, but...”

Winnie groaned, then bounced up and stomped into the living room.

Alone now, Maureen stared at the fluttering ceiling fan. Reality had bitten her irrevocably. She was being reclassified into a different gender, one whose role she could not see herself fulfilling. Their fantastic affair now had cleaved into a social presentation and a private tenderness. Soon she drifted into sleep.

A thump aroused her. She rose from the bed. In the living room, the computer hummed. Winnie had started her Magic Theater session. She sat in a reclining chair. The black-tinted helmet encased her head, and the SensorSuit wrapped her torso. Her hips pulsed slowly up and down like a wave. Her arms swayed up and down. Her head leaned back and forth.

Next week: Episode 23 - The Phase 3 Magic Theater: Strategizing on the fly

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Rogers.

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