The Muse

Part Seven

It had been a week since we got back from New York and the big opening, and I hadn't done much, aside from go for long walks and spend time with Josie. She was still working at the restaurant, despite knowing full well that she was about to come into a large sum of money. Perhaps she wouldn't really believe it until it was sitting in her account.

I was too much in love with this bright eyed, exuberant beauty to talk to her about what had been on my mind, but it still hung over me like a black cloud.

The fact was, I was a middle-aged man, and she was just twenty. She was starting college, and had a life ahead of her. She wanted a family one day, I knew that, which was something I couldn't give her, even though I had read that Mick Jagger had become a father at seventy-something. That couldn't be me. If she stayed with me, she'd be throwing her entire future away. I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone or anything, and for that very reason I knew I had to let her go.

She wouldn't understand at first. She might hate me. She would suffer for a while. But I hoped that one day she'd understand that I did it for her. That she would be much better off without me and find someone else who could give her everything I couldn't. These thoughts haunted me, for minutes and hours at a time, all through the day. The only time I didn't dwell on it was when I was with her. Then, I was too swept up in love and laughter to think about it for long.

Raphael sent us the reviews, which were all glowing, some stupidly so. There was a big piece in the New York Times about us, and Josephine's picture appeared in a number of major fashion magazines. Both Lance and Chloe wrote the most extraordinary things about us. There was a rumor that one of the pieces sold in the secondary market for three times our asking price, and I couldn't help but picture that peculiar man in the orange checkered tweed outfit.

Josie read them all out. "I'm dazzling and enigmatic" or "You are the next Gauguin, the next Sargent" she would say, quoting from the articles, and she took a particularly morbid interest in some of the backlash from religious groups over some of the content. "We are scandalous!" she would say, or "we're blasphemous!" and laugh hysterically. Every article and every review picked up on the ambiguity of the psychosexual and the religious in the collection.

I was getting all kinds of offers; for interviews and commissions, but I ignored them all for now, and Josie was fielding offers from agents and other bloodsuckers. She had been in touch with Kate Winchett, her new best celeb friend, who recommended someone in that area of management who she had known a long time, and trusted.

"What do you think, Mike?" she asked me.

"I think you should do it. Do it all, if it feels right. Make some money. But, you must promise me that you'll still work on your art and go to college," I said.

"OK, I promise," she said.

"No, I mean it Josie. Really."

She looked at me. "OK, I really promise."

"Good," I said.

"There is something, though, Mike," she said, cuddling up to me on the couch. "If I do some modeling jobs or whatever, the only person, and I mean the only person, who will ever see me naked is you."

"That's sweet, Josie," I said.

"Dude. No. I mean it. This is for us, only. For the work, for our life together, for our lovemaking. No one else will be a part of that, ever."

I looked at her. She was committed to me. Deeply committed. I loved her so completely, so desperately, but my mind was now made up.

"Have you spoken to your dad lately?" I asked her. I knew she hadn't spoken to her mother.

"Yes. I told him all about New York and the show, but maybe downplayed the Michael & Josephine thing. The nude pictures. But he must know about all of it by now. Have you googled us? We're everywhere," she said.

"No, I haven't, but I believe you," I said, smiling, trying my best not to show how haunted I was.

"I got a hundred thousand followers on my Instagram page this last week, after Kate did a thing on us."

"And how is your dad, Jo?" I said, changing the subject back.

"He's a closed book. We haven't talked about it all in depth, but I assume he knows everything. About us. So, I would also assume he's hurt, and angry, but he wouldn't ever show that side to me. He's more likely to let it build up inside him and get an ulcer."

"I know they'll never forgive me, but it's very important to me that you repair your relationship with your parents. They'll be grandparents to your children one day. If you ever get the chance to tell them, and if it feels right, please tell them I'm sorry and I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

"I will," Josie said, held my hand and looked at me sweetly. "I love you, Michael Jones, and I always will," she said, but I couldn't even reply.

_______

I packed a bag with a few things and asked Josie to meet me for a drink after work. It would be late, she'd be tired, but tonight was the night when I set this little bird free. I wasn't sure how it would all go down, but I threw a few bottles of Jack Daniels in the trunk of my car to get me through a day or two, if needed. I knew I wouldn't be returning to the apartment, at the very least, but beyond that I had no plan.

I had in the back of my mind that I would drive around the country. I didn't know if I would paint, if I would stay in motels or with friends, I just knew that I would have to end it and cut off all communication. The only thing that mattered was that she moved on from me, my feelings didn't matter. I hoped at least that I was strong enough to weather the storm, and could draw courage in knowing I had done the right thing for the only girl I would ever love.

I left a long letter for Josie in my apartment, but I didn't know if she'd read it. It laid out, logically and sensibly, all the reasons why we couldn't be together. I knew she had a comeback for every one of those reasons, but it didn't matter. I was right. She had no future with me. No life if she stayed with me. She wanted to be a mother and being with me would probably deny her that. She could never have a great relationship with her parents if we were together. She might not understand now, but she'd be much better off in the long run, and I wished her every happiness.

That was the harsh gist of it.

As I sat in the bar waiting for her, I remembered back to the last time we made love, just this morning, and tears flowed freely out of me. The show, the money, the attention, my own happiness, none of it mattered now. The only thing that mattered was her future.

Josie came in and saw the state I was in. She ran over to comfort me, but I pushed her away. I looked at her with desperate eyes, and she knew something was wrong. She didn't sit down.

"Michael...?" she said, now nervous. "What's the matter?"

"Josephine, I... I'm so sorry, I... we... this... can't be. I... "

"Oh my god. You're breaking up with me," she said quietly, and all I could do was hold my head and cry. She'd be alright, I told myself, but suddenly felt far worse than I could ever have foreseen, worse than I'd ever felt before in my life. The bottom dropped out from under me and I could see the void. I looked at her, and the mere sight brought me such pain that I had to look away.

"Michael, no. Why?" she asked, and started to cry, unsteady on her feet.

I stuttered. "You know why," I said. I couldn't say any more. I could barely see or hear. I stood up and felt dizzy. My heart was ripped out and I knew nothing would ever be OK again, but it didn't stop me. She was all that matteed.

"Michael, don't do this," she said, sobbing, but I couldn't even look at her.

"Please stay at my apartment. There's a letter for you. I'm sorry. I'm just... so sorry," I heard myself speaking and I saw myself running out of the place, but couldn't feel that it was me.

I didn't wait to see if she'd followed me, I just got in the car and drove. I wanted to crash and die. I wanted to be consumed in flames. I deserved it. I deserved this pain. I deserved this hell. I drove and drove until I didn't know where I was, and I drove some more. I ran red lights hoping that it could be the end of it all. I drove until I ran out of gas, and stopped.

I stood by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. I looked at my phone, then smashed it under my foot. I went to the trunk of my car, picked up a bottle and locked my wallet and keys inside. The whiskey tasted like paint thinner to me, but I drank, and drank more, then walked and walked. Soon enough, I made myself vomit, then lay down in the gravel and lost consciousness.

_______

Seconds, minutes, hours and days of infernal torment went by. I didn't go home, didn't wash, didn't eat. There was no staying in motels, no driving around, no weathering this storm. There was only blackout pain. I knew that I loved her more than anything in the universe, but I didn't know that it would essentially kill me to end it. I had no reason to go on, yet I did. I went on.

I just drank and walked around the outskirts of whichever city I was in. I got into fights and lost. I spent nights in jail. I tried to drown in my own self pity. I climbed to the top of a building and considered jumping off and ending it all, but I was too much of a coward. I just left my car by the side of the road and didn't go back. Days became weeks became months. I slept under bridges. I drank, I ate from trash cans, I walked and I froze, and when I saw my reflection in a sheet of metal, I didn't recognize myself. I would do this until I couldn't remember her face, but I knew that I would forget my own name first.

I would wake up every day somewhere and not know where I was, somewhere dark, somewhere terrible, because that's where I belonged. And every night I would send up a prayer to the universe that she forget me. But one day, after I don't know how long, I woke up and I was in a room. A bright room with lights, faces and voices.

I closed my eyes, hoping it was just another nightmare, another level of hell, but slowly I regained some consciousness and realized I was still alive, and cursed myself for existing. Someone was trying to feed me but I refused and they put something in my arm. Someone else tried to talk to me, but it felt like I'd forgotten how to speak.

I saw myself and I looked as insane as I felt. My eyes were bloodshot, my hair and beard were long and scraggly, I had wounds on my face and hands and I was filthy. Her face flashed in my head, and I asked someone to please let me die.

But the person sitting by my bedside was Raphael. He had, somehow, found me, even though I had thrown away everything that could identify me. Each day that passed, I became more lucid, until I was able to look at my old friend, feel him touching my hand and listen to his softly spoken words.

I had been found nearly frozen to death and brought to a hospital where I was taken in for wounds, malnourishment and what they called "exposure". I had no I.D. on me, but they found a card in my inside jacket pocket, and to everyone's astonishment, it belonged to Kate Winchett, the English actress. They called her and she called Raphael.

An unidentified man with her card in his pocket had been found. It had to be me. Raphael made Kate swear not to tell another soul, including, especially Josephine. If she'd called Josephine instead of Raphael, perhaps it would have been her sitting by my bed instead, and even though she was the only person I wanted to see, I was thankful that it wasn't.

Raphael asked me if I wanted to know about her, and I did. I couldn't bear it, but I deserved the torture, I had to know if she was OK.

Josephine hadn't moved on. She had been searching for me, tirelessly, had started a campaign to find me, and never given up. She hadn't done any modeling, but had become an artist in her own right, although was best known for being the female protagonist in one of the great modern romance stories.

My disappearance had caused a sensation, and the tale of the beautiful young Josephine searching for her lost love became a global news story. They had found my car, my phone, my wallet, my blood. I had become world famous and the very few pictures of mine in existence were now worth in the millions, but Josephine still refused to sell anything. Everyone aside from her thought I was dead, and she had been right, but she still didn't know that.

The gossip and rumor mills had gone into overdrive over why I left her, and if I'd committed suicide. Was it all a publicity stunt to drive up the price of the paintings? Should Josephine respect my wishes and move on, or should she keep fighting for our love? Opinions were divided and hotly debated on all of this, with Raphael, Josephine, Chloe, Tony and others who had known me had been hounded for interviews for a time.

The nurses in the hospital cut my hair, toenails and trimmed my beard, healed my cuts and brought me back to life. But what they couldn't see was that I was already dead. Now physically healthy, I was discharged and brought to a clinic where I walked around in a robe all day. I was encouraged to draw, but I refused. All I ever saw, with my eyes open and my eyes closed, was her face.

Raphael visited me every day, a nameless man as far as everyone else knew, and at some point, I started to speak again. Kate came to see me and listened as I told them my story. I knew I had to let Josephine go, but what I didn't know was by doing so, I had cut out my own heart. But I still knew I had done the right thing for her, and my pain didn't matter. Raphael spoke a little bit, and with the sound of his voice I began to feel life in me again. I never heard him talk much above a whisper from that day on.

He put a pencil in my shaky hand and a pad of paper in front of me. I cried, but the lines came, and I saw that the only real therapy I had was there. I didn't know if it was enough to make life bearable or meaningful, but it was something. I asked him to send word to my sister Annie that I was alive, but asked her not to tell anyone else.

Months went by. I hadn't laughed or smiled but I had started to paint again, and there was talk of discharging me, when it was agreed I was no longer a danger to myself. Raphael had remembered my talk of a studio overlooking a river, and after a lot of searching, had found me somewhere.

He showed me pictures. It was a massive converted silo in which I would be the only occupant, and he would be the only person who knew I was there. There was a giant studio space at the top with huge doors, a panoramic view and a fully functional living space, so I could stay there if I wanted to. It came with an acre of green land surrounding it, and it would cost me the price of one of the paintings in my apartment.

I could get food and supplies at a local store and no one would recognize me with my beard. I could walk around nearby and not be disturbed. I could be at peace. I could do whatever I wanted. I could fish, I could paint, and I could try to forget.

I nodded to him, and it was mine. And a little while after, we went there. It was an imposing round building with a massive red domed roof, accessible only via a sturdy metal stairway that curved around the outside, with the walk being close to a hundred feet to my door at the top. Once inside, the space was truly breathtaking in its scope.

Raphael had furnished the studio simply with some rugs, a couch, a chair and a bed, and I saw practically the entire contents of my apartment; the books, the records, the films. Then there were my art supplies, my paints and my easel, all retrieved from my old place, and seemingly endless materials to make canvasses if I chose to.

Raphael pushed apart the giant doors at the end of the space, and the world, full of sunshine and sky, birds and trees, buildings, boats and people, flooded in and opened up to me. I wouldn't have a phone or any other means to communicate with the outside world, but I could call Raphael from a phone at the nearby general store if I needed anything.

For all his trouble, I raised his commission on my work by 10%, which could be a lot of money, but I didn't expect to produce anything for a long time. With my permission, Raphael sold off all the last remaining pictures and a few sketches, giving the two of us, and Josie, enough funds to live on for the rest of our lives and more.

I lived on fish, fresh fruit, mushrooms, olives, cheese, avocados and grains, and my only vice was the odd herbal cigarette. I would sit on the ledge of my silo, let my feet dangle down, smoke and watch the cars and boats go by. I didn't listen to records or watch films anymore, but they didn't bother me sitting there, my only real escape would be through books.

I filled my day with fishing, walking, reading, gardening and painting. I had daily routines that passed the time. I turned to Buddhist texts and meditation for peace, but I still knew there was no god. I grew my beard out again, but cut my hair very short and wore a hat. Apparently I was forty-five now, but probably looked seventy.

At first, I just painted for solace, for therapy, making abstracts, which I would then paint over. But soon enough, the work became more focused as I found I could express something from within without it causing overwhelming grief and regret. At that moment, I became an artist again, and the work flowed out of me. I tapped into my dark pain, but there was light also, through the sad eyes of someone who once could feel love, to see leaves rustling in the wind and see beauty.

Despite my best efforts to fill my mind with distractions, all I could really do was suffer and paint, so that's what I did. Sometimes I would go to the ledge of my vast open windows and look down and think about trying to fly away, but I would step back and paint instead. I did hundreds of paintings, but destroyed or painted over most of them. Only the very best, the ones I could stand to look at, would get signed and survive, then sit in the corner of my space.

Raphael was ecstatic about the new work, but I couldn't let him release them, for then she would know I was alive. However, it wouldn't be too long before that news leaked, as someone in the clinic had recognized me, and I became a sensation all over again, and all my old friends were once again hounded. I wondered if poor Frank had been a part of that.

I called Raphael from the store but he couldn't come to see me anymore as he had been followed in an attempt to track me down. Annie was also forced to cancel a trip to visit me, but I didn't want her to see me anyway. The building was in Raphael's name, and my money came through him, from an account set up in perpetuity, so I would be hard to trace. If I needed something picked up or dropped off, he would have to arrange it anonymously from now on.

I asked after Josie, and Raphael informed me she had moved back in with her parents, where she painted, but had started college, as she had promised. Raphael also told me that she had never appeared to be with anyone else, and now that I was known to be alive, that seemed even less likely.

I was a great and respected artist. I had become world famous. There had been a documentary about me, and a feature film was being planned. One of my major Muse paintings had sold for millions. I had works in MOMA and the Tate Modern in London. I had been on the cover of magazines. I had more money than I could ever spend. I had the studio overlooking a river that I had always dreamed about. I had it all. There was only one thing I didn't have and it was the only thing that mattered. Her. My Rosebud. I allowed my mind to really linger on Josie for the first time since it had ended.

I fell to my knees and cried.

I had almost no contact with the outside world, so I had no idea, even who the president might have been. I didn't want to know. I needed to stay hidden. I needed her to move on. I needed her to love another, and one day, be a mother. I needed her to forget me. But for me, I would never recover from her, never love again, never touch another woman, but I would go on. My only joy would be to think on her and imagine her happy and free.