I never knew monstres were so sensitive.
Yes, I know YOU knew, but I wouldn't have believed you had you held up the mirror and showed me how I cringe.
Period cramps and rollercoasters, here I was this morning thinking "wow, I'm running the red river and not a single twinge of nastiness yesterday! My hormones are improving!"
And then I spent today running from the office to the bank to the gare, on the m�tro.
Ahhh, the m�tro. Where a man got on with me at La D�fense and followed me all the way to Champs-Elys�es, sitting across from me with his hands clasped over the bulge in his pants, rubbing up and down.
Everytime I would glance up from my book to check the station, he'd stare right into my eyes and grin.
I have never hated a smile so much before.
Escaping the long way off the train so that I could avoid passing him, I marched with tears in my eyes to the next train to Varennes to drop off checks and things at my bank.
On the platform of the 13, he touched my shoulder, having followed me all the way there, and began speaking to me, still rubbing himself.
I glared at him and turned on my heel and marched into a throng of people.
He followed me.
Teeth tightly gritted, I didn't have the strength in my jaw to pry them apart and spew obscenities through them.
I didn't even have any obscenities to spew. I just felt small. So. very. small.
Traipsing my way to a different m�tro line on my way to the gare, when the man sitting by my knee stared openly at my face I gritted them again and turned aside and stared blankly into the window, book clenched in my hand.
Last night at the quebecois bar was a mix of emotions. Thrilled to be talking to Marie-France and having her begin a tagging contest on my arms (I'll just take it as a compliment that people feel the need to draw on my skin) by scrawling her e-mail in big drunken letters along my inner left forearm.
There are still traces of happy faces and flowers and things inside my right elbow, despite my carefully hidden tattoos, my skin still seems to scream "put stories in me".
And when that third pint started the room spinning, I turned right into a breathtaking girl and Alain's introductions.
Maja. Maja the master's student in voice training on an exchange from Germany. Too tall and too lean with too-straight too-blonde hair tumbling down her back, the openness of her smile was breathtaking, the way she touches you when she speaks, the way she means all of her words.
Maja, who gives singing lessons.
Maja who wants to learn to rollerblade, Maja who I just e-mailed.
Then just as I was turning to kiss Daniel and Marc and Guillaume goodbye, some red-faced girl grabbed me by the arm and dragged me off to a corner for a quiet talk.
A quiet talk consisting of drunkenly yelling at me, that where she comes from, we don't "share".
Hunh?
Quebec, she meant, assuming I was french somehow, and maybe she mistook my turning away from this or that crowd of macho-men and their sad attempts at impressive stories as some sort of... I don't know. Wanton behaviour. Something.
I don't know. I don't understand. Maybe I drew her ire by engaging in a conversation with Andr� after finding out that we both work for the same company. Andr� being the boyfriend that she's squatting here with.
Doing nothing.
Living off his paycheck, in his appartment, attacking people in the bars he brings her to.
Bored out of her skull, maybe? Insecure about her cash cow?
How you can live doing precisely nothing...
But then I didn't understand much of what she said to me. Not her ignoring my attempts to explain about David, not anything.
Speaking to David today, the moment he said a handful of soothing words, it stopped bothering me. Thank you, baby.
Speaking of which, I seem to have undertaken certain automatic reactions in bars.
For example, when some random guy leans in to whisper that he loves my perfume, I happily announce "Thank you, my boyfriend bought it for me. He's wonderful."
And yet, despite those fluttering words, whenever someone makes that most intimate gesture and puts their hand in the small of my back, I shiver.
I don't know why, but somehow that one spot is reserved. When this or that fellow reaches out and asks to feel if my curls are as silky as they look, I grit my teeth and let them, trying not to be as cold as I feel, thinking that their hands are like the same polluted air that attacks my curls in the streets.
But the small of my back is a tender place, associated with so many intimate things, and I don't want you touching it. I'm sorry.
When did I become so sensitive? My armour of pink hair and leather things and jackets with rude logos emblazoned on them is gone, and somehow when the angry leers at my appearance turned to... to whatever they are now, it's all different.
When I dressed for attention, dressed to show that I didn't care, men in the m�tro and priests in airports told me I was going to hell.
Hell is fine with me.
But not these looks. Something's changed. I don't know what it is or why it hurts now that I am trying to reach out to people, live among them.
THis is why I pushed them all away back then.
But I'm trying now. Please tell me how this works. Why it hurts. How to make it stop without crawling back inside.
I want to stop running.
I wish David could see the skirt I bought all by myself and the deep blue pinstriped blouse, I wish I could crawl into his arms, not to hide but to steal strength from them.