Scenes From Memories: Blankpage

This world is spinning around me
This world is spinning without me
Every day sends future to past
Every breath leaves one less to my last

Rick is gone. He lived far longer than they expected, but then he was a fighter. His family called him "Ricky." I could never do that. It diminished him more than he deserved. Small and frail in body, he was still a man. I always tried to preserve that and treat him as such.

I am going to try to communicate my memories here. I do not know how well I will succeed. One of the side effects of being kinesthetic is that my long-term memories have flashes, stills, two-second-long movies of visual, and the rest is sensation with audio bursts. But I will do my best.

Watch the sparrow falling
Gives new meaning to it all
If not today nor yet tomorrow then some other day

I'll take seven lives for one
And then my only father's son
As sure as I ever did love him
I am not afraid

Rick did everything passionately. Even when he just sat and watched, it was with intensity.

Memory:

We are in IRC together. I am still learning submission at the time, training that will serve me very well over the years. I am still finding people other than myself are into hypnosis. I am overwhelmed and awed.

He is funny, snarky, and making me laugh. He keeps me from taking it too seriously.

Eventually we end up submitting to the same Dominant. She is no longer with the scene as I recount this, but then-we love her. We submit to her with the one who will years later become my Kitty. Kitty is using the name Ru'avel (Dreamsword in some dialect of Dragon Magazine Elvish) at the time. Kitty names me Ru'etha, Dreamhealer. At last Rick picks the name Ru'iten.

He is the Dreamspinner. It fits.

Memory:

The three of us are on the phone together in a three-way conversation. We are repeating Her triggers to one another, sending each other deeper into trance in a breathing, living, organic, fluid way. It is timeless. I have learned the hard way to set an alarm.

We emerge finally, warned by that alarm. "We should get together soon. Like, real life, face to face." Rick is nervous about being judged for his appearance. We reassure him. He is our brother.

The planning for the Stupid Bowl party begins, and I call him bredu. Bredu, for brother, from one of my favorite SF book series. I will never again call anyone else by that particular name. I find over the years I have many brothers. He is my only bredu.

Memory:

Visual flash: glancing over at him sitting in my passenger seat on the way back from the airport. His hair is long and blue-black and silky. He is so tiny. I am a short woman, and he looks me in the eye. We are listening to Duran Duran, singing at the tops of our lungs as we drive down a road I travel every day. Now it's different. My bredu is with me. I've cranked the heat in the car - he's from southern California and has no body fat. When I'm sweltering, he's finally stopped shivering.

Pull me under Pull me under
Pull me under I'm not afraid
All that I feel is honor and spite
All I can do is to set it right

Memory:

Our Lady is hypnotizing us. Hypnotized Eyes, my first real submissive, is lying to my left. Ru'avel is on my right. Ru'iten is lying on top of me. He's so light I barely feel him. The slight weight is comforting. I become aware that my breathing is completely synchronized with ru'iten's and hypnotized eyes', and the world goes happily away.

Memory:

He is shy, tentative. In the last few days he has had his first kiss. But we know time is not on our side, now in specific or any time in general. It feels right. I am careful not to hurry him. We still have our socks on. This produces giggles, but it's important. And he loved being tickled, and so we are playful.

We are done, and he hypnotizes me in Spanish. I have no idea what he's saying; my command of that language is limited to what I learned as a kid watching TV. It doesn't matter. He strokes my hair and murmurs to me and I melt. It's beautiful.

Memory:

We are watching the game, cheering for both teams to lose. He says "And this is where the ball becomes sentient and flies away into the stands! Fly! Be free!" And we all crack up, because he is absolutely right.


And the moment of clarity
Faded like charity does
Sometimes
I open one eye
And I put out my hand just to touch your soft hair
To make sure in the darkness that you were still there
And I have to admit
I was just a little afraid
Yeah
But then...
I had a little bit of luck
You were awake
I couldn't take another moment alone

Memory:

"We should write something together. Only not as us, not writing with you as blankpage, you know? Let's write something in the Pleasure Cruise storyline and send it in."

"I've always wanted to use the name Fey. But I don't want to write something with a lot of sex."

"You're on, bredu. I'll write as... umm... I'll come up with something. And I don't like writing a bunch of sex scenes either. Let's start writing and see where it goes."

I end up choosing the name Sunset. The result is here. I don't co-write again with anyone for years. We agree not to let people know the story is by the two of us. I think the time for that agreement is done. People deserve to know it was him.

When your nine day feed is up
And you've drained your loving cup
Come stands reeling to the shore

Memory:

"I know what I want for my birthday. I want you to come out and visit me for a few days." Things have ended with our Lady, and I am finding my inner Dominance rising. We both know I am not the Domme for him, but we are still close. He is still my bredu. And so I book tickets, and I fly to California. We borrow his brother's car and drive around. He shows me places. We stay at a hotel, but I do meet his family. They don't understand fully why I'm there, but they're glad he's happy. He can't drive. We get lost a lot, because he knows the area so well he forgets to tell me to turn places. It is spring of 2002.

I am lying on the bed in the hotel holding him. He feels even lighter than before. I am trying to sense within him, in the way I've been taught by my faith. His back feels all wrong. The kidneys feel like two black disks sucking everything in. I am afraid, and I nuzzle his beautiful hair. He tells me he is going to the NIH in June or July, for some more of the studies they perform on him. "Going to have to update the textbooks again, I'm still not dead."

When the brave are coming out
The dry fight and the dusty shout
See you crawling on the floor

Memory, clear and distinct:

We are on the phone with Mark Reed from the Forum, and find out that he's about eight hours' drive north. "We should road trip!" I say.

Mark pauses. "I couldn't ask you to do that," he says, and his voice betrays how much he wants it.

Visual flash: I look at Rick. His eyes are bright and interested and hopeful. He has never gotten to do any of the crazy things most people take for granted. He can't. He, too, is trying not to let on how very much he wants this.

The decision is easy. "Grab your stuff, we're road tripping!" And we leave the hotel, still checked in, knowing we're paying for a night not there, and head north. We're singing in the car the whole way up.

Memory:

I am in another hotel bed, between Mark and Rick. Mark is over six feet tall and huge. Rick is smaller than I am. We all fit in one double bed. We are cuddling. I hypnotize them both, nonsexually, building the closeness. It feels good. We all cry a bit the next day when Rick and I head back south.

Memory:

Who the fuck would have thought there would be snow in California? But in the mountains north of LA, there is snow in the pass. The heater for the car is spotty, and Rick doesn't have a coat. I give him my jean jacket and he curls his whole body underneath it. In order to see, I have to open the window a bit every so often. We are both shivering. Traffic is moving slowly. But we make it down the other side of the mountain and see the lights of LA spread out before us, and it warms.

I have no contact information for Mark now. I wish I did. He would want to know.

And diamond stars shine glitter bright
Gorging your sanhedralite
Words are falling to the floor
Glands stand pouring fruit tree
Now they glisten on the waterline
See how you are at the shore

Memory, auditory and sensation only:

I am at work, and his mother calls me. She is frantic. He has gone to NIH, and they've told him he needs dialysis. He has left the building against medical advice. His family and the medical staff have no idea where he is. "If he calls you, please tell him to go back."

He does, and I do, and I plead with him. He finally does go back, resentful and unhappy. I know the toxins are affecting his mind. It is cold comfort.

He never says he forgives me, though I apologize.

Haul up all your petty desires
Leave it lying down before
Wash away the rusty disease
Of your brown town days in our silver sea
Leave it dying at the door

Memory:

"Rick, please don't post my real name associated with my online names on your journal! I've been stalked, and that's scary to me. Please?"

I check again twenty minutes later. The post is gone. So is our friendship. Emails go unread, fan mail sent gets no response, IMs disappear into the void. And there it rests for four years. I know he is sick, and I see him at least once fake his death. I hear he has a girlfriend. I hear it's over. The toxins affect his mind on and off. I know that is why he won't say anything to me.

He is still my bredu, whether he knows it or not.

Open out your arms and breathe
Breathe
Breathe
Breathe

He sends me an email in December. He apologizes for everything he's done to hurt me. He tells me he's on the list for a transplant. He declines my (recurrent, ongoing) offer to get tested to see if we're a match. He wishes me luck with everything.

I tell him I love him. He is my bredu.

He never writes again.

There feels like there should be more to this, more to say, more to offer you, more to remember him. And there are more scenes, more flashes, more sounds, more sensations.

But Marion Zimmer Bradley, the woman who gave me the word bredu, was wise to have her characters only offer one or two moments in her novels when they remembered the departed. I have already gone on too long for that. So I close with more of her words:

Let that memory lighten grief.

Lyrics are from "Pull Me Under" by Dream Theatre, "The Moment of Clarity" by Roger Waters, and "To the Shore" by Duran Duran.