Dark Star. Not his real name. Changed to protect the guilty. Or, the potentially guilty.
Can one be punished for thoughts? Do thoughts become deeds? She remember her first confession.
"Bless me father, for I have sinned...this is my first confession...I told someone that I could ride a two wheeler but I still have training wheels...I used the name of God in vain. What does 'in vain' mean anyway...and how do you spell it?"
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...
Nothing had ever happened between Dark Star and Gwen - but "it might as well have," she wrote in her journal, with an eyeliner. Then she wrote: "Dark Star, keep your thoughts to yourself and stop reading mine, " Gwen said silently, like a mantra, all day, on the morning after the night before.
"NOTHING HAPPENED," she screamed then silently, "and it never will" she said, in something between a stage whisper and a bellow. No one was home. Or if they were, they were invisible, as she went through the motions. Wash the windows - change the lightbulb - pat the dog. The three ways to wave.
"It never will," Gwen said aloud to herself, as she folded endless loads of laundry while listening to the opera that she tried to force herself to enjoy because it seemed like an interesting thing to talk about at cocktail parties or at random people who struck up conversations with her at train stations.
She had that kind of face. She always ended up sitting next to someone visiting from Kansas who asked her where they should go while visiting New York.
She had that kind of soul. Not easily amused...swimming in rarified waters...
"Dark Star, just STOP!," she said.
She grabbed the keys to her car and drove to meet The More Sensible Solution a/k/a the Alternative.
"My blood sugar is low," she told him by way of explanation when she dialed him up and said "let's meet for Lemon Ice."
She looked forward to the monotony of what he would say - that could easily put her to sleep or in a trance, and to the sting of lemon ice on her tongue. Better lemon ice than Dark Star...
Or not?
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