Photograph

33" x 26"

It’s no secret that I love women.  I love womanhood.  The mystique of womanhood transcends all other ‘hoods’ including priesthood and sainthood.  My favorite women are the least neurotic ones, those who are beautiful, stable in their indifference and have absolutely no known purpose on this planet.  I like thespians.  They tell the best stories and even believe some of them.  Rachael and Leah were two such fabulous women whom I met during a run of an obscure retread musical.  They danced in the opening number and in the finale.  Somehow any occurrence in between eludes memory.

I’ll never forget the first time I was mesmerized by the movement of Rachael’s slender form at centre stage.  As our eyes met during one of these crowd pleasing exercises implemented by all the pros, I had only one thought, “I would kill for just one chance to get into her mind.”

Leah, too, was a goddess.  She was taller and bigger than Rachael.  Word was that she was dating a very patient millionaire and she deserved him.  Anyone with an ass that high off the ground should be an aristocrat.

Working my way through a few theatre connections in that way of mine, I was at last introduced to the ladies.  We became great friends.  We were able to discuss anything, macrobiotics, foreign films, make-up and eventually I even taught them the correct use of silverware.  They confided in me their dreams of being discovered and getting that big break.  One could say they were ripe for stardom, perhaps slightly over-ripe.

Being ever the hopeless romantic I was never quite able to expose my true adoration of them while I waited laboriously for a cue to do so.  I was unable to expose my secret love for the two of them, how I kept every lipstick stained handkerchief, how each time either embraced me I became quite faint, how the scent of their perfume stayed with me long after the final curtain call.  It came to pass that the words they spoke to me became the very air that I breathed.  I was a mess and loving every minute of it.

One night I arrived at the theatre late.  Their dressing room door was wide open so I entered unnoticed.  The sight of them playing cards, drinking cheap liquor and taking turns at solos in a symphony of gum popping was so overwhelming that I was embarrassed as well as annoyed by the tears that blurred my vision.  At that moment I wanted to scream, “Rachael, Leah, behold you now!  Now, when you are not embroiled in some pseudo-sensual contrivance; now, when you are not making a mockery of the interplay between that of man and that of woman; now is when you are truly at the Zenith of Erotica!  Your diabolical innocence at this moment is overpowering!”  Then it occurred to me that they wouldn’t be able to understand a goddamned word I said.