Part 2

The Love Spell. An Erotic Memoir of Spiritual Awakening
by Phyllis Curott

(Page 2 of 5)

This is where I belong, I thought as I headed to the triangular corner of the Riviera Café. The outside tables were full. I pushed open the heavy glass door and was hit by a wave of loud, cool air. Immersed in cigarette smoke, laughter and rock and roll, I slid into a seat at a window table.

"You're out late," Cutter said, reaching to empty the overflowing ashtray. That was his nickname from summer jobs working in a stone quarry. It was also his stage name. He flashed his Hollywood smile at me. With green eyes and thick black hair that hung to his shoulders, he was the reincarnation of Errol Flynn in an apron. Built like an athlete, he moved like a dancer. Women always flirted with him, and he flirted back. But he drew as much attention from some of the male customers, and flirted with them just as easily. He'd gone to Yale Drama School, and now, like most actors, he was waiting on tables while he waited for his break. He wiped the wet table with a white terry towel.

"I'm ... restless."

"Where's that fine-looking boyfriend of yours?" He winked.

"Ha." I frowned.

"It's like that, is it? Well, anytime you need your best friend, you just tell me and I'll make sure you get a good night's sleep." Cutter grinned. "The usual?"

I'd been trying to develop a taste for Scotch, figuring it would be a necessary skill once I graduated. An impulse seized me. "No. A cognac - that's what I want."

He gave a little snort of a laugh. "Good night for a Dionysian offering. I'm gonna get you something special."

I stared out the window, watching the yellow cabs stream downtown, the gay boys dressed in drag and leather and cowboy hats. Cutter returned and with a flourish put a well-filled brandy snifter in front of me.

"Delamain - it's called Vesper."

"Vesper's an evening prayer, isn't it?"

"Actually, the prayer's named for what a vesper really is - an evening star. First one, the one you wish upon."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Not tonight. Those Renaissance bad boys, the alchemists, invented distillation and created eau de vie - waters of life. Add the magic ingredient of time and presto: cognac."

"I thought they were trying to turn lead into gold."

"Some, but the guys who really knew what it was about were after the gold of the enlightened spirit."

"Well, here's to wishes that come true!" I took a swallow and coughed.

Cutter laughed. "Take your time with that. I gotta get back to my drudgery." He went to take an order.

I rolled the cool glass between my palms, buried my nose in it and then sipped, slowly. A trickle of burning, flashing gold slid over my tongue - and lasted long after the glow of burnt wine had heated my throat and spread through my body. I felt the burn become heat and the heat become warmth and the warmth become pleasure. I lost track of time as my restlessness turned to reverie and the bar slowly emptied.

Cutter slid into the seat across from mine.

"Time for a break." He smiled and tapped my glass with a snifter of his own. Music suddenly filled the empty bar. "The bartender loves that album." It was Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town. The music rushed along, driven by the drums, cresting and breaking, then rising again to another hungry, whispered climax.

"I've been playing it all summer."

"Yeah. It's kinda dark, isn't it?" He grinned.

"Very sexy."

"So let's open the doors to heaven, shall we? Here's to Mr. James Byron Dean." We tapped and drank. "May the little bastard rest in peace," Cutter said.

"The actor?"

He nodded, lit a cigarette, took a long drag and exhaled heavenward. "My guiding star. Died twenty-three years ago today - in a car crash. He liked to race, bought himself a Porsche Spyder and got nailed on his way to a race in Salinas - you know, where East of Eden is set."

"That's one of my favorite books," I said, surprised. Written by Steinbeck, it was an American Cain and Abel story, with a Cain both tragic and sympathetic.

"Kazan made it into a film," Cutter replied. "It was Dean's first picture, he played Cal Trask. Anyway, so what are the odds? Big empty road, no one around, and at the exact moment this guy turns left, Jimmy's there. Weird." He sighed. "Ah, what the hell, he wanted to be immortal, and he managed it."

"Listen to those lyrics."

He listened to a song about racing in the street and smiled. "Synchronicity. Everybody experiences it, but very few pay attention."

A shiver shot through me.

"What's the matter?"

"Don't know. What's that expression? Feels like somebody just walked on my grave."

"Well, don't you go riding around in any old Porsches, honeychild. You're just starting your trip." Cutter was staring past me into some romantic vision. "I grew up in a small town not so far from where he did, and I always thought it was so strange how most of the kids knew who he was, but they didn't really give a damn - I mean, a lot of them had never even seen his movies. They just wanted to play basketball and get married. But me, I was haunted from the minute I saw him. I had to do what he was doing. He showed us what we all want - and what we're all afraid of. Hell, he wasn't acting, he was being. He was completely present, and most of us are barely here. He was so present, even though he's dead he's sure not gone." Cutter gazed out the window. "I'd trade my life for his in a New York minute, even if it meant I'd already be dead. I gotta help close up." He knocked back the last of his brandy and headed to the bar.

The restlessness I'd been feeling earlier seemed to pour out of the speakers, and back into me. Well, Jimmy, wherever you are, here's to fire in the darkness and here's to you. I toasted him silently, inhaled the last of my elixir and finished it off. I felt the final shimmer of warmth and waved to Cutter for a check.

He mouthed back: "On the house."

I left him a big tip, stretched and pulled on my jacket. A gust of wind yanked the front door from my hand, slamming it wide and rushing past me into the smoky bar. The sky was an unearthly pale gray, mottled with garish colors from the shop lights and streetlamps below. I stood in the doorway as the rain began, a few heavy drops followed swiftly by sheets of water. It was glorious - wild and reckless and then as quickly as it hit, it was over. I headed out into the night.

The streets had been emptied by the storm. The air was cool and clean against my skin, and I breathed deeply, something I rarely did in the city. It smelled like rain and felt like a fine stream of clarity coursing through me. And then I heard it - a guy giggling, as if he were being tickled, as if he were standing right behind me. I turned quickly - but there was no one there.

I crossed Seventh, headed down Bleecker and found myself walking a few yards behind a young couple. His arm was around her, and their laughter drifted back to me as I heard him trying to impress her:

"Really, it's one of the prophecies that before the end of the earth people will see a star getting brighter and closer every night. And as it gets closer, the weather's gonna change, the north and south poles'll reverse, and the ice caps are gonna melt, the seas'll get warmer, and all the coasts are gonna be flooded. You don't want to be in New York when that happens."

"Well, a meteor changed the earth's climate and that wiped out the dinosaurs. I guess anything's possible," she said sweetly to his prophecies of doom. And then he leaned down and kissed her. She seemed to melt into his embrace and the waters began to rise. I walked quietly past, and as I did sweetness seemed to flow from them, hitting me. I had the strangest sensations of déja vu and premonition - as if someone, as if true love, was waiting for me just around the corner. Yeah, well, that's the second time tonight that couples have got you going. I laughed to myself, shaking off the strange feelings. Yeah, well, if a certain star approached you, your ice caps would sure melt.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I knew no one was behind me, or anywhere near me. And the couple was still kissing. I shook my head. No more cognac for you, missy. Home! My pace quickened as I headed past the stuccoed old southern Italian church on the corner, and down sleeping Carmine Street. I took the stairs two at a time, racing as if I were going to be late. Out of breath, I opened the door quietly. Gail wasn't home. Hooray, the place is mine, for all the good it'll do me tonight.

More than you can guess.

There it was again. That's not me. I know what my own thoughts feel like. I sure ought to, since I'd pretty much lived in my head my whole life. And that "voice" came from somewhere else. I shook off the uneasiness, stripped off my clothes and showered the cigarette smoke off my body. I lost track of time, letting the hot water lull me into sleepiness. But as I wrapped my robe around me, I began to feel fidgety again.

Turn on the television.

What the hell? Okay, well, if I'm going to hear voices I guess we might as well have a conversation. So since when do disembodied voices watch television?

Turn it on. Now. Hurry.

Copyright © 2006 Phyllis Curott

About the Author

Phyllis Curott is the author of Book of Shadows and Witch Crafting, which top 100,000 copies in combined U.S. sales. She was named one of the Ten Gutsiest Women of the Year by Jane magazine and receives extensive major media attention. New York magazine described Curott as one of the city's hippest and most intellectually cutting-edge speakers, and she regularly lectures and teaches workshops throughout the United States and internationally. A graduate of Brown University and NYU School of Law, she is also a practicing civil liberties attorney.