I searched for Henry all morning.
And I heard them scream all night.
Oh! God I wanted to be the one screaming wantonly under your weight.
I wanted you to crush me with your arrogance which I have become quite fond of to be honest.
But you make wait.
And I must not rush you.
I kept calling out for Henry.
Desperately trying to find her.
My heart aching for what might have happened to this fragile old cat who has a very frail voice. Yet, always manages to calls me when she needs me.
She always manages to find her voice.
To make it loud enough for me to hear.
My body was crying out from the desire you do not allow me to express.
Yet.
But I have never wanted anyone the way I want you.
You want us to be nice, independent friends.
For now.
I try to be what you want me to be.
Until the time comes and I climb Mount Vesuvius.
And scream.
You must allow me to scream.
And Henry is gone.
For months, long months, I cared for her.
She followed me everywhere I went.
"Henry, go wait for me under the building my love. Stop following me. Go rest. you know I will never leave you".
And I kept searching for her all morning.
My desire for your weight on top of mine was slithering its way into my eyes.
Few teardrops.
And I kept whispering:
"Henry please come home. Please don't leave me".
Peter was singing Opera all night.
I did not have the strength to scream at him to shut the fuck up and let us sleep already.
From the sixth floor, where that psychopath resides, his unbearable voice was sitting on top of my chest.
And on top of all that sordid building.
And he whistles.
He still manages to whistle this repetitive obnoxious tune that hangs somewhere between the Aria and Sonata he generously throws at us, mere mortals.
If those are the correct terms for his musical explorations, of course.
And I cannot breathe properly when I think of you.
And you tell me, sadistically, that in order to win, I must control my desire.
Temper my adrenaline rushes which cause me to utter explicit unhidden demands on you.
And you laugh.
I am slow, you say.
And patient.
And Peter's loud octave voice sits on my chest all night.
I keep searching for Henry.
But I don't want to win, I tell you.
You win.
The game is over.
Climb on top of me and let me feel your arrogance inside of me.
You laugh.
And I feed the birds on my small window.
Well, it is a large window, really.
It faces a wall.
The tall and hard wall of the opposite building.
It feels like a small window from where I sit.
And they fight.
All day.
Those damn, ungrateful birds.
They fight and fuck all day.
I provide for them enough food, but they insist on fighting about who eats more.
Fucking each other between an argument and another.
Maybe to prove a point.
And you tell me that you just left a relationship and only want a friend.
But I want to sit on you, and straddle your confidence.
Your hidden neurosis which I can see quite well.
Although it is hidden under layers upon layers of charm.
And that loud arrogance.
I need to feel you penetrate every inch of my body.
But the damn birds fight all day, although I provide them with enough food to last them a week.
Or at least until you decide to life my dress and allow me to sit on you and feel you penetrate every inch of my aching soul.
I have lost interest in everything.
I will do whatever you ask from me, I tell you.
Don't worry, I am not an idiot.
Merely a dreamer.
But I am lying.
I am an idiot.
And I want you.
I want to cry as I straddle you.
And suffocate your arrogance with my disappointments.
Peter sings all night.
I swear, at times, I can hear the muffled cries of his desires.
That psychopath.
And I search for Henry.
I aimlessly walk around the neighborhood.
Crying alone as I unhurriedly, sometimes impatiently, frantically, move from one street to the other.
Don't leave me, Henry.
Allow me the privilege to be by your side for a few more months.
I whisper my longing to her.
And I pray she hears me.
The tears pour slowly from my soul, and I continue walking aimlessly.
At times, frantically.
Please know that I love you and that I am searching for you, I tell her.
Please know that you were not alone in this world.
I am the one who is all alone.
It is only I who has no one left to care for her.
And I watch the birds from my desk as they bicker all day.
Why can't you make peace, I tell them.
There is enough food for all of you.
All of us.
Including that psychopath, Peter, and his muffled cries of desire which intrude on my long sleepless nights.
And I heard them scream all night.
Sit on my face, she'd tell her repeatedly.
And I pretended it was you ordering me to do just that, as I buried my ear on the wall to eavesdrop on their delicious indecency.
I could hear the hungry eating.
The clacking of the lips as she devoured her.
I will do whatever you ask of me.
Don't worry I will never demand anything you do not want to give.
Just give me the privilege to feel your arrogance on my frail body.
My aching vulnerability which you do not want to see.
Show me your muscles, you tell me.
Yes I will, I answer.
For you I shall grow balls. And I shall trim them elegantly.
I cannot handle more responsibilities, you say.
All my life I have done just that.
No more, you continue.
Don't worry, I assure you.
I will be my own strength.
I will be as strong as you want me to be.
But I lie.
I cry endless tears as I longingly wait for whatever you want to give me.
And the pain.
The glorious pain and its wretched presence inside my soul.
I want to bend on my knees and devour you the same way my fiery neighbor devours her lover.
The same way the psychopath, Peter, devours the whole building with his sickening singing.
And I ask the passersby if they had seen an old gray cat with hauntingly beautiful yellow eyes.
Her name is Henry.
She is old and she is still bleeding from having delivered for the hundredth time this year.
You see, I'd tell her when I would return from work, only to find her looking worried and waiting for me by the entrance of that old ugly building where I live, I always come back for you.
And I bang my head quietly on the wall.
I close my eyes to hide my pain.
Even though it is dark, and no one can see me.
And her lips smack as my neighbor eats her lover.
My tears pour from my aching soul.
The birds fuck in between the bickering.
As if they need that ritual to feed on their desire.
The old widow who lives next door, invites me weekly to have coffee with her.
She talks incessantly of her dead husband.
I listen patiently as she recounts tales I have heard over and over again a million times and a few more on top of them.
I smile sadly as I tell her:
I can't find Henry.
Who is Henry? she asks.
I catch a glimpse of her yellow teeth.
Why don't you have them cleaned? I repeatedly ask her.
They are almost black.
Thankfully, her hearing is bad.
She always answers about the weather or talks about her son, the famous surgeon who lives in Paris.
Talk to me about Paris, I ask repeatedly.
And she always recounts the same tales.
The cheese she eats.
The Chinese restaurant in the "Seixieme arrondissement" she has had dinner in with her son (The famous surgeon), and family that night, ten years ago.
And I think of Henry.
And you.
Pulling my body closer as you drag it towards your nakedness to penetrate me slowly.
Painfully.
Usually I am lying half naked on a table as you slowly drag me towards your hardness.
Oh! really? Paris is cold this time of year?
And I pass by Peter on the way down to feed the stray cats.
Since the fourth of August, the elevator has not been fixed, so I have to bump into the singing psychopath all day long as I go up and down the stairs.
He smiles his psychedelic infused smile while saying:
Hey, how is life?
Shitty because of you and your Arias and muffled orgasms you sick psychopath.
Oh! it is swooning, Peter, thank you.
Always a pleasure to bump into you.
I give him a small slap on his ass to give him importance.
His spaced out smile becomes wider.
kathreen, my neighbor on the third floor, always opens the door when she hears someone coming up and down.
She lives alone since her parents died.
All day and night, she listens to religious chants that should bring her closer to Jesus.
But really, all she needs is a beautiful woman to eat her haggard body back to life.
I am this close to suggest she joins my lesbian neighbor and her feisty lover in their nightly feasts.
But maybe that is not such a good idea.
Kathreen, you should taste it before you meet Jesus.
Did you ever consider the possibility that Jesus might not be waiting for you at the end of the tunnel?
Taste it, Kathreen.
You might not get another chance.
Oh! really? you need a heart operation and your doctors prescribed more antidepressants?
Well, you see, all the more reason to taste what is in between Lamia's legs before you rot in the ground.
I see, my friend. I will join you tonight in prayers so you recover miraculously.
And I shall continue praying that I rock your hard body from behind while you sit on my mother's favorite chair, and I mount you without inhibition.
Yes, of course, Kathreen, God sees everything.
My God! He does????
Chantale, on the other hand, my 70 year old neighbor on the fourth floor, does not care who goes up and down the stairs.
She opens the door constantly because she is always going and coming.
Or she is busy getting ready to welcome her lover, the neighborhood vet who dyes his hair dark brown, but somehow it always has hints of green in it.
Chantale is always in a hurry to go somewhere.
Her energy is always filled with this pretty, inviting sexuality I want to pour onto you.
But I accept that you need your space.
And we are to be independent friends.
My ass.
I walk around the neighborhood in a haze.
I bend on the table and you slowly move my knickers to the side, and you penetrate me from behind.
I do not know if you have noticed, but I use the word slowly a whole lot.
I need to do everything slowly in order to feel your hardness in all its glory.
You see, the importance I give it?
Do you, at least, appreciate the importance I give it?
As I keep swaying in the neighborhood searching for my Henry and trying to calm my raging body, Yvette, my 60 year old cheap neighbor greets me.
Look at my nails, she says. I asked Freeda to paint them blue.
Aren't they becoming? she asks.
I do not give a fuck you vulgar woman.
Oh! they are so flattering on your nails.
I hear her scream too, at times, as her young lover Elias, bangs her body nearly every night.
Around five in the morning.
The bastard cannot get it up before five in the morning, it seems.
He needs his beauty sleep before he can climb that flabby mountain of flesh she so proudly displays daily, walking around with no bra and in her shabby shorts.
She screams her desire in this hoarse voice, as if she is swallowing a rat at the same time, just for variety.
I heard your hoarse orgasm, you vulgar twit, at five in the morning.
Oh! me too, I am always happy to see you.
Go brush your hair, you deranged woman.
At least so you don't scare that boy who bangs you like there is no tomorrow.
Oh! the effort that poor boy is pouring on you before sunrise each morning.
I go to the pharmacy to have an anti - inflammatory injection for my aches.
For a reason or another I spread my legs too wide as I lift my skirt to allow Anees To dig the needle up my ass.
I can feel his heavy breathing.
He bends his head towards my lower body.
I spread my legs wider.
He laughs like a hyena as the needle penetrates my skin.
Come and penetrate me.
With your hard manhood.
But you are claustrophobic and need your space.
Well then why don't we fuck over the phone?
Isn't that space enough for you?
Henry, Henry, I scream.
Desperate to hug my old friend whom I met accidentally after one of her kittens fell from the first floor of the old building she chose to deliver in.
I hurriedly went to rescue it and I saw a strange cat pull her head from the balcony railings of the first floor.
Her eyes so yellow.
She stared at me in disbelief.
Why would anyone help her?
I talked to her softly, and showed her that I was nursing her baby back to life.
Then I placed the kitten in a deep box inside the entrance for her to find.
From then on, we became inseparable.
She would follow me everywhere.
Would enter the supermarket with me, and wait for me inside the hairdresser's salon as I made myself pretty for no one.
She would even try to follow me upstairs to the fifth floor where I unwillingly live.
Henry, wait for me, my love.
Tomorrow we meet, I'd tell her.
And I try to control my breathing when we casually talk.
Can't you see that we belong together you arrogant, ageing, Casanova?
Yes, I am doing the best that I can to thrive in Beirut.
One must always remain positive.
My lesbian muse of a neighbor and her lover greet me happily when we bump into each other on the stairs.
Oh! the orgasms I have just eavesdropping on your hunger.
Oh! Lovely young ladies so full of life and happiness.
Yes, of course. Would love to join you in Hamra Street one night and drink a nice, tall glass of wine in one of those charming pubs.
And perhaps you would allow me the pleasure to watch you take turns sitting on each other's faces.
You see, the man I desperately want, is claustrophobic.
And I must take it slow.
Or maybe you would take pity on Kathreen and her taste it before she discovers that Jesus will not be waiting for her at the end of the tunnel to congratulate her for remaining a frustrated virgin for over 75 years.
Of course, would pass by one afternoon for coffee.
Would love to chat with you lovely young ladies.
Henry. I scream over and over again as my body resigns to the fact the she will never return.
At least, let me tell you before you leave forever that you were loved.
And that I kept searching for you endlessly.
And that you were not alone.
I am the one who is alone.
It is only I, my Henry, who is left alone in this world.
Oh! Peter, what happiness to always bump into your positive vibes.
Oh! how I would love to scratch your psychedelic infused smile with Yvette's long blue vulgar nails.
Yes, Yes I understand that you need your space.
We don't want you to get claustrophobic now if I send a small heart at the end of the text, now do we?
You ageing, arrogant Casanova.
The tables will turn, just you wait and see.
And around Midnight, Peter starts infusing his Arias or Sonatas with his Claustrophobic, If I may describe it as such, whistle.
And at five, Elias bangs Yvette until she falls off the bed, fainting from pleasure.
Or high blood pressure.
But for a reason or other, the old fart never breaks her bones.
And I glue my head on the wall listening to my lesbian muses take turn flipping their tongues on each other's fruits.
Oh! Kathreen, turn off the religious chants, and go taste it.
Only Peter with his psychedelic infused smile will be waiting for you at the end of the tunnel.
And he will probably be whistling.