Lady Death

Lyrics writing session with Karen. She showed me sketches and ideas of songs. One was about Lady Death and we decided to work on it. She had only scribbled down a few lines on a piece of paper. 

Lady Death?

I saw her standing at the corner

Lady Death selling raffle tickets

Thus went two of the lines.

I took the book I was currently reading and randomly picked a page, then blindly picked a line. The words that would come were to be used. That was the rule of the game. Karen did the same with her book. We gathered a full page of words and lines we like. 

"That's how I proceed when I have no clue how to begin" I told her. "It's like opening a map and decide that where the finger points is where I would go to."

Is it stealing? Borrowing? Is that important or relevant? Sometimes I even push it as far as listening to a song and the writing down what I think I understood. Usually the result has nothing to do with the original lyrics, for on a first listen, I would always pay more attention to the music and the arrangements than to the words. I'm a dumb listener of words. Lyrics springing... Lyrics milking... 

As André Gide once said, "Everything has been already said, but since people always forget, we have to repeat it again".

I asked Karen to develop the ideas she had in mind and wrote down words or phrases that caught my ears.

After a three hour long session, we nearly had the whole song. 

The combination of our two styles of writing is interesting. Karen has this uncanny ability to find the most rare and voluptuous words to describe her ideas, while I prefer to suggest than express. Baroque way against/with Asian way. 

We had been writing together for the past six or seven years. Thanks to these playful creative sessions, I also allowed my song-writing skills to grow and mature.

§§§

I rang the bell. When I entered the flat, they were already at it. I was let in, then taken to a dimly lit living-room.  I found myself in one of those posh, late 19th century bourgeois interiors. Music was playing from a distant room, some blues music to fill the silence. Three naked figures, silhouetted against the soft yellow light.

The host, a French middle-aged man was on his knees, actively worshipping a short but lean and muscular young Asian guy. The third one, François, also Asian, was standing behind, hidden by his partners. François had sent me a text message earlier in the day, inviting me to join the fun. I hesitated. I had been bathing in  the family mode for a whole month now, and the perspective of carnal lust was  far remote from my mind. But I felt the excitement slowly grow in me,  almost feverish, like a teen-ager on his first date. A date surely it wasn't.

"We're going to be two Asians dominating a French slut..." were his words. I had just been reading some Japanese erotic mangas where the main character was the consenting play toy of an attractive yet sadistic executioner.

was I to do the same?

"Middle-aged but still in good shape", François had said about the host. The one who attracted me was of course the muscular guy, Hua. My heart started to beat faster when I caught glimpse of him, like a little boy who finds his favourite toy in a shop. I undressed, stood behind him and proceeded to feel the contour of his body. He immediately responded with a tenderness and kindness which contrasted with the forceful way he was feeding his victim with his jade stalk. I hadn't touched anyone in weeks. I was like a man  beginning to walk again after a long convalescence. The langorous kisses Hua would give back, his tenderness in the way he would touch me were what I was craving. Gestures of kindness. I didn't feel the impulse to turn  myself into a Japanese sadistic executioner. Maybe another time when my energy is up... The Frenchman struck me as a bit ridiculous with his leash around his neck, clothes pegs on his nipple and - I found out later, a dildo comfortably settled in his behind. His voraciousness didn't quite suit the role of the unwilling play toy.

What really aroused me was the palpable bond between us Asians, as if we formed a sensuous brotherhood of three against this man whose desire never seemed to smite us.