[YD6-55(SHEj) Chapter Code] The genie of Consciousness: Suscitating a Spiritual Wedding

 

This memoir, presented in self-contained chapters, delves into the layers of existence through the lens of Aetheria, a toddler who personifies 'Consciousness.' Born from a profound yearning, Aetheria names herself Sunshine, yet her journey is shadowed by dark forces threatening her destiny. Inspired by The Code: Horizon of Infinity, these stories weave together themes of mind travel, destiny, and the shaping of fate.

In this chapter, the delicate tension between intimacy and emotional disconnection comes to the forefront. The narrator wrestles with guilt, longing, and unresolved emotions toward Francine, revealing a complex dynamic of desire, regret, and unspoken expectations. Guided by Aetheria’s subtle presence, the narrative unfolds into an uneasy reconciliation, leaving both characters yearning for clarity and understanding.

This chapter is shared in its raw, unedited form, as a gift for those curious to explore the creative process behind the memoir. While it has yet to undergo professional revision, it offers a glimpse into the story’s heart and themes. I invite you to journey through it, reflect, and, if inspired, share your thoughts.

I’m sitting at the foot of the bed, dawdling into the shadows of my leading life, as Francine had jumped from Aladdin's chat rug, Paris, a destination across the Atlantic Ocean. From behind she crosses the entrance door’s passageway to the shower-room, vanishing behind the door. I’m rolling eyes around the chinese pink garden of plastered wallpaper, stunned. ‘Where did I land myself?’ I catch the untainted window picture flush sidewalk three canopies, and shining undulated cars rooftops feeling some normalcy. In my dawdling resilience, staring at the ajar shower-room door, Francine’s discarded clothes of wings flutter, a silent exodus. 

as I’ve just moved in with Francine, while I’m left wondering, ‘Where do her clothes flush land?’ But she already has sight, of her clothes hook on the faucet, perch and drape from the vanity basin. When I rely on a hissing relay, the shower rose spray, the steam beckoning tendril curl to the door head -- Aetheria in the mystic billows dissipating along the ceiling --  To my surprise, Francine's voice, soft as a marshmallow, calls out, "Will you come?" 

‘My Little Sparrow! You can’t be serious?’ I’m mutter to myself, torn by a desire to please Francine, and the wisdom of restraining my heart from wandering into the wilderness of her folly. Choosing to lend her a deaf ear. to my regret, until in the aftermath, of not insisting. I sense she’d given her imposition a reflection. 

The shower hisses in the distance, gazing at the steam curling a tease around the doorframe, an invitation. Francine’s voice calls again, tugging at my pride. Each breath feels heavier, my chest tight with the weight of my ego. Still, I sit, letting the shower’s hiss shield me from her call.

Her call draws closer, and snappier, my mind flips to a three dimensional architectural redesign, of francine’s ideal living quarters. The concept stems from the awkwardness of hosting her arriving in New York, home in my converted garage. She asked, “Where’s the toilet?” Headed in  that confined space, pulled her jeans and underpants down to her ankles to sit. 

 I sketch, in my mind, a glass studio—a sanctuary of openness and light. my guilt lingers, as her calls draw closer, shorter than the last, and crisp, worst outcome, if i didn't concede. At living with her as an idiot -- for refusing to concede to her simple desire. 

‘I can’t suddenly pitch up and pretend.’ the thought loops in my mind. at facing Francine’s question. ‘Why did you ignore my calls?’ as my snubish behavior gnaws at me. In front of me, Aetheria infiltrated the genie of steam billowing along the doorjamb spilling to the floor, crawling to my feet. begging me listening to Francine plea. “On peut prendre une douche ensemble ? -- Can We Take A Shower Together?”

I jolt, startle from the beast of my ego, spring to my feet, My toe hooks to the heel of my shoe, tugging it off, peeling my sock, stepping the cold floor. Then , bare my other foot, unzip, pull the cuff stepping out my jeans to pool the floor. While shaking my head, thinking. ‘Today’s liberated youth?’ 

My hands crossed, I tug the hem of my shirt, tugging it over my head, which I toss back. Down my jeans, stepping into the steam, peeling away my Jockey, leaving them behind on the floor. Around the door leaf, Francine figures a lithe shadow framed by the fluted doors. Arms raised above her head, she cradles a conical-green flask with both hands, squeezing a stream of shampoo into her hair. Foaming a bridal veil trail amid water purfling her body, off her shoulders, tracing her curves swirling at her feet in watery eddies. 

“C'est trop petit pour deux là-dedans ? -- It’s too small for two in there?” I blurted, stepping closer.

I didn’t expect Francine’s answer, as she meets my eyes. I step across the threshold - clatter, clatter, clatter - my elbow scrapes the fluted triple overlapping doors, to my disbelief. My body presses her into the corner, the water spray over our heads mingling with her body warmth. 

Francine unhooks the showerhead, handing me the sprinkling water, leading the spray into the hollow of her neck. She brings her arm through the coursing water across her figure. Her hand retrieves a soap cake from the wall dish. She rubs her shoulder to froth and wash down. 

Hooking the showerhead back up the wall, my hands meet. I leave my hands to trace the curves of her neckline through the foam and intermittent squeegee skin. My thumbs rub her collar bones, my fingertips slipping over the smooth curves of her shoulders. She pauses and offers me the soap cake. Suds spills through my fingers, liquid silk over her skin. 

Francine reaches behind her for the shampoo flask from the shelf, tweaks off the cap, flips the nozzle over her head, and squirts the creamy soap into her hair. 

‘I mean, it’s yours, but you’re using a whole flask in one shower session?’ I’m thinking. My fingertips on her scalp, The flask flips, returning over her shoulder, the flask to the shelf. Massaging under the froth. She plasters both palms up onto my chest. Widespread, her long fingers slip across my chest. Froth purfling drawn by coursing water down. She leans forward with lingering fingers, pressing her figure to mine with a gentle lip touch, tasting the water, the wild swirls of her tongue. She relents, kissing, slipping down, her hands trailing along my flanks. Her body folds down, catches the tip of my groins as she hunkers. Bringing me down to crouch, our legs entangling, to cradle in the tray of the shower.

As the water sprays over our heads. A cascade along Francine’s figure, unhindered. Her nimble fingers, fondling rough and tumble. She springs to her feet, wipes my groins. I’m standing facing an emergency — She reaches right-handed around her left, gropes for the blue faucet knob. My hand darts behind her, to the red button peeking in the hollow of her shoulder blades. I twist the faucet knob, avoiding steaming water washing over bodies, and a blue murder scream. 

As Francine sidled around me, her hand gliding down my arm, through my wrist, her fingers curling to grip my hand. On her toes, she leads me out of the cubicle, pulling me along from shower doors clattering. She contours the doorjamb, paces across the entrance passageway toward the foot of the bed. In a sweeping turn, her hands slip up the back of my arms, drawing me closer, as she locks eyes with mine. Tilting me with her fluid fall back, she drags me along. My knees hinging on the edge of the bed. My hands dart out, planting themselves beside her shoulders to catch myself. I hover above her, holding up my torso to prevent myself from collapsing in fear of crushing at sight her delicate sculptured collar bones.

I prop up over Francine, slumber on the mattress, as chill air envelops my wet body. My gaze sweeping across her velvet skin swarming with goosebumps, to trace the last glistening dewdrop on the mount of her petite breasts. As I’m mesmerizing, a sunset’s golden landscape off her rib cage, across the undulations down her stomach. She seems insensitive to the chill, while my body creeps with icicles. As her restless hands crawl up to my neck. She intertwines her fingers for a firm grip, yanking my neck, to pull me down. But pulls herself toward me. Her silent speaking, with an onslaught of relentless kisses punctuated by her weight against my propping arms. I read what she wants, but hold steady on coming down and crushing her frail figure.

Francine releases her clasp around my neck, to spider-crawl up the bed, wiggling through my propped arms. Her arms reappear from the shadows to sling around my neck. Her eyes widen closer in, as she leans in seeking me. Touches my lip with a hungry kiss. Tightening her embrace, yanks my neck down, as my body remains suspended from hers. She raises eyes, pleading with me, with soft lips brushing mine. I sense her attempts to bend me to her will, but she seems so fragile beneath my body. 

As Francine presses on to wiggle further up the bed, with kisses and tugs. She weighs in, rolling back her torso. My nether slipping between her parting legs into the warmth of her crotch. Compliant to Francine, I flexed my right elbow, lowering myself to a partial covering of her torso. She slings her legs, ankles locks me, harnesses her crotch to mine. Music filling the air, the mind resonating with the couple’s song. ‘Je t’aime, je t’aime - Oh oui, je t’aime - Moi non plus - Oh, mon amour - Comme la vague irrésolue . . . (I love you, I love you - Oh yes, I love you - Me neither - Oh, my love - Like the irresolute wave . . .)’

Francine’s peaceful pause erupts, screaming her lungs out. Her pelvis bucks, launching the tip of my crotch, airborne to the chill of the air. Falling back to the harness of her legs, my member slithers to her body’s warmth. As I ride Francine’s bucking body, her yelping scream reverberates through the air. I reach up from my propped elbow, cupping her mouth to mute her wild screams. But Francine screams and bucks, while wrestling her head right and left from underneath my palm. Hard-pressed to silence her. My mind stretches Hydra’s head, the reach of her screams. Echoing past the factories of the ceiling and through the hollow of floor joists to the floorboard. Resonating by her Chinese landlady through the air of her apartment upstairs.

Francine exerts herself to bronco bucking, screams, too outrageous gasp for air, while the edge of my hand pursues wild head slews away and returns, punctuating her stoned eyes. ‘She doesn’t see me,’ reckon. I gain her rhythm, in fear, the edge of my hand plugging her nostrils and stifles the life out of her. My hand backs off to a light-and ineffective smothering of her screams. “Je ne peux pas me retenir. . . —  I can’t hold myself…” I called out. rhythmic acidic fluid creeps deeper up my nether.

“J’arrive, j’arrive. . . — I’m coming, coming…” I called out, but Francine didn’t respond. She bucks her crotch, throwing me into the air, with a scream whining down. Shedding her harness-legs limp around my thighs, her body collapsing beneath me. I roll to the side, landing beside her, and prop my head up on the heel of my hand. I stared at her, waiting for her eyes to open. But as she remains still, fear claws grab my chest, terrifying of losing her, seeming to have slipped into a coma. A wave of angst washes in, while my mind hangs in disbelief, something drastic could have happened to her. I feel helpless, a stranger in New York. Inept to deal with an emergency. ‘What’s going on with her? — my mind, in a whirlwind of confusion, ‘she should be awake. Why isn’t she?’

Francine’s head rests at the far pillow’s gleaming seam. While I linger, bamboozled. Her silence births a slow-creeping anxiety. ‘My Little Sparrow, talk to me!’ I cried, echoing in the silence. A shy backyard sunlight infiltrates to shadow Francine’s angelic serenity. I pull my hand out from beneath my head, plant on the duvet, lift my chest. Rolling on a hip, distancing from her face, settling back to sit on my scrambled legs. Watching over her lithe figure as her soul has been taken away. As I’m left alone with her enchanted sleep, in silence, I cry. ‘My Little Sparrow, come back. Don’t leave me like this!’

Exhausting my patience without her emanating even a twitch. In silence, I cry. ‘I’ve lost her.’ My heart creeps back into a dark corner of my chest. My foot slips from under me, pulling back, followed by my other foot to the edge of the bed. With an eye fixation, rhyming to mind, ‘My Little Sparrow. . .’ In a corkscrewing motion, I back away at a pace across the cold floor. Besides the entrance door, I sink into the lounge chair to my recluse.

After my befuddling grip, Francine opens her eyelids. To fix a point shy of the ceiling. Her eyesight moves through space, orienting toward me off angle behind her. Her head rolls along. Exposing her cheeks, glistening with the purfling of tears. A dagger plunges into my heart. In my silence, I cry. ‘What in the hell have I done to make you cry?’

Kindling glitters as Francine’s eyes open wider, landing on the duvet. Stretching her eyesight across the duvet, rolling her shoulders along. With her outreaching eyesight toward the edge, drafting, her feline torso unfolding. She advances elbows-crawling, her lithe figure belly drag. Her eyesight glides across the aisle’s void, to pounce, devouring my groins.

Francine retrieves her eyesight, reposes into a reflective stillness, as her hand drifts back along her figure. Her brows furrow, as she wipes at her crotch. She lifts her hand, a pair of fingertips reaching her nostrils - sniffs, sniffs - her eyes tighten, wrinkles deepening with concern. She glances back at her thighs, her mind stirring. ‘This is not my body fluids?’ 

The sparkles in her eyes die out, swallowed by deep darkness. She storms to sit, lashing out. “T’a jouis!” Mishearing — “You rejoiced!” — a lateral translation elicits laughter, but I guarded against her grave tone. She pauses, her genie scouting afield, shielding her body from the folly of the Aries’ punctuations — repeating its flaws or vices but fails to stretch further — within the bounds of her conscious reasoning. Her Horse in Sun, a free-spirited stallion raging through the wilderness.

Francine’s world flips — her Moon in Aries ablaze. She leaps across the bed, her Fire consuming my Gemini’s oxygen. She lands in the aisles, screaming. "T’a jouis dans mon corp? — Did you come into my body?” Her arms flail, feet pounding — a storm to behold. I wonder, ‘Is she questioning me or accusing me?’ She cleared the corner of the bed, auditioning before me. Her eyes locking onto mine. 

Francine stages her broken Zulu dance, her voice reverberates a cracked drum, each beat an over the board accusation. My body sinks into the cupish upholstered chair, my heart mushing to pulp, by the weight of her voice. “T’a jouis dans mon corps? — you came in my body?” she punctuates, shouting me down until my thought scatter. “je t’ai dit que j’allais venir — I told you I was going to come,” I voice, but she cuts me off. Her screams stifle the words before they escape. “Je. . . — I…”

Haunting as the echo of Francine’s voice, from her mirage in the window, Aetheria, with a little girl watching her father getting threshed, cowers into the dark corner of the studio. As Francine wears me out, I stumble over my piercing words. “I did call out to you…” but she intercepts me, her voice rising to a crescendo. “Tu as joui dans mon corp!—You came into my body!” Her words spiral. I voiced, “But I warned you. . .” my protest only fed her frenzy. Dancing along the rear wall, crossing the floor-through passageway. Cornered by the built-in-wardrobe, she spins back into my line of sight. Amplifying her ritual, a relentless audition of screams. 

My ego shrinks, dwarfs under Francine’s lashing tongue. As she screams me into shame. “Comment as tu pu jouir dans mon corps - How dare you come in my body!” She screams. Each word is a humiliation. My jaw slackens, flesh hanging limp, unresponsive. Her frantic, chicken panic flutters before me — arms flapping. A barrage to divert my gaze. I avert my eyes, tracing the window sashes instead, letting the ethereal sunlight beyond the backyard restore my serenity.

Silenced, the Warthog in me jumps to the forefront of the Gemini nature, fueled by a heart’s wrath and onslaught. ‘Your harness tied me down, your body milked me dry!’ But Francine’s scream crescendo — tone-deaf and ballistic — repeat in relentless loops. Her voice heckles, crushing with a need I cannot comprehend. Yet, her shouts linger, a traumatic obliterating hum refusing to fade into the background. Weary, I struggle to make sense of Francine's misplaced ritual. 

I had believed we were on par — waking up, percolating coffee, and sipping it while conversing across our Aladdin talking rug, recounting, Francine trip from home in France. After long, busy days, we would talk ourselves to sleep. Now, I find myself caught in her windmill of heavy accusations, grinding stone to stone, wearing me down. 

My self-esteem, crushed into disbelief, my mind protector of my heart, clear a premonition, as the genie plums out the lamp. I scold my heart, buried deep in sorrow: ‘Get yourself together. She’s not worthy of you!’ organized in the back of my mind, the free spirit of her generation of French libertarian social women stand in stark contrast to my muted upbringing.

In my prolonged silence, her percussive shouts and frantic subside into a pause. She darts a sharp glare, locking my eyes. “Tu m’as fait ça. Quoi si je suis enceinte?—You did this to me. What if I’m pregnant?” as she repeats herself, stirring my thoughts to rally in defense of my pulpish heart.

My Gemini takes a deep breath, oxygenizing my body. My mind pokes back. ‘You are not… Wait a minute. Better to stay silent than feed her anxiety.’ Meanwhile, the Aries in Francine, rams at the barrier of my quietude, her broken Zulu dances softening into escaping twirls — left and right  — into resilient dithery little steps, winding down. To faulter as she auditions for a conversation. But my Warthog — an animal honed by the harsh wilderness of survival, armed with a sharp memory — snarls, ‘You!’ it growls, dredging up Francine’s tangled history of relationships since she was sixteen. ‘Living with the bar owner, cheating on a man in his forties, with another twice your age. While two younger men saw the chaos and fled. What’s behind your dramatic display?’

Lost in her punching shouts, she yells, “je suis enceinte, qu’est ce que tu vais faire? — I’m pregnant. What you're going to do?” Francine’s language shifts, jolting my mind. Memories surface of hanging out with the Northern Wheelers Cycling Club alongside my brother, Igor — cyclist meetings at Martin Sher’s parents’ house, both gynecologists, whose world existed beyond my teenage perception. Now, Francine cast me in an unfamiliar role, promoting me to a beleaguered New York medical consultant, as though preparing me to advise on an imminent abortion. 

‘Ça se peut pas… déjà!—That can’t be… yet!’ in silence I reply, my thoughts dry and distant. In the back of my mind flickers a sense of naivety, despite growing up with four sisters. I carry a Platonic detachment. Dating, Jean, nudged me closer to understanding menstrual cycles. Married, with her birth control pills tucked in the drawer of her bedside table. Yael’s occasional emphasis on her shifting diaphragm spoke of an unspoken realm, women navigating with ease — a language of precautions understood only by women.

While my mind nurtures my heart, reassuring it that Francine isn’t worth crying over, her shouts ram against my silent defenses. She pauses, reflecting. Then, she throws out a firecracker of a pharmaceutical name. The absurd euphemism, “…One-Night contraceptive pill.” repeating, with a final, pointed remark, she adds. “Once you’re in France, send me some.”

“Yes. Yes, I will get it for you.” My head nods, feeling the bobblehead on my shoulders. In the shadowy corner, Aetheria lingers — evanescent and watchful, a silent witness to Francine, yearning in vain. So soon after, Yael, eager to fledge, merely brush against the womb of a mother-to-be.

Then, with my mind and soul withdrawing, I give Francine a taste of that withdrawal. Her flaring eyes soften into a somber stance, as if a thought crosses her mind: ‘Am I going to be left all alone in this strange city?’ 

Francine sidles out of her reflective pause, slipping out of my line of sight, short of built-in-wardrobe doors, the middle doorway beside me, disappearing in the shower room. My skin catches a shameful chill, as I rise from my seat, a sudden double flab weight to carry toward my littered clothes. I pick up my jockeys and step in. Back step, and pull into my jeans, socks, and shoes. On the foot of the bed, pick up my shirt, and weave arms through the sleeves, drawing the collar over my head, with an inadvertent twist facing the entrance door, tickling my escape route. Alongside picturing the flocculent foliages of the sidewalk trees’ canopies, crowned in sunlight. I backspin to sit on the bed with the shower doorway upfront, I’m dawdling on acceleration towards my departure.

Francine reappears in her cowgirl outfit, calm and compose with a grin. She steps toward opening the entrance door, opening. ‘Are you coming?’ Aetheria’s mirage in the gapping doorway, insinuating a child yearning for reconciliation. I follow Francine, as she heads out to the street, catches the subway train for a leisure stroll through Central Park.

By evening we came back. I perch at the foot of the bed. dawdling as the upcoming night looms. my Gemini’s heart wrestles with the wrath of my Warthog,  the self loathing gnawing me. But Francine’s angelic return, strolling by the Japanese garden, her gaze steady and insistent, pulls me from my brooding. Francine kicks off her boots and settles into a Lotus position among the pillows.

As dusk settles and lights flicker on, a heaviness in my chest, my ache, in my motion to break off with Francine. Lingering in this emotional limbo, estranged from Francine, I envision sleeping on the floor, rather than sharing the bed with her. Aetheria’s little voice of reason whispers in my mind: ‘That’s utterly stupid of you!’ 

Francine gestures behind me. ‘Come and join me in bed.’ she says, her voice soft but insistent.

I scold my ego off. Despite the aftermath of her emotional storm, my body twists toward her. Francine’s big brown eyes, soft and searching, reel me in. I crawl across the bed, along the muddled linen sheet. The duvet in her grip flips over my irate baggage. ‘Here I am.’ Sliding alongside her, Francine’s soft sigh — “Hold me” — shatters my defenses.

‘Where will hold you, lead my heart?’ I wonder as I thread a hand over her chest and worming the other beneath her, pulling her into my arms. Although I wish to hold her into eternity, I’m sarcastic thinking. ‘I’m holding you. Now what?’ vulnerable, and mortified, I ache, void of her warmth. ‘My little sparrow. It’s hurting having you in my arms.’ 

As Francine sighs in my arms. Behind her, in the window’s streetlight, the pendulum of a giant grandfather clock swings steadily. Indifferent to my wish to turn the hour hand backward and rush the minutes’ by the notches on the dial. My finger traces parallel lines across the foggy windowpane: ‘Return to Sender.’