Italics Hexed Private
I'd forgotten how much I truly love Paris.
Antonin is marvelous company--a wonderful travelling companion. The man is everything I'm not, and that in itself has its appeals. He has a charisma that makes it intoxicating just to be around him-- ...intoxication. Ha.
I've been drinking ridiculous amounts of alcohol these past few days. Getting ridiculously drunk. I feel rather ashamed about it in a way, but all these parties we've been going to, all the friends of Antonin's we've visited... There's alcohol everywhere, and everyone always insists that you must have a glass. And it's France. There are good things to drink.
I feel like I finally know what all those religious figures in my life were preaching at me all the time with the spiel of "sin is everywhere."
...and Antonin's friends... they're an interesting bunch. I thought the previous acquaintances of my life would prepare me for anything, being in the circles I was in vicariously through Rodolphus and Bella and everyone... but these people... You see some things at these parties that I had never expected to see. Or perhaps I just haven't been to the right parties.
I'm growing quite fond of Antonin. With every passing day, I find myself feeling more attached to him. Or perhaps I'm just needy like that.
I went to confession last Sunday, sneaking off to the nearest church that morning while Antonin was out with a friend. An emergency confession, you might say. Old habits die hard, I suppose, even though it's been a long time since my last confession... "Pardonnez-moi, mon Père, car j'ai péché," I said. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
"De quand date votre dernière confession?" the father asked. When was your last confession?
"Cela fait quinze ans que je ne me suis pas confessé," I said. It has been fifteen years since my last confession.
I confessed. "J'ai péché, en pensée, en parole, par action et par omission." I have sinned in thought, in word, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do.
I told him a lot more than that. In detail.
...I said a lot of things in response to his reactions to what I confessed, as well... "Oui, oui, je sais que c'est très grave." Yes, I realize how serious that is. "Vous suffoquez, mon Père?" Are you choking, Father? "Non, attendez, ce n'est pas tout..." No, wait, that's not all... "...Brûler au bûcher me semble un peu dur..." ...Burning at the stake does seem a little severe... "Que pensez-vous de quelques milliers du 'Notre Père'?" How about a few thousand "Our Fathers" instead?
"Merci, mon Père." Thank you, Father.
I'm not sure why I still feel the need to go, to perform the ritual cleansing every so often. It must be a side-effect to being back in France. The French don't see any reason to live with their guilt, they simply confess. But, really, to me, what does it mean anymore? This far down the road... with this much that has happened... What does it matter?
I think it counts that I'm officially a "bad" person. I don't think confession will save me.
Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
I wish I could blame all of my recent transgressions of thought on Antonin, but in a way, it's my own fault. It's passive sinning -- it's not doing anything that directly is a sin, but sinning by not doing what is right. Not that I have any idea what "right" is anymore. My scale of morality is severely warped, I assure you. But... Antonin... the man is intoxicating. More than any alcohol consumable.
I find myself thinking about him... and it's the fact that I'm thinking about him that I suppose is sinning. That's it's through my own fault, not his. Because he hasn't really done anything to me to make me think in such a way. Nothing directly, that is. But it'll be the little touches... just the harmless brushes of my face or my hair... the kisses on my hand that might be a little more than brotherly or comradely, but how am I to judge? How am I to really believe something's actually there? Sin of thought in others is something we cannot judge, because we cannot know. He has expressed no sin of action towards me, so I have nothing to return to him. Nothing to respond--
It's that I'm thinking like that, isn't it? That's the sin in thought.
...There was that moment, out on the balcony. That moment, right before the hostess of the party burst in on us, demanding Antonin's attention... I'm still not sure about that moment. It may have been the alcohol.
He is but four years older than me, and he refers to me as his "boy," and I believe he is the only man who truly can refer to me as such with any validity. He doesn't seem older, not in any sort of elderly aspect, but there is a seniority to him. He's senior to me, higher than me. Because, with him, I am reduced to... I am simply reduced. And I become... young. Naïve. Unsure.
Suddenly, I am the fifteen-year-old boy, wondering what it's like to be kissed.
Kyrie Eleison.
Antonin is marvelous company--a wonderful travelling companion. The man is everything I'm not, and that in itself has its appeals. He has a charisma that makes it intoxicating just to be around him-- ...intoxication. Ha.
I've been drinking ridiculous amounts of alcohol these past few days. Getting ridiculously drunk. I feel rather ashamed about it in a way, but all these parties we've been going to, all the friends of Antonin's we've visited... There's alcohol everywhere, and everyone always insists that you must have a glass. And it's France. There are good things to drink.
I feel like I finally know what all those religious figures in my life were preaching at me all the time with the spiel of "sin is everywhere."
...and Antonin's friends... they're an interesting bunch. I thought the previous acquaintances of my life would prepare me for anything, being in the circles I was in vicariously through Rodolphus and Bella and everyone... but these people... You see some things at these parties that I had never expected to see. Or perhaps I just haven't been to the right parties.
I'm growing quite fond of Antonin. With every passing day, I find myself feeling more attached to him. Or perhaps I'm just needy like that.
I went to confession last Sunday, sneaking off to the nearest church that morning while Antonin was out with a friend. An emergency confession, you might say. Old habits die hard, I suppose, even though it's been a long time since my last confession... "Pardonnez-moi, mon Père, car j'ai péché," I said. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
"De quand date votre dernière confession?" the father asked. When was your last confession?
"Cela fait quinze ans que je ne me suis pas confessé," I said. It has been fifteen years since my last confession.
I confessed. "J'ai péché, en pensée, en parole, par action et par omission." I have sinned in thought, in word, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do.
I told him a lot more than that. In detail.
...I said a lot of things in response to his reactions to what I confessed, as well... "Oui, oui, je sais que c'est très grave." Yes, I realize how serious that is. "Vous suffoquez, mon Père?" Are you choking, Father? "Non, attendez, ce n'est pas tout..." No, wait, that's not all... "...Brûler au bûcher me semble un peu dur..." ...Burning at the stake does seem a little severe... "Que pensez-vous de quelques milliers du 'Notre Père'?" How about a few thousand "Our Fathers" instead?
"Merci, mon Père." Thank you, Father.
I'm not sure why I still feel the need to go, to perform the ritual cleansing every so often. It must be a side-effect to being back in France. The French don't see any reason to live with their guilt, they simply confess. But, really, to me, what does it mean anymore? This far down the road... with this much that has happened... What does it matter?
I think it counts that I'm officially a "bad" person. I don't think confession will save me.
Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
I wish I could blame all of my recent transgressions of thought on Antonin, but in a way, it's my own fault. It's passive sinning -- it's not doing anything that directly is a sin, but sinning by not doing what is right. Not that I have any idea what "right" is anymore. My scale of morality is severely warped, I assure you. But... Antonin... the man is intoxicating. More than any alcohol consumable.
I find myself thinking about him... and it's the fact that I'm thinking about him that I suppose is sinning. That's it's through my own fault, not his. Because he hasn't really done anything to me to make me think in such a way. Nothing directly, that is. But it'll be the little touches... just the harmless brushes of my face or my hair... the kisses on my hand that might be a little more than brotherly or comradely, but how am I to judge? How am I to really believe something's actually there? Sin of thought in others is something we cannot judge, because we cannot know. He has expressed no sin of action towards me, so I have nothing to return to him. Nothing to respond--
It's that I'm thinking like that, isn't it? That's the sin in thought.
...There was that moment, out on the balcony. That moment, right before the hostess of the party burst in on us, demanding Antonin's attention... I'm still not sure about that moment. It may have been the alcohol.
He is but four years older than me, and he refers to me as his "boy," and I believe he is the only man who truly can refer to me as such with any validity. He doesn't seem older, not in any sort of elderly aspect, but there is a seniority to him. He's senior to me, higher than me. Because, with him, I am reduced to... I am simply reduced. And I become... young. Naïve. Unsure.
Suddenly, I am the fifteen-year-old boy, wondering what it's like to be kissed.
Kyrie Eleison.