ONE-02

– And then they lived happily ever after?

^{(Rosaleen & Granny | The Company of Wolves)}



At the age of 18, I married a man I had known for only two months at the time, but he had swept me off my feet like no one ever had before. After that, we spent at least three-quarters of our twenty-six years of marriage together, twenty-four hours a day. We slept together, worked together, cooked, laughed, and only rarely cried together. If one of us showed up alone, people would immediately ask worriedly where the other was. Hopefully, not sick? My friend Anna once told me, „If you two ever break up, I’ll lose faith in true love.“ It hasn’t come to that yet, but still – I’m sorry in advance.

So here I am now, standing in my kitchen, the one we gifted ourselves for our 25th wedding anniversary, and wondering what to do with a suddenly “open marriage.” Surprisingly I’m not angry with him. Strangely enough, I also can’t feel any jealousy. But do I really want to find myself a lover? Tinder was just invented, but I already feel too old for it. On the other hand I don’t feel old enough for “every X minutes a single falls in love on …” and technically, I’m not even a “single”. But who am I, really? Is there still an “I” anymore? It’s been a “we” for so long that somewhere along the way, I seem to have lost a bit of myself.

Well, well, well … (Oh great, now my conscience is kicking in too, WTF?) You’re laying it on a bit thick now, aren’t you? Why don’t you just tell everything exactly as it was?

Alrighty then – no cheating. So, if I’m honest, I had already started to rediscover myself at this point. Because the moment I realized that my husband’s main interest was clearly someone else, something happened. I mentally jumped into a time machine back to the point before “I” became “we.” While my party-all-weekend-long-life starting at 14 was probably more exciting than that of some of my classmates, my love life was virtually non-existent. My absolute superpower as a teenager was falling for completely unattainable superstars and/or gay guys. The many trips to Berlin during the mid-’80s were, unfortunately, not helpful, because, as I quickly discovered, all the interesting men there were definitely gay. In short: my gaydar worked perfectly. The ones that were available? No, thank you. But I was never really unhappy back then. Why not? Suddenly it became clear to me: I always loved being in love. It was enough for me to feel butterflies in my stomach and just daydream. For everything else, I had two healthy hands and I urgently needed that again in my life. To fall for someone without the fear that they might make demands or even show up on my doorstep. Because that would be way too complicated in my current situation. With a shared company, a shared house, and many, many shared debts. I just wanted to feel myself again. Be happy. In a rose-tinted dream world.

Here’s the thing – you never know when the muse will strike, only that you must act quickly when it does. Shortly before that memorable morning, just because I loved the sound of his voice, I found myself in the middle of a colorful community of hardcore fangirls devoted to an English-speaking actor (who shall not be named here). I had been active on social media for over five years at that point, and fifteen years earlier, back in the days of modems, I had already been hanging around in forums. The actor had just joined a well-known social network, and the fanbase went completely wild, following his every twee … er, post, and interpreting the wildest things into every word. It was all wonderfully distracting and inspiring.

I quickly found myself in the camp of those who viewed the whole virtual madness with a bit of a wink. It was one of the benefits of not being eighteen anymore. Still, I wasn’t completely immune to the infectious obsessiveness of the other fans. I had grown up in an artistic household, and to my delight, as I delved deeper into this rabbithole of a fandom, my graphic and writing talents awoke from their slumber. I created memes, short movies, and even found a not yet occupied niche in the fandom where I mused about an astrological explanation for all this devoted obsession. I felt brilliant and eloquent to the point of bursting – I’d never done coke, so I had no comparison, but I suspected that’s how it must feel. Only fellow fans, who were similarly intoxicated, could possibly tolerate me.

My mother, from whom I’ve got my affinity for astrology, once said about my artist-father that she was glad he almost never had money for it, because if he had he would have been utterly unbearable. Anyway, I was doing great with my naturally produced high. After a sucessful guest post on a popular fan blog, I launched my own, quickly attracting a large audience. Wow! That was, of course, another boost for my ego and self-confidence. So, no need for a lover, really.

At the same time, I had also become really active on the social network with the „lots of faces in a book“ and joined several groups. I found a very nice literature group through an acquaintance whose newsletter I had subscribed to for over ten years, and in this group, I eventually asked the memorable question: Was there such a group for film freaks as well? I was one and had just started catching up on many, many missed films. My husband, who used to be just as enthusiastic as I was, had lost interest in going to the movies to the same degree that he had lost interest in me. But my passion had just returned with a vengeance, and I yearned for an exchange with adults on the matter, instead of fangirls with their sort of tunnel vision. To my surprise, I got a prompt reply: „If you don’t think Tim Burton is an English tailor, nor Tarantino a pasta dish and you don’t picture the Coen Brothers as Wild West Outlaws, then you could – with reservations, of course, and assuming you behave properly – join my group. On a trial basis.“

Brilliant. Exactly my kind of thing, just what I had hoped for. I felt at home immediately. To make a good first impression, and because October was only a few days away, I decided to do a Halloween countdown in the group. Day by day, presenting one of my thirty-one favorite horror films and thus more or less braggi… er, subtly showing off my film knowledge, was what I had in mind. My fangirling had given me a large sip from the chalice of social recognition and I wanted to maintain that feeling. The countdown was well received by the group and small discussions arose every day – just as I had imagined. On October 22nd, I presented Neil Jordan’s wonderful 80’s film The Company of Wolves, with Charles Perrault’s poem „Little Red Ridinghood“ from the credits as an introduction:

Little girls, this seems to say
Never stop upon your way
Never trust a stranger friend
No-one knows how it will end
As you’re pretty, so be wise
Wolves may lurk in every guise
Now as then, ‚tis simple truth
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth.

I also mentioned my suspicion that the film had served as an inspiration for the music video for Rammstein’s song “Du Riechst So Gut,” (You Smell So Nice) which was made years later. And with that, I attracted „him“ for the first time. He shared an English Wikipedia article that confirmed my suspicion.

A little back-and-forth ensued:

Leeloo (me): Interesting, the crucial sentence is missing in the German Wikipedia!

Gekko (him): That may be, I don’t consider it a reliable source for music or film stuff, so I don’t even look there.

Leeloo: Rightly so, it seems. 😉

Gekko: 🙂

The Capo (this was the group-admin’s nickname) added: Me seems that strange alliances are forming in here … ^^

Leeloo: wolves may lurk in every guise …

Gekko: You just can’t beat Rammstein.

The Capo: You are no longer allowed to sit next to each other in the group break room!

Gekko: Not even if we promise to only whisper about you quietly behind your back?

The Capo: MISTER Gekko!

And just like that … my interest in MISTER Gekko was piqued. Yes, sometimes it’s that simple.

In the following months, such situations became more and more frequent. The Halloween countdown was followed by a fourteen-day Valentine’s Day countdown with a selection of rather special „romantic“ films. True Romance, for example, or Natural Born Killers. The in-group exchange about movies soon extended to music tastes and became increasingly teasing and quick-witted. Gekko was – as I had realized – also a member of the literature group and there, too, our exchanges on various topics quickly turned into what I would describe as pretty blatant flirting. An eloquent counterpart was just the thing for my sapiosexual disposition and I enjoyed our little discussions in both groups immensely.

Then, one afternoon in September – almost exactly a year after my (still) husband suggested I should find myself a lover – Gekko posted a music video with the words: “Soundtrack quiz. Almost too easy.” it was from the song “Woo Hoo” by The 5.6.7.8’s.

Damn, I thought, now he’s got me. Probably some Tarantino. But which one? I hadn’t seen them all, and my film freak pride forbade me from Googling it. As a sign of my lack of knowledge, I finally wrote simply: “Oops.” About a minute later, my messenger went *PING*

And this is where the story begins.

<< ONE-01 Prologue-ish >> ONE-03 Astrology for Beginners

Please follow & like