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Your blood on my hands (under the nails, on bruises left by you in a losing fight), clothes (you gave it to me, with words that I looked like a village idiot in those suits), in my hair, and on my lips. Chalybeate salt of your blood mixes with sea salt, although it is more poignant, more intense. You are dead, Dickie, and now I am unable to deprive you of anything else, since it was your wish not to give me more. Memories of you will remain with me when I wash this blood off, clean my trousers and burn them, or give to some dirty backstreet bum in a. A crimson spot is spreading on sky-blue water glass with thin ribbons, but I observe this scene through the mist of my memory. I recall you while you were alive, and celebrate your miserable life.
Scene one. That night in a bar, people cut a rug madly, drink and kiss strangers; you went on stage to sing and to play your saxophone shoulder to shoulder with some Italian guy. I felt so free and nice without the others’ looks because you attracted them all, and I was looking at no one except you, and then you called me to join you, to come on stage, and so I did, and I felt shy at once, but those rhythm and energy were so powerful that I became stolen by them, and tried to pick up some unknown tune, and couldn’t take my eyes off you. That were you I fell in love with, Dickie, you blind self-enamoured idiot; I fell in love when the flame of life was dancing inside you, and you were smiling, dancing, with your arm around my neck, and then you kissed me, so strongly that you knocked my glasses off, and I was laughing and just couldn’t stop, although you already forgot about me and was placing your hat on a head of some girl who was fluttering eyelashes to you...
Scene two. We play chess in the bathroom, and play lazily; you are absolutely naked but not defenseless, and your arrogance keeps protecting you from manifestations on tenderness which you have no need in. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ ‘No, I am the only child.’ ‘Me neither. What does than mean?’ ‘We never shared a bath.’ Your stare is cold, it is challenging me. ‘I'm cold. Can I get in?’ You slowly bring a cigarette to your lips, inhale, narrowing your eyelids, and say, ‘No.’ This ‘no’ is like a slap on my face, and I am at loss, and we just keep looking into each other’s eyes, and I start fearing you. You get up slowly; water is plashing against the faience walls, and dripping on tiles. You are standing in front of me without breaking the eye contact, and I am standing still, and even humming is filling my head. And you do something the least expected by me: with the same smooth movement, like a predator in the ambush, ready to attack, you sink to your knees. Now our faces are on the same level, you wet palms lay on my thighs, leaving dark stains on fabric of my trousers. I was craving for this touch, so much, indeed, but I see no desire in your eyes, just that cold curiosity: what am I going to do next, how I will react to your touching. This is not a love play, this is a confrontation of an overinflated ego and a simulating mind deprived of personality. Pretending to be a loser? You’re a bad actor Dickie. Your grasp hurts, and this pain is my pleasure, so I let it burn my nerve endings. Your chest is pressing against mine, water drops soaking into the cotton cloth of my shirt; skin to skin, cheek to cheek, your lips are warm and bitter, and your tongue is like fruit flesh, hot from sunrays. You are not looking into my eyes anymore when you unbutton my shirt, slowly, as if you were wrestling with yourself. You think I can’t see it? I make an attempt to help but you are pushing me away mentally, although physically, we are so close to each other that electric current pierces my body. I am trying to kiss you the way I want, with all my passion, and – sweet Lord! – I do this, and you don’t even resist. I keep my eye open, but yours are closed, eyebrows are frowned, and you are strained. My palm slides down your spine, and your skin is warm and malleable like wax, and I can easily push my fingers into each vertebra. You estrange yourself, look at me in silence, get up and exit slowly. Your bedroom door slams, and I hear the key twisting in a lock twice. I feel unwanted and offended.
Scene three. A warm evening, we are driving in your car, singing along with Chet Baker, and the wind pulls my hair violently. Deep dark blue sky, flashes of light. I don’t remember myself, and I feel so free. You are laughing, throwing your head back, but not in tat charming way as they do in the movies. You are rude, harsh, cynical and hypocritical, a spoiled brat, a heartless beast, but I am willing to love you like that. I suddenly realize that, for the first time in my life, I am ready to open my soul to somebody else and to reveal that inner void, replaced by something called a character in the others. You stop on an empty quay: in front of us and behind us, red-headed lights stand in a line; on the left hand, sea waves are lapping lazily upon the shore. You are putting your arm around my neck, ‘I want all these things to be mine! This sea, these people, let the entire world belong to me!’ I and I assure you that it will be just like that. ‘And you, Tom Ripley, will belong to me.’ I feel my lips stiffening in a spooky suspicion of a smile. ‘I already am’. You wink at me, and kiss me on the cheek, just like then, in the bar, and then on my lips, over and over again, then, on my neck, and when you move to my collarbone, I feel the tip of your tongue. You sit on my hips, caress my neck with dry and hot palms, and I feel so lost that I am trying to touch you everywhere at once. You laugh mildly (or grin nastily, who knows). I kiss your wrist, bitter of cologne, and you are tumbling my hair.
And this very scene, the last thing I remember until the moment when you forced me to close your mouth in a way absolutely different than I wanted it to happen. Much later, I realized that you didn’t care about me, and now I think that we have never been closer than then, when I was holding your body, still warm, burrowing my face into your neck, and the waves were singing their lullaby to us. What have you done Dickie? If you’d let me love you, if you’d not escape your own feelings (oh, I know that you did have them, whatever you were saying), everything would have been different right now: your body full of life, your palm covering mine under the table, playing with my fingers and moving to the hip, your wide smile addressed to everybody, but those naughty twinkles flashing in your eyes only for me. I would be near, as your friend, brother, lover, whoever, you just had to let me be. I would be your spouse instead of Marge. Who is she, and who am I? But you’ve made a wrong choice Dickie, you’ve made a mistake, and I forgive you. Indeed, I do. And so now, forgiven, you are laying under the gleamy turquoise waves; your perfectly shaped skull, smashed by an oar, is grinding off sharp stones, your blood was washed off by warm current, and the skin lost its color and shine. Now, Dickie, you are a cold, dull, bloodless doll. This is you whom I don’t love anymore.