SLAVE OF LOVE

 Like the ripening of fruit or the wear on a truck tire the dissolution of bliss transpires over time. But when that dissolution becomes complete it arrives with the abrupt clap of a thunder storm.

My good friend Currado Malaspina was the last to see what we all saw for years. His marriage to the wonderful writer Nanine Coléreux had been a train wreck and a sham. Uxorious to the point of cloying madness, Malaspina invested every lyric of his soul to the curation of what he thought was the perfect romance.

Though he is known to the world at large as a notorious roué, in truth he is as loyal as a cadet. His work, which is raw and raunchy and replete with puerility is merely a sad expression of a broken heart.

That he has enacted his bitterness on the conspicuous stage of the international art scene only adds to the gloomy emasculation of his despair.

In truth, he worshiped his bride. He was loving and protective to a fault. What was obvious to his friends but was as obscure as a cuneiform to Currado was that the object of his devotion was a false and unworthy idol.

He was troubled that as a gifted author she never received her real due. To the critics she was an anomaly. A smart and difficult writer wrapped in the body of a supermodel. Every mention and every review written by a man made constant reference to her looks. 

It drove Currado crazy.

He would rail at every insensitivity and cry foul at every patronizing sexist bon mot. Headlines like Short Skirted and Shortlisted: The Babe Bestseller Vies for a Goncourt or Red-Lipped and Lovely Coléreux Pleasures with her Luscious Prose would have Malaspina dilating with rage. 

But unfortunately my naïve friend had it all backwards.

All the while that he felt that his wife was being publicly groped in the press, it turns out that it was he, Malaspina who was the offending party in Coléreux's mind.

All his soft caresses and professions of love were read by his wife as nothing but belligerent expressions of ownership. The tender post-its that he surreptitiously left on the bathroom mirror, these cute haiku-like affirmations of timeless unconditional devotion were read by Nanine as vulgar claims of his alleged droit de seigneur.

His short text-messages that were meant to punctuate his lover's day with periodic bouquets of unsolicited affection were read by his wife as if they were the randy rantings of a starstruck stalker.

His small surprise gifts meant to endorse a decades long relationship with the frisson of youth were taken by Coléreux as oppressive innuendos that reduced her to the condition of chattel.

Once the envy of all of Paris, his love went stale  and he was the last slob in the city to find out. 

But if his new work is to be taken as a window on his current recuperative condition, I believe my dear friend Currado is convalescing just fine.