Love Ridden
PG-13. 05/30/2003.

Love ridden, I've looked at you
With the focus I gave to my birthday candles
I've wished on the lidded blue flames
Under your brow
And baby, I wished for you

Jenny turned 22 yesterday. It's been something like three years since she came to live in the Shadow World--she's not exactly sure how long. Her memories from before are touch-and-go. None of it seems to matter when she's around Julian. He eclipses everything else.

Since her birthday it's felt like her body is splitting in two with the sheer weight of her need for him. Jenny knows he's done something to her. What if it's a test to see the depths of her love? What will she have to do to pass? And worse...what will happen if she fails?

Nobody sees when you are lying in your bed
And I wanna crawl in with you
But I cry instead
I want your warm, but it will only make
Me colder when it's over

Two days later, and her hunger has gradually increased until she feels empty inside; her longing needed room so it pushed everything else out. At first she was all over him, couldn't stay away for a moment, but then she realized touching only made everything intensify. She doesn't know how to stop it.

She's asked him a million times, it seems, and he looked sad and very quiet, but still played innocent. Now she's stopped asking and they don't talk at all. When she's tired, she naps in the armchair across from their bed, itching for him even in sleep.

So I can't tonight, baby
No, not "baby" anymore--if I need you
I'll just use your simple name
Only kisses on the cheek from now on
And in a little while, we'll only have to wave

She's 22-and-seven-days, now, and she's almost forgotten her name. "It's Jenny," she whispers to herself, every now and then. Yesterday she curled up in a corner in a room he never enters any more--the basement--and after a while she decided not to leave.

An hour ago, a doorway appeared in the wall and she could see him on the other side. "Time to choose, for real, Jenny," he said, and he wasn't looking at her. She followed his eye and saw that the door at the top of the steps was back. She doesn't know what it means.

My hand won't hold you down no more
The path is clear to follow through
I stood too long in the way of the door
And now I'm giving up on you

He stand outside again. "Very soon you won't have an option, so you'd better make up your mind now." She wants to hold him so bad it hurts, but all he looks is distant. She wishes she knew the rules of this Game. Whose side is she on? What's she supposed to do?

She can't remember her name. "Do you want me to go?" She says it and then holds her breath because she doesn't want the answer. And she doesn't have to hear it, because it never comes. He's gone, just like that, but both doors are still there.

No, not "baby" anymore--if I need you
I'll just use your simple name
Only kisses on the cheek from now on
And in a little while, we'll only have to wave

His name is Julian. She remembers that and little else, but something tells her he knows more than he'll ever tell her. Who is she? Why is she here? Where does the other door lead to? All these questions and no one she knows to answer them.

She wants to go back to him, to touch him, taste him, but she wants herself back too. She knows he lies behind her, through that doorway, but who's behind the other is a mystery. Maybe, whoever they are, they have answers.

As soon as she opens the door, someone calls her name.



Notes: Quotes are from Fiona Apple's "Love Ridden."

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