I wanted to go to Lemmy’s all the time. He was all I could think about. But I was careful not to, fearing that I might be imposing. I think I’d just have withered away on the doorstep if he ever turned me a way at the door, or if I found him with another girl. Thankfully, that never happened.
I was back at school now, in my third year at the Royal Ballet School. Sometimes, when I was at Lemmy’s, while he was drawing or writing, I’d do barre work, holding onto the side of the bunk bed where he sat. This is what I did; I was a dancer. I went through plies, tendu’s, rond de jambe en l’air, and finally an adage’, tracing up the side of my leg with my pointed foot and unfolding my leg in the air in front of me, my calf at the level of my eyes, then slowly bringing it to my side and to the back into an arabesque, and bending forward into a ponche’, with my foot pointed straight up to the ceiling. Adage’ was my forte’ in dancing, the ever so slow movements, gracefully and smoothly shifting from one pose to another. It requires a great deal of strength. I wanted to show him what I could do. He watched but never commented.
I was reading “Lord of the Rings” at Lemmy’s suggestion, and I was completely entranced with it, reading it ever so slowly because I never wanted to come to the end of it. I wanted to savor it. It was always with me and I’d be reading up until the last minute before class in the mornings. He was on to reading “I, Claudius”. We sat together reading sometimes.
One evening I went round and there were actually people there. That was the one and only time. He took my hand and led me through, and out the door at the back of the room. He didn’t introduce me to anyone there. We were in an unfinished, cold, and brightly lit hallway. He opened another door and invited me to enter. As the light from the hallway filtered in I saw it was the bathroom. He walked in behind me and closed the door. It was pitch black. We sunk down to the floor.
I had no sense of fear, being alone with him in the dark, though I was not sure what he had in mind. There I was, laying on the floor, with Lemmy on top of me, kissing me. It soon seemed clear to me that he was making no suggestion of going further onto more sexual pursuits, which allowed me to completely sink into the sensuousness of his kisses. We were completely in the moment and it was the most sensuous moment in time I’ve ever experienced before or since. We didn’t speak. Not at all. He just kissed me, voraciously now, passionately.
Many years later, when he expressed a jealousy about someone I was with, I said to him ” Don’t you know that you’re the only one? That every man in my life has been jealous of you? You know that quote in the movie ” Hearts of Atlantis”? “It will be the kiss by which all others in your life will be judged… and found wanting” Well, that’s how it is, and everyone knows it.” Lemmy thought it was a Shakespeare quote, but I don’t think it actually is. Anyway, I didn’t say that to him talking literally about his kiss, but more his place in my life. I realize now that it was, in fact, his kisses as well.
He may have felt that with my being so much younger it would have been taking advantage of my innocence, or he may have thought I was afraid. He always gently guided me, but not beyond where he thought I was willing to go. I’ve wondered if he wasn’t tripping that night and just got lost in kissing…
He wrote in “Grass”:
“I can break walls down if you will help me, if I can reach you, help you to see, All of the good things that I can give you if you will take them, take them from me. Please will you trust me? Maybe I’ll hurt you, but I can heal it, soon as it’s done. Give me your hand and allow me to lead you, out of the long grass and into the sun.”
I think that spoke to his thoughts about me, at only sixteen years old. He respected my innocence, but he knew he had something to offer.
When I left him that night my lips were actually swollen. At home I was shocked to see my bright red lips and flushed face in the mirror. I was in a daze, I was entranced. I was so in love with him.