His Scorpio Moon/Neptune in the 8th. My packed 8th house… and Neptune of course. Confusion reigns.

“So anyway, you were being undermined,” I said. “Our relationship was being undermined something fierce. And you were gone two days out of three.”

“I had to go, P.”

“I know. I am just telling you there was a lot of room for people to get in underneath. I was there to hold the fort down, you could say. And as the tide turned against you, I clammed up of course. I can’t fight all these people. They gained momentum.”

“I see.”

“Right. Like a pack of dogs. And I desperately needed someone to talk to. I needed to talk to you but found it impossible. And I was able to talk to this professor guy for awhile. He started out with the attitude that the peanut gallery… the masses did not glean who you were. Who I was dealing with. But he did.”

“But did he?”

“Yeah, he did. He actually became completely fascinated with you. He was a history buff as I recall. He taught art history, I think, but he was interested in history in general so he had this in common with you. Had the two of you ever met, you’d have had lots to talk about. He is someone who could have conversed with you. Because what you know about history… the history of everything is astonishing. You could be teaching it yourself, then and now.”

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s one of my favorite subjects.”

“I know what your favorite subjects are, I think.”

“What?”

“History, religion, soldiering… especially the history of soldiering, and me. Elsa P.”

He laughed. “Yep, that’s right.”

“I know. So anyway, this guy when he heard where you came from and your history, it sent him off to read. He became interested enough in the things I was telling him about you, it led him to study. So you see what I mean. He was a different class than the others completely.”

“So what happened with him?”

“Nothing, for a long time. He was strongly supportive. Come to think of it… I have to remember this as I’m telling you,” I explained. “I have to remember as I go. I haven’t thought about this for a long time. See, you had told me… you said your family would put me through college. You wanted us to move. You had this life planned and I was supposed to go to school. You were offering me a college education.”

“Yeah?”

“So he’s a professor. He is going to be pro-education, obviously. So that got his attention, big time. And he started looking into this. He was sort of interested on many levels. He was… gripped, to tell you the truth. With us. With the relationship between you and I.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. So he thought this was one hell of an opportunity I was being offered and he wanted very much to back it. He wanted to like and trust you. He thought you were very interesting, based on what I told him. He thought I was interesting too, I guess. Though not as smart as you at the moment. He wondered if I could keep up with you, actually. And he said so.”

“What? You never had a minute of trouble keeping up with me.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t understand half of what you said half the time. I was from a different world than you. Some things we had in common, but the things we had in common, you didn’t even know about. You still don’t know! But anyway, some of this stuff you’d go on about… how many sets of encyclopedias do you think you swallowed anyway? Several, at least.”

He laughed. ‘Yeah, I’ve swallowed some encyclopedias,” he said. “A few sets is right.”

“Right. And you’d already done this when you were a kid. So he thought I had some catching up to do. He thought I would have to run to catch you.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said. “I never had any indication of anything like that at all. You’re one of the smartest people I have ever met.”

“Well, hell if I know. Or knew. I didn’t spend my childhood swallowing encyclopedias, I can tell you that. And he didn’t say I couldn’t catch you. He didn’t say that at all. He wasn’t stupid. He might have even thought it possible I catch you and go beyond, see?”

“I see.”

“But he did think I was starting at a deficit when it came to dealing with you on account of all those books you ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But aside from that, he was just fascinated with us. He was damned near voyeuristic to tell you the truth. He probed like you wouldn’t believe. He knew he’d stumbled onto something, see? He knew it. He was operating up high and he knew he had a true find of some kind, or he thought he did, so he mined it.”

“Gotcha.”

“Yeah. He just probed all the time. He’d go read and then come back with some more questions. It was as if you and I were like some kind of sociology project to him. With an undertow, of course.”

“Always an undertow. Gotta be an undertow.”

“Yeah, well there was. We had that around and about us. We were pure sizzle and this guy could obviously sense this. He could tap it. It was as if he thought we might make history or something, do you see? He thought we were that interesting. Or that you were and I might be.”

“I see.”

“Provided I didn’t wind up dead,” I said with a snort.

“Dead? What do you mean dead? As in I might kill you?”

“Yeah, something like that. Something exactly like that. He was trying to figure out if you were the best thing that ever could or would ever happen to me, or if I was going to wind up dead. You know. He thought I might be making a deal with the devil.”

“The devil?”

“Yeah. The devil himself. You.”

“I’m not the devil.”

“Yeah, I know but he wasn’t sure.”

Skip to “Grocery Shopping”