Oh, the woes of a virgin book

I was at my ex’s earlier today. We had been commissioned by the School of Medicine just December of last year, to help them in their Dramafest entry for Modern Interpretative Dance; my ex being the choreographer, and myself to be in charge of composing the accompanying annotation and to coach the annotator. And since we both didn’t belong to that particular School, we had been promised compensation for our trouble.

And that was why I was at my ex’s house—to collect my share of the payment.

When I got in, however, he was currently entertaining other guests, so I had to wait. Wandering around his room, I noticed the small bookshelf beside his bed. He was a Bachelor of Arts in English graduate, but there were piteously few books on that shelf. There was a hardbound book titled Drama of the East and West; I also saw Neil Gaiman’s M is for Magic (a book which was supposed to be mine, but now I have no idea why his name is on the inside pages); some dictionaries, and then…

A soft-bound copy of Patrick Süskind’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

Brief History:

When we were still together, we had spotted a single copy of that book in the bookstore. We had just recently re-viewed the movie for the nth time and we almost wet ourselves when we saw it. A naked woman on the cover, covered by pink rivulets of color. Unfortunately, when we checked the price, it was more than what we were carrying that time. And when we had come back, the copy was gone.

So, after a couple of years, I find out that apparently, he has successfully managed to acquire a copy of one of my wet-dream books. I reached into the shelf and pulled it out.

I had not noticed it at first, but the book was still wrapped in plastic. I knotted my brow, wondering if it had only been recently bought. No, there was already a light layer of dust on the plastic…

As expected, my English grad ex has not even read the book. I was not at all surprised. The time I was with him, I had been disappointed to find out that he wasn’t really the bookish kind of English student. He was more the reporting-kind, while others did the research for him (sometimes that meant me).

I stopped myself from groaning. Here was a book that held God-knows-what kind of magic within and it was still restricted in plastic! Who can resist not tearing the covering off and perusing the pages and be enlightened? The movie adaptation was absolute genius; how much more would the book it was based on be?

Resisting the urge to peel the plastic off, I approached him. Luckily, he was already finished with his other guests.

I pointed the book out to him. And jokingly told him I would gladly deflower it for him. He refused, wanting to do the honor himself. In an almost incredulous tone, I asked him when that would be. His answer was, “When I’m not busy with dancing.”

Which meant never in a million years. You’ll remember I mentioned he’s a choreographer earlier in this post. That’s his passion, as mine was writing and drawing. He can’t stop dancing.  It’s always choreographing this over there, or attending this dance competition here, or remixing music for this crew. He never truly has time to sit back and read a book. I’m not holding this against him; in fact, it was this passion for his craft that got me attracted to him in the first place. It’s just that I couldn’t help feel sorry for the book.

How long will it remain a virgin? How long will it be when it finally gets to enjoy the touch of a reader’s hand as he strokes its cover and pages? How long will it wait before it can feel the reader’s breath on the paper; the warmth of his lap; the tightness of his grip…

It’s rather sad that a book that special is only bought for the sake of buying, and not reading. If I could, I would have pocketed the book out of there. Hmm, come to think of it, I should have. He’ll probably never notice anyway… damn.