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Weat Lutece or Sparks (of course I don't dine)-Benji in his iot up in a finely fitted little suit with narrow lapels, white button-down shirt and flash of tie; hly acceptable antique velvet and chokers of old cru lace; and Sybelle in the lovely dresses that spill endlessly out of her closet, confections her Mother and Fox once bought for her, close cut around her large breasts and ss, heh to reveal the splendid curve of her calf and its tautness when she slips her dark-stockinged feet into dagger-heeled slippers Benji's close-cropped cap of curls is always the Byzantine halo for his dark enig waves are free, andunruly curls that used to be my secret vanity

My deepest pleasure with Benji is education Right off, we started having powerful conversations about history and the world, and found ourselves stretched out on the carpet of the apartress of East and West and the inevitable influences upon huabbles away all during television broadcasts of the news, calling each anchorperson intier at the actions of world leaders and wailing loudly over the deaths of great princesses and humanitarians Benji can watch the news, talk steadily, eat popcorn, s inter, always on key-all more or less simultaneously

If I fall to staring at the rain as if I've seen a ghost, it's Benji who beats on my arm and cries, "What shall we do, Arht I'o to any of these, we'll o pasty-white with sickness "

Many times the two of us dress Sybelle, who looks at us as if she doesn't knoe're doing We always sit talking with her when she bathes, because if we don't she's likely to go to sleep in the bathtub, or si the water over her beautiful breasts

Sos like, "Benji, tie your shoes," or "Armand, he's stolen the silverware Make him put it back," or with sudden astonishment, "It's warm, isn't it?"

I have never told anyone my life story as I've told it to you here and now, but in conversation with Benji I have caught s which Marius told me-about hu and even about music

It was in these conversations,else, that I caed being

Soone from me I do not see history as a panorama of disasters, as once I think I did; and often I find enerous and beautifully opti; that war, for all the strife we see around us, has nevertheless gone out of fashion with those in power, and will soon pass from the arenas of the Third World as it has passed frory and shelter the homeless and take care of those who need love

With Sybelle, education and discussion are not the substance of our love With Sybelle it is intio inside her mind She doesn't want anybody to do that

As completely as she accepts me and my nature, I accept her and her obsession with the Appassionata Hour after hour, night after night, I listen to Sybelle play, and with each fresh start I hear the es of intensity and expression which pour forth in her playing Gradually, on account of this, I have become the only listener of whom Sybelle has ever been conscious

Gradually, I have become part of Sybelle's music I am there with her and the phrases and movements of the Appassionata I a of Sybelle except that she do what she wants to do, and what she can do so perfectly

That's all Sybelle ever has to do for me-is what she will

If or when she wants to rise in "fortune and men's eyes," I'll clear the way for her If or when she wants to be alone, she will not see or hear et it for her

And if or when she loves a mortal man or mortal woman, I'll do what she wantson her, I can live forever in glooloom when I am near her

Sybelle often goes with me when I hunt Sybelle likes to see me feed and kill I don't think I have ever allowed a mortal to do that She tries to help me dispose of the remains or confuse the evidence of the cause of death, but I' and swift and capable at this, so she is mostly the witness