Home is Where the Heart is(Charles E.J. Moulton) Home is Where the Heart is

A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton

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Based on a true story.

***

It seemed everyone but Heiron was networking. As if their life depended on it. As if not rising to stupendous Facebook-shattering fame fast would be a case of losing themselves. And if they did not force themselves to network, they forced themselves not to. Making a point not to be career-fixated. The chick from PR trying to land the single guy from distribution. The CEOs amongst themselves. The janitors gathering in their corner looking at everyone as if they were nuts, even they clothed according to their group, as if their clothes signified who they were, putting on certain attire defining who they were. Heiron ended up passing the time, trying to imagine the cleaning ladies in business suits and the CEOs in jeans and T-shirt. It turned really interesting when he tried to imagine the bookkeepers in a dresses.
Mr. Rathers and his team in their impeccable suits, not a single wrinkle, their hairdos slick with so much oil it would make Engelbert Humperdinck look like Mahatma Gandhi. The three of them were all standing around, not even noticing the people of the other group, grinning so wide you could see their assholes if you tried.

Slightly out of place, the new kid in the block, almost, Heiron gazed around the room, trying to find anyone that granted him a look. It wasn't even that he was too shy. Everyone was too occupied with chatting up their individual clique. Now, if they already were a part of that clique, what was the purpose of sucking up further with that group? To rise? And then what?

Being hypersensitive to energies made it difficult to cope in an environment where he practically only knew the boss of the firm.
So he grabbed his white wine and wandered about the room, grinning at office clerks, who winced apologetically for not including him in their conversation - "Oh, you're the new guy who got his own office down the hall?" - even nodding at the back room cleaning people, who seemed to wonder why the hell a suit was greeting them - "So, who'd you sleep with to get your job?"

Mr. Jeff Rathers gave Heiron a quick grin, telling him how great it was to have his old college buddy's son working in marketing. Heiron found himself nodding back at his boss' shoulder raising his glass, returning the compliment. A few seconds later, Rathers winked, telling him to enjoy the conversation with colleagues and, oh, yes, Merry Christmas. Heiron wanted to tell his boss he was Jewish - "If you are, why the hell did you come to a Christmas party?" - but declined. "Because I wanted to get to know my new colleagues!" So he nodded, amiably, wandering, lost, trying to chat up anyone, but everyone was so busy networking with people they already knew, so he ventured toward the restrooms, just to wash his hands and get away from actually pushing himself into becoming someone somebody knew. "I'm the new guy," he reminded himself. "Second day, can't expect too much too quick."

He passed the grim-looking lobby security guard had joined them all, but couldn't help trying to distinguish what lay behind that tough exterior. Who was that guy really when he took off his uniform? A disco fan? A rugby freak? A cat lover? Afraid of the dark? Gay? A hobby guitarist?

Halfway out, "Frosty the Snowman" ringing in his ears over the office loudspeakers, Heiron saw her. She had greeted him in the reception the day before, her hazel brown eyes twinkling at him, telling him how good it was to have him around. He had no idea who she was and yet it didn't matter. He the feeling he knew her.
So good to have him around.
Obviously just as lost as he was, standing aside two older women, possibly two years short of their retirement, trying to include herself in a conversation she was not a part of. She gazed toward Heiron, her eyes widening, that gaze shooting right into his spirit. He raised his glass in response, the girl turning away from the elderly colleagues, who did not even react to their younger colleague disassociating herself from them. This pretty brunette, dressed well in a purple silk dress, just as good looking as he maybe was, what made her so uninteresting to the everyone and so breathtaking to him? An angel seemed to whisper a sweet nothing into his ear.
"Neither of you are playing the society game."

She smiled at him, a sense of familiarity in her gaze. Like picking up where she left off.
"You seem to be searching for a chat," the girl sang, that very sensitive, warm glow in her eyes, a glow he knew. He had seen that special glow right away when walking into the waiting room yesterday.

Heiron half-smiled, shrugging. "All chatters are occupied."

"Not this one," she smiled.

He gestured toward the old gals. "The old ladies seem to be hanging to every syllable you utter."

"Yeah, right!" The babe eyed heavenward. "Receptionist is a lonely job."

"You're the first thing these people see in the morning," Heiron whispered, "they should love a dish like you."

She smiled, sweetly, shyly running her hands through her wavey locks. "You're sweet."

"What is the problem with these people, anyway?"

The girl shook her head. "In here, you're only someone if you learn to conform."

"Conform?"

She raised her eyebrows, leaning forward, trying to add emphasis to her point. "Suck up."

The girl let her eyes wander, her soul disappearing into the depths of all this superficiality.

"It's a good case study," she added, still vanished inside oblivion.

"Of arrogance?"

She looked back at Heiron. "Mankind."

He nodded, thinking about his vision of the bookies in frocks. "People calling themselves better because they're dressing in suits. Or aren't."

The pretty lady grinned. "I could take that one step further."

"I'm intrigued."

"We take how we dress seriously, but disrespect our own bodies when we take our garments off," she continued, a trifle sad. "It's as if we don't matter without wearing something, giving ourselves a uniform, a label. Society tells us our jobs matter more than who we really are in our hearts. They say dolphins, elephants and cats are capable of telepathy. And dogs certainly feel you before they think you."

"So what happened to us?"

"You wanna know?"

"Yeah."

This was getting so beautifully deep. "We forgot how to really love." The girl he had only really known for a minute dived into his aura. "We need affection. It creates our children. Calling it a sin is like calling life a sin."

The elderly ladies left the area as soon as they heard the word love, leaving the duo pretty much to themselves.

"Is that society's fault?" Heiron chimed in.

"Let's say that love doesn't keep the rich wealthy, so they push this idealogy on us where we think we need to pay the bills in order to get our depth. But we are born deep. Society flattens us out. And there's nothing deeper than love. The powerful fear love."

"They do."

"Because love is true independence through true communication."

Heiron let that sink in, looking around at all the departments mingling only with each other. "Why do you work here?"

"Good question. Rathers pays me well for answering calls."

"Which brings us back to power. You might get more respect somewhere else," Heiron added. "Brains and looks like yours deserve a break."

It was an honest remark, not necessarily intended as a come-on. More like a baffled amazement how such a sexy babe could end up alone here in a corner.

He stretched forward his hand. "Heiron Aviv. Marketing."

"Susie Malloy, London damsel in distress," she chirped. "You're from Cardiff?"

"How'd ya know that?" Heiron was flattered to see someone that obviously cared.

"I get the memos about new people," she said, raising her champagne to her lips, "I make it a point to learn names."

She shrugged.

"Everyone has a regular name around here," she scoffed, her boobs wiggling as she swayed, "Jeff, Simon, Mandy, Susie," she added, pointing at herself. "Heiron Aviv seems so exotic for a Welsh boy."

"Grown and raised just minutes away from Bay Barrage. I biked to college every morning past the sailing ships," he reminisced, noticing how this cutie actually waited to hear about the name. Susie raised her eyebrows, cocking her head. Heiron smiled. "My father originally moved to London from Jerusalem to study, but Welsh sweetie at the University named Penny, my Mom, really turned his head, so Cardiff became the place to search for an insurance job. A Jewish boy who sounds more Welsh than Bryn Terfel."

Susie nodded in agreement. "Which all proves my point."

Heiron took a sip from his Chardonnay, chuckling.
"What's that?"

"Categories suck."

He burst out laughing.

"I've only you two minutes, but already you're the most fun person I've met here."

Susie sniggered. "That's not very hard."

There was a pause.

"I mean, look, your Dad was a bloke from Israel that moved to Wales and now is taken for a regular Cardiff Jack."

"More like a Cardiff Ephraim."

"Whatever," she spat, pointing at the party crowd. "These guys are living a lie."

He looked around at the people around him, who all seemed to be have conspired to ignore them. "You don't think very highly of these people. How long have you been working here?"

"Four years. I mean, come on. They seem to think appearances matter," she continued, knocking back her Dom Perignon, quickly grabbing another one from the tray the maitre d' happened to be carrying around. The guy stopped, smiling at the pretty lady. Heiron knocked back his wine and grabbed another from the tray. There were exchanges of polite smiles. The waiter nodded and walked away.

"That guy was impressed by your appearance," Heiron added, carefully.

Susie shrugged, her boobs again wiggling as she did. Heiron now noticed she wasn't wearing a bra, but had a pair that seemed to be firm enough to be able to do without one. "But he was polite. You like my appearance. I like yours. But in that case our aim is to share and give affection. He didn't care what position I had. He also didn't try to push himself in order to get closer."

"That's his job," Heiron added.

"About half of all the waiters I know are distant and arrogant. Look around. All the people working here will only be nice to someone who will get them further professionally. Money, not affection. Cash, not touch."

"I'm beginning to regret taking this job," he added.

Susie seemed to be thinking, waiting to make some kind of decision. Both of them must have felt the unusual energy that criss-crossed between them. Heiron was sure Susie felt the same way. It was in her poise, in her comfortable body language. Moreover, it was in the way he felt when he was with her. Unexplainable, these relationships that start with a complete understanding between two people that have known each other for only two minutes. He just knew, saw, felt, was confident, that Susie really needed to touch him as much as he wanted to touch her. The careful smile that appeared on her lips, then, was innocent, hopeful, yearning.

"You wanna go for a walk?"

It was an energy that shot right into his spirit.

"I'd love to."

Besides, nobody here would bother if they left. He raised his glass to his lips and emptied the contents.

Susie raised what at least was her second glass of champagne, chirping: "Let's go!" in a tender mezzo. There was that feeling again. The same feeling he had gotten when she had greeted him with the words: "So good to have you around!" yesterday. A sense of familiarity. Why did meeting Susie feel like coming home?

Throwing on their scarves and coats felt like leaving, just abandoning, an unnecessary exile. No good byes.
"Why farewell when no one cares?" Susie chirped.
Heiron took a long look at Susie, her slightly tousled hair reflecting in the guilded elevator door. He looked into that warmth, realizing something. There were memories. He saw a house, a coach with horses, gardening in the countryside, children and grandchildren, even.

Soon after the elevator doors closed behind them, taking off twenty floors down toward the lobby, they found themselves in each other's arms, diving into heat. The trip down became a symbol for their dive into each other, embraces so tight, the wish to actually become the other individual came into mind. Musk and magnolia mingled and became an Eden where flower scents stood in full bloom. Now Heiron saw French back alleys in Montmartre, four decades before the scene in the countryside, portraying a blonde woman in a blue dress. He saw, while kissing Susie, himself as - what was this? - painter? Yeah, he was a French painter. 19th century? Yes. No, this was his ... his ... previous ... existence? But Heiron had never ever thought of past life before. His tongue reached as far down into her as hers in his, breast on chest, hands on derrieres, caresses on bust, wild, untamed, true, unabashed.

When the doors opened to marble tiles and a harbour view, leaving two other thin security guards staring at them with gaping jaws. Forgetting about the rest of the world, forgetting that the doors closed in them, they encapsuled them in amorous oblivion. Heavenly dimensions, so came the mutual thought, can be felt through earthly kisses.

In the black car home, Heiron heard the cabbie sighing, the hugging and kissing throwing fog on the windows. The cabbie's sighs were of a yearning nature. "To be young," he heard him say.
If this intensity exploded into further ecstasies, Heiron knew they would copulate right then and there.
He thought of Tina Turner. "Snuggled up in the back seat, making up for lost time. Steamy windows."
The keys to Susie's flat were thrown beneath her Victoria's Secret panties, Heiron's Calvin Klein underwear resting upon the nighttime table. Silk sheets resting on their twin derrieres, they became one body on the bed, one spirit, adjoining, this sexual encounter bringing them one step closer to their own heaven.

***

The open window invited cool breezes into Susie's bedroom that subsequent December morning. The weather not chilly enough for a song about Frosty, yet not warm enough for a tune describing a night in Puerto Rico. Still, between the sheets of her bed, Susie felt warm and cozy. Safe. This Jewish guy had flabbergasted her. Maybe it was her hunger for affection. Maybe the fact that she was a rich chick in London working as a receptionist in an aloof company, waiting to rebel? Maybe that she was a single girl having outlived seven lousy dates the last four months? Maybe it was that Heiron had been the first office guy who had smiled at her in two months.

Regardless, the smell of his after shave turned her on. Musky scent. And that chest hair. She watched his tummy heave and sink as he slept, a slight snore protruding his cute lips. And how he had filled her up last night.

It was more than that, though. Hearing about love at first sight, or was it lust at first sight, was one thing. She felt like getting lost in this guy. Nobody had done this to her before. Not her 10th grade sweetheart, not that Spanish dancer, not even the ridiculously handsome American in college. This was more. So much more.

Susie sat up, not bothering to cover herself, looking out at the grey English sky, one airplane taking off from Gatwick, morning trucks taking off from their companies, nine o'clock trains carrying the Saturday shift to work.
The world looked different, smelled different, felt different. Something had been added.
She was too much in a daze to notice how Heiron rested his head on his left hand, enjoying the silhouette of her bosom against the light. What should she make of this? This hunch. Was she imagining things?

"You look like a Boucher painting," he spoke in a husky baritone.

She turned around, long hair thrown across her left C-cup, a strain covering the nipple.
The grin she flashed must have had a profound effect on Heiron, a mix of raunchy surprise and cool arousal.
"Good morning," she answered, throwing him a kiss.
"It is good," he growled.
He smiled, that manicured three-day beard making him look like a movie star.
"Not as good as you."
Soon enough, the two of them were at it again for the forth time since yesterday evening. All of the Hindu traditions came to mind, Tantra, Kundalini, amazing unifications of energies an astounding reality that took astral lovers to other stars during sex. And again, he filled her up, turning them into one body, one spirit. If quantum physics indeed was real, Susie felt their atoms and particles morphing into one energy system, like a galaxy. "So that's what sex is," Susie heard herself think. "Then, that's what anyone does all the time. Energy blending. Becoming one like we are in heaven. Imagine how beautiful God can be when we make love."

And heaven felt like a kiss. And so did life.

***

Sunny-side-up had always been his favorite. Finding his way around her kitchen wasn't hard, so offering to serve them both breakfast made it possible for him to show her how fantastic fried eggs could look. The conversation was light, mostly work-related, but some of it also university-related or life-related. That was until Susie suddenly grew quiet. He had heard something contemplative in her voice for at least three sentences, a tone of voice unlike another, softer, more forced, maybe. Heiron almost worried he had said something wrong, when she spoke even softer, now with a decisive touch. Her voice was careful. Shy, even.

"Heiron," she crooned, "I've have a confession."

Okay, he thought to himself, hey, what's going on, should he take a deep breath or get real high? Were the Four Non-Blonds reuniting or was she just happy to see him?
Setting their plates of ham and eggs on the kitchen table made her smile, that slightly uneasy feeling still arising from the depths of oblivion. He carefully sat down, wondering if this was going to be heaven or hell. Well, heaven is a doorway to eternity and Susie twinkled.

"My Mum is a hypnotherapist and healer, I told you as much, right?"

Heiron remembered the tales of endless supplies of incense sticks. "Sermons about entities," he nodded.

Susie nodded. "Well," she laughed. "About four months ago, I had a violent break-up with my ex-boyfriend. I caught him betraying me in our double-bed at the end of summer vacation. The chick was my former best friend. It was real bad. Anyway, I was in such a bad state, I went for a week to Mum and Dad, trying anything to distract myself. They really did their best to help."

Heiron had no idea where this was going. Not at first, at least, or psychologically. Emotionally, yeah. Obviously, nowhere bad. At least, this story began before they knew each other. He sipped his coffee carefully, letting the java hug his throat, fixing his eyes on her beautifully sparkling face. There was that smile again. That excited smile. This felt good. It had to. Something great was coming. And this time, Romeo was actually going to live happily ever after with Juliet. Or so it seemed.

"A movie, a bottle of Martini Bianco, even inviting my cousins for a game of Scrabble. Nothing helped. I cried just about every hour of the day and night. Until ..."

Susie gazed down onto her eggs, as if the answer to her dilemma lay in the two sunny-side-up eggs that were presented on her cream-coloured plate, one slice of long bacon in between them. Okay, Heiron admitted. It was a bit much. But fun. And his chivalrous homage to last night. She now understood the hint.

"You're a sneaky little bugger, aren't you?" she smiled.

He giggled. "You finally got it."

She leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. "Yours is more filling than that bacon." It was a wet kiss, long and filled with lust and love and Columbian coffee.

When they withdrew, he finished.
"Your story."

"Oh," she chirped. "Right. Well, Mum offered to give me a past life regression to see what unfinished business I had with my ex. I had an innate belief in reincarnation, I'll give her that much, and she knew it. But to hear what I heard, experience what I experienced in that trance was surprising to say the very least. This was 19th century France and I was the wife of a successful painter. After years of hard work, my husband finally had success and so we moved to the countryside at old age, living together with our kids and eventually grandkids in one house in the Provence. My husband died before me, literally breaking my heart. My second marriage ended in divorce. I just could not forget my deceased husband. My mother told me that my ex-boyfriend was the reincarnation of my second husband in that life. He had actually agreed to be with me for a bit in this life, his soul staging the infidelity to bring me back."

Heiron's head was spinning. Was this what he thought it was? "Where?"

"Home," she said. "Back home. His infidelity made it possible for me to meet ...

Susie sighed, one tear rolling down her cheek.

"... you."

He stammered for a bit, getting the drift, his heart racing, his eyes widening, his nostrils flaring.
It made sense. All of it. Every vision during their initial kiss. Susie reached into her robe pocket, looking at a small note she held in her still manicured right hand. "My Mum wrote down a city on a piece of paper for me back in September. She told me that I would be meeting someone from here around Christmas. She even said the person would probably be of foreign ancestry and more probably was the reincarnation of my late 19th century husband. I finally calmed down and I have been waiting since."

Susie lay the small note in front of Heiron, who took it in his left hand in disbelief. It shot right to his heart, a flash of light just as penetrant as Amor's arrow. He had known all along, hadn't he? Their visions had been identical. He sighed, smiling to himself. It felt like home. No, it was home.

Heiron rushed up to Susie, willing to never ever let her go, grabbing her by the arms, picking her up by her lovely tush in his left hand and holding her back with his right, carrying her into the bedroom, swearing to make honest sweet love to a woman he obviously had known for centuries.

The ham and eggs were left cold that morning, eaten in bed along with delivery pizza later that afternoon. The small note with the city of Susie's old new-found love eventually ended up in a glass-frame on their house in the French countryside, where they lived happily with children and grandchildren until ripe old age.

The note, written by Mrs. Malloy in purple ink four months before Susie and Heiron first met, read:

"Cardiff, Wales."

It served as a reminder that people do reincarnate and lovers meet to love again for a reason.

After all, my dears, home always is where the heart truly is.

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