VIII HOUSE

When Heather woke up, the bathroom door across from where she lay on the four-poster bed was slightly ajar.

‘Oh, I must have nodded out…’ she realized upon sitting up to find the fashion magazine she had been flipping through while she waited for her domitor in her lap with her glasses lying across it. Guilt washed over her immediately.

‘What if they needed me while I was asleep? What if they needed me and I was unavailable after I’d told them I’d be useful to them and do anything for them? And to find me asleep on their bed like this too, I must’ve looked so lazy and useless…!’ her mind succumbed to a relentless onslaught of anxious thoughts.

She quickly rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and slid her black frames back onto her face before approaching the bathroom door to place her eye to its crevice.

Inside, she found them standing in front of the mirror, clad in their usual black pantsuit, carefully and precisely applying their eye makeup. Despite being as quiet and discreet as she could be, their cloudy eyes almost instantly found her chartreuse ones in the reflection of the mirror.

“Heather?” they acknowledge.

She gently pushes the door open to reveal herself. “Y-Yeah. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak. I just wasn’t sure if you were back from your study...”

“I am, but not for long unfortunately. I was summoned for a mission,” they say with an exasperated sigh, “so I’m preparing to go take care of that.”

“O-Oh…” her voice projects more disappointment than she intended.

It was only some hours ago that the redhead was looking across at them from where she had laid on the bed with her magazine. They sat at their desk, legs crossed with their gaze deeply trained on the thick, leatherbound book in their lap. A black band hoodie that was a size bigger than their slender frame hung over their shoulders with matching wide leg sweatpants that were patterned with a trail of crimson kisses along their side seam. A rare sight, their face was bare and not hidden behind the wide brim of a hat or the shades of sunglasses. It was uncannily pale, with the only color in their features not their trademark black makeup, but lividity dusting their eyes and staining their lips.

‘Tonight was the first time I had even seen them dressed casual—let alone in anything outside of their usual attire—and even though they were busy, it was nice to be under the same roof for more than just a few minutes for once. I just wanted them to come back to me so I could see them again. I hated having to be away from them all the time.’ Heather brooded.

They pop the cap off their lipstick tube. “I’ll be back shortly,” they reassure, obviously discerning her disappointed tone.

As she watched them color their lips in with the black bullet, she couldn’t help but notice how their pure white fangs stood out beneath the onyx matte.

They were no bigger than the rest of their teeth apart from their length. They were thick and wide at the top and curved as they extended down into their sharp points where they ended. Their points were just as sharp as the sewing needles she used in her fashion projects back at home, where even the smallest brush along their tips could snag her skin and draw blood.

Their voice tears her out of her trance, “Heather, could you bring me a blood pack?”

“…Why not just bite me?”

“Because I have plenty of blood packs to spare.”

“But you need those for your missions, don’t you? I mean, I’m still new to all this vampire stuff, but I can’t imagine those are easy to get your hands on,” she reasoned. “I told you I’d do anything, remember? Just ask me!”

“…Heather, you know you don’t have to be ‘useful’ to stay with me, right?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You always talk as though you have to prove your worth to me, but you don’t have to do that. I’m happy to let you stay with me as you are.”

“But I do! You saved my life!”

“Because I wanted you to live, not because I wanted anything from you.”

“But I want to repay you! I want to help you! I…I love you!”

They meet her infatuated gaze with an expression that is something of a mix of concern and pity.

The night Heather met them outside Venture Tower, they tried to turn her away. Not because they didn’t want to take her in, but because they didn’t want to put her in any more danger than she had just narrowly escaped in that hospital room. However, the more she pleaded, the more they perceived her to be lost and lonely, and later, they would learn that those perceptions were not completely unfounded.

‘I’ll only let her stay long enough to help her understand her situation as a ghoul now and get back on her feet,’ they told themselves, ‘then I’ll tell her to leave and forget about me.’

Their mental cut-off point had long since passed. Tonight, they stand before her with those very words trapped in their throat yet again.

They knew her confession of love was influenced by their blood bond and was, more or less, empty, but they also knew that beyond the blood bond, there was a part of her that had been yearning for what was torn from her in her loss—a feeling that resonated with them.

Slowly, they approach her and settle one hand upon her shoulder with the other cradling her head. Heather instinctively lolls her head to the side for them, and they lean into her willing neck, drawing a swoon from her as their fangs pierce her delicate skin. She succumbs to the euphoria of the kiss, and they envelop her wilted form in a firm embrace while they suck the thick, rich vitae from her veins in full, ardent gulps.

When their thirst is slaked, they ease their bloodstained fangs from her neck, leaving the swollen, charcoal impression of their kiss behind. Her head languidly dips into their chest, their arms never unraveling from her waist.

I was introduced to this song while watching his 1999 Tour in Bloomington, Minnesota in 1983. The three songs preceding “International Lover” were “Lady Cab Driver”, “Little Red Corvette”, and “Dirty Mind”—that is to say, we were riding on quite the high of sexy energy, with the infectious synth and display of energy from Prince himself all over the stage prior to his segue into the ballad. “Dirty Mind” extended with a well-merited boastful guitar solo from Prince that left the audience in awe before the concert seemingly concluded, leaving fans bathed in darkness but their adoration still very audible. I remember waiting for the recording to end for what seemed like an eternity until that iconic pink heart suddenly illuminated followed by the seductive voice of Lisa Coleman piping in through the speakers:

“Fasten your seatbelts. Prepare for takeoff…”

The song using air travel as a metaphor for sex in the first place is very Prince, and also so very fascinating to me, because it creates this duality to the song’s tone. The use of this kind of metaphor in a Prince song is usually reserved for his, what I like to call, “fun-sexy” songs. Songs like “Jerk U Off”, or more similarly, “Delirious” and “Velvet Kitty Cat”. These songs carry the soul of burlesque in them, where humor shakes hands with titillation and creates a most amusing, tongue-in-cheek, almost theatrical experience for the listener. Prince often told stories in his songs, some are more weaved into the lyrics than others, but various can be heard in his more erotic tracks, and so songs like “Private Joy” are an example of what his tales of pure lust and hookups/friends with benefits sound like. In the case of “International Lover”, however, its use of its aviation metaphor, innuendo (“I’ll introduce you to my ride, don’t you want to come inside?”), and lyrics that are dripping with sexual desire are set alongside these simultaneous expressions of some kind of infatuation.

“May I have this dance?”

“Darling, it appears to me That you could use a date tonight A body that'll do you right Tell me, am I qualified?” “I'm an international lover, yeah, that's right Let me take you 'round the world I'll buy you diamonds and pearls Only if you're good, girl”

He offers his body guaranteed satisfaction throughout the song, yet trailing behind those seductions is some kind of yearning or promise of more. It is not the love that could be heard on a track like “Scandalous”, what is being expressed here sounds much more short-lived and fixated on the subject of this song. In fact, this infatuation isn’t even revisited after the final chorus, leaving it hanging, fading to the background and drowned out by the final verse of the song, which instead focuses on their flight’s “landing”.

“Good evening. This is your pilot Prince speaking You are flying aboard the Seduction 747 And this plane is fully equipped with anything Your body desires”

This brings me to the other fascinating aspect of this song for me: the entire song sounds as though it is all one big sexual fantasy. It is evident the fantasy belongs to the subject of the song, but it is possible that it could belong to Prince’s character as well, given that he takes on a pretty dedicated role of a pleaser in this song.

If I were to weave a story from these lyrics, it presents a scenario of a sexually frustrated woman fantasizing about a man who only has eyes for her and solely exists for her pleasure. The highlighted lyrics above obviously indicate that he physically (both in appearance and performance) fulfills her sexual tastes/desires. The lyrics that imply his hazy infatuation come from her wanting to be desired by a man emotionally, an example of this is heard in the chorus, where “I will buy you diamonds and pearls, baby” could be taken literally, as in she wants a man to express his affections for her in this way, or more figuratively, that she wants him to be willing to do anything to satisfy her every desire. All of this is wrapped up in its aviation metaphor that is very pornographic and whimsy like that of a real sexual fantasy, which are hardly ever based in reality or any kind of sense for many; In this context, the metaphor is literally a scenario she is visualizing. Finally, the part of the spoken outro “Remember, next time you fly, fly the International Lover” implies that, though her fantasy has reached its completion (or her climax), it is one she will be revisiting next time.

From a less practical perspective, I find my story is even aided by the raw instrumentals without any lyrics. (Again, I do not know musical jargon, so excuse my odd way of expressing myself) Its synth-heavy and passionate(?) performance produces a dream-like sound. This dream washes over you from the very beginning of the song, and for the rest of its duration, you are drifting along as you are being guided through it. Before you know it, the intensity has escalated, until you’re eased into the end of this…experience. It’s like those dreams (or nightmares) that you wake up from, and though you have zero recollection of it from the moment you open your eyes, how it made you feel is still very much with you, and that feeling serves as the only proof that you dreamt at all.

Interestingly, I find that, in the raw studio recording featured on the “Super Deluxe Edition”, his yearning isn’t masked as much, at least in the way sings the lyrics and inflects. It’s more at the forefront and tonally present. We hear a bit more of his pleaser role in action too in some of the extra lyrics left on this recording, with “baby you can be my pet, I know how to keep you wet” in the chorus and “did you like that? Did you want to do it again?” in the outro. It’s also fun for me to hear Morris Day’s name originally used in the line we now know as “thank you for flying Prince international”, seeing as how it was originally a song for The Time, it’s just fascinating to see evidence of that on what would’ve been a demo/guide tape for the group.

I also really love hearing an artist at work in general, raw instrumentals, mistakes and all, but I especially love hearing the art in progress here, listening to it come to life, and even more so, his laughter left included. It sort of lends credence to my assessment and categorization of his “fun-sexy” songs too, it’s nice to hear him having such a good time, doing something we know he loved so much, and intentionally working his personality and sense of humor into the track. Ah, I miss him so much

Pertaining to nothing but my love for this track, his performances of this song are by far some of his best, especially of his 80’s/1999-Purple Rain era. The way he would turn this song, on its own, from a live performance to a whole theatrical section of his concert, rich with a burlesque-esque strip and erotic shadow dance, is breathtaking. From this, to how the song even ended up in his catalogue in the first place, goes to show he knew how special this track was, and this self-awareness from him makes me love it even more. This is further demonstrated when you include the ad-libs in those live performances, which are too many to cover all of them in a single post, but some of my favorites go:

"Do you wanna kiss me, baby? Then stick your tongue out." "I know where your G-spot is. You want me to show you?"

It just shows the unique passion fueling his performances of this song and the fun we hear in that first take recording from the “Super Deluxe Edition” that he would bring with him on onstage.

To wrap up, I am well aware this song was (probably) not made with any of this in mind—most of this is just me expressing my adoration for this song and his artistry—but, given the deep, colorful mind he had, I enjoy dissecting and analyzing his art in this way. I think exploring these sorts of thoughts shows how connected we are to his body of work and the impression it left (and continues to) leave on us. This song is one of his many testaments to his vocal range and just pure genius as a musician, from the composition, instrumentals, lyrics, and his ability to invoke those same feelings of heated passion in his listeners to his presentation during live performances. A whole lot of words to say the same thing over and over again: I love this song very much, and I love Prince very much.

I might edit this to include my thoughts on the “Piano & A Microphone 1983” version, but I may not have a whole lot to say that hasn’t already been said here. We’ll see.

💜☔4/21/16☔💜

What do you like about “International Lover”? What are some of your favorite Prince songs and why? What did you draw from them and/or how did they speak to you? I’d love to hear your stories.