In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

was imprisoned and sentenced to death, and wounded. He had it
sheared off in a grenade explosion."
"Whut?
"His face."
"No! How much?"
"It was pretty much gone and he used a glass eye."
Silence.
"What is his music like?"
"You'll see. Like he had his face blown off, and the universe is
blasting through his skull. He's been compared to Beethoven."
"Did he have an 'Immortal Beloved'?"
"He's got a daughter, but I think he was pretty much a loner."
"Eh! Beethoven was a loner, like you, no?"
After a while, he chuckled, "Those Greeks! Mannaggia! Will
Italians live forever in the shadow of those Greeks?"
Moving back to the left side of his face, he wondered, "Tell me,
did you fall in love with me before or after this?"
She rolled on top of him and held his face in her hands and
kissed his right eyelid, then his left, and then down the cheekbone to
his lips, but didn't say a word.
"My lovely loner, my immortal beloved," he sighed and kissed
her. They lay together in silence. The traffic had died down, the wheel
creaked to a halt, the world slept.
"Tell me, this Xenakis, how did he photograph? In the book, I
remember the profile but I did not know. On album covers? In
concert, did his face not 'scare the children' like Dick says?"
"He was mostly photographed in profile, it's true, or with the
gone side in shadow."
"Did he scare you?"
"Well, his talent was intimidating, of course. Oh, come on, it's
not that bad. You're not scary, you're almost normal now. You were
scarier before."
"You were scared of me?"
"Yeah, you didn't look real!"
"Ah! So you fell in love after."
"I followed you here against my better judgment."
"Love is not about thinking," he whispered.
But she had become stupid the moment she had set eyes on
him, or was it from the velvety voice that had woken her up?
"You say I look normal now? Like a 'regular guy'? Like a
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