Sports Calendar

August 23, 1834, Switzerland

Dear Tracey, Thank you for your beautiful letters, I keep reading the words again and again. I miss you too, I think of you constantly. My work has completely taken over, I have to remain focused and calm. I thought your dream was beautiful, the idea of you in your white skirt, wet, is an image I hold, I am thinking of your lips and your dark brown eyes. I want to touch you, I want to hold you. I want you to feel my love. I want to make love to you. I want the smell of you, the feel of you. I want you to be my wife. X

September 10, 1834 Yes, when, where how? A little place named Gretna Green…

October, 2005 “How long has Tracey been in a mental hospital?”

“Four or five years, ever since she started having these imaginary relationships. She would become fixated by television characters, and the stalking, that was the worst, they used to say she was text crazy, but anyone who knew her quite well would tell you she just did not like using the telephone. Is it true that she has not said anything but meow in the last three years?”

“Meow, maw meow maw maw maw meow.” “Yeah, she had this fur thing. She started to identify everyone as animals one way or another and was not happy until she got a whole room meowing with her. They actually took her away after the roof incident.”

“You mean when she was found on top of her five-storey townhouse? It was obvious she was not going to jump. She was meowing, for God’s sake. It’s when the cat completely took over.”

“But she was suicidal at one time, but that was years before. The thing about Tracey is she is a survivor. She would use every bad experience and turn it around to something good. She believed that was what life was about, the challenge.”

April 2035 “Why did she spend most of her life alone? We could have a séance and ask her.”

“I swear to God the glass is moving on its own.”

“Is there anybody there?”

“Yes, Tracey, it is the man who loves you. I have come back for you. I never meant to hurt you or leave you, it is just I found the love thing so intense. If you told me about the baby, I would never have left you. I only ever wanted to adore you.”

March 15, 2005 For years, I waited for you, I looked for you. Every time the postman came I hoped with all my heart it would be a message from you. You gave me the opportunity to love and then you took it away. I can’t cope with hurt and pain. It is better for me to be free.

Love, Tracey

WHEN ELLE MET TRACEY

The picture (not online) and story are part of the autumn/winter ad campaign for Elle Macpherson Intimates. For each image in the campaign, Macpherson asked a contributor — Emin, Damien Hirst, Sir Elton John, comedian Sandra Bernhard and Australian songwriter Matt Ford — to write a short story. The collection makes up a special, limited-edition anthology.

Not your average lingerie ad campaign, perhaps. But Macpherson had grown bored with seminaked, smouldering pictures of herself. “I’m just tired of seeing tits and arse in an ad that tells you, ‘If you wear this, you can look like this,’” she says. This time around, you can’t even see the model’s face — just the paraphernalia of her life. The viewer is left to work out the rest. It’s a far sexier way of doing things.

As for Emin’s short story, it was typically frank, and that was just what Macpherson wanted. “I admire Tracey’s completely honest perception of things,” she says. “She doesn’t mind putting it out there, and people sometimes find it shocking, but haven’t most of us experienced some of what she’s talking about? And aren’t honesty and rawness so much more alluring than gloss, anyway?”

Style has 100 exclusive copies of this limited-edition anthology to give away. For details, log on to www.sunday-times.co.uk/style. The pictures and stories can also be viewed at www.intimate-stories.com.

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