(Re)Occuring

I awoke from a dead sleep to the sound of screams, and reached for my sword. Sheets, sweat-soaked, tangled my legs as I scrambled out of bed, hunting furiously in the dark for my weapon. I cocked my head, listening as I fumbled in the pitch black. The scream echoed, but only in my mind, as if she screamed from across a chasm that existed only in my head. In a few moments, even the echo died away and it ocurred to me that I don't have a sword. I'm not wrapped in a bedroll, sleeping beneath the stars in my boots. I'm not being pursued. I'm standing in my bedroom, naked, breathing hard, and trying to decide when the characters I created became such a part of me that I shared their nightmares.

I awoke from a dead sleep and reached for you. I don't know what roused me. The house is silent, no vivid flashes of memory assail me. Not even the foggy idea of a dream gives me indication as to why I woke. I reach for you anyway, sure that whatever startled me out of sleep threatens you. I know I placed my body between it and you, sleeping at the edge of the bed furthest from the wall, just in case. The bed beside me is empty, save for pillows I've scattered in my restless sleep, a comforter I tore off at some point to alleviate the stiffling heat of the August night. Then it ocurred to me that this is ridiculous. Why should I wake and leap to protect you? Why should that be instinctual? You've never been here, never slept beside me. We've hardly met, and yet, I'm grasping for you in the darkness to reassure myself I haven't failed to keep you safe.

Sometimes, I like to gaze at my reflection long enough that it appears to be someone else. Like a word you repeat over and over until it loses its meaning, becomes so many impotent syllables. I think there's freedom in that breif span of meaningless words, a power to make them mean whatever you wish. I like to stare at my reflection until it becomes someone else, so I can create something attractive about myself. I admire the supple, full lips, so uncharacteristically soft. The promiment tone of biceps and legs thich with corded muscle. I find myself wondering about the eyes first blue, then green, then grey and back again. I wonder what thoughts they conceal, what they might convey with a look, what I might find about the man who belongs to those eyes if I just studied them a bit longer. I want to touch him and be touched, and it occurs to me that I can finally relate to all the people that have let me capture them in little glass jars and sit them on my shelves.

Sometimes I like to stare at the world. I like to watch, for hours, as the sun creeps overhead, changing shadows in its arc, spilling golden, ambient light first here, then there. I like to watch where the sun alights, as it warms the verdant leaves and grasses of these rural towns or sends streaks of fading light dancing across waves crashing onto an empty beach. A human interaction will spoil my study, but that so rarely happens. It occurs to me that the world, on its own, is a vastly more full place when it is emptied of mankind.

It occurs to me I'm not fond of the word 'occurs'.

I've been thinking and I realize I want to feel skin against mine. I want to feel lips. Hungry, insatiable lips. I want to kiss and be kissed, to feel another body pressed into me, strategically placed. Where my hands cup her cheeks, my thumbs roving up the curve of her ears. Where her breasts are flattened against my chest, soft supple skin pushing against me, a pleasant weight, just enough to get my heart beating. Her hips, just barely grazing mine, her legs wandering up and down my own, crossing each other at the ankles, brushing at the thighs, calves, toes. I want to feel her hands on my back, each fingertip a seperate point of gentle pleasure. I have never kissed a woman without craving her fingers on my naked back, kneading the muscles between my shoulders as if those ten points of contact could somehow give her more of me.

I want to sink into her slowly, without all the tearing of flesh, the clenching of teeth, the low, rumbling rage in the throat that so often accompanies these flashes of eroticism. I can see her hips rising, just slightly, to meet me. A hint of impatience. One bare, shapely leg wrapping around my waist, pulling, just a suggestion of desire. I can see my hand, absent-mindedly holding that leg from beneath, as if supporting what she wants. A promise of an ecstasy that is as slow and deliberate in arriving as it is certain to arrive.

I can see her body, littered with kisses. The hardly visible glistening of sweat and saliva on her skin. Eyes fluttering closed. A soft, almost inaudible sigh escapes her open mouth, rolls over my lips and into mine as if a part of her is inside me at the moment before she's wrapped around me completely.

In time, I'm sure, I'll awake from this. Perhaps reaching for a sword or an absent, half-imagined lover. Perhaps with fingers turned to claws and teeth to fangs that will seek to tear flesh, shed blood, degrade and destroy. To bring pain like only the Sadist in me can imagine. But it occurs to me that this, this brief and ultimately meaningless fantasy, is more and more a reflection I've stared at long enough to make it mean anything.

Thoughtfully Yours,
-S.R.

Fear of Desire

I'm conflicted, two sides of a very different argument and both of me at odds with me. Its an unusual situation I usually find myself in, bounding between two thoughts and never quite certain one appeals to me more than another. On one hand, I find myself wondering (adorably, I might add) about finding that special someone. That person we're all supposed to find and settle with. Presumably after a string of failed, violent relationships. You can't find what you aren't looking for, after all. I have always imagined that would be my course one day. I set out on this journey and, at its end, I find a home.

I enjoy relationships, in a very general sense. I enjoy the camaraderie, the closeness, the comfort. Feeling as if I can make a fool of myself saying silly things in silly voices and be taken as affectionately as if I were actually something cute, not something with rusted edges and ragged scars. I enjoy delving into another human being and finding things in there, little things to be enamored with. Subtle details, like the way she breathes when she's on the cusp of sleep. Or how she came to know her favorite flower. Each of these experiences is novel, and they never lose their appeal to me. That exploration is what I crave, the satisfaction of my curiosities is so complete. Few things, I find, compare to turning a new lover into something more substantial.

Then again, I disagree.

I have not tired of my petty perversions, the potential I've wasted on country diversions, perfecting the art of coersion, the diversions from the normal, natural flow of things. I relish each new challenge, not as a conqueror relishes his victory, but more akin to the way a particularly loyal servant enjoys pleasing his master. Even when I'm playing the master.

I long for attachment, but find attraction much more gratifying. I crave affection, but I pursue attention with nary an intention to linger. I slip in and out of lives, appearing, penetrating, vanishing. Never cruel, never unkind. I'm sort of ethereal, sort of ephemeral, preternaturally adept at spinning and spinning, spying a prize and making it mine, then flitting away before daylight reveals me. There are ugly, callous things in me that I would not share. I don't leave for fear of becoming attached, for fear of committing, but for fear of rejection. Of mistaken identity.

I've played the white knight so many times, I almost believed it was true. I almost fell for my own prowess, almost knew the festering, derelict parts of me were gone, evaporated like so much sweat in the August sun.

Maybe it isn't a desire for new lovers, new lusts, to replace the old that drives me, then. Maybe its that aversion to being seen for what I am, instead of simply who I've shown.

But then, trepidation wouldn't fill my head with long, supple legs or painted toenails, toes curled, ankles dressed in thin, silver chains, abdomens glistening with a fine sheen of sweat, the heady smell of desire, the enticing lock of eyes, the shock of sudden pleasure, fingertips piercing the flesh on my back, as if trying to peel the skin from the bones, trying to hook themselves into my muscles and hold on for dear life. Fear wouldn't fill my head with these things.

And when it comes right down to it, I'm never really rejected. I've never felt that cold emptiness, the hollow clang as the golden gates slam shut, barring me entrance. No, I'm much too clever for that. I will bring you to the edge, I will walk you to the precipice and, just before you push me over, I'll pull you back from that place and show you something warmer. Something you've wanted to see, something I've saved for just such an occasion. All the while unconscious of my own actions, conscious only of the way they move you. I'm unintentionally profound, accidentally touching.

Purposefully, forcefully arousing.

I aim to please you in ways that will leave you devestated. Catatonic. I will secret myself behind jokes and self-deprecation, and when you've fallen for that charm I'll have my prey. When next I inhale, your nerves will tremble of their own accord. Cognitive thought will jumble in your throat, choke you, until every breath is a gasp. Every impulse, every synapse, fires contiguously until your brain is a mess of mashed wants and spasms. I'll breathe in that scent, that sated phermone, and grow stronger. I'll be a fucking orgasm vampire.

And then I'll fly away before you regain your senses. Before what just happened dawns on you. Because now you've seen me exposed, you've seen me vulnerable and afraid, uncertain and absolutely in control. You've seen what I can do, and what I fear most. You've seen all the things that lurk around the dark corners in me, and all the things that hide because they're frail and easily startled. The sinister and the sincere. The loathing and the loving. In the span of a few dizzying seconds, you've seen all there is to see.

And if you're out for revenge, I'm much to ripe for the feast.

Terrifyingly Yours,
-S.R.

Some Kind of Monster

Full disclosure,this isn't going to be pretty.

I'm dangling perilously close to one of those black moods that have, by now, become so infamous. The long, silent weeks have taken their toll. I find loneliness always seems to hasten my descent down that road. It leaves me too much time to reflect, and I have never cared much for what I see in the mirror. I suppose my own actions are to blame here. It isn't as if everyone else dropped off the face of the earth. I've exiled myself and, having faced what I'm trapped here with, I've changed my mind. I want to go back. I don't like exploring this place. Nothing about it appeals to me. Everything here is malodorous and black, as if covered by a thick coat of tar like the inside of my lungs. Nothing is substantial, but everything roils and shifts, churning like the poisoned guts of a leper. It reeks of rage and death and cruelty. Part of my feels at home, the rest is all revulsion.

I have, however, discovered some truths, albeit not desirable ones.

The first, is that I will never be as attached to you as we'd both like to believe. Don't get me wrong, it isn't for lack of intention, nor desire. I want to paint portaits of your body with words. I want to sing your beauty until the words have died away, the notes themselves have unraveled, the tune fades into legend. I want to create a goddess of you, of all of you. I'd show you all my secret places, share all the things I love most about this sprawling world and all the worlds I've created. I want these things more than I can conjure, and I will lead you to believe it. I will, myself, believe it. And once you've exhausted me, once I have given you all there is for one person to give to another, I will move on. I will never cry for you, I will never pine for you. One day, you'll just be gone. And nothing will have changed in me.

I don't fear that, that false sense of attachment. I don't fear the damage it will do when you come to realize that, when all is said and done, one day you'll mean less than nothing to me, as so many others have. I don't even fear that you will only ever love me for the things I can give you, and not for what stands behind them, cowering from the light, covering the ugly things with good intentions. My fear, is that you'll lash out at me when you reach this epiphany. I'm afraid, because I know I would destroy you.

That was my second truth. I am significantly more dangerous than you have been led to believe. I will give you all, in some sense of the word. I will twist and bend, will leap and sing and write and laugh and drink. I will be everything you desire. You'll fall for me. Not because I want you to, necessarily, but because I need you to. I will come to love you, and I will need that love reciprocated. I can make that happen. Love is all a matter of wit and charm, the right conditions, the proper sweetness, seasoned to taste. Every love is different, every one is a challenge, and I have never failed. I will turn your thoughts to me, turn you feelings tender, and then I'll have you.

I'll never try to harm you. As I said, I am all of good intentions. I'll never lie, never strike harshly. I'll bring you smiles and laughter, I'll bring fire and lightning to your nerves, until your every physical urge is for my touch. I'll drive you mad with desire. You'll adore me the way I need to be adored. I will live and breathe to satisfy you, until the day you turn me loose.

Until the day you try to hurt me.

It isn't a matter of thought, but reflex. You'll land the first blow, and every one after that will shatter you further. The great, dormant beast of my wrath will rise up and crush your bones to glittering dust. I'll rend your flesh and spatter the sky with your intestines. I'll paint mountains red with your blood. I won't rest until there is nothing left of you but pain. Until your stripped and battered, raped again and again. I will wring the life from your throat and feed on it for the simple, treacherous hunger to watch something suffer. I won't allow you to harm me, and therefore you have to die.

The shadow of this rage will darken your world, and all who come before it will tremble in fear. Nothing grows, nothing flourishes. The inky black will settle over those fertile plains where you spent all your happiest moments until all is coated in tar and reeking of decay. I'll weep then, knowing what I've done to you. I'll cry because I never wanted to bring you anything but joy, but pleasure. I won't cry at the scars I leave behind, I'll hardly notice those you've left on me, save to pick the scabs on occasion. I never really heal, never really tire of watching blood pool from my broken skin and flow down into the earth. The wounds aren't deep, though. Not deep enough to cause me any discomfort.

I will move on, then. And nothing in me will have changed.

There's not enough left alive in there to change.

Fundamentally, Loathsomely Yours,
-S.R.