He watched her closely as she strutted back from the bathroom.  He noticed the various eyes attempting to glance surreptitiously.  He smiled, to himself.  She was his inspiration, his muse, wanting to not just use her for his pleasure but give her pleasure, see her smile, drive her to shudder and shake, to make her happy because she never experienced it before.

She appeared as an object, a desire, a notion in his mind that drove his passions.  He never expected that she would become so much more.  He did not expect her to consume his thoughts.  He did not expect her to strut and fret on his stage.  He did not expect her to be full of sound and fury signifying everything.  He did to expect her to become more than a player in a scene, more than a puppet on a string, more than desire.

She was more than a book from a library, plucked from the shelf, meant as a nightly distraction.  She became a catalyst for change, not just an object, even if she didn’t see it yet.

♦

She strutted with contempt.  She knew, in her heart, she was more than an object but used what she knew would capture desires.  She knew she’d leave a path of destruction and change destiny for herself because fuck the gods, fuck destiny, fuck those that believed she was forgettable, that she was nothing, that she deserved nothing.  She would scorch the soil beneath her feet for no other reason than she deserved to feel so much more than what was given to her.  She knew, in her heart, that she deserved to be seen.  She deserved to be seen.

She strutted in the impossible high heeled, thigh-high boots, because she knew it would capture looks.  She knew it would capture desires.  She knew her role, as a woman, was to become desired and an object.  She knew the expectation was to become desire itself, a symbol of sex and control, of desire and fidelity, or infidelity, as woman to man, as written before time itself existed. She knew the expectations and strutted with strides of fuck you and your expectations.  She was not a plaything, she only pretended to be.  She would burn all those roles in order to achieve what she always desired, deep down — she needed to be important.  She needed to be acknowledged as fuel for the fires that would burn the world and change what was written a thousand years before.  She needed to be more than Thanatos could control. She needed to be greater than the gods that demanded she become a puppet in their play.  She needed to be seen.

♦

He smiled as she sat, purposeful, at his table, quickly downing the drink waiting for her.  She smiled with perfectly painted matte red lips.  “Sorry to keep you waiting Thanatos,” She said softly.

“I will wait forever for you my dear M,”
“Yet you will never release me, will you?”
“No, of course not my dear.  You are my muse.  You are my inspiration.  You consume my thoughts.”
“Isn’t that the way you’ve written it?”
“Of course.”

The waiter brought another drink, placing it silently before her, and she raised it with a wry smile, “You, my dear Thanatos, will regret your decision.”