Anger is a strange emotion. When suppressed it consumes a person in small, subtle, yet deadly ways. It slowly chokes someone with a silent poison that blackens the soul and manifests as depression or apathy. If the angry person attempts to quash that anger, no matter how righteous, at some point anger will find an exit. It will find its way out as either a dark, maleficent energy or as an explosive rage. Either way like a fire it consumes whatever lies in its path. Incendiary like gasoline on dried wood; it only takes a tiny spark to ignite.

♦

Don’t. Just Don’t. Seriously
What
Don’t fucking pretend to care
I’m not pretending
Fuck you
Why the hell are you so angry with me?
Oh, you miss me. You worry. You care for me, blah, blah.
It’s the truth
Really?
I don’t blow smoke up your ass
Hard to believe when I don’t hear anything from you for weeks at a time. You always have an excuse. Your phone broke, you didn’t pay the bill, no wifi. Whatever

I borrowed money from anyone just to get it back because I miss my best friend
Yeah, sure. Empty words. You say this every couple of weeks. Really, don’t lie to me. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of a friendship at your convenience. I mean shit to you

That isn’t true. You mean a lot to me. You are one of the few people I tell anything
Okay, tell the others than, I’m tired. I’m done with this game
It isn’t a game
Isn’t it? I need someone that puts me first, that cares enough to actually check more than every couple of weeks. If I don’t contact you its like I fall off the fucking planet. You forget until you get bored or are horny or some shit

That isn’t true. I think of you all the time
I’m right here like always
I’m sorry. It isn’t my fault that I have phone problems and can’t pay bills, you know I’m struggling right now
Yeah, I’m struggling, too.
I know and that’s why I worry. I’m worried about you M, really, you are my best friend

…

Thanatos smiled, “A new corset?”
“Do you like it?”
“Of course.”
“What are you going to do to me,” she asked licking her lips.
“What do you want me to do,” he asked as the light flickered in his eyes.

She walked, slowly, across the room and stood before him, “Thanatos, my dear, I am here at your pleasure, for your pleasure.”

He looked into her deep green eyes for a long moment, her lips holding a taut smile, and felt a strange, unidentifiable emotion. Her sadness, as always, was palpable. Her sehnsucht lingered below. But something more, something new, simmered beneath.

“Who is he?”
“Who,” she said softly trying to hide the surprise that Thanatos didn’t know something.
“You’ve changed.”
“I have not.”
“Yes. Something is different. It’s him, isn’t it?”
“Thanatos, are you… are you jealous?” She stuttered with genuine surprise.
“Of course not. I am the god of death. You have danced with me for years. You come to me while you run from everyone else.”

She slowly reached behind to untie her corset as he spoke. His words seemed carefully chosen as if to hide true meaning. She knew that game. She’d played it many times throughout the years.

“Do you want me to leave,” she asked wryly.
“Of course not my dear M. I want you more each time. Your pleasure is my pleasure.”

♦

Laying next to Thanatos as he slept, she stared at the ceiling and sighed. There was something different that she couldn’t explain. The usual black tar consumed her from within but this time it felt hot; incendiary. It felt like a stoked fire, the embers slowly awakening, and it crackled with small pops somewhere inside. She had no words for this strange feeling slowly heating and bubbling, like a simmering blaze before igniting to an all consuming inferno.