Conversations: Lessons Learned

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I’m finally learning, Thanatos.

Learning what my dear?

All the lessons you’ve been teaching me over the years. I never realized they were there until I listened and now it all seems so clear.

I did not attempt to teach you.

Perhaps not intentionally but I’ve learned nonetheless.

And what is it that you’ve learned?

It is all about three things: image, strength and positivity. It doesn’t matter if you are good or bad, it doesn’t matter if you love or hate, it only matters if you project the right image, be strong in whatever you do and only reveal positive feelings even if it it is a lie.  If you are strong in whatever you do or at least appear strong and happy that is all that matters.  That is how the game is played.  Pretend to be strong even if you aren’t.  Be happy even when you don’t feel it. Project the right image in any situation.

That is not…

Being kind, being soft-hearted, showing fear and sorrow only leaves you alone.  It opens you up to abuse.  Being authentic and honest, feeling the pain and hurt that is this world means no one will love you, not long term.  People only love someone who is strong enough to withstand all the shit.  People only love someone who smiles despite boredom, despite depression, despite the rat-race behind gray cubicle walls or open office pits, despite the world burning and the wars raging and the debts piling higher than the savings in the banks. People only love someone who is strong enough to survive, to take care of themselves, who is positive all the time.

M, my dear, that is not…

I learned, Thanatos, I have.  I am a woman.  I am meant to be a beautiful object, desired and smiling, happy despite it all, to make others feel good, to help others forget the shit in this world, or their own private hell, I am meant to reflect only what they want.  I wear a costume designed to reflect both sex and strength.  Heels, the higher the better, so I appear like an Amazon while at the same time make it difficult for me to run.  It is the appearance of strength and power, the courage to be so damn tall, that matters.  My lips painted perfectly, stained a deep red, to stand out and hit that primal desire that says my lips are swollen with desire for you are more important than what my lips actually say.  It is the image, the projection of courage, of strength.  It allows me to be both victim and user, gives me the power to use the desire of others while portraying the definition of someone else’s desires.  I am their object to get what I want.  Both powerful and powerless.

M, listen to me, that is not why I desire you.

Oh, but it is my dear Thanatos, it is.  It is always what is wanted, in the end, to smile brightly as my body writhes for your pleasure, for his pleasure, for everyone’s pleasure.  It is the courage, you see, dear Thanatos.  The courage I’ve had.  To face death over and over. The strength to fight for the exit.  You confuse that courage with sadness, with emotions, with all the emotions that have raged within me all these years; the emotions I’ve tried to escape.  What the lesson is, really is, is simply to be strong enough to ignore emotions, the messy emotions, so others don’t have to feel them, see them, touch them.  Use my strength of survival to oppress the negative feelings, show only what is expected, play the game properly, the positivity game, and do it with enough conviction to appear authentic and I can have anything I want.  I can have love.  I can have someone protect me, fight for me, come to me whenever I want because I have the strength to see the reality while playing the game. 

M, my dear M, no.  I desire you because you see the reality and don’t play the game.  You feel it all and rejected being just another player in the game.  You’ve attempted to escape and find something different. 

She laughed, no, no, my dearest Thanatos, that is the mistake I’ve made all these years.  I’ve attempted to escape reality, I’ve attempted to become normal and a good player like all the rest, thinking it will stop all these dark emotions that swirl within me.  Now I see it clearly.  I can not escape.  I will not end these dark emotions.  I can only use them to fuel my way to becoming just another player that sees the game rules and moves around the board until the game ends.  In the meantime I will dress up however anyone wants, in whatever costume is required for the scene, and only show confidence, compliance, eagerness.  A smile, a positive attitude, saying all the platitudes with conviction, standing tall in my heels and showing strength.  It won’t matter if I am breaking inside, it won’t matter if there are pieces of me shattering like glass because it simply means those broken pieces will sparkle when the light hits.

 

♦♦

M, wow, you look different.

I do? How?

I don’t know, you look… happy? Definitely a new confidence about you.  I was so worried about you but clearly you were right, I didn’t need to worry, just look at you!

Thank you.  I am the same but I have changed.  I’m learning a few lessons, finally.

Text Stories: Games We Play

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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.

Conversations: Thanatos’ Mistake

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You, my dear Thantos, made one fatal mistake
What is that, my dear M?
You showed me that I am important
How have I done that?
You can not release me from this pain, give me the death I desire, so there must be something of worth, a greater value, than this earthly veil reveals
What makes you think such silly thoughts?
If there was no truth to what I say you would release me, give me death, reap my soul as you, the god of death, are meant to do. Instead you continue to play with me which means I have something more than this life offers.
You are a foolish child.
Yet you do not deny my claims
I do not
I am your muse
You are
Which means if I can be the muse to the god of death than there is something more than what I see now
I can not deny your logic
You have made a mistake Thanatos
What mistake is that?
You have given me a purpose
What purpose is that
To find what is so valuable that the god of death will not reap.

She: M

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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.”

 

 

 

Texts: Rain

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The streets were slick from the softly falling rain.  The rainy season, when she could walk the dark, rain soaked streets, hiding her tears with the raindrops from the darkly clouded sky.  It was the rain that made Seattle the city to always hold her heart.  The city that cradled her melancholy.

Y did you say that?
Say what?
I’m failing here, really bad
What’s wrong M?
The same thing as always.  Y did you say that? What am I supposed to do now?
M, you aren’t making sense.  I’m worried.  R u drinking?
Walking in the rain
Y are you walking in the rain
Because I can’t escape.  There is no where for me to run anymore
How much have you had to drink?
Not enough
M, please, u r killing me
Lol, no I’m not.  U don’t care, not really, we r just friends
What the hell does that mean? I care about u, I think about u all the time
Ok
M, what’s going on
Nothing.  Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother u.  That’s what I mean by I’m failing.  I’ve become the manipulative abuser and I hate it
You aren’t an abuser. Talk to me
It’s just the rain and alcohol.  I’m fine.  Ttyt
M, please, don’t do that

….

M? Talk to me

…

M, please, answer me

Road

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The dark road tunneled ahead of her, the headlights illuminating a few hundred feet, as she sped along listening to the static from the radio echo in her head.  The thoughts cascaded like cicadas in the summer heat, droning endlessly, singing to the only one who understood.

Where she was going she couldn’t say.  She could only say what she left behind.  Or, what she was running from, trying to leave behind, though deep down she knew it would follow, like luggage transported from one destination to another.  There was nowhere to run, no one to run to, no one to catch her.  No one to save her.  She knew that even as she pressed her foot on the gas pedal until she felt it hit the floorboards beneath.  There wasn’t enough speed, wasn’t enough road, wasn’t enough distance between her and the past.

♦

“What the hell does that mean?”
“You can be aggressive as hell when you feel uncomfortable.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be a bitch.”
“I never said you were a bitch, just aggressive, there is a difference.”

She paced her kitchen reading the texts wondering what the hell it all meant.  Why would he tell her that just before a date she was already nervous about.  She had no idea she was like that.  She always tried to acquiesce, to do what others wanted, to appease and please yet she was aggressive as hell?  What did that even mean?

“I can’t change overnight.  I’m trying for fucks sake.”

♦

She tried to breath but instead inhaled with a jagged stutter.  She felt her arms shaking as she held the wheel, pressed the gas pedal harder even though it was already to the floor, and tried to focus on the dark, endless road ahead despite the tears blurring her vision.  This was all familiar.  Not the road itself but the flight.  She flashback to the freedom, at seventeen, when she finally escaped hell; or so she believed then.  Back then she also hit the gas as hard as possible, fleeing up the road, leaving the house she grew up in as a distant memory in her rear-view.  She never returned even when her mother begged.  She never felt the pangs of nostalgia like her older brother wanting to visit the old pizza place and ice cream parlor.

Back then, when she fled, the roads started out familiar, she knew which way to turn, which way led north or south.  Eventually she lost track.  Eventually she simply drove, focused and unfocused, following wherever the road took her as long as it wasn’t back.  It didn’t matter if the sun or moon was shining, it only mattered that she moved, ran, at top speed, as if she could outrun her fear, her pain, her mind and all the secrets.

♦

She carefully arranged the plates, the knife on the correct side, the forks and spoons in their proper place, as the Christmas tree glowed behind her.  A bottle of red breathing on the kitchen counter while the white chilled in the fridge and garlic wafted through the house.  She pressed her hand against her solar plexus as she glanced at the arrangement, hoping it was correct, praying the glasses were in the right place, wishing for small praise that she fulfilled expectations.

Standing in the kitchen, the heat turning her cheeks pink, she quietly downed a glass of wine and filled it again quickly.  She felt that numbness, the softening effects of the alcohol, like cotton behind her eyes, softening the tension in her shoulders and took a deep breath.

“The table is set.”
“I better check to make sure it’s done right,” her older brother said, giving one last stir to the risotto before removing it from the heat.

♦

She felt light-headed from erratic breathing.  She heard the buzz from her phone.  She wanted to drive to him.  She wanted to be held, to be cared for, to be understood but she knew the reality.  It was all a fantasy, what she built up in her head, and he didn’t care the way she did.  He didn’t feel the way she did.

“Are you okay?  You’ve gone quiet.”  She glanced at the phone as she pressed the pedal harder despite it being pressed all the way down already and she let the darkness take her.

Ink

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Photo Credit: Unknown

Photo Credit: Unknown

“Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all — the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.” ~~ Mark Twain

big-blue-divider-modified-md

He laid on his stomach, head on his hands, naked. She straddled his waist using his ass as a cushion, knees bent, naked.

In one hand she held an inkwell filled with deep indigo blue ink and in the other a feather quill with a gold nib.
Her hair cascaded down over her shoulders with rippling waves down her back. He felt the spring of her pubic hairs against his flesh.

“What should I write?”
“Whatever you feel.”
“No, that’s too dark. You tell me the story.”
“No, I want your words.”
“I can’t do it then.”

He felt the bed shift with her weight as she leaned over to put the ink and quill back on the nightstand.

“Yes you can. It doesn’t matter what you write, just write from your soul.”
“That’s even worse. No, definitely can’t.”

He sighed. She bent forward, he felt her hair caressing his back and light kisses over his shoulders. He didn’t move.

“You’re mad.”
“Not mad.”
“Annoyed then.”
“Frustrated. I want your words, it’s simple. What are you afraid of? I have your body.”

She sat back. He still didn’t move, only closed his eyes, feeling her breathing. A few heartbeats later, the bed shifted again. She leaned over to take up the quill and ink once more. She started slowly, tentatively, at his upper left shoulder, writing across his back to the other shoulder. He felt the quill, the nib a little rough, dragging across his skin. It was pleasurable, an odd sensation, the ink feeling like blood and the nib needle-like. As she fell into her thoughts, dragging the nib against his flesh, dipping the quill more often than for paper, her pace picked up. By the time she reached his mid-back her writing was frantic. He smiled.

He remained quiet, passive, allowing her to manipulate his body as she required. Quickly writing down his back and over his ass. She spread his legs so she could write on the inside of his thighs. The sensation of her touch, the intensity of her silence pouring thoughts through her ink onto his skin, her breath quickening as emotions crescendo within her, aroused him. If she noticed she made no effort to acknowledge his need.

When she reached the soles of his feet she began blowing across his skin like trying to cool a bowl of soup. She wanted to make sure the ink was dry before turning him over. He waited motionless until he felt one of her hands gently push at his hip, then he rolled over to his back. She began in reverse, starting at his feet, teasingly sitting on his stomach, his hard-on now aching. He resisted the urge to grab her ass or touch her in any way. Forcing himself to be content with the vision of her bent forward, hair, breath, ink and quill mingling across his skin as she worked her way around the rest of his body. He pressed his head back against the pillow, the agony becoming almost unbearable, when she reached his hips. She held his cock, not stroking it or licking it despite his mind willing her too, but holding it steady to write.

He thought he would explode with the unexpected as she continued to scrawl words around his cock, balls, over his hips and finally working his abdomen. She backed up, rising up, her pussy tantalizing near his face, and her scent made him dizzy. A moan escaped his lips. He closed his eyes. Remaining still becoming a heady, excruciating test of self-control.

“Finished.”

She stood up, shy but proud of her creation.  He stood before the mirror, his skin stained blue, words gently cascading in swirls from her touch.  He touched her face.  She stood shivering, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.  Pouring her words across his flesh left her emotions roiling inside, the darkness coming alive, clawing its way up, choking her throat, spilling its tarry blackness through every internal crevice.  He watched her green eyes darken and took pleasure from her internal pain.  He owned her body, easily, taking it when he pleased, she gave it away without resistance.  Her soul, her inner self, her mind and emotions, however, she protected fiercely and forcing her to spill her words across his flesh opened the well within her.  Watching her struggle with the sorrow that danced inside, seeing her attempt to remain standing, to not fall to her knees, fulfilled a gluttonous desire.

He waited, wiping the tear that finally fell with his thumb, watching her crumble, slowly.  Her arms wrapped around herself like a child trying to self-comfort.  Her body trembling.  Silent tears and the struggle to keep the black dog from shredding her core apart.  He waited until she finally fell to her knees, sobbing, shaking uncontrollably, her strength finally breaking under the strain.  Her madness burst forth and he listened to her sobbing, drinking in her keening cries.  She began rocking herself and his self-control ended.  He kissed her breasts, licking her tears, made love to her there on the floor, in front of the mirror.  He felt her clinging, her tears dripping down his back mixing with her words causing blue streaks, and with each sob he felt blissful release.

Her breathing became ragged, gasping, feeding his arousal more than her moist pussy or stiff nipples.  He became rabid, insatiable, and she scratched his back creating a kaleidoscope of ink, tears and blood.  With each thrust she released more darkness, flowing out of her, smoke-filled intensity.  He tasted the salt on her cheeks, she clutched him tight, their chests pressed together and heaving, becoming like feral animals.  She keened.  He moaned.  When she felt like she was splitting open, her skin splitting like a cicada breaking free from its cocoon, she stiffened, holding her breath; he shattered with release and she breathed again.  Her mind spiraled into silence.

“Thanatos, when will you finally kill me?”
“Never, my love, without you I am nothing but a shadow on the edge of life.”

Unsteady

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Photo Credit: Unknown

Photo Credit: Unknown

Her skin felt sticky with dried blood.  Her hip hurt.  Her vision blurred along the edges.  The quick, and rough, implant of her tracker left her dazed. She heard the judge speaking but her comprehension remained fuzzy.

“You are sentenced to runner.”

Runner.  Her thoughts slowly coalesced around the word.  Runner.  Her incision itched.  She is now a runner.  They opened the large walnut doors leading to the open courtyard and the birds preening in the barren trees stopped to watch her stand, confused, in the doorway.  On the other side of the courtyard the wrought iron gates swung open.  Someone shoved her shoulder.

Run.

She looked back hoping to understand, to find a familiar face, but stumbled farther as another shove across her back launched her across the threshold.  She felt unsteady.

Run.


big-blue-divider-modified-md

She blinked trying to focus.  She felt a hard surface beneath her.  She heard muffled talking.  She smelled wood burning and heard a teapot whistle distantly.  Her stomach grumbled and she vaguely made out a slim figure in a black jacket with white shirt hanging loose over black pants.  She closed her eyes, rolled her head, opened again trying to gain focus and heard a voice say, I think she’s waking.

The familiar panic fluttered in her gut and she tried to swing her legs over and stand but she didn’t have the strength.  She felt a hand gently push her shoulder back.  “Don’t move.”

She struggled feebly, trying to get up, trying to focus, trying to gather thoughts enough to figure out where she was, what was happening, but in the end her head remained heavy against the cushion.  She felt a little unsteady while she dreamed of snow falling while being wrapped in a blanket of ice.


big-blue-divider-modified-md
Everything remained unfamiliar.  The room warmed by wood burning in a large fireplace smelled inviting yet her mind raced to focus on escape.  Her hip ached.  Her legs felt rubbery.  Her thoughts swam and she desperately tried to hold on to something to steady herself.  The figure dressed in black with white shirt walked towards her.

He squat down to make eye contact with her while her pupils desperately tried to focus.  She wanted to grasp her surroundings, to understand what happened, where she was, who this man was, but she kept falling.  She felt drunk.  Unsteady.

Blue eyes stared at her.  Dark hair, day old stubble, black jacket.  She held onto these details hoping to lock her awareness onto something.  Smoky, soft voice.  Dark lashes.  Indigo eyes.  Short black hair.  White shirt.  Black jacket and white shirt repeated in her vision and mind.  A scent of cherry pipe tobacco filled her nostrils.  Pale skin, amber voice, vanilla touch.  She rolled her head trying to shake clarity back.  Her hip continued to throb.

“Relax.  You’re safe.” 

She struggled against the comforting words in distrust.  Desperately she fought the madness to remain still, to remain complacent.  Her vision remained devoid of color and focus.