#1230

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“Daren…”

He’s never had a name to say before; his previous encounters were all anonymous by necessity or preference. Mine Tanim breathes now like a prayer, a mantra, moaning softly with the rhythm of our union.

“Daren…”

His breathless voice binds me to this moment more firmly than the fingers gripping my shoulders. I’d never thought about the power of names before I met Tanim. It was easy to forget I had one sometimes, so rarely did I offer it and rarer still did I hear it on someone else’s tongue. But I remember now, oh yes. Tanim recognizes my name for the gift it is and utters it with wonder, love, honor.

“Daren…”

Names have such power. Tanim savors the thrill of murmuring mine with each trembling exhalation but I withhold his until the very end, until he’s gasping in climax beneath me and we can’t possibly be any closer, any more intimate or vulnerable, and then I press the precious words into his flesh.

“Oh, Tanim…”

#1229

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Your ghost wakes me in the night, needy and lost, demanding recognition, and when I tell her to go haunt you instead she calls me angel, beloved, best and most cherished, and refuses to free me from this burden. I who loved you, albeit in a way I did not ever completely understand, am cursed now to carry the ghost you left behind and refuse to acknowledge. Is this a fitting penance for the actions of my younger, naïve self? Can you truly not bear to remember who you were, what we were, so that instead I must be the one to preserve both the good and ill memories while you recall nothing? I am a thing already composed of so many different people, fragments, lives all sewn up together, your shadow is but one more scrap of guilt to drag at my feet. I did not fail you, though; I failed your ghost, the girl I loved and the girl you discarded in fear. I do not fear this specter. I pity her. I pity you, too, wherever you are, whoever you are today. I owe something to your ghost, however, that I no longer owe you – the loyalty I did not prove often enough, perhaps, or the patience I was too young to have cultivated yet – and that is why I cannot bring myself to chase her from my side. She deserves more honor than a box of letters and crumpled pictures buried in the closet, and if you will not take her back then it is left to me to comfort her in the dead of the night.

#1228

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We got the fairy tale wrong. It’s supposed to be Beauty and the Beast. See, Beauty is able to look past the Beast’s gruesome visage, even his frightening manor and actions, and to the goodness inside. Beauty’s love acts like a mirror to show him the man he can be, the prince locked safely inside the heart of a wild thing, and at the end of the tale the Beast is freed of his curse and they live happily ever after. But Tanim and I aren’t like that. We’re not Beauty and the Beast; we’re just two beasts of a different kind. I can see the goodness inside Tanim, beneath the fear and the doubt and the self-loathing, but I’m too tarnished to mirror it back to him. There might be something worthy inside me as well, a flicker of warmth within this cold barrier, but Tanim is too gentle to break the ice apart and set me free. We may be in love but we’re both enablers and so there’s little hope for a transformation from beast to man, monster to saint. Instead, we feed our beasts with excuses, platitudes, comforts. We tell them they are good. We tell them they are beautiful. In our eyes, they are.

#1227

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Daren moves through the crowd like a ghost, slipping from shadow to shadow and uttering a guttural growl at anyone who comes too close. There is little sanity left in him now; it takes his entire concentration to resist the urge to bite and rend and tear those around him. Tanim is gone. Tanim is gone and with him the last of Daren’s energy or desire to cling to humanity. Grief twists him into a feral, hollow beast driven by rage to wander, to seek and pursue, but where? Who? Tanim is gone. Tanim is gone and Daren is cut adrift in the world. A world he wants to see punished even more than he wants his lover back.

 

[ So the night after I dreamed about Daren as a shape-shifter, I had another dream about him as a shape-shifter. Not the same plot line, but he did turn into a crazed white wolf at the end. Apparently my boys are getting tired of all the mushy emotional stuff I’ve been writing lately and want something with a little more… bite. ]

#1226

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We argue too much. “You’re not mad,” you say, and I know you’re not lying because the honesty in your eyes is painful to face. But I am mad, darling, so if you’re not lying then you must be blinded by stubbornness. Your denial is in itself a kind of madness, a compulsion, and I wonder if you’re merely fooling yourself to protect us both. Maybe you, my dear, my love, suffer a madness not so unlike my own, and to deny your own brokenness you must deny mine as well. Does madness love company as much as misery? Is that why we are forever drawn to one another? If so, then it is better to be mad together than alone, and better to be honest in our madness than driven to further depths by self-deceit. We are a simple case of folie à deux, beloved. A madness shared by two.

 

[ It’s probably not a good thing that watching NBC’s new show Hannibal gives me writing ideas, eh? But it’s so good. ]

#1225

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readers sample grief
wade ankle deep in longing
hold love in their palm
only the writer succumbs
becomes the other in truth

 
“I was enjoying my usual immunity while working, my invisibility to Chilton and Graham and the staff, but I was not comfortable in the presence of Dr. Lecter, not sure at all that the doctor could not see me.”

– Thomas Harris, Forward to a Fatal Interview, Red Dragon

#1224

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I guess there’s a theme in certain romance novels where a supposedly straight man doesn’t realize he’s a lover of men until someone comes into his life who stirs feelings he’s never experienced before. He’s unsure of it at first, maybe even outright denies the whole thing, but it’s a romance novel so you know everything works out in the end and they’re together forever. Lucky bastards.

Our story isn’t like that, though. I mean, the beginning is the same: I was married when Daren and I met, despite the fact that I’d never felt any real desire toward anyone, female or male. It was a marriage of convenience, of status, and I knew Catherine had no more love for me than I her; or, if she loved something, it was my last name and my connections. I tried to do right by her anyway, though, because all I wanted was to be the man my family and society asked me to be. My own happiness, or lack thereof, didn’t really figure in. It’s no wonder Daren’s mere friendship felt like the first spark of light in the years of dreariness that encompassed my life.

Whatever was between us didn’t stay just friendship for long. The more time we spent together, both inside and outside of the office, the more I realized my longing to see him had gone beyond the normal or appropriate. For his part, Daren tried his best to hide his own feelings, but soon neither of us could help the flirtation which quickly moved from harmless to serious. And the serious flirting quickly became… more than flirting. We both knew it was a mistake but I’d never been nearly as happy as when I was in Daren’s arms. I soaked his affection and acceptance up like a desert that had never known rain.

Daren changed everything. For once I felt something more than apathy. Even the burden of secrecy paled before the electrifying wonder of this strange new thing we shared. We never meant for it to become more than an amusement, a dangerous fling, but love doesn’t care if you make other plans. It felt like we were fated, and I would have done anything for Daren, would have sacrificed anything to remain with him. For the first time in my life I wanted something for myself and almost had it in my grasp.

It’s the ending of our story that’s different, because of course we don’t live in a romance novel. I didn’t leave my hellish wife to be with the man I love forever. He didn’t choose to remain my cherished secret out of love and loyalty. No, I woke one morning after a precious, stolen night together to find the bed cold and empty at my side. When I got to the office he’d already given notice and removed every trace of his presence. Empty, too, was his apartment, and his phone rang endlessly without ever reaching voicemail. I don’t know where he went. I don’t know where he is now. All I know is Daren made the decision to cease our illicit liaison and that’s where our story ends. I’d be lying if I said I hope Daren is happy wherever he is; all I hope is that he regrets his choice as much as I regret giving him the chance to make it.