I am in a bar physically caustic with casual carefree acquaintances so I pull out a book of short stories and read.
The lighting is just poor enough to strain my eyes so I tap the flashlight option my phone provides.
Now relaxing my mind in the mental company of writers who embrace their darker side.
“Excuse me, may I sit here?”
Hearing him ask, without looking up I say, “Yes”.
I put my phone and book away, fully engaging in the naggingly, normative, nonsensical pleasantries of our day.
With that out of the way, Ben moves the conversation forward by asking,
“Why are you reading a book in a bar?”
I answer, “Bored with the people around me. I suppose they felt the same way since they are gone.”
“So why stay?” asks Ben.
“I think I am a social optimist,” before I am able to continue he contends,
“No. You are mocking them.”
“Yeah. I think you are correct. Which makes me a bit of an elitist bitch.”
“No,” he is saying.
Before he is able to materialize his thoughts, a man walks onto the small stage, nude ending up the laughing stock.
What a shock.
Looking away to not encourage.
Ben is responding to my palpable discomfort almost in earnest.
“Why did you look away? You do not strike me as someone who is afflicted with an overly sensitive, easily offended nature.”
“I am not. It is just not for my eyes.”
“Do you not find men attractive?”
“Complete antithesis. I find men to be alluring to a degree that is transcendental in nature. The right kind of man is a living god and should be worshipped.”
“You think men are living gods?”
“Not all men. Just some,” I emphasize before beginning to summarize.
“There is a hidden power and strength within them.
Something older than primordial.
Set outside of existence.
It guides you.
It watches over you.
It violates you.
It is insatiable yet restrained.
Violent yet merciful.
Adaptable yet unquestioningly in complete control.
An inescapable magnetic force similar to the song of the Siren, luring you in.”
Ben stops me, taking my hand and leads me away.
He is positioning me on the floor in a remote space where we can be alone for sure.
Removing any barrier between him and I.
Ben is staring into my eyes as he is prying his way inside.
He is emptying tonight.
I am getting dressed and gathering my things ready to leave when Ben stops me. “Where are you going?” He asks.
“Home,” remembering to smile.
“Yours or mine? I am not done with you yet.”
Slightly taken isveçbahis yeni giriş aback, I say, “Whichever you prefer.”
“I want you at mine. There is something I want to watch you do,” his performance is slacking.
Eclipsing exhiliation if manifesting as another visage, submergent in effervescing arousal,
not sacrilege.
Work with what willingly walks weakly wrecking, weeping, wallowing, withering, waking to sleep, waiting, only to be seen.
“I will get your car in the morning,” Ben decides.
“No need. I walked here,” I reply.
“Oh. Well. That works too,” he is grinning.
He is texting the entire drive to his home. I am enjoying the time alone.
Ben’s home is revealing in its reflection of his faux eclecticism, a systematic redirection.
Someone so desperate for accepting attention, he will bow in any direction, always undetecting himself.
He now is removing my clothes slowly. Annoyingly.
Leaving.
Keeping on his own.
When returning, Ben is not entirely alone.
“Get on your knees and look at the floor,” His voice is a break from the calculatingly cold, commiserative clatter taking place between him and his friends no longer texting but video messaging.
True colors shown.
I do as he says, for now.
Brewing and stewing in aggressing disappointment, to myself I vow.
He reaches down, lifting up my face.
His smile is disturbingly out of place.
“Have you ever been filmed before?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Get up,” you instruct.
His hovering movement is making a monstrous improvement of this lie.
The walled shadows dance inducing a trancing escape.
Reminding me of another way.
Another life.
Shaking myself clean.
I am seeing your dream of an ill thought scene.
All those eyes with mouths shut.
Knowing not to interrupt.
This room is your time to slum.
Beating trash like me as a drum.
Ben is removing a paddle off of his now stilled wall.
Taking his time to show me.
What gall.
Could I be afraid enough for you?
In humiliating doubt, what would I do?
Nothing.
Nothing too soon.
“I am done.”
Far behind me now,
The night is embracing me,
Showing me how to survive.
Using verse,
To reverse this curse.
Walking this line for some time.
No need to rehearse.
The beckoning night in bloom
May he never cease to make my heart swoon.
Lost until a sounding boom!
“Do you need a isveçbahis giriş ride?”
Keeping the man’s voice disembodied by not looking, owning my choice I say,
“No thank you.”
“So, what did he do?”
Pointless to play stupid but fun to play. Turning around searching for him, he emerges for my answer.
“Nothing. The fault lies with me. I should have known better.”
Taking the cue before the moment passes, gone too soon I ask,
“Are you by chance going anywhere fun?”
“What are you in the mood for?”
“That is actually a good question but I am not sure how to answer it yet.”
“Get in, we’ll figure it out.”
“Okie dokie.”
Situating in the car I ask,
“How was your night?”
He responds as he is reaching for his flask.
“About as good as yours.”
“Did you leave with someone disappointing or just leave alone?”
I inquire.
“Alone would have been better.”
“Ohh it was that bad? Why? Let me guess she was super needy and expected you to hold her and stay the night?”
A quizzical, eyebrow raising look drapes his face before asking,
“Why do you think that is ‘super needy’?”
“Well, if you just met someone and within the span of a couple hours you’re engaging in a sexual act or several, the nature of the night should be clear. Romanticism, in all its overbearing restrictions, manifests as an unfair expectation. Maybe even delusional, certainly manipulative.”
“What did he do?”
He is again submitting the question.
“No. Just an initial misread on my part. Maybe I am delusional in my own expectations or projections.”
“I understand,” he says, pulling over.
Not waiting for the car to come to a complete stop before my clothes are off.
I am carefully climbing onto his lap.
He is unzipping his pants as I delicately dangle my body just above eager to collapse.
Our eyes magnetize as the passing pressure of pretend problem solving plunges into darkening depravity.
“No one ever feels as good as you,” I say before biting his lip.
Prompting him to sink his grip into either hip, ravishly removing any remnant of he who is ill equipped.
Returning to the road, still unsure of where to go.
He asks, “What did you take?”
“He actually had $200 in his wallet. I was surprised, I honestly was not expecting anything to be there. What did you take from her?”
“Standard. Plus, if I bring you a gift you will bitch about it.”
“What do you expect from me? I am a colossal pain in the ass.”
“Great monologue by the way.”
Taking a moment before isveçbahis güvenilirmi I begin responding.
“You mean at the bar. It was for you. I knew you were listening.”
“He thought it was for him?”
“Yes. Which when you think about it, is a little off putting. If I just met you, why would I say those words let alone have those feelings?”
“Maybe he is lonely?”
“No, he isn’t lonely. He is just one of those people that are convinced that what is presented to them is truth; they never think they have to work for it.
Plus, he had his friends on some video chat nonsense.”
“Are you serious? I bet you blasted him.”
“No, I walked away. He tried to use a paddle to frighten me, with an audience for the cultivation of humiliation. His lack of understanding is terrifying.
His type is a dangerous misrepresentation.
A tolerated usurper, an unapologetic abuser.
They do not belong,” finishing my thought.
“The experience should be liberating and healing, not psychologically and emotionally destabilizing to the point of complete breaking. What a dick,” his response.
“Exactly,” I am saying.
“Well, cheer up, you managed to get some cash,” he adds, his optimism never swaying.
“Please, it wasn’t even a challenge. He just left his wallet on the kitchen counter with his car keys. Probably out of habit.
To be honest, I am thinking the money is compensatory for his Mr. Badass Poser bullshit.”
He is chuckling before asking, “You want to go to the caves?”
“Absolutely! Please drive faster.”
“We’ll get there soon.”
“Even sooner if you stop driving like an old man.”
“Antsy?” Asking as his eyes venture off the road pretending not to know.
My head is tilting to the left,”Coy?”
Giddily gliding to the widened mouth.
One way in and one way out.
A light.
“We are not alone,” he is observing.
“I don’t care. Just come here,” I am imploring.
“Who’s the needy woman now?”
He is not asking but declaring my appetite.
Pushing me against the wall so right, breaking the skin, rushing blood tonight.
We hear the others in turn crying out for more.
Their names slam the walls before dissipating onto the floor.
Even their god auditorily manifests as the growling sanctimonious beast ever opposed to the flesh.
Leaning in slightly closer I am suggesting, “Should we offer them the $200 if they’ll let us watch?”
He is laughing.
“I love the way they sound,” words pass through my raspy gasp.
Hoping I can last.
Wishing me to avoid his lips,
He is granting me two of his fingers and
My teeth rip.
He responds through altering assonant alliteration as he is embracing the opposing, dualistic sensations.
Let he who wanders the earth
Rise through the night
In sight to invite
Those of his worth.