The Gods of Love and War - Part 1 (Short Fiction)

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This is day 23 for me (I started 1 day late) in @dragosroua's 30 day writing challenge.

Today, (and for the next two days) I will be publishing a new short story. Please be aware that this story deals with ADULT THEMES. However, I don't feel that it is graphic.

This is an exploration of the nature of relationships, and the individual's search for completion and wholeness. It is written in both a serious and lighthearted manner. Writing it definitely took me out of my comfort zone.

THE GODS OF LOVE AND WAR

Emily

She wasn't my first love. I had certainly had my fair share before her. Some memorable, some not so. And they probably felt the same way about me. But this felt different. This time I felt more alive. And more confused. The good and the bad; relationships have brought all these things and so much more to me. But I loved Emily. I know I did. In a self abusing kind of way I guess.

With her long legs, curly blond hair and penchant for pretty dresses I was putty in her hands. And she moulded me, folded me, and turned me inside out. Was I just a play thing for her? Like a cat with a little mouse, before deciding whether to devour it or not? Just teasing it, building up a false hope, just to crush its dreams?

“Come here,” she said to me. I approached tentatively, longingly. She was sitting on the kitchen bench. Not the normal place a woman sits. Not unless they had other things on their mind. And she did. She gazed at me, as she drew me into her spell. Her legs open ever so slightly, a suggestion being planted within my mind, but nothing more. The bait had been cast out, and I was being lured in. She knew exactly what I wanted. What every man wants.

She pulled me in and grabbed my shirt in her clenched fist. Her cherry red lips like a beacon to guide me. Her legs wrapped around me, anchoring me into the trap she had laid moments ago. And I was trapped, both body and soul. Her allure was too much sometimes. Perhaps most times. She kissed me firmly, reaching in and stealing my heart, yet again. Twisting my insides, and removing my light. Like a love demon who has promised so much yet given so little in return. My mind turned to dust, powdered and fatigued by the mind games. I was driven by urges with low tolerance levels for these charades. But my urges did not faze her. Instead they were fuel to her, and encouraged her to continue.

She wrapped me up as I sought out her contraband. Her forbidden scent that rose to the surface and reminded me of the end game. I started to undress, but she pulled me in tighter preventing my exposure. Her skin felt so soft and delicate as her arms folded around me and held me in her embrace. She has her ways. And she knew it. Confidence oozed out of every pore of her body. Did she know how sexy this made her? Of course she did. How could she not? The mind games of the seductress were in full swing.

Emily pushed back ever so slightly. She wasn't gentle, but clearly in control. I tried to reach behind her to unzip her dress. She smiled at me pushing me further back. Lowering herself from the bench she stood facing me. Her eyes cast directly upon me, as her gentle smile turned to a victor's smirk.

“Is that it?” I asked. She didn't answer, nor did she have to. I was firmly in her grasp. Being teased and prodded, as she considered when she would go in for the kill. And whenever that was, it would be on her terms, and when she decided.

I poured myself some vodka. My anaesthetic for those feelings of heartbreak and powerlessness. And that is really what it was. I was not in control. And that worried me. It broke me, more to the point. No man likes to be a mouse.

Is this just sex I am talking about? And with Emily, a seductively beautiful woman? Am I wrong to want it from her? Or pathetic to not appreciate the ebb and flow of this game of the hunter and the hunted? I think I am pathetic, but I have no desire to change my ways. I am a man, no changing that. And the more she unfurls her long limbs and ensnares me the more I desire the fruit that lies within. Remove it from me at the last minute and a part of me dies.

Should I have chased after her and turned the tables? Sure, except I have tried that before. This trap had entwined itself all around me. I loved her, but she left me feeling inadequate. Drew me in to allow me to try and prove myself, then pushed me away to watch me writhe in the agony and shame of defeat. Perhaps that was the very thing that aroused her? Her magic potion. How was I supposed to compete with that? There was only one thing I could do to regain control of this farce that I was drowning in. And I had made my decision.

“I'm leaving you,” she told me as she walked back into the room. As she watched me holding the glass of vodka that was killing the brain cells that held the memory of the last three months. The three months I had spent with Emily. And yet again she had sensed the battle ahead, and taken control. I didn't even have the chance to end it decisively. That was supposed to be my move. She checkmated me. I guess she got bored of being with a mouse.

Sofia

Sofia was a delight. The light to Emily's darkness. She had the ability to reach in and pluck out the deadwood from inside and cast it aside. “You don't need that any more,” she'd tell me, smiling playfully as she massaged the broken pieces of my soul. What she lacked of Emily's stature and physical prowess she more than made up for in her gentle curiosity and wandering dream-like personality. I was transfixed by her. She wasn't a seductress. She had other powers. Powers that had me forgetting myself and my past. And forgetting the rotten psychological state I arrived in her life with.

I really believed, when I first met her, that she was my antidote. Sent from God to cure me of my ails.

We met in a bar. She was sitting twirling girlishly beside me. I had my vodka, and was starting slowly on my night's mission to drown my sorrows. Every last one of them.

“Are you going to buy me a drink?” she asked. I had sensed her twirling presence beside me but had yet to explore its source any further than that. Instead its source had come to me. I turned and faced her. To look at this bundle of energy that was requesting my money in exchange for her alcohol.

She had a purple flower behind her left ear. Her dark, thick hair hung loosely to her shoulders, and her eyes held my gaze as I could feel them send out harpoons to reel me in. She laughed joyously as I stared at her without speaking. I had forgotten how to talk.

“Would you like to buy me a drink?” She had my attention now. And absolutely yes I was going to buy her a drink. When I remembered who and where I was.

“Of course, what would you like?” She ordered a cocktail concoction that had me transfixed at both its complexity and price. She winked at me as I paid for her drink and she sipped away.

“Here's to us,” she said, raising her glass in the air. Wow, she doesn't waste any time. There is an us in this equation already. We finished our drinks and I inquired as to whether she would like another.

“No, I'd rather go home and fuck.” And that was that. And that is what we did, every day since we met. To tell you the truth, I was starting to get sick of it. Don't get me wrong, the sex was amazing. She gives a new meaning to the word inventive. And energy. I don't know where she got hers from. Me perhaps, as she left me thoroughly drained.

I was in her house before I knew her name, and inside her before she knew mine. How could such a thing last? Was it meant to last? Emily had drained my soul, now Sofia was restoring it, but at the cost of my body. At least I wasn't a mouse any more. I definitely felt like a man, without having to subjugate anyone. But I started to feel like a man that was withering away. Dying before his time. Can a man die of too much sex? Did I want to find out? Maybe.

I loved Sofia too. She was a goddess to me. Picked me up and put me back on a pedestal. I don't think I necessarily belonged there. But she wanted me there. I was like her lost little puppy dog, and no one was going to hurt me. But I needed just a bit more than that.

She had a big heart, with a bottomless pit of sexuality. She oozed it. Not like Emily, this was different. This was joyous, life affirming. But at the end of the day, it was just sex. There was a connection, as we hooked into each other's auric fields and played around and explored in the forbidden places. She opened my eyes. To what I was hiding more so than anything else.

But I needed love, not just sex. Had I become a mouse again? Or some other pathetic creature? Here I was pushing away what I had previously felt like I needed. Do I even know what I need? Clearly not.

When we broke up it did break her heart. For all of about five minutes. Until she was distracted by a scent from across the street. It reminded her of flowers. Purple flowers in particular. She couldn't remember why that felt so pertinent. She ran off through the fields of her mind following the trail of memories. I didn't stick around to tell her. She would have been distracted by the very next thing that popped into her mind anyway. And that is what I loved about her.

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Part 2 >

All images used with permission, and sourced from Unsplash.com.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you liked it then please like, comment, and follow.

Notes From an Amateur Writer blog series:

Short Fiction:

Bang Bang You're Dead
I Have No Name and I Must Scream
The Last Book Store
The Judge
The Man In The Mirror
The End of the World [Part 1] [Part 2]
The Locked Room