The Gods of Love and War - Part 2 (Short Fiction)

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This is day 24 for me (I started 1 day late) in @dragosroua's 30 day writing challenge.

Today I have the 2nd part in a 3 part story, titled The Gods of Love and War, which deals with relationships and the individual's search for wholeness.

THE GODS OF LOVE AND WAR (part 2)

< Part 1

Grace

I was in no hurry to meet anyone after that. Why did I need to? Was I lonely? Or did I feel undefined without another? I'm not really sure. Human psychology bewilders me. That is why I had tried to define my life by the miracles of sex and alcohol. Except it didn't bring any definition to me. It blurred the edges, and helped me keep the monsters at bay. The bats of hell that squawk and swoon around me in the shadows as I contemplate the meaninglessness of my existence. And I hate feeling such meaninglessness. Such powerlessness. It's unmanly. But then so too is drinking vodka until I can't stand any more and collapsing into a pool of my own vomit.

I can see the two edges that confine my world as clear as day. The vulnerability of feeling too much, or the numbness of too much sex and drink. How do monks deal with their shit?

Grace arrived unannounced. She breezed into my life whilst I was wrestling with my demons. They had distracted me, held me in their dark and fearsome world. I couldn't take my eyes off of them as they had a tendency to attack me when I lowered my gaze. When I tried to remember in which direction the light was.

That was when I first saw her. Like a hand being lowered down to me in my pit of despair. Or was it truly the pits of hell? One and the same perhaps. She reached for me, and lifted me back on to firmer ground. Back into the world's light, as blinding as it was. She took me home and tucked me in.

The world became comfortable with Grace. I hadn't known such a world. Orderly, and structured. She would present herself to the world like a doll, all manicured and preened. Not a hair out of place. Nor would there be a wrinkle visible on her designer dresses. Or on my collared shirts and trousers, for that matter. I had stopped wearing my usual attire of jeans and t-shirts. Comfort had been replaced by order and serenity. With a keen eye to what others would think of me. But Grace took care of all of that. I had been saved from the trash can of life so who was I to complain?

And where would I go anyway? What more could I look forward to in life than this? I had forfeited control for the life of a zombie, but at least I didn't have to go out hunting for my zombie food. She gave me my fill always. She truly did. Except it was always on her terms, and by her rules.

I didn't realise it at first, but Grace considered herself to be a religious woman. That's okay with me. I'm into religious women. Some of the easiest ones I have known were devout. So long as God forgives them then no harm done, I suppose. Perhaps the guilt of their sins got passed to me? That would explain a lot actually.

What struck me as odd about how Grace informed me of her moral views was when it happened. When she was riding me like she was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Wild and uninhibited, until she asked for her cage to be returned. To be fastened tighter around her. And what she expected of herself applied doubly for me, her zombie lover with no thoughts of his own. Except I do have them, and they are more easily expressed when I forget myself. When I totally lose myself.

I have a tendency to say 'Oh God' on occasion. Especially a passionate occasion. And she took a disliking to my blasphemous ways. She fastened her moral cage even tighter around me. It kind of killed the mood.

“How is that blasphemy?” I asked her.

“Because you are taking God's name in vain.”

“I thought that was when you say Jesus Christ?”

“That too,” she said.

“And why is that a problem?”

“Because it is a sin.”

“And fucking me isn't?”

She asked me to leave the next day. I probably deserved it. I left the uniform she had given me, and packed a case of jeans and t-shirts, and made my way back to the seedy world I had crawled out of.

Zoe

Zoe worked at a cafe near where I held a temporary job. The work was okay. Her coffees were better. She had olive skin, and hazel eyes. Her hair was dark, the colour of a raven. She oozed exotic beauty, like a movie star. I told her she should have been one. She just shrugged her shoulders. She was better looking than many of the ones I saw up there on the big screen. Why was she working in a cafe? But then why was I holding down a shitty job? Because I'm a no-hoper that's why. But Zoe didn't appear to be one. Not with those looks. But how would I know if I never got to know her?

“You wanna come watch a movie with me?” The words had thrown themselves out of my mouth before any chance to filter and edit. Which is probably what I would have done given my uncertainty around girls. Instead I gave the unlikely appearance of being confident and self-assured.

“What, now?” Or maybe I had just confused her entirely.

“No, not now. You're working. Whenever you are free.”

I did get that date. It made a change not meeting in a bar, or lying in a gutter somewhere. Perhaps holding down a job had changed me? Turned me into a real man.

That one date lead to more dates, and soon we moved in together. She kept working at the cafe, and I kept working at my go nowhere packing job, but it worked for us. We lived together in relative harmony. It wasn't bliss, but it wasn't warfare either. And nobody tried to change the other.

I continued to be transfixed by her exotic charms; her radiant beauty that was now the centre of of my world. But her dark side came knocking. Her violent streak that had hid itself in the glowing after effects of getting to know each other.

We had been sitting at home drinking. I have never been a violent drunk in my life. A sloppy one yes. I have disgraced myself countless times. But I have never lashed out at anyone. Neither drunk nor sober. My anger doesn't translate well to physical violence. It's probably the fear of getting another man's fist to the head that keeps it at bay.

But Zoe had no qualms about lashing out. She could keep it together quite well under normal circumstances. Even a drink or two and we would be seeing who could out charm the other. But give her more than that and something terrible would occur. Something dark and sinister arrived in her place. That thing of beauty transformed into something unrecognisable. I guess that is why they call it the demon drink. Those dark and sinister creatures hide away until lured out into the light by the alcohol.

The first time I met her dark side was via the back side of her right hand, as it struck my face with much force and fury, her nail driven into the side of my lip. It left me floored, emotionally and physically. I had lain on the ground stunned into silence and inaction. She stood over me, menacingly. I wasn't frightened of her, but I did not see that coming. Who would?

She stared down at me with intense venom. “Fuck you,” she said. For what, I don't know. We had been laughing and joking just a moment ago. But no one was laughing any more.

I tried to talk to her about it the next day but she claimed no memory, and that it sounded like a drunken exaggeration. The cut on my lip was from my own clumsiness. Plausible, but not true. I was living in a house with a monster and that realisation had sunk in. I was feeling like a mouse again. I had crashed down from the peaks of my manhood and sunk back down to the depths of the lowest hell. But I wasn't ready to just walk away. Not yet.

The second time it occurred still took me by surprise. I was left bloodied and bruised by my so called lover. I have never struck a woman. I never will. Even as a child when my mother would swing that thick leather strap and pummel me across the back side, I never retaliated. Even when she punched me to the face and told me I was the devil's child, the spawn of Satan, I never struck back. Even when she herself was blind drunk, staggering around looking for a fight, swearing about my no good son of a bitch father who had gone and left her all those years before, I wouldn't stand up. When she'd push and shove me, and scream "bastard child"; not even then. Was it cowardice? Is that why I am a mouse now? Am I being punished for my own inner violence?

My mother would blame me for the fact that my father left us. It never occurred to her that he left us both. Not just her. But it was all about her. And her rage burned inside her, fuelling her desire for the drink. Making her more violent. It never did that with me. But then I didn't hold her or anyone else responsible for my own short comings. Or for any of the multitude of disasters that have come my way. They were probably all my own fault.

And I never cast blame onto Zoe. I loved her. Like I loved my mother. Like a fool who stayed too long, and had front row seats to the self destruction of someone they cared deeply about. Furthering the despair. I tried to soak up that self destruction. Channel it in my direction. It's a fool's errand. Because it just encouraged the downward spiral even more. Like my mother, Zoe was lost. And I was losing myself in that.

I turned to Vodka even more so than I had in many years. It brought me comfort. It whispered quietly to me. It listened to me when I needed to unload. “Why am I so fucked up when it comes to finding love?” I asked the drink.

“Because you aren't good enough,” it told me. That wasn't helpful advice. But it did come from the bottom of a glass of vodka, so what did I expect?

“I think I am.”

“No actually that is the problem. You don't think you are. You lie to yourself when you say that you do.” Now my vodka had turned in to a self-help guru. “You are killing yourself through a via. You are manipulating others into being the bearers of your own destruction. Stand up and take some responsibility. Are you a man or are you a mouse?” My vodka was starting to piss me off. I wanted to tell it to get fucked. I took a deep breath, slowly filling my lungs. I looked into my glass, it was almost empty. My vodka started talking to me again.

I poured some more. I needed another drink to make the alcohol shut up.

I never saw Zoe again.

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