I’ve been so silent of late and for once it isn’t my coldness sending me into some emotionless void.  I am just still.  I don’t pace, and I don’t prowl or claw the walls with restless anger or rage.  It’s a quiet that I appreciate even as I suspend my mind to write this sentence out:

I was waiting to see if I had cancer.

It’s funny, you see, this concept of something going on without my permission because, I control everything on some level.  I would have said that I control my body with equal ruthlessness, but in all truth, this has made it clear that I do not.  I guide it, help it, with a regimine that determines its shape, but not its potential.

And like anything else, it can turn on you.

The test itself was clear, but the taste of its potential hasn’t left my mouth.  I’ve watched someone die from it.  I’ve seen it destroy everything and finally take what was left of the rubble.  I’ve seen its hand of violence and can’t stomach the idea of seeing it again - especially first hand.

And it’s caused this pause.  I am in reflection.

This is sadly no-where near the much more salicious on-goings of my relationship with N.  Or sex.  Or my slight razor fetish, dominance or any of the other things I speak to you about day to day, or lately week-to-week.

and it isn’t as if I haven’t lived my life.  I think this just gave me pause to remind me, in the midst of whining about jogging, that I am not ready to give it up.

Tonight however, I’m thinking of the man who smiled through it all even as the rest of us were crying.

A thick, soft blanket of fog covers everything outside, and the cool, welcoming darkness beckons to me like a lover with open arms, or better, open thighs.  I want to suck in the air and feel that same coolness invade my lungs.  I want to disappear into the mist with it swirling around me, making me nothing more than a shadow, a stranger out in the darkness.

I long for the vapor to tickle the hairs on my legs, my forearms.

This imposed stillness has created and fed a demon who battles for freedom from my invisible noose.  It wants to see me self-destruct, gone down in my own version of flame and glory.  It whispers in my ear of laziness and sends me to the mirror to see if my vanity, my pride, has dimmed without the rigor of daily exercise.

Sex with N, notwithstanding.

This restlessness, this ennui, fills me like water does a tank.  My demon heats it until pressure builds and builds.  I am sick of doctors, and curse myself for once again, being my own enemy, the one whose influence I should want to eliminate.  How, exactly, does one eliminate the self, I ask you?

Energy is directed outward as a vent.  I’ve tamed my lethal tongue successfully thus far, my temper with equal success, but discontentment is written across me as if tattooed upon my chest.  It’s consuming to my thought process and books, my food, have lost their luster and appeal.

I think of running.  I dream of running.  I can taste the flavor of running on my tongue when I wake, still as I do, at 4 am, though permission is given for 6 because of its absence.  So I fuck.

I wake N and crawl upon her and inside her like I wanted the fog this morning to do to me.  I invade, I coat, I devour.  I fuck with energy that feeds off that demon, that pressure.  I sweat, I bleed and I leave bite marks upon her skin that mirror the footprint I would have left on the dewy grass and dead leaves of the path outside.  I consume.

And N empties me.  I feed upon her open thighs.  And her mouth.  Her tits.  Her cunt.  I taste her and it stills and quiets the want of ….. anything else.

Still, when I walk out to my car, and look at the gray sky, the traces of fog that linger, I want.  And my fingers itch to feel the laces of my running shoes again.

‘Keep the light off.’  I say it with little inflection as you reach for the switch next to the door.  The cool, brisk air still clings to your body like a lover.  Music spills through the air, louder with each step we take back to the main room where a familiar set of leather chairs sit in a dark room.  What light there is comes from the distance, brought in by the curtainless windows, and the sound system which scrolls the music of the moment - haunting guitars chords that bleed into pained lyrics.

You turn to face me and my fingers busy themselves with your jacket.  I lean in, sliding it down your arms, all the while taking in the scent of your perfume, your shade of lipstick, the glossy shine of your raven hair.  One hand drops your jacket along the back of the chair, the other other slides around your waist to pull you closer.

I mutter your name softly, my lips brushing the cool skin of your temple.  You’ve leaned into me, your fingers curling into my shirt, your nose burying into my chest, finger crushing the dark fabric, as you take in my scent.  When you exhale, I can feel it, warm and dewy, on my skin.

‘Missed you.’  I say into your hair, my fingers reaching up to play with the strands that have long fascinated my fingers.  I coil one such strand around my index and watch as your head slowly tilts back.  I kiss your lips softly, lightly, as not to smudge the dark red lipstick you’re wearing with such precision.  Your nails dig lightly into my chest, then slide, under pressure of your fingers, around my neck.

I pull you up against me, my fingers cupping your ass so your eyes are level with mine.  You lean in this time and kiss me, your fingers tugging on my hair, the strands which have grown more gray since the last time I’d seen you.

‘Missed you…more.’  You murmur softly against my mouth.  We both smile briefly.  Tension is there, a stiffness, an unease that doesn’t abate quickly.  We have history, you and I, one that mirrors the ugly nature inside us both and yet equally reflects the beauty also present.  We stare at each other for a long moment, suspended in time, silent, but exchanging a look so pregnant in words only a miracle holds them back from our lips.

It goes on like this for a long time, the music changing, but never really altering the mood, the selection of noise complete in its reflection of me.  I allow you to see me, really see me.  The gray of my eyes not hidden by pride or subterfuge, ego or that fucking wall I can, and often do, erect…even with you.

You take the step needed to break the quiet that strains between us.  You make the first offer and sacrifice your safe hiding place that leaves you vulnerable to me.  ‘I love you, D.’  You say it with such sincerity, your gaze unbreaking, your fingers cupping my cheeks, playing in the soft hair at my neck.  ‘I love you D and I want to be with you.’

It’s complete.  In that moment I could say so many things, so many paths to take.  Do I wound?  Do I strike at you?  Do I humble you and feel that same dark satisfaction I take in debasing someone, especially you?  Do I?  Do I?

I am not so verbose in that moment.  I am without my words, without a thought process that even allows anything other than the truth, even if it can potentially hurt me to say it.  You’ve exposed yourself, you’ve taken the chance, and I can do nothing more than reflect what is inside me.

‘I love you too…. N.’  My voice breaks and we both smile.  That tension has ebbed, and the balm that soothes is like water after a drought, calming, cool, refreshing.

I’ve got aggression in spades just about now.  People that know me, don’t know me, avoid me.  I know it, and some part of me enjoys the fact that they don’t want to push any button I might have.  Perhaps it isn’t fear but instead well-intended caution that compels them to leave me alone, but it still resides within the same family and so, tastes the same.

I’ll bother to regret the distance it creates between us later when I’m less capable of violence.

It hasn’t been one thing that has set me on this road.  Work has been crazy, life too and personal events have just spiraled downwards.  I’ve pushed it all back until the frustration has manifested into this, an oozing sort of temper that just dares someone to light the fuse.

Doesn’t help that I’m just utterly without a vent - unless you consider a grueling workout sufficient.  Sometimes it is, but just now all it does is increase the sky-high levels of testosterone that is, no doubt, feeding this frenzy.

I need my vent back.  Things are finally settled, but now it is a matter of playing tag, catch and whatever other game there is to connect.  It was so much easier back then…

As for you, readers, you’ve been forgiving of my distance, my sporadic postings, my increasingly less personal writing, eh, maybe I should start dating you.