Heartbreak Hotel: Women and unrealized dreams
The times that try men’s souls are the moments of singular boredom or hopelessness that arrive uninvited into our lives at the worst possible moment. Although these periods are frequently unwelcome, they do have the effect of imprinting on our psyche the lessons that one needs to know in order to go through life without completely breaking down and weeping until we die.
It is just such a moment or moments that I intend to introduce to you gentle reader, for the edification of your mind may spare you what I have had to endure far too often. It begins, as always, with a seemingly minor thing. The conversation with a stranger. When you talk with someone for the first time, one is struck with the impression of the person. They are friendly, laughing, almost tender. At least until you find it hard to walk away and so you ask for some means of contact. It is denied with a look of suspicion or a waved hand and perhaps the vocalization that, “Oh, I’m boring, you don’t want to be around me.” Sometimes it is another sentence, but the sentiment is always the same; the true words unspoken: I don’t want you in my life.
No matter how many times this happens to me, the hurt is intense, sharp. A twinge in the mind accompanied by a wilting sensation. It’s as if I’ve sunk a few inches into quicksand. How many times this has happened is uncountable and yet it seems to number in the millions. All of them come back to haunt me when I lie in my bed every night, the glowstars on the ceiling being the only light I can see.
The faces flash by enhanced by time, blurred by memory. Amy, who worked at the “Garden of Eden” store; beautiful in body, face and spirit, who for some reason, enjoyed my visits as long as the counter separated us. I had many fantasies about her, and never held a hope of actually being with her. Maybe that’s what interfered; my positive belief in the negative factor.
Jacqui Treon. She visited me when I worked at Many Voices, the only job that I loved. She picked me up and we went out for coffee. She even kissed me on the way out of her truck ! I only called her once and she and her mom were busy. “Could you call back later ? We’re watching a movie.” Of course, I said, the bitter taste of defeat already on my tongue. I did not call back. To this day I don’t know why. Only now I realize that I blew it, and badly.
Before closing one night at the store, a petite wisp of a girl came in and asked in soft tones what I knew about Tarot. I knew quite a bit, and we started to talk. She moved into me until she was mere inches away. I could feel her body heat, the soft desire in her voice and I wanted to take her home. Taste of her and have my senses filled with her essence. Alas, in my haze I never asked for her phone number and she never came in again. All I remember is she was as warm, orange scented oil in my palms. A balm that poured over my soul, easing any doubts I had.
I think she may have been the One. Maybe. Perhaps.
The one that has marked me the most is a woman named Billi. She was petite, smart and sexy. I found her enchanting as a friend, but she was married. In retrospect I now realize that I was in love with her. I would have taken a bullet for her, that’s how much she meant to me. It ended badly, as it usually does, but this time the scars were massive and deep. It is my own private torment and I wish not to tell more. I still wonder if she is well and living eight blocks away. Another one bites the dust.
The weekend I spent at Minicon (a Science Fiction convention), the most beautiful woman I have ever seen burned herself into my minds eye. I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts and always ran into her. Finally on Saturday, I decided to speak the truth. Carpe Noctum and all that. “Excuse me. I’ve been coming to this convention for ten years, and you are the most beautiful woman I’ve seen here.”
Her face lit with astonishment. “No.”
“Yes, you are,” I replied, with all sincerity.
“You mean, the prettiest woman this year ?”
I bared my soul. “The best in ten years.” She couldn’t believe it and I told her that I just had to tell her. For some reason, “I want you to know that.” I also added, “I’m not telling you this as a pick-up line, take the compliment for what it’s worth.” She thanked me and went on her way. All through that night I kept running into her; and she made it clear she liked me. She was dressed as a pirate and after sitting next to her for a while, she graced me with an impish grin. “You know what this outfit needs ? More leg,” she laughed and gave me a wonderful view up to the hip.
The rest of that night was pure magic. She asked me for my phone and address, and when I asked why an address, she told me she would send me a postcard on her vacation. Thrilled by this woman's beauty and boldness I walked her to the elevator. I have never wanted to go down on a woman so badly in my life. I made a last turn around the con before leaving, filled with hope and elation.
I never heard from her again. I think about her almost every day and its been 10 years. When I go to any convention, I look for her but she is not there. Ten years ago a beautiful bird flew into my life for a few short hours, then took wing into the night. Goddess how I miss her. In truth, I miss all of them. All those wonderful, perfumed Goddesses that I’ve met but could never have. The memories are sweet, precious, tinged with the pang of loss.
Sometimes people wonder what happened to me; happened to my delight, my sense of purpose, my....deep love of life. What they fail to realize is that I suffer from perpetual tactile deprivation. I have not known the fullness of a woman's touch in well over 8 years. Robbed of the comfort most take for granted, I have become less than what I was. I admit I hunger to touch and be touched. Like an infant, I look for opportunities; a lingering of the hand here, a touch of the shoulder there.
I have not tasted the wine-dark rose of lips for millennia it seems. Such things have a strange effect on the psyche, on the soul. Through my entire life, I’ve striven to be the best lover a woman could wish for. I believed I attained that perfection, and for many years I honed the skills to spoil my (eventual) Lady. A cold, knife of ice slices my spine; the knowledge festers that all, all my devotions to the art of love will never be realized. It seems such a waste; almost a crime against me and women.
To melt in a woman embrace, to lose myself completely in their softness and soul that I cease to exist, is something I dream of. I meld, becoming one with the object of my affections. I think to myself that this, this is what linguists had in mind when they invented the word, “rapture.” To be so awestruck that I wouldn’t notice God if He was standing beside my lady. He would only shed more light on the object of my wonderment and I would be humbled.
For there is no such thing as “just a girl.” There are only Goddesses in various guises and stages of development. It is in our nature to worship a higher power than ourselves, so I choose to worship my woman, my own personal deity. In my life I have been blessed with touching that which is so much more than mortal, and I am the better for it. Roused with fire, whether it be love or lust, matters not. To be enflamed is the nature of life itself. Without desire, there is no point in living.
Who can escape what he truly desires ?
