UNREQUITED

He slams the door shut behind him and heads off into the night. She lies there naked, body and feeling. He is tired of her excuses and her lies. She’s breaking apart again inside.

 Outside, the late night city offers him cheap entertainment, just what he needs, a wildling; a mistress of the night. Cheap beers from the vending machine had stopped working their magic a long time back. Smokes from a mere imitation of a cigarette was doing just as good. He looked at the E-cig with distaste. It was a gift from her, and like her, it was an imitation of the real thing, tasteless and fake on the inside. He laughed scornfully at his own stupidity. It had been him, forcing her. Hoping someday she would want it for real. But it had long since been apparent she only does it to keep him happy. It broke him inside. He hated her for it, but he hated himself more. They walked by in twos and threes, swaying their hips in a way that said they wanted it, the short hem of their dresses leaving a hint of what was there up above. He could’ve given it to them too. Lord knows he wanted to, to a few. He stared at the shapely legs of one for a few minutes before continuing his walk, clutching the cigarette tighter, as if to choke it.   

She lay there still, unable to move. The weight of her failures had bound her to the spot. She remembered the first time he had touched her and how she had recoiled in fear. She remembered how he had pushed all of it away, one bad memory after another. His touch had made her feel like a woman, had made her feel beautiful. She was drugged by the burning want in his eyes each time and had wanted to make passionate love to him. And every time, she dared a bit more than she believed she could. And yet, she could not be the wild one he had hoped she would be. She could not conjure up sudden darings as was shown in the little porn stories he had shown her. She was she, herself. She was ‘boring’ and ‘lame’.

That night, he had wanted her to tell him how much she wanted him, how much she craved his love. And all she managed to give was a string of borrowed ideas, delivered in the most off putting way possible. He paused his thoughts, staring at another brunette. She had the most perfectly shaped pair of buttocks he had seen in a while. He would have loved to have taken her like a hound… He shakes his head and walks on.

That night, if he had told her again how badly he wanted her, she would’ve told him about how she wanted to just lay him down and make gentle love to him. If he had told her again that she was the only thing in his mind, she would have told him how badly she needed his body and his loving. In her head, she had it all figured out. She knew exactly what all she wanted…How she wanted it…What it felt like when she had it for the first time…

His touch had sent waves of emotions she could not tell apart. Her skin had felt like it was on fire. His gently fingers, as they tucked her hair away while he kissed her neck…the equal power and force with which he had entered her…She had made him her master, body and soul. Because for her, sex is not just recreation, it is something much more. She could never explain to him the importance of it without making him call her stupid again. It wasn’t like men had not wanted to bed her after she started seeing him. But she had known that no one could make her feel like he did. No one could make her laugh like he did. No one could make her love herself like he did. No one could make her arch her back like he did with a mere whisper of words in her ears, or by his slightest touch. She wanted him to possess her and let him be possessed by her. She wanted to be conquered and conquer him too. She wanted him, she wanted to be his. She failed, miserably so.  Her failures made him frustrated and more cynical.

And now, there are no more late night touches of affection, there are no more kisses and the passionate, wanting embrace. There is just occasional lust conjured by human needs and the bitterness left by un-satiated bodies…

Guised as a draught of wind in a summer’s night,

I have been shrouded by you.

Or is it just illusion gone in a moment’s passing?

As if each day’s effort drives us farther apart,

fate is laughing..

But these naked feelings can’t and won’t be banished.

And as time and human frailty rises rift and makes a wall,

I lay at mercy of a fool’s strength to carry on.

Will I hold and be held again?

Oh, I do not know.

But there is hope

and only hope can make us go on…