TwentySix: 7 - the Ballad of Joy Random - Act 3 - the Overture

"I'm so sorry!", I weeped.

"Forgive me...", I pleaded.

"No.", she whispered.

I held her close, probably just a bit too tight, and tried to squeeze out what tears I had left in me. My dried out eyes betrayed me. I had nothing left to declare the sincerety of my emotions.

She was faced away from me, a blanket tucked around her separated us. My knuckles were still bloody and the sweat cascaded off my body, draining me of my final drops of liquid.

We huddled close despite the distance between us. Trapped in our own paradigm, escape consistently eluded us as our minds were kept busy with dramatics. The floodgates of emotion were thrown open drowning us in desperation and despair daily.

"Forgive yourself.", she added.

I went to say, 'I wish I knew how', but instead swallowed the words. A pitiful excuse spun from the lying maw of an earthborn sinner; a lie spit from the forked tongue of a monster. I was nothing but a beast clinging to my prey.

To forgive myself, I'd have to save myself. And I was far too busy putting her in danger, and saving her nightly, only to wind up capturing her, in true villainous form, and imprisoning her inside.

The dreams changed suddenly and if I was quick enough I could slide between and maybe end this cycle of mutual self destruction. Our spiralling stasis spun itself into a tower of sensation; A continual column of calamity from which we must break free.

I had to try and end this.

I exploded from the scene and shot straight into the maelstrom of encapsulating madness. I held her close below, but in order to work this out I'd have to go through our bond and come out on the other side.

Propelled out into the otherside I saw the vortex that whirlled about us. I lunged into the funnel and whirlpooled my consciousness down inside. I rode the electromagnetic wavelengths sliding further and further away from anything but us.

We were sections, avatars of altercation, swimming in the collective unconscious of eternity. Bound to each other in a dark pact, we plunged to the very bottom and beyond.

Our hatred mingled and fed off each other. Self-deploring immolation drilling deeper into numb sad sickness. Alone together we emptied the void, filling it with our ferocious insanity. There was no limit in this oppressive expanse of ourselves.

"I don't want to be a bad guy." I tried to look her in the eyes but saw only a reflection of isolation.

We mirrored our ugliness in a pairing of saint and sinner, the roles alternating in a chaotic pattern. I saved her, she damned me. She held me close, I hurt her deeply. Massochist and sadist scenerios switching like currents and circuits. A negative feedback loop careening into the yawning abyss.

I saw my hands around her throat, holding her down. I surged with pleasure, my cock growing rock hard as I increased the pressure arund her windpipe. She thanked me with her eyes. She was feeling something, even if it was only fear of me.

I found myself unable to stop as I pressed further. The princess, locked away from everything, isolated from sensation, she saw something in me. She had drawn me in, expecting maybe not me in particular, but someone with a hot darkness inside them.

I wanted to save her. Wanted her to give up the anguish that seared her, to stop her manipulative flaggellation of her flesh. I didn't want to know that I wanted to do this to her. To anyone. Ever.

But I do and I can't stop. I'm hurting her. Hurting all the hers who came before and made me feel small, made me feel stupid. I was using my power for revenge on the daughters of Eve. I was just an dirty atom infected with the serpent's curse.

"What is this madness that makes me love hate and hate love?!"

My grip slipped in the final moments and air sucked deep into her lungs over a raw throat. A raspy wind chime, an erotic sigh, a languishing breath of joy. She was alive.

I, too, was alive and wracked with horrific guilt. Was it her fault? My fault? Fate? Why did we have to go this far?

Out past the edge of fantasy, we danced out our unadulterated tactile and psychic torture; punishment, guilt, shame, humiliation. A shadow has swallowed us whole. I surrender to the blackest pit of my heart. I do whatever I feel without remorse. I hate that I want to do these things.

I hate myself. I am vile. I am filled with impulses that I can apparently administer without conscience or care. I was too polite and cowardly to admit that there never was a light inside me. There is only a cursed soul, doomed to enjoy the damnation and subjegation of the innocent.

"Shhh baby. It's okay. We both wanted this."

She cradles my head as I rock and weep for my entire life. A tear for every moment of regret, every shred of guilt, and all the buried deep desires burning me alive in the hellfire of my own design.

She removes the collar from around her neck and I will her free of me with all my might. I focus my rage on this tower she has trapped us in. Every damn corner of this infernal prison. She deserves more and I am too bogged down with self-pity to be of much use to her except to bring her down.

And so we hit bottom and the entire foundation of us rumbles and shakes. We hold each other, skin on skin, as the universe ended and we are born anew in a land of starlight.

"I'm..."

I go to say 'sorry', yet stop. I'm not sorry. And from the look on her face, neither is she. She wanted all this. The pain, the frustration, the play of it all. This is what life is and where it goes. The path it leads is sometimes amazingly intense and full of unforgiveable acts.

But we don't need to forgive. I don't need to explain. I tried to save her. I failed. As I always would. With her, with anyone. But I tried. Sure, I fell sway to the influence of sexual violence, a web she cast, just in order to ensnare me and show her how to save herself.

I hugged her tight, stood up and left. I didn't look back to see if she was crying.

But I knew she was and would be. As would I be, when I was able to cry once more.