Lust & Found

A very short story

He sat on the balcony above the pounding ocean surf in the bright sun of the morning. It had been another sleepless night for him and he yawned again, tired from the night of tossing and turning. Trying to escape the voices in his head that pronounced negativities too horrid to pass through the filter of his id. The screaming anger of his betrayal voice, the lonely whimpers of the pained lover left again, the moans of sadness as another day passes and the world passes him by again.

In the bed, lay another woman, another "conquest" that left him as empty as he had been when he�s approached her in the bar the night before. Her naked form silhouetted by the thin sheet and the sun beaming through giving him an impromptu peek at her stunning and lust-inducing curves. She was attractive, she was fun, she was nothing to him.

She wasn�t who he wanted to be with but a meager and insubstantial substitute for his woman who�d walked away from him fourteen weeks, three days and 8 hours ago. Not that he was counting or anything.

What breaks that bond that people create? Why did she leave? Would she ever come back and if she did, what would he do?, his mind raced as he sipped his tea and tried to focus on what was going right in his life. It made no sense to continue to torture himself over her, she was gone and revisiting those episodes of shouting, of breaking, of separation only made his emptiness expand until it blotted out his vision and all he could imagine was the vast abyss of hopelessness and despair.

She stirred, rolled over, moaned gently and settled back to sleep again as the sun continued its inescapable climb into the morning sky. He looked at her and tried to generate love or passion towards her but it wouldn�t work. Emotions might be superficially controlled but where the roots run deep, inside where it counts, they are their own masters. The pain swelled back up within him until he thought he would explode with its pressure and agony. He mustered his will and forced the pain down, used his intellect to distract himself from her, from remembering that look on her face as she came while they made love. The contented smile when he wrapped his arms around her while she slept. He ran through multiplication tables, he counted sea gulls as they floated by on the morning breeze, he drank his tea and waited for the pain to subside back to its low, dulling ache.

It would be back, he knew it but every day was supposed to move him closer to a clean bill of mental health. Each minute supposedly marking her passing like sands dropping through the bottleneck of the hourglass, excruciatingly slowly and deliberately he focused on each grain of sand. He examined it as it made its way down to the drop zone of the glass, he held it up into the sun to peer into its depths and see his own shocked and burning soul.
Too much had been said to repair, too much damage done and not enough effort to fix it. They�d been lovers, friends, partners and more. But it was all gone now and he had to face each day without her. It hurt to breath sometimes, hurt to taste food that she�d loved, hurt to hear their song when it came on the radio. The echoes of her laughter rung through his brain like a mad dervish whirling and smashing all it touched. His ache diminished until he felt alright enough to contemplate his day.

His conquest rustled herself to consciousness and stroked a long, painted fingernail against his back, causing him to shiver in spite of himself. "Good morning," she whispered quietly, sensing something in the air.

"Good morning," he replied, not turning yet to face her. Still feeling the sun on his face, matching the warmth of the tea in his mug. She draped an arm across his back and drew herself up to a sitting position next to him, her naked breasts touching his chest, their cool skin contrasting with the warmth from the sun. He looked at her, smiled and kissed her gently, bringing his lips to brush against hers. "Did you sleep well?"

"Like a baby, thanks," she said to him dreamily. Her tanned face smiled again, radiantly. "You were wonderful last night, you know?"

"Thank you, it was my pleasure and you returned as much as I gave, believe me," he told her with his most sincere look in his eyes and mouth. He had become a liar, a snake, a cheat. He felt nothing but gave her the impression that it had been wonderful. She was beautiful, sexy, tanned and smart but yet he could generate nothing but the awkward lust of the morning after. When you want to have sex again just because you know the encounter is just about over and soon, soon, soon you�ll be all alone again with your thoughts and inner voices.