Poetry by eyes of repulsion

Morph

After the quite typical and easily digested beginning, things now start to get a bit more complex. I would never even consider writing a summary of what has happened - the first part of the story from chapter one to six is available for reading in this issue as well, and isn’t hard to read and understand in any way. Summarizing would mean rewriting the entire story. Please read the first part before continuing, and please give this story a chance.

In my last little editorial - or whatever you want to call it - I really begged for feedback. The reason I gave this story to Adok is primarily because I want feedback to be able to make the most of it in the end - the boost of motivation would just be a bonus. Thanks to the few of you who sent me your thoughts, it was really appreciated! Don’t be scared to do the same - I’m a nice and humble person, not some egocentric and arrogant bastard, despite being a sexy celebrity and superhero... ;)

Once again I must point out that I’m not Rick and only his God. What he thinks, values and does is his business and not mine, even if they may resemble each other sometimes, as I also explained last time. I hope you’ll find his life interesting and I hope you’ll feel that you understand him and know him pretty soon. Perhaps you’ll hate him or perhaps you’ll love him. Love always controls hate.

- Morph 001102, morph@elenziah.com, http://i.am/morph -

7.

After some minor problems falling asleep, the night passed by. When I woke up, the beautiful woman had left the bed and was making breakfast for us. My dreams had been about the same person as ever - the one I now could both hear and see. It felt strange, surreal. Candy wouldn’t come home until the day after, so we spent the entire day together. She showed me around in town, introduced me to some acquaintances and wheedled me to follow her on a long walk through the local forest where she decided that we should rest a while by a fireplace. We really behaved like teenagers, and both of us loved it.

Three hours later we once again sat still while talking deeply to each other, now in the middle of a forest surrounded by odd trees. The fireplace did well in creating a soft, mysterious atmosphere, and distant sounds from deeper inside the forest gave it the finishing touch. It was getting quite late, but we had no rush getting back home. This place was ideal for a profound conversation.

The last couple of minutes we’d been talking about Michelle's and Charlie’s relationship and one thing troubled me - she never sounded happy. It sounded like she did not really love him as a husband but only as a man she once unfortunately fell in love with, as if she almost regretted marrying him. We opened up to each other as if we’d been married for forty years, pretty extraordinary considering we’d just met really, I would say... I wanted answers, not theories, and hence asked her some useful questions to hopefully get closer to them. ”Didn’t you think that you would hurt me by not inviting me to your wedding, not even telling me about it?” My start could’ve been better. She looked puzzled, embarrassed at the same time as annoyed. ”Yeah... well...” She turned her gaze away from the fire and rested it on a nearby tree, probably because of insecurity. ”You know, it wasn’t easy...” she almost whispered, very absent-minded. ”Of course I wanted you to see me on the happiest day of my life, a day you and I’d been talking about since we had been teenagers, but we’d lost contact and I didn’t really know how you felt and so on... I was uncertain about how you would take it, especially after I didn’t reply to your mail... I thought perhaps you hated me... So it all got awkward, I felt stupid and evil and didn’t know how to deal with it, so I guess I ran away instead...” I nodded understanding. ”Was Charlie a part of that escape?” I rudely continued. ”Well...” she whispered, ”yes...” Without understanding the timing, she leaned her head on my shoulder and took my hand. I could smell her hair, see her beauty and hear her voice, and still I didn’t like the situation. I knew her too well to expect something positive at this point. ”Rick...” ”Yeah?” ”Charlie...” It became silent. I gently moved some of her hair away to be able to see her face, and the first thing I noticed was a tear in her eye. This single tear developed into a lot of tears and Michelle suddenly wept like a child. I hugged her as affectionately as I could and just waited for her to open her mouth and tell me the reason for her now soaked face. She was so beautiful, such a wonderful person, and I hated to see her cry more than anything. She was like a little cute and innocent girl some nasty boy had stolen candy from for no reason except being a bitch - all I could feel was empathy towards Michelle and hatred towards the cause of her tears. ”Charlie hit me, several times.” I didn’t know how to react - I got totally furious! I wanted to kill him (now that would be really smart) and I wanted to just shake it into this woman that being with such a man was just terribly stupid. ”Instead of being happy with a guy that loves you more than himself, you waste your life in misery with a man not even worth the love of some brainless licking dog!” Of course I didn’t say that, I’m not that tactless or geeky, but my soul did - millions of times. Instead I just sat there, saying nothing more than ”Michelle...” over and over again as comfort. Comfort? What a wuss was I? I wanted to kill the dumb myself too...

Some minutes passed and we both came into senses. ”I don’t know what to say”, I said in my total stupidity. ”You’re worth the perfect guy, Michelle, and it even hurts me to know that you’re not entirely happy.” It felt kind of hard to say such things, but I felt it was very necessary. I felt false even though I wasn’t and I felt inferior even though there was no real reason for it. She knew I meant it from my heart and that I didn’t say such things only to make her happy. ”I wish I could find that guy”, she said, looked straight into my eyes, smiled and then wiped off her drought tears with her sweater. ”Let’s go home now...”

8.

I was confused. I had the feeling that I was living a lie and felt out of control. She regarded me as a great friend - the perfect friend perhaps - while I was in love with her. While I lied and manipulated her to like me even more so that she could finally love me back. Is that love? It’s obsession - an insanely high level of desire - not love. I felt like a psychopath. Couldn’t I just accept that she was unable to love me even after confessing that she had chosen a guy who beat her rather than my lousy self? She obviously thought I was as beautiful as a camel-ass as she apparently never thought of me as more than a friend, never even questioned it. Or was it because I never showed any signs that I desired her either? Had I had built a wall between us, with a big sign saying ”do not pass friendship”?

There were two views of reality in my mind. One was pessimistic - that she didn’t love me. That there was something about me making it impossible for her to love me. The other was optimistic - that she really loved me even though she didn’t know it herself, or perhaps was afraid of telling me, just like I was to tell her. Perhaps she was only afraid of losing me as the good friend I was and therefore didn’t tell me? I wish I knew what the realistic view was... I felt blind.

I had been shutting out the truth for so long that I didn’t know myself any longer; I didn’t know how I really felt. Was I just so lonely that I'd seize the opportunity to feel needed when hearing about Charlie’s death? Was I just so obsessed by the word ”love” that I thought I’d never experience the greatest form of love with anyone but my best friend, like in some dumb Shakespeare-story? Or was I just here to pull the woman I had now realized to be the perfect one for me, thinking that she had the same feelings for me somewhere deep inside? Maybe love was fooling me. Was she really as perfect as in my imagination? Was she really worth all this? I couldn’t tell.

The imminent question was what my next move would be. There was no real point in hanging around here anymore, getting closer and closer as a friend to her - if that is even possible. This situation was crazy, insane, nuts. Where would it end, she passionately kissing me while still regarding me as a friend? I would never be able to take that pain. What I wanted now was some love back, and the best way to achieve that was probably to either force her to question me as a potential partner or let her come to those conclusions herself, without me interfering. The second option felt most comfortable and smartest, so I decided to leave and simply make her miss me. To be alone without me after these days of pure friendship she hadn’t experienced in many years had to make her question one or two things about our relationship, and hopefully make her realize that I was the one who could make her really happy. I explained to her that I had to leave but that I would come back in a couple of weeks, and after a warm goodbye I drove away, leaving her with loneliness, yearning and questions.

9.

For some inexplicable reason I’d shut her phonenumber off so she couldn’t call me, not given her my address and not even told her I still used the same old email. She actually sent two mails, which I - of course - didn’t reply to. It was very obvious that she had missed me already some days before, but I had felt like letting things evolve just a tad further before contacting her. It had to be perfect - I definitely didn’t want the same problems the next time I saw her. I decided that I’d call her later this evening, the time felt right now...

As we all know: no pain - no gain. These last couple of weeks had surely been a painful period. I missed her like kittens miss their mum, and there wasn’t a minute without Michelle running through my mind, making a pandemonium of the otherwise peaceful and quiet environment. It destroyed me. I couldn’t focus on anything, I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t sleep. Everything reminded me of her, even the most trivial objects in the world suddenly made me relate to something - a perfect, slim woman with dark blue eyes and curly brown hair together with a disgusting surname. When I heard a nice old song on the radio it made me remember the time when I heard it together with her. When I saw a golden retriever while taking a walk it reminded me of her old dog, a cocker spaniel named Roy. Girls on TV had something that reminded me of the best girl of the lot. An old woman wearing red shoes reminded me of her old pink shoes she had had when she had been 13. It was totally pathetic, so fucking lame. I wasn’t cool anymore - I’d lost the love for myself and she’d stolen it. I felt like a gay cat. However, the worst thing was that I didn’t even try to run away from the agony: I just sat there, begging to be tortured. Her face was all over my computer as I’d stolen a recent photo of her, my stereo played tunes that made it inevitable to think of anything but Michelle, and I just sat there, alone in my chair, reading old mails and letters she’d written to me. I was so annoyed that I ended up buying myself a pair of boxing gloves and a punchbag to waste my hatred on, usually without wearing the gloves. The bleeding forced me to sit down and take care of myself, and these became the only moments I forgot about Michelle.

This was the pain I had to take while living everyday life. The nights were even worse. My dreams were more of a pain than anything was while I was awake and every night became another torment. She was at my place, totally happy, as beautiful as always, and she loved me. We kissed, made love. Everything was perfect. Then I woke up without her and the day was ruined at once. In some nights she was just sitting beside me crying while telling me all sorts of inner secrets, making me feel terrible. Sometimes she was horned and the worst creature you can imagine, only alive to make my life a hell. She was mighty successful. There were some dreams I enjoyed though - the ones I killed Charlie in. To see straight into his ugly eyes when he was just about to die, not knowing the reason why I was about to kill him, was a satisfaction beyond expression...

Michelle was just as present now after I’d run away from her as she had been when I had been at her place, and I wondered if she was in the same situation over there. Probably she thought about me fifteen minutes a day or so... and it drove me nuts.

Around this time I did a lot of strange, questionable things which seriously made me wonder if I perhaps was a real, living and dedicated psychopath. I surely felt sick even though most things were of good nature, so to speak. Without knowing why, I’d begun to send her huge amounts of money now and then, without letting her know who really sent them. I didn’t need the dosh, perhaps she did. I faked it differently every time, all the time using very secure methods. I mystically paid Candy’s education so she’d now begun in a new preschool, the best there was in her area according to my sources, without having a clue on why she’d been accepted and paid for. I even paid off Michelle’s house. All the time I was careful covering up my tracks so she wouldn’t know it was me, and I was totally certain that it worked. My ”scapegoat” had to be Charlie - a dead man. It couldn’t be any safer.

”Okey, see you soon!” I put down my phone after more than two hours talk, feeling extremely happy and excited. It went just as I hoped it would - now I would finally settle everything. Unfortunately it would mean taking some sacrifice - painful but probably necessary - paired with some fun as well... I had an early night and drove off the next morning.

When I reached her residence the next day, all the usual things happened. After a battery of predictable conversation topics, signs of appreciation and other pleasant things had been finished with, I revealed a little false secret to her. I told her I’d won some money two days ago and that I didn’t know what to do with them, and asked her if she and Candy would like to go on a vacation with me. I knew that Michelle had the freedom to leave whenever she wanted, and that there would be no problem with Candy either. I said that I’d pay for everything and that they could choose the destination. The reason I lied about the money was simply because it sounded a lot better that way - it would be kind of embarrassing to be so overgenerous for no apparent reason.

The two now enthusiastic and happy girls sat contemplating where to go for more than half an hour before they came up with three ideas. The first one was Candy’s own choice - Puerto Rico, as her beloved Ricky Martin was born there. Michelle preferred Paris. Both of them were curious what Budapest was like, I had no clue why. I shared their curiosity, and thus we decided to visit Budapest. Over the following two days we packed our bags, spent time with each other and spoke about how much we all yearned to leave for Europe. We had great fun and I got close to Candy very quick. To say that we became a family wouldn’t have been an exaggeration...

10.

We all got fond of Hungary. Everything was cheap, there was a lot to look at and explore, the people were friendly and there were many things to try out. Our shared favorite was the Turkish baths - really comfortable stuff. But the best part of the trip was the feeling of solidarity that had been built up between us. Candy and me got along perfectly - she was one great little girl for sure, a true Michelle junior.

Michelle senior explored the town alone one day while Candy and me had fun together without her. She was so very talkative my ears were aching the next day, but I truly enjoyed it anyway. I couldn’t do anything but smile and think about Michelle at her age. She’d just started to be interested in this thing called love, and hence asked me millions of questions about it. If I was married, if I had been married, if I was in love with my wife if I was married, if I would like to get married, if I was in love with someone, if someone was in love with me, if I was gay, if I liked gay people and so on and so forth. There was no end to it. Nothing concerned her mum though, which I found strange. If she was so curious she must have asked herself the question if her mum and me were in love - I was a man and she was a woman, and none of us were homosexual, as she now knew. It didn’t seem to have struck her so far though. Yet all the time she noticed girls looking at me and was fast to let me know they did. ”That girl...” she said, pointing at the now embarrassed woman, ”has been looking at you very much, Rick. Maybe she is in love with you?” She wasn’t very good at speaking with a low voice either...

To try finding some answers by asking this little kid questions were pointless. ”Is your mum in love with someone?” ”Yes, my mum is in love with my dad, but he is in heaven now.” ”Don’t you think your mum wants a new husband now as your dad is in heaven?” She looked strange at me and answered, ”Yes, but she must fall in love with someone first, you know.” To continue felt like a waste of time. ”I will marry someone when I grow up, but I must fall in love with him first, right Rick?” Right...

Later that night when Candy had fallen asleep, Michelle and me were lying in the cozy bed we were sharing, speaking about our day, Hungary, Candy and all other natural topics there were. She was amazed how well her daughter and me got along - she was usually very shy with adults, Michelle said. ”You’ll be a great father one day, Rick”, she smiled out of her mouth with signs of love all over her face. ”Don’t you want to have a son or daughter yourself one day?” I didn’t know if I was supposed to smile or start weeping - my heart surely preferred to weep. I answered that I definitely wanted both a son and a daughter. ”And I want you to be their mother”, wasn’t far away from being said.

Even if Michelle was extremely interesting and fun to talk to, I’d begun to be bored of this type of chats. It led nowhere. And as I only wanted to express my love to this heavenly woman and take everything to a new level, I’d started to feel like a hypocrite. How could I tell if I really found these conversations interesting when I actually had to do so to be able to move on? I didn’t know my own feelings. I was beginning to become a stranger to myself.

Suddenly she began telling me about her mysterious economic boost, which made me feel really uncomfortable. I’d gotten pretty used to the acting - lying - around her, but doing it still felt like shit. I’m glad it did - it was more or less the only proof that I wasn’t a fully developed psychopath yet. She thought it was a bit strange that so much had been paid in the same week in which I’d won money. I agreed. In a very sincere and cute way she asked me if it perhaps was me who’d paid everything. I lied. I said it couldn’t have been possible, as I won the money some days after she claimed everything got paid for. She believed me. An hour later she was asleep in my arms while I was clearly awake, staring right into the roof, thinking at maximum speed and depth.

I didn’t understand her, not at all. I’d been analyzing her for a long time now and couldn’t make her out more now than when I started. At first I thought that maybe she wanted to see how well I could take care of Candy before deciding anything. Now she knew, and nothing seemed to have changed. Perhaps there was something about me she just couldn’t love, whatever that might have been, as she could obviously love me as a friend. The most logical reason she didn’t even seem to try to imagine me as more than a friend had to be because I’d in some way made her believe I wasn’t interested in her at all - that I really had put up that ”do no pass friendship”-sign. ”Pass and we’ll cut your head off and take your daughter.” It didn’t make sense though, for one reason. I remembered what she had said some weeks earlier: ”I recall you writing that I was your model when looking at women as potential partners, and I guess it was pretty much the same for me. The difference was that I never ever thought of you like that as you seemed to have done with me. You weren't worth that - you were above all of them but still too close as a friend to me and I didn’t want to ruin that. I felt so happy with what we already had and felt that it was enough, that it was all I needed.” Perhaps I only needed to make it clear that I now wanted her as more than a friend? The question was if she cared - she’d been without me for over eight years and didn’t seem to have had any problems with that. Now as Charlie was gone, my value had, of course, increased, but I didn’t want her to ”love” me for any other reason than really loving me, from the bottom of her heart.

Earlier that night I was visiting the toilet when I happened to overhear a small conversation between the two ladies. Michelle was saying goodnight to her daughter when she asked a question that caught my interest. ”Mum, are you in love with Rick? Will you marry Rick?” Michelle laughed as if she’d never thought about it and answered ”No, he’s just a very good friend of mine” with the most annoying tone of voice I’ve ever heard. ”No, of course not, are you insane?” could’ve been her words just as well - I didn’t see any difference for sure. And not even Candy thought it was strange, even though she knew that I was attractive - that other women found me good-looking.

What the hell could I do? Why not just fucking tell her that I was so terribly in love with her I couldn’t stand another second without confessing it to her? Why didn’t I? Was it because I was tactical - playing this game with timing and just waiting for the perfect moment when I really knew her true feelings - or because I was a fucking coward? I was stuck in this game of horror and I didn’t have a clue what to do next. There was no way to find out either, so the only two choices I had were either to continue on this path and hope to come up with something, or just simply tell her the truth. Parts of it, at least. I had to get out of this jail, whatever the price was. Too bad I had to use a bomb instead of a key to open the door, risking everything around me to fall down as well. Life’s a bitch, a son of a whore born by a hooker. A fucking prostitute.

To be continued...

- http://i.am/morph - morph@elenziah.com -