Struggle

This multi-part story is about temptation, trying to resist an urge that you know is self-destructive rather than racing towards it, which means it takes place mostly in the mind. I hope you enjoy it.

Part 1. Struggle

I'm working. Sitting in my office, the client talking, talking, no idea why he feels the need. I'm going to do what I will regardless. I have a plan, a method, a particular way of making his project happen that works. I know what this plan is long before I speak to him, long before he lays out his particular ideas. Like most things, I find that predictability, consistency, high-performing elite status has more to do with the ability to compel order on a chaotic world than on any inherent talent. This is, after all, why he is paying such an exorbitant amount of money to have me manage his project. This despite the fact that it is such a minor part of my life, one project in fifty I will do this month alone, when it is nothing less than his entire life savings wrapped up into one great roll of the dice.

My life is a series of these moments. I have worked very hard to make it so, personally and professionally. I take great pride and pleasure in compelling the world to my will. But then...

She comes to me. Optimistic and troubled, naïve and too wise. Her need for validation, to know that she is ok, is wanted, is loved, an intoxicating sirens call to a man like me who makes the world a more comprehensible place. She is hurt, the barbs of those her age have struck home, and she seeks solace. I wonder, though, is that all she seeks? Do I only wonder, or do I hope? The question burns.

She is all the things I reject, all the things I contend with. Chaos, raw desire, joy and despair falling upon one another without warning or respite. Who could blame me? Who could look at my inner struggle and not see themselves within it? That person is a liar, a thief stealing the struggles of others while hiding their own. Don't we all seek the wisdom of experience, while wistfully despairing for the lost innocence of youth?

But she is more than that to me, more than the mere representation of youth. She is all the things I have lost and still desire wrapped within those things I never knew I could hope for. Hope without limits. Love without question. Belief in the basic goodness of the world and the conviction that it can be found in another human being. How I long to prove her right, how I long to show her that a man (me, I am that man, am I that man?) can be her protector, her champion, a bulwark against the world, and also be her light, the one to show her the heights and depths. How can I resist her? How do I say no, day after day, to the constant opportunities to reach out to her and offer this to her? This curse, the pain of disappointment, the glorious moment of realization about the world and her own strength to impose herself upon it. My need to provide this for her is overwhelming. To whom do I wish to give, her or me?

Daily, she comes to me. Often, naively, innocently. Is she innocent? Certainly she was, but of late her silences and expressions are more clouded. As she approached graduation she seemed to be more withdrawn, was she only afraid for the uncertain future? Her birthday has always been a time where her laughter would bring a smile to all around her. But this time, she sat still and quiet, thoughtful. Was it only her awareness of adulthood? Was it only knowing that this birthday, her eighteenth, was her first as an adult, the first where the world acknowledged that she was no longer bound to me?

She has always sat with me, talking of her day, her pains and triumphs. Guileless challenges of a better time, reminding me that my own youthful pains are still real in my deepest heart, though buried beneath those things I have believed were more important. And yet, those early things are still fresh to me where the "greater things" I have held have faded from memory in mere years. Who is truly the fool here? What is truly the greater thing, the heartbreaks of youth or the inconveniences of maturity?

She often sits beside me, her skin pressed against mine, her head resting against my chest. Is she as casual and as comfortable as she seems, is it truly a father's touch she is seeking? Sometimes, perhaps, but others she seems to be saying something else, something more, asking if she is enough, if she is desired, if she is loved. She is! Her touch burns on my skin. Each time she bids me goodnight I feel her body, her distant limbs more present than my own. How I wish that I could dive into those moments, how I want to trace my fingers along her. I want to feel her face, her hair. If only I could follow all of her smiles and her scars, her skin soft and rough beneath my fingertips. I want to know her more, I want her to experience what it is to be truly known by a man who loves and sees her for herself. By a man who has experienced the pain and grief of the world, and has been forged by it into the sword and shield that can give her all this life has to offer.

Sometimes, sometimes I give in to the temptation, the need. Only a little! I am afraid to hurt her, afraid to prove that I am the wolf she fears, not the guardian. I will look at her arm, her leg, her scars, and gently trace one (just one!). The excuse I make is immaterial, the scar I trace irrelevant. I am touching her, seeking her being not her skin, no matter what I say to her or to myself. I can feel her trembling being underneath her challenges, underneath her pains. How beautiful she is! How she glows with promise, and joy! I long to continue to trace her, to know her. I long to feel the length of all of her pains, and continue past them to her smooth skin, her future. I long to know more than just her past, I long to know the future she can bring. I long to make a wordless promise to her, to love her, to bind her body and mine. Such things that I long with all of my being! And I could, I know this (do I know this?). I could give her joy, I could give her acceptance, I could give her a moment (a lifetime) of knowing she is loved and wanted. I could push back the chaos of the world, push back the fear that she will never be enough.

Stop. I cannot continue this fantasy, my wise self demands that I ask the difficult questions. Would I? Can I? Is there too much, is there too great a gulf? Will the jaded pain of my life flow through my fingertips, burning her unsullied skin? What if, instead of wisdom, I offer her only cynicism, grief, and borrowed pain? My mind reels.

And then... she sings. Carefree, a clarion call of purity ringing to the rhythm of the music. How could that heart be broken, how could I not hold her? I stare at her, forgetting myself in the experience of her music. But she turns, she sees me, sees how I look at her. This time, she stares back at me, smiles a smile both guileless and deep. She must know then, must know the real shape of my love. My desire, pure but not innocent. No, not innocent at all.

I imagine us then. In a blink of an eye it all unfolds before me.

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I imagine you come to me, you reach out to me in the chaste embrace we have always contented ourselves with. But this time, this time you hold me just a bit longer. This time, my arms circle you without so much care spent avoiding your hidden places. This time, I want you to suspect, to question whether I see you as more, to know that all of your subtle clues have been noticed and understood. I want you to know, I want you to want it too, I want you to reach back to me.

You do. Your arms also hold me in forbidden ways. Not much, not too far, only ever so slightly finding themselves on unfamiliar ground. Tentatively, afraid of rejection but hopeful, your hands allow themselves to linger where only your greatest protector and rival have been before. I reward your touch with a small sigh, a small shifting, bringing your hair to my face as I kiss your head. This could be chaste, this could be innocent, but we both know it is instead a prelude. An opening to more, and greater.

You look up at me then. In your eyes, I can see the frightened doubt, the hopeful and innocent, your wish that there may be more and your self protective willingness to pretend there is not. If I turn away here, it will fade into just another of our awkward but explainable moments.

I do not. I hold your gaze, stare into the surprising depths of you. I allow this moment to reach that point where it cannot continue and be dismissed, waiting as well for you to shy away and allow us to deceive ourselves as to the nature of us. But you do not, your courage fanning the flames in my heart. We wait, one heartbeat past too long, then two. We gaze into one another, far, far past the point of denial.

I move my arm from your back, to your face. I run my hand through your hair, staring into your eyes as I run my fingers over and past your ear. I gently cup your head, and my other hand moves from your shoulders to the small of your back. Your arms move ever so slightly upwards, around my shoulders now. We are committed, but not yet guilty. Still, I know (hope?) that this is real, my heart beats with the knowledge (fear?) that this is finally the moment.

I bring myself closer, but this time I do not shy away towards the innocent kiss of a father upon your head. This time we approach eye to eye, in full knowledge of what might occur, what will occur. I hold your head, asserting myself over you, cradling you within my embrace and allowing you to surrender. You give herself to the moment, relaxing into the gentle power of me.

We reach an unexpected moment, to continue requires more than passive acceptance, we must make a small act of decision. The tips of our noses, in line with one another, will touch and transform this moment into something innocent and disappointing if we do not act. What a strange irony that to continue hurdling down this path requires us to turn aside! I tilt my head slightly, so do you.

So, we are committed.

I know at this moment, even before the culmination, that I have not ached in vain these last months. I have not misread seemingly innocent embraces, the meaningful but not meaningful times you have sat touching me. Your great rival has not suspected us falsely, has not read false intent in the face of her younger self nor has she overlooked the dangerous desire in mine. We have indeed been hurdling to taste the fruit of knowledge.

I feel your breath, warm and sweet, in the moment before we meet. It is intimate, your life mingling with mine. And then we touch, our lips graze against one another. They are neither tentative nor insistent, content to simply find one another. They are dry, your lips and mine. Is this unexpected? Does it matter? They incite fire in my heart, a desire to dive into you, and yet they do not require me to crush them into mine. Fire and cotton, a strange and perfect duality. The awareness of your warmth and the wetness behind trembling lips, behind your soft skin, pricks at me below my conscious thoughts.

We grow more confident. Our kiss has been accepted, returned, our doubts about the intent and inner desire of the other growing faint. We have risked it all, fearing rejection, and have won the prize reserved for the bold and the blessed. Passion grows, pressure increases, I feel my lips parting. Our tongues meet, the tips flickering against one another, touching lips and teeth. I pull your lower lip into my mouth, softly nibbling. You are startled at this new sensation, the touch of an experienced lover is foreign to you. Your expectation of clumsy, crushing pressure is thwarted by the skillful darting of my tongue. The careful stimulation of sensitive places, the contrast between the growing strength of my hand pulling your body to me and the careful touch of my fingers against your cheek intoxicate you and I can feel the last of your resistance fade away into trusting surrender.

For my part, I am transformed. Through you, through your innocent and hopeful reactions, I find my soul is young and innocent once again. My heart fills with the old hope, my lips burn with the fire of my first kiss, your body pressed against mine once again creating the electric tingle of my first embrace. How glorious you feel! How small, and tremendous your warmth against me. I revel in our touch, how we fit together, how we will fit together.

We remain like this for some time. New lovers not yet consummated, no hurry and no regrets but still the quiet fear of discovery lurks. Will your great rival discover us? She is not at home, the threat of crass witness is not present, but what about more subtle exposures? She has already suspected, has even made small objections to outwardly innocent things between us. Or perhaps knowing us both as only she can she foresaw this betrayal, as your need for affection grew ever more physical no matter the seeming triviality of each individual act. At once your greatest protector and the villain of your play, still she holds my oldest affections even as you hold my newest. Proof of the new state of us would be disaster, despair, broken hearts and dreams beyond imagining. And yet... buried far in my heart is there the hope that she will both know and accept? Too much to think about directly, I will put that back to where my desire for you used to reside, deep in the hidden parts of my heart.

We part lips, eyes opening once again to look into one another. I allow us to part further, our bodies no longer touching and yet still closer to one another than we could have been before. We have changed, the understanding of us has changed, and nothing will be the same from here. Again the fear of discovery pricks at my mind, perhaps your rival will see the infinitesimal change in distance? Perhaps she will notice the fraction of a second that we linger when we touch? I banish this thought again, omnipresent as it is and will continue to be.

My thoughts turn to next things. Do I pull you close to kiss you once again? Do I allow myself to touch you further, to bring my hands to hidden places? Briefly, I am once again my older self, contemplating these desires and the path towards attaining them.

But no. I am reborn in you. My desire is one of youth, of innocence, of breathtaking risk and reward, and those are not the thoughts of a new heart. Those are the thoughts of cynicism, of experience, and I reject them. Instead, I allow us to part and our embrace to end. Is that not the action that would be taken by a frightened and fearlessness youth? Even more, our hands are still entwined, our fingers mirroring the sudden connection we have found. Is this not the naïve stuff of idealistic love?

We will come together again. We will find a time for us to explore more, to grow together, to find in the both of us that perfect union of innocence and guilt. This is the one lesson, the one thought I allow my wiser self to hold as this vision fades from my mind.

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This is not the end. It is barely the end of the moment. Her smile falters as she sees some glimpse of my mind, of the lifetime I briefly imagined between the songs she sings. She laughs and turns away, guileless, as the song slows to an end. My heart is heavy with this small rejection, my forbidden desires unmet.

But then, she glances back. In her gaze, I see the unspoken hope that she would once again see these dreams in my eyes. She looks for an answer to her own desires now, her inner struggle looking for mine.

I will find the courage. I will find the way. My fears, her inhibitions, her great rival's suspicions, none of these will stand in my way. We will find a path to one another, she and I.

She is my girl, after all.