posted October 11, 2013 01:40 AM            

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I consider myself a rational person.

I make decisions based in logic; I act not in accordance with an emotional, but practical, drive.

He does the same.

Yet, somehow, here we are, yet again, this week no different from the one before it, or the one before that. Months of this, in which I've become the witting target of a regular game of Russian roulette, as he takes careful aim, training the barrel upon me; always level with my heart.

His marksmanship is, in a word, expert. This will continue until the event upon which he surrenders the weapon, or I move.

We are, in theory, rational people.

I plead with him to love me again, but never in so many words. He says, 'I do love you,' in verbatim.

I say, 'how many bullets are in that gun?'

He replies there are none; the slightest tinge of shock to his voice; an almost incredulous righteousness, as if I should dare to ask.

It's true, I haven't been shot. Yet. But neither of us have moved, either.

Once he described this very situation in chess; zugzwang, he called it, when one is held in check, a single move from being mated, but refuses to surrender.

Surrender.

It echoes in my head.

Surrender, surrender, surrender.

I would. I want to. Desperately.

That must be why I'm here. That must be why I wager my own sanity every week; the state of my heart.

Had he never breathed my name; had I never chills to feel its utterance against my neck; had he never failed to conjure one of the myriad words from his labyrinthine head as he slowly, deliciously, spiralled out of his own ascetic control ...

... I would move.

I would have moved awhile ago, in fact. I would simply not be here. At all.

But he did.

I had.

We were.

Those two words, that phrase - succinct, nearly too short to possibly be worth its weight in memory - is what brings me here. Again, and again, and again.

We were.

But I do not know if we will ever be again.

He attests we will.

And pulls the trigger.

This is not the first time. Rationally, I have nothing to fear; there is nothing in the chambre. So he says. Despite his impeccable integrity, I've learnt to suspect what he says.

I do not believe he has compromised. We simply would not be here. I would be in his arms, rather than at its length; at the barrel of a gun. He would be breathing my name; not reassuring me with tragically hollow phrases meant to comfort, but which only feel cold.

'I know that I love you.'

The tone is stilted; spoken as if by one who has practised distance to the point where it has become an art-form. Not surprising; that's just what he is.

He is certain of it, as he is sure of a great many things which hold no personal consequence.

I reason with myself, this is why he is able to pull the trigger at all. He is certain he loves me: number one, with a bullet.

Click.

Each click, my heart races; I tell myself, I'm stopping this now. I'm moving out of the way. I'm leaving! I rationalise: my chances do not improve over time. They simply worsen. I run an increasing greater risk that the next one will be fatal.

And it will be over.

But I can't determine who will have won. What it was for. Why we even did this at all.

I believe he loves me; that's why he will never compromise. Never surrender.

Zugzwang.

It seems almost pointless to remind him I'm the one in check. I'm the one who has a gun aimed at her chest; who's watching each trigger pull with extreme trepidation. I'm also the one refusing to move.

Because I love him as well.

I lose track. I tell myself, there's no further probability there are any bullets there. We're wasting time. But he continues firing - or aiming to. I continue standing still - or meaning to.

We just don't move.

'Love me again', I want to say. I want to breathe his name. I want to chill him. Enthral him. Entice, bewilder, seduce, and obsess him.

Maybe I have. Maybe he continues trying, simply because he can't stop, either. He has to know, be certain, it isn't loaded somehow, somewhere. And so he keeps firing, at me, because I'm in love with him.

And, I think, I hope, he's in love with me as well.

It's the uncertainty which consumes me; drives me into a furious state of madness. The fear that, despite his own intentions, there's still one we forgot. And, one day, it'll end everything.

So, he keeps pulling the trigger. I keep standing still.

Love me again.

I do love you.

Both refusing to move.

Zugzwang.

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posted October 11, 2013 01:53 PM            

I know, right? I swear, as a writer, it's the only thing keeping me sane. ... And that part's debatable, isn't it?

It's become the configuration that just resonates, like a heartbeat, in my head.

His Moon-Eros in my 8H. Opposite his Mars. Conjunct my Sun-Pluto in my 2H.

I'm a Scorpio Moon, he's an 8H Sun ... it's good times, yeah, buddy!

Only way I could think to describe this in story form.

I am friggin' standing there hoping what he's telling me is true, and that there won't be a bullet in the next round.

Clearly, despite all of my rationale, I love to live dangerously.

(Not!)