Heat level (1-5): 🔥🔥
Notes: Written in Sanskrit the second century CE, The Kama Sutra is a seven-volume guide for organizing and understanding the chaos of passion. Originally translated into English in 1833 as Principles of Love, I retell it here for a modern audience as Rules of Lust. This is the third rule. Many will follow.
Pairs well with “Tear the Roots” by Kaleida
“Reveal your obsession. Show her how you’ve changed. Show her the bed where you will teach her the rules of lust.” – Kāma Sūtra I:4
“Don’t hide your contempt.” – Kāma Sūtra II:2
He takes my hand in his, knitting our fingers together, leading me toward the entrance of the house. I glance at him, and he glances at me, giving my hand a squeeze. Such tenderness in that grasp. Such strength. But so unfamiliar and unexpected. “You’ve never done that.”
“The fuck I haven’t.”
He hasn’t. I’d remember. And gone are the days of me backing down. “Believe me or don’t. But I’m telling you that you never did.”
This shocks him. I can see it. And I like it. Want it. Need it. Because in these three years, I found my power. Fuck you. I used to be your pretty little pussycat. Now hear me roar. Only through him, and away from him, could I really find myself. And who I am is stronger than I thought.
He looks at our entwined hands again. Running his rough thumb over the back of my hand. And then glances at me. Softer, kinder. More open than I’ve ever seen him. “You’re right.”
I know.
. . . . .
This place is made of a thousand pieces of me. Of us. Fragments of the whole. Shards of what was shattered. Everywhere, everywhere, reminders of conversations. Of experiences. Of things I mentioned or loved, but never knew he noticed at all.
Outside the house, my favorite flowers. French lavender, white tea roses, dry and dying now in the fall, but still beautiful. Still mine. Still planted there, surely, just for me.
Inside the house, a feeling that I have been here before. That I have known this place all my life. Because it is me. It is us. A rug I picked out for him, dusty grey and blue. In the kitchen, the dishes I got for him. By the sink, the soap I love. My favorite spices on the rack by the fridge. Powdery cardamom, grey sea salt, little threads of saffron in a glass vial.
Small things, practical things, but jewels all the same. “You kept everything. You remembered everything.”
“You say that like it was a choice. Keeping you. Remembering you.”
. . . . .
Backtrack two years with me. The frenzy of the aftermath. The upheaval of losing him. Me, trashing our pictures. Burning his notes. Throwing away his clothes. Me getting fucking wasted on the whiskey he loved, killing the bottle and smashing it on the bathroom floor. Crystal everywhere, even now, wedged into the grout. Then me blocking his number; unblocking it. Typing texts I never sent. Going on walks at midnight, raging under a new moon.
Me crying so hard I couldn’t breathe. Grieving for what I never had; mourning the idea of us, the foolishness of that. Lying in bed with my heart aching from that lovesickness that was so strong, it gave a rhythm to my days. Grief over him gave shape to life.
What is my life, then, without that grief?
. . . .
The bedroom, now. A big king bed, against a mirrored wall. Stargazer lilies in a vase, on the side of the bed I always sleep on.
To be remembered like this, across time and space. It gives me a power I never knew I could have.
Dappled western light dances across the carpet. And he lets my hand go.
And there, on the walls, I see them. Drawings, dozens of them. Pen and ink. And every one of them, of me. Of my body. Of my curves and lines.
My cheeks flame hot as I realize what I am seeing, as I run my fingertip over the hollow of my throat, first on my body. And then on the drawing in front of me. There are so many, it overwhelms me at first. The strength of his passion has always panicked me a little. But so too does it feed that same passion in me.
“I didn’t know you could do this.”
“Neither did I, until I fucking lost you.”
I let those words settle there. Thinking about them. Considering the nature, the weight, the value of each. Like freshwater pearls.
. . . .
Now again. And in the bathroom, a new bottle of my favorite perfume. Grief falls away. All that agony, all that pain just vanishes. The backdraft sucks the fire from the room. And then there is life and air. “I can’t believe you remembered.”
“I can’t believe you think I could forget.”
Hope turns things warm and hazy as I walk into the kitchen. And then there, I see it. A bottle of his whiskey on the countertop.
The same kind of bottle I shattered; the same kind of bottle that cut my own feet. And I feel them bleed all over again.
And all the pain comes back to me, whole and clear. Shapelessness takes shape. Hope blurred by desire resolves into anger. A photograph develops in the darkroom. And he is still the man that hurt me. Still the one that broke my heart.
Where is my power if I let go of my pain?
Who am I, without that?