Settling

Lies dance from my tongue as I continue to weave fantasy and magic around my lover. 

Those beautiful blue eyes and that melodic voice can’t ever know the truth I’ve been hiding for years now.  We connect in ways I’ve never felt before.  The energy that surges through my body when we touch sparks in me fires that burn even hours after we part.  After Oz, it’s all so wonderful… <except for> yeah, except that I don’t love her.

I turn from the door and look at her sleeping form, lazily outstretched on the bed we’ve shared so many times before.  Creamy, bare skin glistening in the flicker of the candlelight. A dark red sheet twisted between soft thighs and wrapped around her waist, where moments ago I kissed and touched, smoothing out worries and burning away her shy sighs until only heavy pants and cries of pleasure held me to her.  She sleeps now, unaware that I’ve left her side once again.  She will ask why I didn’t stay with her.  This has become our routine now.  I will sigh and make up an excuse.  This is the way our nights go. It is the only way I Know.

There is passion here.  And power of course, yes.  We come together, practicing magic.  Connecting energy through fingertips and chanting in low steady rhythms that bring our minds together, then our bodies, our lips, and our needs.  But what’s left is not love.  Not the kind that has burned and consumed me for years now.  What I have here will never be like that.  I close my eyes and steady myself against the door, fighting the urge to cry away the guilt that also plagues me. Tara has become a distraction from the longing to touch my best friend deep into the night after nursing her battle scars.

I clear my mind and smile weakly as I take one last look at my lover’s sleeping body before closing the door quietly.  I am not supposed to feel like this. 

My sexuality is not the problem though.  When I found passion with Tara, I accepted it.  Telling Buffy was not a thrill believe me <I believe you, she only freaked, well slightly…> Yes, but she seemed so upset when I told her about Tara.  I know she is probably getting over it.   Knowing I’m gay now <like you ever weren’t? ahem.. excuse me…> must already be hard for her to cope with.  Telling her I’m in love with her, have been for over 3 years now… No, that’s a whole other story.    

Back in my own dorm room now I go to her bed and run my finger along the soft fabric of her comforter and pillow before sitting down. <What I wouldn’t give to be welcome in this bed.> I take her pillow in my arms, pressing my face into the cool comfort, and inhale deeply.  Her soap and shampoo, her body…  I do this a lot now.  Stealing glimpses into her private space in order to have one quiet moment closer to her.  I sigh heavily and put down the pillow. 

Guilt wracks my body again as I think about what I’ve shared with Tara only to come home to do this. <You are one sick puppy Rosenberg.> I can’t help it though.  I can’t help but feel like I’m going to explode when I think about Buffy.  I’ve watched her train and fight demons in the night, admiring the fluidity of her muscled movements. 

She has saved my life more than once and I will never be out of her debt.  I take her into my arms and comfort her whenever she needs me.  It hurts me to the bone when she is in pain.  The closeness of her body, her skin and hair create in me a new awareness of the ecstasy begging to be reached with her though and I am pained even more because I know it will never come. I can’t resist her though.  I wake from dreams about her with movement in my hips and moans caught unreleased in my throat.  Unreleased, that’s me.

I’ll never tell her.  Never let a word slip out.  This is my dark pain to deal with that, maybe in time, will subside and let me love another.  Until then I retire to my bed night after night with the afterglow of time spent with a woman I don’t love, only to dream about a woman who will never love me.

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