He was sitting on the couch watching TV next to his mom when his phone beeped. He picked it up and clicked on the picture she sent and his body was engorged with blood. His cheeks felt warm. He had to go upstairs to his room before he embarrassed himself in front of his mother again.
He locked the bedroom door and looked at his phone again at her picture. He was rising slowly all the way up the stairs and was now fully erect. He had no idea how she did it but she did it every time. She was 23 and in blue flowery shorts and dark blue bra that barely concealed her secret charms. Her right hand was pulling one side of her shorts down, revealing a hint of what lay beneath, a black stripe of elastic that held his world up from prying eyes.
He gazed upon her toned, flat stomach. He couldn't look away and washed his vision upon the promise of her youth. It reminded him of a time when he was full of promise and his life lay in front of him untarnished by time just as her life lay in front of her in ways she could not realize.
She did not expect to see her that way so soon. He had not seen her in weeks and his loins remembered what they missed. He was filling up his dreams with her vision. It was easy to fall in love with health and beauty but easier still to be bedazzled by creativity. It was throwaway details like the arch of her hip and the twist of her neck and the way her hair fell to Earth. It was the way her watercolour paintings swirled on the canvas like ink blots swimming in a pond of goldfish.
She unfortunately grounded him. He was one whose head was too much in the clouds and her practicality was something he avoided as much as possible. He could not drive. He could not speak without profanity. He saw it as a point of pride that he was raw and unfiltered. It was the voice of the wild animal within him that roared through his lungs when words turned his fingers into vicious claws that destroyed his enemies mercilessly. His sheathed his fangs behind the mask of a jester. It afforded his identity protection and confused his enemies.
But looking at her unexpected gift of portraiture, the beast's voice grew silent within him and he felt himself entering the world of men. He would get an entry-level job. He'd learn to drive a stick shift at 32. He looked at a house to share with his private wingless angel of mercy. She forgave him his indiscretions because she saw in him something he forgot. His potential. His greatness. It was easy to try when you see the prize before your eyes.
He didn't know if he would make it through the week without her dropping him like a bad habit. If she did, it would be his mistake that unleashed the animal within to strike at point blank rage. He decimated his enemies with spiritual violence and slicing syllables the way a samurai polished his blade. He did not want to fight any more. The war is over. His name is a battlefield upon which the truth was discovered. What he discovered was that the true warrior did not need to raise his weapon.
Yukio Mishima said, "True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys." Her beauty was more than an attack, it was a relentless frontal assault against which he had no defence. He laid down his arms and surrendered. Within her submission lay his freedom.
"How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles."--Mishima, Spring Snow.