February 15th

My lover returned yesterday. After her long voyage, she was tired, difficult. We repaired to my lair, the bare disarray of my simple life. The bed with rumpled sheets, the nightstand with books, the cup on the hook. She told me of her travels and experiences. I listened and nodded, distracted. She cursed me for my self-absorption.

Later, we went out, dusk falling like dusty dew. The night is my season, I can blend into shadows and observe the others, the normal ones. We sampled one bar and then another. Images blurred as the night wore on. We caressed carelessly, barely thinking.

At one bar I glimpsed her. I caught her eye amidst the faces of others, other lovers, strangers, and friends, the lonely ones who haunt the night, like me. She smiled a knowing smile. I looked quickly away. The one I was with had not noticed her.

Later, my lover questioned me at length. She spoke of honesty and trust and the need to know each other completely. She spoke earnestly. She insisted. She wanted to know all that had transpired with me. She told me of another she had spurned as she waited in the distant land for me. At length, I confessed.

She cursed me again, finished her drink, and swept out of the bar in a rage, betrayed.