my road: fermenting love

If today was your last day would you spend it with me?  Would you spend it avoiding me. " The stranger seemed strangely energized as if the story was getting ready to take an important turn.
Only when you have given up on hope, only when the doctor says you have one month to live, can you live everyday as if it were your last.  It is the point where conflicts disappear and as long as they are gone...but they can come back, you can be cured..
But I was not cured, that was where I was.  I had received the terminal diagnosis, had calculated it in my head over and over again for days, then weeks, months and finally years.  And when I admitted defeat, I found not despair, but the most important gift of all, life!  I had lived before when I was young and knew nothing of despair because I didn't care.  Now I was living again because I did care, but knew it was no use to care.
And most importantly, I realized that if I only had one day to live, I knew where I would want to live it.
"With the girl?"
"Of course.  With the girl.  But she was unavailable to me, so I threw my efforts into doing important things, pursuing lofty goals.  I thought I would donate all of my time to giving.  If there were a god, perhaps he would repay that selflessness.  Of course, I would only be disappointed by god, but life would not disappoint me.
The group leaned closer.
"Oh, I see, now you are expecting the sex."  The group pulled back, embarrassed to be caught.  "Oh, you are all so disappointing.  People are so immature.  Every 14 year old boy knew what page the rape scene appeared in "The Godfather".  Forget the incredible prose and the smarmy, captivating and revolting crime drama, it only mattered where the sex came in.   And so you will be disappointed again.  For now there is only the crucible of love to discuss.  I was in love, but for real love to exist it must be shared and formed in a crucible of unbelievable heat.."
And so, here is the story of the crucible.
To understand this you have to go back in the story to the night of the dinner with the animal rescuers.  This is a story of pretended innocence.  I wish that I could be the person I was on that night, the one who had dedicated his life to doing good for others, who had given up selfishness.  That person is dead now.
I got up after staring in the mirror, brushed my hair and teeth to give my ex lover time to leave and rushed downstairs, retrieved me car and drove across town to where the girl was staying.  I had no idea what I was doing, what I expected.  All I knew was that if I died tomorrow, it would not matter as long as tonight I could look on her, hear her voice.  I wanted nothing more than a moment in her presence alone.  If her fiance could give me that, I would be satisfied.
A zombie movie.  It was like driving from sanity to something completely irrational.  The entire city was dark.  It was unlivable and yet it teemed with life, people who were shadows in the oppressive darkness, and equally dangerous.
I arrived at the mansion where she kept several rooms near the park.  From inside many of the homes on the way had been lights, some fed by loud generators, but hers were the softer lights of candles.  You might wonder if I should have been worried about my car, and the answer is certainly yes.  But I thought nothing of it, better it be stolen and I have to walk back through the darkness with the other shadows, because I was death and there was no harm that could come to me in the night.
She showed me in.  She had changed out of the formal clothes she had worn to dinner and wore shorts and a long sleeve shirt, but thin due to the humidity of the night.  And she was alone.
The fiance and her had decided to put their relationship on hold while she dealt with the work load she had and he dealt with his personal losses.
Inflamed?  Were my passions inflamed?  They were not.  For she was sad and jealous.  When we became lovers, the thing that would make our love making special was our desire to please each other.  We derived all of our passion from the passion we could inspire in the other.  There was no selfishness, only the fear of disappointing the other.  I was in love, more deeply in love than any of you ever were or ever will be unless you can find out that your life is over and can truly live each day as your last.  You think that it was the last day of my life so I would want it making love to her.  Today, that would be true, but then I was virtuous, you see. I wanted to ease her pain and could only do that by standing beside her.
So we talked, I took her hand, but she drew it back.  She asked me if I would drive her by her fiance's house and we drove by so she could feel her jealousy and loss more deeply.  We went back and it was very late.  It was the time to take her or to leave.  You are married she said firmly, you have to go and I went.
But I thought I brought her some peace and my soul sang out, the terrors of my impending destruction held no fear for me, for I lived only for her, and I would do so until I died.