I felt the warm wash of water over my skin. There was a sweetness in the air this evening.
Why was I here? What was I letting myself in for? Would he even turn up this time?
He’d text me only 2 hours prior, but now my messages weren’t getting delivered. Perhaps he’d had a change of heart. Perhaps he’d gone back to her. To the safety of her love. Perhaps the shame he felt had become too much. His family would never accept him.
Mine were gone long ago. I’d known abandonment as long as I’d known life. With him was the first time that I felt I could belong. That I was needed. That I deserved love.
I used the light of my phone to illuminate the rocks surrounding me. I’d cut my toe, a jagged edge penetrating deep. The blood seeped gently out onto the surface of the water, drifting beneath moonlight into the black expanse of the Caspian sea.
I wanted the waves to consume me. To drag me from this world that had shown me only cruelty and neglect. To dissolve completely in its wet mouth.
I took out my disassociation meds and read the label. Citalopram. 10 mg. Whatever happened tonight, I wouldn’t need these peach seeds anymore. As they fell to the seabed, my eyes were drawn to an expanding ripple.
Could it be?
My ears pricked. Nothing. Just the wash. Then a glub. A throat swallow on the water. My heart raced. I had wanted for nothing so much in my entire life, and now that I was here, now that it was happening, I was overwhelmed with the need to run. To flee quite far away. My legs tensed, to bolt. Then his words drifted through my mind once more, “your strength is in learning to love the pain.” Τrue, I thought, he was so wise and his command of the English language so impressive.
I had to show him I’d listened, that I’d learned from him. He was to be my master and I was to willingly submit to his mercy and his wisdom. I’d brought the collar he wanted to see me in. I would be his perfect pet. But then fear gripped: would he love me like he promised? Maybe none of this was real, not least his love. Had I been taking those meds at all? Why did they look like peach seeds? Was my skin on too tight again? Fuck, how did I loosen it before?… Maybe if I take one of the seeds, yeah, maybe then I can let out the hurt a bit.
I delved into the water, searching desperately for the meds. I was imploding again. That black hole was back and this time it was really going to take everything in. I felt my memories slipping, my veins retracting. Each capillary was being dragged from the surface, snaking in searing pain back through its furrowed tracks. My body was on fire. I needed a hit. Something to plug the hole just for a bit longer. Just for a bit longer.
Then the water changed. I felt his presence. Blurred by the saltwater, my eyes moved slowly from the rocky bottom up. There he was, his koi carp face inches from mine. My lips trembled to kiss his fish lips. They were so slimy and rigid. Just as I had hoped they would be. His tongue darting in and out my mouth, sucking the soggy bread crumbs I’d placed between my teeth for him. He seemed to be smiling, but I couldn’t tell. It’s difficult with fish to tell if they’re smiling.
I felt my veins resettling. My body swelling with a different heat. The heat of passion. I pulled my face back to look at his slender, powerful body. He turned side on so that he could look at me, his fish eye flooded with emotion as he examined my face. A slow nod.
I knew what he wanted and complied without hesitation. I was his vessel. I opened my mouth as far as it would stretch and flooded it with sea water. The wait felt like an eternity, and doubt once again creeped into my mind. Then without a word he forced himself into my mouth, his muscular body propelling himself down my throat. Thrashing back and forth, I could feel his fins serrating the inside of my mouth. His thick, athletic frame swimming down my oesophagus and into my gut, smoothly like vanilla ice cream, or a soft fish dish.
His body nestled in my solar plexus, I finally knew completeness. Knew I could finally faced the world as the koi carp I always felt I was. But now was the real journey. Living in the waters of the shoreline and filling myself with seawater constantly without drowning whilst feeding myself on whatever washes my way and no wifi. But that’s a story for another time.